A question about legitimate argumentation...?

Question

With at least three somewhat recent examples to cite, and using the logic that is often displayed here in GWS, I guess I could conclude that all republican males secretly want to have sex with male prostitutes, pages or men in public washrooms.

How legitimate is it to draw conclusions about an entire gender based upon isolated incidents found in the news? In their every day lives, do those people who make such accusations on this forum use the same kind of generalizations? If so...how is it working for you?

My mistake...I should not have said "all". But without nitpicking, I'm certain you can see where the entirety of women are judged by the action of one, can't you?

Answer 1

Good question. It is not legitimate at all. We are individuals and we all have our own experiences and belief systems. I am not the other women on here and I know not all of the men are like a few of the "men" on here either. Drawing conclusions about a group based on the behaviour of one or two is grossly unfair. It goes to race, sexuality, religious beliefs, and everything else. I think the word "all" before any statement about a group is just plain ignorant, but ignorance abounds in here and in the wider world. So, short answer...I do not generalize about any group and I do not like to be lumped in with any group. I am my own person who believes in things others might not like or they may like a lot. I just know that when I speak, I speak for myself, and would never presume to speak for every other woman. And that's working for me fine, no matter how many people want to misconstrue my words or make assumptions about me. In here, it tends to be a free for all generalization-city and it's neither productive nor respectful. But generalizations are always good for those lacking in knowledge and intelligence. How is it working for them? They're still here, and revelling in their ignorance. But whatever. That element will always exist in society, unfortunately.

Answer 2

It isn't legitimate to draw conclusions about an entire gender based upon a few incidents that come up in the news (that is a hasty generalization). I don't make accusations in my everyday life like the ones you have seen on here. Thus, the last question doesn't apply to me.

I think there is a lot of confusion in your question. It's almost as if you see every feminist as a statistical minority and thus not representative of a general trend. The fact is that there are general trends amongst every movement. Republicans tend to want to decrease the size of the government. Democrats tend to want to increase the size of the government. Heck there are general trends in the American culture, otherwise where does the patriarchy come from? The patriarchy is a general set of attitudes held by a large number of people isn't it? You seem to see everyone as an individual. Not a bad thing necessarily. But I think you also tend not to see the things you might have in common with other people/feminists. There is some overlap between all modes of feminism isn't there? All feminists aren't that radically different from each other. If they were then the term feminism/feminist would have no meaning. It could mean 'wanting equality in all aspects of life' and 'not wanting equality at all'. It logically can't be both.

Yes I agree with your assessment that judging a group based upon the actions of a handful of people is rather hasty. But that doesn't mean we can automatically ignore their similarities and start saying that nobody is alike at all. The phrase 'everybody is an individual' is true. We aren't all exactly alike. But that doesn't mean that we don't share similarities. I like spaghetti and I'm sure some feminists like spaghetti. I like basketball and some feminists like basketball. So yes all feminists have somethings in common and somethings different. But that doesn't justify turning a blind eye to true similarities.

Answer 3

Er. I didn't know that we drew conclusions like that.

I actually could not give a flying f.uck whom Republican males have sex with. But when they're soliciting teenage boys and chasing female workers around the office, demanding that the female workers "suck" them, there's something kind of wrong - perhaps not due to an inherent problem with a certain political party or even a certain gender, but at least in our *government*, there is *something wrong*. I don't think such isolated (though they're actually perhaps not so isolated after all) incidents should be ignored just because "we can't generalize from them." Generalized knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge.

Answer 4

This logical fallacy is known as: (1) 'Argument By Generalization'

drawing a broad conclusion from a small number of perhaps unrepresentative cases. (The cases may be unrepresentative because of Selective Observation.) For example, "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese." So, by generalization, there aren't any Chinese anywhere. This is connected to the Fallacy Of The General Rule.

Similarly, "Because we allow terminally ill patients to use heroin, we should allow everyone to use heroin."

It is also possible to under-generalize. For example,

"A man who had killed both of his grandmothers declared himself rehabilitated, on the grounds that he could not conceivably repeat his offense in the absence of any further grandmothers."
-- "Ports Of Call" by Jack Vance

And (2) Fallacy Of The General Rule:

assuming that something true in general is true in every possible case. For example, "All chairs have four legs." Except that rocking chairs don't have any legs, and what is a one-legged "shooting stick" if it isn't a chair?

Answer 5

Wasn't the Republican thing ONE isolated event? I've never seen anyone in this forum use ONE isolated event to prove their point, so I'm not sure what logic you're trying to portray. If that happens, then I will have to consider that person to be wrong, if it's based on one event and one event only, as opposed to a trend..

Answer 6

It's not "working for me"...lol! I think that people who do this need to take a critical -thinking class, and/or a formal debate course. You can't expect most people to follow a generalization and draw conclusions without substantial, pertinent facts from all sides. An isolated incident (in and of itself) hardly qualifies as an accurate representation of a larger group. They must think we're stupid.

Answer 7

About as well as saying "women were/are oppressed", or "women get divorced because the husband was abusive", or "all men are potential rapists", or "feminists are about equality" etc. etc. I expect.

Incidentally, if you think I've made a generalisation such as making a statement like "all republicans are..", or "all women are...", care to actually point out that language in my recent question..? LOL. I suspect your other examples are equally knee jerky and what you're saying here doesn't actually apply to them, so please point them out.

EDIT: No I can't. Judgement implies a conclusion was made and none were. Knee jerky jerky?

Answer 8

so you are telling me not ALL republican males want ot have secret affairs in midwest bathrooms? gosh-o-golly news to me!
I suppose next you will tell me that not ALL women posting on this site are femanistmisandistbitchingwininghags???

man, just when you think you can rely on something, poof!
guess its back to being unprejudiced and open minded, darn!

Happy Snappy - must be cold and lonely being so anti - group hug yawl?

Answer 9

It isn't legitimate at all, but it's inevitable, since you don't hear about the people who DON'T get into mix-ups like that when one of their own DOES.

Answer 10

Oh, good one!!