Boyishness and hate

RE:  What does ‘boyish’ mean?

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Sept 2017

In response to a column that appeared this date in the Hamilton Spectator, which column in turn was a response to a column by Thomas Froese that appeared in July 2017 in the same newspaper.

In asking what ‘boyish’ means, I guess it never occurred to Lynn Hunter to look in the dictionary.  Her criticism of a column by Thomas Froese contains an error in reasoning that explains why Hunter would never think of consulting a dictionary to answer her question.

Her error in reason lies in the statement, “We’re putting boxes around identities that alienate and designate as ‘other’ those people who don’t fit….”

This error is characteristic of modern social progressivism.  The qualities of boyishness and girlishness exist in our minds independent of any particular boy or girl.  Similarly, the qualities of redness and blueness exist in our minds independent of any particular thing that is blue or red, and indeed independent of any particular shade of red or blue.

Hence, it is perfectly sensible to qualify certain activities or actions as boyish or girlish without reference to particular boys and girls, and they remain such qualities even if a boyish thing is done by a girl or a girlish thing is done by a boy.  Thus, it is possible for us think the thought that ‘that girl is doing a boyish thing,’ or ‘that girl is tom-boyish.’  Without abstract concepts independent of material instantiation, we could not think these thoughts.

To conclude from the existence of abstract qualities that, in assigning them, we are thereby ‘alienating and designating as “other” those people who don’t fit’, is clearly a far-fetched leap of logic.  To reach her conclusion, Hunter has to add a premise or two that she fails to state.  That premise is that she knows the minds of others, and those minds she knows work in hateful ways.

The judgment that the possession of a quality by a thing is evil is separate and distinct from the judgement that that thing possesses a certain quality, period.  To get from the judgement of possession to the judgment that that possession is evil requires another premise; and that other premise Hunter applies without consciously thinking about it.  She would rule out as evil the very making of certain judgments.

I hope this brief exemplification of logical reasoning is not offensive on account of its whiteness and maleness.

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