That is extremely unfortunate, and also quite foolish of you, considering that you know she was a baroness,

She was appointed Baroness. She didn't inherit the title.

meaning that her ideology reflected her (as opposed to your) class interests.

That's an ad hominem both to her and me. You're not really refuting any of her positions; just stating that you wouldn't listen to her because of her social status. It's an ad hominem to me because you're assuming things about me. In all honesty, I'm not upper social class either... But I don't have "class" interests. I have personal interests here and there; and I don't really care if the people who agree with me (or disagree with me) are of the same or a different social class or any other demographic factors (age, sex, place of birth...).

Why would you care what she thinks?

Precisely because of that: because I listen to her arguments, not her status.

I could turn that question around too. I have many friends (including girls and girls' families) who are lower class -- and I care what they think not because I am in the same social group, but because they have a right to their ideas and many times they've been enriching to me.

Anyway, I am a social science major

Me too. PolSci. I enrolled in a second degree on Theology, but the pandemic is complicating that.

with an emphasis on psychology. Her hyperindividualist,

All decisions are individual. This doesn't deny that there are exogenous factors which influence them and push us in certain directions. But ultimately every person chooses for themselves. As a pedo, for instance, I can choose to break the law by contact or KP, or not to. Even in the case of contact, I can choose whether I engage in rape or seek it to be consensual. The existence of those laws leads to certain incentives instead of other incentives; but the decisions are always mine.

simplistic

It isn't simplistic. It's just a different sort of worldview compared to others. In some ways to collectivize explanations for acts is more simplistic than to consider individuals independently from one another.

flies in the face of the available evidence.

How so?

Again we are a great example. Not all pedos break the laws against contact or KP; but not all pedos follow them either. Being a pedo is not what determines that.

Human societies are indeed organized, complex, dialectical systems that are more than the mere sum of their parts.

Yes, but still it is personal acts which drive them. It isn't "societies" which create outcomes, but individuals in them. Obviously some individuals have more influence than others (I'm not denying that) and obviously larger groups in agreement have a greater chance to influence than smaller groups, especially so in democracies. But in the end it's individuals who set things in motion. It was one crazy guy eating bat soup who created the world's worst crisis in over 3000 years; not a thousand, one million, or one billion.

Rather than behavior emanating solely from endogenous biological factors,

I never mentioned that.

For the record, I believe that biology matters more than we're usually willing to admit, especially in modern Western societies where we emphasize equality as a value. Of course, that doesn't mean that biology can be used as a metanarrative to explain everything.

virtually all psychological outcomes (including "personal responsibility") are instead rooted in particular social, cultural, political, and economic (environmental) factors,

[...]

Differential life outcomes are due to variations in social experience, which draw their specific features from culture; outcomes are not due to genes, hormones, or some other intrinsic property (e.g., a "soul").

Yes. But still everyone has the power to choose things.

Among my main YFs' family, they are 8 children (no longer children by age, I mean children as offspring). Their father was murdered. Some, but not all, have engaged in destructive relationships. Three of them are drug addicts; two of them badly so. The others aren't. You can say that each kid was differently affected because of their age and sex, and that's true... But the same event happened to all of them.

Human psychology is fundamentally cultural, abides by a thoroughly social logic, and functions to support cultural systems.

Yes, and so...?

Keep in mind that all theories about human society/behavior are inherently political.

Yes, and so...?

The reason Thatcher promulgated these views was to mislead the masses into thinking that the social problems of the day (namely, socioeconomic inequality) were resultant of individual defects rather than the system she enormously benefited from at their expense.

No, she believed that individual Britons could improve their lot without trade unions, high taxes or the EU.

Was she correct? Maybe so, maybe not.

But we right wing people don't wake up thinking "oh how am I going to oppress the masses today?" We just have different values.

All conservative politics in modern society, which is rife with widespread economic and general social inequality,

And most people are socially equal in Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.

Regarding pedophilia specifically, are you suggesting that its violent prohibition, which takes both formal and informal forms, does not actually exist?

It does.

Is it your belief that any adult can safely have sex with underage girls without facing severe social sanctions?

Of course not. Where do you think I implied that?




I'm really liking your posts, but I think there are a lot of miscommunication between us going on.