Using “people” might placate the sjw crowd but the writing is not as colorful. Most philosophers are men and most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men. Using the word men will stimulate those connections people have likely formed in their minds, creating a more relatable statement.

If you’re writing a PR statement, sure make something dry and non offensive, if you’re writing for entertainment then lean into society’s stereotypes.

Don’t bend to people’s demands you change your writing, that just means your words have successfully produced a reaction!

Not being a dipshit is not the same thing as "bending to people's demands."

I wish I had the confidence in life to genuinely think anyone who thought or spoke differently to me was just a dipshit.

That's not what he said, and I doubt it's what he meant. Many people who disagree with me are not dipshits, but the ones who are seem to take positive joy in being disagreeable.

>most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men

That is wildly untrue. The research on whether men or women are more satisfied in their marriages shows that they have about the same levels of satisfaction.

For example: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12077

Not really sure why the demographics of philosophers effects the impact of the statement. Most philosophers are white, would it have been more impactful if the statement had brought race into it?

If you could bring race into it somehow then yes the statement might seem more based in historical precedence, rather than some idealistic fantasy world of hyper diversity, assuming most unhappily married men are also white.

I don't really get why any of that matters though. Can't you just appreciate the sentiment regardless of how it is phrased? Seems like your trying to make it political when it just isn't.

Maybe you should think about who is actually making it political, i.e. the people trying to transform the phrase into something politically correct.

Idk man sounds like they’re just taking a phrase and phrasing it slightly differently so that it applies to more people. You’re the one who was offended by that

Just a side remark, but "most philosophers are white" should probably be "most philosophers you heard about"

It’s true that only a minority of philosophers are white, and people are far less likely to be aware of philosophers outside their culture.

But there are less aggressive ways to say it.

I felt that they offered a helpful correction

My intention was not to be aggressive at all, sorry!

You’re absolutely right

> most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men

If we are counting only heterosexual and 2 people marriages, wouldn't the number of people stuck in unhappy marriages be exactly 50% men and 50% women?

The [perceived] consequences of ending a marriage seem to provide more of a disincentive to men, so they are more likely to persist in a marriage that they feel they would be unable to leave (and then have to support multiple households, etc.). The fact that women (in the USA) are more than twice as likely to initiate a divorce seems to bear this out.

"Women divorce men more often than the other way around, seems to bear out that men are more dissatisfied in marriage" seems like a stretch to me.

At any rate, it reminds me of the classic physics joke:

> An experimental physicist comes running excitedly to a theorist's office, waving a graph taken off his latest experiment. "Hmmm", says the theorist, "that's exactly where you'd expect to see that peak. Here is the reason." A long logical explanation follows. In the middle of it, the experimentalist says "Wait a minute", studies the chart for a second and says "Oops, this is upside down." He fixes it. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "you'd expect to see a dip in exactly that position. Here is the reason..."

That's an interesting thesis, but it wasn't one that I was putting forward; rather I was saying that the reality of divorce for men tends to be such that they are significantly less likely to seek divorce when their marriage is unhappy compared to women at a similar level of unhappiness.

> most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men

I would assume that the overwhelming majority of unhappy marriages are symmetrically unhappy. Though maybe it's just a failure of imagination on my part because I can't see how I could be happy about my marriage if my partner were unhappy.

I could believe that your statement is true only as a derivative of "most people in marriages are men," which is plausible since some studies have found a higher occurrence of homosexuality in men than in women.

Language is lovely because you can find so many ways to express creativity! I don't think

"Those happily married make great partners, while those unhappily married make great philosophers!"

is any less colorful than the original.

It’s bland, safe, and lifeless. The statement has no bite.

The original statement will be read by men and some men will connect to it right away, because rather than envision some abstract person, they are made to immediately picture a man, and in that image they may recognize themselves, like looking at a mirror.

> The original statement will be read by men and some men will connect to it right away, because rather than envision some abstract person, they are made to immediately picture a man, and in that image they may recognize themselves, like looking at a mirror.

Sorry, are you saying that the audience of the statement is on purpose only men? If so, how could you possibly support any claim that it's not misogynistic?

It's quite possible to target a statement at a male audience without a disclaimer and yet still not be guilty of misogyny.

The statement was made in a discussion about working in tech, not at a free masons lodge

Most people here are men. The content will reflect that. Get over it.

Is that not part of why this industry has a problem?

In isolation, it is innocuous, and has the caveat emptor. Though, if you get slapped with, you can't be a great philosopher (for what are happily or unhappily married women other than just spouses), you can't be police, fire fighter, coder, CEO.. it's just another slap in a series if many that occur daily. So, the idea is stop with the isolated examples, and perhaps the bombardment will lessen

> Sorry, are you saying that the audience of the statement is on purpose only men?

Isn't it?

Wasn't Socrates replying to a question from a young man when he (allegedly) said that?

Since the origin of that quote is directly in response to a man, isn't it aimed at ... men?

[1] https://www.quora.com/Did-Socrates-really-say-if-you-get-a-b...

I really want to take your argument as a reason why it's 100% ok to phrase it exclusionary, but then I get a response like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34376163 and am reminded how that general tone will keep women away from our industry rather than attract them.

> that general tone will keep women away from our industry rather than attract them.

I don't "tones" have anything to do with it; in the 80s, Law, Accounting and Medicine[1] was absolutely dominated by men. If you think that introverted nerds are sexist, they have nothing on how doctors, lawyers and accountants were, nor how sexist the purchasers of those services were (often assuming that the men would be more competent).

And yet, today those professions have as many (if not more) females than males.

It's a stretch to think that general tone of an industry was responsible for females leaving the profession filled with introverted IT nerds and moving to high-powered and high-status executive professions.

[1] Other than nurses, in which men are still only a rounding error.

A long time ago this industry was built on women, the first programmers were women. It was a female dominated field. So what happened? The women stopped giving a fuck and the men took over.

The industry has plenty of attractive qualities for any sex: Good money, good jobs. These far outweigh the occasional toxic male who is easily put down these days. If women aren’t signing up, then maybe they just don’t care about computers as badly as people want them to.

Yes, but, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he said and not reason to correct anything.

Leaning into society's stereotypes is one way to bend to people's implicit demands to change your writing (and quite possibly thinking).

But sure, if the metric you're optimizing is raw views and smiles and laughs, then yeah, probably the way to go is leaning into that stuff. But there's a reason those views and smiles and laughs are called "cheap".

> There's a slight implication because it only covers men that women are the source of unhappiness

Where does it says that those men are married to women?

edit: it's not about men, it's about what people do when they are stuck in something that makes them unhappy. And on the observation that many great philosophers where not married and/or not happy.

focusing on the word "men" misses the point entirely. moreover because in many languages other than English, that "men" could be translated literally and it would also mean "people" and it would also be a completely correct interpretation.

edit 2: apparently nobody has ever read the great philosophers.

Since love is a deception practiced by nature, marriage is the attrition of love and must be disillusioning. Only a philosopher can be happy in marriage and philosophers do not marry.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

--

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

— Friedrich Nietzsche (he was a philosopher and apparently had no friends, because he never married)

--

But most of all, dear friends

A man married to the right woman will be happy. A man married to the wrong woman will be a philosopher

— Aristotle

that quote is 2,300 years old!

Was Aristotle misogynistic?

That's the wrong question, it's like asking it T-Rex ate cruelty free meat.

But if you read carefully using your brain to interpret that sentence, instead of your prejudices, what it actually says is that if you make the right choices in life you will be happy, if not, you will be a philosopher, because it was believed that a philosopher had to go through suffering to understand the true meaning of life, in other words you will not be happy.

Triggers are in the eyes of the beholder.

You went too deep. Never go too deep

I'm sorry, it really isn't a big deal and I don't think anyone would be triggered or offended by the quote! And of course historical context matters. The poster was just proffering a friendly reminder that to push society forward it's helpful to consider these things.

It's just like changing our default branches from master to main, honestly probably not a huge deal to any rationale person, but the cost is negligible so why not?

It's possible to be empathetic and considerate, making minor adjustments (and also not judging those who innocently don't) without being the "woke" police!

> he poster was just proffering a friendly reminder that to push society forward it's helpful to consider these things

It is totally not.

As Ricky Gervais put it beautifully, like it or not, if you categorize the people of the past with the standards of today, you are preparing the people of the (near) future to categorize you about what you say today.

Now imagine that people think of Aristotle as a misogynist, like if it is actually important, he died 2,300 years ago after all and nobody studies Aristotle because "and now let's read about that guy who hated women, because it's something important to learn: women are trash", but

By the 1930s, a new kind of human zoo appeared in America, nude shows masquerading as education. These included the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony at the Pacific International Exposition in San Diego, California (1935–36) and the Sally Rand Nude Ranch at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (1939). The former was supposedly a real nudist colony, which used hired performers instead of actual nudists. The latter featured nude women performing in western attire. The Golden Gate fair also featured a "Greenwich Village" show, described in the Official Guide Book as "Model artists' colony and revue theatre."

Or this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo#/media/File:African_...

Sorry if I stand with Aristotle, despite him being a man of his times, and not with 20th century human zoo.

edit: to put it simply, should we talk to German people or everytime they try to say something we should shut them up reminding them that they did the holocaust?

When I disagree with someone from the US, can I use "you are the only people in history to have dropped two atomic bombs on civilians, you are wrong by design!"?

Why Aristotle is problematic, but nobody says "he was a Trump but a lot more intelligent than Trump and actually, now that I think about it, he never said <<grab them by the pussy>>, so Aristotle was less misogynist than Trump"?

Aristotle has never been POTUS.

I understand pushing society forward, so why blame people who have died thousands of years ago for things they are not responsible of today?

Does someone really think that quoting that sentence from Aristotle will plant the seed of misogyny in people's mind?

Is this really the kind of trust we have in each other's intelligence?

I believe people can read the context loud and clear.

He was a misogynist. That’s a fact. Yes, the standards have changed. It doesn’t mean we need to throw out everything he said, but sticking your head in the sand and ignoring a basic quality of his thought because… I’d not know why honestly? It’s threatening? thats not the way forward.

> Was Aristotle misogynistic?

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle%27s_views_on_women

The introductory paragraph makes it seem like the extent of your claim is he noticed the same behavioral trend as most psychology surveys:

> Among women's differences from men were that they were, in his view, more impulsive, more compassionate, more complaining, and more deceptive. He gave the same weight to women's happiness as to men's, and in his Rhetoric stated that society could not be happy unless women were happy too.

And the modern psychology:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161011-do-men-and-women...

I think you’re really stretching the word “misogyny” when you’re using it for people who accurately describe reality and view male and female well-being as equally important for society.

You are a misogynist. This is literally the first sentence. Your post is shamefully misleading.

> Aristotle saw women as subject to men, but as higher than slaves, and lacking authority; he believed the husband should exert political rule over the wife.

Yawn — you name calling because you think a cherry picked quote about family dynamics defines an entire philosopher’s view is the bad faith I’ve come to expect from people of your persuasion.

Your post is more misleading than mine: you’re hanging your entire opinion on a de-contextualized cherry-picked line and using that to ignore other parts of the philosopher’s work.

Go on, scream about how everyone who disagrees with you is an istaphobe — nobody cares.

You are incapable of recognizing misogyny, and see it as an all or nothing quality. You need to think more deeply.

Actually, who f*king cares?

Nobody takes what Aristotle thought about women as a profound insight on the nature of life on Earth.

Because not everything he said and thought is of value of course for Christ sake I can't believe I have to explain it to adult functioning people

Think about this: USA saved a lot of nazis and brought them to America to work for them.

One even sent the Apollo on the Moon and was acclaimed as an American hero.

Should we disregard everything the US does? (we probably should, I agree)

I mean, 2,300 years ago all of us would have thought that women were not as useful as men, given that they couldn't do most of the things that kept the people alive, in the society and cities they had built. Of course women were a fundamental part of the life of humans before stratified societies and armies to rule them were invented, but we don't know what the cave men thought of women, we only know they really digged those bulls of theirs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Altamira#/media/File:9...

It's the same think of believing that lions are misogynist, it's simply stupid.

I don't think you really are stupid, so why you act like one?

Wasn’t he the guy who said that woman had a different number of teeth than men but never bothered to check?

I broadly agree with your point, but then you decided to search for quotes that apparently support your argument, and you picked... Schopenhauer, in a discussion about misogyny and marriage, which is pretty hilarious.

narrative is King in 21th century my friend.

I did not make the rules.

> But most of all, dear friends, that quote is 2,300 years old! Was Aristotle misogynistic?

Yep

> In his work Politics (1254b13–14), Aristotle states "as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject".

> While Aristotle reduced women's roles in society, and promoted the idea that women should receive less food and nourishment than males, he also criticised the results: a woman, he thought, was then more compassionate, more opinionated, more apt to scold and to strike. He stated that women are more prone to despondency, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of having a better memory.

_________

> apparently nobody has ever read the great philosophers.

Yep

> Yep

You are too, for the standards of 2,300 years in the future, don't worry.

Reducing Aristotle to "that misogynist guy" is exactly what proves that people have become so stupid that cannot go beyond their small minds.

> as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject

at his times this was technically true. (edit: it reflected the scientific beliefs of the time, same way we thought until not long ago that Neanderthal were inferior to Sapiens)

Reminder: Christ had not been invented yet.

Second reminder: the bible says the same things, but the USA president swears on the bible...

I mean, I can understand Aristotle not knowing about civil rights in 300 B.C., what's the excuse for the US?

> He stated that women are more prone to despondency, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of having a better memory.

Again, he knew stories about the Minoan society who gave woman a lot of power, worshipped Snake goddesses and it brought their society to ruins (as far as he knew, I don't think he knew about volcanology).

Can you blame the guy?

Like we don't blame Americans for thinking they are better than anybody else and that women should not have the right to abortion and that you should have automatic rifles to defend yourself from government and taxes are theft in 2023.

We know they are centuries behind the rest of the civilized World.

At least Aristotle was a thinker...

You're clearly passionate about something here, but it's not totally clear what it is or why. It might be interesting to read what you have to say, but you need to chill, organize your thoughts, and stop calling other posters idiots for disagreeing with you. Right now it feels like we're catching half of an angry shower argument against someone who's not here.

I can tell, because I've made posts like this before, and I always regretted it later. Have your angry argument in a journal or text file (Lately I've really liked Markdown with source control). Then revisit it later, and add in the side you're arguing against. Then revise it so that you're actually making a clear point, and remove all the personal insults. Then post it here, because I want to read it. But until then, I have no idea WTF you're on about or why you're so defensive of a very-long-dead philosopher.

Aptly stated. I would like to save this as a copypasta response to innumerable similar internet comments.

What? I found their post informative and yours extremely patronising. They're not defensive about Aristotle, they are pointing that the quote seems to be misinterpreted because it's about relationships between men and woman.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373176

edit: welp it's flagged now but they straight up called another poster "stupid."

I mean, I’ve never heard of any woman being unhappy because of a nagging husband.

The source of unhappiness for women seems to be the reverse. A husband that’s not doing all the things she nags about automatically.

I think priorities are just fundamentally different somehow.

I'm surprised you've never heard of a woman being unhappy because her husband wants her to do/be one thing, and she wants to do/be another. "Nagging" isn't always the stereotypical annoyance.