> they want avoid responding to one or more points they know the other person is trying to make, so they lazily hide behind extraneous non-arguments to avoid confronting any substance.
What evidence do you have the author is post-modern? I looked around on the authors blog and didn't see anything post-modern.
You are dismissing a large number of thinkers, this is all radical post-modern feminists, out of hand. I don't understand why or what that has to do with your other claims.
Love it.
But you're still right—like anyone, my biases can color my judgement of things, often causing me to prejudge a written piece based on its author. This time, I was right; often, I am not.
That said, to answer your question, my answer is no. Someone responding to "guys, elevator come-ons are not such a good idea" with "fair enough" doesn't remotely make someone a radical, post-modern feminist.
Why do you ask?
Please ask a psychologist to be screened for Antisocial Personality Disorder and/or Autism.
What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator? I'm all ears. Is it because you think women will cower in terror because they're an enclosed box with a man?
If the request makes them uncomfortable, the closed nature of the space makes it difficult for them to make a polite exit. The same applies to other locations where someone is temporarily unable to leave.
This also isn't really so much about dating or gender. Equally inappropriate would be uninvited political or religious commentary, bleak comedy, reference to recent very sad topics (violence, disease, natural disaster, abuse scandal,) or other topics with an unusual likelihood of creating distress.
The general idea is, just wait for the elevator to open, and ask once they have stepped outside; thirty seconds isn't going to kill you.
I'll ask you again. What's so wrong with calmly asking someone in an elevator for coffee? I remember these discussions after Rebecca Watson publicly complained about it—the vast majority of people felt she was vastly overreacting. So it's definitely not an "established societal norm".
Despite their rhetoric, radical feminists love infantilizing women. They treat women as fragile, triggerable, sensitive creatures who won't feel safe unless they're handled with kid gloves.
"Can I get a coffee with you mister? You're so handsome."
"Er, no, sorry, I'm busy."
45 seconds of lift going up in embarrassed silence
I'm sure anyone can handle it, but it's definitely uncomfortable.
Now imagine if this happened every day, because if it's socially acceptable and you are handsome and working in a tall building, it probably will.
I'm at a fairly small club downtown. A woman is walking toward me, so I make eye contact and say "hi!".
She sits down next to me, and we begin to talk. She's very nice, but after a few minutes of conversation, I'm not attracted to her at all, and it's clear we have very little in common.
"Hacker789, you have a really cute smile. I'd love to get your number."
"Ah..."
I look down, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her nervously twisting her hair in her fingers.
I cringe just thinking about that, because it's happened to me before! But I would never shame her for asking me, and I would never charge her with making me feel "unsafe". That would make me into a villain.
And let's be clear—it can be dreadfully awkward to leave the table at a small club, often taking more than a minute to politely finish the task without hurting the other person's feelings too badly. It's even worse if your friend is at the table, happily talking to an acquaintance of the person you just rejected!
At least in an elevator, you're automatically free after the doors open.
Would I ever ask someone at the beginning of a long elevator ride a question that might make them uncomfortable? No, not if I could avoid it. In fact, I wouldn't ask anyone an uncomfortable question at the beginning of a long bus or train ride, either. But not every situation that has the potential to create discomfort is socially unacceptable; part of being a social creature is to take minor discomfort in stride, giving the other person the benefit of the doubt.
And the more frequently an uncomfortable situation happens to you, the better you get at handling it.
Some people accuse others of logical fallacies for the wrong reasons—they want avoid responding to one or more points they know the other person is trying to make, so they lazily hide behind extraneous non-arguments to avoid confronting any substance.
At the same time, some people employ logical fallacies to push an agenda and make it effectively impossible to respond without dismantling their entire argument... by pointing out the logical fallacies. Hmmm.
Unsurprisingly, the author of this piece is a dishonest shill who wants free reign to use logical fallacies to advance his agenda.
When I clicked the link, I was certain the author would find a way to push his radical, post-modern feminism. As @realtalker has pointed out, the author almost certainly wrote this in response to the stinging criticism he received for this piece the Islamaphobia section in particular): http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia
Radical, post-modern feminists like the author do not pepper their otherwise-reasoned arguments with logical fallacies; their arguments are based upon logical fallacies. As I said, the only way to respond to inherently dishonest arguments like that is to point how the arguments are dishonest.
The author wants full immunity.
[And to be abundantly clear, by "author" I don't mean @mindcrime. I mean the author of the linked piece.]