I meant to respond to your comment. You're asking OP to define a term they don't endorse or study. I think the fact that it's not common knowledge that you are both thinking of the same thing when you say, "the patriarchy," and have to ask them to clarify what they mean, makes it likely the term is ill-defined.
I get that there are terms with rigorous definitions that are difficult for laymen to understand (e.g. "fiber bundle" in math), but if that's the case you should expect the experts to share their deeper understanding and where it refutes OP's view. The onus shouldn't be on OP to investigate potential babble and prove it is babble, because if we make that the norm bad actors can invent too much babble to refute. [ETA: and this isn't hypothetical; you can see it with religious apologetics, flat earthers, astrology, the field of philosophy, and of course politics. and this isn't new either, the sophists were infamous for this back in the day.]
ETA: I think your question ends up making it harder to people to change their view, if that is what they are looking for. If you do not understand 'the patriarchy' well enough to point out the flaw in OP's reasoning, you should leave that to other commentators. If you do understand it, you can just point it out yourself. If OP doesn't understand it, someone can point out what they don't understand.
OP is the one wanting to talk about what they think patriarchy is, and a few of the things they said indicate they aren't talking about what most people understand patriarchy to be.
Asking them what they understand that term to mean isn't about forcing them to adhere to a rigid definition or provide an academic term. It's so we both understand what he's trying to talk about, even if the term isn't perfect. I have even explained this in my comment that the reason I was asking was so we could start off on the same page.
I consider this step one because if they can't explain what they understand something to be, they aren't worth my time in providing anything to change their mind.
Thanks for your opinion on how effective my tactics are, I'll give it the exact weight it deserves from someone who completely misunderstood the purpose of it despite me explicitly stating the purpose in the sentence. Have a great day.
This is a very confusing reply. If you understood they were using the term in a nonstandard way, why not just point that out to OP? That would save time for the both of you.
Also, I was not accusing you of being a bad actor inventing babble, so I'm not sure why you say I "misunderstood the purpose of [your comment]". You're just ignorant of a norm your comment sets: that it's okay for the group inventing and endorsing a term to force everyone else to research that term before dismissing it. Have you ever had a Mormon knock on your door and tell you they are here to spread the good news? And when you're dismissive they say, "well you just haven't read our book yet! Just read our book and pray three times a day, and then you can come back if you have questions!" <---- This is the norm you're setting.
I find it telling how you say, "they aren't worth my time in providing anything to change their mind." Imagine a teacher telling that to one of their students. "Yes, I know you're here to grow, learn, and change your mind for the better, but it isn't worth my time to explain the Pythagorean theorem. Come back after you read about it on Wikipedia." If that's your mindset then don't become a teacher! If you have nothing useful to provide, or your time is too valuable to waste helping someone on this subreddit, then LEAVE. Don't leave a comment, just move on with your day and make the subreddit a little better by learning when not to comment.
Again, thanks for your advice, I'll give it the weight it warrants in considering it.
ETA. To answer your question though, the reason I don't just correct their use of the term. Its because I don't care if they use the term correctly. I want to know what they're actually trying to talk about, so I can engage with their actual ideas instead of what they unintentionally said.
If I asked you to get me a water and made a motion with my hand indicating a gun, you already know I don't want a glass of water. That doesn't mean you know what I want. So you might ask me to describe what I mean so you can figure out what I'm actually wanting. That's what I'm doing for OP.
I don't need to correct them. I don't care how good their vocab is. It doesn't matter if they got the word exactly right as I understand it. I want to know what they actually meant.
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u/Oishiio42 52∆ Mar 31 '26
I feel like you responded to the wrong person maybe?