This comes off as projective judgement. I don't think everyone agrees with you, holds the same moral values, or has the same negative relationship with sex, porn or other "vices". Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
> Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
A generalisation in itself. And I find your username interesting, given your comment.
Banter aside, there is A LOT of scientific literature about how porn is literally a damaging drug-like addiction.
It's like saying smoking is not bad for some people because they can quit whenever they want. Well, lucky them, but maybe they should, because having that capacity doesn't mean their lungs aren't getting irreversibly vandalised.
I agree that porn, as with any other source of dopamine, can be extremely addicting, and porn addiction in particular can destroy lives and relationships. But I wholly disagree that we can just go around pointing at things and essentially saying, "that objectively has no value to anyone and if you think it does for you, you're wrong.".
OP specifically says, "quitting since quitting implies there's something valuable in porn. there isn't." That's an insanely broad claim to make, and it ostracizes all non-addicts with healthy sexual proclivities and boundaries, and again we can replace porn here with a multitude of other things. In a general sense, OP's argument is flawed.
I agree with that and your responses to other siblings comments, generalizations are often wrong.
In the meantime I see how GP post was ambiguous and led to your rectification: he was writing as it's his own words, but in fact was paraphrasing the book series we're talking about [0]. But whatever it's GP or book authors' viewpoint, you are right to point out the logical fallacy. However I mostly disagree with this:
> there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
Those book series use this kind of generalization everywhere. You may argue those sentences are false - ok, but they still have a tremendous value: help the reader with their goal! One of the fondation of that method is the use of those sentence and in a sense (with extreme words) it's a brainwashing with false informations. But a very useful brainwashing that readers engage themselves consciously.
Also on a more linguistic side: people make generalizations everywhere to simplify the communication (Dogs are nice - Python versions management is always a pain - The internet has made everyone more connected...) and it often don't bother readers. But that's not the point here I guess.
0: just one exemple but there's plenty in every chapters, but I like this one because it's very factually debatable : > porn provides no genuine pleasure or crutch and you aren’t making a sacrifice. There’s nothing to give up[...]
You're correct, thanks for pointing that out, my snark was bleeding through there. Of course that statement itself is an absolutism, it was tongue-in-cheek but I certainly agree that generalizations can be valuable; however, sweeping generalizations can also be dangerous and require knowledge to wield effectively. When taken as a rule, they can do damage.
I don't think your excerpt is very factually debatable though, as "genuine" and "pleasure" are both vague and subjective words which reduces the discussion to one of semantics.
I rarely drink alcohol, I had my first drink yesterday in a year and a half and it was a small one. But I certainly won't preach that it has no value or provides no genuine pleasure. Or that everyone uses it as a crutch. I have a healthy relationship with it. It's not hard to imagine someone having a similarly healthy relationship with pornography. We can certainly speak on the toxic environment in the industry, and even on capitalism in general and how it subverts consent, which complicates ethical consumption. But as far as the consumption of porn, it's just like any other source of pleasure: stay away if you have trouble with moderation or compartmentalization. And in general, don't succumb to vices, keep a clear head and spend your limited time on this earth wisely. But we cannot be making proclamations about the objective value of subjective experiences.
To expend on sibling comment, sweeping generation has never been the goal neither most Muslims, sports enthusiasts or vegans want to force everyone live like they do. However when someone finds something incredibly valuable ( > projective judgement) they’ll try to share that with everyone else. It’s a generosity act!
The reasons themselves can be anything. Ethic is a powerful one, we often see life changes for psychic and/or physic health, time gain (time/benefit of an activity), money, whatever. Those methods are tools to self-help achieve your own goal. When it worked, we’re proud and keen to share it with friends and the world.
The issue is the absolutist claim of a lack of objective value. From a purely philosophical standpoint, you really can't make that claim about almost anything (within reason).
I responded in a sibling thread. Just note that your usage of "almost anything" here is probably the objectively right way to use absolute quantifiers, however it doesn't seems to me you're trying to be pedantic but instead want to discuss the meaning itself. In that sense we could say something like:
"You really can't say 'anything' about almost everything without a proximity quantifier like 'almost'".
of course. I wasn't trying to be "correct" or trying to be nuanced here. My goal was to make the lazier people reading the comment to be more intrigued by the line (which itself i did not invent by myself just paraphrasing the book as seen above), in order to be pushed towards opening the link and reading it.
(i apologize in advance but this really feels like an "uhm akshually" on your part )
The part when they declare it has no value comes off as quite an absolutism, moral judgement and sweeping generalization. You could replace porn with almost any other thing and the claim is still hard to defend.
