gughok

You're right, of course. I understand that my choice of venue was insensitive and my phrasing, tactless (not sure there is a sensitive venue for it other than a silent, unscrutinizing piece of paper, and I've already scribbled on one of those). I do wish people wouldn't imply, in incorrectly associating my frustration with my offer of admission, that I have the emotional capacity of a lightbulb and can only either be happy about the totality of my current state of affairs or unhappy about it. I'm pretty sure, and I hope I'm right about this, that I'm capable of being happy about one thing and unhappy about another. Nevertheless you're correct that I should refrain from going on about the comparatively insignificant bad that I'm experiencing when I've got it as good, in one very significant respect, as I do. I was being sincere in my apology above and I'll say it again: I'm sorry for the way I came off.
I've gotten similar lashings from friends and acquaintances who've scoffed at me and called me "stupid and irrational" for my current emotional state, and I don't doubt they're right. I feel like an arrogant, thoroughly dislikeable and genuinely horrid prick right now, and all I can do is hope it'll fade along with my disappointment. Self-applied tough love is probably the best mindset to adopt insofar as I can, and I know that. Thank you for speaking so understandingly. I'll have some tea for my sore throat now. Tea really is a beautiful thing.
 

You're right, of course. I understand that my choice of venue was insensitive and my phrasing, tactless (not sure there is a sensitive venue for it other than a silent, unscrutinizing piece of paper, and I've already scribbled on one of those). I do wish people wouldn't imply, in incorrectly associating my frustration with my offer of admission, that I have the emotional capacity of a lightbulb and can only either be happy about the totality of my current state of affairs or unhappy about it. I'm pretty sure, and I hope I'm right about this, that I'm capable of being happy about one thing and unhappy about another. Nevertheless you're correct that I should refrain from going on about the comparatively insignificant bad that I'm experiencing when I've got it as good, in one very significant respect, as I do. I was being sincere in my apology above and I'll say it again: I'm sorry for the way I came off.
I've gotten similar lashings from friends and acquaintances who've scoffed at me and called me "stupid and irrational" for my current emotional state, and I don't doubt they're right. I feel like an arrogant, thoroughly dislikeable and genuinely horrid prick right now, and all I can do is hope it'll fade along with my disappointment. Self-applied tough love is probably the best mindset to adopt insofar as I can, and I know that. Thank you for speaking so understandingly. I'll have some tea for my sore throat now. Tea really is a beautiful thing.
 

You're right, of course. I understand that my choice of venue was insensitive and my phrasing, tactless (not sure there is a sensitive venue for it other than a silent, unscrutinizing piece of paper, and I've already scribbled on one of those). I do wish people wouldn't imply, in incorrectly associating my frustration with my offer of admission, that I have the emotional capacity of a lightbulb and can only either be happy about the totality of my current state of affairs or unhappy about it. I'm pretty sure, and I hope I'm right about this, that I'm capable of being happy about one thing and unhappy about another. Nevertheless you're correct that I should refrain from going on about the comparatively insignificant bad that I'm experiencing when I've got it as good, in one very significant respect, as I do. I was being sincere in my apology above and I'll say it again: I'm sorry for the way I came off.
I've gotten similar lashings from friends and acquaintances who've scoffed at me and called me "stupid and irrational" for my current emotional state, and I don't doubt they're right. I feel like an arrogant, thoroughly dislikeable and genuinely horrid prick right now, and all I can do is hope it'll fade along with my disappointment. Self-applied tough love is probably the best mindset to adopt insofar as I can, and I know that. Thank you for speaking so understandingly. I'll have some tea for my sore throat now. Tea really is a beautiful thing.
 

There's also the risk that @pecado just really likes sophistry, and is under some kind of pretension that Philosophy is done in a vacuum.

Some ideas don't warrant defending.

I don't want to use the "there are starving children in Africa" trope, but this is basically what it is, man. 
 
It hurts to get rejected, even after getting accepted somewhere, obviously. But it's going to keep happening, and it's something we have to get used to. We aren't all little messiahs, as much as I'd like to convince myself otherwise. Some people are really just going to think we're not all that. Maybe that's part of the messiah thing, come to think of it. 
 
I think that what's rubbing people the wrong way is that your posts are making you seem impervious to other peoples' struggles to get even this far. And it may have been difficult for you too, and it likely has been, but it's difficult to see that when you imply that having to study at Cornell was you settling for less that what you thought you deserved. Meanwhile, a whole chunk of us would have never even dreamed of going to a place like that. And Harvard, man. I'd be so damned proud of myself. Nobody in my family knows any of the schools I've gotten into. Hell, they don't even know what a PhD is. They don't even know what philosophy is, really. I had one family member ask me if that meant I was going to work in a hospital with my mom. But even if they don't all know that, they know that Harvard means you're worth something. You should seriously be proud of that. When I got the news from Stony Brook, I was in my aunt's house in Colombia (they're poor as hell and haven't ever even left Medellin) my cousins asked me if I had applied to Harvard and when I'd be hearing back from them.   
 
My best friend who is the smartest person I've ever met, by far, and probably the biggest reason I've even gotten this far, had so much shit going on during this application season that he probably won't get into the one place he applied to, and he was only able to apply there because there was no application fee. When we complain, we probably sound like we're fishing for compliments to people like him. You got into a school most people dream about AND, most importantly, YOU took THEIR spot. They shouldn't have to console you or feel like they have to console you.
 
But yeah, I do think you're allowed to vent. I myself am feeling a straight panic right now and disdain and contempt, even. I feel like a spoiled bitch, to be honest, and I don't even remember what possessed me to go into a discipline that would turn down so many willing and able devotees. I'm confused and I want time to just stop for a little bit. And I can go on and on and fill whole threads about it. But, again, how can I ask anyone to console me when I'm in such an enviable position? You shouldn't change what you're feeling if what you're feeling is hurt or rejected. You're allowed to feel that way and forcing yourself to feel any other way is dishonest. It isn't that you don't have problems, but you wouldn't go into a leper colony and complain about your sore throat, even though sore throats can hurt like hell. 
 
I've already gotten my lashings worth from people who have told me I have nothing to complain about, even though I truly feel hurt, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm meaning all of this in the friendliest way possible. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have gotten accepted to multiple programs who feel similarly rejected and hurt. But I think that's part of all of this. At least I'm hoping so. 

Pretty shit, I would guess, given how I'm nearly striking out everywhere. I wrote it in three days and the two professors I asked for help on it couldn't be bothered to give me more than one round of very loose feedback each.

You are skeptical because you don't have kids or a wife to support with your stipend, I guess. Money really matters when you need to take care of someone more than yourself.
And extra information is never harmful. We should know this as philosophers.

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.
First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.
Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale
https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132
http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words
This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.
 

Harvard said yes
omg

It's very apropros that there's someone watching with stifled laughter, making no attempt to help their fallen fellows: enter the admissions committees.

Plan B: study for and take the LSAT, go to law school, become lawyer, keep reading and writing philosophy on the side.
Plan C: brush up my tech skills, work as a software developer/engineer.
Plan D: linguistics.
OPTIONAL BONUSES:
Plan A1: finally succeed as an independent fiction writer.
Plan A2: convince Tesla they need a Chief Executive Philosopher, ???, profit.

I really can't stand this chicken little bullshit back and forth. On the one hand, it isn't the end of the world that you used a masculine pronoun. No rational person would say this is an example of overt I discrimination. We get it, you meant well. But even as someone who is exceptionally tolerant of that and who refuses to use feminine pronouns as universals (prefering one, you, or they), your use of "he" was a little too obvious and sounded bad and exclusionary. Now we know you didn't mean it that way. Great. You're not a misogynist or a jerk or anything for using it. Just a bad writer, at least in that post. Nobody is faulting you for that nor should they. But your response is annoying and self righteous, because it does sound bad, and a *suggestion* to change a pronoun isn't some great affront to your Liberty. It isn't in itself some massive arrest of the /freedoms which built our wonderfully liberated western civilization./ It's an editing suggestion. That's all it is. Your rights aren't being stripped. This isn't some liberal plot to delegitimize dissent (and those do exist. There IS a problem with PC culture, but this is different.). It's not a slippery slope towards totalitarianism and against rationality and reason and common sense. You're not a martyr for using "him", "he", etc. 
 
@gughok gave you an excellent response. You don't have to take his suggestions. Nobody is forcing you to. Also, I worked for an academic journal as an editor, and we never sent a paper back or suggested someone use a different pronoun. I think that thats's a total exaggeration, and I don't know what the point is of pretending that that actually happens in most reputable journals. I suppose it does and should within certain AOIs, but it's not done across the board. But again, your problem is only tangentially political and primarily stylistic, and the writing we got was often by much better stylists. 
 
Also, you're posting this in a thread filled with a bunch of tense and anxious wanna-be philosophers with intellectual blue balls, myself included. What do you expect to happen? 
 
I'm not going to make any claim about you or your character or intentions, and I'll defend you against any accusations against your character. But, if you're wanting to have an actual discussion, we should have it, so long as you don't pretend that this is something it isn't. And also, so long as you don't hide behind that Orwellian nightmare bullshit. This isn't that conversation. That's too easy. 

Oh, sorry! It has been a while since I've studied Dutch, it would seem.

Some ideas don't warrant defending.

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.
First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.
Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale
https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132
http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words
This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.
 

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.
First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.
Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale
https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132
http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words
This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.
 

Thanks, Nat. I still haven't heard back. 

 

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.
First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.
Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale
https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132
http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words
This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.
 

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.
First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.
Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale
https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132
http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words
This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.
 

Sincerely, I could say the same about you. You exploded because I did not use the language as you like. And you are not being attacked as a person, I was only trying to inspire hope for my fellows, and you degenerated my words, implying that I was fomenting misogyny with my language. I did not do that, and I am arguing trying to show you that. Indeed, it is annoying to be blamed and accused "indirectly" of being offensive against women.
You may adjust your language as you like, so do I. You try to draw attention to an issue, I am trying to do that too. Strangely, when you do it you are the sacred defenders of the unquestionable truths, and when I do it, I am only an annoying intransigent person.
I really doubt that what you say about the journals is true, but if it is, that does not make your "arguments" more convincing, and if you are trying to imply that as a philosopher I am forced to adopt those modifications to the language, then you are completely wrong. Philosophy and academia are different things, and the academia has a lot of problems, which I, as a philosopher, am not willing to indulge. If some specific journal rejects an article only for that reason, I would be glad to never publish there, as I would not want to be associated with a "philosophical" journal that obligates you to embrace its morality and political correctness.
 
You are right, I would more strongly desire to possess and use liberty of expression and liberty of thought, before attempting to build "inclusivity" among a marginalised population, because I am sure that that "inclusivity" can not exist if those liberties are suppressed.
The issue of the marginalization of women CAN be studied from those perspectives, and, more importantly, CAN BE QUESTIONED. I can not only doubt about the commandment of altering any "remnant" of the patriarchal society, but I can doubt about the relevance of that marginalization of women, compared to other problems of society -in example, a rich woman is more accepted and respected than a poor man-. If you consider the materialism, the marginalization of women is a consequence of capitalism, and it will not cease to exist until the capitalism stop (Karl Marx says it, literally); what you are trying to do is an ersatz egalitarian society where there is fake "inclusivity" only because the thoughts and expressions of the people are controlled in such a way that is impossible to express the contrary, yet, the poor women are as poor as the poor men, but that does not matter, as long as they both suffer the same misery of being a proletarian in the capitalism. 
And you may repudiate materialism, and your ideas would still have the problems signalled by George Orwell in 1984; you can't make a revolution degenerating the language, and forbidding any possible thought or doubt.
You call me weird because I do not follow the order of modifying my speech and my thoughts that some small and specific group of people commanded, and you may be right, it may be something strange to do, but I would still do it, specially if I do not agree with that order, and the commanders are intransigent and closed to any discussion about it. I wrote a lengthy response trying to initiate an intellectual debate about this issue, and it was completely ignored.
Again, I could say the same about you, word by word:
"I mean, it just sucks when people get so personally defensive about these kinds of 'objections', especially because I don't consider this to be an objection at all".
I am not insensible to the marginalization of others. You don't know me.
To argue against something is not upsetting, and it definitively does not undermines the experiences of marginalization nor furthers the marginalization. To argue against something is simply the usual activity of philosophy. It is an element of the dialectical process that a philosopher makes to purify his believes (oops! I did it again!) confronting them with the believes and the criterion of another person, which may illuminate the philosopher and make him note something that he never noted meditating alone. This is the worth of the philosophical discussions, and you are demeaning it, by thinking that your prohibitionist conceptions are unquestionable and mandatory for everyone.
I am not attacking nor ignoring "the feminist perspective". To not blindly acquiesce with something is not to attack it. I am only acting as a philosopher, questioning the assumptions of the people, and being amazed for the reality and what I experience everyday, always something new or astonishing. Today, you dazzled me, with your consistency: while you ignore completely what is my sex, and despite all your theoretical paraphernalia about gender issues, you called me "him", which means that you just either did exactly what I did, which is using "the male as a neutral", or that you think that such a hard to tame person must be a man, because only a man would not unquestioningly agree with your feminist positions. Although this is only a commentary, because that does not matter too much, and thinking that that dismisses your feminist theories would be a fallacy.
Please realise that my attitude is just a philosophical one, and that if you want to convince me -or any rational person- about your ideas, you need to argue and discuss instead of just calling me an insensitive person.

THANK YOU @Nat_Foot
MIT PLS
I WOULD MAKE SO MANY COOKIES
who am i kidding I would symmetrically make cookies in grief

Hey all, I received an email a few hours ago letting me know I'd been accepted in GW's MA program! It's my first news and it's good news! It feels incredible!