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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The social-progressive mindset
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
What he said.
quote:
Prejudice refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership. Racism on the other hand refers to social actions, practices or beliefs or political systems that consider different races to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other. Furthermore, racism is socio-economic, with systemic structures which promote one race’s powers over another. Socio-economic being the operative word, I am certain you will agree that black people do not have the resources to impose such oppressive structures which enforce their superiority. White people on the other hand have, and had imposed them on blacks for over four centuries of slavery and colonialism. Black people can be prejudiced, but not racist.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
He would be mostly right. But that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, nor that the situation isn't increasingly nuanced, nor that racism only exists in white-majority cultures.
The first comment below the article indicates this.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
No, but if you read what I wrote, the point is that racism can only be in the direction from the strong majority to the weak minority.
It's nothing about being black per say, it is everything about power.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
IS is many things, but racist isn't one of them. Given that some of them are white, it is tricky to argue that they're racist against white people anyway.
Some police officers are black. Does that make it tricky to argue that the police are racist against black people?
Thought not.
That should more accurately be: "Thought? Not."
IS, and most other Islamic terrorist groups, don't care about your colour, nationality, etc. They only care whether you follow their brand of Islam.
Racism doesn't apply.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
No, but if you read what I wrote, the point is that racism can only be in the direction from the strong majority to the weak minority.
It's nothing about being black per say, it is everything about power.
I vehemently disagree. Whilst power informs level of harm, racism doesn't need power.
Thinking an attribute is associated with race is racism. Even if you think the attribute is good. It is all depersonalising. Some of the effects are much worse, but it is all on the same spectrum.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I vehemently disagree. Whilst power informs level of harm, racism doesn't need power.
Thinking an attribute is associated with race is racism. Even if you think the attribute is good. It is all depersonalising. Some of the effects are much worse, but it is all on the same spectrum.
Unsurprisingly, I don't agree. Reverse racism isn't a thing.
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arse
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Almost all the commenters under the article you posted disagree with the writer, and you. They put forward many arguments as to why and how black people can be racist, even while they're being discriminated against themselves.
I'm not disagreeing that the effect is multiplied by power. But people can be racist without being in power over others.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I vehemently disagree. Whilst power informs level of harm, racism doesn't need power.
Thinking an attribute is associated with race is racism. Even if you think the attribute is good. It is all depersonalising. Some of the effects are much worse, but it is all on the same spectrum.
Unsurprisingly, I don't agree. Reverse racism isn't a thing.
I agree. Reverse racism isn't a thing. It is all just racism.
The idea that racism must include the ability to harm is more of the zero-sum thinking that infects our reasoning.
If I kick an elephant, it might not notice, but it is still an act of violence. And that is still bad.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You think it's ok for someone to maximise their profit or their income. But not for them to do so when they have a monopoly on the market.
If it's wrong to treat antagonism directed at worse off or minority ethnic groups more seriously than antagonism directed at random members of the public, then it's wrong to treat maximising one's profit where one has a monopoly as more serious than maximising one's profit where there is no monopoly.
The intention to increase one's income is not of itself evil. Where abuse of monopoly power does take place, it is the act rather than the intent that is wrong.
quote:
If you refuse to use shops with staff from an ethnic minority you're working towards granting people not from that ethnic minority a monopoly on those jobs
If by "working towards" you denote intent - someone who is aiming at securing unemployment for a minority they dislike - then I'd say that's wrongful intent, acting from hatred.
But if you just mean that such unemployment is a predictable consequence if everyone shares your dislike, then that doesn't make acting on your preference wrong.
If you don't like strawberry yogurt, there's no moral imperative to buy some anyway on the basis that if everyone shared your preference then the strawberry growers would be out of business.
quote:
a belief or act that is racist in one of those senses is frequently racist in more than one of those senses.
That may be true. It could be the case, for example, that many people who discriminate do so out of hatred. So what ? Many Xs are Y doesn't justify treating all Xs as Y. That would be prejudice...
quote:
Another comes if you start arguing that if sense A doesn't acquire any moral wrongness from sense B, then sense A must be innocuous.
Either sense A is inherently wrong or it isn't. It can't become morally dubious just because people who can't be bothered to use language precisely have a catch-all word for "race-related stuff we disapprove of"
quote:
elsewhere you argue that an act need only be wrong in one way to be morally wrong.
I do. Do you disagree ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
posted by mr cheesy:
Prejudice refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership. Racism on the other hand refers to social actions, practices or beliefs or political systems that consider different races to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other. Furthermore, racism is socio-economic, with systemic structures which promote one race’s powers over another...
...Black people can be prejudiced, but not racist.
This starts out with OED definition 2 - belief in racial superiority / inferiority.
Under that definition, black people who believe in their own racial inferiority or superiority (including moral superiority) are racist.
It then goes on to apply that definition to systems rather than people. Which seems fair enough - a system could be said to embody such a belief.
On that definition, Martin Luther King was a non-racist person living in a racist socio-political system.
The argument goes on to say that minorities lack the power to construct racist systems. That seems true enough.
But the conclusion - black people can't be racist - only follows if "racist" is redefined mid-article to mean "guilty of constructing a social system that embodies ideas of racial inferiority / superiority". Members of ethnic minorities are indeed innocent of that. So are most individuals alive today...
Observe the way the r-word is redefined to get the politically-correct answer...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Observe the way the r-word is redefined to get the politically-correct answer...
Wow, I wish I could see the massive bovine that produced a pile this large.
Racism is often defined to reflect the main negative effect.
To claim it is "politically-correct", rather than an accurate description of the main harm, is either mind-numbingly stupid or disingenuous.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
I think we need to reclaim the term "politically correct" so that when it is used in a derogative fashion, the user is exposed as being user is in favour of matters being "politically incorrect", ie, discriminatory and/or unfair.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Political correctness is a strange term in this context. In a large number of places, such as the USA, which have such a serious tilted playing-field in terms of life chances and history of oppression of black people, it isn't political correctness to talk about how you experience and understand racism as being ingrained in the system. It's not politically correct if you are part of that minority and you are defining the experience.
Also, fundamentally, I think the original sense of the term was that people were avoiding saying certain things about minorities to get a particular political advantage. That's not happening here. Overall there aren't that many votes available for saying black people can't be racist. If anything, it's a politically incorrect thing to say in the context of political framework of white supremacy, white privilege and lies about reverse racism.
The politically correct thing to say is that yeah, black people have been historically marginalised - but that's all changed and so quit moaning and try harder.
The politically accepted undertone being that black people don't get on because they're lazy and that they don't deserve any help - and in fact, when are there going to be campaigns that White People Matter etc.
And that's why this is so important. Saying something innocuous like that all racism is as bad as any other leaves the door open for those who want to assert their white privilege and claim that it's all the same and when are we going to start talking about black-on-white racism.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Under that definition, black people who believe in their own racial inferiority or superiority (including moral superiority) are racist.
It then goes on to apply that definition to systems rather than people. Which seems fair enough - a system could be said to embody such a belief.
On that definition, Martin Luther King was a non-racist person living in a racist socio-political system.
Except that King believed in the moral superiority of the egalitarian system he advocated over the system of white supremacy enforced by people like Eugene "Bull" Connor. Doesn't that make King "racist" in your definition?
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I think we need to reclaim the term "politically correct" so that when it is used in a derogative fashion, the user is exposed as being user is in favour of matters being "politically incorrect", ie, discriminatory and/or unfair.
It saves time (and syllables) to simply say "racist" (or "sexist" or "homophobic") instead of "politically incorrect", and it usually comes down to the same thing. "Excuse me for being politically incorrect, but . . . " has become the new "I'm not a racist, but . . . ", a preamble that is almost invariably followed by a racist statement.
[ 22. February 2018, 14:19: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
IMO political correctness is essentially little more than a term of abuse employed to discredit the foundations of certain political and social attitudes, and has its roots in the development of Stalinism, when communist parties outside the Soviet Union were expected to toe the party line to defend “socialism in one country”. During the 1930s the Soviet Union took varying policy attitudes towards the rise of fascism and opposition to it. At times it regarded democratic states as no different from fascist ones, at other times it co-operated with non-fascist parties and states against fascist states, signed a pact with Hitler’s Germany in 1939, was forced to change its mind when invaded in 1941, and broke with the war-time coalition in 1947, precipitating the cold war. These radical changes of policy had ideological consequences requiring comrades to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend the “party line,” i.e. to know what was “politically correct”. To the democratic mind this was the negation of principled approaches to social and political questions because they had been subordinated to the short-term convenience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. That kind of approach extended to questions of scientific research and its conclusions, economic analysis, and cultural values. To transgress the self-interested party line, to express what was politically incorrect, was to invite severe penalties. The validity of any proposition was the function not of reason and empiricism but of partisan fiat and a denial of the democratic intellect.
To describe anti-racism as an example of political correctness is to suggest that such an attitude is essentially unprincipled, being no more than a top-of-the-head assertion by powerful arbiters of taste whose position could be changed on a whim were it convenient to them. In other words, anti-racism and racism are of equal expendable value. I don’t doubt there are anti-racists whose position is simply that i.e. a means of advancing their power and status, but that is not the reason why most of us think racism is wrong. Russ is right, IMO, to identify certain popular attitudes on the left within the debased context of political correctness, but wrong to assume that most people adopt them, however controversial, for other than honourable motives. I’m sure social progressivism can be critiqued without questioning the integrity of its supporters. How about, for example, questioning the notion of progress and the capacity of humanity to improve?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
No, but if you read what I wrote, the point is that racism can only be in the direction from the strong majority to the weak minority.
If a group of black men attack a random white man while yelling "kill the honky" then I would submit that that is just as much a racist offence as a group of white men attacking a random black man while yelling "kill the nigger".
I eagerly await your explanation of why that's not the case.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And that's why this is so important. Saying something innocuous like that all racism is as bad as any other leaves the door open for those who want to assert their white privilege and claim that it's all the same and when are we going to start talking about black-on-white racism.
It's one thing to say that white-on-minority racism is a considerably greater problem in society than any other kind, and thus that it's not all the same and there's a very good reason to focus on that one kind (as I did). It's quite another thing to outright deny that any other form of racism can possibly exist (as you did).
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If a group of black men attack a random white man while yelling "kill the honky" then I would submit that that is just as much a racist offence as a group of white men attacking a random black man while yelling "kill the nigger".
I'll agree that it is just as racist, but not that it is the equivalent of the reverse.
And it is problematic in that is an extreme argument used to justify ignoring the more pervasive effects of majority racism.
It is a straight up smokescreen.
And that, IMO, is one of the reasons for the qualification of power that is sometimes added to the definition of racism.
Saying that anyone can be racist it true, but often meaningless in the context of effect and solution.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If a group of black men attack a random white man while yelling "kill the honky" then I would submit that that is just as much a racist offence as a group of white men attacking a random black man while yelling "kill the nigger".
I eagerly await your explanation of why that's not the case.
I have already given you an explanation, you just don't like it.
Please tell me more about this Black KKK group, it sounds fascinating and not-at-all made up.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's one thing to say that white-on-minority racism is a considerably greater problem in society than any other kind, and thus that it's not all the same and there's a very good reason to focus on that one kind (as I did). It's quite another thing to outright deny that any other form of racism can possibly exist (as you did).
What I'm saying is different to what you are saying. Wow, thanks for that insight.
I have had long conversations with minorities about racism and am persuaded that their strong belief that racism is undirectional holds water. I'm not about to change my mind because a bunch of middle aged white men don't like the fact that it - somehow, in an unexplained way - allows minorities off the hook for bad behaviour.
Your theoretical examples are ridiculous. Black deaths by police in the USA are far higher than of whites. Blacks are incarcerated at far higher rates. Blacks are far more likely to on death row.
If a black group really existed that was targeting and murdering white people, there is such a high level of ingrained racism in the system that at very least they'd likely be incarcerated - even whilst the KKK danced on the lawn outside the courthouse.
Black people do all kinds of bad an evil things. There are black paedophiles, there are black serial killers, there are black gangs and murderers.
But the one thing that there isn't is a black KKK, because that's a white privilege protected by the law.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I have had long conversations with minorities about racism and am persuaded that their strong belief that racism is undirectional holds water.
This is not a unilateral position. Unless I missed a meeting...Still, no one gave me a copy of any meeting minutes in which this was decided.
quote:
But the one thing that there isn't is a black KKK, because that's a white privilege protected by the law.
And this highlights the effective difference in the direction of racism.
OK, so black people thinking all white people share a trait is simply prejudice? But most prejudices are based on something. That one would be based on race. If only there were a shorthand for prejudice based on race...
ETA:We are likely giving the social-regressives much pleasure with the internecine argument.
[ 22. February 2018, 15:43: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
OK, so black people thinking all white people share a trait is simply prejudice? But most prejudices are based on something. That one would be based on race. If only there were a shorthand for prejudice based on race...
ETA:We are likely giving the social-regressives much pleasure with the internecine argument.
Which black people think that white people share a trait?
A black person whose only option is to go to a shitty school, has few options for employment and runs the risk of incarceration for crimes that white people are not even prosecuted for might well think that the white-dominated system conspires against them and that white people typically don't care.
That's not racism, that's the truth.
An British Asian person might think that the white privileged Establishment seems content to see their relatives as doctors and pharmacists - but that there is a veneer of acceptance and it doesn't take an awful lot (*cough* Brexit) before they're being bundled into planes and "sent home". They might well believe that white people generally don't care very much for them and would rather they left the country.
That's not racism either - and if it isn't true, then it sometimes sounds like it.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Which black people think that white people share a trait?
Do you want names or are you implying all black people think the same way?
There is not a universal black narrative. Save oppression, and even then, not all black people view it the same way.
Thinking white people, as a group, oppress black people is not racism; no. It is just observation. Thinking whiteness causes this, is. We are all capable of the same good and the same bad. The difference is we don't all have the same opportunity.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Do you want names or are you implying all black people think the same way?
There is not a universal black narrative. Save oppression, and even then, not all black people view it the same way.
Absolutely agreed that people in a large group have a variety of ideas. And that there isn't a single black narrative.
So show me the (any) black narrative that maintains there is some trait to believe about white people that isn't based on anything. Show me the black people who are the equivalent of the alt-right, believing bollocks about white people for no other reason than that they're the "master race". Show me the groups of black people who are menacing white people with their bloid-curdling cries of white-hatred from their marches under flags of white-oppression.
Because I don't think it happens. Maybe someone somewhere thinks that black people are a master race and that white people are inferior and should therefore be spoken about with distain and treated like shit. But such a person is so rare as to be totally insignificant compared to the mountain of truly racist shit coming the other way.
quote:
Thinking white people, as a group, oppress black people is not racism; no. It is just observation. Thinking whiteness causes this, is. We are all capable of the same good and the same bad. The difference is we don't all have the same opportunity.
If whiteness totally overlaps the oppression, then it is hardly a leap to think that whiteness is the oppressor.
Moreover it is down to white people to show that whiteness does not equal oppression.
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arse
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
Racism is a word tainted by its history. Maybe the more general "prejudice" doesn't carry the same baggage? A prejudice is "a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience". People of all ethnicities, social status, nationalities, cultures, may demonstrate prejudice.
I agree lilBuddha observation that "we are likely giving the social-regressives much pleasure with the internecine argument."
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
I was thinking of two statements.
"My experience is that all the white folks I've met look down on me".
"All white folks look down on us" (whichever group "us" is.)
The first statement isn't prejudiced. The second is.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
mr cheesy;
I am not presenting you with the links to prove you wrong, I have reached my tolerance for reading hate today.
A quick perusal of the Nation of Islam's history will show you the error in your thinking.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I agree lilBuddha observation that "we are likely giving the social-regressives much pleasure with the internecine argument."
All too true but isn’t it a virtue to argue rather than to accept some tired dogma which is a characteristic of the social-regressives.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
I really missed the boat on this thread. Can someone do me an executive summary? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If it's wrong to treat antagonism directed at worse off or minority ethnic groups more seriously than antagonism directed at random members of the public, then it's wrong to treat maximising one's profit where one has a monopoly as more serious than maximising one's profit where there is no monopoly.
The intention to increase one's income is not of itself evil. Where abuse of monopoly power does take place, it is the act rather than the intent that is wrong.
I assume it's because you're bothered about linguistic precision that you treat 'maximising profit' and 'increasing one's income' as equivalent? On the attempt to distinguish intention and action see later.
There isn't a special act of abusing monopoly power. It's just the predictable consequence of income increasing actions if other people aren't in a position to do the same as you.
quote:
quote:
If you refuse to use shops with staff from an ethnic minority you're working towards granting people not from that ethnic minority a monopoly on those jobs
If by "working towards" you denote intent - someone who is aiming at securing unemployment for a minority they dislike - then I'd say that's wrongful intent, acting from hatred.
What makes the intent wrong if it's not an intention to perform immoral actions? The only way an intention could be wrong if it's not an intention to perform a morally wrong action is if it's an intention to bring about morally wrong consequences. So do you think consequences can be morally wrong?
quote:
But if you just mean that such unemployment is a predictable consequence if everyone shares your dislike, then that doesn't make acting on your preference wrong.
The preference here is that people from a minority group are not employed in any business that you might otherwise want to frequent. That preference is morally wrong already. If people are unemployed as a result that's not an unintended consequence. That is what the preference is for.
quote:
If you don't like strawberry yogurt, there's no moral imperative to buy some anyway on the basis that if everyone shared your preference then the strawberry growers would be out of business.
I'm tempted just to quote this analogy without comment. It almost condemns itself.
Shall we list some of the disanalogies?
Disliking strawberry yogurt is not morally comparable to disliking people.
Disliking strawberry yogurt does not normally lead people to withdraw their business from shops that sell it.
If the demand for strawberries drops strawberry farmers can cut the supply of strawberries to match by diversifying into other areas.
People who are members of an ethnic group cannot diversify into being members of another group.
Also you have not addressed the application of the point, namely that boycotting businesses that employ members of ethnic groups sets up monopolies. And is therefore wrong on those grounds above and beyond its wrongness on other grounds.
quote:
quote:
a belief or act that is racist in one of those senses is frequently racist in more than one of those senses.
That may be true. It could be the case, for example, that many people who discriminate do so out of hatred. So what ? Many Xs are Y doesn't justify treating all Xs as Y. That would be prejudice...
So? Using the same word to cover two linked phenomena is not treating them as identical in all respects. Saying that wanting to commit murder and actually committing murder are both morally wrong doesn't mean that you're treating all people who want to commit murder as actual murderers.
It just says that there is at least one useful purpose to covering them with the same label.
quote:
quote:
Another comes if you start arguing that if sense A doesn't acquire any moral wrongness from sense B, then sense A must be innocuous.
Either sense A is inherently wrong or it isn't. It can't become morally dubious just because people who can't be bothered to use language precisely have a catch-all word for "race-related stuff we disapprove of"
I'm not sure you're in a position to complain about people not bothering to use language precisely.
Do you mean 'disapprove of' in your sense where it's essentially amoral and arbitrary like disliking yoghurt, or in the ordinary English sense where 'disapprove of' implies a judgement based on a normative principle?
In any case, you appear to be putting forward the case that if hatred is morally wrong, and discriminating against a certain race based on hatred is morally wrong, then discriminating against a certain race for other reasons is not morally wrong.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I agree lilBuddha observation that "we are likely giving the social-regressives much pleasure with the internecine argument."
All too true but isn’t it a virtue to argue rather than to accept some tired dogma which is a characteristic of the social-regressives.
Neither are we the monolithic bloc that Russ portrayed progressives as.
Of course we're going to disagree on a detail of nuanced issues, even while we agree on the main thrust of the argument.
In this case, racism is bad. Something that Russ appears to have enormous difficulty in accepting.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I really missed the boat on this thread. Can someone do me an executive summary?
I walked out halfway through. Save yourself the effort. 1 star.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I really missed the boat on this thread. Can someone do me an executive summary?
I walked out halfway through. Save yourself the effort. 1 star.
Executive summary (in skit form):
Russ: {Smoking Irish pipe.} Liberals baaaaddd. Trying to make everyone the same. Each person has right to decide who they like/dislike, and act accordingly, as long as they're not excessively mean about it.
Most everyone else: {Squeezing hankies, and getting antacids by IV.} We're trying to take people seriously, and not hurt them. Treating people badly on basis of their race not good.
Russ: You're lying hypocrites, and are making the world a worse place.
Most everyone else: Open your eyes, dude!
{Repeat ad infinitum, with periodic breaks for sleep, food, and refilling light vitriol tanks.
The animated cleaning lady from the end of Carol Burnett's comedy series enters the lounge for this thread; shakes head; opens window for fresh air; gathers all trash into a bag; vacuums; sprays everything with eco-friendly disinfectant; restocks everything; puts boxes of antacid tablets under the couch cushions to nudge the people to eventually get up.
She clocks out, and goes to get ice cream.}
[ 23. February 2018, 04:12: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If a group of black men attack a random white man while yelling "kill the honky" then I would submit that that is just as much a racist offence as a group of white men attacking a random black man while yelling "kill the nigger".
I'll agree that it is just as racist, but not that it is the equivalent of the reverse.
And it is problematic in that is an extreme argument used to justify ignoring the more pervasive effects of majority racism.
I have been at pains to state that majority racism is more pervasive and damaging to society. That's not even a moot point, it's a straight-up fact.
But I draw the line at saying there is no such thing as minority racism, and/or that it is impossible for non-whites to be racist.
If I'm in an accident and end up with compound fractures to both legs and a broken little finger then I will have no problem with the doctors focusing virtually all of their effort on fixing the legs - they are clearly the most pressing concern by an order of magnitude or two. But I'd still want them to fix my finger as well, rather than claiming there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But I draw the line at saying there is no such thing as minority racism, and/or that it is impossible for non-whites to be racist.
I do not disagree. I’ve said multiple times on this thread that anyone can be racist.
What I was saying in the last post is that they are not equivilant in effect.
And that people use “Everyone is racist” to avoid fixing the problems of majority racism.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I do not disagree.
We agree. It just bothers me (rather more than it should) that cheesy doesn't.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
quote:
Barnabus62:Racism is a word tainted by its history.
Doh!!
How could it have been otherwise?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[qb]majority racism is more pervasive and damaging to society.
Pervasive as a result of the larger numbers of the majority population, yes.
Do you think "damage to society" has a reality outside of anyone's political ideas of the sort of society they want to see ? Can you define it in a way that doesn't assume that your political notions (whatever they may be) are correct ? Is there anything there that you think we should all - from extreme left to extreme right, from authoritatian to libertarian - be able to agree is factually true ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Your logic is even less solid than your coding.
Outside of any ideology, even the convoluted, contradictory and nonsensical one you appear to espouse, one direction obviously does more harm than the other.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
These radical changes of policy had ideological consequences requiring comrades to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend the “party line,” i.e. to know what was “politically correct”. To the democratic mind this was the negation of principled approaches to social and political questions because they had been subordinated to the short-term convenience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
...The validity of any proposition was the function not of reason and empiricism but of partisan fiat and a denial of the democratic intellect.
To describe anti-racism as an example of political correctness is to suggest that such an attitude is essentially unprincipled, being no more than a top-of-the-head assertion by powerful arbiters of taste whose position could be changed on a whim were it convenient to them. In other words, anti-racism and racism are of equal expendable value.
You're right about the origin.
But I'd suggest that current usage focuses on the element of toeing the party line, of reaching the conclusion that is agreeable to one's party - the politically like-minded -based on a desire for peer approval rather than principle and logic.
Not about the element of arbitrariness that was as you say present in the original context.
Maintaining the position that "racism is wrong whatever racism is" would seem to qualify.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maintaining the position that "racism is wrong whatever racism is" would seem to qualify.
Does it really. Well I never. What an amazing insight.
Some say racism is like bone-headed stupidity; sometimes hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
quote:
Russ: But I'd suggest that current usage focuses on the element of toeing the party line, of reaching the conclusion that is agreeable to one's party - the politically like-minded -based on a desire for peer approval rather than principle and logic.
Maintaining the position that "racism is wrong whatever racism is" would seem to qualify.
ISTM that so wide is the acceptance that racism is a bad thing amongst political elites, that the only parties which need to have a ‘party line’ on the question are those which are avowedly racist. Mainstream conservative parties on the centre-right, for example, eschew racism and are often multi-ethnic in membership. Consequently, attitudes to racism do not relate easily to a discussion on political correctness and its relationship to social progressivism.
Might I suggest that a more fruitful area to discuss is the struggle between different strands of feminism for control of right-thinking on the issue, and especially its orientation towards trans-gendered individuals. The vilification of Germaine Greer and attempts to deny her a platform is a particular example of political correctness because it seeks to impose a ‘party’ line against the expression of her position by those seeking power to dictate the agenda. What is a social progressive wishing to be a supporter of feminism supposed to think to remain in the vanguard?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I really missed the boat on this thread. Can someone do me an executive summary?
Executive summary (in skit form):
Russ: Liberals baaaaddd...
Most everyone else: Open your eyes, dude!
Yes and No.
No - insofar as it's possible to distinguish liberal from progressive, and economic from social, it's specifically about "social progressive". And wrong rather than bad.
Yes - I do seem to be largely alone. And having started out to understand this mindset, the general response has been "it's just obviously right and good - open your eyes". Rather than any clear statement of doctrine.
And this reinforces my suspicion that there isn't any core belief. That it's about "reverse prejudice" mistakenly conceived as a moral duty.
But one of the by-ways of the conversation may yet cast some light...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[qb]majority racism is more pervasive and damaging to society.
Pervasive as a result of the larger numbers of the majority population, yes.
Do you think "damage to society" has a reality outside of anyone's political ideas of the sort of society they want to see ? Can you define it in a way that doesn't assume that your political notions (whatever they may be) are correct ?
Er - how about black people not being able to find work or accommodation because of the attitudes of a white majority? Or is the idea that people shouldn't have to live in poverty because of the irrational prejudice of others merely a "political notion"? It's the fucking bleedin' obvious to me.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Yes - I do seem to be largely alone. And having started out to understand this mindset, the general response has been "it's just obviously right and good - open your eyes". Rather than any clear statement of doctrine.
People who are different should not be disadvantaged - and those who are historically disadvantaged should be given help. I think it is pretty clear.
Any lack of clarity is entirely due to you telling people that they believe things that they don't, dodging direct questions and generally waffling.
quote:
And this reinforces my suspicion that there isn't any core belief. That it's about "reverse prejudice" mistakenly conceived as a moral duty.
Eh?! You're telling me that I don't feel a moral duty to ensure that people who are different are not disadvantaged and that I don't believe it is a moral duty to help those who have experienced historic disadvantage.
This is news to me.
Please tell me more about this mistaken reverse prejudice that I'm supposed to be actually doing it for - because you appear to be very close to suggesting that what I say I believe is all lies and I'm just doing it for some kind of advantage and/or to fit into a group of like-minded people.
quote:
But one of the by-ways of the conversation may yet cast some light...
Those who find light tend to be those who are looking for it in the first place.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Might I suggest that a more fruitful area to discuss is the struggle between different strands of feminism for control of right-thinking on the issue, and especially its orientation towards trans-gendered individuals. The vilification of Germaine Greer and attempts to deny her a platform is a particular example of political correctness because it seeks to impose a ‘party’ line against the expression of her position by those seeking power to dictate the agenda. What is a social progressive wishing to be a supporter of feminism supposed to think to remain in the vanguard?
You are saying accepting an historically misunderstood and poorly treated group who cannot help being who they are is political correctness, not merely common decency?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There isn't a special act of abusing monopoly power. It's just the predictable consequence of income increasing actions if other people aren't in a position to do the same as you...
...you have not addressed the application of the point, namely that boycotting businesses that employ members of ethnic groups sets up monopolies. And is therefore wrong on those grounds
OK, you want me to respond regarding monopolies.
First, you know that the act of setting up a monopoly is not wrong. (You might approve of a government nationalising an industry, thereby creating a monopoly...) But creating a monopoly for the purpose of abusing monopoly power is an example of wrong intention.
Second, consider as an example an industry where two companies between them have a near-100% market share. If they collude to both raise prices by the same amount, for the purpose of increasing their profits, that's abuse of monopoly power. But if they both independently raise prices by the same amount (e.g. in response to a rise in the price of raw materials) then it isn't. The intent is the same - to increase profit. The consequences are the same. But one is this particular wrong and the other isn't.
It's the difference between acting together and acting individually. Considered together, they have a monopoly. They act as a monopoly only if they act together.
So, by analogy, if all the majority-ethnicity people in a town get together and collectively decide to boycott a minority-ethnicity business, then yes that's an abuse of monopoly power.
If one majority-ethnic person individually indulges his or her irrational dislike by declining to patronise the same minority-ethnicity business, then that is not an abuse of monopoly power. Even if everyone else is doing the same. Because there's no collusion. They're not acting together and it is only together that they have monopoly power.
(It may of course still be wrong by wrong intention if it is done from hatred, with the intent of causing the other to suffer).
We keep coming back to people as individuals versus people as members of groups...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Might I suggest that a more fruitful area to discuss is the struggle between different strands of feminism for control of right-thinking on the issue, and especially its orientation towards trans-gendered individuals. The vilification of Germaine Greer and attempts to deny her a platform is a particular example of political correctness because it seeks to impose a ‘party’ line against the expression of her position by those seeking power to dictate the agenda. What is a social progressive wishing to be a supporter of feminism supposed to think to remain in the vanguard?
lilBuddha: You are saying accepting an historically misunderstood and poorly treated group who cannot help being who they are is political correctness, not merely common decency?
With all due respect, lilBuddha, I find it difficult to see how you could possibly come to that conclusion on the basis of my remarks. Where in what I have said have I shown the slightest disrespect to trans-gendered individuals?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You're telling me that I don't feel a moral duty to ensure that people who are different are not disadvantaged and that I don't believe it is a moral duty to help those who have experienced historic disadvantage.
This is news to me.
Please tell me more about this mistaken reverse prejudice that I'm supposed to be actually doing it for - because you appear to be very close to suggesting that what I say I believe is all lies and I'm just doing it for some kind of advantage and/or to fit into a group of like-minded people.
I wouldn't dream of saying you're lying.
I'm suggesting that you feel sympathy for those who differ from the majority (or are members of groups which have suffered historic disadvantage) in ways to which you attach political significance.
And that there's nothing wrong with feeling that.
But that, rather than you personally acting on your sympathies and allowing others to act on theirs, you (mistakenly in my view) think that there is a moral duty on everybody to favourably pre-judge people who have those particular differences or are affected by those particular historic disadvantages.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
First, you know that the act of setting up a monopoly is not wrong. (You might approve of a government nationalising an industry, thereby creating a monopoly...) But creating a monopoly for the purpose of abusing monopoly power is an example of wrong intention.....
Actually, no, I don't know that setting up a monopoly is not wrong, and I think it is a category error to call government a monopoly.
A monopoly is one, a cartel is a group, and they are by definition private enterprises controlling a market for private profit. There's no such thing as an acceptable maximum profit from a monopoly, beyond which it becomes "abuse". Your attempt to draw a distinction between a morally neutral monopoly and a monopoly that abuses its power is nonsensical. The point of a monopoly is always to "abuse" the power as much as possible to earn as much money as possible until they get caught.
Conversely, a government service or enterprise is established for the public good and any profits realized belong to the state and its citizens. "Monopoly" is often misapplied to government enterprises by those who want to privatise parts of government - but only the parts they like - and operate them at a profit.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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