Is criticism of the alt-right inconsistent?
I'm not part of the alt-right, actually I'm a hardcore individualist who cares about ideas and principles but I won't ignore the fact that race is important to most people just because I'm white. The alt-right in my view is arguing for essentially exactly the same thing that most other ethnical groups take for granted, even in the West.
I don't like to talk about ethnicities as being interpretatively relevant but apart from individualists, the only ethnicity by and large that tries to ignore their ethnicity are Anglo-Saxon whites. The alt-right is basically complaining about that and many liberals hate them for it but why?
Are they equally outraged when other ethnicities draw meaning and identity from their ethnicities? When they take their ethnicity to be immensely relevant interpretatively speaking? Quite the opposite, it's generally celebrated and the same people who hate the alt-right, favour multi-culturalism and the ethnic associations which are often paramount to those cultures.
The criticism of the alt-right shows the reality that the main frustration is not actually with ethnicities being interpretatively relevant but actually a hatred of the "white ethnicity" being interpretatively relevant because it's associated with bad things like systematic abuse of other ethnicities, racism, bullying, discrimination and so on and that is not how they feel at all about the others who take ethnicity to be interpretatively relevant.
Sadly, I think a great deal of the posters on this forum fit this description but are completely oblivious to it. They consider themselves individualists like me but they're absolutely not, they are just overly sensitive to how "white" identity and meaning manifests itself. Of those of whom are white, it's not even clear that they take their own race to lack meaning because many view the world through a racial lens and that especially includes their own race. They take ownership of particular injustices and problems because of their skin colour, they are hypersensitive to the privileges of their skin colour, which they often hyperbolise. It's hardly as if they can be characterised by an individualist mentality.
I'm not here to preach, I hope others can weigh in and bring different perspectives to my attention!.
I don't like to talk about ethnicities as being interpretatively relevant but apart from individualists, the only ethnicity by and large that tries to ignore their ethnicity are Anglo-Saxon whites. The alt-right is basically complaining about that and many liberals hate them for it but why?
Are they equally outraged when other ethnicities draw meaning and identity from their ethnicities? When they take their ethnicity to be immensely relevant interpretatively speaking? Quite the opposite, it's generally celebrated and the same people who hate the alt-right, favour multi-culturalism and the ethnic associations which are often paramount to those cultures.
The criticism of the alt-right shows the reality that the main frustration is not actually with ethnicities being interpretatively relevant but actually a hatred of the "white ethnicity" being interpretatively relevant because it's associated with bad things like systematic abuse of other ethnicities, racism, bullying, discrimination and so on and that is not how they feel at all about the others who take ethnicity to be interpretatively relevant.
Sadly, I think a great deal of the posters on this forum fit this description but are completely oblivious to it. They consider themselves individualists like me but they're absolutely not, they are just overly sensitive to how "white" identity and meaning manifests itself. Of those of whom are white, it's not even clear that they take their own race to lack meaning because many view the world through a racial lens and that especially includes their own race. They take ownership of particular injustices and problems because of their skin colour, they are hypersensitive to the privileges of their skin colour, which they often hyperbolise. It's hardly as if they can be characterised by an individualist mentality.
I'm not here to preach, I hope others can weigh in and bring different perspectives to my attention!.
Comments (251)
My problem with the Alt-Right is not that they celebrate and appreciate their own whiteness/Europeanness/Americanness/whatever, but that this is often a cover for hating, fearing, oppressing, and wanting to get rid of others.
It is white blindness to say that society villianizes all moments of white celebration, though. We're constantly lauding white accomplishments in the news, schools, culturally... We celebrate Abe Lincoln, Beethoven, Einstein, Kant, Brad Pitt, etc etc. We just generally don't recognize those things as being white-celebratory, because we just see white as normal.
By and large (and there ARE notable exceptions) minority pride is not to cast hate upon whiteness, it's just to take pride in something that often goes unappreciated in a majority white culture.
There seems to be a host of issues out there orbiting around the idea of being white, and then all those issues being conflated into one position: that of ‘privileged white males’.
It’s quite difficult to attack a culture that encompasses so much history and is behind everything we have in what was referred to as ‘the west’. I don’t know what it’s referred to now, but I know that ‘the west’ is now perjorative. And I know there’s good and bad in that history. But then that’s the history of any culture. It’s easier to reduce it down to a specific target, and it satisfies, what to me, is behind the criticism.
It’s the inability to face the world in a way that demands from the individual a whole host of responsibilities. That may not be the best term. But it resembles the teenage resentment towards authority and the irrational response towards that responsibility.
So much of the criticism and attacks on ‘white ethnicity’ are loaded with contradictions. Maybe the world really is a more scary place to live in than it’s ever been, and maybe those people feel threatened by it, but it’s irrational and immature to look to blame a specific group of people and to think that by removing them, by destroying everything it represents, your problems will disappear. It’s almost suicidal in its intent. So why would the alt-right allow such a mentality to gain a foothold, why wouldn’t they resist.
It’s the perfect weapon for the left, and it always has been, this feeding of resentment and pointing of the finger. But it’s also become something of a knowing and superior attitude to attack the alt-right, that one is more enlightened, really, it’s virtue signalling.
If the alt-right really were focussed on celebrating their own ethnicity and culture they would be:
- learning Morris dancing
- organising Shakespeare festivals
- creating book groups to read and discuss Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot and Austen
- attending poetry readings of Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley
- studying Old Saxon in order to read Beowulf in the original
- joining choirs to sing evensong and works from Tallis, Parry and Purcell
- seeking out and learning old English folk songs, and encouraging their performance
and participating in many of the other amazing outpourings of creativity that there are in Anglo-Saxon culture, just as in other cultures.
Yet, oddly, they don't do any of those things. Most of them display a contempt for all culture, English along with the rest.
And who is it that does all those things then? Well, as far as I can see, mostly the lefty liberals that the alt-right likes to despise. Academics and the like.
The average soft lefty knows ten times as much about Anglo-Saxon culture, and appreciates it ten times as much, as the alt-right bovva boys. They are not interested in celebrating their own culture. They don't even understand it. All they want is something to hate.
We can't uplift our own culture by denigrating other peoples'.
I disagree. I've never seen the Asian community talking about an Asian genocide.
And rather to talk about some tiny group of neo-nazis, it should be understood that the term "alt-right" is used as a name for generally right-wing views. Just like the leftist views can be named to be "marxist". Then one can start arguing that basically that views are essentially quite the same things that most proponents of identity-politics talk about.
From other things he said I took it to mean 'the right' as most of us understand it.
The alt-right, to me, seems to be defined by the liberals. The extreme right is objectionable and I'm not sure where they crossover into the right. However, it seems to me that liberals object generally to the world, or culture, they believe is the result of the right and their priorities.
I think Richard Spencer started to use the term in defining how the new wave of what we would call neo-nazis and white supremacists differ from the "old" traditional right.
Now liberals can surely use the term now for everything they see bad in the right, but that is a different thing.
That's how I understand it.
I do think it is deeply unfair when people say they wish to preserve their nations culture as being “racist”. In this area there are double standards it seems and to simply label someone as “racist” for having some admiration of their heritage is a little myopic to say the least.
Personally I’ve been saying for years that patriotism shares a lot of features with religious organisations. I’m not a massive fan of it. Yet, I’m quite happy to celebrate humanity’s achievements, in art, science, or any other field, and refer to nations in this manner. There is certainly a degree of cultural differences that seem useful in creating both teamwork and competition that lead to good outcomes.
Aa for the whole “left” and “right” business it is a little lazy to reduce political discourse to lumping someone into category A or B to drive home a certain position you hold. I am sure we all hold multiple views on multiple issues that often lean in quite contrary directions. Talking about them openly helps us adjust our positions and constantly question why one idea works well in circumstance A but does nothing of use on circumstance B.
I’m quite happy to admit that I have some views that could paint me as being “right leaning” and some views that could paint me as “left leaning”. Obviously being human I assume my view is the best version of the “middle ground” there is, and therefore being human (aka stupid) I should be on guard and question any kind of “certainty” that appears in my mind.
Note: I don’t see how prejudice does any good either long term or short term. Identifying what is and isn’t to be taken as “prejudice” though is a whole other problem!
Maybe they feel frightened and alienated by the presence of other racial groups; maybe this fear leads to a kind of hatred. And then this apparent hatred is used as a way to dismiss their group. Which then feeds back into the feeling that racial issues are not being addressed.
So by dismissing these groups, someone is kind of helping to fuel these groups to become more angry, and so more extreme, when I think a better approach would be to try to address the issues these groups might have with racial differences.
By discussing racial issues people in society might end up exposing their real feelings around race, which might be a frightening prospect for them...imagine going through life trying to show everyone that they aren't at all racist, and in the process of honest discussion, they show themselves up to have some pretty strong feelings on the subject, which would usually show them to be racists....slightly embarrassing eh..?
So I suspect it is quite often closet racists who like to dismiss some groups of people, in order to reduce the chance of honest discussion...and they might use terms like 'hate'...to do this...implying that hatred somehow means that someone isn't worthy of taking seriously, is somehow less human..
Maybe ideally, some of these closet racists might like to round up these 'haters' and...well maybe have them all killed..??
Sound familiar?
It would be interesting maybe to discuss what some people would actually like to have done with any groups, including groups that partially define themselves by race.
That's not what I've been seeing. I've only seen the term 'alt-right' applied to sites like Breitbart, Fox News and people like Trump, Milo Y and other white supremacists.
I have never seen it applied to Theresa May, Angela Merkel, George W Bush or John McCain, all of whom are (were, for McCain, PBUH) on the right wing of the political spectrums in their countries. For the Aussies and Kiwis, neither have I seen it applied to Malcolm Turnbull, Christopher Pyne or Simon Bridges. It has not often been applied to Morrison and Dutton, but I think there is justification for doing so.
I don’t see how this is completely true. Some people back “multi-culturalism” when it suits their means. When it doesn’t they ignore it ans switch tack. To be fair I don’t always think this is a conscious action, many just get swept along in the heat of the argument and grab onto any convenient reference that is lying around - it’s always going to be a problem in any discussion that matters as emotions do tend to boil over and cloud the important underlying problem/s.
Why are so many liberals quick to jump on this view?
I don’t think “many liberals” are. A few making enough noise, especially with the internet to work with, can make the political landscape seem far more skewed than it really is ... yet I do admit that because of this the “skewed” view can become considered the “norm” even when it isn’t. The effects of this we’ll be able to assess in a few centuries I reckon?
I have to say I'm not sure how common it is. But there is an element out there, that should they get more power and influence, would be a real threat to the traditions of the right, and so they are regarded as a threat right now. And it's interesting to think that this white culture is owned by the right, and the left, the liberals I refer to, also believe that, as if they had no part in it.
But still Judaka has a point about the skewed view of white ethnic culture.
Your post isn't exactly on topic but that we celebrate individuals means we celebrate whiteness? Are you okay? Einstein wasn't even white, he was a Jew. That you don't know that shows how little we care about the whiteness of the people you listed. This thread isn't about the celebration of ethnicity, it's about making ethnicity interpretatively relevant, particularly in the context of culture.
I think there's lots of evidence to support the idea that the alt-right is not particularly concerned with culture but the literal whiteness of the West. An example is that they don't just care about one country but all of the West, Eastern Europe and basically any white country maintaining their whiteness. There is a belief in ethnic-states, the cultural importance of race and so on. They are not interested in Arabs and Asians going to Shakespeare fares and assimilating into Western culture. It's actually more someone like me who cares about Western culture irrespective of the ethnicities following it that should be doing what you suggest, the alt-right don't want what you're talking about.
Right, I'm not interested in talking about the strawman alt-right that people who disagree with the left need to constantly deny affiliation with. The alt-right does exist, they are not neo-nazis and their views actually kind of need to be contended with. Here's a good representation of the alt-right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3MvOSyE0ow&t=2126s
The reality is that almost ALL countries in Asia, the middle east, Africa, Eastern Europe and pretty much the whole world think like the alt-right. Their culture is tied to their ethnicities and ethnic heritage and if their ethnic group were wiped out, their culture would be too. The West is unique, this is not recognised and the concerns of the alt-right are treated like toxic and hateful positions, despite the absolute prevalence of similarly minded people across the world and even within the West, they're just not white.
The alt-right has a pretty specific message and agenda, it's not really a broad stroke. I'd recommend watching the video linked earlier in my post for a better understanding. I disagree with your general sentiments about how the state of the West. Criticising multiculturalism basically needs to be accompanied by pleas that you're not a racist, arguments for reducing immigration need to come after an explanation of why you're not xenophobic. It's bad.
It's good to look at something like the "black community" (despise this term) and see what seems familiar to you and notice the hypocrisy. For many, being black means you have a unique experience, you can refer to other blacks as your "brothers" and "sisters", you share an ethnic history as former slaves, you struggle together against the greater society, you need to vote together to receive favourable outcomes for your race, you need to support your "black communities and businesses" and so on. The hypocrisy is that this is often celebrated by the left, this kind of behaviour is accepted and normal, this kind of rhetoric isn't considered racist or dangerous unless it's coming from white people. The alt-right aren't exactly the same but the similarities are striking to me.
Lots of theory wax, not exactly a wise way to try to understand something. I recommend watching the video linked earlier in this comment to get a better understanding of the alt-right.
Thanks for the reply.
What sentiments about the “West”? I don’t believe I said anything about east or west.
I’ve heard the whole “alt-right” doesn’t mean this or that and I hear what you’re saying. The problem is it was adopted by less savoury people and they’ve come to own it. This has also been a game played by more leftist positions in order to slander anyone that opposes them.
Note: I think you’re also confusing “race” with “skin color”. Not your fault given that we’ve indoctrinated to refer to “ethnic” and “cultural” differences as “race” differences. In biological terms there is no plurality of human race, but their is a cultural plurality of “cultural races”.
If want to get into broader strokes of different traditions then Western Culture includes a multiculturalist history - as do all traditions founded as they are upon empires and/or kingdoms.
I have no idea what the reaction there would be(assuming you are 'white') if you made this statement in an African country, say the DRC, in a crowded street. What do you think?
The more I think about this the more I realise that people are, or have been, quietly asserting their belief in being white, being part of white culture. These seem to be people just getting on with their lives, with all the hardships that go with it.
I hear the people condemning the ‘alt right’, usually on a particulate tv channel, or newspaper or magazine. Who exactly are they? They claim to feel ashamed of their white culture but they don’t behave like people who are ashamed of anything. There must be many reasons for this charade, but I can’t think of one genuine one.
I think seeing Jews as non-white is as weird as seeing Italians and Polish people as non-white.
I think you just don't want to face the fact that we think white=normal. That's white privilege, btw.
If, within 5 seconds of opening that video, I hear the phrase "the great replacement of whites", you aren't really helping your point.
Quoting Judaka
That view is usually only held in specific circles though. For all practical purposes, Einstein was "white".
Quoting Judaka
This is painting the world with a very broad brush. Yes racism is a "natural" condition, but your statement depends on where you draw the lines with ethnicities. The middle east, for example, is traditionally multi-ethnic, going back to roman times. Religion is a more powerful identity than ethnicities in many of these regions.
Quoting Judaka
Western culture is also unique in plenty of other ways, so what's special about this position?
Quoting Judaka
There are historical reasons for the difference in treatment though. You may not think these are good reasons, and I'd agree, but it's dishonest to treat it as naked hypocrisy. The alt-right is not arguing from a history of actual disenfranchisement, but rather from an imagined future one.
The alt-right are what are called white supremacists. How much neo-nazism is there, who cares. They do talk about a peril that the 'white race' is in, on how Western culture is based on race and so on. They are fixated with race and identity politics.
Quoting Judaka
At least after this representation it should be obvious that Jordan Peterson isn't a spokesperson of the alt-right and yes, they the alt-right really do want to co-opt him (why otherwise this bizarre speech about interpreting Peterson by a third person).
Yet it's very difficult to talk about the right in a unified way when you have a total idiot seen as the captain of the ship.
I'm always open to criticism, and often change my mind on things.
I don't mind if you poke a hole or two in any of my posts, and I will see if I can counter the poke, or agree with it.
White supremacists certainly don't agree but I don't see the point in arguing with you. What you're saying has actually nothing to do with the topic NKBJ, this isn't a thread about white privilege or whether whiteness is celebrated. Those are difficult topics that you can make your own thread about if you wish.
Watch the video or don't, don't give me half-assed comments. As for Einstein, I didn't realise Jews being a distinct ethnicity was a controversial subject, it is not relevant to my OP so I'll drop it. I don't even know what NKBJ is getting at or how it relates to this thread.
I don't draw the ethnic lines, I let others do that for me, as westerners we are often ignorant of different ethnicities in Africa and the middle east but the people living there aren't. The middle east as you know is a far cry from a peaceful place, there are many ethnic disputes causing wars that are being waged, not just historically but they're going on right now.
I do not know if it is accurate to say that Islam has unified the various ethnicities in the middle east, I don't think that's even close to true. Clearly, when I am naming continents, I am using a broad brush but the reason I said the alt-right had ideas which had to be contended with is that race is just significant to most people on Earth and for good reason. I don't think people are being pessimistic enough about racism, it's not as simple as disliking people who are different from you.
The alt-right are not being bested by the attitudes in the middle east, I think you'll find that the alt-right is considered more repugnant because of factors beyond the fundamental attitudinal differences towards race with other ethnic groups outside of Anglo-Saxon whites. Namely that the West is already filled with minorities, that the West is hypersensitive to white supremacy and that many in the West don't even recognise non-white racism to begin with.
White supremacy has a meaning, the alt-right are completely fixated on race and identity politics but they are not, for the most part, unconcerned with the superiority, equality or inferiority of the white race compared to other races. What links the alt-right is "white land for white people" - essentially.
I don't know that I even understand what your post is talking about, I just saw the word "maybe" too often and thought this isn't going anywhere.
I refer to your comments about liberals. I have not chosen the level of analysis for race or skin colour, the two are interchangeable when the skin colours are different for the most part. The alt-right care about "white" races, wherever they are found. I can only respond to what others have determined to be relevant to them, personally, I aim to limit the interpretative relevance of race as much as I can. Things become tricky when we start talking about culture and how well it can be divorced from race.
yes, I find it best to be vague when I am not sure. 'maybe' just means I suggest it for debate.
Too often people are too sure of themselves..
It's ridiculous that you don't seem to be able to understand the connection.
But this seems to speak in favor of the notion that considering ethnicity "interpretatively relevant" is a bad idea, regardless of any hypocrisy in arguing that point.
Quoting Judaka
That race is significant to most people on earth is a brute fact, and not denied by anyone as far as I can see. That this is so "for good reason" is an entirely different claim, and one for which you have not provided an argument.
Quoting Judaka
Psychologically, it boils down to that though. Certainly it's very difficult to avoid altogether.
Quoting Judaka
I am sorry, but I cannot make heads or tails of that sentence. Could you rephrase?
Quoting Judaka
An odd statement to make and slip into a sentence. What does "being filled with minorities" even mean? "The West" has, for the most part, still a clearly discernable majority population.
Quoting Judaka
This may be true, but as I have pointed out there are historical reasons for why this is the case. Ignoring that context isn't honest.
They’d agree? No idea what you mean here? There is only technically ONE human race. The term “race” has become so commonly misused that it is in social circles the same meaning “culture”. All humans are a member of the same species (that is a biological/genetic fact).
The problems arise when people conflate the social use (common parse and sociological jargon) with the scientific term. I meant “cultural race” as in “sociological jargon” in order to differentiate from the actually technical scientific meaning.
In that case you’re mistaken on two counts. I didn’t type either “liberal” or “west”? I think as you’ve replied to several different posts that you’ve moxed up what I said with another - no bother, you did at least make the effort to reply to everyone so well done :)
Anyway, the matter of “race” and “skin tone” being synonymous is blatantly wrong. “Culture” is admittedly a loaded term, but give that the term “race” used in this manner has literally no genetic grounding it is about cultural traditions not outward appearances. You even get americans insisting they are Irish even though they’ve never been to Ireland and East Africans insisting they are arabs. This disjoint happens within and across different arbitrary groups.
The idea of Black and/or White culture is, as you seemed to hint at as well, utterly ridiculous. That is not to say that ancestory is not worth thinking about only that ancestory of skin tone is plainly a misplaced concept given that someone can appear “white” and yet have “black” grandparents (or vice versa).
The real differences are the geographical locations and cultural traditions - which vary, as with genetics, much more within any given demographic than they do between them.
The routine racism espoused by 'minority groups' doesn't deserve the free pass it gets.
The individual is the ultimate minority. The West already figured that out and will need to do so again.
You've hit me with white blindness, white privilege, white=normal and so on. These are all condescending, ideological assertions which make me really wonder about where your head is.
This thread is about whether the strong criticism of the alt-right is unreasonably not also directed at ethnic minorities because they treat alt-right differently because it's white. That isn't entirely racist, there are legitimate reasons to fear white ethnocentricism above other forms but I wanted to discuss whether or not it is the case that the alt-right is worse because they're white.
You are kind of proving that it's true because again, it is advantageous in almost any country outside the West to belong to the majority. Where that's not true, there is still a privileged ethnicity. The only culture in the world that comes close at all to some degree of fairness is the West. Are you asking me to be ashamed that we're not perfect? The west isn't perfect, everyone else is fucked and what we're left with is that the ethnic minorities in the west are spotless. They aren't racist, they aren't ethnocentric, they don't view ethnicity to be interpretatively significant? That's obviously not true, so the question remains, what's going on here? Why do we always look at the white examples of the making race interpretatively important and celebrate it when minorities do the exact same thing?
Quoting I like sushi
So here, you've reference liberals and I assume you are talking about the West or a country in the west.
As for race vs skin colour, I said they're synonymous when the skin colour is different and that's only for some people like the alt-right for example. The alt-right sees a "white" race and white means your skin colour. I am with you on how absurd the whole thing is but I am trying to talk in terms that make sense for the alt-right.
I don't know what that is referring to, though. What is it that they're arguing that most other "ethnic groups" take for granted?
Is the reason that anyone criticizes the alt-right because "it is white"?
I was just quoting your use. You said “many liberals” and I questioned that by saying I thought it could be more due to SOME. I was not referring to any particular geographic location, maybe you were(?), as my point was about how things can be blown up by a few authoritarian types (wherever they lie on the political rainbow on nonsense :)).
Here's how Wikipedia describes "Alt-right."
The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loosely connected and somewhat ill-defined[1] grouping of American white supremacists/white nationalists, white separatists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, neo-Confederates, Holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists and other far-right[2] fringe hate groups.[3] The alt-right intersects with, and partially emerged from, the ideas and rhetoric of men's rights activists,[4] many but not all of whom have come to embrace the alt-right's platform.[5]
That doesn't sound like "arguing for essentially exactly the same thing that most other ethnical groups take for granted."
But I've seen the term applied to much more benign groups, e.g. believers in a return to small "r" republican or small town virtues or religious conservatives. Problem is, organizations are typically called Alt-right by people who don't like them.
I love how you're the pot calling the kettle black here, Mr. Can'tHaveAConversationWithoutCondescendingRemarks.
More specifically, I'm charging society at large of these things. I have yet to see you show how these aren't true. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can't prove them false.
Quoting Judaka
I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm talking about awareness, or rather lack thereof. Shaming is a figment of your (guilty?) imagination.
Quoting Judaka
There are perhaps some who'd like white people never to celebrate whiteness. But I'll repeat what I said in my first response: the Alt-Right is not frowned upon for liking whiteness or white culture, it's that they hate all others. Same reason, I might add, people don't like some of what the black power movement under Malcolm X became: anti-white.
Then they are not interested in ethnicity, and so a parallel cannot be drawn between them and people who celebrate their ethnicity or culture. Ethnicity is not skin colour, else the ethnic conflicts that plagued Europe since the year dot would not have happened.
Nobody of non-northern European ancestry celebrates their 'brownness', so the claim by the alt-right that pale-skinned people are the only ones that don't celebrate their skin colour is pure nonsense. In fact the alt-right are almost the only ones that do identify it as a source of pride, and rather than celebrate it, they just spew hate on people with different skin tones.
so you think if a 'white' person from the west stood in a crowded market in DRC, or any such country in Africa and stated that there is no such thing as race, and had a placard that said similar, that you'd get general agreement from the people there?
Where will you put Pat Buchanan on your map? He specifically frames the replacement of "our" culture in terms of demographics. "Our" way of life will disappear if too many other kinds of people take part in it. The most casual reader of alt-right language can spot this feature popping up like zits in a bad complexion.
I take your point that rejections of this thesis can be racist in expression and intent. But the lack of celebration of ethnicity you wonder at is entangled in the matter of who gets to be free by default. There have been free blacks and whites since we stole this place from the previous inhabitants. Only the blacks could be slaves. There is no document that made that a matter of law. How did that absence not lead to confusion about fundamental rights? Was the truth as self-evident as the conditions given to us by our Creator?
I doubt they would be interested in the placard. Why should it matter to them what you think about an abstract, not to mention scientifically unsound, concept such as race that plays no role in their everyday life, since everyone around them is of the same 'race'?
I expect they'd be more interested in satisfying their curiosity as to why you are there, where you are from and would you like to buy something.
I have never heard anybody say they are ashamed of white culture, and can't see why anybody would.
What's to be ashamed of in classical music, the canon of Western literature, yuletide festivities and Yorkshire pudding?
No, of course no one would be ashamed of those things, especially Yorkshire pudding. The shame was directed at the history and the things they focused on like slavery, war, Hiroshima, male patriarchy, things they feel are endemic to Western culture alone. I’m not sure what other term for ‘white culture’ should be used. It’s not helpful and as usual the whole conversation gets bogged down in meanings. I lean towards this definition:
“Most historians agree that the concept of Western culture emerged with the Ancient Greeks. The Greeks were the first to build what has come to be called Western civilization. They developed democracy, and made critical advances in science, philosophy, and architecture.” https://study.com/academy/lesson/modern-western-culture-social-life.html
Very simplistic, I know, but this is where I become reluctant to get into terms like ‘white’. And I have used it which I regret.
Are you being antagonistic? I am basically saying that all humans are humans. There are not subspecies. The term “race” is commonly used out of it’s scientific context. That is all I was saying.
There is no such thing as “white” or “black” culture. It is like saying I’m ashamed or proud or ashamed of people under six feet tall, or people with short fingers.
I think you could say there is such a thing as black culture, and blacks would claim that as well. But I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing when we say culture.
“Prior to his pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm X believed that African Americans must develop their own society and ethical values,” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_nationalism
“African cultures, slavery, slave rebellions, and the civil rights movement have shaped African-American religious, familial, political, and economic behaviors.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_culture
It’s interesting that a culture may not necessarily develop from positive experiences, but also negative.
So let’s assume black culture has evolved from the above experiences into some Phoenix like experience, the same could be said about the evolution of “Western ” society, including all its negatives, into something positive.
I imagine you’re referring to ONE specific cultural identity of people in a particular geographical location? If you visit Africa you’d find a whole array of different cultural attitudes, ans most of the people there would be referred to as “black,” and I find it kind of silly to refer to a very large and dispersed proportion of the human race as having a homogeneous culture. If we actually look into the science of things the meaning is reduced further as there is a greater (and we’re talking miniscule to be clear here) genetic difference within any given group than there is between groups - scientifically varified fact.
Culture is certainly a loaded term. Generally speaking culture includes arts, tradition, history, and religion. The most telling factor in culture is language. More than anything language gives is a cultural identity because it has all of the previous items embedded within it.
The conflation of the two difference uses of “race” is an ongoing political problem. I think it’ll become less and less significant over this century but we’ll no doubt find some other arbitrary difference to focus on instead.
I think a term can have a scientific context as well as a cultural one, like the word 'theory'; science doesn't own that word, or related use.
I asked the question about the DRC, because it is my feeling that the people there really would think of you as belonging to a different race, away from all the western discussion about whether there is such a thing as race.
Then I’m not sure how to refer to “Western Civilisation”. If I’m allowed to refer to it at all?
Maybe this is the problem we all have, with the meaning of culture.
Well, that’s much more easier given that it’s based on a European tradition generally extending from ancient Greek and Roman rule. Europe grew from a judeo-christian foundation extended from ancient Greece and Rome. Religious or not all Europeans, and colonies thereafter, are further extensions of this political landscape.
Of course there is always some crossover. Perhaps the biggest global influence was the Mongol Empire I expect. Literally changed the face of the planet and somehow Europe was left relativley untouched by the largest ever single-bodied empire to have existed. And there is certainly a degree of absorption regarding how traditions spread through history.
Again, the most telling delineation is in language. “Western culture” in this sense can be roughly shown to include the romance and germanic languages, with a bit of slavic thrown in. This also translates a little into differences within Europe regarding history and art. Europe is tiny though.
Feels like you’re trying to trip me up? What exactly is your concern?
No, it’s okay, I’m not trying to trip you up. I’m just following a train of thought and letting others contribute.
Part of what I’m thinking is that the extreme alt-right is concerned with colour as their reference, not really knowing anything of culture in the sense I mean, so of course it’s going to lead to disaster. But those who refer to Western Civilsation in terms of culture, are not necessarily doing it in a racist way.
That is where many appear to have been duped. Due to the conflation of terms (“race” used by those stoking hatred in a non-compatible dualist manner - as “cultural” and “biological”) the less astute and investigative individual can easily fall prey to a misconception where one “race” is deemed superior to another. This problem seems embedded in the English language though so I don’t think there is a great deal we can do about it at the moment. Given that government surveys and censuses have a bix to tick for “race” doesn’t really help the matter - yet this is also in place to monitor possible inequalities imposed due to prejudices over someone’s mere biological appearance (and therein lies another porblem involving the misuse of stats to supposedly “prove” this or that side of some given argument/agenda).
There is also a sense of western guilt being play upon. Somehow people feel responsible for their “tribe”; both dead and living! Then there is this abhorrent political use of “privilege” as some kind of smear. I think I expressed this clearly enough elsewhere on this forum and don’t think I can improve upon that point any better here - no one, if I remember correctly, repsonded to what I wrote so not quite sure if there was any particular disagreement with it, but I’m aware there are aspects and individual instances that can be looked at more closely.
On the plus side humanity has plenty to keep itself occupied! :D
I find posters, generally, only respond when they disagree. Agreement doesn’t seem to be so much fun.
Do doubt some baby has been lost with the bathwater along the way. We appear to be muddling through okay at the moment though. The massive change we’re going through is certainly making everyone a little nervous though (at least anyone who can slightly appreciate the gigantic steps humanity has taken over the past few dozen decades!).
I disagree! ;)
Of course, thank you.
Alt-right speakers I've listened to talk about the sanctity of white cultures, of white people having indispensable value, of white people banding together and thinking collectively. They want to secure the survival of their whites and the lands traditionally owned by whites. They want to be proud to be white, for their governments to prioritise whites over other ethnicities as the main citizens of the land. They feel the alternative is to reduce them to statistics in their performances economically, educationally and how they contribute to society.
My main challenge to people is to ask, not whether this is a good way to think or not but to discuss the prevalence of this way of thinking among ethnic groups outside of the Anglo-Saxon white citizens of Western nations. I would argue that the vast, vast majority of nations outside the West have cultures that can be characterised by alt-right thinking. Secondly, I would argue that outside of Anglo-Saxon whites in the West, all ethnic groups think like the alt-right, sometimes less extremely and sometimes more.
I am asking if this is really consistent from a philosophical perspective or whether the alt-right are being subjected to higher standards or greater suspicion and fear, primarily because of their white skin. My objective isn't to then go easier on the alt-right, it's to be more critical of all individuals who find race/ethnicity to be interpretatively important in the same ways the alt-right do.
I'm not completely against talking about the alt-right as those things and I know that some of the alt-right contains some of those things but I think it's overblown due to the media and the left trying to use the alt-right as a tag to destroy moderates and right-wing speakers. I'm dealing with a different understanding of the alt-right than this definition you've given, if I accepted the wiki page as my understanding of the alt-right then I would agree that other ethnicities are not doing similar things to what has been listed.
Here's a video along the lines of what I'm talking about : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3MvOSyE0ow
As I've said earlier in this thread, it seems to me that there are some problems that exist which will lead to those fears of a culture being dissolved by a higher proportion of different ethnicities to be accurate. The big one you're being extremely guilty of and that's ethnic histories, whereby because you're white and because someone else is black, there's a three-hundred-year-old story for the both of us that paints us as enemies. Can a black-skinned American think back to the origins of Western culture and associate with it despite the difference in ethnic heritage? If the answer is no, that's a serious problem. Black-skinned Americans in my view, should be taking responsibility for slavery just as much as a white person should, why? Because ostensibly they're both Americans and they're both living in the extension of the culture that practised slavery.
Provided people who come to the west, irrespective of their ethnic origins, cannot relate with western origins or western history but rather relate to their own ethnic histories then how can we think the west will not change by having the current ethnic "white" history with the other ethnic histories? There are more problems than just this but I think we we have to be realistic also. African-Americans don't resemble any African culture, they are assimilated and only a few problems remain.
Personally, if Australia, where I live, became inhabited by mostly those of Asian descent in X hundred years then I would have no problem with this provided I could relate with their Australianness. Let enslavery based on ethnicity, or anything based on ethnicity, become a thing of the past. That's what I want.
There are plenty of places where people work hard to preserve their culture. France springs to mind, where, so I am told, they have a government department that works to prevent the intrusion of English words into the language. This is fairly successful, as can be seen by comparing the large number of English words in Canadian French to the very small number used in French French.
The Jews are another group that work hard to preserve their culture, again with considerable success.
I expect there are many other examples of preservation of culture.
But as we have established, the alt-right don't care about culture. They only care about ancestry and skin colour.
You say that fixation is prevalent throughout the world and is regarded as perfectly acceptable except when it is whites. I suggest you provide an example of it, because I can't think of any. When such attitudes do arise they are condemned - for example the discrimination against Dalits in India, which is against the law, although it still happens.
I have been asked this many times in the past, I heard about her and objectivism after forming most of my opinions on this and so I suppose my answer is no. That being said, the similarities between what she says and my views is enough that one could roughly inform themselves about my views by reading her work. I won't talk too extensively about my views on individualism here, it is a subject I feel very strongly about though and I dislike collective thinking in pretty much every context, only exceptions being ones which create responsibilities to do good but even they're walking a tightrope.
France is part of the West, I am not entirely knowledgeable about Israel but somehow I imagine they do care about maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel but that's a more complicated subject.
China, Japan, South Korea are nations which are wealthy like the West, you'd assume people would want to go there but they're some of the most ethnically homogeneous nations in the world.
Many countries in the middle east are infamous for their treatment of workers from India and Africa. Most of the nations there are not easy to immigrate to and any lack of ethnic hegemony can be explained historically.
Africa and South America are notoriously having difficulties with racism and tribalism, you see the same in many countries in Eastern Europe who for the most part are also trying to maintain their ethnic hegemony. Countries in SEA are often ethnically diverse but once again, extremely racist countries with very complicated situations. India is the same once again, it's not like there's no celebration of culture, my thread was never about a celebration of culture to begin with but the ways in which people are looking through a collectivist, racial lens which is similar to the alt-right.
I would say Jews in the West are another example of alt-right thinking but it appears the Jewish race is a controversial topic so I won't bother talking about that. If you want to try to go specifically into something to analyse it more deeply, pick a country and we can do some research..
I have no interest in discussing the validity of your claims, I disagree with the way you've framed the topic to begin with. What you're saying only makes sense from a racial lens, which I don't subscribe to. You're looking to explain things in racially motivated terms which may or may not actually be relevant to explaining something like the representation in statistics of various subjects.
Ethnicity to me is the most visible way to interpret differences between people, it's also the least subjective and the most simple. If you really wanted to talk about the innate advantages one individual has over another, there would be so many things that you could focus on. Height, attractiveness, athleticism, intelligence, wealth and those are just similarly obvious and apparent ones. You could choose to become fixated on something neurological, hormonal or specific nurture cases like family circumstances, traumatic events, addictions or whatever else. The opportunities for you are endless.
There are many in this forum who choose to talk only about race and race whenever they can, you won't hear these individuals talk about something else. They bring it up in circumstances where they didn't have to, it's a fixation, an obsession. I call it an interpretative state, whereby you explain the meaning of everything using the same interpretative argument and for you, perhaps that's "this person belongs to this race". When I tell you I'm white, you've got a whole story for me don't you? You've got so much to say, you could write a small paper on it. Well, I don't like that. I seek to discredit your way of thinking, I won't contend with it by using your fixation on race.
If you can point out a particular example of racism then we're on the same team, I don't like any example of people using race to inform themselves about people. I will not deal with your race fixation, that's exactly what I'm challenging in this thread.
Except that basically the whole "white/caucasian" discourse is very American. In my country it's very strange and basically just imported here.
The reason is obvious. If you would make the distinction so popular in the US (and UK) of people being 'white' and basically 'coloured' or 'non-European', you would get highly unpopular statistics for the alt-right types: the population in Finland would be 97,8% whites and 2,2% 'coloured'. Naturally nobody uses this kind of division. The authorities (and the likely majority of people) would see this division as extremely racist and for the alt-right agitators promoting the idea of 'white' people being in peril here is ludicrous when whites consist of nearly 98% of the population. No, as the biggest ethnic minorities are (in order) Russians, Estonians and Swedes (which shouldn't be confused to Swedish speaking Finns, actually) are basically 'white', the discourse is simply about the evil foreigners.
First and foremost, Europeans have been are still are racist towards each other. The idea of 'whiteness' being something unifying is as strange as being black in Africa.
I might be wrong but that's what Judaka is arguing against and he's arguing against it being done by other races/cultures which seems to be acceptable by so many people but is wrong of the alt right.
I shouldn't have said "for good reason" but rather the reasons for why they think race is important are fairly self-evident when you consider the relationship between culture and race that exists across the globe. Particularly when co-operation is required between ethnic groups which subscribe to different ways of thinking, it does become something more complicated than "disliking" the others. The alt-right who want to preserve white, western culture as they see it, do not have to dislike those who are immigrating to the west, many do subscribe to a belief in ethnocentric states whereby they support nations like Japan and South Korea for maintaining ethnic hegemony and want that same thing for themselves.
It's not easy to separate the beliefs of a culture (often tied to an ethnicity) and that ethnicity. Islam is the most terrifying example in my view, because it's literally an optional religion but still, criticism of it is considered hate speech and racist. I haven't been able to read the news here in Australia because of the NZ mosque shootings leading people to use that tragedy as a political means to shut down discussion about Islam and immigration. Clearly, the problems of Islam and some lunatics who shot down a lot of innocent people have nothing to do with each other but that's the way some people think.
I wouldn't argue that being scared of the alt-right because of sensitivity to racism from white people is inconsistent but rather that I am not aware of this kind of criticism of the alt-right. If we agreed that the problem with the alt-right compared to other kinds of ethnocentric political views is that the alt-right is white then I'd be satisfied with that. That is not really the answer I want to bring to people though, it's to ask whether we should extend the criticism of the alt-right to others both outside of and within the West. That is what I want and it would be undermined if we just admitted that it's fine unless you've got a history of offences such as but not limited to 18th, 19th and 20th-century racism perpetuated by whites.
Your conclusions are the same as mine.
Oh, I agree, the alt-rights views about the "white race" are absurd. It is clearly a reactionary movement to recent events portrayed on the media. In Australia, racism towards the Greeks and Italian immigrants occurred when they started immigrating here and now they're pretty much part of the family and the alt-right here doesn't even distinguish between them and other white ethnicities. I am clearly generalising when talking about "Anglo-Saxon whites thinking differently than the alt-right" and I apologise for that but I think it's necessary for me to draw a distinction between standards for whites and other races because that's what I am criticising. The visibility of the ethnocentric ideologies and terminology is limited to when it's done by whites and whites self-regulate the prominence of this way of thinking and identify it as evil in their criticism of the alt-right. Though, I do not think they are innocent of treating race to be interpretatively relevant in other ways such as shown with NKBJ and Valentinius.
There are no similar expectations for other racial groups in the west, the expectations are that they are bringing their/have their own culture and history which will enrich the west and we need to respect their differences from us. I disagree with this idea, I want anyone who thinks race/ethnicity is interpretatively relevant and important to be criticised for it and not just the alt-right.
That's right.
But let’s assume other cultures aren’t actually like that. We still have is an element in our own society saying that if they were like that they would be entitled to. So it doesn’t matter if they are like that or not. What does matter is the hypocrisy of those people condemning the alt right for doing what they theoretically accept in others. Either way this is hypocrisy.
So who are these people and why are they saying these things?
What they do, and it’s obvious from all the virtual signalling going on here, is make it almost impossible to discuss rationally and turn it into an issue of racism.
The real issue is political hypocrisy.
I disagree, and in fact that is not even accurate historically.
Quoting Judaka
The alt-right is a rag tag group of whiny cry babies who also try and point fingers about others crying while they themselves cry.
"Jews will not replace us" remember?
Quoting Judaka
Hatred of the alt-right is deserving because death is the result or have you forgotten Charlottesville? Hatred of the alt-right stems from the fact that white nationalism has become dangerous masked by the idea that it is a benign ideology bent on isolationism.
Quoting Judaka
I against white supremacy, white nationalism, and the alt-right because nothing positive for the benefit of the human race has came out of such ideologies but irrational fear and ignorance.
Since my undertaking of internet forums as of late, I notice a lot of racially conscious young people who are often ignorant of race intersectionality. One thing I do notice about Caucasians that many are not aware (both unintentional and intentional) of their own privilege and their own racial prejudices and biases.
Due to centuries of European colonialism
Colonialism? As if there weren't states in Africa before colonial times? Tribalism especially in the African context is just a condescending way to describe a similar phenomenon like patriotism and nationalism.
The thing is when you say things like this:
You leave the door wide ope for less savoury types. Most, if not all, people are unaware of the privileges they possess. All people hold some version of prejudice towards something or someone for various partially justified and/or unjustified reasons.
Also:
In response to:
Well, no. That is not to say colonnial rule was by any means all happy smiling faces and a joyous exchange of cultural ideas and values! Human actively has played out pretty much in the same on a global scale. Some differences here and there, and there is a benefit to having a tribal mentality that,, sadly, just hasn’t transitioned with us well as civilizations developed. Some civlizations met with a nasty end due to invasion, subjugation, disease and famine (brought on by natural events sometimes) and, of course, war.
“Race” is a bigger talking point today because it’s become a political tool, in fact it seems to have been coined in order to push this or that political argument - politics is a dirty business. Politicizing scientific theories has never turned out to be a good idea as far as I can see.
Young people in general are ignorant. It’s called “youth”
The reason why it is inherently wrong is the same reason why certain arguments from men's rights groups can be wrong: thinking that equity is oppression. The basis of the alt-right is to maintain systemic racism by allowing whites to remain on top in all sectors of society. If we look at history European colonialists from Britain, Spain, France, Portugal, and others have all had an advantage through colonizing various lands and exploiting various cultures. Eurocentrism, and Eurocentric standards of beauty has conditioned many indigenous groups that "white is right," and that darker skin complexions and primordial religions, and indigenous beliefs are all superstition and that the culture of the white man has been indoctrinated in all these occupied cultures convincing them that their culture is primitive.
So when progressive change happens and fight for equality happens and when these disenfranchised groups learn self-love and develop schools, groups to represent their concerns to level the playing field, to the majority, whites this seems unfair. People forget whites had centuries upon centuries of benefits which propelled many of their citizens ahead of the game. Systemic racism has very often told minorities that their culture is primitive and that their phenotype is cursed using God as a proxy to condemn them. So in retrospect the alt-right is concerned with maintaining white identity not as a source of it going away, but to maintain an advantage over others.
Africa has countries, not states for one. Two, tribalism is a lot different than how the early Europeans came and how they treated indigenous tribes. These are false equivalencies you're presenting.
This is not the full picture. In most societies, where manual labour was deemed below the given aristocracy in power, people were judged by their skin tone as an indication of being a “mere” labourer rather than of some apparent “nobler blood,” or some such nonsense. It’s not merely about colonnialism.
Tell that to Obama.
Sure many people are not aware of their privileges, but we aren't talking about many, I'm talking specifically about white people. For example a friend of mine invited another guy out who he knew for a long time. While we were drinking and making small talk, my friend's companion felt comfortable enough to tell me "hey, say white power" as if it was funny and relevant to the discussion we had. Suffice to say I was offended, but he wasn't and felt at the time there was no harm in telling someone of color to say white power in a joking manner. To him it wasn't harmful because he wasn't the target. In my life I find many Caucasians oblivious to the things they say and do, and I believe these behaviors are the result of being represented for a long time in society. I believe that when these harmful jokes, and comments are made they are inconsiderate to the pains of others which by in large is the result of the comfort they have due to their own privilege in society.
Quoting I like sushi
You misunderstand my point. The same way Indians from India have an issue with internal colorism is the same way South Americans have an issue with how they see each other. Historical European colonialism has influenced many cultures to essentially hate themselves. Not just by placing unjust systems to prevent equality, but to convince people that their way of life and who they are is the result of their own failures because of WHO they are as a culture.
Obama is irrelevant to the discussion.
Typical.
You use the example of Israel preferring Jews, but that is not a valid example because Judaism is a cultural affiliation (including religion as an aspect of culture), and has nothing to do with ancestry or skin colour - as I pointed out above.
The other examples you gave - tribal feuds in Africa, Eastern Europe and South America, mistreatment of Africans and Indians in the Middle East, are not examples of 'accepted racism'. The words you use to describe them - 'infamous', 'difficulties', 'hegemony' - reflect how those attitudes and behaviours are criticised around the world. So they are not examples of behaviour like the alt-right's being regarded as acceptable when it manifests amongst non-Europeans. Those behaviours are decried just as is that of the alt-right, just as both should be.
I would add that, abhorrent as I find tribalism, whether in Africa, Eastern Europe or Northern Ireland, at least it has some theoretical coherence about it. It's basically about recent ancestry. The alt-right doesn't even have that. They just hate people with darker skin tones, plus anybody that is Jewish or Muslim, even if they have fair skin.
Sigh....I take it you're unfamiliar with African diaspora...History and evidence has shown it is about colonialism....I point to the letter of King Leopold II:
"The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the n*****s to know God, this they know already. They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know.
They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have to keep watch on dis-interesting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you.
Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It’s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their war fetish – warfare protection – which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear."
See more:https://www.africanglobe.net/africa/letter-king-leopold-ii-colonial-missionaries-heading-africa-1883/
How is that response meant to be taken by me?
Obama doesn’t seem to have been affected by your theory, that’s my point.
Because in my post I'm specifically targeting the experiences of people of color in particular African people and you're telling me, a person of color and of African origin that it is not the full picture when in my experience and in historical fact, it is.
Yes he has, look at his presidency....No other president has ever been challenged by their origin. No other president has ever faced such racial backlash as Obama. He was not privilege in the slightest sense when it came to "race." His name was questioned. His religion was questioned. His country of origin was questioned.
Trump has a wife who abused the immigration system yet Obama had to produce a birth certificate...
And how things are portrayed in the global media is mimicked in the regional and national level, even if it doesn't fit the local situation.
I've come to the conclusion that the most simple way to look at this is that people tolerate foreingers and ethnic minorities, if these contribute financially to the society.
Nobody hates tourists. Everybody understands that tourist bring money to a society, create jobs and hence they are tolerated, even if they can be annoying. Yet if foreigners (or ethnic minorities) seem to be not contributing to the system, but exploiting the work of others, then the ugly head of xenophobia and racism appear. And if foreigners outright exploit the society in such way that they can be described as stealing the wealth, then they are foreign occupiers. And then the young men rise up in arms and there is absolutely no tolerance for the foreign entity, which basically is an enemy.
The above explains most of what is now described as an anti-immigration movement in Europe. You can call it xenophobia, racism or nativism, but the underlying issue is the same. This even describes ethnic tensions in other places where a small minority has become prosperous and seems to be 'running the place': there the nativist discourse is about the foreign minority 'exploiting' the majority.
Those that truly cherish racism and racist ideas are typically an odd, small but vocal minority themselves.
State is a totally valid synonym for country: a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.
To think of Africa consisting of 'indigenous tribes' when Europeans came is again a typical condescending view. What kind of tribe as you call it was "Ethiopia" or the "Ottoman Empire"?
Indigenous meaning, originating from a specific place or native. Are we really getting into a play with words now? If you want to call a country a state whatever.
Quoting ssu
Which Ethiopian tribes? Somali? Tigraway? Oromo?
Ottoman Empire? Turkic people? Khazars? What the heck is your point because it's confusing?
Seems that you indeed are confused.
The thing is that the Ottoman Empire and Ethiopia did exist as sovereign states. And they were not the only states existing in Africa in the 19th Century. Italy actually fought both of them and once got beaten by Ethiopia in 1896. Hence the idea that Europeans invaded Africa and fought there just indigenous tribes is either an ignorant or a condescending view or both.
I find that idea extremely dubious--that that is a common, unchallenged way to think at present, and the supposed evidence you give of it after the post above is very sketchily circumstantial at best.
I was referring to the “sigh” and my assumed ignorance (which is fair enough I have enough of it!)
Anyway, the point that in other parts of the world skin tone and social standing is not only down to some colonnial influence. You didn’t actually specify you were talking about Africa and it doesn’t detract from the point I was making regardless of this - if am mistaken then I guess it’s just a habit of mine to look at things in relation to each other and over all.
To return to the post I was questioning:
I was referring to the “some indigenous groups” when I commented about manual labour in the fields in the east and far east. In Africa this obviously doesn’t count (at least beyond North Africa). I’m not sure about ideas of “beauty” either. I would expect if some people’s come and invade, take over your land and start lording over you that inevitably you would want to be in their position rather than your own and therefore mimic them to gain favour. That seems like a more than reasonable psychological hypothesis. Not going to deny that.
I do think that once a people comes to your door with advances in technology and new ideas that one is somewhat likely to be interested and intrigued. Sadly such honeymoon periods were quickly ended by animalistic greed pretty much throughout the colonies. No doubt broadcasting from the US has set a certain standard of “beauty,” which is now, and has been for a while, pushing back towards less typically prominent Caucasian features.
I am not talking about the alt-right as synonymous to racism, I've laid out their views in this thread. I am scared now, if I was talking about racism, you think I would have difficulty demonstrating the existence of racism across the world? What I am saying is that there are a lot of similarities between the east Asian countries trying to maintain ethnic hegemony and what the alt-right want, similarities between the alt-right wanting whites to be prioritised in "white" countries over non-whites in the same way that governments across the world prioritise their majority races.
You disagree Anglo-Saxon whites are sensitive to interpretations based on ethnicity or that other ethnicities/races aren't sensitive to it?
As for your other comments, a lot of people are criticising you for being historically inaccurate but I don't care about that for this topic. I have a problem with you claiming that whites are responsible for things that happened before their lifetime purely because they're white. This idea of ethnic history is a huge problem in so far as negating the interpretative relevance of race, not to mention it doesn't make much sense to blame individuals for the actions of groups they belong to. I think that is an appalling way to think.
So either you're blaming people who have been dead for a long time or you're blaming people for crimes on the basis of their ethnic heritage. If it's the former, listen, it is the way it is, the cause doesn't change that and I don't see what changes based on whether we accept your beliefs or reject them.
You'll have to be more specific, I don't know what you're rejecting. I don't think I even gave any evidence in your quote. I have explained those positions in posts to others but I'm happy to extrapolate on and provide reasoning for whatever you find contentious.
I think you're correct, though the alt-right is specifically saying that they don't want people to be viewed purely in terms of what they bring to the economy because of how that minimalises the importance of preserving the white race and the individual cultures under it.
Correct. Hence why I wrote "the supposed evidence you give of it after the post above"
I'm talking about the actual British, Portuguese, and other European influences in the countries of Africa. I'm referring to people involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade stop deflecting. How about reading this
https://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/143/139
I disagree with the whole notion you presented with the alt-right. The alt-right are fear mongering cowards who are pandering to the idea that whites are in danger of being replaced due to low birth rate and the evolution of progressivism. The point is the alt-right wants to maintain white superiority, period...
Quoting Judaka
A lot of people aren't criticizing me. I just informed an individual on what I was referring to, next!
Quoting Judaka
I never said that, how about quote me specifically on exactly where I said that.....
Quoting Judaka
If you say so, but historical facts speak for themselves.
Quoting Judaka
I never specified a blame. How about stop jumping the gun and falsely interpret what I said and actually quote what I said. I gave an overall historical account why the alt-right is a fringe group that is not accepted. As far as I see it, its a bunch of whiny white dudes complaining about other people regarding multiculturalism and claiming other groups need safe spaces yet tout the idea of segregation because they want their own safe space themselves, sounds like a hypocritical band of nut jobs.
Quoting Judaka
The alt-right want the United States to go back to being a "white country" ergo, they want whites to go back to having all benefits and maintaining the privileges. This is why they marched on the college campus stating "jews will not replace us." The alt-right feel the Jews economically and socially are influencing society replacing their control over society. I don't even know what a "white country" is anymore. The United States will never be a white country and by 2040 whites will be the minority in the United States. If the alt-right is so concerned perhaps they need to go back to Europe and start their utopia there.
All in all, my point of reference was in regards to the psychological affect of European colonial influence. I'm not interested in revisiting history, I'm more concerned about how people of color over this planet saw themselves after they've been influenced by European colonialism, from the Indians to the Africans to the South Americans.
Quoting I like sushi
No. But it seems common place that when I'm actually explaining the direct issue and giving a historical background all the responses are far left going way back in history. This gives me the impression many of you aren't really familiar with African diaspora and how European colonialism played a part in the causality of what we are currently discussing. This redirection of yours is basically going to lead us into the "whataboutism."
I disagree with a lot of things you've said in this thread and others, but none more than this. Maybe, maybe, you could make this outrageous statement and expect to be taken seriously if black people were treated with the respect and given the opportunities they deserve.
A few months ago, I started a very angry discussion when I said that white people don't like black people. They don't trust them or feel comfortable with them. Whether or not you believe that's true, in my experience many black people do. To me it's obvious, although I recognize to others it is not. Until that changes, saying black people are responsible for slavery is, as I said, outrageous.
Okay, why did you bring up that racial intolerance in South America and Africa are the fault of European colonialism? You're telling me that you had no intentions of blaming any group for this?
The historical facts do not speak for themselves, you've interpreted their meaning and you've interpreted that individuals should be held accountable for the actions of people of a similar race or ancestry. I would have no problems calling this racism.
As for your views about the alt-right, you aren't really making an effort, I don't want to talk about them with you.
Yeah sorry, I don't know what the "the post above" refers to.
Yes, it's very clear that you and I come from very different perspectives. First of all, I don't really believe that either white or black people should be taking responsibility for slavery, the people who perpetuated and practised it are long dead. If you think that as Americans, who are the continuation of a culture that practised slavery, you should be taking some form of responsibility for that (not seeing yourself as responsible, big difference) then it shouldn't be on the basis of your skin colour but because you are an American.
If you would argue that white Americans should be taking responsibility for slavery but black people should consider themselves (as a group) victims of it then where does that kind of mentality stop? It's madness. You promote viewing things through a racial lens, you promote interpretations based on race, who are you helping?
If we've got problems in society then let's fix them for all citizens of the country, not taking their race into account at all, that's what a non-racist country would look like. The problem is that people just keep trying to racialise everything until a white American and a black American are distinct and separate things. That opens the door to all kinds of problems.
I want to reduce the interpretative relevance of race, for me, that means prioritising individual characteristic to inform yourself and form opinions about people rather than the groups they belong to. You can't do that while also piling on the ways people should think about things based on their race and the races of others.
To reiterate, I absolutely did not say black people were responsible for slavery, especially the black people who actually were slaves, that would have been an outrageous comment but it's not what I said.
American society and its people already see things through a racial lens. You can't just wave a rhetorical wand and make that go away. The consequences hurt black people much more than they do white people.
Quoting Judaka
The problem with that is that fixing the problems "for all citizens of the country" will never happen until people acknowledge the way things are.
Quoting Judaka
Again, you're waving the rhetorical wand.
We are without power and all I can do is aim to be the change I want to see in the world. Black people are just people with real problems, I hope those with the ability to reduce or fix those problems will do so, be they bodies of people or individuals. I hope people will individually limit the interpretative relevance they put into race and convince others to follow suit or condemn those who refuse to do so.
That's what I am doing now, imploring you to stop thinking in such racialised terms and see people as individuals and condemn you when you don't. It may not make much difference but I will do my part nonetheless.
As I said, in my opinion you can't make a credible effort to meet your goal unless you take into account racial conditions as they are now.
You misquoted.
I only wrote this line of the text you quoted:
If you made a list of problems for a race, I would rewrite the list as problems for citizens in America and then we would proceed to come up with solutions as best we could. If you gave specific examples of problems for people of a particular ethnicity, I would treat them as problems that a specific individual went through. As for things like racism, there are racist individuals and victims of racism but they're still all individuals.
You want racism to disappear while maintaining a racially motivated outlook but it goes against common sense. A lot of what you're saying literally only makes sense when looking at it from a racialised lens, when you treat poor black people as just poor people and black victims of police brutality as just victims of police brutality, things change dramatically, it can't be avoided. The problems of the race become the problems of the people.
But black people are often targeted by police BECAUSE they are black (see the official police policy in Ferguson, Missouri). It isn’t a problem for white people. Black people are targeted because they are perceived to belong to a group, which they indeed do belong to as a descriptive fact of society. Human brains group into categories. That’s evolution. You’re never going to completely do away with that. Also, what does your language including the terms “black people” and “white people” say about your brain?
You do realize you do this a lot? Someone tries to bring in a different perspective, widen the scope of your inquiry, and see the problem you're presenting from a wider, different angle, and you shoot them down because.... you can't wrap your head around it? You're too stubborn? You have a certain answer in mind that you want to drive home and you're not actually interesting in honest inquiry? In any case, not good philosophizing.
Quoting Judaka
Nope. I'm explaining the difference between the Alt-Right and the rest of white culture and why the AR and Nazis are vilified and not just seen as the equivalent of black/asian/hispanic/whatever pride.
Quoting Judaka
That's a load of horse manure. And that view of the world is in direct contradiction to this statement:
Quoting Judaka
And this one.
Quoting Judaka
Furthermore, I never said anything about using race to inform myself about anyone.
My specific argument is that white culture is seen as the normal culture, the "mainstream" culture, and thus we don't need any little sub-groups purporting to stand proudly for whites. Thus, anyone who does is suspicious.
Scratch some Alt-Right nut-job who says he just cares about pride in his own race, and you got a raving, racist lunatic who firmly agrees with the Endlösung.
All good. I’m only posted on this thread to see where Judaka was trying to take it. I think everyone appreciates the history of happened in the americas and how Africa was used - although I wish more knew about Brasil and the horrors that happened there.
Of course today the US takes the limelight fro obvious reasons (being the new global influence and therefore the main cultural drive).
It does seem that Judaka is attempting to put forward the possibility that some people who are called “alt-right”, and who may have called themselves “alt-right”, weren’t necessarily “racist”. I think there is some truth to this, yet if they still go around saying they are “alt-right” then they’re either oblivious as to what the term means now and how it doesn’t mean what they thought it did.
By this I simply mean that “right leaning” doesn’t mean “racist” anymore than “left leaning” does. Without a doubt today the “alt-right” are strongly tied to “white supremacy” (and it is possible that many find this to be a perversion of the original intent; if it wasn’t racist, but more about some protection of there culture).
As pointed out previously by someone the term “culture” is a difficult one unwrap. Across the globe cultures are shifting due to the homogenous nature the internet and global communications are bringing. It is not massively surprising to find people worrying about their sense of “identity” and I can appreciate that many Africans displaced unwilllingly in the colonial period had a hell of a time, if they survived.
What bothers me today is ease with which the term “race” is miscontrued to suit either some genetic argument or some cultural argument. I don’t see a way around this unfortunately as the confusion has become so embedded in colloquial speech that too many never givenit a second thought. My worry is that some trying to do good will unwittingly convey the wrong kind of message about “race”.
The post of yours that I quoted in that reply.
That is not what I said. I replied to your following comment:
"I don't like to talk about ethnicities as being interpretatively relevant but apart from individualists, the only ethnicity by and large that tries to ignore their ethnicity are Anglo-Saxon whites."
My reference to the "default" sense of humanity conferred to Anglo-saxons was to point out one way such "ignoring" is not what it seems. I should have emphasized that your observation regarding ethnicity is factually wrong when one considers the resistance to integration in education and the work place.
Quoting Judaka
They weren't given much of a choice in that regard since they were stripped of all that belonged to them.
Buchanan is cool with them as long as they do not overturn white supremacy. The replacements he worries about come from cultures that haven't been integrated into society as partial citizens.
So I keep talking about interpretative relevance in this thread and what I mean is that something with interpretative relevance is something we draw meaning from. So if we put someone in a room with four other guys, what might they say? Two black guys and two white guys? Two noisy guys and two quiet guys? Three tall guys and one short guy? And then you ask well what do those things mean and for someone, it might be like "well, I can't stand noisy people so I wouldn't want to interact with the noisy ones".
It's not as if I am ignorant of race or ethnicity, I have just worked through what it means for that person to be that race until I had nothing of note to say. I want to focus on their individual characteristics and make heads or tails of them that way, rather than saying "he's black therefore he probably has to deal with this and that and he's disadvantaged in society and I'm sure he's experienced discrimination before and I could understand if he's angry about the state of the black community and how the government treats black issues". Similarly, when NKBJ has a book to write on me just because I'm white, that's no way to think.
I am quite aware that race is a factor to why certain people are unfairly targeted by police, I am not denying that. I'm not surprised that it happens though, when in America they continually show crime data by categorising offenders by race. Poverty, education levels, family circumstances, mental illnesses and so many factors but you tell everyone over and over that black people are more likely to commit crimes and people start to actively make that connection. Is it surprising that attitudes develop that stereotype young black men as criminals? Is it surprising that leads to disproportionate conviction rates and the like? Not to me.
Police brutality and similar injustices I think, already offend everyone regardless of whether it's your race being targeted or not. I am certainly not okay with police brutality no matter who it happens to, lets work through solutions as we can but honestly, I think the best solution is to stop drawing information and meaning from race, then people will not focus on race and draw unfavourable connections on the basis of race. So long as we continue to go down that road, I think there will always be racism in some form or another.
I don't really care if all or most alt-right people are racist or not, that's not the point? I don't like the alt-right, I'm not here to improve their image, only some people are being very unfavourable past the point that I think is reasonable. Anaxagoras is calling them a bunch of whiny white men, what's the point of even discussing the alt-right with him if that's where he's at?
Yeah, I don't know what you disagree with or what post you're referring to, is this a comedy routine?
My observation regarding ethnicity is factually wrong because of what resistances? Who wasn't given much of a choice? Are you talking about ethnic histories again? Listen, that's got nothing to do with modern-day Americans with black skin, they chose to be born where they're born as much as someone with white skin did. You're still going on about ethnic histories while telling me you're not guilty of contextualising people by their ethnic histories.
From the point of view of the law, I mostly agree. But the law is permeated by discretion - who gets arrested, who gets prosecuted, who gets convicted, how long sentences are. Wherever there is discretion, people's racial attitudes will contaminate the process. Here's what the NAACP says "African Americans represent 12.5% of illicit drug users, but 29% of those arrested for drug offenses and 33% of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses." 12.5% is about the percentage of blacks in the overall US population. There is a general principle here - wherever there is discretion built into any system, less popular racial, ethnic, religious, etc. groups will end up getting the short end of the stick. How do you address that?
If you are an individualist, does that mean you are a libertarian? Do you agree that decriminalization of drug use would be a good approach?
What are your thoughts on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Civil Rights Act? The Voting Rights Act? Do you think it should be legal for a restaurant to refuse service to black people or hispanics? Separate but equal schools?
Do you think that racialized action in the past was justified but is not now because things have changed?
Thoughtful response. I think you would have gotten more traction with this thread if at first you had denounced the darker inclinations of the alt-right.
Chose to be born?
I am not "contextualizing" people. The views I am referring to are not an attempt to explain what is possible or give a last word on how different people see themselves. You made the claim that " the only ethnicity by and large that tries to ignore their ethnicity are Anglo-Saxon whites." I argue that the claim is incorrect in a variety of different ways. I have to bring up ethnic history if your going to make a claim about that history.
As for the idea that these histories have nothing to do with modern-day Americans, all I can suggest is spending more time here.
Well, they are kind of whining about nothing aren’t they? Those that aren’t part of the “alt-right” and wish to preserve certain traditions are occasionally being labelled “alt-right” when they’re merely voicing some concerns over the movement of peoples. This is nothing more than the usual political nonsense thrown around to slander the opposition this way or that.
I think Anaxagoras is viewing this whole “alt-right” thing as purely from a US perspective? I could be wrong.
How would you rate the West in how racist and unfair of a society is relative to the rest of the world?
There isn't an example of racism or racial prejudice you can give where you condemn it and I don't. If you can spot it, we condemn it together, your views are not tougher on these issues than mine, we seem equally strongly opposed to unfair treatment of individuals based on their ethnicity. It might be fair to say that I extend my views to protect white people while with you, I am not convinced that you would, you can confirm or deny that.
If you find a successful way to address the problem, I'm going to support it. I'm trying to point out that my views don't leave me weak on these issues, they aren't making me more tolerant of racism than you are. So maybe neither of us know how to fix the problem but you're not closer to the answers than me just because you've got an interpretative focus on race.
I don't know if I am a libertarian or not, I think different tools are better for different problems. I do support the decriminalisation of drugs, Portugal has a good system on this.
I am a great fan of Martin Luther King, I think he was going for the same thing I'm going for. I don't like any kind of racial prejudice because I believe it falls under the greater fault of using insufficient information to make judgements about people. You know someone's race and now you have strong feelings towards that person but you actually know nothing about that person, I think it's ridiculous.
Yes, they clearly didn't choose to be born in America, you can't choose to be born. So why talk about black Americans as if they were stripped of everything they owned and forced here? They were born here! Obama was the American president, he was the leader of the Western world but he's not a westerner? He's just an African descendant who was forced to be here by white slavers? You can't be serious.
Also, clearly Anglo-Saxon whites didn't always try to exclude race from their understanding of people, they used to be extremely racist, you can't seriously think I'm talking about 1960's or before right? It's a recent thing that by and large, Anglo-Saxon whites have to be sensitive about it because they're absolutely lambasted for any kind of racist remarks or perspectives. Well, I'm not trying to say it's something like 90%+, I'm just saying it's a majority and honestly, it's not something that matters to me either way and my experience is obviously biased and anecdotal.
They're kind of whining about nothing? To go back to the OP, do you think the alt-right is alone in the world? In Asia, Africa, the middle east, Eastern Europe and so on, the MAINSTREAM cultures there don't resemble the alt-right way of thinking at all? When I listen to some people talk about black issues in America, they sound like the alt-right to me, they're so racially motivated and they really feel like it's an us vs the world situation. You disagree with it?
You think so? This is already my second most commented on discussion by far and who knows, maybe it'll be the most commented on given time. I haven't really felt that many people have thought I am defending the alt-right, mostly people are just annoyed that I'm not accepting their leftist narratives.
I just meant that you might have won more people over if you believed the alt-right had malevolent tendencies. You don’t deny they do, do you?
It's philosophy, I always come in expecting to convince absolutely nobody. It's really hard to get reliable information about what the alt-right is and what they're not. I've come across content that claims to be from the alt-right and it's absolutely atrocious, like "what the hell are these people smoking?". I don't know if they're bad apples or the bunch though right? I'm trying to draw parallels between the alt-right and other groups which are not criticised for the same type of behaviour and attitudes. If we view the alt-right as neo-nazi white supremacist nut jobs then this entire thread is pretty much debunked or at least, I should have chosen an entirely different way to go about it. I clearly didn't think that when I made that thread and so there was no way I was going to express views that that's what they were like as some people have asserted.
I mostly made the thread because I watched a video from a more reasonable youtuber who calls himself an alt-right speaker named millennial woes and got a lot of my information about the alt-right from him. Others who got their information from neo-nazi protests or the left-wing media are not going to have the same views but that's unavoidable, what can I do?
I've lived in less racist places, but I have no idea about the rest of the world apart from that.
I believe hate crimes are higher here than most other places, but we do have larger minority populations than, say, Japan, so that may not be a fair comparison.
But how is that relevant?
I cannot say I understand your response to some suggestions I made about Anaxagoras’ position. I thought I was clear enough when I said that some people are certainly being labelled as “alt-right” who don’t hold any kind of ethnically tilted prejudice. That was all I really said.
As for whether I agree? I see a lot of batshit crazy people saying a lot of batshit crazy things all the time on the internet. I don’t tend to pay too much attention to the fringe views. Tensions in the US are much more pronounced than in Europe though according to someone I knwo who visits a lot. US culture appears to be a rather different thing to anything I’ve found in Europeans, Australians or Canadians. Culturally it is quite set apart from my perspective - that is not to say everyone from any particular country has a certain attitude, but there are some observabke differences due to obvious items sich as history and geography.
When did I ever make claims about you personally solely on the basis of your skin color? LOL
In the OP you were saying more than that. You were implying that people criticise behaviour in the alt-right that they do not criticise when it is displayed by non-whites. Yet the examples of racism by non-whites that you have supplied are heavily criticised. If the double standard that you imply were real, the Burmese genocide of the Rohingya would go uncriticised. Yet the criticism from Western countries has been vociferous, even to the extent of condemning a former winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
If you have reduced your claim to an observation that racism occurs in all countries, and from people of all skin tones, then that is uncontroversial. I doubt many, if any, would care to argue. It is the claim in the OP that racism is only criticised when it is done by white people that is unsupportable.
Because it is historical fact.
Quoting Judaka
It is common sense. Alt-Right is a racist group. Alt-right argues from a revisionist point of view, and argues further that their grievances come from multiculrialism, and the "Jewish conspiracy" of a take over. My position is to counter that by providing historical facts that contradict those notions. I subsequently show that through history which has a residual affect today, that whites are in no way in danger of being replaced socially or economically considering based on past history and their residual influences today there is an economic gap still in place. I therefore added that the alt-right's position is mostly irrational fear mongering because as reality would have indicated, whites are still by in large a privileged group socially and economically.
Quoting Judaka
Let's start over because obviously you're not getting it. Let us bring it back to the subject at hand regarding the issue. Since you felt to coherently explain the alt-right's position, let us be clear what the alt-right stand for. According to USA Today, "the alt-right is a collection of far-right groups and people dedicated to "white ethnonationalism" in Western civilization, or the preservation of a white populace in Western countries. They view the presence of people of color, immigrants and religious minorities as a threat to their "white identity" (Source:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/23/alt-right-philosophy-white-identity-civil-rights/800232002/).
Southern Poverty Law does not hold the alt-right as a hate group due to its fragmentation but subgroups under the alt-right like AltRight Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia, and Alternative Right in Atlanta are considered hate groups. Now based on the aforementioned concept of what the alt-right stands for, it is essentially stating that my existence in the United States or people who look like me threatens the existence of white identity. In fact, Richard Spencer even goes far into believing that I should not be in a country that is considered "white." Richard Spencer believes that the "white man built the United States" which is obviously false considering the people who actually did the manual labor did not look Caucasian. With that being said, it is safe to say that the basis of the alt-right and their intention is racism.
Quoting Judaka
Well you're not making any sense regarding the subject thread. As others have pointed out here it would seem that you're presenting your premise as if you support the alt-right.
Right
If that is the case, maybe you should've done more research in what the group stands for prior to making a thread about them.
Quoting Judaka
That's the problem there aren't really any other groups you can compare except maybe the Nation of Islam. you couldn't compare the alt-right to BLM because for one, BLM's organization is composed of people of different ethnic backgrounds. Two, BLM asks for police transparency and accountability when it comes to unjust police shootings. Now when you use east Asian examples you'd have to be more detailed about how this runs parallel to the alt-right. I think the burden was on you to instead of writing a whole bunch of jargon, to be as specific as possible.
As you can see in the subsequent responses, you've could've presented this quite differently than how you have done thus far.
Quoting Judaka
That you should have.
Quoting I like sushi
Because the US culture is composed of a microcosm of other cultures that inhabit these lands that contribute to the whole of society. We are a diverse bunch and there is no single worldview we hold, and we are constantly moving away from socially conservative values to more progressive liberal values. We are an increasingly inclusive country and our ideas of the world will change and this is incompatible with the alt-right.
Quoting Judaka
That is your problem. Instead of getting an overview of what the alt-right stands for, you decided to be influenced by the ramblings of some young kid and the fact that the person was a millennial takes the cake (no offense to millennials). As a researcher myself, I hardly take the online ramblings of someone with cultural grievances seriously unless they are substantiated by facts via research or some evidence that is unbiased that can support their view.
Quoting I like sushi
You are right. I am merely commenting on the alt-right here in the United States. I mean the only reason why are familiar with the alt-right is basically from the 2016 Trump presidential election.
This is crucial in getting rid of social issues.
Amen.
I think all that Judaka is asking (the mislabelling of “alt-right” aside) is whether or not there is a tone of hypocracy in calling “white” people racist because they are proud of their country and wish preserve and honour what they view as “quintessentially X”. To simply label such people indiscriminately as being whatever kind of racist is a tactic used by some of a more radical disposition. Ironically those on the far right with racist views intent on causes discord and recruiting people love that this is happening and purposefully fan the flames.
Humanity has lived through some seriously brutal internal struggles including physical violence, in the form of wars and genocide, and intellectual and theological battles, in the form of laws and principles of living. We’ve rise from the ashes of the battleground and have very quickly rocketted towards a world of equality - and make no mistake the change over the past couple of decades on a global scale has been dramatic! Sadly being creatures of limited physical and temporal capacity we tend to only see our immediate surroundings as a represention of what is going on in the world when in reality we’re only seeing what is going on in OUR world.
To reframe the question in the OP ... do people in countries with more stability and freedom than elsewhere have good reason to be worried about losing their stability and freedom? Hard to say, but over all I think not. I would certainly not suggest that they shouldn’t have any concern about their own freedom and stability though.
Now to look at the different elements of the western world. I’ve already mentioned that the US is different to Europe. As for Australia ... different again yet Australia does share more in common with Europe over all by my estimates - and, yes, I’ve been there. In the US a lot of teh problems extend to it’s obvious historical issues and the displacement of peoples from Africa as well as it’s political machinations in Latin America. In Europe things are quite different, likely due to the horrors of the first and second world wars in which warfare altered the attitudes countries had towards each other. Today Europe sits, as ever, between two worlds. A ravaged continent to the south (although, thankfully, Africa is slowly but surely developing well in many places), a theocracy to the east that has unfortunately avoided a period of renaissance (to expect such a transition to take place overnight is naive at best; but a slow and steady change is happening), and of course the remenants of the Soviet ideology still lingere in modern Russia.
If we’re talking about freedom and stability then the western world is doing very well compared to most of places around the globe. There is as always a price to pay because freedom doesn’t come without a serious and potentially dangerous cost. This cost is “responsibility”.
What worries me is while trying to fortify this “responsibility”, western and other equivalent progressive countries, somehow we miss that we need to put this responsiblity to use. I would say that many people living in the western world are very much blindsighted by the world they live in. Hey have no point of reference and see the world only from, as they only can, their own subjective situation. Things slump a little and they act like a hige social upheaval has happened whilst on other countries around the world such “slumps” would be deemed insignificant.
Generally speaking if the economy dips a little in more developed countries rather than crying and shouting at the government try considering that this is happening because to some degree the global wealth is being more equally distributed due to various global initiatives the main one which has by far the greatest benefit to humanity being the education of young women around the world - note: I didn;t use the term “empowerment” because I find that political term to be one used only as propaganda to play group off against group to gain votes/favour.
To sum up, what is there to say about people in western society worried about some miniscule decline in living standards and/or fear of their cultural identity being shattered? Well, I can understand this perspective, but over all it is not real, and that is not to say people shouldn’t be concerned nor ashamed of themselves or the advantages they have. In europe especially there has been concerns voiced about “immigrant” communities and I’m aware of the same in the US regarding immigrants from the americas. Careful management of this is needed. What is worrying is when such things are used to sway public opinion ... it is a more popular trend today but let’s not fool ourselves and pretend it hasn’t always been an issue throughout human history. I would say that over the last couple of centuries it has likely become more of a talking point because of the advent of clearer borders - we forget that these border never used to be enforced and that people could, in theory and in practice, move fro place to place (the main hurdle being wealth, stability and language; all of which are becoming less and less of an issue today).
Communication is borderless. It seems to me we’re clumsily stumbling around trying to figure out what to do about this new freedom and exactly what degree of responsiblilty we have. Given that in global communications today there is little to no delineation between peoples we’re more and more attracted to our physical world of borders and peoples and struggling to come to terms with the greater human community? That is basically my psychoanalysis of humanity :)
Do you ever have the same kind of suspicions towards races other than whites?
Just wondering since you use all these terms like white blindness and white privilege and it's something I think most people would just take for granted but when it's the West and white people doing it, it's much worse. We gunna talk about the Chinese ethnocentric culture which genuinely put emphasis on race rather than white people in the west who by and large, are against that way of thinking? Enough so that the alt-right is criticised the way they are.
You realise when you talk about terms like white blindness and white=normal that you're telling me about how I think as a white person right? Those things couldn't exist if white people didn't think in those ways. White privilege directly impacts and affects me but you're not making any claims based solely on skin colour?
I am not saying "alt-right" instead of racism, if I wanted to say racism then I'd just say it. here's a quote to show the direction I was trying to go in:
Quoting Judaka
When I'm talking about nations outside of the west, I'm not talking about racism, I'm talking about ethnocentric perspectives, favouring the main race and trying to maintain ethnic hegemony. That's what the alt-right is preaching and that's the similarity I see.
Not only do I think that goes uncriticised but when we see ethnic minorities within the West talking in ethnocentric terms which I think is fairly common, this is not treated the same way as when whites talk in ethnocentric terms which for some people is a clear indication of a racist ideology. I recognise there are reasons for this which are legitimate but I wanted to ask whether or not this was consistent, whether or not we should criticise any who take race to be interpretatively relevant and in what circumstances.
I know enough about the alt-right to talk about what some of them think, I just can't tell you whether or not the majority think that way or not. Your historical facts did absolutely no such thing, you are telling me that the West is responsible for racial tensions in Africa, South America and let's throw in the middle east. Not only is that a stupid idea but what does it have to do with the topic at hand? It has nothing to do with the alt-right either. Do you consider yourself a westerner? Do you distinguish between versions of the West based on how white it was?
There's really not much point in discussing the alt-right when you see them as the white version of BLM. If they're a borderline terrorist hate group then no, I'm not saying that we should be worried other ethnicities are thinking like BLM. Honestly, I think you're the only poster I have had problems with due solely to me bringing up the alt-right, perhaps NKBJ but I knew about him before this thread and I expected trouble with him regardless.
So, we acknowledge the ethnic histories, we treat blacks differently from other races because of racialised statistics and then we aim to solve black problems. How does your racialised solution perform better than simply identifying the problems of individuals with black-skin as problems of Americans and trying to solve them as efficiently and effectively as possible? That would mean focusing more on the perpetrators of racism than the victims, solving problems without making it about race. What you're saying is really in my estimation, is not all that different from the alt-right's ethnocentric, racialised perspective. There's a moral high ground for you because you see minorities as victims, you see people as extenuations of victims of their ethnic histories but it's superficial. At the end of the day, race means too much for you, condemning that would be a step towards ending racism.
But that is the problem because the alt-right although not specified as a hate group, its members espouse more than simple cultural pride rhetoric. If we take the Charlottesville murder for example, the alt-right's rhetoric, which had a relationship to the death of Heather Heyer, is dangerous. this isn't about Celtic pride, or Polish pride, this is about separating whites from all other cultures. Richard Spencer himself espoused the idea that whites "built civilization." As a stark contrast, when black activist talk about black unity and black pride, it is more along the lines of unifying a fragmented culture in light of having a history of subjugation and unjust laws (e.g. Jim Crow). In other words, a battered people showing pride of their culture openly whereas before, there were actual laws against it. African-Americans, Pacific-Islanders, Asians, etc when showing pride show pride in their culture and the benefits of their culture, whereas the alt-right are more along the lines of segregation and superiority. No double standard here if you are familiar with cultural pluralism.
Quoting I like sushi
How would people lose their freedom?
Actually my attempt was to answer your inquiry regarding the supposed double standard between the expressions of cultural pride by alt-right versus the expression from other cultures. Using the early European colonial model, I was attempting to explain that given the historical fact that Africans and African-American have faced social injustice, the expression of cultural pride is nothing more than a fragmented culture coming together whereas the expression of pride from the alt-right is about the continuation of privilege and white superiority. But yes, from a historical point of view, the west does indeed have an influence on the past and even present tensions of Africa but that is another discussion for another thread. I have sufficient evidence to substantiate this claim.
Quoting Judaka
I consider myself a citizen of the United States.
Quoting Judaka
I never said they were, now you're expressing cognitive dissonance. I never said they were comparable in fact I was saying the opposite you just added that in there yourself, there is a word for that, it is called conjecture. I actually said using the BLM group as an example, it is more multicultural and pluralistic ergo, welcoming than alt-right.
Quoting Judaka
I have no issue with you because I don't know you. But if I need to correct you on things I actually studied in college and was grilled on, I will. I don't sit here to correct people with an ego, I most certainly will substantiate my claims with evidence. Not just skewed evidence but historical fact, I owe you that. Now, if you choose not to accept that fact then I don't know what to tell you. If you choose to have an issue with me that is on you, but I prefer to be the adult here.
Quoting Judaka
I never proposed a solution to begin with. Again, my position was to give you an overview of how cultural pride expressed by people of color is different than the expression by the alt-right. How one is not seen as a double standard compared to one seen as racist. The historical overview I gave was for you to understand why cultures in particular the African-American culture expresses pride and where that foundation comes from. Me highlighting points regarding slavery and mistreatment were side discussions you and I had in addition to me demonstrating my position. I'd be more than happy to purpose a solution in relation to your thread.
Quoting Judaka
And what is it that I'm saying or have said? Can you quote the sentence that gave you that impression?
Quoting Judaka
I don't know where you got my overview of the historical implications of African-American pride and the experience of subsequent racism and systemic racism via laws as something that is relatable to black Americans feeling like everyday victims. There is no harm in me talking about the residual effects of slavery and racism and how it affects the experiences of black Americans today. My intent was for you to understand where I was going with that explanation, but apparently I failed because you took this to an entirely different direction.
Quoting Judaka
You have no clue what you're talking about. It would behoove you next time when constructing a thread to make more sense. The fact that @I like sushi has to do re-explain everything is perhaps your best indicator that maybe you confused everyone.
It is not a new tactic in the political sphere to recruit people to a hidden cause by laying out some reasonable problems and offering a quick solution to them. The problem itself may be misconceived too and that is a serious issue as we find ourselves battling away at the symptoms of the problem rather than taking things a level deeper into the causal factors that we actually can affect.
I am not stating the “fear” of loss as rational. Fear of the future is simply a disposition of humanity. We attempt to deal with this across a spectrum running from embracing change (liberalism) to holding to traditions (conservativism) - this is roughly speaking of course!
I was stating that it is unfair to associate someone with the “alt-right” just because they worry about their cultural identity being consumed (falsely or not doesn’t matter fro the point to stand; in reality I don’t think it’s as big an issue as some wish to make out). People fear change regardless of who or what they perceive themselves to be or what particular group/s they associate themselves being a memeber of.
As a process of human maturity it is inevitable that we’ll orientate ourselves into this or that group so we can occupy a seemingly meaningful place in teh world and equate this with a sense of value; be it to ourselves and/or others. I have no issue with people exploring and becoming a member of this or that club/group, even though I find some more seriously at fault than others. In this sense I’m much more for a liberal attitude so people will actively, in their youth, taste the array of fruits before them - some will leave a bitter and less than sayifying after taste, some will become addicted (dogmatic) and some will become intoxicated/poisoned to their own and others detriment. A liberal approach would seem most fitting for the youth so they’ve less chance of becoming attached to any one particular group, or any particular set of groups.
Following on from this we know as people age they become more conservative. This is a necessary repercussion of having experimented in their youth with an array of ideas and having come to settle upon a firmer sense of ground. They will inevitably warn against wholesale dramatic shifts in society, and this doesn’t necessarily mean they think change and variation is a bad thing only that from experience they knwo they’ve gotten to the position they’ve got to through an admixture of slow and steady progress and luck of circumstance.
Conflict in life in inevitable and my concern is about you to equip ourselves for conflict rather than wasting time either trying to avoid it or by trying to irradicate it - both of those approaches are suffered in the naivety of youth and they are necessary pains which some feel more strongly than others and which some will benefit from more than others.
I am talking, and be clear about this, about human societies in general not any specific nation or group.
People lose their freedoms by either putting demands on the freedom of themselves or others without consequence, and/or ignoring the responsibility that comes with their freedoms.
In the above respects we’re all going to fail somewhere along the way because being a human being requires us to make mistakes and, more problematically, to confuse mistakes with success and success with mistakes. Meaning merely recognising a fault is only the first step towards correcting it and at the end of the day we’ve only truly ourselves as judge and jury (that is the weight of responsibilty).
It is an empirical fact, I suppose, that you are a citizen of the US. What is a westerner to you then? A white person? Do you realise how validating that perspective would be to the alt-right? If we're diluting the percentage of literal westerners with non-westerners then, of course, western culture is under threat. It won't be long until in America, whites will no longer be a majority (more than half) of the US population. That would essentially mean, America would have fewer westerners than westerners if we posited that were true, doesn't the alt-right have a valid concern?
You also answered the question of OP, whether the alt-right is repugnant mostly because they're white, your answer is yes. The poor black people, with their poor ethnic histories, are playing an entirely different game than whites doing exactly the same thing. Different responsibilities as a result of different racial histories and it doesn't matter if you're born rich or poor, attractive or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short - none of it matters, it's just your skin colour. It's an interpretative focus on race, it's not facts, you can't even tell the difference.
You're the one telling me that half the reason they can't be compared to BLM is that BLM is more inclusive!? The other reason is that they're actually trying to do something good? So you're not comparing them but only because that would be a disservice to the BLM movement, alright. I hate BLM probably more than the alt-right, that you're only flirting with the idea of comparing them but choose not to because the BLM is better is not justification to start talking about cognitive dissonance lol.
I am not sure what you're saying you studied in college.
You want me to give quotes of you having an ethnocentric, racialised perspective while telling me you're not a westerner and blacks have different rules to whites in the same post? I don't really see the point. You've already demonstrated that you have a collectivist, racialised way of looking at history and the present. The majority of imperialism done by the West were done by monarchies, 99.99% of westerners had absolutely no say in what happened and 99% had nothing to do with it or even visited Africa or South America.
You could choose to blame individuals for what happened but where does that leave you, they're all dead. Better to instead harbour contempt for the entire western culture. Black people born today in America are not slaves or Africans, they're individuals who should be held accountable for destructive, racialised perspectives and they're not beholden to the history of their ancestors. I'm not denying the history, I'm denying your collectivist, racialised perspective, let's get that right. So I don't know what you learned in university but what is absolutely clear is that you don't understand the difference between a fact and an interpretation.
Now I don't know why I_like_sushi is paraphrasing me, perhaps he thinks we're not as opposed to each other as we are acting? I disagree though, I may be making errors in some of the things you think but I've heard enough to know that you're the kind of person that I wanted to criticise while making this thread. Even if we grant that me trying to use the alt-right to draw comparisons was wrong because they're far more racist, hateful and unreasonable than I've made it out, things have still been more or less as on topic as I can expect. The people who disagreed with me said enough for me to know, we wouldn't now be agreeing with each other if I changed my position on the alt-right and said they're being condemned because of what they are and not who they are.
I made no assumption about whether you and Anax are in opposition or not. I imagine you both see your positions and thoughts are reasonable and that you’re both even able to admit that miscommunication can happen regardless of opposing ideas.
Something will no doubt be pointed out by Anax so I’ll step inand do it myself:
To nitpick this isn’t exactly how reality play out but I’m certainly not disagreeing with the sentiment. If someone is perceived (either by others or themselves) as “other” to whatever degree, we inevitably wonder if people react to us in the manner they do due to this difference or whether or not they’d have reacted differently at all if we were perceived as “one of them”. The mere underlying thought makes a difference. It’s an obvious human problem that we face everyday. The question is what we can do about it - we cannot remove this entirely.
Not only that.
Basically your view is extremely US-centric, which assumes that the US narrative is the only one that exists and everything follows it. Focus on other issues, like from the fact that not everything in the continent of Africa is explained with Western colonization (and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade), is simply unimportant. This is actually very typical, and basically a bit problematic.
So, he was Chinese? African? Native Amerindian? What?
According to some, "Caucasian" means western Europe and descendants therefrom. Broader definitions include western Europeans, plus Russians, Arabs, Iraqis, Iranians, Indians, Afghanis, and Indians. A broad definition would be consistent with language group relationships -- Greek and Sanskrit, for instance--Indo-European,
So Jews originated along the eastern Mediterranean shore. By some stories, they came from northeast (Abraham) of present day Israel. Wherever they came from they were in an area generally counted as Caucasian, or white. Jews were spread out in a diaspora before 66 AD.
So, it would seem like Einstein was probably more white than he was anything else.
Anglo Saxons are white, certainly, as are Norwegians and Finns, Latvians, Jews, and Italians. So are the French and Serbs, Greeks, Turks, etc. Caucasians are a large, diverse, multicultural assembly.
The problem is that he's perpetuating it Sushi, his only defence for his perspective is the historical inequities and injustices that took place and their role in the modern context but that's just not good enough. You're severely underestimating how apathetic we could be towards race if people like Anaxagoras changed their ways. There are some things I'm more pessimistic about like attractiveness, height and status for example but I don't believe we're genetically hardwired to care about race, it's an interpretative distinction which could be reduced.
I have debated whether to get into an argument about whether Jews are Caucasian or not but I decided it wasn't worth it because I am not Jewish and I don't really care. I have always been under the impression that there was a Jewish race and culture which was separate from the religion and after doing a bit of research because I was challenged on it, realised that I could easily find sources that confirmed and denied it and I guess I'd have to dig deeper to determine the truth. You're even talking about Indians and Iranians being causation and while you're welcome to give me an argument for whatever it is you believe, I wouldn't have said what I said if I realised people were going to dispute it so strongly and I got no real stake in what the truth is.
The problem with white supremacists, nazis, white racists, alt right, fascists, and so on is that these are all epithets tossed by liberals, SJWs, "marxists", and so on at people they don't like, for one reason or another. Most people don't identify as "white supremacists, white racists, nazis,, fascists, and so on. (Granted, some people do self-identify as Nazi or fascist, but far fewer than are accused of it.)
What do these people self-identify as? I'm not sure what terms they apply to themselves.
So, your average white man, as frustrated as everybody else is, by the many changes going on in lots of different nations, tries to find solidarity among other white men (and women, presumably), a familiar white culture, familiar sex roles, and so on, gets blasted as "white supremacists" by (usually) other whites who quite often occupy relatively privileged positions.
Deploying terms such as these tends to set up conflicting camps--virtuous multiculti preachers on one side, and wicked perpetrators of all evil in the other camp. It is difficult to parse who which side is, in fact, most objectionable.
I can barely tolerate ultra-conservative white people who would probably join the KKK if a local was available, and I loathe listening to the virtue signalers who find a white racist or a fascist under every bush. A plague on both their houses.
I think I already outlined thoroughly enough my position on the term “race” in this context. Socially speaking we’re bery much inclined to categorise all items of experience. If we coudln’t do so we wouldn’t be able to navigate in the world. It’s not a huge leap to understand that this plays out from individual to individual, and from group to group. We simply have to demarcate between experiential entities - this includes sounds, smells, colours, and of course, people - and often hidden from us our very selves! We’re not confined to the “moment”, so to speak.
I don’t think I’ve severely underestimated anything. If it’s not “race” it woudl be something else. My concern is the conflation of “race” as a cultural phenomenon with “race” as a biological phenomenon (meaning in terms of “species” not merely our bizarre neurological make-up that presents us with these rather muddled social problems). We’re are certainly wired s like facial recognition. Whilst we not bery able to see the difference between chimp faces baby’s are. In fact babies were once thought to “learn” how to hear certain tones of the language they were exposed to. This turned out to be false. The are born open to everything and hearing everything, then the neurons die out that ae not needed. We’re certainly plastic creatures, but were not unlimited and we need a sensory means to tell an apple from a rock, and an enemy from a friend - hence we approach something new with a confuson of “fear” and “curiosity”. This is something I think you’d find hard to dispute.
By pointing out what I did I seem to have revealed something you’ve not considered as a basic fact of human nature. There is in reality not a lot we can do about this. We just have to accept it and consider it so as to account for self-delusion and possible delusions in others. And if you’re correct then it could just be that you’re also guilty of the thing you’re accusing others of (we all do it, I just wish people wouldn’t make such a big deal of it! And as you see, I just did it there! Haha!)
Are you familiar with Richard Spencer? Have you listened to him speak? He most certainly proclaims the opposite.
As far as I'm concerned there is too much "I think" in this discussion and not enough facts going around.
Let it be something else then because there are pragmatic reasons for caring about particular characteristics and traits, race is one of the worst things to be feeding us information about people. I am not denying that people categorise differences, I'm suggesting that particular differences are highlighted and used excessively for the purpose of extracting information and meaning. You can meet a black man, he's attractive, tall, intelligent, loves cricket and his ps4 but we aren't going to focus on all of these things equally. For me, it may really matter that he loves his ps4 because I love my ps4 and now I think, we're gunna be best buddies. For someone else, the fact he's black really matters and that's what they focus on.
I'm still aware that a black man is black, I just don't extract information from that, it has not much meaning to me. I want to prioritise other interpretations and prejudices over race. I am not against discrimination, prejudice, categorising people and so on, I accept these things as unchangable.
I think that people do call themselves alt-right though i generally agree that most of those terms are inherently derogatory and not used self-descriptively all too often but I do identify with your contempt for both sides.
Exactly. And such a diverse and multicultural lot that within itself this group of people harbor resentment, xenophobia and racism towards each other. Like, uh, humans occasionally do.
Heck, in the early 20th Century Swedish eugenists (who else!) defined Finns to be of an East Baltic race that has racial ties to Mongols. Those with lighter composer (or basically better looking people) found here are naturally of Swedish origin. Having a population with the most blond and blue-eyed people in the World this might sound confusing, but this worried extremely Finns at the time. The fear was that Finns would be considered by other Europeans as (gash!) mongoloids. Hence it was a huge event that created a mass hysteria in Finland when in 1952 a Finnish 17-year countryside girl won the very first Miss Universum contest. And yes, she was a blonde.
Fair enough. I guess you can then appreciate that if you were black and living in the US that certain racist types may make you more sensitive to your environment and question whether certain perceived “mistreatment” was dished out due to stereotypical misrepresentations such as these.
I’ve been in plenty of situations around the planet where I wondered if people were treating me in a certain way due to their impression of my appearance rather than as a fellow human being. I’d be lying if I said some people most definately did NOT treat me differently and unjustly just because of how they perceived me, and that in saying this I have to admit that may judgement may well have been faulty too and I may simply be a unfriendly egotistical prick (which on occasion I imagine I either am or at least perceived to be! Haha!)
Because the alt-right has been made popular by the 2016 U.S. presidency. We only know about the alt-right through the actions here. Sure there are neo-nazis and right-wing conservatives here, but if there are examples of alt-right elsewhere feel free to list them here.
Quoting ssu
I highlighted this in context, I believ0e it was meant to shed to light on the pervasive issue concerning the subject at hand.
Looks like I misread
Discrimination is changeable, this is why the civil rights movement prevailed. I am so glad you're not a policymaker.
Are you serious? You must have read what I wrote before that but you still interpret me as saying racial discrimination is unchangeable and we should just accept it? You're a joke.
I've listed some current issues I mean, you just don't like the answers. Again, my opinions on the historical relevance was to answer in overview, the issues you're having in trying to demonstrate a double standard.
I seriously think you have no clue what you're talking about because it certainly is coming out in your writing.
I think you're either deficient in reading ability or reading what you want to read. I'd like to think the latter. Racism, and all that entails under that umbrella are learned, and just as these things are learned, they can be unlearned and can with reason be understood to be wrong. I'm curious to know how old are you because honestly I pray you don't write like this on school papers. It's almost like you have a thousand and one thoughts but you're conveying a different thought here. I'm doing my best to tie in my original position in the context of this thread's discussion but you're reading far too much into one thing then I have to go back and re-explain that thing and try to make sense of it to you.
I understand perfectly well that you believe in different standards for different races as a result of different racial histories. You're the one who doesn't appreciate that what I've just described is an interpretation and not something that can be called a fact. The history that took place has a causal relationship with the present but that is not what is being disputed here. What is being disputed is that the causal relationship of the past and the present justifies or warrants a particular attitude towards racial groups TODAY and that is an interpretation, not a fact.
What are you talking about? I appreciate you think racism can be unlearned, you're the one telling me that I don't think it can be unlearned because I see discrimination (not racial discrimination) in the way Sushi has laid out is just part of the way the human mind works. We value, we interpet and the result is discrimination, what I'm against is not that process but the involvement of race in that process. Primarily because race is a collectivist way of thinking and people use it to make claims without sufficient evidence.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/15/16144070/psychology-alt-right-unite-the-right
Enjoy! Hope you guys find some common ground :)
It's not that, it is just that you're not making any sense. If I'm giving an overview of something it is meant to give you a wider perspective of the coming answer I'm going to give you. It is to help you why I'm stating that answer. For example a person might like the color red because long ago, said person wore a read shirt and was given a compliment of how good the color looked on the person. therefore, such person may like the color red because the color resonates with good memories of being complimented.
Your facts, if you call them that, to me are not making any sense. I thought we were talking about the alt-right and the double standards, yes? Well, again, there is no double standard when other cultures appreciate their lineage because how one presents their pride is a lot different than the alt-right. This is where I got into my historical revisionist explanation using the African-American diaspora model.
Let me re-explain.....
White supremacy in the United States as well as elsewhere have demonized many people of darker complexion over the centuries, from colonial times to present. People of color were taught indirectly and directly that their culture was inferior in comparison to the white culture. Fast forward today and post civil rights movement later in the United States, many people of color have grown to openly display pride of their culture, something that was taboo of the past. So when we have days in the United States that celebrate Pacific-Islanders, and African-Americans, and other cultures that have contributed to mankind it is to appreciate these hidden gems that were forgotten in a racist past.
When alt-right does it, they do it not to celebrate Polish history, or Celtic history, it is to promote the "white man's achievements" as Richard Spencer have stated several times. Richard Spencer, the spokesman of the alt-right wants a white utopia, free of anyone of color. This is different than how people of color celebrate their heritage. So to have the audacity to even insinuate a double standard is stupid at best, and retarded at worse.
I don't think the OP was well explained at least to me...Instead of all this unnecessary jargon why can't people come out and just say
"I think the alt-right should not be demonized from their position as it appears to me that other groups similarly are expressing themselves the same way as the alt-right."
Simple.
They did!
Edit: either you knew this in the beginning and pretended not to, or you just got it.
What are my "facts"? I'm offering interpretations to you, not facts, you actually still can't tell the difference lol.
I have told you many times that I understand you are arguing from the context of history, that is a choice you've made. As a pragmatist and an individualist, my priority is the individual and his current circumstances. I wonder what you might think about the movie The Black Panther if you've watched it? There might be historical reasons why The Black Panther is palatable for people in a way a similar movie of a different race might not be but I don't see why we should tolerate promotions of race being something that can elicit a moral imperative as it was in that movie. It shouldn't just be bad when it's white people.
Now, people keep using the word celebration but I'm not interested in it. I think "celebration" is being purposefully used as the least egregious example or even possibly the only acceptable example of highlighting racial differences. I have been talking about the alt-right thinking politically as a group of whites, thinking culturally as whites, evaluating people based on their race and so on. I'm not saying the alt-right are just trying to peacefully celebrate their race, that's clearly not their motivation.
As for the alt-right white ethnostate, that's clearly going to be unique for a white person living in the west because compared to other races who don't even hold a majority, it's a bit pointless to talk about turning the west into an ethnostate of their race. That's why I liken that aspect of the alt-right to other countries like in east-Asia and across the world.
Also, I'm not saying the alt-right shouldn't be demonized for their position, I'm actually in favour of demonizing other groups/individuals which replicate alt-right thinking rather than limiting criticism to groups of white people. However, I do think it is inconsistent to criticise particular aspects of the alt-right without also criticising it from other groups, although people like you do give their reasons which are not inconsistent, even if I disagree with them.
I also feel that the alt-right position becomes more or less strong based on how well we're able to reduce the prevalence of race being interpretatively significant. You telling me that you're not a westerner when you were born in the west and presumably subscribe to cultures originating in the west is really the kind of thing that makes the alt-right look like they have a good point. As someone who values western culture, is it true that I should want to maintain the white majority in western countries? If all non-whites thought like you, then the answer to that would probably be yes, thankfully, I don't believe that to be the case.
Simply put it, people far less trouble in defining a national identity, than they have in defining a continental (European, Asian, African) identity or a racial identity.
As the US is this mixture of various people, there the term 'white' or 'caucasian' have gotten a totally different role to play. Again something that is quite an American phenomenon than anything else (perhaps with the exception of South Africa, where being white unifies the people from British and Boer origins).
You said, "I don't think I even gave any evidence in your quote."
Right. You gave supposed evidence after that, when it was questioned by someone else. That was what I was referring to.
Although I haven't been participating in a while, I've tried to keep up with the discussion. I don't think this has been brought up, but if it already has, steer me towards it.
Definition of "oppression." - Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
Let's look at race for now, just to keep the discussion focused. In particular the status and condition of black people vs. that of white people in the United States today. Not historically, now.
Let's make an assumption - Black people in the United States today are subject to oppression by the dominant white society and culture. We're not going to argue this right now. We're taking it as true for the purposes of this discussion. Please do not start an argument about whether or not black people are oppressed. We can do that later if someone wants to.
Given all that, I'll make a statement of personal belief, which is open for discussion:
Given the oppressed status of black people, it is completely reasonable that their thoughts and feelings about ethnic and racial concerns should be given more consideration than those of white people.
So, given the specified assumption, the answer to your question "Is criticism of the alt-right inconsistent?" is yes, and that inconsistency is appropriate.
National identity certainly is less ambiguous, I really want people to be able to band together on this because national identities are great fun, they're inclusive and they give people some common ground to work together constructively. There is a pathological element to the way the "white" race is referred to, it creates a new us vs them which didn't exist in the past, as you've previously pointed out. I think that the way we refer to the "white" race as somehow encompassing all of these very different cultures shows that we could do this for western culture as well. Similarly encompassing differences which we once felt were so important but for it to work, people have got to let go of their ethnic histories and differences, they've got to find that common ground like "whites" seem to have done, with how not just the alt-right but many just don't think the differences between "whites" are all that important anymore.
Black individuals, as believers in equal opportunity, angry at their unjust treatment, desiring a better future for America and as individuals who want better lives for themselves, would have every right to resent their circumstances and the people and structures causing them. I would hope that people with similar values, irrespective of their skin colour would stand in solidarity with them on these issues. I hope the takeaway from these terrible circumstances would be that unfair prejudice based on race is wrong, no matter which race is being prejudiced against.
I would hope that these circumstances helped to demonstrate the destructive and unreasonable consequences of making race the defining factor in how you perceive and treat others. It would be a terrible mistake if black individuals would retaliate with the same incorrect, harmful way of thinking of making race an interpretative focus and basing their own perspectives around race and racial histories.
It's true that their race being meaningful is a choice that has been made for them by those who prejudice against them based on their race but somebody has to start being better. While I can appreciate that the temptation is there, it is not okay to condone bad behaviour because someone else did it first. I do not think that what would be required in those circumstances was consideration but rather trying to convince both sides that they're in the wrong, trying to encourage both sides to adopt a better perspective. I want to seriously believe in the potential of everyone for that.
I said:
Quoting T Clark
I had hoped you would respond to that specifically. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
Yeah, my answer is that I'm not giving consideration to anyone under any circumstances and 0=0.
Well, we can leave it at that, but I don't see what the point is.
You ask "Is criticism of the alt-right inconsistent?"
I respond "Yes, and it's appropriate it should be that way."
Then you reply "I don't care" as if I weren't answering a question you yourself had asked.
I don't know why you're asking me if I agree or disagree with your statement, I have heard your answer and appreciate you explaining your thought process.
You asked a specific question in the OP. I gave you a direct, specific answer. You won't respond.
I mean you didn't give me an answer, you asked me a question and and I think I gave you a comprehensive answer. You're saying think that black people are oppressed, that this makes their instances of racialised thinking and rhetoric less egregious than when white groups, like the alt-right do it, despite being guilty of race-based motivations and perspectives, is that right?
It is not like you are the only one to give an answer, some said it was inconsistent and others said it wasn't and others just disagreed with the question altogether but everyone has their own reasoning and your answer is just one possible answer. I don't know what more to say, I walk away from our conversation more aware of how others think on the subject, good talk.
I am not Jewish either, at least as far as I know. I'd be fine with it if I was. I do care about race: I like the fact that there are distinct racial groups, with their various features. What we need to remember is that we are all one species, pretty much, even if some of us are mixes of archaic and modern humans, and mixes of races and ethnicities.
Apply the American motto: e pluribus unum, out of many, one. The PC Left seems to think it we are e unus unum--out of one, one. No, we are several races, many ethnicities, all human, and the variety is good.
Multiculturalism means nothing (and is indeed pernicious) if it fails to honor the cultures of the world, one of which happens to be the white, European, North American, Australian culture, with its additional established territories. Third world cultures are good, and so is the now dominant first world culture, the culture that colonized much of the rest of the world (but maybe not long enough and thoroughly enough), the culture that injected the scientific and industrial revolutions into the whole world -- for better and for worse.
White people have no more, and no less, to be proud of, and/or embarrassed about than any other people -- Africans, Asians, Aboriginals, etc. As a species, we are not all that nice, and never have been. Sure. we try to be decent, but our primate drives are powerful, and our systems of control only somewhat effective.
Always remember: Homo sapiens are primates, animals. Talk about metaphysics and ethics all you want; just remember it is an ape that is doing the talking.
The idea that Jews--and western asian people--are caucasian comes out of studies of ancient population history going back around 20,000 years. Two examples of this kind of research are: Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the first venturers to the Vikings. 2013 & 2015, Thames & Hudson, Ltd, London.
The Horse, The Wheel, And Language: How Bronze-age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the modern world, David. W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, 2007.
What these books (and others) show is that between the first arrivals (early homo sapiens and Neanderthals) and the finally settled Europe well after the Roman Empire collapse, there was a great deal of population movement, both into Europe from Eurasia and within Europe. What was true in Europe was true elsewhere, too. Nobody, for all practical purposes, ever just arrived and stayed put for ever after. Everyone was pretty much pushed or shoved out of the way from behind, supplemented or suppressed, refreshed or replaced. Someone estimated that since the beginning of the species about 100 billion people have been born. All these people had feet and so traveled around. Sometimes they formed large groups, and their movements were very significant in the long pre-historical run.
Jews are a unique ethnic group, which is a subset or maybe sub-subset of one of the 4 or 5 racial groups). Jews are to caucasians what the Celts are to caucasians, or what Eskimos are to Amerindians: part of a larger whole.
Neanderthals and Denisovans (and maybe other archaic humans) lived among and mated with homo sapiens on the Eurasian continent. Over time there has been a lot of mating going on, and while there are several racial groups, there are hundreds of ethnic groups.
Just saying... don't get too uppity about being a human.
I am a moral relativist but surely anyone can find something to value particular cultures above others from a pragmatic standpoint. Alternatively looking at a country like Iraq, it's obvious they'd be better off being split into three new countries, sharing a government with people who think so differently to you, that's no way to live.
Whites have nothing to be proud of except what that individual achieved for themselves or was a part of themselves. It amazes me how someone can take responsibility for or take pride in individuals who lived ages before them as their own based on such a superficial similarity. The modern white American has more in common with a modern black American than he does with the white Americans who killed the native Americans or owned slaves but all the same, people want to take responsibility for that.
What's more amazing is that the time being talked about you'd think whites all got along but of course, they absolutely didn't even within a specific culture. With their disagreements and even contempt based on differences in religion, class, politics, region and you name it really. You've had no chance tracking down what your actual ancestors were doing not that it would matter. Racial histories are just stupid.
I am really not sure about the Jews, perhaps genetically they're caucasian but I wonder how old this knowledge is and what interpretations preceded any new understanding based on any scientific discoveries.
and you have been given examples of where it has been criticised.
If you think there are important examples where it has not been criticised then mention them by name and we can discuss them.
If you want to claim inconsistency, you need to give actual real examples of the inconsistency, not just speculate that there might be some.
Tu quo que much?
If you don't think America has a race problem, you haven't been paying attention.
Quoting Judaka
Fallacy of Division.
Yes, the white population of America as a whole has white blindness and white privilege. That does not necessarily apply to all individual constituents. It does, however, apply to the majority. And non-whites can have it too.
My assessment that you exhibit white-blindness stems from your words. I didn't know you were white until you just told me. Your OP doesn't seem to mention it. But of course, it's just another example of assuming white as the status quo to assume that we all know you're white.
Perhaps you are asserting that society does not exist, and are throwing out culture as well. "it's all individual activity. Nothing else."
Quoting Judaka
Well, the connection to the past is a two-way street. We look back and the people of the past looked forward. People of past centuries, or past decades, or the past 15 minutes, thought, spoke, acted, and wrote and their thoughts, words, and actions are carried forward by their witnesses. Going back a ways, Hammurabi (ancient king in Babylonia, 1792 BC to 1750 BC) had an audience. When Hammurabi spoke, people listened. King David and Isaiah also spoke, and people listened. Jesus and Paul spoke and people listened. Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, and John Donne spoke, and the people listened. Donald Trump speaks not very well but the people nevertheless listen. (MEMO TO THE PEOPLE: Pay no attention to the fat man with bad hair standing behind the podium. He is an artless clod.)
We are still reading words from the past--at least if we aren't completely uncultured slobs and dolts, we are.
Quoting Judaka
That assertion could be challenged. Some quite careful observers (white and black) think that black and white Americans practically live in two separate countries. Again linking up with the past, there are quite specific historical reasons WHY most white Americans are better off than most black Americans, and why even middle-income whites are much, much better off than poor blacks. Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the severe backlash by whites tagged "Jim Crow laws" which have largely been eliminated, and contemporary housing discrimination (and more besides) account for the differences between black and white fortunes in the United States. There is an unbroken chain between the present and the past. If there wasn't, there would never be any material or intellectual development or progress. Each individual would have to start all over.
If we want to understand where we are now we have to understand the past, and to understand the past we have to be familiar with the who, what, when, how, why, and where of the past.
Quoting Judaka
So what is it that you have accomplished and are proud of, that DID NOT DEPEND on the efforts of people who lived and died before you?
Wait, what? They did what?
Very good synopsis of the early humans...It was a good read
Thank you! I've been asking him that!
hahahahaha
You can't just extrapolate me disagreeing with racial/ethnic pride and histories to Quoting Bitter Crank. I'm certainly not always happy with how simplistically people talk about society and culture but I don't reject either of the terms meaning.
You also can't honestly extrapolate me saying sharing a skin colour is insufficient for interpretations like pride, guilt and the like to me denying that the past continues to impact the present/future in a variety of ways. We as philosophers constantly look back to the past and past people to learn but I am not going to take your post seriously, it's relevance to my assertion is not there.
Careful observers? No, pathological observers might say that and I'm sure they do. It doesn't take much effort to put emphasis on particular differences, what exactly people want to do about it is something else entirely. I'm pretty sure we've talked about the importance of wealth redistribution and likely we'd agree generally on the importance of education, reducing crime and other important social issues.
Do we also want to discriminate against people who need help based on the reason that they need help? If we've got a predominantly black city and a predominantly white city and they're both struggling with the same serious social issues, does it really matter that across the country, other white people who have nothing to do with this city whatsoever are better off than black people across the country who have absolutely nothing to do with the struggling city in question?
If we're talking about helping two struggling people to find a job, they've got families to support and their situations are nearly identical but one of them is black and one of them is white, does it matter? If the whtie person might have an easier time in some situations than the black man, should we also ask who of them is more attractive? If the black man is miles better looking, surely that's a huge advantage for him. What if the black man is far more intelligent? Surely, intelligent people generally have it better than less intelligent people?
Like honestly, what do you want to do? Nobody here is denying the past, blacks as a group are disadvantaged by their history but once you strip the racial focus and start caring about individuals and towns/cities, what is the advantage in continuing the same racialised thinking that created the very problems you're talking about? Nobody is going to convince me that adopting a pahological racialised perspective and evaluation of society to have any advantages which aren't only visible to those who similarly evaluate and percieve based on racial differences.
Quoting Bitter Crank
My grandfather is dead, I wouldn't be alive without him, so nothing, happy? What a dumb question.
You're asking for examples of it within the West or outside? I've given plenty of examples of the latter to you... I also need to ask what does it mean for something to "have already been criticised"? When we talk about the alt-right, particular aspects of their ethnocentric and racialised motivations make them deplorable, not criticised but make them considered a hate group. Now Anaxagoras, for instance, disagrees with that and says that the alt-right is more than just what I've laid out and you might agree with that, that's fine.
I've been exposed to a lot of talk from example, immigrants to China from across the world and their difficulties in living in China because of their nationality and race, you get the same type of comments in SK/Japan and I wouldn't have difficulties giving examples across the world. The term "racism" has been confusing so far, let me explain my stance a little. I would personally like to call any significant interpretative relevance on race racism but that's not where most people stand, they would say any negative interpretative relevance was racist. With that definition, we've got to determine how to characterise interpretations of different racial/ethnic groups. Both in whether it's negative and whether it's got more to do with language/cultural barriers, all of these things are factors.
So by the general definition of racism, if I point out that your race has serious implications for you and a lot of meaning to others when you're living in Japan, that isn't me saying that Japan is racist. We can talk in more detail when I ascertain whether you want to talk about within the west or outside.
Fair enough, that is a fallacy as you've pointed out, my apologies. I did say I am white though, first two lines of my OP.
Quoting Judaka
and you have been repeatedly asked for an example of this alleged double standard, and have failed to supply a single example.
In the few examples you have supplied, either the behaviour was based on race or skin colour, and has been roundly criticised, or it was a celebration of culture and hence had no similarity to what the alt-right does.
This has been pointed out to you many times, yet you just ignore it.
Name one.
I've talked broadly and I've asked if you wanted to go into it more deeply then we can but pick a country, I am confident to give examples in anything I've listed. I prefer you choose so there's no problems.
Then give one. The above are not examples. They are vague, generalised asserted slurs.
Let's have some names, places, dates and quotes, rather than nebulous insinuations.
Give me a template, I am naming names and giving my reasoning, the question is whether or not the alt-right is being treated to greater criticism and consequences for their ethnocentric perspectives because they're white or not. When I talk about the alt-right, they're deplorable but if we talk about those elements in China, are we going to hear the same kind of rhetoric from the people who hate the alt-right or are they going to brush over it? I'm not sure whether I'm in the wrong or you are, for the quality of my examples but you're not giving me much to work with.
An Australian alt-right figure, Pauline Hanson, said that 'Islam is a disease' and that Australia has to 'vaccinate itself against it'. It was reported both nationally and internationally.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pauline-hanson-says-islam-is-a-disease-australia-needs-to-vaccinate-20170324-gv5w7z.html
Find me an example of a person of non-European ancestry making a statement like that, that was reported as widely and did not receive criticism.
Pauline Hanson is probably the strangest politician I know of in her openness about anti-Islam, you've set a really high bar for me. Similar criticism of Islam outside of the west is never going to receive the same level of coverage as that and Islam isn't even a race or ethnicity which is what I am focusing on. Also, depending on the level of hostility and visibility, I'm not saying that we as a society aren't going to criticise examples of racism.
There is no point though in continuing this conversation, NKBJ's pointing out my fallacious thinking made me realise that members of the alt-right are specifically members because of their ethnocentric and racialised perspectives while people living in countries around the world are not citizens of those countries because of their ethnocentric and racialised perspectives and so I am not comparing apples with apples. I didn't start this thread with the intention of arguing this point but as Anaxagoras suggested, I would have been better off not talking about the alt-right to begin with.
Most of what we've talked about has been about that and I realise now that I am making a stupid comparison and so I acquiece my earlier arguments to you. I try to argue things with strength so that I look like an idiot if I'm wrong so I won't forget it, I'm hardly bragging but I succeeded here with that.
I can help out here easily enough:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ0QfLkjujY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-w0LFYhedo0
Both possess purposeful misuse of words and semantic gymnastics. It is clear enough by looking up teh definitions of the terms “racist” and “racism” that even though superiority weighs in highly plain and simple discrimination, regardless of any sense of superiority being espoused, can be defined as “racist” - it says so in every dictionary because there is an “OR” not “AND” in the wording.
That aside soem may wish to convey the meaing to suit their own purposes. This is fine, if and only if, they make absolutely clear how they are using the term and if their position makes logical sense.
As I’ve said elsewhere jist because someone chooses to apply the term “racism” to a “system of power” or some other concept, it is not only inappropriate to expect others to understand this use of a well defined in the public sphere term, it negatively effects any sensible discourse and results in people talking cross purposes.
Anyway, here is a very powerful and interesting expression of the moods felt in the US. Again, I’m not from the US, but I certainly appreciate that historically the tension involved in the US are felt quite differently than in other nations. I do, like the late great Hitchens said, that some good can be made to the damage done. Something cannot be undone though. What we’re left with is the issue of how to create a better society (national/local/global) without imposing guilt or hate on others.
Another, and perhaps bigger issue problem, is the problem of a certain sheep mentality where we follow in shaming or degrading others - the term “vitrue signalling” covers this. If you real feel the need to express disgust who exactly are you doing this for? What purpose does it solve? Is there a better way to handle difficult topics other than by enflaming the discussion and pointing fingers so as to detract from the true horror of humanity that lies in us ALL at some level?
Regardless I, and everyone else, will err somewhere along the way. I have found from experience that if I am too focused on the poor wording of others or a certain trend of reading hostility into a genuine question on their part, then I miss my own errors too and usually project them onto others.
Btw I don’t think there is such a thing as “reverse racism” just plain old racist behavior where people, meaningfully or not, judge others by the arbitrary group they see them as part of. In my experience the skin tone of someone doesn’t tell me anything about their political views or moral values. Religious persuasions tell me a little more, but not a great deal. Combinations of factors including “race” in different nations do point out to me certain differing attitudes - this would be due to each nations rainbow of cultures as a whole and as separate parts.
If someone came on this forum I said “I hate black people!” what do you think would be the best way to deal with such a person? Would you call for them to be banned from the forum or engage with them and ask questions? These are the things I think about and I have experienced.
This would be the Popper question of whether or not to tolerate intolerance. Embedded in the OP in the question of what should we tolerate if there are items that shouldn’t hypothetically be tolerated? And if we have a standard where intolerance toward some person/s in applied how will this turn out? I find this an intriguing moral dilemma because although there is certainly wisdom in the old adage of “turn the other cheek” I would against doing so “passively” - meaning, that to stand by idle seems to me not to be about what “tolerance” really means in a moral perspective. It would be immoral to just tolerate anyone however they acted without at the very least questioning their thoughts, words or actions (and I most definately to differentiate between “thoughts,” “words,” and “actions” - another complicated embedded problem of human interactions!)
TO ALL -
Have we at least come to a general overview of this subject now? Can this topic perhaps move on a little further to cover some of these arguments in greater depth? Just wondered, because I am interested in pursuing some of these items further but not really in this thread (and I’m not particularly invested in any particular part of this discussion to make a new thread myself before you ask - although I may come up with something depending on the feedback from this post).
The thing is while I'm happy to acquiesce that we can't compare the alt-right with opinions from a generalised list of countries, people are still in this thread not making any sense in their criticism of particular aspects of the alt-right. They share the racialised perspectives, they emphasise racial differences, they think in terms of racial/ethnic histories and their defence is a historical interpretation. White people talking about how to advance some kind of agenda for furthering the wealth and success of white people is wrong but they are advocating for doing that for black people and they see no hypocrisy.
I think if someone came into the forum and said "I hate white people" that they would also probably get banned or at least, who in their right mind would think that's acceptable? The problem is when people start to justify things with their interpretations and delude themselves into thinking they've got facts supporting their race-based agendas.
So you did. Missed that part. Sorry about that.
The fact is that the whole field of identity politics and multiculturalism simply veers the debate into issues about race, simply because it's all about race, racial identity, ethnicity, the differences of ehtnicity or race. This is the problem. There is no emphasis on people as individuals and the so-called 'colorblindness' is deeply rejected as hypocrisy. And that especially in our time of extreme globalization cultures are quite close to each other is perhaps heresy. And everything bad is because of white people, slavery, colonization, white racism. So much, that I like sushi gave the perfect examples of 'racism' is defined solely to be a white trait, thanks to a different new definition.
The one thing you said right.
Actually, I had no problem with the subject, just wanted clear direction as to exactly what we are discussing. I guess my frustration was more so confusion which is perhaps why it would appear that I was arguing on a tangent. Things happen.
It is obvious enough to everyone, I hope, that the most despotic and horrendous evils perpetrated by humans always carries a grain of the “good” or the movement would never get going in the first place. The trick some of these movements manage to pull off is to blinker their supporters and purposefully misinform them at each and every opportunity. It’s not exactly a new game we’re talking about here.
I wouldn’t want someone posting hatred here to be banned. I find it acceptable for peple to express themselves publicly if they are willing to engage in a discussion and give reasons for their position. Otherwise what hope is there? Of course, as I stated, I am not for what I termed as “passive tolerance” at all. Tolerance, for me, must be met with an active force not a mute acceptance.
I've always believed that if something can be uttered by anyone, we shouldn't focus on the someone that actually uttered it. It's also important to not just be convinced you're right but actually know why and specifically know what you're banking on for your side to be right.
Sometimes, I have difficulties pegging down exactly what Western culture actually is but I've got no issues saying what Australian culture is. I think Australia is, generally speaking, doing a really great job of assimilating immigrants to our core values. Even though I don't like Islam as a religion for example, when I meet an Australian Muslim, I usually feel our similarities as Australians are more than enough for me to overlook differences caused by the religion.
I also think groups like the alt-right overexaggerate agreement between whites, it's not there. I don't share a culture with whites, I don't share values with whites and I'd feel much more comfortable with an Australian of any race or ethnicity than a white person from Europe/America in thinking our views/values are more relatable. That's why I want assimilation on the important things, I want to control immigration because I want to protect that.
I feel a bit worn out talking about this subject, I don't think people have coherent outlooks on these issues. They think the alt-right are deluded for thinking their culture is under attack while also making claims that different races are living in their own worlds, believing they've got to be prioritised above white people and that other races don't even have to share in the nation's history, their ethnic histories take precedence. Can't people even put 1 and 1 together? Can't the understanding go a little bit deeper than just being tolerant? I hope they can at least articulate our disagreement in a way which doesn't just insult me.
That's basically what we're dealing with. I made a thread earlier.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5160/the-capacity-to-answer-unasked-questions
Where I basically tried to explain why despite being in a time of a historic level of rejection of racism to the point where even the alt-right (from my experience) try hard not to sound racist but it's still at the forefront of everything? When a product is unpopular, it just disappears from sight. Any publicity is good publicity, is what it comes down to. So long as these idiots keep going on about identity politics and maintaining their racialised perspectives, they're perpetuating and giving life to the very way of thinking they claim to despise.
I do think this discussion has been a productive one over all. It hasn’t gotten out of hand even though it is one of those topics that creates an emotional pull in us all - we’re humans and we understand the taint of prejudice first, second and third hand. We know it’s not pleasant yet it’s an inevitable hurdle we have to get over in whatever form it attacks our psychological confusions.
Damn sushi bravo
Well, don't take it personally. You know, the problem with e-mail, texts, forums such as this, and similar kinds of communication is that misinterpretation is endemic. In a face-to-face conversation, body language, tone of voice, and real-time interaction eliminates a lot of the text-based problem. In conversation, what would be a clarifying quibble, comes off as a body slam in print.
Quoting Judaka
What do I want to do?
I worked in social services and education for 40+ years. The stated goals of most social service and education institutions are to ameliorate disadvantage and build individual and community capacity. There are all sorts of strategies employed to achieve these goals. Some strategies work well, some work poorly. Some, furthermore, backfire and make things worse.
Our country was built on a foundation of crude exploitation of black slaves and the white working class, and then a black and white working class (which composes most people in the country). The social conditions and status of poor blacks and poor whites is baked into The American Way. How do we undo the black and white marble cake of disadvantage and prejudice?
I very much want to see the black and white marble cake unmade. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do it, and from what I can tell, nobody else does either.
Various groups have had some pretty good ideas about it over the years. The earlier 20th century socialists and progressive labor organizers had a solid foundation of "material factors". The civil rights groups of the 50s and 60s had worthwhile and doable goals. The various liberation movements of the 60s and 70s had some good ideas.
Unfortunately, none of these good ideas were in place long enough, and/or were not implemented with conviction for long enough to achieve the stated goals.
Moreover, it has never been in the interests of the ruling class (in any country, not just in the United States) to have the mass of the population cohesively united with clear goals and sound strategies to achieve their aims. So, at every step along the way, the powers that be have intervened from above to sabotage the works of bottom-up social change.
Take the issue of justice to counteract racial discrimination: After Brown Vs. the Board of Education in the 1950s, which declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, there was a wave (which continues into the present) of all white private schools created in the south. This contributed to the decline of the public schools, which became heavily black. Being black doesn't make a school bad, of course, but being a school of poor blacks without the resources to deliver an acceptable education does make a black school bad (and poor white children and minimal financing makes a white school bad too). Various forced integration schemes have not accomplished much.
Needless to say, most of the children of the ruling class have always gone to private schools. They always get a good education, and most of the working class get the current estimated minimum education.
Reasonably stable, financially healthy suburban counties are usually white. Their schools are generally quite a bit better. Poor people (whatever color they are) can't afford to live in these suburbs, so they can't benefit from the schools. The existence of the white suburbs was, in many cases, deliberately engineered by the government through the FHA programs starting in the 1930s.
Over time, at least somewhat well off whites have been concentrated in suburbs with lots of amenities (like reasonably good schools) and blacks have been concentrated in cities with no amenities--slums, in other words. This has been going on for at least 3 generations.
Sorry for the long post, but the point is: how do we now undo 80 years and 3 or 4 generations of very divergent cultural development?
This divergence (which goes back to pre-civil war days) is what puts black people and white people in "two different countries" and its damned hard to devise ways of undoing this even slightly.
It's visible on public transit. Most of the black people on MN public transit look and act poor. When I go to Chicago, there are definitely more blacks on public transit who share a solid economic status with whites. It is visible in clothing, speech, deportment, and so forth. The total number of poor blacks in Chicago is far greater than in Minneapolis, but the poverty gap seems to be smaller.
Milwaukee, however, is more like Minneapolis. The number of poor blacks is greater, and the wealth gap seems to be about as wide.
Why does this disparity exist? Well part of it is that as parts of the industrial Midwest turned into de-industrialized shit holes, those blacks who could get out moved to other cities (Milwaukee, Minneapolis...) which weren't quite as bad. They still lived in the slums, but they were slightly safer slums with slightly better social services and city maintenance.
There is a distinct difference between blacks and other minorities. SE Asians, Central Americans, NE Africans, and so on may come from relatively disrupted places (i.e., Mogadishu) but they do not come from "cultures of poverty". That makes a huge difference. They may be poor (many of them are), but they have a distinctly positive mindset which enables them to get on here fairly well.
As far as I know, no one has any idea of how to impart positive, success oriented values into people who have been immersed in a culture of poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination for many generations. It's a tough nut to crack.
You've laid out the problem but you haven't told me what you want to do. My answer is to reduce the interpretative relevance of race, stop focusing on whether those struggling in poverty are white and black and aim to tackle problems without racialising them. So let's lay things out:
1. We're both trying to reduce poverty
2. We both recognise that a variety of problems within society that impact people and need to be fixed
The ability to create wealth is often tied to how much wealth you currently have and when you look at black Americans as a group, there's not much wealth there. That doesn't mean poor white families have it easier, it just means there were historical imbalances between whites and blacks and so generally speaking, whites have most of the wealth.
Points 1 & 2 are enough, that's the best help we can give white or black communities which are struggling and what I want you to do is step in and tell me why it's not good enough to you.
You want to add:
3. Prioritise poor black communities over poor white communities?
4. Make special rules and exceptions that only apply to people based on race?
The problem here is twofold, first:
These are only problems when you focus on the racial differences
Take 500 people, 250 of them black and 250 of them white, we lift 250 of them out of poverty. Provided we're not selected based on race, to me, there's no racial element here. I am really happy for those 250 people and best of luck to them. You're going to be happy/upset based on whether they're white or black? That's not something you can do when you prioritise the individual and reduce the interpretative relevance of the racial differences.
You perpetuate the race problem.
If you helped the 250 black people, people are going to notice that and you add to the cycle of resentment and tribalism. Helping to reduce poverty becomes a political, racialised issue with all kinds of unnecessary baggage. You haven't lifted more than 250 people out of poverty, you're not outperforming the colour-blind perspective but my god, have things suddenly got so much more complicated. You legitimise white people making race interpretatively relevant, you give racist ideas credibility because when I tell them race doesn't matter and just treat people as individuals, they point to you and say but he's not!
As for culture, I don't know, if they weren't poor then the majority, they'd try to make better lives for themselves, I know that.
Prejudice based on race is wrong, dealing with people based on their race isn't productive. I already think your way of thinking is an obstacle to reducing poverty in America because the focus is so laden in the negativity of racial differences and claims of racism. Rules 3 & 4 are not helping anyone, least of all the black individuals that you claim to care about. So many people just take it for granted that they should think racially but honestly, I don't think I'll ever lose on this topic with another pragmatist, You need to refuse to give up your racialised perspective to have a chance of holding your own.
By the way (a bit off topic), to compare the US with anything else is challenging, but to compare an US state to separate countries does give a comparative perspective. Actually I found that by population size and by many other variables the closest equivalent to my country, Finland, would be... Minnesota. Before you laugh, just hear me out:
...........................................Finland............Minnesota
Population (in millions):........5,520...………5,679
land area (square km):.....338,424.........225,163
climate:...................subarctic climate, humid continental climate
per capita (nominal USD):..50,068.........64,675
gini coefficient:.....................0.277..........0.452
(racial composition)
White:...……………………...+/- 97,8%.......84,3%
infant mortality rate (per 1000):..2,3...……5,1
life expectancy (years):.......81,386.......... 81,05
tertiary education (25-64y):..42%..............48%
number of Nobel prizes:........5.................5
intentional homicide rate:.....1,42.............2
Somali diaspora:...................20 000......50 000 - 80 000(?)
Hence it puts into perspective when you just look at Minnesota, and not the whole US. Hawaii or Louisiana are quite different from Minnesota, just as is New York or California. Minnesotans favour democrats, hence the state is closer to the 'socialism' found in a Nordic welfare states. And with several indicators Minnesota is among the top of the US states and doesn't have the most problems in the US. Just like, uh, Finland compared to Europe. So in a way comparing Minnesota (to Nordic countries) tells a lot in my view. For instance, what I've read and Bitter has said that the Somali diaspora in Minnesota is said to have adapted quite well to the state and even has produced a politician to Capitol Hill. In Finland, a half smaller community, has been the most hated ethnic group in the country. This of course makes an interesting comparison on just how xenophobic or intolerant Finns are to Minnesotans.
Reducing povetry happens with creating prosperity. Yet usually what policies we are talking about when "reducing povetry" are welfare policies, wealth transfers etc. These policies, who gets money and who doesn't, create these arguments when race is used to decide who gets what, just like with 'affirmative action'.
Because what would help people to get out of povetry? Simple, that they get a good paying job and stand on their own feet, which itself creates wealth to the society. Yet those jobs don't emerge out of charity. Charity and government handouts similar to charity do not eradicate povetry. They do have a positive aspects also, yet the negative aspects shouldn't be forgotten.
Debating wealth redistribution is another thread but provided there's no racial element, I am a strong believer in it. Without wealth redistribution, I'd basically be saying just ignore the plight of the black individuals and let them fend for themselves and that wouldn't be as convincing to those who want to help regardless of their motivations. It is precisely because I believe in wealth redistribution that I can argue as I do. Redirect our compassion for the good of reducing these unnecessary racial tensions.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein, 2018 (This is a history of the Federal Housing Administration)
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond, 2016 (Desmond 'embedded' himself among Milwaukee black slum, white trash trailer park dwellers, and two respective slum lords, one black, one white.)
Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City [Baltimore]Antero Pietila, 2010 -- @ssu Pietila is a Finn by birth --
Family properties, Beryl Satter, 2009 - a history of racial succession in the Lawndale section of Chicago
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg, 2016
What wasn't an accident? I accept the historical grounding for the imbalance in wealth between whites vs blacks as groups.
I want a reduction in the large structured economic disparities with which most Americans live. This can be addressed without reference to race, up to a point.
Quoting Judaka
I'll drink to that; BUT, we have to acknowledge that economics have been racialized for quite some time. It isn't the whole story by any means, but it is part of the problem. If our goal is to be 'race blind' then we would definitely stop talking about race so much.
Quoting Judaka
Yes to Nos. 1 and 2. No on #3: we should definitely not "prioritize poor blacks over poor whites". No on #4: Special rules like Affirmative Action, quotas, and so forth generally backfire and create more intense resentment.
Quoting Judaka
So, race-blind, class-based redistribution of wealth is the key step (there are various mechanisms to do this -- it's been done before).
And this comes to my point in racial or ethnic relations: if one group seems to be a "free rider" in the system, then racism and xenophobic thoughts emerge.
What was not an accident is the racial distribution of populations and home ownership in metropolitan areas (where most Americans live). As Richard Rothstein shows in The Color of Law, the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) pursued a strict policy of racial segregation from its inception in the 1930s going forward. The FHA didn't invent racial segregation, of course. What they did was effectively restrict the suddenly created and rapidly expanding suburbs to whites. Jews, blacks, asians, Mexicans, et al were barred. How did they do this? They would underwrite mortgages only to white people, and it was up to the local banking and real estate industries to make sure that only white people applied for and received mortgages.
Access to the new and growing suburbs post WWII is the basis for much of the wealth disparity among middle class people. The houses which were built in the 40s, 50s, and 60s and which white people occupied appreciated very nicely. The appreciated value was the foundation of future wealth accumulation. In addition to the FHA, the Veterans Administration followed racialized policies in handing out money for college after WWII. The VA gave an economic boost to millions of white men who served in WWII and later. Lots of non-veteran whites also attending college in the post war boom because they were able to afford what was then MUCH lower tuition than people have to pay now.
So, one might ask, how did it happen that the FHA and VA served mainly whites?
Well, at the time (late 1800s, early 1900s up until the late 60s) southern Democrats had control of enough Senate and House seats and committees to enforce segregation policy on New Deal and post WWII programs. This grip was tight enough that many black workers were initially excluded from Social Security!
All that is what was not accidental.
Perspective: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/112916/richest-and-poorest-countries-capita-2016.asp
This is actually one crucial issue. Here one of the most successful welfare policies has been right from the start the avoidance of concentrating subsidized housing for the poor in one place. If you would concentrate welfare accomodation in one place, it would create social problems and give the area a bad name, basically you would have the possibility of creating a ghetto in the future. Hence you have had subsidized housing in the more affluent parts of Helsinki. It has eradicated differences between areas and even if some parts of Helsinki are seen less prestigious than others, the real estate prices don't differ so much.
If you had not been visiting Mars for the last several years, you would probably have heard about a severely disproportionate concentration of wealth in the United States (and in many other countries). A few people have most of the wealth; most people have very little of the wealth. It fucking does not matter what the average fictional wealth is.
Mmmm ...? Nah!
https://www.gapminder.org/videos/everyone-lives-on-dollar-street/
A number of housing programs in the United States have started to distribute public housing across urban territory in relatively small units. Chicago, for instance, has demolished several of its giant high-rise concrete ghettos in the sky (Robert Taylor and Cabrini Green). Residents were then relocated in distributed smaller units. At least, that's officially what happened. There is some question about how well that actually worked out there.
Distribution in small public housing units that are well managed and maintained is a desirable strategy.
Such is human nature! :)
You're preaching to the choir a bit, I haven't heard anyone in this thread dispute that wealth inequality is often characterised by the social circumstances for different races in the past. Nobody is denying that blacks were systematically oppressed, that past governments have specifically and overtly favoured whites over blacks. The question is what to do about it and how to characterise the current social circumstances, determining how dominant this information is in our understanding of the present.
There are many truths on many different levels of analysis and while when looking at the group, blacks are clearly disadvantaged, when looking at the individual we have what comes with being poor, their individual circumstances which may or may not be parts of trends of a culture specific to the race such as rates of fatherlessness or access to drugs and temptations to do crime. The individual has the odds stacked against him in a variety of ways but he must still take responsibility for his actions and circumstances if he wants to improve as a person and have a better future.
What perspective takes priority? That's the question.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm glad you agree, this is the way forward.
On the group level, what I believe is that particularly in America, racial and ethnic histories take priority over nationality. This is an obstacle to race-blindness, a big one, particularly when many have an interpretation of America and indeed the West's both achievements and mistakes prior the civil rights movement having only to do with the white race. I want three things, first race-blind solutions or improvements to issues such as wealth inequality, crime, education and etc. Race-based interpretations to be demonized no matter who is doing it and thirdly for national and cultural identities to take over the role currently held by racial and ethnic identities.
Many believe that a white American can take responsibility for the achievements of the West, the technology and prosperity developed before the civil rights and must shoulder the burden of imperialism and slavery. While black Americans are still former slaves who had all these atrocities done to them and are now feeling the aftereffects of that. I think there should be some kind of discussion on what an American is and when you are that, you are now the extenuation of America's past and you can make of that what you want but you are not different based on race. Black Americans are now citizens of the country that used to practice slavery, they should view it that way instead of seeing themselves as former slaves. What are your thoughts on this?
There's a huge difference between wealth inequality in a country and differences in wealth between countries. Wealth inequality is a social issue, it's known to increase crime, it's a moral issue, it's an issue of responsibility, it's an issue of looking after your own and explaining the inequality in a way which makes sense within the system. There are many examples where governments assist their own citizens and it's not undermined by the fact they don't extend that same level of assistance to citizens of other countries.
Yes, there are good policies to be implemented. Naturally the policies do have also their negative aspects, like that the whole system does create apathy and if you are OK with a meager living, you don't have to work. Still I think that the positive aspects are far larger. Starting from things like social cohesion and low crime.
Social cohesion has also been important. The big question is if those that don't work and live off the welfare aren't the stereotypical "blonde haired Finns with an alcohol problem" that we are used to, but foreigners, what happens then?
Great video. I think people don't understand that living with basically nothing but some housing and basic stuff is not what people want. They generally will want to work and go on holidays and buy the stuff they want and the many good things that come with becoming a functioning member of society.
Your city ignoring the fact that it has hundreds on up to thousands of people living without shelter in the streets is a measure of how dehumanized a place one is living in.
One of the programs I like is an American Indian housing program for "public inebriates". These are people whose alcoholism will be terminal if they are not protected. The residents receive a small unit in a purpose built apartment building with very few strings attached. They can't drink in the hallways, and they can't cause problems in the building (like fighting). There is no expectation that they will stop drinking. It gives protection and a measure of dignity. (Its housing with services.)
A lot of people who are social service recipients need two things: they need some money and they need their own shelter. Give them at least their own shelter and some cash and they can start dealing with their other problems--mental illness, drug addiction, criminal history, history of abuse, maladaptive behavior, etc.
The side truth of the species is that we are not very nice. We engage in all sorts of bad behaviors: ruthless conquest, mass murder, slavery, exploitation... the list goes on and on. We can, we should, we must accept our species' history as it is, since we can't change it. We can only change things in the present,
I see no benefit in dwelling on one's ancestor's status as slaves. Slavery is now 160 years, or about 8 generations distant. Later, more recent history matters more. Dropping out of high school will cause an individual far more problems than being the descendent of slaves. In fact, if one drops out of school, it won't matter all that much whether one's ancestors were black or white; it is a very stupid move. It's also a stupid move to learn nothing in high school.
Getting involved in drug dealing, drug use, and petty crime is a very bad idea for young people, black white, yellow or red. Don't do it. The measly short-term gains of petty cash and fun aren't worth the longer term downsides, like an addled brain, a criminal record, or getting shot by a rival dealer.
If you want to be a success, dress the part, speak the part, and get some skills to actually play the part. This is just universal good advice for anybody. Employers expect performance and production, and if you fail to deliver, you will get fired, whether you are a privileged white or a disadvantage black or asian.
If you tend to business in school, shape up, and work hard, you too can be successful. Not rich, probably, but even small success is a lot better than getting a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
I agree with your level of analysis. It is preferable to focus on the present individual and the interpretative relevance of race being reduced is always a positive outcome. We agree much more than I thought initially, I didn't think it was the case due to how others in this thread have recounted history to me, as though it justified maintaining the racialised perspectives of the past. I do not deny the history, it is in part an acknowledgement of the past to want a different future. Racism is not the problem anymore, it is the interpretative relevance of race. The drive to end racism through race-based solutions perpetuates this problem, that's why it isn't going away.
I would not bother to invite other races to share in the success and failures of the people who lived in countries now called the West if it didn't seem people yearn for that kind of interpretation. I condemn all race-based interpretation so, if you're a citizen of a Western country then feel free to make those Western people your "we". I have not seen what a society without this kind of historical "we" would look like and I don't know if it'd be better or worse but with this, nobody has to give that up.
The next problem for me is the emphasis of interpretations based on racial representation in important occupations and statistical differences by race in the many contexts it's brought up. Terms like "white privilege" are so pernicious because they force racialisation of every applicable context and questioning that makes you an enemy of the facts, a part of the problem. The problem isn't that people are oblivious to the statistical probability of being advantaged or disadvantaged by their race. I'm not even aware of any argumentation of how promoting awareness of these issues will lead to any kind of resolution. That's not even present in the thinking.
On this forum, many people bring it up all the time, like awareness solves something when actually this interpretation being prioritised as a tool for understanding and as a compass for guiding moral action is counterproductive as it is a propellant of race-based interpretations. Everyone is hyper-aware of the enemy but nobody knows where or who he is. It's madness.
If we became focused on reducing the interpretative relevance of race, we'd be out of this mess so quickly. Nobody can complain except precisely those who still think race is important. Half of the problems would disappear as a result and the other half become social problems that are not characterised non-racially and I think that will help in being able to tackle them. They aren't easy issues but they're a lot harder when you add tribalism to the equation.
Just curious to see if you can spot the possible irony of this statemenr alongside what you’ve been saying in this thread?
The problem is that the slavery/Jim Crow issue dominates the discourse even if the are things of the past. It's a convenient way emphasize the victimhood of the minority and not to look at the current problems. What I've noticed that there are similarities in the attitudes with African Americans and Finnish children and youngsters that relate to the working class or to a bluecollar background. Basically studying hard and succeeding in school isn't, especially with boys, looked upon as being a great or a natural thing.
I myself attended a so called elite school where the pupils graduated from the gymnasium with grades close being highest to the country. There everybody studied hard, the teachers were great and usually had written the course books themselves (which were used in other schools too). Hence it came to me as a shock when I went to a Church confirmation camp at the age of 16 that had the teenagers coming from another "ordinary" school. These boys from the local school used the term 'engineer' as a swearword and were against learning in school, which simply "sucked". Good grades meant that you were the teachers pet and an 'engineer'. I tried to keep a low profile until I happened to make a too sophisticated (or something) comment that they didn't like, and I was then deemed to be an engineer and was ridiculed the rest of the days in the camp.
I noticed the similar phenomenon in the army when the soldiers noticed that one of them had graduated from the gymnasium and started to pick on him because of this. Yet then of course I was officer candidate and my peers, other officer candidates, were nearly all university students and of "my class". (Actually military service presented the most starkest example how classes are formed in our meritocratic society as everybody started from the same level and then through testing and performance reviews picked to be enlisted, sergeants and officers)
Now this happened in Finland, which has one of the most level educational systems in the World. So I just can imagine how bad it is when there indeed are true differences with the schools and in the performance of the teachers. When you have the concept of race added to this, it creates a problematic environment.
Enlighten me. I won't play guessing games.
I’m well aware of the effect of inequality on crime rates (It is a phenomenon observed on every scale; from global to city district). The issue being the proximity of poorest to wealthiest.
It's just technically true that wealth redistribution within a country and charity towards other countries are different things. A discussion on what to do about poverty in the world beyond the West is just an entirely different topic, it doesn't undermine a desire for wealth redistribution within a country, something which would be performed by a government. The responsibility of a government is to their people, not all people.
You want to discuss an entirely different topic then make a new thread for it but I don't get what it's got to do with what is being discussed here.
Maybe it was in the late '80s that I started to hear of black children claiming status by "not acting white" -- which meant doing well in school. It's quite possible that I was not in that particular loop and just didn't hear about it earlier, but it seems like a significant cultural change occurred. But it is strange that you would have observed the same thing, because the inner city slums of the US are presumably quite different than Finland.
Did a lot of young people in the late 1980s come to the pessimistic, self-defeating conclusion that there was "no future for them"? (assuming that "no future" actually was a pessimistic view, and not realism...) and that there was no point in excelling? Or was it something else?
Of course they are, but the phenomenon that I mentioned is actually observed by sociologists. Unfortunately I can't remember now which studies to refer to, but there is this kind of self reinforcing of one's own class. One just has to look at the most class conscious society in the West, the UK. Those belonging to the working class are quite proud of their own class. And what should be noted that it isn't at all about reinforcing failure: Yes, you might punish those who are "teachers pets", but where you can excel is especially in sports and a totally accepted objective can be traditional blue collar jobs, to be a car mechanic or to work at the construction site. These aren't the jobs where mathematics, biology or history lessons help you, so the disinterest in school is logical. And if there are those fathers around to give the example for the youngster to choose a blue collar job, it's not such a bad thing at all. Unfortunately, there are less of those jobs around. The crucial thing is there to be those jobs around.
In the US there are more factors in this, things like many know being brought up in single parent households, the crime and drug problem and things like what you mentioned, the thing of 'acting white'.
I think that people who do work or who have an academic background seldom understand just how big it can be mentally for people to not have a job, to not have an education. The disillusionment, the apathy can truly affect a person. You apply for work just so many times and then it starts to work on you. Just like loneliness can truly cause problems, so can unemployment or being uneducated do also.
Feminism has long been intertwined with other social equality and civil rights movements (female rights advocates and abolitionists of the 1800's noticed they shared many core beliefs, and they've generally ganged together ever since), and in today's academic and political/cultural landscape, "intersectional feminism" aggressively defends its monopolistic right to have the main and final say on all things unequal. I know I bring up intersectional feminism more than I should (as if it is a bogeyman), but it's just so damn relevant because it's the ideological and academic source for contemporary identity-based politics.
In any case, the post 80's vectors of social justice are inherently defeatist in that they blame everything on a system of systems that is beyond their immediate control. It portrays a power-dynamic that cannot be worked with, and instead must be destroyed entirely (ultimately the power dynamic they've defined is based upon identity such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, so almost invariably white/male/cis/het/etc become "problematized").
This is where the simplistic and polarizing ideas and rhetoric that actually gave birth to the proto-reactionary alt-right originally came from (I.E the idea that "whiteness" or "white people" or "white culture" are "under attack"). Ideas like "white guilt" which are based on the idea that all whites have all the power are the perfect rhetorical tools for right wing pundits to appeal to the emotions of (especially) young white men by stoking fear and paranoia (it doesn't help that the online world of rhetoric can amplify absurd messages, which warps our perceptions of the political landscape and magnifies the severity of certain elements).
Once a large enough base of the emotionally vulnerable and intellectually immature had coalesced (with no coherent political worldview), it was really only a skip and a hop for many of them to turn to full blown neo-nazism. After soaking themselves in the anti-white rhetoric and paranoid delusions of a white-apocalypse, it's hard to see how none of them would be enticed by it. At the same time, as if they were dormant vampires awakened and rejuvenated by fresh youthful blood, the neo-nazi and KKK old guard came out of the wood work to enter and stoke the evolving alt-right movement (which exists almost entirely in social media formats that mainstream reporting is not equipped to report on or compete with).
What's the answer to white guilt? "White pride", they said. "If it's O.K for other groups to celebrate their heritage and be proud of who they are, and to seek to preserve their culture, why not us whites? What if they hate you because you're white?
And that's how a faction of the alt-right became a tribalistic white supremacist movement that is out of touch with reality. It took a counterpart; a dance partner to mirror. Intersectional feminism is tribalistic in every way, and it directly controverts the main thrust that made MLK so effective (peace, love and unity). In the same way that the alt right is tribalistic, so too are many over-blown "justice" movements that claim to champion a different shade. Being tribalistic poses a danger to modern society of a certain magnitude, but tribalism that is also largely divorced from reality is another magnitude of danger entirely. Alt-right lunatics with their deeply held delusions and irrational fears (e.g: white people will soon cease to exist) are especially dangerous.
"The sky is falling, there's nothing we can do about it alone, and they are to blame".
It's the exact same dull argument from all sides, and it's maddening.
P.S Sorry to suddenly lay this tangent on you; I've been trying to make a post in this thread and it turns out you're my safe space! <3
Well that's an interesting tangent, to say the least.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Keep bringing it up. Is Andrea Dworkin a 3/4th wave feminist? I encountered her loathsomeness back in the 1980s. Quite repellent. She's still around; she gotten written up in some paper recently.
Gay liberation was my entre into this stuff in the early 1970s, and at the time it seemed like gays and women were kind of all on the same side, but I was probably tuning into [s]older[/s] earlier feminists who were more 2nd wave. "the main thrust that made MLK so effective (peace, love and unity)" God, the issues around sex, race, and class were so much simpler back then! One of the gay groups back then was "Black and White Men Together (BWMT). I was going to say it doesn't exist these days but a quick Google reveals that it still does, sort of. Back then it was about black and white sex, now it's about racism and homophobia (and dining out). I suggest they will have more fun if they stick to sex. And, they might be more successful.
The reason I say that is that by partnering across racial lines, they are the change they want to see. A very unkind critique of BWMT was raised back in the 70s (it's just white guys out slumming). Today the criticisms would be harsher, grinding on power differentials, oppressive roles, exploitation, reverse racism, etc.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I'm white and I plead NOT GUILTY, your honor, and I am not a white-hyphen-something, other than live-white-male. I only know (for sure) 1 white supremacist--a brother in law. We don't spent much time together--I've been banned for a good 15 years, at least. I'm not a separatist or a nationalist. On the other hand, I like white western culture (English, French, Mozart, Van Gogh, all that). I don't feel guilty about the Amerindians (I feel deep regret) nor do I feel guilty about slavery--again, deep regret -- really. What history and anthropology tells us is that we are one vicious species, as often as not, and we have all employed similar strategies to promote our particular aspirations.
Personally, I think we would be farther ahead of we stopped talking about racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and so forth. What we are saying a good share of the time is social justice boiler plate, and it prevents us from seeing nuance or progress. Like, do Somali's in Minneapolis run into racist attitudes? Sure they do. On the other hand, a Somali was elected to Congress from a Minneapolis district that contains more Christian and Jewish voters than Somalis. We also elected a [home grown] Moslem as Attorney General, after he had served in Congress. White (mostly Democrats) people electing a black [home grown] Moslem is progress, no matter how you slice it.
I was suggesting that such opposed attitudes are possibly contradictory? I suggested “perspective” about the standing of the US in the world and was met with derision from Bitter Crank - another “blame the rich” mentality akin to “all blacks are criminals” mentality. It appearsone is okay to voice publicly and the other isn’t. Why is this?
Ah! Ye olde "sex negative feminism". What an anti-gem! According to wiki, Andrea Dworkin died in 2005, but the bloated corpse of her ideas oft drift ashore on a spat isolated beaches.
80's And 90's feminism (specifically pre-social media) was at first a wild west of thinkers who were all trying to take feminism to its next radical level (coincidentally at a time when the word "radical" had connotations of cool and awesome). The high of the 60's and 70's was wearing off, but we still hadn't reached utopia; the market demanded stronger medicine. Initially there were dozens of formalized feminist camps, each with their own focus and concerns (eg: some were concerned with sexualization of women, some were concerned with gender equity in political representation, some were concerned with keeping the traditional family together, some were concerned with dismantling necessary conformity to the traditional family unit; some were were concerned with women of color, some with women with disability, some with the oppression of ugly women, of hot women, of fat women, of skinny women; you name it.). This landscape demanded some sort of meta-feminist theory to explain it all, which is where "intersectionality" comes in. It's the idea that the amount of oppression a given person experiences exists theoretically at the intersection of their various "disadvantages". On its own this idea is actually compelling and potentially useful, but the hasty conclusions that have since been drawn from it are now dominant for perverse reasons.
As the pile of feminist causes grew, it generated a marketplace of competition. The more compelling a cause (let's call them "grievances") the more reaction and support it generateed, the more students it attracted, the more their proponents gained tenure. A "progressive stack" emerged where the prevalence and persuasive strength of a given theory was primarily based on the emotional strength of the grievance it sought to model or remedy. Feminists like Dworkin were given more than soap-boxes strictly because of the emotional strings they pulled (there were no tangible academic strings on her ideas whatsoever). Overtime things seem to settle down a bit, and some of the more ludicrous grievances either fade away or lead to fringe schisms within and between ostensibly feminist academic departments. By the late 90's, contemporary feminism at large actually seemed to have its head on straight. There was a global focus on helping women (and everyone) stuck in oppressive old world conditions, with sensible focus on the plight of women vs men in western society. Tucked safely away in my Canadian public school, I was taught to believe in the basic principles of the civil rights movement, and I was given a common sense description about what hatred, racism, sexism, and discrimination are, and why I should not engage in them. Radical feminist theory of the 80's and early 90's was nowhere to be seen (granted, radical feminist literature was still being produced, it just held no real political or cultural purchase).
At some point in the late 2000's, catastrophe struck. Social media created a realm of communication that has never before existed: everyone can talk to everyone (or at least, many can talk to many). Like a macrocosm of 80's feminism, the myriad of confusion and disagreement created a marketplace that selected for emotionally persuasive power as opposed to rationally persuasive power. Basically it's ancient Greek sophistry 2.0: whatever is persuasive is therefore true. And this environment was like a bull-horn for the entire body of grievance studies that departments had been built up since the 80's. The most emotionally provocative theories were given the biggest bull-horns, and the resulting market share they were able to capture became the wave of "social justice warriors" gone wild that has plagued the 2010's.
Interestingly, sex-negative feminism does re-emerge every so often, but it is quickly and vehemently put down by sexually liberal camps who take a different view of things (sex-negative theories are more repulsive today than they ever were, but in the new online environment, anyone with half a brain can make controversial statements and get undue attention). To be precise, I think Dworkin's ideas are largely set apart from the rest of 3rd or 4th wave feminism (post 70's feminism), but they're definitely in the same unkempt zoo.
Quoting Bitter Crank
They would say that the inherently white assumption that men of color should have sex with white men is an extension of colonialism into queer performativity, and that the very idea undermines their agency, mirroring the master-slave relationship of the 1800's. If as an organization they had politics that were in any way not fashionable to contemporary grievance politics, you can bet your ass they'd be problematized.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Somehow we've become over-sensitized to grief, and desensitized to progress on a psychological level, which is in part why ideas like "white guilt" affect some people so severely (the more vehemently you deny it, the more proof of your white guilt you display!). We've focused on how evil racism, sexism, etc, are to the point that when a child encounters it for the first time in their life, they crumble to the ground while screaming bloody murder.
It really doesn't matter how far we've progressed as a whole, so long as there are a noticeable number of racist or sexist individuals out there, they can be cherry-picked as representative of the system, and to encounter one in real life is to encounter Satan himself. There's no room for nuance when every available emotional chip is at stake (except the positive ones). When Kim Crenshaw coined "intersectional feminism" and envisioned a system that sought to fairly empower victims, she didn't realize that people would therefore have perverse incentives to establish themselves as victims.
And that's a part of the political world we now live in. Victim-hood can mean everything, and if you disagree, you might just get yelled at until you go away. "Whites as victims" from the alt-right is just inter-sectional feminism by another name, and with a different victim hierarchy.
People don't have time to consider things like improving merit based diversity in outcomes, and improving levels of acceptance of and between different identity groups; what's compelling now?
Nothing motivates like a good problem.
Shudder.
Perhaps it's because I've spent so long observing the contemporary rituals from the safety of wild blinds, but the overall evolution of "feminist" thought (into the abstract mosaic that it is today) is like a great and terrible kaleidoscope of emotion and angst.
Just like I said. Stronger medicine. Dworkin is that tablet of acid you've been saving; that old school cure. The fast and loose nature of social media has basically widened the [s]Ovarian[/s] Overton Window to the point that just about any ridiculousness is acceptable (so long as it attacks fashionable targets)
"All penetrative sex is rape" isn't rationally too far off from "all whites are racist". Hyperbole within hyperbole. As the article you linked notes, Dworkin's approach of being "intentionally" bombastic is something that modern rad-fems often claim is necessary for a message to be heard. Trouble is sarcasm doesn't usually read well in text, and so Dworkin's burgeoning proponents take it all seriously.
As far as I remember, I never talked about national-identity with regards to wealth but you seem to want the disparities between nations to be reduced to national identity.
I don't think there's a meaningful difference between being white, black or Asian but I won't agree if one were to say there's no meaningful difference between Australia, Zimbabwe and China. I also don't agree that a poor individual in Australia should be treated the same as the country of Zimbabwe, it's not the same.
What's really important to understand is that the difference between Zimbabwe and Australia is not national identity. It's like taking one business and comparing it to another, different leaders, different systems, different circumstances and they're both watching their own numbers. It's normal that a business doesn't try to fix the practices of other businesses or worries about their circumstances.
The main reason that I don't care as much about Zimbabwe as Australia is that I have nothing to add to Zimbabwe other than money. I can send money to people there but I have literally no say in what goes on there and money isn't their problem. Same for most of these poorer countries, their problems are bigger than that. I think I can make a small difference someday to the West if I continue to sharpen my arguments and succeed to convince some people to think in the ways I think are better, all I can do for Zimbabwe is send money, that's probably the main reason for my disinterest in trying to help there.
If people are only concerned with what’s going on in their backyard more fool them. They are going to realise one-day that the world is actually quite small and what happens on the other side of the globe can, and does, affect their lives.
A disparity between my views race and nationality? Does that have anything to do with wealth redistribution?
Analysis as only the individual level is not possible when discussing government level policies like wealth redistribution but it is when you're talking about race-based interpretation. You're now conflating the individual level analysis of it being wrong to have race-based interpretations and the government level analysis of a government's ideal foreign aid commitments?
I don't really mind nationality-based interpretations provided they're positive because they're inclusive and do more good than harm in my estimation. Maybe in the distant future, they won't be necessary but for now, I think they're good. It's also just the way the world has been organised into nations, I think there are many benefits to this but regardless of my views, that's how it is. Foreign aid is a thing and you may want more of it and fair enough but governments should prioritise those they preside over.
That is what I am asking too. I was not saying there IS a disparity between how you treat them only asking if it is possible you might’ve made a false distinction (I wasn’t fishing for an answer to the question either).
Does wealth distribution and have anything to do with race and nationality? Yes. So if your views about these positions (race as we both agree being essentially “irrelevant” from our perspectives) is different then how are they different and how can you justify this.
Meaning if racial differences are little more than cultural distinctions then nationality is also a cultural distinction. If you wish people to view being a citizen of a country are the primary sense of identity (as opposed to viewing themselves as “black” or “white”) then is not the sense of national identity equally trivial over all. And this doesn’t have to be about a sense of “race” or “nationality” it could be simply a sense of kinship with fellows of your hometown and general upbringing - embedded within lies the distinction between wealthy people and less wealthy people.
These are all obviously arbitrary distinctions yet they do effect how societies function. I originally pointed out that BC was perhaps being a little myopic in their view of “wealth inequality” by referring to the US only. Globally inequality has dramatically dropped ovr the past gew decades so I don’t take one nations relatively small blip to be that big of a deal given that it is in a country where people have slme democratic clout and, generally speaking, freedom of expression practically unparalleled in many other nations around the world.
You keep trying to conflate nationalities and the economies and governments of a country to make your argument relatable to race-based interpretation. If you asked me, a Russian tourist has come to visit America, should people who dislike Putin or have biases against Russian/Russian people be inhospitable towards him? Of course, the answer is they shouldn't and that's more comparable to this thread's main topic.
You'll find that this point is not as easy to extrapolate to foreign aid as you're making it out because I'm not even making a moral argument here. The basis for thinking that way is illogical and tribal, it leads to incorrect conclusions and it presents itself as an interpretative focus which distracts from things which should be more important and are more important from a pragmatic perspective.
I'm not trying to create equality, I want the individual and their traits to be taken as the appropriate level of interpretative relevance when dealing with others, yourself, history and etc. Now to compare the US with India and say that there are only insignificant cultural differences between the two countries, I'm pretty sure isn't your intention but obviously, that's untrue.
The question of whether the US government should treat citizens of India as equal to their own citizens is to me, a fairly odd question. You want the US to redistribute their wealth TO India? The economy of America to feed its wealth into India?
I merely asked BC why they were focusing on US and offered some global perspective. If we’ve crossed wires here we’ve crossed wires. If thr conversation is about the US only fair enough. If not I asked why is inequality in the US the focus when global inequality has had a downward trend (yet remained a problem in EVERY country around the globe).
It interesting to see that inequality does see to increase for the country (leading power) with the highest average income. Had to say much about this though given that the leading power doesn’t tend to fluctuate.
It's the typical argument that you can implement nearly everywhere where there is economic growth.
Inequality decreases in a recession. If the stock market would drop -50%, inequality would decrease instantly.
The reason is because we don't measure povetry in absolute terms.
I meant that the MOST powerful nation has historically had a higher level of inequality of wealth compared to other nations (this can be seem from the fall of The British Empire to the rise of the US.
Note: This is looking at figures from the 1800’s to present. I haven’t looked at this on every single level but it is clear enough that the world power has shown a trend of having greater inequality of wealth (gini coefficient) than other well-to-do nations.
It's no wonder if this is so. You see wealth has allways been distributed very unequally and the profits of globalization and empire building are even more unequally distributed. Prosperity for the masses happens quite differently.
Well, actually, no. This isn’t an apparent trend however we shuffle the data. Of course I am talking on a longterm scale here not merely from year to year. The best point, historically speaking, was around the 1970’s with the initial turnaround happening in the 1930’s. Since the 1970’s inequality steadily rose until 2000 adn since then it’s been dropping.
Of course this data is not massively telling in and of itself if we don’t take into account average earning per capita - meaning inequality was lower in 1800 than it is today, but I doubt we’d want to live in 1800. We do know extreme poverty has been falling globally too and is continuing to fall.
The world's wealth is distributed purposefully only by governments and charitable individuals/companies, you're talking about wealth redistribution on a global scale, that's called foreign aid or charity.
In any case, I haven't heard any practical ideas put forward by you, I support wealth redistribution and foreign aid but I prioritise wealth redistribution because the responsibility to look after your neighbours and constituents (as a government) should be prioritised helping people across the world. Not to mention, we have far greater control over what happens in our own countries.
When we talk about race, it's a superficial divider and really everyone is benefited if we stop making it interpretatively relevant. Huge amounts of wealth redistribution towards developing countries is a very unselfish act and you aren't fulfilling a responsibility that I can make sense of. Honestly, things, like tackling global warming or supporting some of our scientific endeavours, are more important global pursuits. Upgrading infrastructure, more support to education/health care and etc.
I actually despise altruism without any practical grounding, when it's not at the expense of something else then why not but it ends badly more than it works out. I think if a country is on the right path and needs some help then they should get it and they do. For countries that are complete disasters, there's really only violent solutions and so far, the US has not been doing a good job with that approach at all.
We've taken totally different views on what comes after race-based interpretations, for you, it's with that barrier and the other similar barriers out of the way, everyone can help each other now. For me, it's one less thing to distract individuals from ignorant ways of thinking, now they can focus on better looking after themselves rather than looking at the world in such an unproductive way. Without nationality or culture being important, we're quickly running out of reasons to even care about anyone beyond yourself or immediate friends/family.
I think because people are afraid of imperialism and the West does not have a good track record of positive results after big interventions, there's not much we can do about the bad governments around the world. Most of the good ones are quickly becoming rich and time is the only remaining ingredient to their success.
Poverty still exists in the US and it shouldn't be ignored by the US government just because they're doing better than citizens in other countries which have nothing to do with anything. Though I'm still just guessing as to what you even want since all you've done is try to suggest a contradiction in my thinking which isn't there.
Are you one of those people who tries to prove a point by interpreting what others say to suit your mistake assumptions? I didn’t read past this paragraph.
You're all over the place so I wouldn't be surprised if I got no idea what you're talking about. You like making me guess, that's basically what this conversation has been about. You were talking about relative wealth in the US compared to other nations, now you're claiming to be talking about global inequality but now I'm thinking maybe you're just talking about inequality across the globe? Quote me where you actually succinctly expressed your position, I'm keen.
Perhaps because of the difference between white-equalitarianism (if that's a word) and white-supremacy?
After that I asked if you saw the issue of “race” and “identity” being problematic in how you view them - as there doesn’t appear to be any serious distinction in what they mean on a cultural context.
I shouldn’t have to update you on what’s been said. Simply look over the posts. Now you’re accusing me of being “all over the place”? Seriously? It doesn’t take great reading ability to string the sequence together.
As I’ve now repeated myself at least three times it doesn’t seem worth continuing. Forget it.
Quoting Judaka
Quoting I like sushi
Quoting Judaka
Quoting I like sushi
Quoting I like sushi
To highlight: "If people are only concerned with what’s going on in their backyard more fool them"
I don't know when for you we stopped talking about wealth inequality and started talking about identity but I viewed that as a point you were trying to emphasis within that argument. Also, I have been talking about global wealth inequality the whole time and discussing "identity" without a context is clearly pointless. My "Australian" identity means different things for me based on where I am and who I'm dealing with.
You want to pretend you aren't swapping around topics without making it clear then fine but if you want to change the topic then perhaps make it clearer next time, especially when I continue to bring up points that could only be relevant in a wealth inequality debate.
First of all, if you consider colonization and globalization, your data ought to be a far more longer time than a period where there isn't anymore colonization. The perspective has to be centuries
You have to here look at how the economy increases. The typical way how ordinary people have become more wealthier has been for example a) they have the ability to lend to buy a home, which then retains it's value or b) through educational and technological advancement work changes to more productive work (the huge decrease in manual labour) and thus more income.
You see, ealier a sugar plantation in the Caribbean or now a electronics plant in Vietnam doesn't make the people in Chesire, UK, more wealthy. If the plant owner lives for some reason in Chesire, he surely gets more wealthy. Actually the only argument how people in Chesire would become more prosperous thanks the UK having colonies is if they produce something that then can be sold to the people in the colonies. This of course is globalization, or in the case of the imperialist British Empire, forced globalization on the colonies like India.
And the above example tells how globalization helps or hinders a society: if the economy of the society can compete well in the global market, globalization creates a lot of wealth to the society. If it cannot, then globalization and open borders just makes things worse. To close the borders, to stop globalization won't help: typically an industry that is protected doesn't use the calm to modernize in order to compete later in the global market, but just reaps the profits from in it's protected market.