"Many black Americans speak with the distinctive accent and diction sometimes known as “ebonics,”"
My understanding is that, under current woke speech codes, the use of the term "ebonics" is deprecated, and the preferred jargon is now "African-American Vernacular English" (AAVE). Please update your lexicon to use this new terminology until it is determined to be racist, at which point a new directive will be issued.
That's not "woke speech codes". It's preferring a sober technical description by linguists, over a catchy pun used by non-linguists on Oakland school boards in the 90s.
If I was a DEI defender I'd point out that just because some people believe something for bad and dogmatic reasons doesn't tell us if it's good or bad. I'd also argue that -- regardless of the cause -- noticeable racial gaps in outcomes are a serious societal harm.
Indeed, if it's a cultural cause that's even more reason to engage in targeted preferences to bring minorities into predominantly white professions/institutions where they can be inculturated and bring those cultural norms into their communities as well as serve as role models.
I fear most of the interventions haven't been well evaluated for effectiveness (taking blowback into account) but I think a defender of them would point out that this isn't itself an argument they don't work to address whatever is causing different outcomes.
As to why we should care, sure someone is always going to be on the bottom and humans always form stereotypes about them. However, it's particularly bad for society when those stereotypes relate to unchangeable easily noticed features like skin color **because** it both creates frustration and anger as well as reducing the incentive for people in the stereotyped group to better themselves. When it's a heritable trait those stereotypes also disincentivize cultural improvements. Sure, it might be no more/less wrong to deny the guy with a southern accent an interview as the black guy but one is inherently more harmful because the guy with the southern accent can aspire to change his accent and have kids without it.
There is a reason racial conflict is so common across the world. So I think there is a good argument for the government and institutions being particularly concerned about it.
The fact you can make a half assed defence of DEI in two mins and it is more credible than what a bunch of high iq people have brought up in years is peak woke commedy
But that's actually what most people in academia who you would consider part of woke world believe. Most people who support woke shit are to DiAngelo etc what most intelligent republicans are to Donald Trump. They don't support most of the dumb shit DiAngelo sells to guilty white yoga moms but they don't speak up or make a fuss for the same reason that many smart republicans support Trump -- they believe the other side is bad and dangerous and they'd rather put up with what they might see as well intentioned sillyness than align themselves with the bad other side by critisizing their side (also they don't want to risk getting in a fight with their friends and they just don't care enough to make a big fuss).
So much of what we see in the culture war isn't the views of the best and brightest on each side it's the view that excites some idiots on twitter that the best and the brightest don't publicly push back on because of partisanship social pressure etc.
It's not unique to woke it's a general failing our civilization is facing about processing information and opinions that is amplified by the internet.
My issue with this POV is that D'Angelo and Kendi and people who push wokeness are educated and supposedly smart.We have a Supreme Court Justice who needs a biologist to say what a woman is,and google engineers make AI with black founding fathers.Trump supporters are mostly uneducated and driven by optics,Mexican border guards who distrust vaccines are like teen girls who listen to Taylor Swift on who to vote and think Republicans will ban abortion.But from the people who lead institutions you have higher expectations,and seeing them endorce radical woke beliefs is disappointing.An antisemitic tweet from Right wing people,even if they have huge audiences,is understandable because they just like attention and clicks.But when you see an article in NY times saying it's racist to read books to kids and you know these people believe this,and there is a team of many high educated who read it and decided to publish is more concerning for me
First, it's important to realize you aren't actually seeing a representative sample of beliefs. What happens is that people shut up when an issue comes up where they feel their view might be perceived as sympathetic to the other side. So if you go get almost any individual academic alone and chat with them they have pretty nuanced reasonable beliefs some of which coincide with what you call woke ideology. Put them on twitter or in some big group and they only speak up on the issues where they don't fear they'll be seen as saying the wrong thing and the net effect is to make it appear as if academics are all woke ideologs.
Also, as a reader of this substack you should know education doesn't do as much as you might think. And there are plenty of perfectly smart Trump voters. They may not have as much schooling but that doesn't make you generally smarter (beyond a basic level) mostly just gives you expertise in some area.
Indeed, they keep doing studies showing that the more educated and literate you are often the worse you do in terms of bias and processing information.
The real problem is that education really only helps if you get an unbiased sample of the people who have expertise in that area. The internet has rendered most of our samples horrifically affected by response bias. That's a problem we need to fix in general and I have various thoughts on how to ensure academics identify when they are speaking with authority on their expertise and when just bloviating as another shmoe and how to prevent non-response bias but this is already too long a reply.
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Regarding the term "woman" language ultimately means whatever we want. If we decided the term 'woman' refered to a member of the species canus domesticus then all dogs would be women. And if you look back at the gay rights movement I think the people who said "marriage means a ... between a man and a woman" were kinda right in a pedantic sense but we're morally wrong and we just decided to change how we used the term and it worked out for the best.
Yes, I believe a more pedantically accurate description of what the left wants to do regarding trans individuals would be to say they want to change the way we use the term woman so that it encompasses trans-women. But rhetorically that emphasizes the way we are changing the term not the ways in which it is similar and is a subtle distinction that I think lots of people on both sides have trouble grasping. There is a strong temptation to believe words have a true correct meaning and can't be altered from that.
I'm not really buying all these 'no true Scotsman' responses.
If the most visible representatives of DEI are not representative, who are?
If academia is really full of these moderate DEI supporters, why do things go so badly (firing, ostracism) whenever anyone calls for moderation in response to the extremist positions peddled by the likes of D'Angelo?
The problem with your second paragraph is twofold:
1) if your inculturation works and the beneficiary of your targeted preference is successful, they aren’t going to go “back to their communities”, they are going to go live in the nice neighborhood with their new peers. Very few people who have the choice actually *want* to live in the ghetto.
2) if you give people too big of a preference, they will probably fail, because they’re unprepared. Now you’ve got someone who can’t afford the “new culture” lifestyle but has also lost their connection to their “old culture” networks.
Simply because it is harmful to sterotype people based on skin colour doesn't mean that it isn't accurate. And if it is accurate, people are incentivised to do it.
In America immigration from Africa is actually a big help on this front because the black immigrant community (like most communities selected for people willing to travel for opportunity) doesn't have worse outcomes and helps reduce the gap.
And apart from the descendants of slaves -- who I think everyone agrees shouldn't have been brought here -- most American immigration has worked out quite well in the long term without sufficiently salient differences to be problematic in this way in the long term. And cultural appropriation -- despite what some idiots say and aside from the cases that are more mocking that borrowing -- is fucking awesome and makes us all better off (it's innovation for culture) so there are benefits as well.
More generally, absent genocide the choice is betwern diversity within a country or between countries. Yes there are downsides to diversity within a country but OTOH groups inside a country aren't allowed to organize armies like foreign countries and the existence of immigrants within countries helps us relate and influence foreign countries. American foreign policy benefits alot from the fact that we are often home to the relatives (and educate the children of) foreign elites.
So sure, don't import slaves. It fucks things up long term but I'd argue that America and Canada-- though not Europe -- show that on net the benefits often outweigh the harms.
"American foreign policy benefits alot from the fact that we are often home to the relatives (and educate the children of) foreign elites.'
The opposite is true. Immigrants bring their pre-existing ethnic grievances with them. Victoria Nuland hates Russians because she descended from Jewish immigrants from the Pale of Settlement, and has devoted her life to tanking US-Russian relations. The Neocons are barely veiled 5th columnists for the Likud Party. We still have our moronic regime change policy in Cuba because a bunch of expats from the Batista regime live in a swing state and can't get over the fact that they lost. One of Clinton's motivations to start the process of bringing former Eastern block states into NATO was to help with the Polish and Slavic vote.
I think it’s pretty questionable that elite Africans help out society. Leaving aside mean reversion, are hostile high iq people a good thing to have? Did Barack Obama make the country better?
I seem to recall that in order to get re-elected he juiced racial resentment amongst blacks and basically gave BLM its start. He passed one of the largest expansions of the welfare state in our lives (aca/mediciaid).
I would expect to find elite Africans disportionately hooked up to affirmative action and racial grifts. I bet they vote 90% Dem.
Immigration btw is basically why Obama beat Romney (Romney won whites the same degree Reagan did, but demographics changed).
As to what matters on immigration, Hispanics, I would rate them as about 1/3 as bad as a black. Based on voting patterns and fiscal impact. Unfortunately, quantity has a quality all its own. There are so many Hispanics that even though they aren’t nearly as bad as blacks they have still transformed our society.
These ideas have had the floor for ten years and they don't stand up to scrutiny and I'm glad they are openly mocked. Being married before having children, finishing school, obtaining a full time job, and avoiding a life of crime aren't done because they are fun but because they reduce the likelihood that life will be full of suffering and despair. The stats are the stats. The Anti-Racists can curate the color of every boardroom but so long as the abandoned children of West Baltimore choose crimes over school...gaps will keep widening.
The government can't close the gap. Only parents can.
There is a class of argument that specializes in trying to expose the idiocy of the other side without really wanting to probe too deeply into how they go so stupid, because then you might step on a land mine. It's not just race, it is a whole host of topics.
I think this movie benefited from being focused on displaying DEI activists and white people who listen then flagellate themselves as absurd. I think HBD is still far too uncomfortable for people, and just pointing out the absurdities of DEI is a better strategy.
Even if IQ was 50% heritable, and IQ explained 50% of variance in lifetime income, IQ genes only explain a relatively small portion of the variation in life outcomes. And both values listed above are generous estimates.
Also most of the research suggests that contentiousness and other personality traits explain very little of socioeconomic outcomes, so cognitive ability is essentially the only plausible trait hbd has to work on.
What annoys me about hbders is that they go around parading their knowledge like it's some super top secret truth when in reality the arguments are flimsy at best.
I disagree. The missing heritability problem is not solved, despite what some suggest. It is still quite possible that genetics explains 50% or more of the variance in cognitive ability. Among other things, we need far larger GWAS studies, with better measures of cognitive ability (not the crappy ones from the UK biobank), to figure this out and we don't have these yet. Even that might not work if rare variants play an important role.
I also disagree that IQ explains a relatively small portion of the variation in life outcomes. In fact, cognitive ability is still one of the best predictors of life outcomes and controlling for cognitive ability eliminates or radically reduces most racial gaps. For more on these claims, I've found the following posts to be helpful:
I'm pretty sure blaming people from insular cultures is counterproductive, or at best unproductive.
You are an unusually frank thinker and writer. You might enjoy telling people to face up to their mistakes and wrong opinions, but will they?
Scott Alexander's essays within the rationalist framework moved me a lot closer to rationalism. (https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/04/some-clarifications-on-rationalist-blogging/) His 'rationalist picnic' concept might seem like a weak idea, but it's surprisingly useful. Slate Star Codex moved me a lot more than the Less Wrong sequences did.
Those who leave insular cultures like the Amish aren't going to leave because they 'critically analyzed' their culture. They'll leave because somehow, they saw a picture of a wider world, compared it to their own, and chose the greater one.
If you want someone to become like you, you kind of have to prove everything you say. If you want someone to become a little bit more like you, you should just let them into your world and hope they like what they see.
Here is a set of graphs that shows the differences in Asians personal choices, work ethic, and value of education as compared to Whites, Hispanics, or Blacks. It is not an accident that they are financially more successful than all other groups and that Blacks are at the bottom. Culture really does matter: https://briefedbydata.substack.com/p/asian-success-isnt-an-accident
Asian-American success is due to the fact that US immigration for most Asians was highly selective. If you look at Asian-Americans groups that came over under less selective regimes like the Hmong, they share a lot of the positive culture like low rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth, but also have low incomes and high rates of poverty. The high-performing Asian-American groups are also likely underperforming whites of similar ability; over 40% of Americans scoring over 1400 on the SAT are Asian as your link says but there aren’t very many powerful or elite institutions in the US that are over 40% Asian.
So, the fact that Asians study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes has no impact? Are you suggesting that, due to selective immigration, Asians are simply smarter than everyone else? I'd appreciate links to data to back up your claims. For example, how do you back up Asians underperforming Whites of similar ability? Working against your claim is that MIT's incoming class is 47% Asian since affirmative action was ended while being 37% White. https://briefedbydata.substack.com/p/the-diversity-issue-at-mit
I'm not sure how small of subgroups we should drill down to. There are certainly groups of Black immigrants that are high performers. If you want to select a small enough demographic, I suppose you can "prove" anything.
In the end, there is good evidence to back up the statement in the article, "The DEI defender neglects the possibility that culture drives racial gaps."
"So, the fact that Asians study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes has no impact?"
No, he's saying that Asians are the type of people who study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes partially because they have the genetic pre-disposition to do so.
I don’t know. I am suspicious of people who seem not to understand that pointing out that being born black is still a net negative in this society is not an accusation of conscious racism of anyone in particular.
Also, while DiAngelo et al are ideologues with bad ideas I think we should be careful here about judging a group for being taken in by idiots with a facile message.
I don't want to dismiss conservatism as an idea or even movement despite being taken over by an ideologue with bad ideas. In both cases there may be good ideas there despite many followers being taken in.
I like the idea of the film, but man is Matt Walsh the wrong guy to make it, since the answer to him asking whether he is racist is a resounding yes. I am hardly woke but the man literally refers to immigrants legally coming into America from developing nations as an invasion: https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1833194232506458383.
I don’t think anyone other than Matt Walsh could have pulled it off. His poker face is incredible. No one else could have kept a straight face listening to these “experts” while asking questions that seem innocent but lead them into impossible arguments.
Remember the interviews were recorded live. Any breaks in character for a split-second would have ended the interview immediately and ruined the movie.
The Anti-racists voluntarily humiliated themselves before a national audience. They seem to have been completely fooled up until the premiere of the movie. And this is coming from people who are legendary for refusing to engage in real debate.
What Matt Walsh thinks about immigration is irrelevant to his ability to make this movie.
Why exactly is that racist? I don’t care about defending his position, and I’d certainly agree that he’s being hyperbolic in calling it an invasion. But why is it “racist” to use that hyperbole to oppose immigration?
Is it racist to prefer one culture over another? For instance, is it okay to prefer Western culture over cultures that, e.g., regularly marry off 14-year old girls, engage in female genital mutilation or honor killings, have massive corruption, etc.? I don’t think that’s racist, personally. If you assume it is, then that’s another discussion.
Assuming it’s not racist to prefer one culture over another, then why is it racist to oppose immigration that will alter your culture? It seems to follow straightforwardly that if preferring a culture is okay, it’s okay to prefer immigrants from different cultures (or to oppose immigration in general).
Do you really see no distinction between having a preference about who your neighbors are vs calling them invaders, accusing them of eating pets, and trying to drive them out?
First, that’s because there is no mass immigration of Western Europeans to America. If a bunch of Swedes started immigrating, perhaps Walsh would have problem with that too.
Second, is it racist to prefer one culture over another? Why?
You seem to be confused about what legal immigration means. Or perhaps you think legal immigrants shouldn’t have freedom of movement with the country? Very ironic for you to be calling anyone a bigot.
"Or perhaps you think legal immigrants shouldn’t have freedom of movement with the country?"
I think that we should have little to no immigration, legal or illegal. Just like we did in the first 20 years post-WW2, also known as the most prosperous era for the middle class.
An invasion is when an army comes to a country with the intent of conquering it and controlling it. What's going on in the Southern Border is people coming who want to peacefully exist in our society and find work.
By your logic, if a factory opens up in North Dakota and some people from South Dakota move there to work at it, then South Dakota has invaded North Dakota! The South Dakotans might not be wearing fatigue and carring rifles, but they don't need to -- the North Dakotans don't resist.
I know people from Washington State who think that former-Californians are invading, and they'd like to resist. "Don't Californicate Washington State" is a thing.
The most famous example of that is the Dust Bowl, when Californians resented all the Oklahomans moving to California to find work. Fortunately, the Federal government prevents states from closing their borders, which is one reason that the USA is an economic powerhouse.
In theory yes, in practice no. In practice they just pass laws to keep out people they dislike by making in onerous for them to live there, i.e. if you make soy sauce illegal you can effectively prevent Japanese people from living in your state. Cue sodomy, drugs, alcohol, foi gra, being homeless, etc or making state holidays to celebrate slave owners and forcing school prayer like Hawaii does with the expressed goal to make it uncomfortable for other Americans to remain living their once they move their.
Bingo. Hawaii goes out of its way to discriminate against "foreigners" (Americans not from Hawaii; all the while bending over backwards for actually foreigners. Better a liberty hating Chinaman from China than a DC black or Midwestern white).
Many states actively and openly engage in pseudo war via tax rates especially around the border where you might work in a different state than you live in. Likewise unofficial exile via the courts is still a thing as is paying for the transportation of the unwanted to start over "somewhere better in our neighbors state"
Nonsense. Many invasions throughout history does not involve conquering the land, but instead simply raiding it for resources. The key distinction is the use of force.
"An invasion is when an army comes to a country with the intent of conquering it and controlling it. What's going on in the Southern Border is people coming who want to peacefully exist in our society and find work."
And vote eventually, which will mean controlling the country.
Since it occurred so long ago, I am not sure there is a scholarly consensus on whether or not it was an invasion or if it was peaceful. Wikipedia refers to it as a "migration," not an invasion, but we really don't know for sure.
The Indo-Europeans dominated the natives and imposed their language. If it was done peacefully - it wasn't, that's a myth spread by the pseudo-scholars who have taken over archaeology departments - but if it was, that would be an ironclad refutation of your position that "peaceful" invasion is not invasion.
How exactly do you "dominate" someone and "impose" your language peacefully? If you aren't allowed to use force then the only way to do it is to just be so awesome that other people choose to follow you and speak your language of their own free will (kind of like how lots of people today in countries that were never colonized by Anglophones learn to speak English because Americans are so good at making stuff and spreading their pop culture). That doesn't sound like an invasion.
They want to hook themselves up for the welfare state and vote for it in strong majorities. It's just violence with extra steps, where they vote for others to do it on their behalf.
No they don't. Illegal immigrants are not eligible to vote or to receive most welfare benefits. The sales tax and other taxes they pay do go towards funding those benefits for natives. The reason they want to come here is that they can find work more easily at better wages. A great many of them have no interest in citizenship at all and just want to sent their wages to their families in their home country.
The fact that so many Americans are obsessed with persecuting such people is a disgrace and an embarassment.
They 100% get government benefits as many don't require proof of citizenship and the ones that do, and are most important, count households so you just get a house full of illegals with one legal proxy claiming she lives there as the legal can claim a household size of infinity.
In spite of such loopholes they are not eligible for most benefits and they collectively pay billions into the system every year, far more than they will ever use. Collectively, native-born Americans are leeching off of hard-working illegal immigrants by using government benefits paid for by tax dollars that illegals contribute to the system, but are ineligible to use.
So your objection is that they might, after years and years of working, paying taxes, and contributing to the economy, become citizens? At which point they might then quit their jobs and go on the dole? That seems like it would require the the kind of patience and forethought that people on the dole rarely display.
Also, they might have children? Good. Kids are adorable and most of them grow up to contribute usefully to society.
Also, I should note that if it was easier to get into the country, many of them would not feel the need to stay in the USA full time, and would instead just commute for seasonal farm work. Immigration restriction might make it harder for them to get here in the first place, but it actually makes them more likely to stay when they get here.
So we've gone from "The country is being invaded by immigrants who all just want welfare" to "some people who peacefully move to this country will eventually have kids who peacefully participate in the democratic process., and may be eligible for benefits if they fall on hard times."
People have kids. That is good for the country on the net, it means more workers and taxpayers. There used to be a concern that America would be a one party state because all the descendants of immigrants would vote Democrat, but that didn't pan out. Republicans do alright among most minority voters even though they keep insulting them and their relatives with xenophobic rhetoric. If Republicans ditched the xenophobia they'd probably be on par with Democrats. At that point the children of immigrants new votes wouldn't make any difference because an equal amount would vote for each side.
This all seems to miss the point. The point of DEI is not that random people in a biker bar might be tolerant or not—who cares, you can just avoid them. It’s not really even about what random academics think.
The big question is whether people and systems of power such as our politics, employers, and culture writ large systematically favor white people over non-whites such a person would have advantages or higher status just for being white, holding other personal traits equal, meaning that non-white people would feel excluded or lower status due to their race.
Note that the existence of genetic differences does not prove the answer to the above question is “no”; it could be that genetic differences explain some of the gaps but the gaps would be smaller in the absence of white privilege. The fact that white people mostly don’t hate non-whites also doesn’t disprove this; there could be various types of homophily that are not hate but nonetheless advantage people who share a race with the most powerful people over those who do not. And the fact that some DEI proponents are dumb does not disprove this, as there are dumb people supporting any argument.
I believe the answer to the above question is yes, and so more work needs to be done to erase the low status associated with being non-white to achieve a truly colorblind world, which could tolerate aggregate differences between races as long as they are solely the result of individual differences in things like choices and abilities, and not racial or societal factors like how other people feel about you due to racial stereotypes, hate, or homophily, but would not treat non-whites as lower status merely because they are not white.
I saw the film and found myself disappointed. IMHO, it provided half of what would have made a good film. It still left us hanging because, while it mocked the race hustlers and their recommended actions, it didn’t answer the fundamental questions the anti-racists claim to address. That is, Walsh rightly argued that we should ignore the anti-racists’ advice but failed to offer the advice we should be following.
I would have been more satisfied if Walsh had presented guidance based on foundational principles. For example:
• Principle #1: ALL people are pattern recognition machines
o Part of being human, part of our survival instinct
o One of the patterns we recognize and develop are the behaviors of other humans
o We ignore these patterns at our own peril
BBC NEWS | Europe | 'World peace' hitcher is murdered (“She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.”)
o Everyone has different patterns (e.g., a new Vietnamese immigrant woman will have a very different pattern of how she reads other people as compared to a black NYC teen boy)
o There is no ideal pattern that we should all adopt. We learn by observation and by whatever information (often news or other media) we are exposed to
o However, there are some universal patterns we all see. For example, virtually everyone would feel more threatened by hooded young thugs as compared to aged nuns in wheelchairs.
o We shouldn’t be ashamed of our pattern recognition. We are not wrong for noticing what we notice. We can educate our observations if we have a bias, but we are not wrong for noticing what we notice. Further, we are not required to have pristine or perfect pattern recognition. We are free to be mistaken (as we all are).
o The anti-racists are asking us to ignore recognized patterns.
Men DO commit more violent crime than women.
Black youth DO commit more crime than Asian youth.
This is the same approach taken by the supporters of transgender ideology. “Don’t trust your senses or your experience. Instead, accept what we say.”
• Principle #2: Our obligation to our fellow man is simply this – do no harm
A documentary can drill into this subject and give it a proper hearing, something I don’t intend to do here.
These first principles answer the questions related to the fundamental question, “Am I Racist?”
In summary:
1. Am I racist? Probably, since you involuntarily recognize patterns among humans based on race, age, culture, size, dress, makeup, and scores of other factors. That makes you not just racist (to varying degrees) but also sexist, ageist, etc.
2. But if I’m a racist, shouldn’t I feel guilty about it? Not unless you are harming others as a result. Even then, your feelings are not what you would feel guilty about, but your actions – the harm you bring to others. If you are not harming others, your conscience should be clear.
I would have found the film much more satisfying if Walsh had filled the void he created by demonstrating that the anti-racists were mistaken with their flawed worldview and advice.
1. It’s interesting that you’d frame things in terms of being the judger, whereas the anti-racist people would probably frame things in terms of being the judged, like MLK said he wants his kids not to be judged based on the color of their skin, he doesn’t even contemplate that his kids would be able to judge others. This gets at some implicit power dynamics in this debate about who assumes they will be the judges and who assumes they will be the judged.
2. Harm isn’t so clear. If you refuse to hire someone because of their race, is that harming them? It’s not harming them in the libertarian sense because you aren’t required to hire them, but it is harming them relative to the counterfactual of the hiring manager treating everyone equally.
"Many black Americans speak with the distinctive accent and diction sometimes known as “ebonics,”"
My understanding is that, under current woke speech codes, the use of the term "ebonics" is deprecated, and the preferred jargon is now "African-American Vernacular English" (AAVE). Please update your lexicon to use this new terminology until it is determined to be racist, at which point a new directive will be issued.
I like the turn of phrase Black English used by Black Linguist , Colombia University Professor, and NY Times Columnist John McWhorter.
That's not "woke speech codes". It's preferring a sober technical description by linguists, over a catchy pun used by non-linguists on Oakland school boards in the 90s.
The term "BVE" in sociolinguistics (if not "AAVE") certainly long predated "Ebonics".
If I was a DEI defender I'd point out that just because some people believe something for bad and dogmatic reasons doesn't tell us if it's good or bad. I'd also argue that -- regardless of the cause -- noticeable racial gaps in outcomes are a serious societal harm.
Indeed, if it's a cultural cause that's even more reason to engage in targeted preferences to bring minorities into predominantly white professions/institutions where they can be inculturated and bring those cultural norms into their communities as well as serve as role models.
I fear most of the interventions haven't been well evaluated for effectiveness (taking blowback into account) but I think a defender of them would point out that this isn't itself an argument they don't work to address whatever is causing different outcomes.
As to why we should care, sure someone is always going to be on the bottom and humans always form stereotypes about them. However, it's particularly bad for society when those stereotypes relate to unchangeable easily noticed features like skin color **because** it both creates frustration and anger as well as reducing the incentive for people in the stereotyped group to better themselves. When it's a heritable trait those stereotypes also disincentivize cultural improvements. Sure, it might be no more/less wrong to deny the guy with a southern accent an interview as the black guy but one is inherently more harmful because the guy with the southern accent can aspire to change his accent and have kids without it.
There is a reason racial conflict is so common across the world. So I think there is a good argument for the government and institutions being particularly concerned about it.
The fact you can make a half assed defence of DEI in two mins and it is more credible than what a bunch of high iq people have brought up in years is peak woke commedy
But that's actually what most people in academia who you would consider part of woke world believe. Most people who support woke shit are to DiAngelo etc what most intelligent republicans are to Donald Trump. They don't support most of the dumb shit DiAngelo sells to guilty white yoga moms but they don't speak up or make a fuss for the same reason that many smart republicans support Trump -- they believe the other side is bad and dangerous and they'd rather put up with what they might see as well intentioned sillyness than align themselves with the bad other side by critisizing their side (also they don't want to risk getting in a fight with their friends and they just don't care enough to make a big fuss).
So much of what we see in the culture war isn't the views of the best and brightest on each side it's the view that excites some idiots on twitter that the best and the brightest don't publicly push back on because of partisanship social pressure etc.
It's not unique to woke it's a general failing our civilization is facing about processing information and opinions that is amplified by the internet.
My issue with this POV is that D'Angelo and Kendi and people who push wokeness are educated and supposedly smart.We have a Supreme Court Justice who needs a biologist to say what a woman is,and google engineers make AI with black founding fathers.Trump supporters are mostly uneducated and driven by optics,Mexican border guards who distrust vaccines are like teen girls who listen to Taylor Swift on who to vote and think Republicans will ban abortion.But from the people who lead institutions you have higher expectations,and seeing them endorce radical woke beliefs is disappointing.An antisemitic tweet from Right wing people,even if they have huge audiences,is understandable because they just like attention and clicks.But when you see an article in NY times saying it's racist to read books to kids and you know these people believe this,and there is a team of many high educated who read it and decided to publish is more concerning for me
First, it's important to realize you aren't actually seeing a representative sample of beliefs. What happens is that people shut up when an issue comes up where they feel their view might be perceived as sympathetic to the other side. So if you go get almost any individual academic alone and chat with them they have pretty nuanced reasonable beliefs some of which coincide with what you call woke ideology. Put them on twitter or in some big group and they only speak up on the issues where they don't fear they'll be seen as saying the wrong thing and the net effect is to make it appear as if academics are all woke ideologs.
Also, as a reader of this substack you should know education doesn't do as much as you might think. And there are plenty of perfectly smart Trump voters. They may not have as much schooling but that doesn't make you generally smarter (beyond a basic level) mostly just gives you expertise in some area.
Indeed, they keep doing studies showing that the more educated and literate you are often the worse you do in terms of bias and processing information.
The real problem is that education really only helps if you get an unbiased sample of the people who have expertise in that area. The internet has rendered most of our samples horrifically affected by response bias. That's a problem we need to fix in general and I have various thoughts on how to ensure academics identify when they are speaking with authority on their expertise and when just bloviating as another shmoe and how to prevent non-response bias but this is already too long a reply.
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Regarding the term "woman" language ultimately means whatever we want. If we decided the term 'woman' refered to a member of the species canus domesticus then all dogs would be women. And if you look back at the gay rights movement I think the people who said "marriage means a ... between a man and a woman" were kinda right in a pedantic sense but we're morally wrong and we just decided to change how we used the term and it worked out for the best.
Yes, I believe a more pedantically accurate description of what the left wants to do regarding trans individuals would be to say they want to change the way we use the term woman so that it encompasses trans-women. But rhetorically that emphasizes the way we are changing the term not the ways in which it is similar and is a subtle distinction that I think lots of people on both sides have trouble grasping. There is a strong temptation to believe words have a true correct meaning and can't be altered from that.
I'm not really buying all these 'no true Scotsman' responses.
If the most visible representatives of DEI are not representative, who are?
If academia is really full of these moderate DEI supporters, why do things go so badly (firing, ostracism) whenever anyone calls for moderation in response to the extremist positions peddled by the likes of D'Angelo?
The problem with your second paragraph is twofold:
1) if your inculturation works and the beneficiary of your targeted preference is successful, they aren’t going to go “back to their communities”, they are going to go live in the nice neighborhood with their new peers. Very few people who have the choice actually *want* to live in the ghetto.
2) if you give people too big of a preference, they will probably fail, because they’re unprepared. Now you’ve got someone who can’t afford the “new culture” lifestyle but has also lost their connection to their “old culture” networks.
Simply because it is harmful to sterotype people based on skin colour doesn't mean that it isn't accurate. And if it is accurate, people are incentivised to do it.
Hence, why diversity is bad.
In America immigration from Africa is actually a big help on this front because the black immigrant community (like most communities selected for people willing to travel for opportunity) doesn't have worse outcomes and helps reduce the gap.
And apart from the descendants of slaves -- who I think everyone agrees shouldn't have been brought here -- most American immigration has worked out quite well in the long term without sufficiently salient differences to be problematic in this way in the long term. And cultural appropriation -- despite what some idiots say and aside from the cases that are more mocking that borrowing -- is fucking awesome and makes us all better off (it's innovation for culture) so there are benefits as well.
More generally, absent genocide the choice is betwern diversity within a country or between countries. Yes there are downsides to diversity within a country but OTOH groups inside a country aren't allowed to organize armies like foreign countries and the existence of immigrants within countries helps us relate and influence foreign countries. American foreign policy benefits alot from the fact that we are often home to the relatives (and educate the children of) foreign elites.
So sure, don't import slaves. It fucks things up long term but I'd argue that America and Canada-- though not Europe -- show that on net the benefits often outweigh the harms.
"American foreign policy benefits alot from the fact that we are often home to the relatives (and educate the children of) foreign elites.'
The opposite is true. Immigrants bring their pre-existing ethnic grievances with them. Victoria Nuland hates Russians because she descended from Jewish immigrants from the Pale of Settlement, and has devoted her life to tanking US-Russian relations. The Neocons are barely veiled 5th columnists for the Likud Party. We still have our moronic regime change policy in Cuba because a bunch of expats from the Batista regime live in a swing state and can't get over the fact that they lost. One of Clinton's motivations to start the process of bringing former Eastern block states into NATO was to help with the Polish and Slavic vote.
I think it’s pretty questionable that elite Africans help out society. Leaving aside mean reversion, are hostile high iq people a good thing to have? Did Barack Obama make the country better?
I seem to recall that in order to get re-elected he juiced racial resentment amongst blacks and basically gave BLM its start. He passed one of the largest expansions of the welfare state in our lives (aca/mediciaid).
I would expect to find elite Africans disportionately hooked up to affirmative action and racial grifts. I bet they vote 90% Dem.
Immigration btw is basically why Obama beat Romney (Romney won whites the same degree Reagan did, but demographics changed).
As to what matters on immigration, Hispanics, I would rate them as about 1/3 as bad as a black. Based on voting patterns and fiscal impact. Unfortunately, quantity has a quality all its own. There are so many Hispanics that even though they aren’t nearly as bad as blacks they have still transformed our society.
Better to have diversity across countries, where the poor are kept out
These ideas have had the floor for ten years and they don't stand up to scrutiny and I'm glad they are openly mocked. Being married before having children, finishing school, obtaining a full time job, and avoiding a life of crime aren't done because they are fun but because they reduce the likelihood that life will be full of suffering and despair. The stats are the stats. The Anti-Racists can curate the color of every boardroom but so long as the abandoned children of West Baltimore choose crimes over school...gaps will keep widening.
The government can't close the gap. Only parents can.
Causation begets correlation.
Did Walsh go at all into HBD in the film?
From the sound of your review, he didn't. Which, as Cofnas has said many times, is the single biggest impediment to progress we have on this issue.
There is a class of argument that specializes in trying to expose the idiocy of the other side without really wanting to probe too deeply into how they go so stupid, because then you might step on a land mine. It's not just race, it is a whole host of topics.
I think this movie benefited from being focused on displaying DEI activists and white people who listen then flagellate themselves as absurd. I think HBD is still far too uncomfortable for people, and just pointing out the absurdities of DEI is a better strategy.
What is HBD? Google says happy birthday or housing development board.
I know this is probably a joke, but just in case it's not, "human biodiversity".
If it’s a joke, google is the joker, I am the sucker.
It's not that popular a term, and Google's pretty worthless now, but it is nonetheless result #3 on the Wikitionary:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/HBD
Problem is HBD is more or less bs, and twin and adoption-based studies greatly overestimate the heritability of traits. https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1008222
Even if IQ was 50% heritable, and IQ explained 50% of variance in lifetime income, IQ genes only explain a relatively small portion of the variation in life outcomes. And both values listed above are generous estimates.
Also most of the research suggests that contentiousness and other personality traits explain very little of socioeconomic outcomes, so cognitive ability is essentially the only plausible trait hbd has to work on.
What annoys me about hbders is that they go around parading their knowledge like it's some super top secret truth when in reality the arguments are flimsy at best.
I disagree. The missing heritability problem is not solved, despite what some suggest. It is still quite possible that genetics explains 50% or more of the variance in cognitive ability. Among other things, we need far larger GWAS studies, with better measures of cognitive ability (not the crappy ones from the UK biobank), to figure this out and we don't have these yet. Even that might not work if rare variants play an important role.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-021-00997-7
I also disagree that IQ explains a relatively small portion of the variation in life outcomes. In fact, cognitive ability is still one of the best predictors of life outcomes and controlling for cognitive ability eliminates or radically reduces most racial gaps. For more on these claims, I've found the following posts to be helpful:
https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/the-predictive-validity-of-cognitive-ability-2/
https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/race-and-iq/
I'm pretty sure blaming people from insular cultures is counterproductive, or at best unproductive.
You are an unusually frank thinker and writer. You might enjoy telling people to face up to their mistakes and wrong opinions, but will they?
Scott Alexander's essays within the rationalist framework moved me a lot closer to rationalism. (https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/04/some-clarifications-on-rationalist-blogging/) His 'rationalist picnic' concept might seem like a weak idea, but it's surprisingly useful. Slate Star Codex moved me a lot more than the Less Wrong sequences did.
Those who leave insular cultures like the Amish aren't going to leave because they 'critically analyzed' their culture. They'll leave because somehow, they saw a picture of a wider world, compared it to their own, and chose the greater one.
If you want someone to become like you, you kind of have to prove everything you say. If you want someone to become a little bit more like you, you should just let them into your world and hope they like what they see.
Here is a set of graphs that shows the differences in Asians personal choices, work ethic, and value of education as compared to Whites, Hispanics, or Blacks. It is not an accident that they are financially more successful than all other groups and that Blacks are at the bottom. Culture really does matter: https://briefedbydata.substack.com/p/asian-success-isnt-an-accident
Asian-American success is due to the fact that US immigration for most Asians was highly selective. If you look at Asian-Americans groups that came over under less selective regimes like the Hmong, they share a lot of the positive culture like low rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth, but also have low incomes and high rates of poverty. The high-performing Asian-American groups are also likely underperforming whites of similar ability; over 40% of Americans scoring over 1400 on the SAT are Asian as your link says but there aren’t very many powerful or elite institutions in the US that are over 40% Asian.
So, the fact that Asians study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes has no impact? Are you suggesting that, due to selective immigration, Asians are simply smarter than everyone else? I'd appreciate links to data to back up your claims. For example, how do you back up Asians underperforming Whites of similar ability? Working against your claim is that MIT's incoming class is 47% Asian since affirmative action was ended while being 37% White. https://briefedbydata.substack.com/p/the-diversity-issue-at-mit
I'm not sure how small of subgroups we should drill down to. There are certainly groups of Black immigrants that are high performers. If you want to select a small enough demographic, I suppose you can "prove" anything.
In the end, there is good evidence to back up the statement in the article, "The DEI defender neglects the possibility that culture drives racial gaps."
"So, the fact that Asians study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes has no impact?"
No, he's saying that Asians are the type of people who study more, take harder classes, and are in stable homes partially because they have the genetic pre-disposition to do so.
Nonsense. Many of the asian races have a significantly higher IQ than Whites and Blacks. Chinese being the most notable example.
I don’t know. I am suspicious of people who seem not to understand that pointing out that being born black is still a net negative in this society is not an accusation of conscious racism of anyone in particular.
Also, while DiAngelo et al are ideologues with bad ideas I think we should be careful here about judging a group for being taken in by idiots with a facile message.
I don't want to dismiss conservatism as an idea or even movement despite being taken over by an ideologue with bad ideas. In both cases there may be good ideas there despite many followers being taken in.
Trump has only one good idea: lower taxes and regulations; what is one good idea DiAngelo has?
I like the idea of the film, but man is Matt Walsh the wrong guy to make it, since the answer to him asking whether he is racist is a resounding yes. I am hardly woke but the man literally refers to immigrants legally coming into America from developing nations as an invasion: https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1833194232506458383.
I don’t think anyone other than Matt Walsh could have pulled it off. His poker face is incredible. No one else could have kept a straight face listening to these “experts” while asking questions that seem innocent but lead them into impossible arguments.
Remember the interviews were recorded live. Any breaks in character for a split-second would have ended the interview immediately and ruined the movie.
The Anti-racists voluntarily humiliated themselves before a national audience. They seem to have been completely fooled up until the premiere of the movie. And this is coming from people who are legendary for refusing to engage in real debate.
What Matt Walsh thinks about immigration is irrelevant to his ability to make this movie.
Why exactly is that racist? I don’t care about defending his position, and I’d certainly agree that he’s being hyperbolic in calling it an invasion. But why is it “racist” to use that hyperbole to oppose immigration?
Because it implies that immigrants who come in legally from developing nations should be driven out. That is what one does with invaders.
Is it racist to want the culture of your country to not be irrevocably changed?
Is it racist to prefer one culture over another? For instance, is it okay to prefer Western culture over cultures that, e.g., regularly marry off 14-year old girls, engage in female genital mutilation or honor killings, have massive corruption, etc.? I don’t think that’s racist, personally. If you assume it is, then that’s another discussion.
Assuming it’s not racist to prefer one culture over another, then why is it racist to oppose immigration that will alter your culture? It seems to follow straightforwardly that if preferring a culture is okay, it’s okay to prefer immigrants from different cultures (or to oppose immigration in general).
Do you really see no distinction between having a preference about who your neighbors are vs calling them invaders, accusing them of eating pets, and trying to drive them out?
Oh what grounds do you think he’s objecting to the situation? A dislike for the letter H?
Seems like pretty straightforward racism. I haven’t heard Walsh complain about city is being overrun by Swedes.
First, that’s because there is no mass immigration of Western Europeans to America. If a bunch of Swedes started immigrating, perhaps Walsh would have problem with that too.
Second, is it racist to prefer one culture over another? Why?
Matt isn’t expressing a mere preference. He’s calling legal immigrants “invaders”.
That’s not some milquetoast statement of preference. That’s an outright denigration.
It's very revealing that you seem to think that "racism" is the belief that different different societies are different.
It’s very revealing that you think that’s the objection.
We're talking about one population moving into another population's territory, without the latter population's wishes.
You're just a bigot. If we were talking about Han moving into Tibet, you'd be against it.
You seem to be confused about what legal immigration means. Or perhaps you think legal immigrants shouldn’t have freedom of movement with the country? Very ironic for you to be calling anyone a bigot.
"Or perhaps you think legal immigrants shouldn’t have freedom of movement with the country?"
I think that we should have little to no immigration, legal or illegal. Just like we did in the first 20 years post-WW2, also known as the most prosperous era for the middle class.
Bryan is wrong about immigration, he just doesn't want to admit it.
Amazing, now Bryan has to deal with others claiming that he secretly agrees with them on some topic: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sure-whatever-lets-try-another-contra.
I don’t think he secretly agrees. I think he’s delusional.
Well, what's the difference? They're not wearing fatigues and carrying rifles? They don't need to -- we don't resist.
An invasion is when an army comes to a country with the intent of conquering it and controlling it. What's going on in the Southern Border is people coming who want to peacefully exist in our society and find work.
By your logic, if a factory opens up in North Dakota and some people from South Dakota move there to work at it, then South Dakota has invaded North Dakota! The South Dakotans might not be wearing fatigue and carring rifles, but they don't need to -- the North Dakotans don't resist.
I know people from Washington State who think that former-Californians are invading, and they'd like to resist. "Don't Californicate Washington State" is a thing.
The most famous example of that is the Dust Bowl, when Californians resented all the Oklahomans moving to California to find work. Fortunately, the Federal government prevents states from closing their borders, which is one reason that the USA is an economic powerhouse.
In theory yes, in practice no. In practice they just pass laws to keep out people they dislike by making in onerous for them to live there, i.e. if you make soy sauce illegal you can effectively prevent Japanese people from living in your state. Cue sodomy, drugs, alcohol, foi gra, being homeless, etc or making state holidays to celebrate slave owners and forcing school prayer like Hawaii does with the expressed goal to make it uncomfortable for other Americans to remain living their once they move their.
Bingo. Hawaii goes out of its way to discriminate against "foreigners" (Americans not from Hawaii; all the while bending over backwards for actually foreigners. Better a liberty hating Chinaman from China than a DC black or Midwestern white).
Many states actively and openly engage in pseudo war via tax rates especially around the border where you might work in a different state than you live in. Likewise unofficial exile via the courts is still a thing as is paying for the transportation of the unwanted to start over "somewhere better in our neighbors state"
Nonsense. Many invasions throughout history does not involve conquering the land, but instead simply raiding it for resources. The key distinction is the use of force.
"An invasion is when an army comes to a country with the intent of conquering it and controlling it. What's going on in the Southern Border is people coming who want to peacefully exist in our society and find work."
And vote eventually, which will mean controlling the country.
By your logic, the Indo-European invasion of Europe was not an invasion.
Since it occurred so long ago, I am not sure there is a scholarly consensus on whether or not it was an invasion or if it was peaceful. Wikipedia refers to it as a "migration," not an invasion, but we really don't know for sure.
The Indo-Europeans dominated the natives and imposed their language. If it was done peacefully - it wasn't, that's a myth spread by the pseudo-scholars who have taken over archaeology departments - but if it was, that would be an ironclad refutation of your position that "peaceful" invasion is not invasion.
How exactly do you "dominate" someone and "impose" your language peacefully? If you aren't allowed to use force then the only way to do it is to just be so awesome that other people choose to follow you and speak your language of their own free will (kind of like how lots of people today in countries that were never colonized by Anglophones learn to speak English because Americans are so good at making stuff and spreading their pop culture). That doesn't sound like an invasion.
"peacefully exist in our society and find work"
They want to hook themselves up for the welfare state and vote for it in strong majorities. It's just violence with extra steps, where they vote for others to do it on their behalf.
No they don't. Illegal immigrants are not eligible to vote or to receive most welfare benefits. The sales tax and other taxes they pay do go towards funding those benefits for natives. The reason they want to come here is that they can find work more easily at better wages. A great many of them have no interest in citizenship at all and just want to sent their wages to their families in their home country.
The fact that so many Americans are obsessed with persecuting such people is a disgrace and an embarassment.
They 100% get government benefits as many don't require proof of citizenship and the ones that do, and are most important, count households so you just get a house full of illegals with one legal proxy claiming she lives there as the legal can claim a household size of infinity.
In spite of such loopholes they are not eligible for most benefits and they collectively pay billions into the system every year, far more than they will ever use. Collectively, native-born Americans are leeching off of hard-working illegal immigrants by using government benefits paid for by tax dollars that illegals contribute to the system, but are ineligible to use.
I would dispute that illegal immigrants can't receive welfare or vote, but for the sake of brevity I will pass it over.
Eventually, they become citizens. Either through amnesty or the citizenship process or marrying someone or the anchor babies.
So your objection is that they might, after years and years of working, paying taxes, and contributing to the economy, become citizens? At which point they might then quit their jobs and go on the dole? That seems like it would require the the kind of patience and forethought that people on the dole rarely display.
Also, they might have children? Good. Kids are adorable and most of them grow up to contribute usefully to society.
Also, I should note that if it was easier to get into the country, many of them would not feel the need to stay in the USA full time, and would instead just commute for seasonal farm work. Immigration restriction might make it harder for them to get here in the first place, but it actually makes them more likely to stay when they get here.
"llegal immigrants are not eligible to vote or to receive most welfare benefits."
Their children vote and get benefits.
So we've gone from "The country is being invaded by immigrants who all just want welfare" to "some people who peacefully move to this country will eventually have kids who peacefully participate in the democratic process., and may be eligible for benefits if they fall on hard times."
People have kids. That is good for the country on the net, it means more workers and taxpayers. There used to be a concern that America would be a one party state because all the descendants of immigrants would vote Democrat, but that didn't pan out. Republicans do alright among most minority voters even though they keep insulting them and their relatives with xenophobic rhetoric. If Republicans ditched the xenophobia they'd probably be on par with Democrats. At that point the children of immigrants new votes wouldn't make any difference because an equal amount would vote for each side.
This all seems to miss the point. The point of DEI is not that random people in a biker bar might be tolerant or not—who cares, you can just avoid them. It’s not really even about what random academics think.
The big question is whether people and systems of power such as our politics, employers, and culture writ large systematically favor white people over non-whites such a person would have advantages or higher status just for being white, holding other personal traits equal, meaning that non-white people would feel excluded or lower status due to their race.
Note that the existence of genetic differences does not prove the answer to the above question is “no”; it could be that genetic differences explain some of the gaps but the gaps would be smaller in the absence of white privilege. The fact that white people mostly don’t hate non-whites also doesn’t disprove this; there could be various types of homophily that are not hate but nonetheless advantage people who share a race with the most powerful people over those who do not. And the fact that some DEI proponents are dumb does not disprove this, as there are dumb people supporting any argument.
I believe the answer to the above question is yes, and so more work needs to be done to erase the low status associated with being non-white to achieve a truly colorblind world, which could tolerate aggregate differences between races as long as they are solely the result of individual differences in things like choices and abilities, and not racial or societal factors like how other people feel about you due to racial stereotypes, hate, or homophily, but would not treat non-whites as lower status merely because they are not white.
I saw the film and found myself disappointed. IMHO, it provided half of what would have made a good film. It still left us hanging because, while it mocked the race hustlers and their recommended actions, it didn’t answer the fundamental questions the anti-racists claim to address. That is, Walsh rightly argued that we should ignore the anti-racists’ advice but failed to offer the advice we should be following.
I would have been more satisfied if Walsh had presented guidance based on foundational principles. For example:
• Principle #1: ALL people are pattern recognition machines
o Part of being human, part of our survival instinct
o One of the patterns we recognize and develop are the behaviors of other humans
o We ignore these patterns at our own peril
BBC NEWS | Europe | 'World peace' hitcher is murdered (“She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.”)
o Everyone has different patterns (e.g., a new Vietnamese immigrant woman will have a very different pattern of how she reads other people as compared to a black NYC teen boy)
o There is no ideal pattern that we should all adopt. We learn by observation and by whatever information (often news or other media) we are exposed to
o However, there are some universal patterns we all see. For example, virtually everyone would feel more threatened by hooded young thugs as compared to aged nuns in wheelchairs.
o We shouldn’t be ashamed of our pattern recognition. We are not wrong for noticing what we notice. We can educate our observations if we have a bias, but we are not wrong for noticing what we notice. Further, we are not required to have pristine or perfect pattern recognition. We are free to be mistaken (as we all are).
o The anti-racists are asking us to ignore recognized patterns.
Men DO commit more violent crime than women.
Black youth DO commit more crime than Asian youth.
This is the same approach taken by the supporters of transgender ideology. “Don’t trust your senses or your experience. Instead, accept what we say.”
• Principle #2: Our obligation to our fellow man is simply this – do no harm
o Negative rights/Positive rights - https://spreadgreatideas.org/contrasts/negative-vs-positive-rights/
A documentary can drill into this subject and give it a proper hearing, something I don’t intend to do here.
These first principles answer the questions related to the fundamental question, “Am I Racist?”
In summary:
1. Am I racist? Probably, since you involuntarily recognize patterns among humans based on race, age, culture, size, dress, makeup, and scores of other factors. That makes you not just racist (to varying degrees) but also sexist, ageist, etc.
2. But if I’m a racist, shouldn’t I feel guilty about it? Not unless you are harming others as a result. Even then, your feelings are not what you would feel guilty about, but your actions – the harm you bring to others. If you are not harming others, your conscience should be clear.
I would have found the film much more satisfying if Walsh had filled the void he created by demonstrating that the anti-racists were mistaken with their flawed worldview and advice.
1. It’s interesting that you’d frame things in terms of being the judger, whereas the anti-racist people would probably frame things in terms of being the judged, like MLK said he wants his kids not to be judged based on the color of their skin, he doesn’t even contemplate that his kids would be able to judge others. This gets at some implicit power dynamics in this debate about who assumes they will be the judges and who assumes they will be the judged.
2. Harm isn’t so clear. If you refuse to hire someone because of their race, is that harming them? It’s not harming them in the libertarian sense because you aren’t required to hire them, but it is harming them relative to the counterfactual of the hiring manager treating everyone equally.
https://futuristright.substack.com/p/racism-is-always-rational
Well put!