I think you’re confusing studies with conclusions. What you’re describing doesn’t happen but what is common are studies finding a correlation which leads to someone claiming causation and then complaining when they’re criticized.
As an example, in the US it’s uncontested that some populations have worse academic performance. That doesn’t get criticized seriously. What does get criticism is when a right-wing commenter tries to say that this must be because of genetic causes or the popular euphemism “culture” – and that criticism is well deserved since that ignores all of the other explanations and checks which actual science would require and goes straight to the same conclusion which avowed racists have been pushing for centuries.
[1]: Though not necessarily xenophobic; the difference between the two confuses many people, as does the difference between sexist and misogynistic. Xenophobia and misogyny imply a certain intent, a certain feeling of resentment towards other races, cultures and genders, while racism and sexism are merely actions or inactions -- usually unintentional and sometimes even well-meaning -- that serve to increase or maintain the current disparity in power among different groups. While I don't like applying the terms sexist and racist to people, as they're best applied to actions, laws, rules, institutions etc., we can apply them to those who do racist/sexist things. I know I'm racist and sexist, and I can assume you are, too. If you spend some time learning about those concepts, you know it is very much expected for people in racist/sexist societies to be racist and sexist, and it takes active effort to fight them. People should not be offended that they're racist and sexist, just as they should not be offended to learn that they may be carrying and spreading germs that cause infectious diseases, although I'm sure many were insulted to be "labeled" as disease-spreading when microbes were first discovered. Once you understand those "labels" aren't insults but well-researched observations, you know you shouldn't be offended by them, but you should learn to identify racist/sexist behaviors and prevent them, just as you learned to wash your hands.
You might not, but lots of people do -- and publicly say so.
Obviously, I can't vouch for everyone, but since I haven't seen any behavior of the kind you refer to (certainly not among more-or-less mainstream figure), I can safely assume it's not done by "lots of people".
So yes, at least in Sweden you'll voice an opinion like this at your own peril. You describe yourself as a radical leftist (and a radical feminist). I can all but guarantee that you would be an outcast among your peers if you even hint to having such opinions. A good example of this phenomenon can be found with Amineh Kakabaveh [3], a Kurdish woman who was shunned her party [4] because of her active stance against honour crimes, for women's rights and secularism.
[1] https://jmg.gu.se/digitalAssets/1284/1284227_nr38.pdf
[2] The wall seems to be crumbling a bit now that it is nearly impossible to remain ignorant of the facts. Some politicians still try to keep up the narrative but critical voices are now heard even in some mainstream publications.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amineh_Kakabaveh
[4] "Vänsterpartiet", they used to call themselves the left-wing communist party but ditched the "communist" term after the dissolution of the Soviet Union
That's not what I meant. What I meant is that the left, even the radical left -- as an intellectual movement -- does not find this kind of statements racist in and of themselves.
> This is due in part to the fact that the media - print and broadcast - are very active in disavowing such standpoints and putting those labels on people who hold them.
But this is different, and I would agree with the viewpoint that such discourse is racist, and precisely what I meant by saying that the point is misunderstood. The left does not consider a factual statement such as "muslims carry out a disproportionately large number of terror acts" as itself racist. On the other hand, such constant discourse is racist because its subtext is to instill the idea that terrorism is innately muslim (factually false) or that Muslims are somehow intrinsically drawn to terrorism (also false). If talk shows were to constantly talk about the temperature of the sun, that would also mean that there is something going on beside the desire to educate the public of a scientific fact. I.e., there is a difference between some fact and the action of repeatedly talking about that fact in contexts that aren't really about statistics.
It's like that famous story of a man who escapes the insane asylum and, intent on not being taken back, decides to only speak the truth so he won't be considered crazy, and he goes around telling everyone he sees "the Earth is round." It's not the fact itself that is crazy in this story. Because I work in the tech industry I have come across quite a few people in the course of my carreer who are on the autistic spectrum, and some of them were simply unable to understand how a statement and the constant repetition of that statement are different acts and may have completely different meanings.
> I can all but guarantee that you would be an outcast among your peers if you even hint to having such opinions.
You are absolutely wrong about that. Like I said, there is a big difference in subtext between constantly bringing up some fact and stating that the fact itself is racist. The facts I mentioned are a statistical description of some current (and transient) historical conditions; frequently bringing them up is a sign of a (racist) political sentiment.
This article shows the issue of doing so. The subtext from much of left literature is to instill the idea that violence is innately male (factually false) or that men are somehow intrinsically drawn to violence (also false). Even if averaged it out to a whole 2% of the male population, the other 98% are not. The association to the male sex is similar to the association to race or the association between Muslims and terrorism. An other word for it would be correlation.
The article has an issue with calling out race, and it should because its a very small portion of non-native swedes that do violent crime. It has no issue to call out males, even though the association is weaker. That is politics, and a very specific one at that.
Why would there be? The point of view is not one of describing some hypothetical world but our concrete world. If in our concrete world the position of, say, white men and that of blacks is different, why would you even assume that the two should be treated the same in discussions of society? No sociologist, anthropologist or historian would say that social issues in an imaginary world where blacks and whites have equal power should be studied in the same way as in a real world where they don't. Statistics are studied in their appropriate context; otherwise, they're misleading.
> The subtext from much of left literature is to instill the idea that violence is innately male
No, violence is usually male, but I don't think we consider it innate in the sense you seem to allude to (i.e., as the main cause or as a sign of an inability to change). In general, we don't like talking about innate qualities for several reasons. 1. The science is vague and weak at best -- even when innate qualities are found, their respective strength is unknown and the effect size is usually far too small compared to observation, which suggests that in many cases innate causes have weak explanatory power, and 2. innate causes make for very bad excuses when it comes to calls for changing behavior; innate biological capabilities explain 100% of humans' inability to fly, yet that hasn't stopped us from wanting to and succeeding in building airplanes. In fact, if you find any subtext in leftist thought particularly emphasizes any innate uncontrollable trait, then I'd say you've either found something quite unusual or you've completely missed the mark. The general tendency not to focus on innate "essentialism" is among the left's most distinguishing marks. It's not that we deny the possibility of strong innate forces, but we think that even when they are overwhelmingly strong -- such as the case of flying and airplanes -- they are often overcome, and such a focus is often used as a reactionary stance against change even though that does not follow even from the claimed innateness.
> The association to the male sex is similar to the association to race or the association between Muslims and terrorism.
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that both are indeed correlations. No in the sense that men have been subjugating women almost everywhere almost constantly for many centuries if not millennia, while Islam has become abnormally overrepresented in terrorism only very recently, correlated with decline, not rise in its power.
> The left, and in particular the radical left, has no issue having such constant discourse in regards to men.
Why would there be? The point of view is not one of describing some hypothetical world but our concrete world.
We don't. We have a problem with the context this is brought up with. Like the Kiergegaard story about the madman and the round Earth.
> this is definitely not the case - anyone even hinting at this is soon labelled racist
Totally made up BS. If you choose to misunderstand things, that's not our fault. OTOH, people who believe that blacks are somehow more innately inclined towards crime -- a scientific fallacy -- are racist, and so their "labeling" as such is not only justified but necessary. I don't know what word best describes racism other than "racism".
> In general, we don't like talking about innate qualities
"Men violence against women" - Title of a lot of writing, government reports, books, and so on from the left. We don't see "foreigners violence against Swedes" or "Muslims violence against non-believers". That would be titles from far right writing. A spade is a spade on both side when looked at from the middle.
> men have been subjugating women almost everywhere almost constantly for many centuries if not millennia, while Islam has become abnormally overrepresented in terrorism only very recently
No, yes, and no. Religion has been associated with wars and violence for centuries if not millennia. Gender roles has also existed for that long, but only very recently being describe as subjugating. History get interpreted through political leaning and rewriting history is an old political trick by both the left and right. Reading how life was a few hundred years have very little in the form of gender subjugating, unless you count taking men from their home and against their will putting them on the war front to die. Much of cultural values in historical society can be derive from two core gender roles, that of the nurture role and the support role. One exist to create the family, the other exist to supply food and defense. If we want to describe that as subjugating then lets call what it is. Both are being subjugated. Take any time in history and what we have is a lack of liberty for the 99% of the population, men or women. The 99% rarely if ever has power, control, or freedom from subjugating.
But that's not what we do. First, instead of looking at just 2% of the population as you seem to suggest we should do, we look at all of them, and on the whole, much more power is held by men than by women. Second, we feminists generally care much more about the bottom 1% (or 50%) of society -- be they men, women, black or white -- than the rich and powerful men at the top 1%. You can see that not only in historical events (feminists were a strong power among the abolitionists in 19th century US) but even if you look at current events, and see that women are disproportionately represented in demonstrations against unfair incarceration, against deportation of refugees etc..
> "Men violence against women" - Title of a lot of writing, government reports, books, and so on from the left.
I don't see any reference to innate qualities here.
> We don't see "foreigners violence against Swedes" or "Muslims violence against non-believers".
First, because unlike men violence against women, those are actually outliers rather than the norm. Second, like I wrote in another comment, I don't understand your expectation. If the position of Muslims and immigrants in a Western country is so very different from that of native men, why would you even want them to be treated the same? Is a diamond handled the same way as limestone just because they are both rocks? Note that I am not talking about any innate qualities, just the current state of affairs.
> Gender roles has also existed for that long, but only very recently being describe as subjugating.
That's just a total and complete fabrication. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protofeminism
> Reading how life was a few hundred years have very little in the form of gender subjugating, unless you count taking men from their home and against their will putting them on the war front to die.
I actually studied history (mostly medieval) in grad school, and what you're writing here is total BS.
> Much of cultural values in historical society can be derive from two core gender roles, that of the nurture role and the support role. One exist to create the family, the other exist to supply food and defense.
Do you still believe that the world is made of the four classical elements? Do you believe that the Earth is flat? If you had actually studied history from actual historians and primary sources, the ideas you mention here would sound equally ridiculous to you as the four elements and the flat Earth. 1. they are mostly ahistorical fabrications, and 2. to the small extent that they are historically true, their explanative power is false as the claim would work in the same way to justify any current state of affairs -- we're here because the system is good. For example, in the time of slavery I could use the exact same description to justify slavery; in fact people did exactly that (and slavery has made much more economical "sense" than the subjugation of women) and yet changing the system turined out just fine. Finally, suppose that this fantasy were true (although I truly feel sorry for you that you've somehow been convinced by such BS), as I mentioned above throughout history women have expressed anger at their subjugation -- do you morally support constantly harming billions of others even for some imagined greater good? Do you also support slavery, then?
I can't stop you from being of the opinion that women should be subjugated (unfortunately, this is far from a fringe opinion; in a way, it's still the ruling opinion although it's no longer usually made so explicit), but please don't try to justify that position using fabricated history.
Kritikerna menar att det finns de som vill ha brottsstatistik
över etnicitet, det är en helt annan debatt. Det är rasism att
koppla ihop brott med etnicitet eller religion. Den debatten
är bortspelad för länge sedan, förutom hos vissa moderater som
vill värva röster från Sverigedemokraterna, säger Daniel Riazat.
Critics state there are those who want to collect statistics
on ethnicity related to criminality but that is an entirely
different debate. ___It is racist to connect crime with ethnicity
or religion___. This debate has played out a long time ago apart
from some 'Moderates' (neo-liberals) who want to gather votes
for the Sweden Democrats (nationalists) says Daniel Riazat.
[1] https://www.svd.se/v-vill-samla-in-info-om-etnicitet-och-rel...
Studies like this are hard, because they're usually labeled 'racist',
or it turns into an ad hominem attack on the authors, or struck down
in the media for singling out some minority group.
Vilken roll kan det ha spelat?
– Jag tror att den aktivism som fanns mot både Säkerhetspolisen
och de som försökte lyfta allvaret i de här frågorna. Det gjorde
att tröskeln blev högre för både politiker och andra att ge sig
in i det här området, säger han.
– Man riskerade att bli utpekad som rasist på ett sätt som man
inte såg i andra europeiska länder. Där var den här frågan lika
okontroversiell som vikten av att bekämpa nazism och högerextremism.
Men i Sverige tog det lång tid innan det gick att diskutera jihadismen
på samma sätt som vi under lång tid diskuterat nazism, säger Hyllengren.
What role can this have played?
– I think that the activism against both the security services and those
who tried to point out the seriousness of the situation [played a role].
This made that the bar was raised both for politicians and other who
would dare to speak out on these subjects, he said.
– You ran the risk of being pointed out as racist in a way which was not
seen in other European countries. There this question was as uncontroversial
as the importance of fighting nazism and right-wing extremism. In Sweden on
the other hand it took a long time before it was possible to discuss jihadism
in the same way we've been discussing nazism for a long time, says Hyllengren.
No, you most certainly have not. Study A that mentions claim X may be not racist, while study B that claims X may be racist. I said that A is not racist, and your examples of B being labeled racist do not disprove it. My whole point about the unfortunate misunderstanding is that people think that since B is racist (due to context) then X is "unfairly labeled as racist" when, in fact, it is not X which is racist, but B.
> This is, yet again, a literal quote proving the point of the original statement which launched this thread.
I don't know about the situation in Sweden so I can't comment on it. It's possible that what I said is not the case in Sweden. On the other hand, it is also possible that the person quoted, like you, misunderstands what it is that is labeled racist. I do know that claims like yours about X being labeled racist when it is, in fact, B which is called racist because it is racist, are made in the US as well, despite being generally false. It's like someone complaining about being laughed at while talking about, say, bed bugs, then saying that bed bugs are ridiculed, but neglects to mention that he was wearing a bug-shaped hat while talking about bed-bugs, and it is the delivery that was ridiculed. Context matters.
Plenty of people jump on the “that’s racism” bandwagon. If they can’t attack the math they attack the author and make wild accusations about their intent.
Truth is treason in an empire of lies, and socially most would rather live with comfortable lies.
Yes, obviously
He literally equated challenging bad ideas with racism.
He was so angered by the statement, "We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam get conflated as bigotry against Muslims as people. It is intellectually ridiculous." that he went on the offensive and said, "That's gross, it's racist. It's like saying you're a 'shifty Jew.' You guys are saying: 'If you want to be liberals, believe in liberal principles, like freedom of speech"
Whatever your opinion about the acceptability of criticizing Islam over violence, sexism or treatment of homosexuals, it's clear that some people do equate that criticism with racism.
Ideological intolerance can often make people blind to nuanced positions, such as being open to a group of people but not all of their traditional beliefs.
> " no one is being criticized for actual science"
Take a look at what evolutionary psychologists and biologists have been facing over the past decade. The criticism coming form people who have little experience in their fields, but intense political and social beliefs, has been intense.
That said, it also doesn’t match the claims you’re making. Affleck wasn’t saying that no bad had ever happened with Islam, but rather that it wasn’t good to make such broad claims about a huge and diverse population — note that each of the things mentioned are also true of Christians but we are far less likely to treat such blanket statements about them as useful or accurate.
> Take a look at what evolutionary psychologists and biologists have been facing over the past decade.
I’m well aware of that and you’re misrepresenting it. They’re not being criticized for actual science but for unsupported claims which aren’t supported by the scientific evidence but are conveniently close to existing political beliefs.
The "rich elite man" Affleck was yelling at for criticizing Islam wrote two full books criticising Christianity earlier in his career and received very little blowback for them. In fact, those books are what made him a "rich elite man", as you put it.
>> Take a look at what evolutionary psychologists and biologists have been facing over the past decade.
> I’m well aware of that and you’re misrepresenting it.
How can you both be well aware of what I was thinking and that I was misrepresnting? I didn't even reference a specific incident! You've both mentally filled in an example and invented some misrepresentation you believe I've made about it.
The principle of charity dictates the opposite.
Xenophobia means "fear of outsiders" and misogyny means "hatred or contempt of women". There's nothing implied or indirect about either.
EDIT: But for that period it was not as much, that is true.
This study is not as comprehensive but in 30-state USA study, 77% of prisoners are jailed again within 5 years of release:
Check out the list based on Alesina’s analysis.
Or go to Sweden. In the younger population groups, muslims are now are huge minority.
Online sources suggest about 30% of Stockholm is non-Swedish, and most of those people are European. New York and Chicago are only about 30-35% European descent, and that’s mixed between Irish, German, Swedish, English, etc.
For whatever reason that objective "diversity" doesn't seem diverse to some people.
They also seem to have more but smaller (as a percentage of the total) ethnic groups than the US. Again, while mathematically more diverse than a big chunk of African or Latin-Americans, people seem to view this as less diverse.
It’s way more diverse in Sweden. I lived in NYC, and have travelled a lot in Sweden. Nowadays, large Swedish cities are much more diverse.
So you are confusing mental/behavior explanations with unscientific correlation-hunting racial explanations that are too popular in discourse.
Your comment here is emblematic of exactly what HN discussions need not to do. That requires the strength to resist temptation.
OP was citing Damore's claim about population level differences. Damore's claim wasn't that the US is 80% male so of course Google is 80% male, it's that men and women have different distributions for a given trait (hence, "population level differences") and these differences in distribution might account for Google's demographics better than discrimination. One such population-level difference is that women are far more likely to choose careers that are flexible or to leave the workplace altogether to start a family. By itself, this difference doesn't likely account for the whole disparity, but there are others as well--women prefer to work with people as opposed to abstract reasoning systems. It could even be true that men and women are on average exactly as qualified to be a Google engineer, but that men have a flatter distribution (more representation at the extreme low and high end of the distribution) and that Google samples from the high end, ergo selecting more males. Greater male variability is common in lots of species (including humans) for lots of different traits. It's also interesting that female participation in STEM is inversely proportional to gender equality; countries with very high gender equality (e.g., Scandanavian countries) have relatively few women in STEM while cultures with less gender equality (the middle east, India, China, etc) have far greater STEM participation. It also seems unlikely that discrimination is the cause since women achieved parity in medicine and law in the '80s and '90s when the fields were notoriously, overtly sexist, but the tech industry can't move the needle despite sinking tens or hundreds of millions into "diversity". It seems entirely likely that innate differences play a significant role.
There will undoubtedly be a lot of (otherwise very intelligent) people who will read "population level gender differences" and interpret it as "Wait, you're saying X is true for literally every woman?! How can you generalize like that?!". Of course, this isn't what I'm saying or what the OP said or what Damore said, so let's not go down that straw man rabbit hole.
It just leads to uncomfortable places, especially in the context of Swedish society.
Please provide some factual, quantified basis for this statement.
“These studies can be socially controversial, and so authors must be especially careful in the way they conduct their research and present their conclusions.”
At a certain point, demanding empirical evidence for a clearly observable societal zeitgeist becomes disingenuous or obtuse, regardless of how well-intentioned the request is. It stifles discussion that can otherwise proceed.
I don't think the poster needs charity. Clarity is more like it.
It also leaves any potential of discussing "chilling effect" like things. You're measurement does nothing to gauge the overall zeitgeist of the time, which would clearly influence the outlook of any researcher who didn't have balls of steel and bulletproof funding.
I agree the author needs more clarity. And the clear thing to say is that "one could easily imagine this type of study in the United States causing problems for the author due to possible accusations of racism".
I do not see those sorts of comments as up to the usual standards of HackerNews. Perhaps to be expected on an article like this, but still they should be discouraged.
What you're asking is not just uncharitable, it doesn't even make sense (even if it was possible).
It's also irrelevant to what the parent said, which is not a quantified claim that such studies are "labelled racist more than 50% of the time", but a casual "usually labelled racist".
In casual conversation "usually" doesn't mean some hard 50% + c, any more so than "often" and "a lot of times".
"Do you have any references for this?" might be less strident.
Though that's hardly the only place or time.
SPLC maintain a set of references on more current instances.