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This is so true. It’s a very beautifully expressed feeling I had trouble articulating before. Thank you for putting it into words like this.
It’s also ridiculous to me there is a push to “teach” these concepts to kids when it’s fairly obvious they’ll just abstract them away to something stupid like “man bad” or “white people bad”. I feel like it’s sort of like trying to explain to kids with no CS experience some nuanced tradeoff like, I don’t know, the CAP theorem for example. They’ll probably understand that if you go with AP instead of CP you risk losing data and that’s bad so now we always use CP. All they’ll be left of with is “AP bad, CP good”.
There was an interesting article about some social inequalities where when we talk about something more -is actually making it worse-. Apparently doing sensitivity and diversity trainings have the effect of making outcomes worse or ineffective , counterintuitively (its this part of your comment I find most sympathetic) https://hbr.org/2019/07/does-diversity-training-work-the-way...
That is absolutely true. And there has even been some pushback from the academics who coined these terms. But, in the end, words are tools, and tools meet a need, and there was apparently a great need for a new narrative that explained personal feelings of failure and self loathing. So it was inevitable that these terms would be used in this way. These words, as tools, are also potent for those who desire power, and look for any means to win, including invocation of race and gender stereotypes. It is galling for anyone who values liberty to see this, when the goal has always been to deprecate the prejudice function, and not merely to call the same function with different arguments.
It is fascinating, though, how the desire to improve, to be more virtuous than before, can turn out so badly! It's a real slippery slope situation - we made progress, civil rights, women's rights, interracial marriage, gay marriage, sexual identities, gender identities acknowledging the momentum of racist policies in our demographics...but then it turns into: gender is purely a construct, lets modify children's bodies if they think they're trans, lets force people to use certain pronouns, lets have teachers share their sex lives with kindergarteners, lets give women and students of color the power of professional life and death over white teachers, lets teach reverse CBT. And if you try to make this point, you're called a racist and a bigot! Social justice warriors push an insidious form of injustice that harms everyone. Because, as the GGP put it, it's anti-human.
His arguments about religion and society's collective unwillingness to have an honest conversation about it are compelling. But what's fascinating to me is that he manages to piss off both the religious right and the SJW left, and I think he's onto something important.
The reason he pisses them off is that his fundamental position boils down to: dogmatism is the problem. And no one wants to admit they are dogmatic.
The same instinct in a right-wing pro-life person to shut down any consideration whatsoever that their position is suspect is the same instinct in the SJW who can only see the world as an unjust manifestation of the patriarchy, or systemic racism, etc. This is not to say that those things don't exist or have no impact, but it seems those things have been used to harness the same base behavior we're all capable of, to effectively form what resembles an entirely new religious dogma.
This dogmatism shuts down substantive dialog, and perpetuates the same kinds of problems one finds with folks who insist Jesus is coming back to earth in the next 50 years.
A mindset that removes willingness to engage in conversation - even if the person holding the mindset happens to be right (or at least closer to right than some others) - is a mindset every bit as dangerous and problematic as the mindset held by right-wing extremists.
I'm not trying to just parrot Sam's message here, but he's saying things that I've long believed, and didn't know how to articulate, and the basic takeaway is this: dialogue is the only thing that can change the collective consciousness.
The current trends around identity politics, cancelling people for the things they say, creating taboos so strong that people don't feel comfortable even touching on some topics is the antithesis of liberalism, and I'll repeat what you and GGP said - anti-human. If dialogue is the only path forward, and our current path involves the complete demonization of certain dialogue to the point that you are no longer allowed to participate in the conversation, we are at what can only be called an impasse as a culture.
We should properly put bad ideas to bed, absolutely. We should address systemic issues where they exist, absolutely. We should learn from our major mistakes, absolutely.
But the current climate is somewhat terrifying. One need only try to make the argument I just made on Twitter, Facebook or Reddit to see what I'm talking about. You'll quickly be branded a right-wing or alt-right sympathizer (despite the fact that in terms of policy, I'm about as liberal as they come, identity politics notwithstanding). People will manufacture a version of you that they believe to be true, and then abuse you for it, while feeling righteous and justified in the process.
It's a sad state of affairs.
Certain outcomes seem to be more favorable using typical left wing policies and others using what’s thought of as right wing. Finding out which is which is far more interesting.
The parts of academia that are relevant to this discussion (humanities and social sciences) are certainly dominated by the left.
I would be careful not to confer this to issues of culture, where dogma currently reigns supreme, and liberals are no less susceptible than conservatives to the kind of thinking that leads absolutely nowhere productive.
Putting aside the rhetorical tools you're discussing, what would you say to people who currently feel the effects of these historical, and contemporary oppressions? People with unwanted pregnancies who find themselves unable to access abortions, African-Americans who are descended from families that were unable to purchase property they would have been able to afford due to redlining and are thus at a disadvantage, Gen X Jews whose parents were denied entry to elite schools and whose families thus suffered economically, gay and trans people who are currently, in the US, facing a government that has all but stated it wants to eliminate even the tenuous hold on legal existence they have?
I am all for telling people to find the good in the world. There is a lot of it! But some of these negative phenomena that sociologists describe have real consequences for real people in the present day, and I don't really see how "just stop thinking about it" is a solution for them.
I would have quoted me a bit more generously. This is what I would tell them (and myself, since we are all oppressed, and all of our ancestors were oppressed, at some point, by someone):
>We cannot, in each successive generation, reform ourselves to undo the injustices of the past, not only because it's practically impossible but because the meaning of injustice changes. And society is finite in its malleability. To be sure, some things can be done, within a generation or two. Maybe three. But after a while, what's done is done and you have to move on.
Am I correct, then, in thinking your response to people currently harmed by social structures they have no choice in interacting with is, basically, "I agree that this sucks, but I don't support changing anything to fix it."?
I don’t know about the guy you’re asking but the way I would tackle this question is, first by point out in some cases the “harm” is only perceived.
To give you an example of this, a claim often made is “trans kids are being harmed due to lack of access to hormones/surgery”. I find this revolting. I would consider, for this example at least, the current system is doing good in protecting them, certainly it is not harming them.
For me and many people, changing this would mean creating a social structure that is harmful.
What will happen if the system is now changed to allow children to take hormones but in a few decades this will be broadly considered a harmful social structure?
Another point I would bring up is, there are various ways problems can be addressed. Asking for change begs the question what change precisely? It is very possible agreement on the existence of the problem can be reached while the solution remains contentious.
A more accurate description of reality would be I think “Some problems exist and some problems are nothing more than attempts at getting power, privilege or attention. And while the problems that are generally agreed upon to exist should be fixed, the solution is often unclear and the proposals open up their own set of problems”
Then I probably don't care about your opinion on this - we are almost certainly speaking from completely different ontological perspectives.
I asked the person I was replying to, because they seemed to have values at least somewhat compatible with mine, and thus I expect to learn something from them.
> we are almost certainly speaking from completely different ontological perspectives
Do you consider me ontologically evil? Am I, as some people on the internet often refer to those with my sense of mortality, “a demon wearing human flash”?
> therefore we have little to learn from arguing with each other
In a way I agree but at the same time I can't help but think exploring the axioms underlying moral foundations is important. Either to come to a shared set as a society or to construct a societal machanism that will allow people with a contradictory sense of morality to co-exist. To be honest, reaching a shared set of moral axioms seems to be a lost cause to me. But, perhaps the co-existance mechanism is still possible.
If that's the first thing you think of when you see the word "ontological," I suggest you read some more philosophy before pondering moral axioms.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
I’d suggest that it’s not about those things for the accusers themselves. It’s simply about gaining power. And they do it by preying upon “personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing” in other well-meaning people. They’ve discovered that yelling “cultural appropriation” works quite well with people who are constantly looking for other people to feel sorry for - which of a kind of projection.
I've slowly come to the opinion that it is about a power play / emotional manipulation, because there is no way to atone. If you're white (for example), you're just an oppressor by the structure of society you were born into, so the sin is membership in a structurally advantaged group defined by race. You can't change your race nor change the past, so the best you can do is hope that supporting the political agenda of your accusers is good enough.
Do you think the Christian concept of "original sin" planted (at least some of) the seeds for this mental model? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
CCC 405
“ Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants.
It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering, and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin — an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence.”
Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.”
Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of inequality and systemic threats to the continued survival of the species.
The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about what is still happening now - and how the narratives from the past continue to be used to justify it.
Ignoring this is neither compassionate nor realistic - although it is toxic, pretty much by definition.
Complaining without action is equivalent to ignoring it. Sharing the same news headline everyone's already read with your "This is bad!" caption isn't helping. We all know, we can read the words and see it's bad.
Enjoying the world in all its messiness means engaging with it - not this woke schtick of avoiding touching the entire subject because of some trigger word, then spewing generic, inactionable drivel like "did you know the world is bad?"
Yes, we know. We all know. Every single one of us. Welcome to the conversation. Work on yourself so you're not bringing more misery and uselessness into an already-miserable world that needs help.
(Have you tried meditation? /s)
I do not believe myself to be a narcissist and I think I am at least somewhat aware of the world and it’s problems.
Yet, despite this, I do “ enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness”.
I think what is preventing you from doing the same is ideology and close mindedness. From the comment, you come across like a fundamentalist christian refusing to enjoy life because “the world is sinful”.
Enjoy life man. Since we’re on the article, take a page from the Buddhist philosophy and let go, for a moment at least :)
Sounds like you’ve had some bad run-ins with Christian fundamentalists. Sure the world is broken, but most Christians realize the world is inherently beautiful (not to be confused with ‘good’).
If the God of the universe died to save it, there’s got to be fundamental value there. Therefore if someone thinks the world is ugly and can’t enjoy it, that’s an internal thing they gotta fix, not an immutable, self-evident truth about the world… again it’s precisely because of the Bible that I believe these things.
I was referring more to the sort of people who, for example, see homosexuals having gay pride and start worrying it’s the end times and they must cleanse the world through adherence to their religion or something like that.
Let me re-write the comment I was responding as a fundamentalist would write it.
—-
Only sinners and heathens are able to "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness."
Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of homosexuality and systemic threats to the continued survival of the church.
The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about what is still happening now - and how the narratives from the past continue to be used to justify it.
Ignoring this is neither compassionate nor realistic - although it is heretical, pretty much by definition.
—-
I am 100% percent convinced that there are fundamentalist christians or islamists or whatever who would read that re-written comment as go “oh yeah, that makes complete sense”.
I don't know if you meant to come off as harshly as you did, but this is needlessly reductive, which is especially ironic in a discussion about Buddhism.
What you propose is that there are two extremes: enjoyment of the world while ignoring suffering and self mortification while trying to solve it. These are, in essence, the two extremes which the Buddha argued against in favor of the Middle Path[0]:
> There is an addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is an addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Perfect One has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.
I don't think that OP is saying we should ignore suffering and not try to address it, but they are saying that self-flagellation is unhelpful and toxic, and we should approach suffering with a forward eye not a backward one.
I think you’ve missed the commenters main point which is that all this hand-wringing about how terrible things are—isn’t actively solving any problems we have today, or any problems we had yesterday. I would even dare to guess it won’t solve the problems we’ll have tomorrow.
A puritan explaining the importance of enforcing moral cohesion - cca 1750
Because it is. The zeitgeist on the left (so, academia) is consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and a great deal of intellectual work has been done to post hoc rationalize these feelings and package them in catchy phrases. Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some technically useful meanings to anthropologists, but within the public sphere they function only as a combined virtue signal and rhetorical weapon. What makes these weapons difficult is that they are so tightly wrapped in an image of compassion such that even those that wield them may not understand their true nature. A clever design.
This is a good example of how anything can be used as a weapon, even compassion. I really wish all these academics pushing the narrative of privilege etc would chill out for a second and just enjoy the world as it is, in all it's messiness. To stop seeing the world as purely an evil constructed on the mass graves of the innocent. Even if it were true (and in some sense it is) this is still the world we have. This is where kids are growing up, people are falling in love, where discoveries are being made. Sometimes you gotta just say 'fuck it' and enjoy the world you have without constantly speculating about how it should be, how it should have been, about whether the fruits you are enjoying were earned with blood. We cannot, in each successive generation, reform ourselves to undo the injustices of the past, not only because it's practically impossible but because the meaning of injustice changes. And society is finite in its malleability. To be sure, some things can be done, within a generation or two. Maybe three. But after a while, what's done is done and you have to move on.
EDIT: It's curious how sometimes a post gets upvoted, then downvoted, then several more cycles. Now its at 1. I'd be curious to know the "velocity" on this one, dang.