4 ms·
It's probably still sexist. I think you would probably agree that literature spoke the same way about black people a couple hundred years ago. Cultures can be s
by zebrafish 9y ago
It's probably still sexist. I think you would probably agree that literature spoke the same way about black people a couple hundred years ago. Cultures can be sexist or racist even if everyone subscribes to the same discriminatory standards.
However, I think the interesting point is that this is the culmination of 100,000 plot descriptions. At that point, it's not a reflection of bias in an author, it's a culturally accepted position on the roles of genders. (whether right or wrong)
...or I guess it could be a bunch of biased wikipedia editors :D
- tomp 9y agoIf you took 100,000 historical books describing the periods of US slavery, you'd have a strong correlation between "black" and "slave", but concluding that the books are therefore racist would be extremely illogical.
- dahart 9y agoYou have a valid point of logic. The only problem is that in reality, many many of those books actually were racist. Slavery and racism were in fact culturally acceptable in the United States for a period of time, it is not at all a stretch to hypothesize that the writing of the time reflected that fact. One might even argue that to assume otherwise would be extremely illogical.
- Bartweiss 9y agoOk, but the conflation is still wrong. A tract by John Brown about the evils of slavery would conflate the two without racism, while a racist screed by a Southern manner owner might use "servitude" or some other euphemism. The question isn't whether racism was common (yes, obviously) it's whether a specific language correlation reflects a racist author or work about a racist society. More broadly, this is a case of "right for the wrong reason". Many books mentioning slavery will be racist because many books of all sorts were racist, but we're asking whether this is informative or just a base rate fallacy.
- dahart 9y agoConflation of what? The conflation was @tomp's straw man example, @zebrafish and @artursapek didn't conflate anything nor presume that word frequencies equal racism. It's true that correlation is not causation. It's true that books that use the words 'black' and 'slave' doesn't say anything about whether they're racist. Nobody in this thread was saying otherwise. It's also true that the history we actually have is one filled with real racism and writing about real racism. It is not one that had a majority of John Brown writing about the evils of slavery. This isn't speculation, we have a historical record and this has already been demonstrated. Bigger picture, @artursapek asked an interesting question, is a body of literature sexist if it accurately reflects society? Men do commit more crimes, is it sexist for there to be more writing about men committing crimes than women? @zebrafish answered with an interesting answer -- we might consider it somewhat sexist because our society is still somewhat sexist. If the degree of sexism in literature and in society are the same, then is the literature sexist on it's own? Maybe it is. Both are hypotheses, and in my book it's perfectly fine to ponder hypotheses. Neither one said something I would presume to call "wrong".
- tomp 9y agoracist ==> "black" correlates with "slave" "black" correlates with "slave" =/=> racist
- dahart 9y agoCorrect, you're absolutely right. Nobody said otherwise.
- appetizer 9y agoBrave New World describes an inferior negroid class whose female zygotes furiously accept sperm zygotes with great vigor. Its not just about slavery, and I'm not sure how this analysis would even begin to comprehensively find these currently unfavorable descriptions of people.
- tomp 9y agoBrave New World is meant to portray a distopia.
- appetizer 9y agoThe alpha and beta classes were not living in a dystopia. Seemed quite nice. Freedom to pursue intellectual endeavors, freedom to have sex with whomever you wanted with no consequence, a life of privilege.
- tomp 9y agoExcept if they wanted to use their intellect to think critically, or wanted to move anywhere beyond sex...
- appetizer 9y agoBrave New World is widely considered a dystopia, but it is an introspection and satire on existing societies, which for many people actually are dystopias. This is a separation from stories that focus on the post-apocalyptic aspects primarily to create the genre of "scifi dystopia". Therefore, viewing Brave New World as an introspection only leaves the parts of the society that I like as the part to evaluate to see an ideal segment of society, colloquially called a utopia: - I want to be at the top of the pyramid society - I want there to be no consequences for promiscuity - I want a calming mind altering drug that has no side effects - I want peace and stability to focus on my intellectual tasks Brave New World accomplishes that.