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To be specific, I am claiming: * The vast majority of men do not have positions of power or great wealth. * The vast majority of white people do not have posi

To be specific, I am claiming: * The vast majority of men do not have positions of power or great wealth. * The vast majority of white people do not have positions of power or great wealth. * The vast majority of homeless people, regardless of their race or gender, do not have positions of power or great wealth. * White people, as a group, do not systematically oppress non-white people, preventing them from attaining power and wealth. * Men, as a group, do not systematically oppress non-male people, preventing them from attaining power and wealth.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
And yet that flies in the face of everything we have learned in the last decades. Is it just wishful thinking? Head-in-the-sand? Is the sky also not blue? Positions as incredibly implausible as that need extraordinary explanation.
gjm11 9y ago
Those claims seem to me very different from -- and compatible with the negation of -- your earlier statement that it's wrong to consider "men" and "white people" dominant groups in society. Since pretty much any claim about how these things are in the real world is liable to be controversial, here's a toy example to illustrate. Imagine a world in which (1) hundreds of years ago it became, never mind why, very widely believed that men are better and cleverer and harder-working than women, (2) such beliefs are extremely resistant to change regardless of empirical evidence, and (3) as a result of the persistence of that belief, men are consistently given better jobs, paid more, regarded as more trustworthy, etc., etc., etc., than women. But, as in our world, great power and great wealth are rare, and most people whether male or female don't have them. In that world, the vast majority of men don't have great power or great wealth, and any oppressing that's going on is being done by everyone collectively; but, in that world, men are by any reasonable definition a dominant group: they are greatly overrepresented (relative to their numbers in society as a whole) among the powerful, the rich, the high-status. So, let's return to geofft's question. Everything in your list could be true without making it false that men and white people are dominant groups in American society. Do you, in addition to holding the positions in your list, further believe that they are not dominant groups? What would be your estimate for the proportion of men in the following groups in the US: (1) people with an annual income of $250k or more, (2) holders of national-level political office, (3) people with "executive" in their job title, (4) owners of businesses, (5) judges, (6) generals, (7) (full) professors, (8) religious ministers? What about the proportion of white people? I'll make my prediction: in all those groups, the fraction of both men and white people will be greater than their fraction in the population at large; in several of those groups, much greater. Do you disagree? If so, let's check. If not, why don't you think this makes men and white people "dominant groups"? (Note that "dominant" is not the same as "oppressive".)
geofft 9y ago
> White people, as a group, do not systematically oppress non-white people, preventing them from attaining power and wealth. If you want to challenge this belief, I strongly recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (which I'm currently partway through). I'll still respect your position if you read it and continue to believe the above, but it's got a lot of good information and good analysis that's worth being aware of.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

And yet that flies in the face of everything we have learned in the last decades. Is it just wishful thinking? Head-in-the-sand? Is the sky also not blue? Positions as incredibly implausible as that need extraordinary explanation.

gjm11 9y ago

Those claims seem to me very different from -- and compatible with the negation of -- your earlier statement that it's wrong to consider "men" and "white people" dominant groups in society. Since pretty much any claim about how these things are in the real world is liable to be controversial, here's a toy example to illustrate. Imagine a world in which (1) hundreds of years ago it became, never mind why, very widely believed that men are better and cleverer and harder-working than women, (2) such beliefs are extremely resistant to change regardless of empirical evidence, and (3) as a result of the persistence of that belief, men are consistently given better jobs, paid more, regarded as more trustworthy, etc., etc., etc., than women. But, as in our world, great power and great wealth are rare, and most people whether male or female don't have them. In that world, the vast majority of men don't have great power or great wealth, and any oppressing that's going on is being done by everyone collectively; but, in that world, men are by any reasonable definition a dominant group: they are greatly overrepresented (relative to their numbers in society as a whole) among the powerful, the rich, the high-status. So, let's return to geofft's question. Everything in your list could be true without making it false that men and white people are dominant groups in American society. Do you, in addition to holding the positions in your list, further believe that they are not dominant groups? What would be your estimate for the proportion of men in the following groups in the US: (1) people with an annual income of $250k or more, (2) holders of national-level political office, (3) people with "executive" in their job title, (4) owners of businesses, (5) judges, (6) generals, (7) (full) professors, (8) religious ministers? What about the proportion of white people? I'll make my prediction: in all those groups, the fraction of both men and white people will be greater than their fraction in the population at large; in several of those groups, much greater. Do you disagree? If so, let's check. If not, why don't you think this makes men and white people "dominant groups"? (Note that "dominant" is not the same as "oppressive".)

geofft 9y ago

> White people, as a group, do not systematically oppress non-white people, preventing them from attaining power and wealth. If you want to challenge this belief, I strongly recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (which I'm currently partway through). I'll still respect your position if you read it and continue to believe the above, but it's got a lot of good information and good analysis that's worth being aware of.