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Just have a look at the public discourse in Sweden and you'll soon find out your position is untenable. While you are right in stating that the majority of the

Just have a look at the public discourse in Sweden and you'll soon find out your position is untenable. While you are right in stating that the majority of the population will not find [these assertions] racist (or xenophobe, islamophobe, etcetera) there is a big discrepancy between what people think and what they can state out loud for fear of being called just that. 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. This in turn is most likely related to the large difference in political affiliations between the public at large (where you'll find an about even divide between "left" and "right", largely clustered around the centre) and those who work in the media (89% on the left side, 78% of which on the extreme left [1]). As those who are stamped with such a label can expect to be shunned by both friends as well as employers this habit of vocally labelling anyone who steps outside of the left-of-centre narrative as racist has created an atmosphere of fear for being pointed out [2]. 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 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 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

pron 9y ago
> While you are right in stating that the majority of the population will not find [these assertions] racist 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.
- belorn 9y ago
  The left, and in particular the radical left, has no issue having such constant discourse in regards to men. Even in this article the politics of our day shows that gender is acceptable to call out but not race. 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.
  - pron 9y ago
    > 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. 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.

pron 9y ago

> While you are right in stating that the majority of the population will not find [these assertions] racist 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.

belorn 9y ago
The left, and in particular the radical left, has no issue having such constant discourse in regards to men. Even in this article the politics of our day shows that gender is acceptable to call out but not race. 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.
- pron 9y ago
  > 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. 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.