4 ms·

Yes, I do. I think "justice" is worth fighting for, and as soon as "social justice" deviates from "justice" (e.g. positive discrimination, whereas blacks need t

by tomp 6y ago

Yes, I do. I think "justice" is worth fighting for, and as soon as "social justice" deviates from "justice" (e.g. positive discrimination, whereas blacks need to score less on SATs than Asians to be admitted) it's in the wrong.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Do you have any views on historic reparations? For example, do you think that at the time general slavery was abolished, it would have been just or not to have taken (some of) the wealth of former slave owners and given it to former slaves? If this was not done at the time, is there a lingering injustice over all of the former slaves? And the same can be asked about the very recent past, when explicit discrimination of black people in schooling, jobs, housing etc. was abolished, would it not have been just to give them back some of the wealth that had been legally denied them for more than a hundred years? Or do you believe that a line can be drawn at any time and everything that happened before can be fully ignored?
- tomp 6y ago
  I’m ok with reparations to former slaves, but AFAIK none of them are still alive (in the US). Reparations to their descendants (taken from all taxpayers) aren’t IMO any more “just” (or socially beneficial) than reparations from the rich to the poor (poor kids are also disadvantaged at no fault of their own... due to their ancestry). Explicit discrimination should be proven and solved by the usual means (suing, courts, ...). If you mandate a generic white-to-black reparations, you might end up with a situation where a working-class white person (deprivileged) is subsidising Obama’s daughters (extremely privileged). Basically any time you try to project “injustice” or “privilege” on a single dimension (such as race), the result is certainly unjust.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    What about reparations to people who lived under Jim Crow? Many of those are still alive. And no, I'm not saying you should do white-to-black reparations. But that's not to say it is just to do nothing. Particularly for pre-civil rights laws, the state could use its resources to undo the damage it did itself, and offer direct monetary aid or other advantages to those it wronged for so much time. Doing nothing is not justice, it is explicitly continuing the injustice.
    - tomp 6y ago
      I’m not too familiar with those laws, but yeah I generally support damages to specific people for specific acts. Like when people are falsely imprisoned. I’m sure there's a lot of examples that involve people of other races
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        After slavery and before the Civil rights act, in a lot of the USA, a doctrine termed euphemistically 'separate but equal' led to segregation laws establishing 'whites' only and 'blacks' only neighborhoods, schools, restaurants, workplaces etc. , followed of course by large discrepancies of funding between the white areas and the black areas. This ended officially sometime in the 1960s, so almost all black people over 60 in America today experienced it directly to some extent (and in reality disparities continued for many more years: e.g. the local school in a historically discriminated neighborhood is not going to get any better if today the discrimination stops, unless someone starts investing in it to account for the years of neglect). Most of affirmative action is meant to undo this injustice specifically, because direct reparations to the millions of people who were owed them were never even on the table. And of course, social justice is about more than black people. We haven't even talked about the historical disenfranchisement of women, the relatively recent imprisonment of gay and trans people, the internment of Japonese people, and so many other injustices that have never been repayed, even if they stopped.
        tomp 6y ago
        > Most of affirmative action is meant to undo this injustice specifically Intention =/= effect. It would be far more effective if the state invested more effort into educating people from underprivileged families (black, poor, immigrants), rather than lowering the standards for college admissions, which probably has worse outcomes (those students likely won’t catch up in terms of their skills), as well as creating new injustices (e.g. discrimination against Asians).

by tomp 6y ago

tsimionescu 6y ago

Do you have any views on historic reparations? For example, do you think that at the time general slavery was abolished, it would have been just or not to have taken (some of) the wealth of former slave owners and given it to former slaves? If this was not done at the time, is there a lingering injustice over all of the former slaves? And the same can be asked about the very recent past, when explicit discrimination of black people in schooling, jobs, housing etc. was abolished, would it not have been just to give them back some of the wealth that had been legally denied them for more than a hundred years? Or do you believe that a line can be drawn at any time and everything that happened before can be fully ignored?

tomp 6y ago
I’m ok with reparations to former slaves, but AFAIK none of them are still alive (in the US). Reparations to their descendants (taken from all taxpayers) aren’t IMO any more “just” (or socially beneficial) than reparations from the rich to the poor (poor kids are also disadvantaged at no fault of their own... due to their ancestry). Explicit discrimination should be proven and solved by the usual means (suing, courts, ...). If you mandate a generic white-to-black reparations, you might end up with a situation where a working-class white person (deprivileged) is subsidising Obama’s daughters (extremely privileged). Basically any time you try to project “injustice” or “privilege” on a single dimension (such as race), the result is certainly unjust.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  What about reparations to people who lived under Jim Crow? Many of those are still alive. And no, I'm not saying you should do white-to-black reparations. But that's not to say it is just to do nothing. Particularly for pre-civil rights laws, the state could use its resources to undo the damage it did itself, and offer direct monetary aid or other advantages to those it wronged for so much time. Doing nothing is not justice, it is explicitly continuing the injustice.
  - tomp 6y ago
    I’m not too familiar with those laws, but yeah I generally support damages to specific people for specific acts. Like when people are falsely imprisoned. I’m sure there's a lot of examples that involve people of other races
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      After slavery and before the Civil rights act, in a lot of the USA, a doctrine termed euphemistically 'separate but equal' led to segregation laws establishing 'whites' only and 'blacks' only neighborhoods, schools, restaurants, workplaces etc. , followed of course by large discrepancies of funding between the white areas and the black areas. This ended officially sometime in the 1960s, so almost all black people over 60 in America today experienced it directly to some extent (and in reality disparities continued for many more years: e.g. the local school in a historically discriminated neighborhood is not going to get any better if today the discrimination stops, unless someone starts investing in it to account for the years of neglect). Most of affirmative action is meant to undo this injustice specifically, because direct reparations to the millions of people who were owed them were never even on the table. And of course, social justice is about more than black people. We haven't even talked about the historical disenfranchisement of women, the relatively recent imprisonment of gay and trans people, the internment of Japonese people, and so many other injustices that have never been repayed, even if they stopped.
      - tomp 6y ago
        > Most of affirmative action is meant to undo this injustice specifically Intention =/= effect. It would be far more effective if the state invested more effort into educating people from underprivileged families (black, poor, immigrants), rather than lowering the standards for college admissions, which probably has worse outcomes (those students likely won’t catch up in terms of their skills), as well as creating new injustices (e.g. discrimination against Asians).