5 ms·

This is new to me, too. It seems like we're overloading an existing term with a new meaning that is foreign to anyone over the age of 30..?

naasking 6y ago
It's very possibly deliberate in order to manufacture consent. I mean, who born in the past 40 years be "for" racism or sexism as traditionally defined? But for the past decade or two, sexism and racism have been taught in universities as "systemic sexism/racism" rather than the classical meaning. If you've seen any debate online about academia "indoctrinating" youth, and creating "social justice warriors", this is basically what they're referring to. So now anyone that doesn't immediately accept these newly moved goalposts is themselves a racist or a sexist. This has obviously led to quite a degradation in social discourse.
- trav4225 6y ago
  It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse. The various camps aren't even speaking the same language anymore. Not sure how we recover from that.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    Essentially the same argument was used to complain about switching away from "Negro". One way to recover is to try to understand the argument and reject it on its own terms, rather than call it a mantra.
  - Shish2k 6y ago
    > It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse The goal isn’t to improve discourse, the goal is for Us to beat Them, even if we do it by redefining the word “beat” :(
    - eesmith 6y ago
      Who is "Us" and "Them"? If "Us" is "those fighting against centuries of race-based oppression" and "Them" is "those who benefit from the current racist system so much they even refuse to acknowledge the continuing racism" and "beat" is the creation of a new system of racial justice and equality then I agree with you 100%.
  - naasking 6y ago
    > It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse. They don't believe discourse changes society, they think change necessarily follows conflict. "Conflict" is taken too literally IMO, but I suppose we'll see.
  - flippinburgers 6y ago
    The intent is to put the supposedly uneducated individual off balance. Personally I find the tactic to be manipulative and outside the realm of good intentioned debate. By turning the issue away from racism and towards ™the system" it unites smaller groups together under one cause while disarming the fragmented majority. This gets intermingled with the idea that if you are not the correct skin color or gender you don't get to speak your opinion on certain topics. There is also what I would call a puritanical desire to immediately "other-ize" people who deviate in the slightest from accepted line of thought: they are publicly shamed and expunged from the group. It is baffling to watch. As someone else pointed out on this page, whomever came up with identity politics is a Machiavellian genius.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      If your argument is true, then that means it's easily countered (by anyone with any education on the topic) by saying something like "you and a small minority of others have decided to re-define racism in a manipulate way that favors your viewpoint. I reject that a-historical revisionism." Since that doesn't happen, it means one of two things: 1) most individuals are actually uneducated about the debate, or 2) it's not actually a re-definition. My (admittedly light) reading of the scholarly literature says that "racism" generally requires some sort of power imbalance, suggesting that it's #2, which further suggests your interpretation isn't correct. I don't know what you mean by "not the correct skin color or gender you don't get to speak your opinion on certain topics". Could you explain further, perhaps with examples? Identity polities is indeed Machiavellian genius. It's as old as the Bible. I think the current form in the US has its roots in European colonialism, where a small number of foreigners managed to convince a larger minority of a foreign country to act as their muscle. (Eg, the origins of the Rwandan genocide because of German racial theory which place the Tutsi over the Hutu, or the techniques the English used to rule India.) The early US history starts with the colonialist views (English but also Spanish) of superiority over the indigenous peoples. The current white/black identity polities started in the early 1800s when white supremacist ideas grew as a response to the abolitionist movement. After the Civil War, it developed further as a way to keep poor whites in line with the power structure of rich whites, rather than their black and free economic brothers and sisters. "Better poor than black." I therefore don't think it can be pinned to any one person, but like I said, my knowledge isn't that deep.

naasking 6y ago

It's very possibly deliberate in order to manufacture consent. I mean, who born in the past 40 years be "for" racism or sexism as traditionally defined? But for the past decade or two, sexism and racism have been taught in universities as "systemic sexism/racism" rather than the classical meaning. If you've seen any debate online about academia "indoctrinating" youth, and creating "social justice warriors", this is basically what they're referring to. So now anyone that doesn't immediately accept these newly moved goalposts is themselves a racist or a sexist. This has obviously led to quite a degradation in social discourse.

trav4225 6y ago
It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse. The various camps aren't even speaking the same language anymore. Not sure how we recover from that.
- eesmith 6y ago
  Essentially the same argument was used to complain about switching away from "Negro". One way to recover is to try to understand the argument and reject it on its own terms, rather than call it a mantra.
- Shish2k 6y ago
  > It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse The goal isn’t to improve discourse, the goal is for Us to beat Them, even if we do it by redefining the word “beat” :(
  - eesmith 6y ago
    Who is "Us" and "Them"? If "Us" is "those fighting against centuries of race-based oppression" and "Them" is "those who benefit from the current racist system so much they even refuse to acknowledge the continuing racism" and "beat" is the creation of a new system of racial justice and equality then I agree with you 100%.
- naasking 6y ago
  > It's hard to see how playing such games with human language can possibly lead to improved discourse. They don't believe discourse changes society, they think change necessarily follows conflict. "Conflict" is taken too literally IMO, but I suppose we'll see.
- flippinburgers 6y ago
  The intent is to put the supposedly uneducated individual off balance. Personally I find the tactic to be manipulative and outside the realm of good intentioned debate. By turning the issue away from racism and towards ™the system" it unites smaller groups together under one cause while disarming the fragmented majority. This gets intermingled with the idea that if you are not the correct skin color or gender you don't get to speak your opinion on certain topics. There is also what I would call a puritanical desire to immediately "other-ize" people who deviate in the slightest from accepted line of thought: they are publicly shamed and expunged from the group. It is baffling to watch. As someone else pointed out on this page, whomever came up with identity politics is a Machiavellian genius.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    If your argument is true, then that means it's easily countered (by anyone with any education on the topic) by saying something like "you and a small minority of others have decided to re-define racism in a manipulate way that favors your viewpoint. I reject that a-historical revisionism." Since that doesn't happen, it means one of two things: 1) most individuals are actually uneducated about the debate, or 2) it's not actually a re-definition. My (admittedly light) reading of the scholarly literature says that "racism" generally requires some sort of power imbalance, suggesting that it's #2, which further suggests your interpretation isn't correct. I don't know what you mean by "not the correct skin color or gender you don't get to speak your opinion on certain topics". Could you explain further, perhaps with examples? Identity polities is indeed Machiavellian genius. It's as old as the Bible. I think the current form in the US has its roots in European colonialism, where a small number of foreigners managed to convince a larger minority of a foreign country to act as their muscle. (Eg, the origins of the Rwandan genocide because of German racial theory which place the Tutsi over the Hutu, or the techniques the English used to rule India.) The early US history starts with the colonialist views (English but also Spanish) of superiority over the indigenous peoples. The current white/black identity polities started in the early 1800s when white supremacist ideas grew as a response to the abolitionist movement. After the Civil War, it developed further as a way to keep poor whites in line with the power structure of rich whites, rather than their black and free economic brothers and sisters. "Better poor than black." I therefore don't think it can be pinned to any one person, but like I said, my knowledge isn't that deep.