4 ms·

[per PG's essay] it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion Is it, actually? Or is it a stance acquired after centuries

[per PG's essay] it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion Is it, actually? Or is it a stance acquired after centuries of marginalization? Consider PG's examination of social issues: Changes between the past and the present sometimes do represent progress. ... But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences. By the time you get to social questions, many changes are just fashion. The age of consent fluctuates like hemlines. I don't expect that marginalization of entire groups of people will be in vogue again any time soon. Note that the negation of one of PG's many (LOL) weasel-worded statements ("many changes are just fashion") covers policies that were ridiculous (like women's suffrage) or barbaric (child labor and slavery). No rational person -- PG included -- would support regressing on these issues. It's highly unlikely that his article supports your claim (or any other claim re: sensitivity on national/global socioeconomic tragedies). Here's a counterargument: maybe the ban on racism by civilized, well-adjusted people isn't hypersensitive silliness, but the imposition of a new standard for discourse based on respect for fellow people?

bmelton 12y ago
> I don't expect that marginalization of entire groups of people will be in vogue again any time soon. While we've definitely made progress towards racial, gender and sexual equality, this still happens every day, and may not be a fixable problem. Democrats routinely marginalize Republicans, and vice versa. Even those who benefit from the recent shifts in favor of gay marriage equality routinely marginalize bigamists, or polygamists. There's always a group of people not in vogue, and the way in which we deal with these things is somewhat absurdist. The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage. Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority. Tribe mentality will always cause us to identify more with people we can more easily identify, and it will always cause us to mentally place others as being outside our tribes. Creating special rules for the disenfranchised du jour just reinforces that there will always be groups of people fighting for some form of equality.
- btilly 12y ago
  Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority. This is just a first step. We also need to understand what the actual barriers are to progress, and address them. Let me give a good example. A few years ago there was a fascinating longitudinal study that started with an equivalent group of blacks and whites. All educated, young, middle class professionals in similar jobs. Following them forward 15 years, the whites by and large were still middle class professionals, but a large portion of the blacks were living in poverty. Proof of racism, right? Not at all! Their data had more detail in it. One of the factors that they were able to control for was fiscal planning. One was whether people understood the value of creating savings for themselves so that they could handle short-term challenges like a layoff. When they controlled for this factor, blacks and whites were identical. But more whites knew to do this, so they did better. The solution to this particular problem is NOT to give blacks more opportunities and preferences. It is to make an effort to educate the black community the importance of always living within your means.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage. > Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people Yeah, I don't think you understand the process you refer to in the preceding paragraph represents -- it represents an evolving understanding of what rights people should have (note that this is an evolving social consensus, not an evolving understanding of something which exists as an external material fact), followed by corrective efforts to address manners in which the status quo situation differs from the evolving social consensus of the desired situation. The entire idea of a "protected class" is that it is one which has in recent history been actively discrimated against in a manner which violates the current social norm, such that there is a heightened presumption that acts which have a disparate impact on that class are invalid as discrimination on that basis rather than simply incidental impacts of some permissible distinction. It is part of a process aimed at realizing and securing the new understanding of "what rights entitle us to" by eradicating residual practices that were accepted under a previous, more limited understanding. Particularly, its important to understand that one issue is that our general understanding of what our rights entitle us to include that they generally do entitle us to discriminate according to our own personal biases, where that doesn't cause unwarranted social harm -- but the understanding of what causes unwarranted social harm is evolving.

bmelton 12y ago

> I don't expect that marginalization of entire groups of people will be in vogue again any time soon. While we've definitely made progress towards racial, gender and sexual equality, this still happens every day, and may not be a fixable problem. Democrats routinely marginalize Republicans, and vice versa. Even those who benefit from the recent shifts in favor of gay marriage equality routinely marginalize bigamists, or polygamists. There's always a group of people not in vogue, and the way in which we deal with these things is somewhat absurdist. The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage. Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority. Tribe mentality will always cause us to identify more with people we can more easily identify, and it will always cause us to mentally place others as being outside our tribes. Creating special rules for the disenfranchised du jour just reinforces that there will always be groups of people fighting for some form of equality.

btilly 12y ago
Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority. This is just a first step. We also need to understand what the actual barriers are to progress, and address them. Let me give a good example. A few years ago there was a fascinating longitudinal study that started with an equivalent group of blacks and whites. All educated, young, middle class professionals in similar jobs. Following them forward 15 years, the whites by and large were still middle class professionals, but a large portion of the blacks were living in poverty. Proof of racism, right? Not at all! Their data had more detail in it. One of the factors that they were able to control for was fiscal planning. One was whether people understood the value of creating savings for themselves so that they could handle short-term challenges like a layoff. When they controlled for this factor, blacks and whites were identical. But more whites knew to do this, so they did better. The solution to this particular problem is NOT to give blacks more opportunities and preferences. It is to make an effort to educate the black community the importance of always living within your means.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage. > Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people Yeah, I don't think you understand the process you refer to in the preceding paragraph represents -- it represents an evolving understanding of what rights people should have (note that this is an evolving social consensus, not an evolving understanding of something which exists as an external material fact), followed by corrective efforts to address manners in which the status quo situation differs from the evolving social consensus of the desired situation. The entire idea of a "protected class" is that it is one which has in recent history been actively discrimated against in a manner which violates the current social norm, such that there is a heightened presumption that acts which have a disparate impact on that class are invalid as discrimination on that basis rather than simply incidental impacts of some permissible distinction. It is part of a process aimed at realizing and securing the new understanding of "what rights entitle us to" by eradicating residual practices that were accepted under a previous, more limited understanding. Particularly, its important to understand that one issue is that our general understanding of what our rights entitle us to include that they generally do entitle us to discriminate according to our own personal biases, where that doesn't cause unwarranted social harm -- but the understanding of what causes unwarranted social harm is evolving.