Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

Post by brimstoneSalad »

viddy9 wrote: Well, no. As Henry Sidgwick pointed out, a utilitarian should assess whether a person or an act is blameworthy when it is expedient to do so (without believing that there's anything that is intrinsically blameworthy).
People who use the phrase "victim blaming" as a bad in and of itself (as you implied), rather than an instrumental bad because it will be perceived poorly, aren't pragmatic utilitarians or any kind of consequentialist. To make it clear you were coming from a pragmatic angle, you probably should have said, "We have to be careful not to be perceived as engaging in 'victim blaming' which could harm the endeavor", which I might partially agree with (if it were possible, I don't really think it is). The SJW movement is dominated by deontologists fixated on -- of course -- "Justice" as the highest virtue and source of good in and of itself (without anything resembling a coherent definition).

I could agree that we need to be careful not to be perceived as "victim blaming" whatever that means, in the same way we need to avoid being perceived as "racists" despite race being an arbitrary social construct -- because people see those as negative, not because they are or because they even really exist, but it seems like an impossible endeavor if speaking the truth and using effective rhetoric.

I'm happy to "blame" the "victim" if it's the most useful to yield positive change and reduce harm. And I have been led to believe it is. The distinction we have to make is the difference in instrumentality in terms of public perception and support.
viddy9 wrote:if the utilitarian wants them to stop being discussed, they're going to have to recognise that the status quo - one side calling the other "gross" and "racist", and the other saying "stop complaining stupid SJWs" - is going to get us nowhere.
Backlash against SJW culture and political correctness gone wild is growing. Trump is symptomatic of that, but there are also more rational proponents growing on the true left.

Is a rational dialogue more useful than negation and a rhetoric based culture war that amounts to a shouting match? Yes, but only if it's practicable to engage such a dialogue.

The regressive intersectionalists are conspiracy theorists, and they are not amendable to rational argument because they form echo chambers and dismiss dissenting opinions and arguments as "racist" or "gross" or "victim blaming" rather than considering them. They're bullies, and they don't engage honestly in debate. And that goes even for VERY mildly worded and polite arguments that make every attempt to offer disclaimers. It's harder to be more civil than Sam Harris, for example.

The SJW/regressive behavior of late has been worse than the young Earth creationists; the only comparable ideology is the presuppositionalism of Sye Ten -- he won't even have a discussion about the details of his god until somebody agrees a god exists, and his only argument is that his god is the source of all knowledge and reason, so if you have a discussion it's founded on the hidden assumption that a god exists according to him; even an atheist must accept this in order to form a word of argument.

Watch this to get a sense of how futile such a conversation is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL8LREmbDi0

When rational discourse breaks down, something else takes over, and that's where we are.
Like presuppositionalism, intersectionalism probably just has to be crushed through insult and ridicule by as many people as possible to destroy it.
If you think you have an avenue by which to reason people out of these positions, I'm totally open to it. But without evidence of it being effective, it's not useful to say the shouting match will get is nowhere -- it's all we have.

viddy9 wrote:You say that we should get at the root of the problem: surely the root of the problem is that people are predisposed to become prejudiced and defensive (both in general, and when others are complaining about their situation).
We should address what can actually be fixed most easily, which usually means traveling down the chain of cause and effect until you reach the Earth it's anchored to, then backing up and looking for the first link we can actually break.
viddy9 wrote:At the same time, without acknowledging that what racists are doing is wrong, I doubt we're going to get people to stop complaining.
How about focusing on the lack of evidence, and telling them to put up evidence? If they can and do that, they may actually do something useful and identify something which is actually evidenced to be a problem, then we can look at solutions. That would mean they have to understand what evidence is, though, which they do not.

We can deflect the conversation. We can probably even shout over it. Maybe we just need to advance these true facts that people are currently shouting down as racist instead of considering. And we should keep shouting them until society is desensitized to them and accepts them as facts rather than racism -- then we can start talking about solutions. Being unavoidably perceived as victim blamers and racists by the SJW extremists may just be a burden truth speakers have to bear until society is desensitized.

viddy9 wrote:I just said "we" as in people making this argument "have to be careful" that we clearly do signal this, and don't fall into the trap of merely saying "stop complaining".
I don't just say to stop complaining; I focus on the arguments that say the thing people are complaining about isn't true. Even if that means shifting the "blame" to the "victims" because it's effective to change the currently not very productive discourse. Or I just ignore it, because it's not my battle. ;)

viddy9 wrote:In other words, for instrumental reasons, we do have to signal that we're assigning some blame to racists, not just the victims (by any conceivable definition of the word, people at the receiving end of racism are victims.)
I don't see the instrumentality in that. It should be obvious that pretty much everybody is doing so. It's made obvious by the vast majority of people talking about these issues, and the SJWs ignore it and slander them anyway. Sure, we can add a few words of disclaimer (that will be ignored), but people already do this, signaling that they aren't racists, and that real racism is bad, BUT...
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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brimstoneSalad wrote: People who use the phrase "victim blaming" as a bad in and of itself (as you implied), rather than an instrumental bad because it will be perceived poorly, aren't pragmatic utilitarians or any kind of consequentialist. To make it clear you were coming from a pragmatic angle, you probably should have said, "We have to be careful not to be perceived as engaging in 'victim blaming' which could harm the endeavor"
Yeah, I should have phrased it more carefully.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Backlash against SJW culture and political correctness gone wild is growing. Trump is symptomatic of that, but there are also more rational proponents growing on the true left.
That's my intuition too, although I'm less sure that this is because of the harsh tone used by anti-SJWs as opposed to: a) people seeing for themselves that SJW culture is ridiculous; and b) people who were part of the SJW culture being silenced by even more extreme members of the culture.

As with racism, I'm not so sure that this can be fixed by a rhetoric-based culture war or rational argument. Our best hope may just be that it will organically disappear, perhaps with the help of sophisticated ridiculing of SJW culture without labeling it as such (there have been quite a few good videos on it recently), and just a general presumption in society that SJW culture is wrong.
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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However it dies, I just want to keep it out of veganism. Intersecting veganism with social justice is tying the movement to an anchor; social justice is going down, and I don't want it to drag veganism with it.
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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brimstoneSalad wrote:black people may have to stop "acting black" and just act like Americans -- genetics are not the problem, ingrained cultural differences are
Well put and something few people are able to understand.

Another related point is that once people identify with a group for whatever reason, they tend to favor any specific behaviors of that group towards another nearby group. I learned this while living in Quebec after having lived in the American south. While living in Georgia I was young and attributed the white/black conflict to old fashioned white bigotry. In Quebec I noticed a similar conflict (English distrusting French and vice versa) but I had a hard time understanding the source of this distrust. The groups had the same race, the same religion, and they all loved ice-hockey so why the hell didn't they get along?

In the mid 90s I read about an interesting study that can't be explained by the above comments. The study concluded that among white Americans there is a negative correlation between education and bigotry, i.e. the more educated the person the less likely she is to be a racist. However, among black Americans the findings were opposite; the more educated the person the more likely she was to be racist. I don't know if this is still holds true but it was interesting nonetheless.
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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Jebus wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:black people may have to stop "acting black" and just act like Americans -- genetics are not the problem, ingrained cultural differences are
Well put and something few people are able to understand.

Another related point is that once people identify with a group for whatever reason, they tend to favor any specific behaviors of that group towards another nearby group. I learned this while living in Quebec after having lived in the American south. While living in Georgia I was young and attributed the white/black conflict to old fashioned white bigotry. In Quebec I noticed a similar conflict (English distrusting French and vice versa) but I had a hard time understanding the source of this distrust. The groups had the same race, the same religion, and they all loved ice-hockey so why the hell didn't they get along?

In the mid 90s I read about an interesting study that can't be explained by the above comments. The study concluded that among white Americans there is a negative correlation between education and bigotry, i.e. the more educated the person the less likely she is to be a racist. However, among black Americans the findings were opposite; the more educated the person the more likely she was to be racist. I don't know if this is still holds true but it was interesting nonetheless.
I'm not sure what planet you guys are living on that you think the problem is the behavior of black people, and that Obama's "acting white" is somehow evidence of this (as if the President doesn't experience tons of racism). :?

If Obama was so successful with this method, then why do the Obamas face so much racism?
Just a few examples:
1) Birther nonsense (conspiracy theory that he was born in Kenya)
2) Calling him the 'food stamp President' (Gingrich)
3) Implying Obama is filled with anger and rage (influential conservatives)
4) The Obamas being called 'monkeys' (by elected officials)
5) Obama allegedly being Muslim

Etc. etc.
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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EquALLity wrote:I'm not sure what planet you guys are living on that you think the problem is the behavior of black people
Before I reply to that, please be specific as to what you mean by "the problem"
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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Jebus wrote:
EquALLity wrote:I'm not sure what planet you guys are living on that you think the problem is the behavior of black people
Before I reply to that, please be specific as to what you mean by "the problem"
Sure, I was referring to racism.
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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EquALLity wrote: Sure, I was referring to racism.
Why is "racism" in itself a problem? You're talking about a thought crime.
Isn't the concern poverty leading to poor quality of life and other harms?
How does it harm you in and of itself if some bigot somewhere doesn't like you due to your skin color if you have every opportunity, and you have a good quality of life?

There will always be racists. There will always be dogmatic theists who hate atheists and those of other religions just for not believing. What matters to me on a personal level is whether the laws favor that mindset and the institution gives them power over me to harm me.

I'll let Jebus take this one, though. Sorry for the interruption (I actually have a lot of things to do).
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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Discourse of the kind people saw on C-SPAN yesterday would be welcomed across the board.

http://fortune.com/2016/08/24/c-span-racist-heather-mcghee/
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Re: Thomas Sowell predicts racial balkanization of America (1990)

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"Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses" _RATM

Racism has not been eradicated. The grandsons of lynch mobbers can still join the police forces. It's unrealistic to think most people, especially from more rural areas, have left behind the beliefs of their grandparents, who lived in a segregated society. These beliefs get passed down the generations easily. The last 50 years or so of legal racial equality can't undo the entrenched culture of racism that was established over centuries. Also, to think that racial prejudice in the police forces would be at a level comparable to general society seems overly optimistic. I can provide two tentative reasons why I think it is probable there are higher levels of racism in the police forces:

The people that are attracted to have authoritative functions like a policeman are more likely to have authoritarian personalities, and therefor are more likely to have right wing, authoritarian and racist tendencies. Additionally, people with truly racist motives can even seek positions of power and legal violence to act out their racist fantasies.

Furthermore, the police forces have an incentive to self-protect and not scrutinize their own crimes. It is an institution that unlike science is not in competition with itself, and is therefor self-corrective to a high degree, but instead has its own power, standing and authority to protect, and so at least is incentivised to close its ranks and act monolithically. Focusing too much on correcting their own conduct and castigating transgressors undermines their own project. Ideally the job for police is to "protect and serve", but institutions of power will automatically have a strong priority to protect and maintain their own power.

The start of a solution to the problem of such explicit racism is to call it out.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Why is "racism" in itself a problem? You're talking about a thought crime.
Beliefs have behavioral outcomes. In the case of racism the behavioral outcomes are extremely detrimental to the well-being of racially oppressed groups. Racism that doesn't have such behavioral outcomes isn't racism at all. Behavioral outcomes include looking at someone angrily on the subway and such subtle things obviously.

With regards to your opinion about the discourse surrounding racial injustice:
Blame, fault, guilt, justice etc. are not just words used in a deontological context. Concepts of culpability have neurological correlates, emotions, which in turn have behavioral effects. From a consequentialist perspective "victim blaming" enables people in power to continue their oppression, among other things. Excusing appalling scandals such as the racial discrepancy in sentencing for identical crimes based on "the defendant acting black" is just disgusting. You may not be excusing it but just finding the causality there linked to jury prejudice. Such terminology itself creates a defeatist and hopeless attitude in racial minorities. It's not adequate to dismiss blame as a metaphysical concept from deontology, blame is also a social phenomenon.

Having a proper discourse that uses words like blame, guilt, justice, and so on, is usually not an allusion to deontology. These are words that play a crucial role in the intuitive ethics most people engage in. If we say that higher sentencing for blacks is caused by racial prejudice of the juries, which sounds highly plausible, then to propose as a solution that the defendant stop speaking ebonics is repugnant to me. The assigning of blame is (usually) not a metaphysical, deontological move. It is a social move, a call to change on a particular person. As such our discourse in these matters, using words like blame, has long term social consequences. It is tied in to the hope and self-worth of racial minorities.

The facts about (inter)racial cognitive biases and prejudices people have, such as intercultural and interracial differences between (interpretations of) expressions of remorse, stress, perceived threat, etc. as good examples, should be looked at fully, including the consequences of our discourse about them. If our discourse enables people to acquiesce in their prejudices and blame the victims, that just perpetuates the problem of disproportionate punishment of and violence against blacks. Our discourse should pertain to justice, and do justice to "justice" because the perception of injustice has bad consequences - it leads to bad feelings. If we say "the prejudice of the juries and the "cultural blackness" of the defendants are in a causal interplay, so either should stop for there to be better outcomes and it's probably easier to teach the black guy to not act so black", that ignores the injustice that is bestowed upon a racial minority.

As an analogy, if we were to look for solutions to rape, to assign equal culpability to the rapist and the woman wearing a short skirt and then say wearing more revealing clothes is the easiest solution to the problem, this ignores the (perception of) injustice this would bestow upon women. This injustice is itself a negative consequence. Human intuitions about ethics and justice need to be taken into the consequentialist account.

To look for solutions without regard for justice as a social concept leads to problems down the road. If you say "black person X had himself to blame for being shot by acting shifty, or himself to blame for a higher sentence by "acting black in court", so the solution for him is to learn to act white", that creates tremendous problems for black people, indeed by making them think the system is rigged against them, that they are going to be treated unjustly no matter what, and so on. The perception of injustice has bad consequences, such as creating a defeatist mentality and rage, even if justice is a non-existent metaphysical principle.

The perception of having an insurmountable victim status has similar bad consequences. There needs to be a middle ground, a realistic look at racism, that takes into account the generational, emotional belief systems tied in to self-worth and so on. It takes time for the descendants of slaves to become fully functioning members of society. We need to talk about this in a way that doesn't on the one hand holds them to too low expectations, but on the other hand doesn't ignore justice, existing racial prejudices and the historical setting of this all.
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