The Liberal Blind Spot
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I used to identify as a liberal but now mainstream liberalism (leftism) is against basic things like freedom of speech.
Feels weird to identify as a 'conservative' since I grew up associating very negative things with that term but there it is.
This particularly is incredibly disingenuous:
> I suspect many liberals disdain evangelicals in part because they don’t have any evangelical friends.
The comparison to Muslims is an awful false equivalence. First of all, discriminating against someone because they hold intolerant beliefs is categorically different from discriminating against someone based on their religion (and let's be honest, given that Sikhs and other South Asians get targeted, it's really a racial issue). Second, he's postulating this without any evidence. Lots of academics grew up in the South or the Midwest, and a lot of great universities are in those areas as well. Thirdly, even if someone doesn't know an evangelical personally, they are exposed to Jerry Falwell, the Bush administration, Fox News, Kim Davis, etc.
If Kristoff wants to make the claim that individual conservatives shouldn't be judged based on the plethora of conservative thought leaders that represent them in the media, he needs to provide an actual argument for that distinction. If he doesn't want racists, homophobes, misogynists, etc. in the academy, he needs to provide examples of the useful discourse we are missing out on.
Frankly, the center-left vs hard-left feel like the debates we should be having as a society, e.g. how do we reconcile the racist history of our most esteemed institutions with our modern values, or how do we deal with the consequences of tech rapidly eliminating the livelihoods of millions of working class citizens.
Even if someone doesn't know a Muslim personally, they are exposed to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi regime, ISIS, Hezbollah, etc.
1. The elected officials and thought leaders of a group are much more representative of a group's beliefs than rogue actors.
2. The point you're trying to make is that evangelicals may not be a monolith. That's a completely fair argument abstractly - but what does it mean concretely? After all, Evangelical is much more specific than Muslim. Specifically, in the context of the last 30 years of American politics, Evangelicals have been a socially conservative movement, often standing in the way of gay rights & women's rights. "Muslim" is just a much broader term, and doesn't carry that political weight.
If your argument is that there are evangelicals outside of that movement that aren't bigoted that deserve to be heard, well you have to explain what that group looks like. Also, you have to change your thesis to "We need more moderately right leaning people in the academy" which as you can see is a much less bold and interesting claim, and is one about goal posts, not the intolerance of the left.
3. Internal politics are more reliable. The average American can understand more of the nuance of what's happening in their country because it's reported & discussed more, and competing sources are more readily available.
4. Let's be honest, it's not like the academy is swimming in Muslims either.
Kristoff agrees that blatant homophobes, racists, misogynists, etc don't deserve to be hired.
What evidence do you have to suggest this is the case and that these conservative hypotheses are fairly investigated?
Sociologists are under a lot of pressure to prove leftist memes and there are many cases of fraud and very poor scientific standards.
Sociology research is effectively useless to me because of leftism. In fact, most political reporting is useless because I have to spend many more cycles tying to figure out if the person isn't just trying to virtue signal instead of be pragmatic and truthful.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/chump-effect/610143
> First of all, discriminating against someone because they hold intolerant beliefs is categorically different from discriminating against someone based on their religion
Religion is a set of beliefs... What?
Mainstream Islam literally calls for people to be put to death for drawing pictures of Mohammad or renouncing Islam.
> he needs to provide examples of the useful discourse we are missing out on.
Ben Shapiro is a great example.
> Frankly, the center-left vs hard-left feel like the debates we should be having as a society
No thanks, let's have a discussion about right vs left vs hard left.
I had a discussion on Reddit about how we could fix the problem with the police and race in America. One thing that came up was that, culturally, "don't be a rat." That is a cultural nuance that stands in the way of resolving the issue.
In terms of wealth, I routinely witness white privilege in South Africa. I pissed about far too much in school, dropped out of university and yet I'm still successful. Contrast this with my Uber drivers: highly motivated blacks who have to work 10 times harder than I ever did. One is on his 2nd degree and is still battling to be successful. I very clearly have an unfair advantage. However, culturally, "you must vote for the ANC." The ANC are responsible for the continuation of inequality in South Africa. I believe that there would be slightly more opportunity (certainly not as much as I have) were it not for that cultural law.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
I live in a country where the people promoting "tolerance against the minorities" live in ivory towers and have no contact whatsoever with them. On the other hand, people who live side by side with the minorities are being accused of not being "tolerant enough".
The article is almost cute. Like, "Did you know people are tribal? And did you ever think that might be a bad thing?" It's not a profound new idea, and it's one that's been better discussed elsewhere, from the SCC posts on the subject (see also the recent one on Albion's Seed[1]) to Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind[2] to Joshua Greene's Moral Tribes[3] to the many, many articles[4][5] that have already been written about partisan polarization in the U.S. (and probably globally, if Europe is any indication).
I mean I'm glad that a random NYT column is provoking further discussion about an important subject, but there's so much more and better stuff that has been said about it than just what this touches on.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-see...
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religi...
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/dp...
[4] https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-divided-are-...
[5] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/why-are-stat...
Personal anecdote; I am not a religious person but I live in a Muslim country. A Facebook friend who is an atheist keeps making obnoxious posts about religion; calling religious people stupid and atheists intellectuals etc. I was really tempted to honestly tell him to zip it as all of this was cringeworthy and served only to annoy people. But as I was typing a long reply I realized that this is what "tolerance" or more likely "freedom if speech" is all about; it's not "believing people can say what they want" as much as "not pointing out how annoyed they make you feel".
Does tolerance require that one subject themselves to this sort of thing? For example, I finally discovered I can ignore the shared item on facebook instead of the person sharing it. It's great, like improving the signal to noise ratio.
But is that intolerant? I mean, I'm not doing anything to prevent this friend from sharing this stuff that I consider crap, so is that enough, or am I expect by tolerant society to not ignore things?
I guess it's the familiar problem of awareness of one's own biases, and the classic example of the kind of "insight" that few people achieve. Acceptance of others feedback and interpretations of reality is usually essential for such self-development. Likely the author believes the essential components are missing: both the diversity of world views and the willingness to hear them.
Reminds me of HN discussions about diversity in tech industries, while widely divergent points of view are expressed, moderators caution us to express experiences and opinions in a civil manner. That can't be too much to ask.
Lucky for me I've not had to deal with academia in a long time. Remarks like those in the article give the impression that there is increasing bias and intolerance. Of course that couldn't be uniformly true among institutions and disciplines, but to the extent it exists it would be pernicious.
To those on HN who have current first-hand experience in academic environments, I'd love to ask how much the situation resembles that noted in the article.
Edit: keeping a good thought the thread's subject can be discussed calmly, better to be able to learn something from it.
In my personal observation, the problem of liberalism, is it is trying to enforce a ideology/doctrine in a larger scale, through law making process or extensive propaganda, etc.
This 'problem' sounds like a near-perfect description of the civil rights movement in the 60's.
I'm not saying it's the correct tactic for all social ills (as seen by liberals), but it has its use and it has worked before. I fear the problem is that the only tool they have is a hammer.
> Surveys show that Americans have negative views of Muslims when they don’t know any; I suspect many liberals disdain evangelicals in part because they don’t have any evangelical friends.
If a liberal perceives Muslims and evangelicals to be intolerant (or at least less tolerant than themselves), their intolerance against them will be intentional and it may serve a purpose.
> If a liberal perceives Muslims and evangelicals to be intolerant
You can perceive anything. If mere perception (i.e. opinion) gives you permission to be intolerant, then there's no point in the whole concept - you can always start with perceiving somebody you don't want to tolerate as bad. In fact, that's exactly the reason you don't want to tolerate them - nobody is intolerant to somebody they like! So one either has to bring something more than "I perceive so", or the whole thing is just meaningless.
When you dress it up abstractly, sure. When you realize the arguments we're intolerant of are actually probably aren't that defensible, it doesn't.
What ideas are we intolerant of that you think is so bad? That being gay is immoral? That women shouldn't have access to reproductive health services?
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapo...
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
There are wrong things that most conservatives believe, and wrong things that some loud conservatives believe, but that doesn't get you anywhere near the point where all conservatives are wrong about everything.
> When you realize the arguments we're intolerant of are actually probably aren't that defensible, it doesn't.
There aren't that many arguments which are not defensible, at least to some measure. And even with them, if they are so weak, you can easily defeat them - with your superior argument. That's not what happens in the current left culture. The focus is not on presenting superior argument, but on excluding the possibility of the supposedly inferior one from being voiced, and if it is voiced - on hounding the offended out of the position in which they would be able to present any argument at all, usually by authoritarian means (firing them, cutting off their access to publishing, depriving them of means to publish their opinion, etc.).
> That women shouldn't have access to reproductive health services?
Note how you frame the argument in terms that suit you. Would a conservative really think that women should not have access to health services? Or maybe - consider it for a minute - they do not see e.g. abortion as a "health service", but instead some of them see it, for example, as a murder? Now, you may disagree with them - that's completely fine - but if you want to argue with their position, would it be useful to argue with their actual position instead of one invented for them?
Now that question above is not rhetorical, and the answer to it is not obvious. Because that depends on your goal. If you want to construct superior argument which would be rationally convincing - the answer is yes, understanding the actual opposing argument is vital.
However, if you want to paint your opponent as an idiot, bigot or caveman - in order, for example, to convince an authority that they should not be considered rational beings and thus their concerns can be dismissed and it is morally permissible to subjugate their will to yours, as a superior being - then understanding their argument and even admitting a possibility that their argument can be understood and is not just an incomprehensible blathering only superficially resembling human speech - is of course a wrong tactics which would do absolutely no good.
Again, your actions here depend on your goal. And my claim is the left right now is virtually 100% invested in the second goal and behaves accordingly. I can understand why it is - the road of forcing your opponent to do what you like seems easier - I just think it's both morally wrong and disastrous in the long term, as as soon as two sides start playing this game - and they certainly already started - the possibility of having rational discourse which can discover the truth or at least get us closer to it is lost, and what we get is a series of shouting matches, in which truth doesn't matter and isn't even part of the calculus anymore.
Which is you being intolerant of other viewpoints.
Let me actually make one of the counterarguments in case you've made up your mind without having heard them all. Suppose there is a family willing to adopt (who wants children but can't have them), and there is a way for someone other than the biological mother to carry the fetus to term (surrogacy, some new technology, etc.) In this context you've lost all the arguments about forcing the mother to do anything, because you're going to remove the fetus, the only question remaining is whether the mother then has the right to insist that the fetus die when there exists the ability to save its life.
Some evil Republicans come along and say no.
Don't you at least want to practice countering that argument, so when the day comes that the hypothetical technology exists you'll know what to say?
> I'm sure there are a lot of topics you don't think are up for debate. We all have our lines in the sand.
There are people who are willing to debate anything.
Social Justice Warriors are also referred to as the regressive left because they are regressing backward from liberal society to defining people based solely on their identifying group, be it race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religious belief. They simply rationalize their bigotry differently; the bigoted right separates people by these lines but think that everybody should conform to the majority/dominant group. The bigoted/regressive left also treats people on the same lines but think that those in the dominant group should give special privileges to those in the minority in order to equalize.
This is also an important distinction. It isn't that they are just overzealous on equality; I don't think that's necessarily possible. They have redefined equality. For most of us, it has always meant equal treatment of all individuals by setting a single set of rules and judgment based on individual merit. The liberal ideal is to not even care what color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other personal identifier a person has, unless it is directly relevant. Thus which group you fall in is generally irrelevant. That you happen to be born with a certain skin color then gives you no personal benefit or hindrance.
The regressive left defines equality as a bulk statistic over the whole of an identifying group. Which group you fall in then is critical to how they treat you, the same as far-right bigots. (They only differ on how they treat each group.) If you are white and male, for example, then you are seen as privileged because, statistically, white males have more wealth and power. That you may individually have no power or wealth is irrelevant to them, as if there is some big party where all the white males all go to divvy up the loot and push a single common agreed interest. By this reasoning, a homeless American white male murdered by police (like Mark Kelley) is privileged; a billionaire African black woman (like Isabel Dos Santos) is not. To these regressives, the idea of not caring what somebody's personal identity is (such as race) is abhorrent. They don't see their blatant racism or bigotry, largely because they think it's ok as long as they're rooting for the group that is statistically an underdog (even if the individual isn't).
When challenged on this whole bizarre re-definition of equality, many will dismiss it as "reverse racism", meaning it's only racist against the dominant group, so who cares. (Again, regardless to the actual circumstances of the individuals.) But this is, of course, mistaken. They are stereotyping all people based on the groups they fall in, and dictating which groups are allowed to do what, across all groups, and to the detriment of many in those groups. Muslims are seen as oppressed in the West, so the regressive left oddly supports the conservative Muslims to oppressive other Muslims, like separating men and women, because that oppression is just part of their culture, which is an underdog in the West. So if you are a liberal Muslim woman seeking equal rights and treatment for Muslim women, the regressive left will actually fight against you, even trying to get you banned from speaking at a university. It's this perverse redefinition of equality based on bulk statistics that leads to such bigoted reviews that the regressive left ends up with many of the same policies as the bigoted right. A fundamentalist religious group on the right in California sued (and failed) to have yoga removed from schools as a violation of their religion. A regressive left student union successfully stopped yoga classes at the University of Ottawa under the guise it is "cultural appropriation".
At Missou, the activists demanded blacks-only housing so that they could explore their culture. Racists on the right also want blacks in their own housing. In the UK, student unions have supported the right of Muslims to separate men and women in lectures as long as they are the same distance from the front. "Separate but equal" was also a policy of the American racist right. The regressive left, led by Anita Sarkeesian, wants to stop sex and violence and scantily clad women in video games. The religious right, led by Jack Thompson, have long fought for this as well.
Same policies over and over. Just different rationalizations. They aren't just an extreme version of the left; they've abandoned liberalism for a form of underdog authoritarianism via stereotypes.
I've just tried to search for this and can't find anything - a bit of help? By "supported", do you mean someone brought it up in a debate or as a suggestion, or do you mean a significant group of people agreed it's a good idea?
I also tried to find information on the activists demanding segregated housing. Either nobody's reported on any of this or I suck at googling.
I didn't find anything about campus activists in Missouri demanding black-only dorms, but searching for "black-only healing spaces" gives lots results arguing the need for exclusion based on race. Here's a sympathetic explanation by a self-described Chicano journalist: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/black-activists-are-...
The University of Connecticut, though, has proposed a black-only dorm, although they claim it is not "segregated" because participation is optional. According to Dr. Erik Hines, Faculty Director for the initiative:
It is a space for African American men to, one, come together, and validate their experiences that they may have on campus," he explained. "Number two, it's also a space where they can have conversation and also talk with individuals who come from the same background who share the same experience."
The specialized housing does not—quite—constitute a "segregated" residence, as it is currently optional, much like the "affinity housing" that other schools have put in place to serve as a "safe space" for minority students."
I don't know the current status of the proposal, although I'd always presumed that segregation was defined more by racial exclusion than forced participation: http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7228
Luckily, my particular communities don't put me in contact with people arguing for segregation very often. A quick poll of mine suggests that all who responded would strongly disagree with the idea of "optional" segregation (as it very rarely actually turns out to be optional due to the power structures involved). And we're radical anarcho-socialists to a large extent.
"Universities UK" said gender segregation at lectures on Islam was ok (but withdrew their recommendation after criticism):
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/dec/13/universitie...
I couldn't find anything on Missou. But UConn is building black-only housing:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/02/uconn-building-black-on...
UConn are being ridiculous, I'll agree with that.
For the second (ignore the fact that the source is a right-wing newspaper, just follow the links to the sources) - http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/25748/
I would agree that segregated housing is ridiculous - I'd happily argue against it, although my subset of the community rarely puts me in contact with people who'd argue for it - although the article mixes that in with safe spaces, which is a separate issue. (I'd also generally disagree with the concept of a permanent physical safe space - a weekly group meeting or similar is a better way to achieve that as a general rule.)
Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of us who'll argue for a whole lot of different things and irritatingly, it's usually the most extreme on any given viewpoint who get the news. I'm sure that within your communities, you suffer from the same issues.
No. If you are white and male, you've experienced more invisible privilege than you realize. [1] It's not about wealth, but it is about power -- power over others.
Questions:
* White man says that black woman stole something from him. What will happen?
* White woman says that black man stole something from her. What will happen?
* Black man says that white woman stole something from him. What will happen?
* Black woman says that white man stole something from her. What will happen?
What were your honest, visceral, reactions to each of these statements? Were they all completely symmetric? I can tell you I've been working on balancing my own feelings about various races, and I can't claim my own thoughts were completely unbiased. And I have been trying for years to purge the bias.
There's an awesome video of three college-student-aged in a park. All three are obviously trying to steal a bike. They picked three actors and dressed them roughly equivalently. [2] Watch the video if you want to be shocked, or just read my summary if you can't be bothered:
* White Actor: Everyone ignores him or asks him what he's doing. He gives dodgy answers, but people wish him "good luck" or leave the scene. Some say they might have called the police later (when confronted by the camera crew), but they clearly didn't seem to be concerned.
* Black Actor: Within seconds, people start to confront him. They talk about calling the police. They CALL the police, right then and there. Many are confrontational.
* White Female Actor: People walk by, mostly ignoring her; one guy offers to help her steal the bike.
That last one had me dying of laughter. If that video doesn't convey a direct, obvious example of white privilege, then I'm perfectly confident in saying you're the one who's got the closed mind -- or a political agenda to promote. That video is one indisputable example of white privilege.
Watch that video and tell me, with a straight face, that 90% of US prison populations are black men because they commit more crimes, and not because they simply are arrested more often. For drug crimes especially; I knew tons of kids who did drugs when I was in (my 99% white) high school, and none were harassed by cops, much less arrested. One guy's brother got arrested eventually for dealing [EDIT: Just remembered, he was or at least looked hispanic!]. Would that have been true if it were 99% black? I bet everyone I knew would have a story about being harassed.
> When challenged on this whole bizarre re-definition of equality, many will dismiss it as "reverse racism", meaning it's only racist against the dominant group, so who cares.
The dominant group doesn't need help. Some other groups do. Helping groups isn't the same as discrimination.
Girls do as well as boys in engineering and programming, and yet many cultural pressures push them away -- not least of which are the attitudes of boys (and other girls) toward girls who seem to "geeky." Is it bad to have programs that encourage girls to follow STEM career paths?
But if you fire a white person to maintain a quota of black employees, that is reverse racism, and it's illegal. I know because I'm friends with a (liberal) attorney who successfully won a multimillion dollar reverse-discrimination lawsuit against an employer who fired white employees to meet a minority quota. (IIRC--not sure if I have the details precisely correct.)
> At Missou, the activists demanded blacks-only housing so that they could explore their culture.
Were the activists black? Given the video above, and the way that blacks can be treated in the US, could you really blame them for wanting to live in a safe place, where someone isn't going to accuse them of ... whatever?
> So if you are a liberal Muslim woman seeking equal rights and treatment for Muslim women, the regressive left will actually fight against you, even trying to get you banned from speaking at a university.
This topic is far more complex than you're making it out to be -- and I can't claim to know all of the details. Among other things, there are people (and countries: France) that want to prevent Muslim women from wearing traditional Muslim garb in the name of "liberating" them. I would say that any government that is enforcing a particular behavior (that doesn't harm others!) has to provide the burden of proof that their actions are just. And forcing women to take off all head scarves or religious symbolism is no better than forcing them all to wear head scarves.
You're throwing up straw men by the ton; there are real people out there, suffering broad cultural prejudice, and people like you are trying to ridicule them by using terms like SJW. I'm a privileged, straight, white man, and I recognize that fact. Maybe it's easier to recognize because I also have a decent amount of wealth, but I'm not going to pretend that my success is entirely because I'm awesome. It was far easier for me to get where I am because I'm privileged, and I'm not going to poke fun at people who are trying to help those who aren't.
And I'm going to try to help disadvantaged people when I can, your ridicule or no.
Let me add some:
Attractive white woman says that low income white man stole something from her. What will happen?
Black woman and white woman each comment that babies of their own race are the prettiest babies. What will happen?
Power dynamics are fluid and contextual.
> Helping groups isn't the same as discrimination.
It is. The only cases where it makes a difference are inherently zero sum or net negative, because if they weren't then the racial preference wouldn't have been necessary to reach the same outcome.
> Watch that video and tell me, with a straight face, that 90% of US prison populations are black men because they commit more crimes, and not because they simply are arrested more often.
90% of US prison populations are men. Less than half of those men are black men. Black men are, however, highly overrepresented in part for the reasons you suggest.
> Girls do as well as boys in engineering and programming, and yet many cultural pressures push them away -- not least of which are the attitudes of boys (and other girls) toward girls who seem to "geeky." Is it bad to have programs that encourage girls to follow STEM career paths?
It depends on the nature of the program. Does the program mitigate the cultural pressures? Good. Does the program make girls "special" and give them things not available to the boys? Not good.
> It was far easier for me to get where I am because I'm privileged, and I'm not going to poke fun at people who are trying to help those who aren't.
Which is why it's a lot easier to tell how much help someone needs based on where they are right now rather than the color of their skin or whether or not they have a penis.
True, but a distraction. When you can have a black man graduate from a top university, well dressed, and yet pulled over, torn from a car, treated poorly and handcuffed -- all for being black and owning a car that made the cops think he might be a drug dealer, that seems even worse than privilege from money.
Fighting privilege as a result of wealth is another noble cause; the entire 99% movement was about that, as is Bernie Sanders' popularity. But its existence doesn't mean that other problems aren't worse.
I honestly don't like the statements on either side about the babies, so I'll just leave that one.
> > Helping groups isn't the same as discrimination. > It is. The only cases where it makes a difference are inherently zero sum or net negative, because if they weren't then the racial preference wouldn't have been necessary to reach the same outcome.
No, I'm not talking quotas, I'm talking extra education and being open to working with someone who doesn't look like you. There are cognitive biases that cause people to naturally want to work with people who look like themselves; making an extra effort to overcome that bias and honestly compare candidates is not, by any stretch, a bad thing.
It's only "net negative" if you think the whites who had all of the privilege somehow "deserved" the jobs that the potentially better minority or disadvantaged candidates could get with additional help and with mitigation of bias in hiring. I know that there are groups who feel that way (otherwise Trump wouldn't be where he is), but that kind of us-vs-them mentality is harmful.
Here's the part from the original post where you were wrong:
> The dominant group doesn't need help.
And the reason is that you assume the dominant group is homogeneous or even discretely identifiable. "Black men need more help than white men" is a statement which is true in the aggregate but tells you nothing about whether a specific black man needs more help than a specific white man, and using the color of a man's skin to make the assumption that he is like the stereotype of his race is black letter racism.
We need to be teaching people that that is not OK, not that it is OK under various subjective circumstances that racists can then use to rationalize their racism.
So this:
> When you can have a black man graduate from a top university, well dressed, and yet pulled over, torn from a car, treated poorly and handcuffed -- all for being black and owning a car that made the cops think he might be a drug dealer, that seems even worse than privilege from money.
Even assuming that's true (but cf. people who die of starvation or exposure or suffer preventable diseases for lack of money), the fix for that is to fix it.
This kind of gets at the heart of what is wrong with the concept of privilege. If you frame it as privilege then the evildoers are the people who have this "privilege" of not being unjustly harassed by the cops. But the actual evildoers are the cops who unjustly harass black people. And we need to attack a problem where it is, not where it isn't.
> It's only "net negative" if you think the whites who had all of the privilege somehow "deserved" the jobs that the potentially better minority or disadvantaged candidates could get with additional help and with mitigation of bias in hiring.
"The whites who had all of the privilege" are not in the same decision space. The rich man's son always gets the job because his father owns the company.
The problem with making decisions at the margin by favoring a nominally less privileged group is that it's too late by then. If the specific person applying for the same job really had significantly more privilege, he wouldn't be applying for the same job. He would be an engineer instead of a mechanic or be applying for a senior position instead of a junior one. To be in the same decision space already implies an equivalent level of privilege. Accounting for it again is double counting.
> that kind of us-vs-them mentality is harmful.
Categorizing people into groups that have more variation within them than between them and then using the groups to to make preference choices is the us-vs-them mentality.
Actually, it's a good example of female privilege. As proven by the first experiment, a white male got very different treatment, so no skin color involved here. Interesting that there is no example of a black female.
So, when white guy is stealing a bike, people confront him (not all of them) and some consider calling the police. When white female is stealing a bike, a guy offers to help her. This is an example of a white privilege, but not female privilege. Am I missing something in this picture, or discussing "female privilege" is one of those topics beyond the proverbial line in the sand?
I mean, I don't claim there is or is not white or female privilege. I just say if we look at the structure of your example and you conclude it proves there is a white privilege, you also must conclude there is a female privilege, for the same reason. Why didn't you?
> 90% of US prison populations are black men because they commit more crimes, and not because they simply are arrested more often
It's a false dichotomy. It is actually both. And black men is not nearly 90% of US prison population - it's actually 37% [1] for males and 22% for females. You may want to get familiar with actual facts before you argue.
> I would say that any government that is enforcing a particular behavior (that doesn't harm others!) has to provide the burden of proof that their actions are just
That is a very noble statement. Unfortunately, very frequently this statement is voiced by what I call one-point libertarians - people that are completely OK with widest government intrusion as long as it matches their opinions, but in one point where government policy does not match it they demand extraordinary amount of proof. This looks like opportunism rather than principle.
> there are real people out there, suffering broad cultural prejudice, and people like you are trying to ridicule them by using terms like SJW
Usually people called SJW and people actually suffering prejudice are very different people. People that are most frequently being called SJW are very frequently are very white, very privileged, study in very expensive and very selective colleges, live in countries and conditions that 99% of the planet population would consider very luxurious, etc. Not always, of course - but frequently. They just think that because they talk about privilege that somehow allows them to take "holier than thou" pose.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
Addressed that here. [1] Not sure why this is even a question, honestly. White privilege is a thing. There are circumstances where women have the advantage as well, but there are others where they clearly don't.
>It's a false dichotomy. It is actually both. And black men is not nearly 90% of US prison population - it's actually 37% [1] for males and 22% for females.
Sorry, you're correct, I mis-remembered the numbers. Only 32% are white males compared to 77% of the US population, though. Blacks and Hispanics are totally over-represented.
>Usually people called SJW and people actually suffering prejudice are very different people.
Yeah, duh. We are the only ones in the position to make change happen, because we're the ones with the awesome jobs who can be sure that the culture is open enough that people who don't traditionally work in tech (or in games in particular) can feel welcome to participate.
Do you think minorities standing around complaining about how hard they have it will work? Um, no, it hasn't. It takes people from the majority to speak up for the minority in order for change to happen.
>They just think that because they talk about privilege that somehow allows them to take "holier than thou" pose.
Projection much? [2] Striking an "attitude" or feeling better than someone is not even on the top ten of the list of motivations of anyone I know (myself included) who fights for people to be treated with respect. That is a common attitude expressed by groups throwing around "SJW" as an insult, however.
I went to a public university (first a two year, then four year), but yes, I'm white and live in the US. But the motivation I have to argue with people about this is 100% due to the fact that if all white privileged people ignore the problem, then it won't go away.
It's our ball game, and it's our responsibility make sure that others are invited, and that they have all the opportunities they need to compete. Otherwise we're being selfish jerks.
Basically you said "I didn't mention female privilege because I didn't claim white privilege is the only one". No, you didn't, but you also neglected to discuss most privileged category in your own example, which makes one to question your logic in this example.
You also say "women are less privileged in other domains" - true, one can find such domains. But we didn't look into other domains. We looked in specific example you provided, and you specifically discussed privilege, and yet by your own logic you failed to notice the most privileged group. Looks like you didn't really try to find one but tried to arrive at a predefined conclusion, did you?
> Yeah, duh
No, not duh. You can't first claim the mantle of the oppressed and when it is shown to you it is not yours say "duh". People are ridiculing SJWs in part because they use the pretense of being oppressed and sometimes case of real oppression (not done to them) to support their ridiculous and often harmful demands and actions.
> Projection much?
I would recommend looking up what "projection" means. There are groups on the right which do strike "holier than thou" attitude, but they usually have no idea what SJW means and are very far from the context of it. Those that you would see ridiculing the SJWs usually do not have anything like that attitude, they are more of the "leave me alone" kind.
> Striking an "attitude" or feeling better than someone is not even on the top ten of the list of motivations of anyone I know (myself included) who fights for people to be treated with respect.
Their behavior suggests otherwise, unfortunately. And I can't see how some things that are being done - like complete closure of campus thought to any dissent and independent thought, or hate campaigns like one happened to Tim Hunt - can be reasonably described as "fight for people to be treated with respect". If anything, the typical mode of behavior starts with refusing to even admit the possibility of respectful disagreement, and we can see example in this very topic of people being actually proud of it. That's what the W in the name goes for - W means war, and there's no place for respect in war. At least not the contemporary war, older wars were different a bit in that regard.
> It's our ball game, and it's our responsibility make sure that others are invited
It is. But organizing hate campaigns, and fake hate crimes, and imaginary insults, and more and more strict speech codes, and crying for authority to exclude everyone that tries to introduce at least the hint of an independent thought, and taking it all to a ridiculous levels - is not the way to do it. And there's way too much of it going on right now.
Here is a simple study done in Sweden that should go well with your video. The researchers made a fake profile of a criminal and gave it to psychiatrists currently employed by the justice system. Half of the recipients had the profile where the name of the subject had a typical male name, and the other half got the same profile but with a typical female name for the subject.
The female profile were 450% more likely to be deemed criminally insane and thus not responsible for the actions described in the fake profile. Culturally we view women as not able to commit a crime, but if proven, the only possible explanation that fit current culture is that they must be insane.
> * White man says that black woman stole something from him. What will happen?
Women don't steal, unless mentally insane. Police will generally ignore it as it doesn't fit current cultural views.
* White woman says that black man stole something from her. What will happen?
Black man fits the current cultural views of a criminal. Police will go after him.
* Black man says that white woman stole something from him. What will happen?
Women don't steal, unless mentally insane. Police will generally ignore it as it doesn't fit current cultural views.
* Black woman says that white man stole something from her. What will happen?
White men is less suspicious than black men, but criminal white males is still within cultural norms. Police will look into it if there is additional signs for it.
Then you bring in example of women being pushed out of industries with high (75+)% ratio of men. Would like you hear how welcome men are in industries high (75+)% ratio of women? Ever been physically attacked by a customer who then goes to accuses you for being mentally sick because the profession you took (a story I read by a male midwife, 99% female to male ratio).
There was a study by someone I no longer recall that showed how industries that has a single dominating gender, typically tend to create a work culture that infuses gender identity of the dominating group. Those of the minority gender then have to choose between either assimilate into that culture or leave. How much of "cultural pressures" could be explained by just that theory, and which gender is then privileged?
Being white is clearly privileged in both cases. I never "concluded" that "only" white men are privileged. My other example was meant to specifically trigger the strongest reaction when a black man was paired with the white woman.
The way women are disadvantaged falls in other domains -- like the ability to get jobs in (at least some, probably most) STEM fields. It's a more nuanced distinction.
> Ever been physically attacked by a customer who then goes to accuses you for being mentally sick because the profession you took (a story I read by a male midwife, 99% female to male ratio).
Other stereotypes and arbitrary restrictions placed on gender are bad too. Male nurses are making inroads into the occupation, though they're still a minority. [1] Oddly enough, the men on average made more money per hour than the women.
But the point is that something like 95% of occupations are either skewed toward men or balanced, and you have to go looking hard for any skewed toward women. And if you're looking for well paying jobs, the difference is even more stark. Pointing out the few examples where women have the advantage is roughly equivalent to the "separate but equal" arguments in support of black and white segregation.
>There was a study by someone I no longer recall that showed how industries that has a single dominating gender, typically tend to create a work culture that infuses gender identity of the dominating group. Those of the minority gender then have to choose between either assimilate into that culture or leave. How much of "cultural pressures" could be explained by just that theory, and which gender is then privileged?
Doesn't matter. It could all be explained by that theory, and it would still be important to break open the industries (on both sides -- male nursing and women in STEM) by changing the culture.
Yes it can be uncomfortable. But the fact that a guy can graduate as a software engineer can look at a $100k+ offer out of college, and he can know that the career will be welcoming and comfortable, where a woman graduating with the same degree will face "bro" culture in a lot of companies, and be forced to "assimilate" into that culture or be ostracized? That's simply not OK.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/number-of-male-us-nurses-triple-...
"72% of women work in female dominated profession, and 68 of men work in a male dominated profession. Only about 14% women and 13% of men work in a profession that has a ratio of minimum 40% men and women."
If you want to champion for equality, start by removing gender identity from a person profession choice in life. The social status of a woman should not be determined by how feminine the job is, nor should the social status of a man be determined by the wages he earn. When people regard a hair stylist and garbage collector as equally acceptable job for a woman, or man who earn a small modest earning compared to working at a high risk, bad environment, low socially regarded job but with high pay, then we will have started to progress towards equality. Currently, the trend is the direct opposite and more professions is getting gender identity ingrained into the work culture than the year before.
I 100% support this statement, and don't see how it contradicts anything else I said.
>The social status of a woman should not be determined by how feminine the job is
Also support, though with the caveat that (as you mentioned above) the concept of a job being "feminine" ideally wouldn't exist.
>nor should the social status of a man be determined by the wages he earn
Here in the US, at least, the social status of, well, just about everyone, is at least partly determined by the wages they earn.
I agree that this isn't ideal, and in particular no one should be judged for their income level. But in a capitalistic society it's hard to get away from that sentiment entirely. But it's an aspirational goal.
I certainly don't worship income level myself: I just turned down an opportunity to make mid-6-figures in a position where I'd be working with a good friend, and an awesome commute, almost entirely because the work I'd be doing wouldn't be what I'd want to be doing. Many of my friends are in the game industry, and they make much less than they'd be able to make as programmers in other industries, and their "social status" isn't negatively impacted, at least from my POV.
>Currently, the trend is the direct opposite and more professions is getting gender identity ingrained into the work culture than the year before.
I live in an area where hair stylists are frequently men (near Boulder, Colorado, but I've also lived near San Francisco) and engineers are frequently women, without either being criticized for it, so maybe the bubble around me is just more sane than the rest of the country. But TBH that's a large part of why I live here.
I think basic income is a necessary piece in the puzzle to allow people to really do what they want: If you're taking whatever job is available just to be able to live, then you'll take the job you hate the least. We'd still have to shift the culture to remove any stigma from taking a job atypical for a gender, but that's what I've been trying to do in my own personal interactions, including responding to posts here on HN.
I will now recommend that you look at some actually numbers. To take Sweden as an example, 78% of women and 82% of men are employed. 70% of all professions are skewed towards being male or female dominated.
Basic number awareness, do your 95% number above sound reasonable? Its not, and I do not have a hard time naming professions thats female dominate. I can just go down the list if you like, as the state produce statistics each year.
Dentist. Hair stylist. Psychiatrists. Veterinarian. Bank teller.
Above are some of the 90+% list. Want me to continue?
Nurse. Preschool personal. Teachers. Hotel and office cleaner. Animal husbandry personal. Administrative assistant. Chefs.
Want me to name a few typical male dominated professions?
Mechanic. Truck driver. Warehouse employee. Carpenter. Operator of heavy machinery.
Here, link! http://www.scb.se/Statistik/_Publikationer/LE0201_2013B14_BR...
Go to page 66. There is the 30 largest professions (as per number of employed persons). The left side is number of women and right side is number of men. Notice how the two side is almost identical in number of professions that are skewed towards a single gender?
Its not just nursing. Its not just about preschool. The IT profession is around 70% ratio of men. Veterinarian in contrast is often each year the the most sought after program in universities (counted as number of student applicants, divided by number of available seats), and it got somewhere around 90% ration of women vs men.
There's a great US document here [1] that details a lot of the problem, at least here in the US. Nearly half of STEM occupations are computer related, and that's where women have some of the hardest time getting jobs (only 26.6% female). Another 32 percent are engineering occupations, where the numbers are even worse (only 13.2% female).
Many of the jobs you listed aren't dominated by one gender; in your list, except for "nurse", most either are low paying or don't post a significant barrier to entry to men.
More women want to be veterinarians? Good for them! I can't imagine being a male vet would encounter any cultural biases that would interfere with his ability to be comfortable in the job, so it's not equivalent. The word "veterinarian" or "vet" doesn't have a gender connotation for me (unlike "nurse", for instance), and while there may be more women at vet conferences than men, I don't see how that's a problem for them? Unless they're concerned about their perceived masculinity or something idiotic like that.
I personally had no inclination at all to go into a medical or legal career; if I'd been born female, would it be OK for me to have been coerced into taking a lower-paying job, menial or otherwise, because of the harassment and bias present in STEM jobs?
Computer-related jobs aren't the only option, but those are typically the options that are most accessible, in that they don't require a multi-year degree and professional certification. And yet computer related jobs are increasingly dominated by men for no valid reason; many of the jobs you enumerated are dominated by women because those are they jobs they can get.
And if a woman does want to drive a truck or operate heavy machinery, that should be OK too. If that means that the guys need to not post centerfolds all over the office, or make derogatory jokes about women, so be it. Any hiring restrictions should be based purely on actual physical needs ("must be able to lift 70lbs." for instance).
If you replace "Political Correctness" with "Treating Others With Respect," you get a better concept of what it is that matters about being "PC".
Citing examples of professions that have a lot of women means nothing when the discussion is about specific domains (STEM in particular) that frequently exclude, or at least are not welcoming to, women.
The leftist narrative lost with Gamergate.
All the domains used to crumble in face of the leftists. They went after individuals and tried to get them fired. They virtue-signaled even in Github repos. https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015
Everyone who wasn't inclusive enough got attacked. You career was in jeopardy if you ever dared to think something a little outside the norm.
Politics, scifi, comedy, STEMs... Every and all domain fell.
Except gamers. Gamergate was when everything changed. This is when being more-progressive-than-thou stopped working.
The pendulum stopped moving left.
To anyone who's been paying attention (and old enough to understand), this was a major event.
Everything since then was just going through the motion. An immense building crumbling down while everyone inside it is trying to get to the top. "I'm more tolerant than you; I accept trans in my bathroom!"
If you are even slightly interested in history and sociology, you should be very attentive to the next few months/years.
As a more libertarian/right-wing individual, it is a glorious thing to see.
I just hope that the leftist didn't push the pendulum so far that it's going to come back with a vengeance and destroy everything it its path.
Leftism is a religion and leftists are some of the most close-minded people you will ever meet.
MAGA
Also, name calling? What?
I see that the submission was removed or flagged down. I suspect that has more to do with the fact that it is critical of leftism rather than that it has nothing to do with startups or programming. This community would be much better if you just removed most of these non-programming/non-startup related submissions.
You've been abusing HN badly by using it exclusively to prosecute politics, often aggressively and uncivilly. That's not a legit use of this site, so we've banned your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com; we're happy to unban accounts when people want to use the site as intended.
Why is this acceptable to you?:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11795186
I'm not religious but this would seem to be absurdly inflammatory in normal contexts. I think that may even be illegal to put into practice.
Also why allow political stories at all if you don't want people exclusively discussing them?
That comment you linked to is absolutely not acceptable, and I've chided the commenter. If you saw it earlier, I wish you'd have have flagged it. We rely on users to bring unacceptable comments to our attention, and that's the best way. In egregious cases you can also email us at hn@ycombinator.com. (To flag comments, you need 30+ karma, and then can click on a timestamp to go to a comment's page and click 'flag'.)
It's dismaying that you could possibly have thought such a comment was acceptable, given the effort I've put into communicating just the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=....
What?
Tell me, how am I bothering someone who is minding their own business on the topic?
The ideologies built on not bothering are outside linear left-right spectrum, towards libertarian and further anarchist ideas (depending on how far you are willing to go with that concept).
Leftism currently is driving the hardest for authoritarianism. I expect we'll see something similar on the right in about a decade though I'm curious to see what it'll look like considering that it seems like religiousness is on the permanent decline in America.
> Leftism currently is driving the hardest for authoritarianism
True for now, but one must not confuse difference in degree with difference in kind. It is true that implementing the left agenda probably requires more "bothering", at least taking current status of affairs as a starting point, than the right's agenda. But it's a difference in degree, not in kind, and also a function of the current status, not the principal differences. The right has no problem with authority bothering people when it fits its agenda the same way as the left.
That's actually what I see as one of the major deficiencies of the current US political system. Both the left and the right try to use the state to advance their agenda, but the result is mostly the state is getting bigger and bigger, and still nobody's happy.