wemptronics
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User ID: 95
Charitably, the groomer accusation is downstream of the idea that programs such are are choosing to make kids more gay, because that is their preference. Literal pedophile accusations are real, and some people below defend it, but is less common. (Most common is mean shitposting.)
This seems like the classic equivocation on the word 'sexuality'...
I don't have a rigorous understanding of how people relate to sexuality and what the consequences of exposure are at age 4 versus 9. That might make me unqualified to argue about it here, but it doesn't make me, or the average parent, unqualified to say "Hey, wait a second, 'lace' and 'underwear' have sexual associations I'm aware of in this context. Why is that here?" Associations that a pregnant woman does not. Lace in a wedding book word search hits different.
doesn't transgress it except in the minds of folks who throw sex acts and the existence of LGBT people in the same mental bucket.
And I think this is a major disagreement. Pride is many things. Pride is civil rites. Pride is trans, and pride is transgressive. Pride is family friendly. Pride is debauchery, nudity, and a chance to get laid. Pride is identity. Even with the continued whitewash, to the distaste of some gays, Pride can be reasonably understood to be lots of things that 4th of July celebrations and Macy's Thanksgiving parade are not understood as.
But like, when people like the indoctrination, they just call it 'socialization' (or "Niceness and Civilization," as the case may be) and pretending gay people don't exist, aren't a normal part of society, or are inherently 'adult content' that's not a normal part of kid-friendly public life is, from my vantage, a far less neutral option than teaching kids what most of society broadly accepts.
I wouldn't ask schools to pretend gay people don't exist, but the memeplex that advocates for celebration is fuel and also not very normal. Milder forms of indoctrination look a lot like the golden rule. A page in a book that mentions a man has a husband, that's normalizing something. Instead, Montgomery County said, 'damn the torpedoes!'
The children's book industry needs to churn out an fleet of content the in class curriculum to replace other curriculum. Identity, orientation, inclusivity is too important. Mandate a book a year? Nay, a dozen books. They each should be read 1 time-- 3 times, no, 5 times a year. A single child that leaves Pre-K without an understanding of pride parades, drag queens, and how lace and leather fit might be associated is an unacceptable outcome. The culture war of it all.
I have most of a post written that is one half an unlimited amount of questions on the present state of trans medicine/research with the other half a fantasy counter-factual for what a more mild culture war could have looked. I already push enough belongs on my non-existent blog. But, they can't normalize stuff like this. They need to man the wheel of the zeitgeist. They need to crush opposition and old-fashioned bigotry along with it. Hopefully it's part of a normalization process.
Anyway you should post more often.
He fumbled through a rolodex. That's funny! I don't think it's implausible for one of the characters in Pride Puppy to be a sex positive, sex worker. We can make that canon. People latching onto the exchange are not being fair to Gorsuch with the out-of-context snippet. For the purpose of maximizing honesty here is that exchange:
JUSTICE GORSUCH: That's the one where they are supposed to look for the leather and things—and bondage, things like that, right?
MR. SCHOENFELD: It's not bondage.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: A sex worker?
MR. SCHOENFELD: It's a woman in a leather—
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Sex worker, right?
MR. SCHOENFELD: No.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: No?
MR. SCHOENFELD: That's not correct. No.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: I thought—I—gosh, I—I read it.
JUSTICE BARRETT: It's a drag queen in drag.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Drag—drag queen in—a drag queen.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So—correct. The leather that they're pointing to is a woman in a leather jacket, and one of the words is "drag queen" in this—
JUSTICE GORSUCH: And they're supposed to look for those?
MR. SCHOENFELD: It is an option at the end of the book, correct.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Yeah. Okay. And you've included these in the English language curriculum rather than the human sexuality curriculum to influence students, is that fair? That's what the district court found. Do you agree with that?
MR. SCHOENFELD: I think, to the extent the district court found that it was to influence, it was to influence them towards civility—the natural consequence of being exposed to—
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Whatever, but to influence them.
MR. SCHOENFELD: In the manner that I just mentioned, yes.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Okay. And responding to parents who are concerned—you agree that this—there was some intemperate language used?
MR. SCHOENFELD: I—I don't know that those were responding to parents who were concerned. This was after the fact for most of these comments. And this was in a very public setting which obviously got heated, and some intemperate comments were used, certainly. [Referencing the board meeting racist xenophobic white supremacist remarks]
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Yeah. And—and I wanted to understand your—your—your—your context that you were giving about the statement that some Muslim families—it's unfortunate that this—that this issue puts some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots. I think, in response to Justice Sotomayor, you were trying to give some context to that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I don't think I was speaking directly about that comment. I think that comment was given—or was made—in June, which was several months after the decision to withdraw the opt-outs was made. I don't have context for that statement, no.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Okay. And then the legal question. Why isn't discrimination against religion a burden on religion? If—if—if—if a state—now this is hypothetical, not—moving away from the record. If—if state actors intentionally discriminate against religion, what secular purpose, valid secular purpose could that serve? And how—how wouldn't that be a burden?
MR. SCHOENFELD: So I—I don't know—I mean, it depends on the hypothetical, what the state is doing and whether there is a secular purpose. That's hard to imagine one. But if the state is discriminating—
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Against Muslims or Catholics or Protestants or whatever.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I think this Court has recognized that when an enactment that discriminates on its face—or has recognized with respect to an enactment that discriminates on its face—it is intrinsically coercive. That's how the Court has performed the burden inquiry. If you are privileging one religion over another, you are coercing people to subscribe to that particular set of beliefs in order to—
JUSTICE GORSUCH: So that's a burden.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Yeah. Absolutely.
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Thank you
4 year olds to BDSM, when – at least in the examples provided – that's simply not happening.
There is no 'BDSM bondage' that I could find in Pride Puppy, but there is a "drag queen" in a word search exercise at the end of the book and clearly a couple illustrated in the pages. They also arbitrarily slot (drag) queen under 'Q' instead of 'D', because they didn't have enough Q's.
Not all of the books from curriculum are in the dropbox link:
Pride Puppy (Pre-K), Uncle Bobby's Wedding (K-5), Intersection Allies: We Make Room for All (K-5), My Rainbow (K-5), Prince & Knight (K-5), Love, Violet (K-5), Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope (K-5), Cattywampus (Grade 6-), The Best at It (Grade 6-), Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World (Grade 7-), Hurricane Child (7-), The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets (8-), Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rusin (8-)
If one's actual objections are "don't normalize Pride marches," "don't normalize homosexuality," "don't normalize trans," etc. it's possible to have a discussion on the merits of those issues. But it's tremendously dishonest to cloak one's actual objection to the former with trumped-up talk of introducing 4 year olds to BDSM, when – at least in the examples provided – that's simply not happening.
We are having those conversations right here in this thread! Most comments that do not claim there is pornography in Pride Puppy.
or is it people wearing leather and undies in ways that would be perfectly appropriate for a Halloween costume at an event with kids present?
There is a reasonable association from the introduction of "lace", "leather", and drag queens -- concepts that we adults are familiar with and associate with sex -- to queer identity and ideology. Then either from or to sexual identity and sexual orientation. To suggest these are isolated concepts unrelated to sexuality stretches my credulity. Sanitizing something for children doesn't make it about something else. These are children's stories. Most have fairly normal lessons in some way, but nearly all are in the setting of LGBTQ+ acceptance. In the case of Born Ready: The Trust Story of a Boy Named Penelope trans ID.
Bobby Goes To The Single's Resort in Cancun could be a story sanitized for the consumption of 5 year olds. It can avoid nudity, be made wholesome, and even have a standard children's moral to the story. After, Bobby Hangs Out With El Farrio the Pick-up Artist. The last in the series: Bobby Goes to Leningrad. Bobby gets cold in Leningrad. When he feels better, he learns how to spell, sews his own jacket, and when he gets hungry he eats his evil neighbor.
I haven't looked deeply into it, but my impression of research is that the anti-racist HR trainings are neutral to slightly counterproductive if you're judging by race relations. The real need for HR training comes from discrimination lawsuits. In that way they are productive so long they cover an employer's ass.
Or in the case of HR programs, you don’t start our thinking of minority coworkers as weird, you don’t say “there’s a black person in accounting” or something.
I think you may be typical minding here and it's driving you towards Democrats are the real racist.
You don't think of minority coworkers as weird, but you do notice minority coworkers. HR is correct that people are hard wired to notice the minority black lady in HR. That noticing leaves space for meaning and association. Mundane HR training attempts to provide a mild positive association via 'diversity'. Anti-racist programming goes further in the celebration of diversity, then adds a less benign negative association for white people, objectivity, being on time, etc.
A liberal I will learn her name, meet her, then judge how annoying of an HR lady she is is a common mode of operation. It's how most middle-class Americans I interact with engage. I prefer it, I want to keep it, but it's not natural.
As we've I've seen, the programming works. You really can cram coding into minds and get NYT editorials printed. You can really make Ford, Goldman Sachs, and POTUS bend the knee to deploy the new program. Force demands resistance so, yeah, there's resistance and counter-culture among the contrarians, vagabonds, individualists, and independent minded. Caveat is that the kids seem to be rejecting it now, because the kids think Dad is lame. Round and round.
Wouldn't a society with actual pro-social norms apply pressure to dissuade the weirdos from their weirdo behavior
Yes. I think it is pro-social to quietly accept and tolerate hard weirdos, while pushing soft or potential weirdos towards normality. I like hard weirdos inasmuch as they don't proselytize weirdoism. They do all sorts of interesting stuff.
Now, most my life we have only progressively accepted, encouraged, or celebrated weirdoism. A reported increase in queer attraction (no longer identification) would be less concerning if it did not coincide with declining birth rates, the dissolution of family, and so on. Weirdo-normie stasis is clearly difficult for society to manage in a liberal way and that's a bummer. Perhaps we could use weirdo accreditation or a weirdo quota system. If we figure out the brain we might be able to better define the weirdo population through brain scans. Make sure no normies are stealing weirdo valor.
wemptronics
6d ago
Age-appropriate sex ed is important for children to know how to report sexual abuse (and to know that they should)
A good point. It's probably not necessary for schools to educate kids on the existence intersex genitals to do the sexual abuse bit. Proofs: My Body is Nobody's Body but Mine!
Necessary to cultivate a society with pro-social norms that promote things like being polite enough to weirdos by discouraging things like bashing fags for fun. A reasonable idea for policymakers might be to check the trends. Allegedly even the per capita rate of "queer hate crimes" has increased despite a massive increase in queer identifying people. Lots of problems with hate crimes and expanding definitions. Nor does the rate of hate crimes account for positive increase in feel goods for queer people or advocates.
One thing about the leather-bondage drag queen exposure is, as far as I know, it's still uncontroversial to refer to these things as fetishes. Fetishes are differentiated from sexual orientation for reasons which include twin studies support that differentiation. I guess that's another pernicious thing smuggled placed on top of the load bearing pillar of "identity" and acceptance of all identified identities.
This looks like it is intentional for the purpose of denying the ability to opt out.
From how the school board meetings were relayed to Kavanaugh above, yeah, seems pretty bad. Charitably, these people were just bad at their job when designing curriculum. They didn't anticipate the resistance. Although when they encountered the resistance, rather than reverse course, they fought it all the way to SCOTUS.
wemptronics
6d ago
What is the difference between a sincere belief derived from a religious framework vs a sincere belief derived from a philosophical one and why is religion given more weight in this regard? If i said that I believe in the supremacy of the biological imperative, and that queer doctrine is blasphemous in this regard, is this considered to be philosophical and therefore unreasonable?
My understanding is that, legally speaking, religious belief and expression is a uniquely protected category in the US. Political or philosophical beliefs are not. If you oppose queer doctrine on political grounds, then you can't expect SCOTUS to grant you their time. Religious beliefs grant you special protections from the government.
What if I said I sincerely believe that the imperative is a facet of God's will? Has my belief now become acceptable in the court's eyes now that I've rhetorically laundered it?
I think a metaphysical grounding helps your case. Unless I'm mistaken, this is one of the ways to differentiate a religious and philosophical belief. But I know someone will have a more complete answer for you. This seems like it should be one of the more thoroughly investigated ideas in US law.
We are at risk, because I am paraphrasing after reading most of the transcript yesterday, making some notes, and editing them into a post today while referencing some stuff. Here is that exchange:
JUSTICE ALITO: But, Mr. Baxter -- before we move away from the book that Justice Sotomayor was referring to, Uncle Bobby's Wedding, I've read that book as well as a lot of these other books. Do you think it's fair to say that all that is done in Uncle Bobby's Wedding is to expose children to the fact that there are men who marry other men?
MR. BAXTER: No, Your Honor...
JUSTICE ALITO: Yeah, the book has -- the book has a clear message, and a lot of people think it's a good message, and maybe it is a good message, but it's a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don't agree with. I don't think anybody can read that and say, well, this is just telling children that there are occasions when men marry other men, that Uncle Bobby gets married to his boyfriend, Jamie, and everybody's happy and everything is -- you know, it portrays this -- everyone accepts this except for the little girl, Chloe, who has reservations about it. But her mother corrects her: No, you shouldn't have any reservations about this.
SOTOMAYOR ...
It's more accurate to say Alito doesn't worry too much about determining the goodness of the book. Maybe it is good, maybe it is not not good. The concern is whether someone can make a religious objection to it. He thinks that is a pretty obvious, yes. This is a moral formation rather than information.
I agree "inclusivity" in the context of education has a clear progressive meaning. "Civility" I think we should hang on to or fight for. It is possible to be civil while maintaining moral disagreements. Happens all the time here and that's good. The well is poisoned enough that it's reasonable to want to* detach all the goodness terminology from progressive mantras.
- Though probably not possible
In lieu of the normal SCOTUS Mottezins... wake up, honey, the Culture War went to court again. Arguments for Mahmoud v. Taylor just dropped (PDF). A less oppressive SCOTUSblog write up here.
Obligatory disclaimer that I do not know anything. The gist of the case:
- In 2022 Montgomery County, a suburb of DC, approved a number of LGBTQ books for the curriculum. They include these books and other materials from ages as early as 3-4 and up.
- A bunch of parents cite religious reasons to opt-out of this part of the curriculum. This is in line with Montgomery's historical policy and the policy of neighboring counties. Opt-outs for religious reasons are normal for things like sex education and health classes that include it around the country.
- Depending who you believe, so many parents chose to opt-out that the district had no choice but to change policy, or the district was so ideologically wedded to the material that they changed the policy. Either way, the county says no more opt-outs. Lawsuit commences. It goes up the chain and here we are.
I know we have some skeptics of "woke" curriculum, so for a probably not unbiased overview of the material, BECKET, the religious freedom legal advocacy non-profit backing the plaintiffs, provides examples in an X thread. They also provide a dropbox link to some of the material in question. In one tweet they claim:
For example, one book tasks three- and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker.
Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense.”
Teachers are instructed to say doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway
The Justices had read the books in question. Kavanaugh acknowledged Schoenfeld, representing Montgomery County, had "a tough case to argue".
The county asserted that mandatory exposure to material, like a teacher reading a book out loud, is not coercion (or a burden?) that violates a free exercise of religion. Sotomayor seemed to support this position. Schoenfeld, arguing for Montgomery County, said these books that are part of a curriculum that preach uncontroversial values like civility and inclusivity. Alito, skeptical, said Uncle Bobby's Wedding had a clear moral message beyond civility or inclusivity.
The liberal justices were interested in clarification on what Baxter, arguing for the parents, thought the limits were to. What limits are placed on parents with regards to religious opt-outs? Kagan was worried about the opening of the floodgates. Sotomayor drew a line to parental objection to 'biographical material about women who have been recognized for achievements outside of their home' and asked if the opt-out should extend to material on stuff like inter-faith marriage. Baxter didn't give well-defined lines, but said nah, we figured this out.
Sincerity of belief is one requirement for compelled opt-outs. The belief can't be "philosophical" or "political" it has to a sincere religious belief. Age was discussed as another consideration. Material that may offend religious belief to (the parents of?) a 16 year old does not apply the same sort of burden as it does to a 5 year old, because a 16 year old is more capable of being "merely exposed" rather than "indoctrinated". A word Eric Baxter, arguing for the parents, used several times and Justice Barrett used twice.
Eric Baxter also stabbed at the district's position that there was ever an administrative issue at all. Chief Justice Roberts agreed and seemed to question whether the school's actions were pretext. Baxter had one exchange (pg. 40-42 pdf) with Kavanaugh who, "mystified as a life-long resident of the county [as to] how it came to this", asked for background.
Baxter: That's right. Hundreds of parents complained. These were mostly according to news articles mostly families from Muslim faith and Ethiopian Orthodox who were objecting.
B: When they-- when they spoke to the Board, the Board accused them of using their religious beliefs as another reason to hate, accused a young Muslim girl of parroting her parents' dogma, and then accused the parents of aligning with racist xenophobes and white supremacists.
B: And so, again, there's no question in this case that there is a burden, that it was imposed with animosity, and that it's discriminating against our clients because of their religious beliefs.
Baxter also pointed at ongoing opt-out polices in neighboring counties and different ones in Montgomery itself. He clarified the relevance of Wisconsin v. Yoder where it was found strict scrutiny should be applied to protect religious freedom. One example of an ongoing opt-out policy in Montgomery allowed parents to opt their children out of material that showed the prophet Mohammed.
ACB: .....What is your take on that and how we think about this, whether this really is just about exposure and civility and learning to function in a multi-cultural and diverse society and how much of it is about influence or as Petitioners would say indoctrination?
Schoenfeld: .....The school the express directive from the school is you don't need to understand your peers, you don't need to agree with them, you don't need to affirm with them, but you do need to treat them with respect.
Thots and Q's:
- Is it necessary to introduce concepts that include queer and gender ideology to children in public school? Why, why not? At what age would the introduction be appropriate or inappropriate?
The eternal fight over what the state uses to fill children's minds in a land of compulsory attendance is main conflict, even if this legal question is one of what a compromise should look given religious freedoms.
- A competent school district should account for the addition of new, potentially controversial or sensitive material.
It can do so in a few different ways and avoid a trip to SCOTUS. I support preaching civility and inclusivity to children. There are thousands children's books that preach these things without drag queens or bondage. In an ideal world, knowledge of and tolerance for queer people can also be taught without, what I would call, the excess. Schools can also program curriculum to account for opt-outs when it comes to touchy subjects.
Sex education can be crammed into 1 hour classes for a week of the year. This allows parents to opt-out without placing an unmanageable burden on the administration. A curriculum that requires teachers to read a number of controversial book at least 5 times each a year is a curriculum designed to, intentionally or not, make opt-outs onerous. In this case it was so onerous and so controversial that Montgomery was compelled to change the policy. Which is an administrative failure even if one doesn't believe it to be ideologically motivated.
- It may be worth pointing out that coverage from outlets like NPR didn't include the name of the case or a description of the plaintiffs that brought it.
I've seen it argued both ways. That outlets notoriously don't link cases or share case names, but in this case the plaintiffs -- a mixture of Muslim, Christian, Jewish parents -- the absence is notable. Were this an evangelical push we could expect some evangelical bashing.
All of this handwringing about how to execute a delicate social dance to obfuscate universally-understood truths, and it’s all taking place without the input, and without the buy-in, of the core group being spoken about... Black people, writ large, are not going to stop seeing themselves as a distinct group with an inherently fraught cultural relationship with White America!
Hmm ouch. Yeah, I agree that the ethnic identity and in-group loyalty is the largest hurdle to moving towards an alternative and Matt can't create any orders that to dismantle that. He isn't going to change anything by telling NHJ to stfu. But, NHJ is probably more famous among white liberals than black people anyway. So, step one: don't manufacture more NHJ's. It's okay to not indulge in NHJ's and Kendi's. They're wrong, unserious, and worsen race relations. White liberals can accept it in that order. Changing this perception is something even if it isn't an overhaul.
The disparities aren't going away and because of this we can't achieve a colorblind wonderland. We can work towards something closer to it though. Instead of manufacturing a Kendi as the prototypical black intellectual they could elevate some sort new form. A Glenn Loury/Coleman Hughes/Pastor hybrid rather than indulging in the Uncle Tom othering. They don't need to be conservative, in fact they can't be seen as conservative for awhile, but there are potentially new types of black identity that could be constructed as the Black Thinker. The next Rev. Al Sharpton can resonate, but not incite because we see where that's gotten us. Turn the knob a few notches a decade at a time.
If Matt can provide white liberals a different program that is not inconsequential. Even if white liberals are hopelessly disconnected from actual, real black people and only expose themselves to the black professorate. If the program helps fade disparity of outcomes equity stuff, nudging it a little further back, then that could be a substantial improvement for degrees of colorblindness given what I've lived through. There have been taboos regarding black people that haven't always advantaged them, but I know what you're saying.
But what worries me about this is, what happens if we apply this sort of thinking to the sort of liberal enlightenment-style thinking that people like Lindsay and myself espouse? If we push things like free speech, free inquiry, freedom of/from religion, the scientific method, critical thinking, democracy, and such too much, are we destined to have a pendulum swing in the other direction, such that we'll get extreme forms of authoritarian or irrational societies in the future? Have we been living in that future the last couple decades with the rise of identity politics that crushed the liberalism of the 90s?
We are destined to push, pull, and change, but not always or usually on an pendulating axis. A forking, mutating spiral is cooler to think about anyway. If you can shove a helical shape in there then, baby, you got a stew goin'. A monarchy can lead to dysfunctional, parasitic decadence that allows its dismantling. A more liberal system that replaces it keeps some things, discards others, then passes on the scientific method through the next 300 years of political evolution.
My favorite modern opposites attract phenomena is the Antifa/Proud Boys duking it out in Portland or wherever some years ago. It seemed a perfect example of conflict attraction. Is the scientific method at risk? Humans consistently commit themselves to science-y endeavors. Perhaps it is safe until we survive the human battery farms as luddites.
Your concern is a good reason to maintain a broad, coherent consensus. I admit it is tough in a society that leverages polarization to stumble around. Even if principled, the no, stop, don't politicize X warnings are a conservation. No, stop, we need shared national identity and mythos. A counter-example might be that science didn't prune the consensus tree to accommodate evangelicals on evolution. That seems to have been mostly okay and now we don't argue about evolution much. Consensus maintained. Or we got bored and less religious.
Now that I think about it, it sounds like I'm instead answering "is conflict theory total?" with a desire to say, "No. Also, here's a bunch of reasons to be conservative and keep stuff the way I like." Heh.
Have we been living in that future the last couple decades with the rise of identity politics that crushed the liberalism of the 90s?
Maybe. Postliberal will come, or has come, but we do have a hand in defining it such that it might not be Patrick Deneen's vision or any other particular one.
Humanity repeats common mistakes in different contexts and time. Which is banal, but the point is it doesn't make critical thinking a guaranteed battle ground. Degrees of authoritarianism might swing back and forth for reasons. That does usually hit certain individual freedoms. Focus should be or should have been on keeping the important bits regardless of the change that comes. Which is always coming, common mistakes along with it.
Matthew Yglesias befriends Richard Hanania, leans against Joseph Overton, symptoms worsen from a case of the noticing, and everyone gets mad.
Matty is full steam ahead with Democratic Party's Abundance rebrand. Build stuff, hope, and change. Yglesias has infrequently expressed a practical or tactical acceptance of noble lies. Depending who you ask, Matt has the freedom to tell it like it is, is an amoral deviant, or he is a sophisticated engagement maximizer.
This week Yglesias published an essay titled "The troubling rise of Hitler revisionism" on substack. The title points towards a surge of interest in revisionists like Darryl Cooper who have been (post delete guy strikes again!) discussed a few times. Matt's article isn't fully a refutation of revisionism or a celebration of Agatha Christie-- who revised her own anti-semitic (I didn't notice) caricatures later in life. He makes a couple points there. This is an acknowledgment as a set-up for broader cultural trends. I will format slightly.
I completely understand what people mean when they say Donald Trump is racist, and I understand why they say it. It’s also true that he’s had Black cabinet secretaries in both of his administrations, which was a bridge too far for JFK. FDR wouldn’t endorse an anti-lynching bill, and Woodrow Wilson worked to increase the level of segregation in the federal civil service... And I think the desire to promulgate revisionist accounts of World War II is intimately tied to a niche (but growing) audience on the right that may not want to bring back segregation but does want to undo the shift that made Christie rethink her anti-semitism.
And the force of this is that while nearly everyone agrees that left-wing racial justice politics went too far 5-10 years ago, there’s big debate on the right about the implications of that.
Ibram Kendi said it wasn’t good enough to not be racist, you had to be anti-racist in a very specific way. And there’s a counter-view, perhaps most forcefully articulated by Nathan Cofnas, that it’s not good enough to reject Kendi’s brand of anti-racism, you need to work to rehabilitate racism so that people can hold their heads high and believe in a hierarchy of races. On this view, you (allegedly) don’t need to be hateful — you can acknowledge that Lazarus is one of the decent Jews, even while maintaining that most Jews are not decent — but it is necessary to destigmatize racism. Cofnas has a literalist’s way of going about this, doing blog posts urging conservatives to stop citing Thomas Sowell on race. But I think coming in through the side door, trying to problematize Winston Churchill and normalize Hitler while destabilizing the pop culture consensus that Nazis are really bad, is probably a more potent way of achieving the same result.
Under the set-up is The Controversy. Yglesias has written against things like disparate impact before, though not in these terms. "Taboos can be good":
I have noticed that Black people are significantly overrepresented in the top ranks of professional basketball, and my guess is that you have noticed this as well. You need to be more of an NBA fan, though, to have noticed that residents of the former Yugoslavia are also overrepresented. I’m not sure why people from the Balkans outperform other people experiencing a lack of melanin. I am also not sure why Black Americans outperform white ones. You could imagine these dual outperformances having similar underlying causes or very different ones. I have not looked into it, and frankly I don’t intend to, because I am happy living in a society where it is considered unseemly and inappropriate to preoccupy oneself with such questions.
In my opinion, it is completely correct to observe that dogmatic accounts of disparate impact à la Kendi are dangerous and bad.
But I also think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to worry that stereotyping will lead to discrimination. And parsing the difference between “taste-based” and “statistical” discrimination doesn’t really change the fact that people are individuals, and they reasonably do not want to be discriminated against. Conversely, I think there is a broadly accurate stereotype that people who roam around the world articulating unflattering statistical observations about ethnic groups they don’t belong to mostly are, in fact, bigots with bad intentions.
Years ago, there was a take that what some disparage as “political correctness” is really nothing more than the basic habit of being polite. I don’t think that holds up to much scrutiny. What is true, though, is that politeness is a virtue, and that the habit of bending over backwards to try to be polite to people who are disadvantaged or groups that have historically been discriminated against makes sense.
And while not everything that right-wingers attack as “woke” or “PC” is just politeness, much of it is, and the impulse in some quarters of the right to say that we need to become a ruder, crueler society that no longer observes politeness norms is bad. The mistake of anti-racist excess was in going beyond trying to downplay ethnic differences to insist on measures that in fact reify them and increase their salience. But going in the other direction, and doing it in a mean-spirited way, isn’t going to solve anything and poses massive downside risks.
Norms that lead kids to spout the latest /pol/ memes to their classmates sound unpleasant. I, too, enjoy polite norms. Matt describes "bending over backwards" not as extra virtuous but as making sense. Asking people to bend over backwards doesn't make sense to me. Norms that involve individuals bending over backwards require coercion to enforce or an understanding of reward.
The comments to the substack article include two I wanted to comment on:
A: "For whatever excesses the Great Awokening may have had, once it ended there was always a risk of overcorrection in the other direction." It's extremely disturbing to me that anybody would need that risk pointed out to them.
B: I think it's because people don't really understand how big that risk is. They think it's just a small possibility. Unfortunately I think the opposite is true. The more off-course and disruptive a political movement becomes, it will almost by necessity give rise to a counter-movement that is equally if not more disruptive in opposition. The question people should always ask themselves is, "what kind of opposition do I want to create?"
I think this is true, but it's really not the people that must consider this a risk. It's elites and power that embrace a movement, eschew old taboos, and adopt new ones that take this risk. They mainly consider falling out of favor, but they also (should) consider how it demands resistance from competing elites and power. In our world the power pretty thoroughly embraced a movement with certain taboos which were themselves taboo a few years earlier.
Rather than coerce people into adopting a version of extra virtue, my proposed path forward includes seeking answers to questions like "why black basketball players outperform white ones?" Matt doesn't fully explain his position, but "intelligence research isn't worth the social costs" is not an uncommon one. Rather than fighting the power, as one might surmise from reactions to his post, I think Matt doesn't know he is asking for more of the same. Calling social coercion politeness sounds a lot nicer than what it is. If there's truth in uncomfortable answers, then it has to be buried. Instead, I think it is up to the Yglesi-i of the world to synthesize those answers into something that can become polite, then help normalize that.
That is a big project and I don't expect to see it happen in my lifetime. My small hope is we land on a stable normie consensus that better balances politeness with the incorporation of reality, science, and hard truths. Intuitively, pivoting the culture from identity groups towards individualism seems like step one, but that might just be my preference speaking. In sum, a not insignificant amount of moderate Democrats -- arguably a wing of the moderate Dems -- read and respect Yglesias and he has stepped into a soft HBD position.
If you're interested you should register an account. The only real barrier to entry is dealing with dedicated volunteers who have mastered the blade of bureaucracy. A battle of will.
I’m curious if any of you have noticed similar patterns on other Wikipedia pages for controversial figures. Is this a systemic issue?
Yes. Did you read one of The Motte's forsaken progeny write on an English Wiki's power admin last year?
Wikipedia seems to make generally correct decisions as edit wars escalate in areas with controversy. That's around a 70% generally, not a 90% generally. It is an ideologically slanted correct decision similar to the ideological slanted factual reporting of [news agency]. If you list 10 areas of controversy undergoing various versions of edit wars I can generally guess which side of it is the status quo. That one is a 90%+ generally that approaches almost always.
Do we need a new Wikipedia built by uncompassionate LLMs?
The ones today learn quite a bit from Wikipedia I imagine.
Not sure why changes like this don't fall afoul of the NOTNEWS rule. This isn't an ongoing conflict that is important enough to keep up-to-date. This is a not particularly accomplished reporter. She is mostly a controversial reporter famous for her controversy. They could make policy that has a 60 day embargo on changes to living people who aren't heads of state or some such. Tying edits to the American news cycle is fundamentally flawed. Which loops back around to the problems with the reputable sources system.
Wikipedia, like this place in some ways, is an impossible project. It's pretty cool it is as good at it is.
This is a high-grade well akshually post from Scott and I like it. Is Scott going to catalog all the lame sloganeering that gets thrown around as rhetorical javelins? Top 10 Memes Shitposters Use to Own the Libs now on ACX. If example tweets are not People of Consequence, then a moderator at The Motte who is already mildly annoyed might ask him to steelman the usage. My guess is he saw someone he respected use the phrase and that bugged him.
The personal is political, facts don't care about feelings, and the purpose of a system is what it does. It's a bludgeon to attack perceived dysfunction in systems that are usually guarded in some way.
A reading program's purpose is to help kids learn to read good. The local teacher's union advocates for more teachers to work it, the National Association for Reading Good pushes its adoption in various districts, and a city politician decides to make it a campaign promise to increase funding to the city's program. Yet, in places where the program exists reading scores trend downwards. The purpose of a system is what it does!
We shouldn't rely on fashionable quips to think for us, but it's a phrase with meaning that points at a commonly understood dynamic. As a commenter at SSC sub said, "It's a similar phrase to 'actions speak louder than words.'" Akshually, actions don't literally speak at all.
This morning I sought out and read two pieces on this news. The first was a short report from NPR which side stepped the Equal Pay Equality Act connection:
The Labour-run Birmingham City Council is effectively bankrupt because of a settlement over historic pay discrimination. As a result, it's had to make significant budget cuts of 300 million pounds ($383 million) over two years and is only providing services required by law, including waste collection.
The second was a BBC piece which more thoroughly reports on the immediate union dispute. The BBC article also more thoroughly avoids mentioning the equal pay lawsuit that set off the crisis. I do believe I am better informed by reading it, but only because I already read the broader context elsewhere. If I search "equal pay" on the BBC's website I can find articles like this one from a week ago, but the connection is almost a side note. It's a reality, not something to get upset about.
That leads me to a culture war observation: there is no Root Causeism to be found in these articles. Surely this is a case where the Root Cause is clear and could be addressed by fixing the legislation to avoid such judgments. If a city doesn't pay out hundreds of millions of dollars because a judge interprets a law a certain way, then a city is better positioned to avoid giving trash men an 8k/yr pay cut.
There are no professors, experts, or city officials quoted regarding the incredible judgment that led the city to the crisis. My expectation, were this a story on a knife crime crisis, the BBC would have criminologists to point at poverty or something. This is a union fight story, not a legislative or judicial horror show story, and those may be two different things in the UK's information environment. I feel demoralized thinking about it and I don't even live there.
wemptronics
20d ago
Has there been a topic moratorium in years? As I understood them, the topic moratoriums were put in place to soothe a plurality of people uninterested in (or uncomfortable with) the 10th weekly HBD/trans thread. A vestige from a more complex environment where mods had to account for significant differences to keep the peace. Most of those interests are gone along with the contributors that enjoyed those efforts. Unlike the dark arts behind HBD poasts this is an active and developing news item that has immediate and potentially long-lasting impacts on the world.
Taking the grill pill is fine. Welcome. Embrace the grill pill and accept what will be. To fully transcend you must let go the desire to rain on other parades.
Let's say you're stuck on a deserted island with a small group and the only one of you who knows anything at all about food preparation is Sylvester Graham.
First of all: lmao. I did not know the connection from Graham (crackers) to the rest of the cereal craze. Kellogg's Cereal Cure All Dietary Sanitorium was built on the pillars of greatness. Bedeviled spices be damned.
"Graham believed that adhering to such diet would prevent people from having impure thoughts and in turn would stop masturbation,"
I will think of Graham when I seasonally sully his crackers with delicious, sweetened cream cheese filling and fruit.
In the case of the Academy, its defenders would have to make the case that America's economic prosperity is dependent on its activities... e.g. capricious defunding of federal grants leads to a mass exodus of scientists to Europe, causing the collapse of the American phamaceutical, chemical, energy, etc. industries
Some areas can make the case better than others. Regardless, I don't believe this admin is committed to a root-and-stem method that leads to a mass exodus or a system collapse. It continues towards a (somehow) calculated oversight. The verdict is out for me as to whether they'll do a good (or any sort of lasting) job for the R&D parts. Social sciences, which I was thinking of, is another matter and mostly outside of the administration's reach for what they've shown.
If I'm picking up what you're laying down, then I'll say that "willing, interested, and put in the effort" is intrinsically valuable. Knowledge Producers do produce things I won't, can't, or don't want to. They do so as a privilege that society bestowed on them, sure. Is can't/won't/don't-want-to a skill issue? Also, yes. Some amateur historians do great work without institutional support. I bet there's a number of hobbyist anthropologists I find more interesting than esteemed academics in the field pushing the ideological laden theory of the day. I am no utilitybot. I don't want to kill all men who wear glasses. We can afford to pursue and enjoy things other than maximizing our chances to go to Mars. All men have a desire to know, and that's good. Knowledge Production is good. It can be boring, uninteresting, or stuffy, but it shouldn't be in a position to be scorned generally.
Trace doesn't mean to, but I see an invitation for conservatives to organize their own Long March. If he means to it is because he has no fear that conservatives have a chance to do this. If conservatives do capture the institutions, produce equivalent cultural output, then I am confident Trace would partly ask for cooperation rather than bark for an imaginary assault. Just based on what I have read from the guy.
If more conservatives became sociologists they would, at worst, complain less about it. At best, they may help to right the ship. There is no cost or effort on behalf of these institutions-- which are responsible for their standing, public facing reputation, and credibility. That's what good stewards inside an institution are meant to facilitate. They are a curator who considers and advocates for the institution. They protect it and enrich it. The institution forever remains larger than themselves and lasts longer than their lives. The mission was changed, the principles were subverted, and our institutions sought different kinds of stewards.
We can bicker over who to blame and why conservatives fell out, were pushed out, or lost interest in the humanities over the past 50 years. We might also consider whether the same conservative professors in 1960 can even be created anymore. This doesn't move us any closer to fixing them. Neither does standing high up in the fort to yell down "bring more men and a longer ladder!" Not when an apparent cannon is nearby and a fuse lit.
I like museums. I like libraries, too. Free children's books are amazing. We're keeping those, though. Personally, I don't care about a hypothetical target of 20-80 or 40-60 ideological split among librarians, anthropologists, or in psychology departments. We are so far beyond parity and so far off the ground that destruction feels better to many. This includes educated people here. I'd like the institutions be slanted in direction that I can easily (dis)miss. My tolerance for the slant is higher than Jim from North Carolina who, while uninterested 30 years ago, now has learned a stronger distaste for concepts like higher education. The value of a university education in these fields is objectively lower than the past. Beyond that, it is going to require change and effort for his son to return to his father's previously uninterested position.
I'm not sure it matters if Trace means to tease conservatives to start their own Long March because he does not consider this possible, or if he really does want to egg more conservatives to bootstrap back into sociology departments. It is defensive rhetoric about preserving stuff he values, aimed at people who also value it, but not at people he believes should value them. If one were to genuinely try, then how does one convince someone who no longer is uninterested, but actively places negative value on your institution, that you are worth preserving?
To do so, we're looking at a project of a generation if we were to tear stuff down and start over. The destruction method, besides being an overstatement of what's occurring, would be quick and painful. Reform, on the other hand, might never happen. There needs to be outreach, invitations, scholarships, hard work, propaganda, genuine accounting, and a renewed interest in stewardship. Those could all be indicators of reform. It is a lot more than anyone offers. If people want change to occur as reform, then begin the reform! Start a new department. Aim it at undergrads from Missouri. Cut the Exceptional Black Lesbian Celebration exhibit from the Smithsonian. That one is easy.
A long view is good, but few are prepared to wait 40 years for enough conservatives to apply, enter, and manage to fix anthropology. Not when we can't be certain what higher education will look like in 20. Not when the cannon is right there, fuse lit.
The institutions should function in a way that they can manage their own reputation and credibility. If Trace wants anthropology saved rather than smashed, then anthropology's movers must move to facilitate this. If the nascent conservative friendly institutions mature and reproduce they may threaten the old regime and spur reform. Trump is doing some stuff, but Trump is gone in a few years. If he sticks to his guns, then 4 years is a good amount of time to change policy and stewardship. I doubt sociology will be saved in that time frame. I doubt it will even try to be saved ever. Museums might redirect. That's plenty of time to find better stewards, realign the mission, create some outreach, and start fixing the brand. 4 years isn't that long though. Easy to wait it out.
I wrote about the trans half, too. I have some questions about trans medicine and research. I'll save it for another time.
Yes, because much like the question of whether the Houthis would obey a ceasefire we already have proof that this is the case.
In January of 2025? After the high intensity part of this spat in Gaza was long over. Israel pulled the bulk of its troops out many months prior. Conflicts end. I don't think the US made Israel do anything it didn't want to do in signing a ceasefire in 2025. * Just checking my work January 16th cease fire by al-Houthi. January 17 missiles fired. February 10th the same occurred, 6 days later still engaging US aircraft and vessels. Is there a period where Houthis have actually worked to respect a cease fire I'm missing?
It's unlikely the US could have achieved this in January of 2024 with the same amount (or lack thereof) of pressure. Neither did the US apply any sort of great pressure to achieve it in January of 2025. Israel was very motivated to fight a high intensity conflict. The Houthis were very motivated to cause problems for them. The US was motivated to prevent the Gazan conflict from spilling out into a broader conflict it would be engaged, which is why the US is reacting with most of its strikes in January 2025 onwards, and not January 2024.
If you're saying that US strikes in March 2025 make less sense than they would in March 2024 then yes, I agree. Israel cease fire, problem solved-- or not. Houthi's pulling a lever they shouldn't touch is still not solved. Nobody wants them pulling the lever again. They haven't agreed to this. Israel hasn't agreed to never invade its neighbors or respond to its neighbor's aggression either.
The US did not create any great feats of diplomacy here. Continue selling some armaments to Israel, help their air defense, and hope things didn't get worse. The US neither dissuaded Israeli action, nor dissuaded Houthi action. When it seemed less risky -- or a new administration came in less averse to escalatory risks -- it acted in a belated fashion. Trump decided Something Had to be Done and as is clear I agree. Something should have been done. There should be an understanding. Don't hold ships hostage. Here's your bombs. Sorry they're late.
Why should Americans care about Italo-Egyptian shipping any more than Israel invading its neighbors?
Knowing your merchant ships won't be boarded by pirates is good for every civilized nation. Not invading neighbors is good, too. I consider the not attacking merchant ships more good for more people and more achievable than I do about Israeli responding to their attack in a Forever War. There's lots of consensus that piracy is bad and the Houthis have been naughty.
For there to even be a "global order" to defend you actually need to defend it consistently
Consistently enough for myself to consider it preferential to the alternative. Which is why I advocate for dropping bombs on pirates.
otherwise it's just "might makes right" with extra steps
I have no illusion as to failures in consistency. This is a reality of the world we live in when it comes to conflict. If you're upset the world doesn't make complete sense, is fully justified, and orderly then I am sorry. I wish it was. I also wish nation states were like principled rationalists in their humility and honesty. If you would advocate for the US to go in and bring Houthi pirates to the Hague I'd say that sounds dangerous and costly, but orderly. I wouldn't blame you. If you'd say you believe might makes right is the purest and only way to have a world that makes sense, then I guess you'd advocate for America harshly punishing those that make themselves her enemy.
I do not think you are advocating either of these. It sounds like you do not consider Israeli actions justifiable, so the US should either stop them or not stop Houthis or not care about global shipping and stay home. I think you should care a little bit about the security of global shipping, but I understand. It is possible for the US to not be engaged in this conflict. The Suez being crippled is a bigger deal for Europeans as Vice President Vance pointed out. I don't fret too much about it. With time we can grow used to a less functional world without American policing. Patience.
and in this case American airpower alone lacks the might to stop the Houthis.
Sending tomahawks to crush a hut is a waste of money. Which is why the US should actually find painful targets that make sense to hit. Maybe they don't exist. I don't know. Low to mid-level agents might be one action. Weapons manufacturing sounds like another common one. If this is not possible, then still send the tomahawks to the hut. Not an infinite number. Maybe less than we have, but do something. I'm not privy to those decisions, but I imagine the US intelligence has gathered a list of suitable targets.
You said no prospect, not me. It is true the US could have considered imposing costs on Israel in response to her and Europe's arms being twisted by America's (mutual) adversaries. I think this would likely encourage further arm twisting and also doesn't seem quite as simple as you say. You sound very certain that America could have easily ended Israel's incursion into Gaza and lifted Israel's decades long naval blockade from Gaza (was also a demand I'm not sure if they dropped that one) and avoided [this] cost. Perhaps American limitations do not end in the Red Sea with the Houthis. The US might be unprepared or unwilling to bomb Israel hard enough to appease requests of a ceasefire. Maybe sanctions of arm sales aren't heavy enough to stop a response in October, November, or December of 2023.
The Houthi's grand humanitarian mission started on the 19th of October, 2023. It has involved hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones being fired at Israel. They have attacked some 100 different merchant vessels. I don't know how many times they've fired at American warships, but probably a few.
Coordination requires understanding. "Don't do a piracy to twist my arm" is a pretty good understanding. "Don't invade other countries" is also an understanding, but at least when Israel invades other countries these days it is mostly its neighbors and doesn't tax Italian and Egyptian shipping. It's unfortunate Houthis are only in a position to play one card, are beholden to the interests of larger nations, etc. We all face limitations.
I'm not really interested in litigating Israeli's war justifications, US obligations to Israel or vice versa, or to which great honor we can bestow on Houthis or Israel. Or America for that matter. It's been done a million times. You can consider any or each as evil and duplicitous as you wish. You'll read smarter people than I. I am but a simple, sensible ""global order"" (double scare quotes, double scary--- if I go triple you're donezo) enjoyer.
I don't think you should trust any nation or, at least, take any nation's stated justifications at face value. Least of all Iran, Israel, or Islamic fundamentalists. It'd be nice if we could trust each other not to shoot at merchant shipping and agree to punish people that defect from this agreement. That's all, really.
Yes, they want to impose costs on the rest of the world which includes the costs of bombing them. That's fine. There is still risk of escalation, but if we want to bomb them in perpetuity and they want to impose costs on the rest of the world in perpetuity so be it. If this is the reality then we live in world that's a little less functional. So be it. It won't be in perpetuity I hope!
I would not describe Houthis as indomitable, although they do have a very high tolerance for eating bombs. The alternatives are to refuse to engage -- which does cost less money with no boats in Red Sea -- or formally accept a new status quo. Or, if you take them at their word, make Israel do something? The world could also reward them with some sort of official designation and hope that buys them off, but I agree with the global order here. You don't get rewarded with shooting and looting civilian ships. Not without some pain or, in this case, the lives of their martyrs.
They are the big dog in Yemen. Woof! They dislike Jews, Sauds, UAE, the US, and they like Iran. Great. These are unpleasant people that would happily lob my head off. Bombing theocratic Islamic fundamentalists, or most any other dedicated piratical states is a reasonable thing to do in response to their piracy. That's a sensible world.
wemptronics
1mo ago
This suggests that Hegseth didn't know and did not consent to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't set-up by someone else. I'd guess Waltz is most likely since he sent the invite. But yeah, there's a large number of less embarrassing ways to leak information to journalists to write a story. I'm not at all convinced on planned or intended. It's a remote possibility. Bad practice and incompetence is leading the race for me.
The bombing is a result. If you engage in piracy you eat bombs. This should be the expected result of engaging in piracy. It's the least you can do. This might be insufficient to dissuade these particular Islamic martyrs from engaging in piracy. They may require some other demonstration or diplomacy, but they should receive no exemption from the first expected result. It may also be a valuable demonstration for other non-martyrs that might consider piracy.
One fact to support this theory is who is doing the leaking. Jeffrey Goldberg is an editor who has been at The Atlantic a long time. He did a bid in the IDF as a young pup and written articles such as "Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe" in response to terror attacks. It is unlikely Goldberg would want to help the Houthis or hammer the admin on Houthi beating. Which he doesn't. He is seasoned and at least partly aligned on the topic of discussion. Both of these make him more likely to understand (or suspect) what his role is here despite the confusion and it appears he is carrying out his duties. This would be big 5D chess if unnecessary and reckless.
Why not just leak stuff the good ol' fashioned way? This form of leak probably maximizes the amount eyeballs, but are those necessary? Perhaps foreign parties have reason to doubt how tapped into the admin the media apparatus is as the admin seems keen on beating on it rather than filling it with juice. Might be that Trump doesn't like his cabinet using the Fake News traditional messaging apparatus, so this is technically a way to work around that. Wading into pure conjecture any which way. I'm not sure if there's a more sensational way to leak stuff if that is what occurred here.
I don't think most Dems support or have a "fiery passion" for open borders, but I have seen plenty of evidence for the policy preferences. Who needs to see more? Loose, executive bound grey immigration policy subject to change is where we are. Open the tap, close it a little, obfuscate what you want to hide, and figure out issues whenever-- or never. If Trump's term passes without any lasting changes I'll probably try to become more apathetic on the issue. I would like to see something done with asylum. Additional brrrrrr: drive forever electoral growth by printing limitless political capital in perpetuity.
The Democrats win back the Whitehouse, signal or even campaign on concessions in whichever areas are electorally expedient, then quietly reverse policies they don't like. They pivot focus to whatever and its business as usual. It can and will happen again.
I would expect the hardline immigration and demographic critics to be loudest in demanding legislative backing. The politicians I can understand, but interested voters and advocates I don't. A political crisis that requires permanent intervention, but never any resolution is exhausting for normies.
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