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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15632 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

This is just a call to epistemic humility, it implies one cannot actually know for certain where they sit on the oppression scale which also applies to those who are currently receiving affirmative action. If we're being epistemically humble then innaction and thus not placing a thumb on the scale is the prudent move. If you want to claim you know who is oppressed you cannot use this tactic.

Yeah, relying on the whole "oppressed groups have epistemic advantage" argument in order to substantiate a claim of oppression always leads to some variant of the following horror: "I'm oppressed and you're privileged, thus I have a superior knowledge which allows me to tell you that I'm oppressed and you're privileged and you have no such standing. How can I be sure that I'm oppressed and you're privileged? Because I'm oppressed and you're privileged".

The fact that people genuinely use this circular argument and see no problem with the foundational logic behind it is shocking.

The fact that people genuinely use this circular argument and see no problem with the foundational logic behind it is shocking.

I have tried to get this exact point across to a group of ostensibly smart academics for months now. To very little avail.

You cannot logic people out of believing something they haven't been logicked into. Or something. As long as a belief is socially beneficial to have, people will revert to it almost immediately. It sometimes does feel like talking to an NPC.

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