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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   580 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 2026

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"Representation" should be defined for this comment thread as people of diverse backgrounds being seen as protagonists, deuteragonists, and antagonists in fiction, being elected representatives, and being hired for visible jobs at management/executive levels.

Is Representation a primary goal of the progressive project? Or is it a secondary goal, a virtue signal for societal diversity, since it can be seen as a sign that oppression has ceased, a sign that diverse people should be expected walking around in public, using services, present in labor jobs, and other signs of diverse social integration?

Is Representation a primary goal of the progressive project?

No, it's the means to an end. The goal is power, by means of eroding and destroying the current structure of society and replacing it with one that has them (who are "them" is debatable, though each individual participant naturally sees oneself as part of "them", nobody goes to a gulag voluntarily) on top. For the more cynical, this is the ultimate goal. For the more romantically minded, this is an intermediate goal, in the quest to establish a more just, more moral and more optimal (by whatever criteria) society - which is, obviously, impossible when the wrong people have the levers of power in the wrongly structured society.

By itself, more diverse workforce is not bad. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is neutral. But the progressive project has nothing to do with it - DEI, which they promote as a vehicle to achieve representation, is not aimed at that, it's aimed at capturing power and rerouting it to progressive goals. If you want evidence for that, count how much the progressives celebrate minority representatives that do not subscribe to progressive views. Does US left love Clarence Thomas? Did they support Vivek Ramaswamy? Is Tim Scott their darling? Do they see Rubio, Cruz, DeSantis, Raul Labrador and others like them as role models and trailblazers? Do we see any pattern here going all across backgrounds and jobs?

One could even flatly say having Representation in the Republican party and the conservative movement would be, to their eyes, a bad thing.

It's not only the GOP as such. Any person who would be lauded as "representing" if he toed the party line, instantly loses the shine if they veer off the message. The Representation is only good when it serves the real goal - which is increasing the power of the Party. Be it political power, cultural power, financial power or any other power - but never diminishing any of it.

If you are an artist, then putting minorities in your work is something you can do. But, ending legislation that contributes to systemic oppression is something you can't do. So the progressive sees representation as a casual force, not merely a signal. Probably the social status caused by representation (or lack thereof) is a contributing factor for what is meant by "oppression." I'm not sure if this answers what you mean by "primary" or "secondary." It's more about levels of abstraction: oppression is fought by ways of representation (among other ways).

Personally, I want to see more diverse representation, not in the "DEI" sense, but the "unique and unconventional" sense. Maybe it started like this and became corrupted.

Progressives like seeing black and brown minorities and don't like seeing whites (or yellows), especially in high status roles, so their fictional depictions, political elections, and corporate hiring practices reflect such a preference.

Plus, the more whites are accustomed to seeing blacks and browns in fictional and high status roles, the less (negatively) surprised whites will be to see black and brown bodies as they go about their lives, and the less likely they'll Notice and object to being Replaced. It's like exposure therapy so the frog accepts itself getting boiled.

I’ll count that as primary: a form of psychological conditioning.

Neither -- it's a demoralization tactic against the stale pale straight majority.

English people literally think that there has been significant black Representation in their population since Roman times -- this is a direct result of decades of work by progressives at the BBC.

The impact is that the native English population will put up with (seemingly) literally anything -- very helpful for the progressive project!

Similar tactics are at work in the USA -- the exact group being 'represented' is not that important; LGBTetc works just as well as racial minorities. So long as the majority is underrepresented/delegitimatized, the intended purpose is served.

I’ll count that as both: dewhitening the leadership as primary, and secondarily as a form of psychological conditioning.

It's not a goal at all though -- it's a tool in service of their (other) goals.

In a sense, increased representation is a primary goal. Having minorities be acknowledged and normalized through representation is pretty high up there in terms of importance on the progressive agenda. You can't fight for trans rights if most people don't even know the trans exist.

In practice, I would say it depends on the author. Some write specifically for, say, an LGBT audience and have positive representation as one of the main reasons for why the story exists in the first place. Others do it for the sake of realism. A New York with no black people just doesn't really make sense. Any modern story exploring urban environments, especially if you delve in to the soft, slightly hidden underbelly, is by necessity going to include some level of representation of minority groups as they make up a sizeable part of most large western cities.

It is not usually a sign that oppression has ceased. If you lean more activist as a writer, the point of forcing diversity is exactly the opposite: Opression is still there, but through your writing you give a voice to the marginalized. If there was truly no opression, no one would bat an eye at a trans woman because she would just be another person to the rest of society. The fact that this identity matters enough to write about, and that doing so can garner pushback, is itself proof that there is still a lot of work to be done.

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