Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
"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?
The primary purpose of representation in literature is helping younger authors clear out the old wood. Everything else is various other people's mutually incompatible utopias. Some of them are socially stunted enough to believe they can actually get them.
Though hearing an old black lady scream "obscene!" as she was dragged off for being insufficiently progressive was genuinely entertaining. What will be, eh?
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I would make a distinction between representation in media versus around media.
Within media, I think it’s close to the second. I would not call it a “virtue” signal, implying insincerity; if writing a plot that flatters one’s beliefs is insincere, we might as well throw out most of the canon.
Authorship or creative control of media is more complicated.
Consider the historical “well-rounded” education, which often involved reading a bunch of classics in the original Greek or Latin. Experiencing unfamiliar literature is expected to have inherent value. Tapping into an entire world’s worth of traditions, rather than the most visible ones, should work at least as well. I personally find this argument very persuasive.
Now extend it to familiar traditions, but unfamiliar situations. Reading a memoir about an event 80 years ago. Reading a retrospective of somebody’s niche interest. Reading a reaction to recent events from someone who grew up in your country, went through all the same schools, but is of the opposite sex. All of these are giving you something that you can’t access on your own. Diverse authorship offers diverse experiences offers the modern well-rounded education.
Now apply Goodhart’s Law, accounting for all the people who would like to claim their work is unique and enriching, and Sturgeon’s law, accounting for all those who really, really aren’t. There we have it: the modern commodification of diversity. It’s a shame, but it’s not at all unique to this particular subject. Anything that signals novelty will get picked up as a signal, because novelty is the most important thing in (monetizing) art.
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Unsurprisingly, the replies you've gotten are not particularly charitable to the progressive project.
The progressive project is anti-hierarchy and believes in equality of all humans, that no person or demographic should have power over another. The other replies are mostly some variety of assuming that that's a lie and obviously it must be about instituting some replacement hierarchy to the one currently in place.
In that view, Representation is not the primary goal but serves multiple purposes. The primary purpose is merely a proxy for the success of that project: if all demographics are truly equal then their visible Representation should be equal. Although also if you're talking about elected representatives, the power part is pretty direct, not just about visibility. There's also a secondary purpose of visible Representation being a role model / propaganda for showing that better world is possible (or, as Bombadil points out, accurately depicting the existing world).
What you described is called "anarchists", not "progressives", and no progressive actually believes that. Sure, anarchists exist, and some of them (like antifa) are in tactical alliance with progressives, but "no person should have power over another" is definitely not something that defines anything called "progressive" in US politics. Even libertarians - who are close to that - do not actually believer it, they are minarchists, not anarchists.
That is of course nonsense. That implies there are no other factors that define success except political oppression. There are no cultures, preferences, abilities, inclinations, trends, fashions, even random fluctuations, nothing like that - if there is a demographical difference, that can only be a sign of oppression. Of course, it is a complete nonsense - but it is a useful nonsense, as it allows the progressives claim they would fight oppression, and gain power under that guise. Since there's no oppression to fight, there's no possibility of winning that fight - which is just fine with them, because the goal is not winning, the goal is holding the power.
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Proportional, no?
Yes, that's what I meant by "equal" there. Poor wording on my part.
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That would give power to demographics in proportion to their population, no? My understanding is the intent is equality, not proportional power.
Never heard about affirmative action for males in areas where female representation was more than male, for example, in academia: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72. One would expect that if equality really held any value.
Not equality of number, but equality of power. My apologies, I should have specified. In reality I think it works out loosely to something like
(# of people in group1)X(avg power of people in group1)=(# of people in group 2)X(avg power of people in group2)
and so on for every demographic group and subgroup of people. Mind you it's normative rather than descriptive. This naturally results in the standard intersectionality ladder (hierarchy of oppression) that you can see in implementation when combined with intersectionality theory. Black women are both small in number and low in societal power, and so need an extra boost relative to proportional representation compared to white women, who are equal in size but smaller in power compared to white men. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, but we're lifting valleys here, not individual dirt flakes. We're flattening mountains, not flattening individual rocks Harrison Bergeron style.
Frankly I think it makes a lot more internal sense than a lot here give it credit for. Of course I'm sure the average White Christian man doesn't enjoy the idea of having the same amount of power at a group level as the average Roma woman, but hey, that's kind of the point.
Sorry, this still makes no sense. You just said no human can have power over another human. So what other kind of equality you are seeking, but zero power? If that were true, every progressive candidate would call for removing every state and governmental structure, and furthermore for abolishing all property and ownership in general. Not that it would help any. If I am stronger than you or more violent than you, I'd have power over you. In our society, you'd call the police if I threatened you, but police is power of one person over another, so you abolished it. And private security would allow one to exercise power over another, so you can't have any. So how would you prevent somebody stronger from exercising power over somebody weaker?
The answer is simple - you don't. That's exactly what is happening in many progressive-run zones - anarcho-tyranny. Under the pretense of equalization of power, there is absolutely brutal oppression hiding. Oppression that is random, chaotic and total - both law-abiding citizens and criminals are suffering (criminals get robbed and murdered too, of course). Except that since this oppression is condoned by the progressive regime - because if criminals are not punished, there's no oppression, right? - you are not allowed to talk about it anymore. Or, somehow in the society of equal power, you end up in jail.
Yes you will. You are not there yet, because the society is not ready to accept it. But you are getting there. Destroying the gifted education, for example, is classic Bergeron move. There are many other "progressive" moves that are not as blatant as binding dumbbells to people's legs or disfiguring their faces, but are even more detrimental to their lives in prosperity. "Harrison Bergeron style" is literally the only equality you could have, in your model.
I am not even sure what this means. So if I am a group of one, and I am compared to a group of a million people, I should have million votes? What does it mean "for every demographic group and subgroup of people"? People can belong to dozens or hundreds of demographic groups. Some groups could be tiny, and some could be enormous. It looks like the more you explain, the more nonsensical it gets.
I mean I’m no progressive, so I’m not surprised I’m failing to explain it well.
But yeah, if you’re a group of one and compared to a group of a million, and you, by your nature, have about the same amount of power as one of those million people, then the progressive project requires giving you massively increased opportunities, respect, and voice. In reality it’s not going to go for a 1,000,000X boost, but the point is leveling things to the extent practicable. However, progressivism doesn’t really acknowledge the “minority of one” that libertarians do, so it’s a nonsense example. But yeah, if you’re part of an otherwise equal really small group, progressivism will probably try to give you a hand up relative to the big group. That seems obvious if you look around, given the prevailing idea of assisting “minorities”. Once you factor in that both power and number is considered it ends up being basically exactly the expected order of priority.
And yeah people belong to a lot of groups, and yes it is beneficial under progressivism to slot yourself into increasingly niche and powerless groups.
Your police comments don’t make much sense frankly. The point isn’t that no person should have power over another, it’s that no group (and there are a set number of defined groups that qualify here, not just drawing random lines) has any more power in society broadly than any other.
Doing that necessarily requires some people to have power over other people. It requires those who would naturally be on the bottom of society (or near it) to band together to exert power over those who would otherwise be more powerful. It is attempting to neutralize the dog-eat-dog state of nature where the most capable win and the least capable die.
It’s not a freedom-maximizing ideology obviously. The crime and such are certainly problems but that’s what happens when you advantage a small, weak group (mentally ill homeless) relative to a large powerful one (urban professionals).
Well, you literally said this: "that no person or demographic should have power over another." But if you admit it doesn't make sense, we can move on to this:
Where those groups come from? Why those groups and not others? Why shouldn't they have more power? If one group is a single man, and another group is a million women, why the latter shouldn't have more power? I don't think there is any sensical definition of "groups" and "power" that can make this not crazy. Even if we go just numerically - why 100 highly virtuous people, who had broad knowledge, exemplary behavior and excellent morals, should not have more power than 100 crazy drug addicted rapists with IQ of 72? I don't think anybody who is not hardcore anarchist, whatever party he is voting now, would sign up under them having the same power.
This is completely vacuous statement though. Of course if some people band together and exert power, the other people would be less powerful than if they didn't. That's just how "power" works, you don't need any ideology to realize that - just as you don't need any ideology to realize gravity exists.
In what way? What you described is just "we want to eat dog to, let's eat dog". I mean, fine, if it's about banding together to seize more power - that's natural, but then be open about it. And, incidentally, that's exactly how I described it initially.
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Thank you, Actual Progressive. I intuit, then, that unrepresentative depictions/hiring/election results are taken as evidence (not proof) that oppression or bullying has kept the depiction from being representative?
not a prog but yes, my understanding is that its an equality of outcome type phenomenon. If people were truly equal then the outcomes would also be equal and the fact that they are not is representation of some hidden inequality that we just can't see yet.
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Point of order: regardless of what is intended, it observably does institute a replacement hierarchy.
It does actually do a lot of flattening too though right? Prog reforms have massively increased the power and wellbeing (in a revealed preferences way) of the American and maybe even global underclass and definitely put a damper on the ultra-elite. Between increases in the underclass ability to act freely without fear of arrest, ability to use substances as desired etc, combined with the idea that even billionaires are using the same iPhones and having many comparable experiences, I’m not sure there’s ever been a better time to be on the bottom.
Sure it uplifts some PMCs who run some programs, but they generally have very little power and freedom personally.
Plus the whole destruction of institutions thing has even left fewer ladders to climb, which is great for flattening at a societal level.
I would say progressive reforms are fairly responsible for what's about to happen to the online weirdos, and I can't see the elite being sad about it. Giving true believers on any side a voice is too inconvenient.
But the masses don't really like those guys in real life either, so count that as you will.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Funny how that works. For example, black characters in movies aren't surprising anyone for decades now. And yet, we get black Anne Boleyn, black vikings, black Snape, black Helen of Troy, black Snow White - damn the realism, who needs realism, we need to push representation! Moreover, the more it happens, the more oppression is being claimed, and the more attention is paid to the identity of the actor. It's like the Stalin's theory of class struggle - the more "representation" we get, the stronger and louder "oppression" claims are. Moreover, simultaneously identity does not matter at all (so what if Vikings are black? They are just actors, ignore their skin color and don't be a bigot!) and matters a huge deal (try casting a white person to play Rosa Parks or a straight person to play Harvey Milk and see what happens). As always, this is the sign that the rules aren't meant to achieve result, they are meant to exercise power. It's not for you to decide whether historical or fictional character looks one way or another. It's not even for the author to decide that. The needs of the Party will determine that. And if the Party says Anne Boleyn was black, then she was black, and if you object, that's the proof you are a racist and we need more power to the Party to force you in line.
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