This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The underlying moral claim of the racial progressive is not merely that a group average is worse and that this worse result is a travesty (this would be justice, it would be a group getting what they deserve). The racial progressive believes that there are blacks with the same nature as whites, and that if you tracked a white and black with the same “skill points” (simplifying) that the black would have a worse outcome. This is opposite of the reality. And they additionally believe that the low skill points blacks currently possess are an artifact of past moral transgressions by whites, transgressions which need reparation, while they ignore the past moral benevolence of whites to blacks, like lifting them out of a maximally oppressive environment in Africa and teaching them to read and so forth.
But the black is not seen as the retarded kid. There is a very important distinction to be made here. The black is seen as a secret genius who has been thwarted by evil school officials, a Will type character from Good Will Hunting (I imagine this is not really the protagonist’s name, I won’t google it). That an average IQ Black can perform averagely is seen as proof of their superiority, because their oppressive history would make any man perform worse. This is what they believe. A retarded kid is retarded, they are innately dumb and thus of low value. The black is actually valuable but has been unjustly attacked; he is all the more worthy of our admiration because of this; any low performance is simply the relic of white ppls’ original sin, for which we must be the constant penitent (in the extreme manifestations).
Praise and compassion feel good to receive. The black gets more praise and more compassion from, say, a boss who is very progressive. They also get more respect because of the ambient stereotypes (strong), and are seen as more cool because of the stereotype (eg dancing). These are all good social dynamics to be on the receiving end of; the praise socially-reinforces your good behacior, and the compassion increases a sense of belonging. These are advantages. The studies show that blacks are more narcissistic so it’s possible they do not, on average, recognize their myriad “unjust” blessings due to the ignorance of progressives (imo).
We can consider a parallel. If I never had a piano teacher because of evil oppressive monsters who hate me, and when I go to my first lesson my teacher is amazed at how well I can play, how would I feel? Quite great, actually. I will be a lot more confident and happy in my playing. I would be very reinforced. The other students would look upon my state when some envy, that I am the Harry Potter of the Pianoverse.
This is what people say. Maybe even some believe but reality intervenes. For one: liberals have a whole bunch of patronizing behaviors and attitudes towards minorities that minorities might notice even if they had the same score as Asians.
For another: reality just is what it is. It doesn't matter what liberals believe just like it doesn't matter if your mother thinks you're a catch. Reality has a say. The entire Amy Wax debacle came around again because someone gained access to data that showed that it's actually plausible that blacks were massively underrepresented at the top of the class. Nobody noticed this?
One excerpt from a selective school where, despite their efforts to equalize things differences pop up. What's notable here is not just the objective facts (lack of blacks relative to Asians) even the liberal explanation for why blacks underperform admits that there's a sense of defensiveness from visibly not doing as well.
Praise and compassion based on false statements isn't satisfying. Affirmative action was supposed to create a class of educated, confident minorities that would then not need affirmative action. That's clearly not what happened. As a result the fundamental insecurity never goes away. People like Michelle Obama get to go to amazing universities today yet still have some ambivalence about the experience. Why?
Unlimited praise is just teaching narcissism because it heightens the reaction when people get a disconfirming view.
The most powerful countries in the world threw their soft power behind increasing the self-esteem of transpeople and the neuroticism is still constant. In fact, it's worse for having ever encouraged them.
The pop music keeps getting more and more bombastic and allegedly confident, the memes of black women being everything from the most educated to the saviors of democracy are more present every day yet no one is happy and the language is as hysterical as ever. It's never enough.
Okay. What happens when it comes time to actually play piano? Are you following the Jason Arday situation?
People are projecting how they'd feel if they have the same skillset. But how would you feel as it slowly dawns on you that you were a teacher's charity case and the other kids are right as you try and fail to play or write any good music?
Kids are short-sighted, I'm sure they wish they were treated better sometimes. As a child I raged at how much of a light hand teachers took with a few charity cases: one very meek girl who cried whenever asked anything and a girl born with an unfortunate deformity, who nonetheless liked to rib people.
Once, I gave it back to her and I was instantly punished. At the time it felt bad but really, she was the one being robbed the ability to have authentic relationships, to be an equal. The teacher tore away even the illusion that she wasn't different.
My intuition (maybe yours differs) is that a progressive would actually choose a black doctor for their medical problem, or a black advisor for their child's college plan, these being signals of their true belief. There must be some costly signal we can check out to gauge the progressive’s sincerity. They actually do want their coworkers and managers to be black. I know the common refrain is that they have fewer black friends, but I think this is because they are very guiltprone (which lead to their recruitment into progressivism) which is at odds with the black temperament. (Cf “White people love Creep by Radiohead" discourse; the stereotypical black genre of music is on the polar end of guilt and self-abasement)
This is not what the studies show. The studies show they have higher self-esteem than Whites. And just purviewing their culture, their culture is based in pride. Insecure White people listen to music filled with insecure melancholy and groaning &etc. Blacks have no such custom. They are like totally different birds with different birdsong traditions.
Is this not their temperament, just like East Asians in America are more socially meek on average? East Asians have a certain social low-itiness to them; they are less aggressive in demands and are never expected to be Given That (whatever that is). If you mess up their Waffle House order they will very meekly ask if their order was correct. Blacks appear to have the opposite of what East Asians have.
And isn’t this actually great, in a way? If you were designing a race with a lower IQ, you would want them to have high pride to buffer against their low status, and you’d want them to be a little bit less sensitive to the higher social emotions. So it’s not even a bad thing, strictly speaking, it’s just that the never-ending compassion and guiltprone-ness of Whites has misinterpreted the whole situation.
Do the most progressive locales also have the most open zoning/housing to allow the most diverse group of people around them (and their kids)? The common accusation is that they don't but I can see it going either way, if you consider places like NY.
Is this contradictory? Narcissism - as you called it - is excessive self-pride cloaking a sense of insecurity. And you can probably think of jingoistic peoples who claim to be superior to everyone yet lash out with incredible fragility once they're made to feel small. Off the top of my head: Muslims have never reconciled themselves to being a third world religion and no longer ruling large parts of the known world. They're both supposedly super important and prone to whining like any colonial victim when they're made fun of.
This is at least partially a cultural thing.
I'm from Africa: I don't think we suffered from depression about our straits but the sorts of arguments that African-Americans make - that white people have a sort of fraught relationship with black people because black girl magic makes them feel insecure but they also like the music so they can't get rid of them, that wypipo don't know how to cook compared to blacks, or that everyone is secretly or not so secretly obsessed with black people - weren't really made. We were quite well aware of our lower place on the socioeconomic and geopolitical totem pole.
Older people especially would just bluntly say that white people were just better at a lot of things (sometimes in a negative way - there was a stereotype that wypipo were blunter/more honest), us younger generations just considered that sort of thing old-fashioned and slightly embarrassing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link