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 -
Far Right HBD Civil War
Bronze Age Pervert recently xeeted on what he believes in the current infeasibility of HBD politically:
This was controversial with numerous pundits amongst the different spheres of the Right: with Woods, Winegard, and Fuentes having opposing views.
I think the question of politically feasibility of HBD is a point of discussion, in addition to—perhaps more interestingly—the timing of the xeet by Bronze Age Pervert—wat means? Is HBD the path forward? In the chaos of the Isreal-Hamas war and the current anti-woke backlash, is the vitalist Right looking to make themselves more palatable?
BAP's point is that some people on the right imagine that "if HBD awareness goes 'mainstream', racial spoils systems will end", when in reality racial spoils and denial of HBD are only tangentially connected.
It would be quite easy to have both widespread awareness of HBD and racial spoils systems like affirmative action, because the primary point of these systems is to distribute resources (like well-paid sinecures, social status, political influence) between groups. It's actually a very classically liberal viewpoint to believe that meritocracy must be absolute and that everything should be distributed based solely on talent.
EDIT: As @Ioper says below, this misunderstands the central progressive impulse, which is the drive toward equality. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" is a direct rejection of the idea that talent should be rewarded with a superior quality of life.
And the global viewpoint suggests this, because many nations far beyond the WEIRD bubble practice affirmative action widely even though DEI politics isn't dominant there. Hindu nationalists practice it, the CCP practices it, the Brazilians and Nigerians practice it. Sure, global homogenization is a thing, but in many cases these policies exist for much more mundane reasons than high-minded progressive equality politics, like reducing the chance of explosive civil conflicts.
There's a delusional fantasy among some rightists that if only the (white) public "knew" about HBD, the wool would fall from their eyes and they'd instantly adopt conservative positions on a wide range of policies. In reality, leftist ideas are much more resilient than that. They can justify affirmative action, reparations and so on in countless other ways, and in some cases already have.
Affirmative action for scheduled castes/scheduled tribes in India predates the US Civil Rights Movement. More generally, racial/communitarian spoils systems are at least as old as democracy - Swiss language politics is one of the oldest examples.
More options
Context Copy link
Well yes, common knowledge of HBD would make the case for affirmative action stronger- lots of institutions are firmly committed to blacks having equal outcomes, regardless of abilities.
And it’s not unreasonable that a multiracial democracy is very concerned about this- you know and I know that the black-white gap isn’t going away. I know that if alien space bats come and raise the black average IQ to 100 the gap won’t go away. But this is a democracy with equal rights; 13% of the population, in some cases a local majority, being consistently very upset is a bad thing.
Why would it do that?
HBD's big revelation is that the problem with black people IS black people...
Why would it result in stronger affirmative action instead of a return to Pre-Civil Rights segregation like every single liberal insists it would, and pre-civil rights Americans concluded was necessary back when they believed in a folk-version of HBD?
Most likely outcome of HBD being widely believed by white americans would be a hot ethnic conflict which whites would win followed by the same solution they settled upon after reconstruction... if not something more punitive for making them fight the ethnic conflict.
White america no longer has the assabiyah to do that, of course. Technically it never did; southern whites had the assabiyah and there weren’t big enough black communities elsewhere.
They’ll pay the tribute for peace.
What is your age?
anyone over 35 doesn't get this.
All I hear from young white men is that they 100% WANT things to go hot mixed with fedposting that if it doesn't kick off they'll make it happen... AI Researchers, Corporate figures, Military Officers, 7 figure Engineering wunderkinds... the last repositories of talent in America... they're just waiting for the very last of the aging leadership to leave and things to start really failing
Every white boy who went through DEI and feminist consent lectures as a child... all the exceptional ones who landed on their feet... they swore bloody vengeance.
All the talented white kids who experienced wokeness in high school or university ( lived through the struggle sessions complete with threats to destroy their lives when they objected) now feels their ethnicity as keenly as the most apocalyptic nationalists in the early 20th century.
The moderates i speak to don't worry there won't be an explosion... they're terrified of how far it will go.
I’m 27 and a Texan homeowner in a working class, mixed white-Hispanic neighborhood in an r+25 suburb of Fort Worth. I’ve never been screamed at for being white and yes, I have sat through diversity/social justice awareness lectures. Casual racism is common in young white men but fedposting is rare, and this is Texas where the red tribe hates the blue tribe(and Vice versa) and would rather deal with Hispanics than HR cat ladies.
More options
Context Copy link
As Amadan said, most young white men don’t remotely have the hatred for minorities that would be true for that to be the case.
And the reason men under 35 are hotheaded isn’t issue specific but general, since almost all men mellow with age.
More options
Context Copy link
That's quite a claim. All of them, really?
I know this is what you hope and dream of, but no, most "white men under 35" in America are not slobbering for a race war with the eagerness of Palestinian martyr brigades. (A comparison I use intentionally - places like Palestine are where you'll find the closest thing to the mentality you speak of, and even they aren't that unified in their bloodlust.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What do you mean by this?
Black outcomes are driven mostly by their own bad decisions, with some generational effects. There’s a tendency to fetishize the IQ gap, but the reality is there’s cultural reasons for much of it. And ‘making blacks smarter’ won’t fix the bad culture.
It was demonstrated even in the Bell Curve, that controlliing for IQ, most outcome gaps between blacks and whites go away.
Would the alien space bats which increase black IQ by 15 points also change their personality traits? Given that US blacks speak same language and have same religion as whites, culture would start to converge pretty fast.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
At the same time, some of the motivation is because they think that affirmative action makes it more meritocratic, or that they think it is needed to remedy past oppression (and once disparities disappear, we can drop it). Either, it is supposed to reflect how past systemic racism has hurt underperforming groups, or it is to break the system and stop it from hurting those groups in the future, making it even.
If this were more well known, it would become harder to do either of those. Disparities would no longer be thought to be due to systemic racism (well, except that this view would be painted as a variety of racism by many), and there would no longer be the hope of changing it merely by rewarding the underperforming to push them into a different socioeconomic status.
More options
Context Copy link
Equal rights or equal outcomes, pick only one.
More options
Context Copy link
Demonizing the largest demographic and screwing them over doesn't seem to be an obstacle in a democracy. If black Americans weren't told to be upset and if society didn't care that much if they were or weren't upset, it would matter less. And they would be less upset.
They are plenty of upset now, even though they are beneficiaries of systematic discrimination and propaganda in their favor. Tolerating this level of entitlement is and inciting anger is in fact what is especially bad in a democracy. And as the goal of the democracy ought to be the common good, it is also a bad idea to promote as you do the legitimacy of said entitlement of various specific groups. It should be considered a failure state of a democracy if a coalition or alliance of identities mistreat the rest. Especially the majority.
The reality there are a lot of cyclical arguements that their source and bottom is that coalition of progressive and ethnic activists captured power and promoted their ideas in favor of their favorite groups. The pervasiveness of these arguments has to do with movements that pushed them, and before they pushed them, there was less black entitlement and in fact you even had once white Americans rioting for films having black actors in them and things like that. If society could transform from that direction, to the current one which in your mind having such prejudices is a way to keep the peace, then it can be changed again but in a more reasonable end.
So, either one agrees with their perspective and will always find an excuse to not make such groups unhappy. Or they actually reject treating blacks and other demographics as utility monsters. The right should promote not only HBD but also the idea that there should be no special treatment and entitlement for blacks, and try to use power to bring that into fruition.
However, I do think that certain black problems deserve special attention in a manner that is de facto redistributive. Well, to the extend you do have race blind welfare that isn't excesive, they would be beneficiaries as they are now, even without any AA type of policies in societies. And to the extend the police should have to deal more with black criminality, they also would disproportionately be beneficiaries as greater % victims of black crime. Obviously there would be less spending if there was less criminality by blacks. I think it is fair for them to benefit in these ways, but also to acknowledge that they are a community that is beneficiaries of society, and ought not be upset. Which would be more the case if things are framed in the right way and they aren't told they are owed what they in fact are not owed. We would find that punishing criminals, and discouraging entitlement works actually to stop the problems of black anger.
And the police should focus on high crime areas of course. But what about disproportionately black criminals? I care about victims of crime, not the deserving punishment of criminals. And the entitled mentality of a black community to the extend they make unreasonable demands and have a false view of the world and the left wing activists who played some role in inluencing them shouldn't be respected. The goal is as elites have done in democracy towards the left, to actually enforce what you want and change the attitudes as well. Just as the laws were in that direction and Black community leaders were more pro tough on crime in the 90s.
A necessary part of that should be liberals losing influence, and conservatives and tough on crime types taking power and promoting their views and agenda outright, while promoting as black community leaders those who go along. So there is no choice but to play the game of power and promote your own different narrative. You aren't really in opposition to the left wing project if you can't do that and instead favor preferential treatment for groups like blacks, so they aren't upset.
Does this mean that HBD is insufficient? Well yes, and no. Most of the people promoting HBD also want to counter the left's narrative on race and oppose discrimination in favor of left wing groups. The reality is those who want to be liked by the left and share with it their way of viewing the world are unlikely to promote HBD, although some might promote only HBD for Jews and talk about how they are high IQ. This combination of HBD and opposing the left's ideology is a narrative more intellectually successful in opposing the left than if you removed HBD from it.
While theoretically, you could have people who talk about HBD and support AA, in practice it is a rare combo. You do have some who support HBD and align with the left in other ways though.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What I notice is that this delusional fantasy is shared by many, possibly most, leftists as well, which is what many of them say justifies the immense amount of censorship efforts to prevent HBD from being an acceptable thought. But as you say, leftist ideas are resilient, and it always struck me as both as naive and as counterproductive. Naive because it it takes the most simplistic idea of something like "if people realized people of [race] were more genetically predisposed to [bad behavior], then of course that would lead to more bigotry and racial hatred and dehumanizing of people of [race]" without actually doing the sociological research required to justify such a belief. And counterproductive, because it creates the false notion that the correctness of leftist ideas are contingent on some empirical reality about genetics, leaving those ideas open to appear to be falsified by facts about genetics coming out. And for what gain? None as far as I can tell, since leftist ideas actually aren't contingent upon HBD being false.
Is sociological research really needed, beyond the examples of history? I'm reminded of a piece from "crunchy con" religious right-winger Rod Dreher where he first acknowledged that HBD — he specifically singled out Steve Sailer — is probably correct, scientifically; but then argued that we, as a society, must pretend it is not, actively censor it, and maintain instead a "noble lie" (Dreher explicitly called it that) of egalitarian blank-slatism, because it's "proven" that human beings simply 'can't handle the truth.' The proof being the Jim Crow South and, of course, 1930's Germany.
I seem to remember ame_damnee back at the old place once making a similar argument in response to someone asking whatever happened to 'the pursuit of excellence.' To draw attention to "excellence" would also draw attention to it's lack, and that, it was argued, automatically and inevitably leads to people donning jackboots and building death camps. Again, "the Mid-Century Germans," as some like to euphemize, are all the proof necessary to show what happens when the egalitarian veil receives the slightest puncture.
(Meanwhile, this ignores that the bulk of settled societies throughout human history were quite inegalitarian and believed in hereditary differences, without descending into coercive or genocidal projects of eugenic "improvement." For example, it's hard to find a philosophy more hierarchical and inegalitarian than Confucianism, but AIUI when eugenics came to China, the (greatly weakened) Confucians were pretty much in opposition. And in the West, the now-deleted third verse of "All Things Bright and Beautiful" persisted enough in cultural memory that I remember once hearing it performed in a Bob Hope movie. So there's something more needed beyond just "people are born different" to get to "therefore we must exterminate the lower orders.")
As Neema Parvini said in his New Years stream, the core of the dominant ideology of the present day is that we're still fighting Hitler, if only 'the little Hitler inside each of us.' Letting people "realize people of [race] were more genetically predisposed to [bad behavior]" led to Nazi's once, and we all swore "never again." So what more social science is needed beyond that?
This is my core objection, that this isn't what led to Nazis. I don't believe the Nazis' rise to power in Germany was due to scientists dispassionately admitting to a populace that has only ever lived in a Western society of egalitarianism that they are forced to conclude something that they didn't expect or at least know to be true before they did the research, that there are different distributions in important traits such as intelligence when analyzing different groups of people, grouped by what we refer to as "race." I think it was closer to telling people that the Sciencetm proves that those people you already despise really are despicable. Which is far more similar to modern idpol than to HBD, which is one of the main reasons I reject idpol so much, though even then I wouldn't go as far as to censor them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There’s an important distinction here between the fantasies of “if people realized” and “if people believed”. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a leftist who espoused the former.
Regardless, beliefs about race can and will be used to justify racial animus. Historically, this has happened with phrenology, linguistics, sociology, geography, comparative religion, and especially intelligence. Why would this time be different?
It probably wouldn't. But justifying racial animus isn't the same thing as causing acts of racial animus to happen but for that justification being as available as it is, or the same thing as causing acts of racial animus to be, on net or in sum, greater than if that justification were not as available. And when a claim is that this idea is so dangerous as to justify censorship, I see it as necessitating at least the former, if not the latter in order to support. Notably, I don't think I've seen any historical examples that look similar to where entire generations of people were force-fed egalitarianism since a young age and then were told that the weight of the data has forced scientists to acknowledge that the distributions of certain traits, including intelligence, are different between various groups of people that we already group together in the class of "race" (as well as "sex"). They always appear to be some variation of where people were already living in what is basically the historical default, i.e. under the belief that different races of people are fundamentally different in a way that makes egalitarianism more of a punchline to a joke than an idea worth serious consideration, and justifying that pre-existing supremacist view by finding convenient pieces of information in science.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There are people right now calling for policies leftists don't like and/or consider racist (restricting immigration, cutting welfare, harsher crime punishment). Some of those people (Murray) have explicitly linked these things to their take on HBD. But, even without them, you can easily connect the dots because history didn't start yesterday and none of these arguments are new.
In terms of political intuitions people continue to hold without strong empirical backing...this doesn't seem that egregious.
Sure, but policies that we don't like or even consider racist is different from "bigotry, racial hatred, or dehumanizing," because we had to expand the definition of "racist" in order to categorize things like "restricting immigration, cutting welfare, harsher crime punishment" within it. So that's just a whole different category of things.
People keep saying this, but every time I see the dots actually connected, I notice that the threads held there by sheer force of will rather than any sort of actual underlying connection.
As damning of political intuitions as this statement is, it's true. What gets me is that "not egregiously bad in a category of things known for being incredibly bad" is not the standard I want my side to live up to; in fact, I try to make it so that it's only because my side lives up to a higher standard than the other that I choose that side. One of those higher standards is one of epistemology; that the left is more correct than the right because we perceive the world more accurately than the right. Perceiving the world more accurately isn't a matter of believing more true things like "the Earth is closer to 4 billion years than 6,000 years old" but rather about the process by which we discriminate between what is true and what is false. And if we're willing to say that this bit of political intuition is a high enough bar to censor HBD, then that calls into question our epistemic standards in general, which calls into question my belief that ours is actually the better side.
Both things can be true: the Left could be prone to expanding the definition of racist and "black people are just dumber" is generally seen as racist for a reason.
And yes, I've heard all of the alternate phrasings (X million blacks are smarter than the average white, people as individuals) . It just doesn't play well for a reason. I think there's a general discomfort with "X is (irremediably) stupid", which combines quite well (or badly) with "blacks are less intelligent". People do see worth in intelligence (and success in the market), its absence matters.
Because, not too long ago, all forms of segregation and dehumanizing talk were justified using these very arguments? Not just "cut welfare that encourages single parent homes" but literally "we can't live around these people because they're prone to degeneracy and violence" (and not always put that politely). This isn't hypothetical, is it?
To me this is like living in post-Christian Rome where exposing babies has been banned for decades and is now taboo. Some people start using the exact same arguments as the exposers used to, but insist nothing that bad will happen this time. In fact, they're offended you'd think they are like those people and annoyed you won't take them at their word that, after you strip fetuses and children of their ensouled status, nothing will change and the status quo that was born out of an explicit rejection of their ideas will continue.
To hear tell, the connections are just paranoiacs connecting dots
I never said anything about censorship, just that the reaction is not some doeish naivete. Quite the opposite.
I don't see what this statement has to do with anything, since the policies we don't like or even consider racist has nothing to do with "black people are just dumber."
I don't see what this has to do with anything either. Sure, it doesn't play well. It doesn't then follow that if this kind of information became common knowledge, then that would cause greater racial hatred or the like.
This is what I mean by sheer force of will. First of all, no, they weren't using these very arguments; they were using claims about fact that were similar to the facts that are being claimed now. Arguments are something different altogether. But either way, whether or not these forms of segregation, dehumanizing talk, and, let's be honest, plenty of straight-up murder and genocide, were justified by such arguments doesn't answer the question of whether or not more such bad behavior were caused due to the availability of such arguments.
When I say the dots have no actual underlying connection, this is what I mean; I see societies that were already extremely racist projecting their racism onto science and taking out what they wish. Despite the best efforts of many people, our current Western society has largely based itself around egalitarianism, as imperfectly as it may be.
I think the strongest argument to be made about this is that our egalitarianism is imperfect, and there's plenty of latent and not-so-latent racism hanging around, and HBD being available can "activate" that latent racism and exacerbate it. This would have to be weighed against the value we get from HBD in explaining phenomena more accurately which also help to reduce the rates of racist acts. The calculus on this can never be properly done, but I can see how someone would be convinced that, on net, this would cause more racism than less, and perhaps also worse racism or pushing society in general into a more racist direction, to the extent that censorship is justified. I would disagree vehemently and believe that the person has far too high an opinion of their ability to do this kind of moral calculus, but it's a defensible position. It's not the position I hear from the overwhelming majority of people who want to suppress HBD, sadly, who seem to overwhelmingly just poo-poo the idea that HBD, even if true, could have any sort of positive influences whatsoever.
My original comment was about leftists believing that HBD is so dangerous as to justify censorship of it, so that's the context I was writing into. Maybe it's not doeish naivete, I don't know and I honestly don't care. I think the reaction is naive, but likely more hawkish than doeish, to mix metaphors. If we're not talking about censorship, then I don't know what the conversation is; do you agree with me that it would be better if people on the left didn't believe that HBD was an idea that was dangerous to an extent to justify censorship of it?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Leftists are perennially terrified of rightists, though, it's one of those eternal political dynamics. The right should be more scared of the left, but the opposite happens because the left is more neurotic and sees fascist takeovers as a constant possibility that requires extreme vigilance and action to avoid; the right often becomes complacent in power, the left often purity spirals.
That said, most progressives worried about HBD rhetoric aren't secretly worried it's actually true. Some are, Ezra Klein is probably one of them, but most believe it actually is racist pseudoscience or whatever.
I've bloviated on this before, so I won't go into it too much, but I have been saddened by the fact that the left sees fascist takeovers as a constant possibility that requires extreme vigilance and action to avoid and then didn't come to the obvious conclusion that this vigilance must be primarily directed at ourselves, rather than our perceived enemies, because obviously if we are won over by fascism, it will be in a form that we are biased towards, rather than biased against. When I was a youth, there was a pretty well known saying, that "If fascism comes to the United States, it will be wrapped in an American flag," or some variation of the like. This sort of thinking, unfortunately, seems to have led people to thinking that detecting fascism is about detecting the American flag or similar concepts and symbols, rather than the actual point of the line, which is that fascism will be wrapped up in [something we are predisposed to like], with the American flag merely being the example at the time (the culture in which I grew up treated the American flag as an object of derision 99% of the time, but I'm guessing the line was a carryover from the then-recently ended Cold War when the flag probably had higher status).
How do you distinguish vigilance from the more pedestrian infighting that comes from zero-sum status games? It’s possible to view every Bernie Bro, every college cancellation, every instance of a snake eating its own tail as the noble policing of establishment tendencies. Or you can be more cynical, and assume that anything and everything is just signaling; the radical is merely adapting to a different ecological niche, and once he has cleared out the old guard, he will set down roots and promptly become an authoritarian. Realistically, the truth has to be somewhere in between. Sometimes freedom fighters are grifters, and sometimes they’re painfully sincere.
I guess I’m asking—what sort of evidence would make you think “the left” is actually concerned with fascism from the ingroup?
This is a fair point, and certainly it's possible to interpret those in that way, but my perspective is that it's usually easy to distinguish between self-vigilance and pedestrian infighting by observing how the status of oneself or one's own preferred ideology would be affected. Which is to say, if you're not pushing in the direction that leaves you more open to having your status lowered, then you're not applying that vigilance to yourself, you're applying that vigilance to someone else.
For instance, with college cancellations, when Middlebury students mobbed Charles Murray and the professor who invited him to give the guest lecture in one of the earlier high profile cases a lifetime ago now, were those students doing so with the belief that, through their actions, they would be challenging own sets of beliefs, i.e. most likely what we call modern social justice, CRT, idpol, "woke," etc.? Perhaps things played out that way in a certain point of view, but I would argue that it's clear that their vigilance was directed at an "other," i.e. the Murrays of the world who have beliefs about scientific inquiry regarding hereditary differences in intelligence that conflict with their own, not at "themselves," i.e. the people who believe that Murray giving a talk in some official college capacity (unrelated to The Bell Curve, IIRC - I think it was about his more recent book Coming Apart?) would cause harm.
To use a made-up example, if Ibram X Kendi came out and said that he's worried about how people buying into his lessons - and not in the "oh they're misinterpreting it and applying it wrong" kind of way - could lead to a tyrannical (perhaps not literally fascistic) society in which, say, individuals are forced to submit to others based purely on what races they belong to, and as such, he's pushing forward research to figure out these potential harms and how to mitigate them, this would appear to be vigilance towards oneself. Arguably, this would raise his status and that of his ideology, but that would be done by changing his ideology to a better one through corrective actions; the unchanged one would lose status as that older ideology that we no longer use, because we have a better, fixed one now.
On the other hand, if Kendi came out and said that he's worried about how the Democratic party isn't taking his scholarship seriously enough and, as such, they could inadvertently allow the latent white supremacy of the party to recreate Jim Crow in 21st century America or the like, that would appear to be obviously infighting between two different parts of the left. If Kendi got his way in this fictional example, the result wouldn't be that his preferred ideology gets attacked, damaged, and rebirthed into a better version of itself, it would be a peer ideology that did that, while his own just gained more status by becoming more influential in a powerful institution.
I do think there must be edge cases, and there's probably no simple binary test to check, but in most cases, it's not all that ambiguous.
I’ll agree that in most cases, it’s not ambiguous. It is a much cheaper and easier signal to take shots at the outgroup, so we see more of that.
I find the threshold you describe to be overly restrictive. Consider excommunication, where a heretic is explicitly removed from ingroup membership. Even if none of the ingroup are criticized, I’d consider this to be self-vigilance or self-policing, because the alternative is a tacit endorsement.
The political analogy would be—say a major California Democrat suddenly espoused National Socialism. You’d expect a huge scandal. Loss of support from the DNC, cancelled donations, scathing op-eds. It’d be safe to say that the target is a former Democrat rather than a current one. He has been moved to the outgroup. Democrats, then, aren’t criticizing their own. They aren’t taking a risk with their status, either; this is strictly safer and more politically valuable than continuing to endorse the guy. And yet, I’d still describe this action as self-vigilant.
For a more realistic example, look at the Hillary/Bernie split, which featured accusations that Hillary was a DNC stooge. That was obviously status-jockeying, because the two blocs were at odds, and only one could actually get the candidacy. Competition between peer ideologies. But it was also exactly what you’d expect from healthy ideological vigilance within the general category of Democrats. Now the risks are aligned. It’s exactly the kind of situation you describe with Kendi, where personal preference is risked to strengthen the overall project.
These are scenarios where peer competition on one scale parses as self-policing on the higher level. I think that’s true whenever the marketplace of ideas is working as intended. I’ll go as far as to say this is usually true within the United States! It’s just so adaptive as long as you’re trying to win the next competition up. Me vs. my brother, me and my brother vs. the Hillaryites, me and the Hillaroids vs. the Republicans, me and America vs. the world.
I think in your made-up example, the relevant detail is that it was Nazism, an openly fascistic ideology, that the California Democrat was espousing, rather than that this was a case of excommunicating a heretic. But also, I wouldn't really describe that as "vigilance," though trivially it is, I suppose. When I think about some group of people being "vigilant" in watching out for the rise of fascism, I'm thinking of behavior that's beyond just noticing someone saying "I'm a fascist" and telling them, "Okay, bye."
I don't think there's a "general case" of excommunication of heretics, but I'd say that, very very imprecisely speaking, it seems unlikely to be aiding in vigilance against one's own ideology turning towards fascism, because detecting heretics tends to involve checking if someone is sufficiently submitting to whatever ideology our team likes and then expelling them if they fall short, which is the type of behavior more in-line with fascists than against them. But the specific details matter way too much to say more than that.
In terms of the IRL example, I do agree that what we saw in 2016 was evidence of some sort of ideological vigilance within the Democratic party (dunno if it was "healthy" given that we lost - but without it, perhaps Trump would've won in a landslide instead of merely edging by?). I do think the left in general and the Democratic party in particular has its share of such forms of vigilance, and I'd even guess that it does it better than the right and the Republican party, though my judgment is too biased to be meaningful in that regard.
But when it comes to being vigilant against fascism, I don't think something like "this big tent ideology that I and almost half the electorate follow have lots of sub-ideologies that are in healthy competition with each other" really counts as such vigilance, since that's largely a consequence of the mostly free society and culture in which we live, rather than a specific way to manage the ideology or party. Rather, it's about watching for the ideas that you specifically like and you specifically believe will bring forth a better future; because, for you, it's that ideology that is your metaphorical "American flag" that will wrap up the fascism that you will inadvertently push and bring forth.
If a Bernie Bro (which I was in 2016) said, "By pushing for Bernie to defeat Hillary in the primaries, I am being vigilant about fascism taking over the USA, because this is part of the healthy ideological diversity within our Democratic party by having multiple competing factions attacking one another," I would consider that deluded. That's not vigilance, that's just plain old picking a side, which is perfectly cromulent but not much more*. If he said, "I'm pushing for Bernie, but I'm concerned that if he does gain power, all the great ideas that I want him to implement will lead us towards fascism in ways that I and all his supporters didn't anticipate, and so when Hillary or Trump call him out, I'll listen and investigate," I would consider that at least a significant meaningful gesture towards maintaining vigilance against fascism.
* I think there's a version of this which is vigilance against fascism; if someone with control over the DNC pushed to make it so Bernie and the other underdogs of the world had a better shot, so as to increase the viciousness of within-party competition of ideologies, that seems to be a form of vigilance against fascism. Perhaps even in the case that it's just a DNC voter who is ambivalent about the choice but errs towards Bernie because they figure that bringing up an underdog will help to prevent ossification of ideas within the party. This would have to be balanced against the possibility of allowing an uber-charismatic
TrumpHitler-like figure coming in and stealing the party from under us, which is the kind of thing you would expect to lead more towards fascism, but the opposite could be the case, of course, and the specific details likely matter a great deal here.More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Given the sizable fractions of Western electorates who, based on their placement on a social-axis-vs.-economic-axis "political compass," would likely vote for "fascism" if given the opportunity, why shouldn't they hold this view?
There’s more than a few problems with using political compass (memes or otherwise) as a proxy for fascist support. Sampling bias, for starters, but also “skin in the game” and ability to pattern-match. Cheering for fascist aesthetics on Twitter won’t necessarily translate to votes.
I’d expect very low real-world support for an openly fascist candidate. The American cultural memory is so instinctively against it.
I'm not talking about aesthetics, or an "openly fascist candidate," I'm talking about, on the "social axis"/"economic axis" plane, that even though we hear a lot from the "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" libertarian quadrant, that is actually the quadrant with the smallest fraction of the electorate, and there are a lot more voters in the (opposing) Fascist quadrant.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I agree that Leftist politics doesn't depend on ignorance of HBD at all. The cornerstone is inequality, not racial spoils.
I imagine very large parts of the left would be very happy if we could get away from the toxic racial spoils stuff and just focus on inequality and helping the unfortunate, regardless of race.
Radical inate equality rhetoric helps the right, not the left since it's so obviously untrue and leads to giving resources to the privileged members of favoured groups instead of the actually unprivileged. It also helps justify inequality in general.
I agree, it's upsetness at perceived inequality. The best example is classical Marxism. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" explicitly rejects the idea that difference in ability can ever morally lead to inequality in material living standards. That is the baseline. Litigating HBD vs "culture" or whatever is immaterial.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
His point goes much further than that. I agree with this part of his statement, but the part the DR takes issue with is when he says "Only a myth of race blindness is workable." In fact, the myth of race blindness is what has itself proven to be unworkable. It is a myth that is so recent and so destructive. The idea we cannot move past this myth, at least in an esoteric form among elites, is just absurd.
He is correct that red-pilling the normies on HBD isn't a silver bullet. But the point is we need some other myth than race blindness, a better one. A myth that is more in accordance with reality and pro-civilizational and even, dare I say, inclusive on some level. There are definitely some HBD nerds on the DR that think it's a silver bullet. But the better contingents of the DR recognize that HBD reality is more of a motivating force for why we need better myths to congeal society.
This also shows that certain people in the DR like Keith Woods and Nick Fuentes were correct to publicly point out that BAP is a Jew last year. Now that he is overtly pushing the race blindness for white gentiles and ethnic nationalism for Jews card, it's another notch in the belt of the DR showing its model of the world panning out.
Nobody should be surprised that a Jewish nude body-builder larping as a Nietzschean fascist, at the end of the day, really wants race blindness for the white gentiles and ethnic nationalism for the Jews.
I had the exact same thought. Color-blindness could work for whites and asians, and maybe even hispanics, but it has been soundly rejected by blacks and, from what I can see in Canada, indians (no, the other indians). It's not up to me to say whether color-blindness is the way forward, it's on the populations that have rejected it, and because they have rejected it, I cannot maintain it as a goal or ideal any longer.
More options
Context Copy link
The point seems to be that the 'myth' of race blindness is not the central principle of the political left. It's a temporal feature of parts of the left in diversifying western countries. But it's not central - as the shift from focusing on 'equality of opportunity' to 'equity [of outcome]' suggests.
The idea of the most famous modern leftist meme on race - remember this one? - is that only equality of outcome, 'to each according to need' matters. And equality of outcome renders the discussion of causes of inequality largely irrelevant. It could be evil capitalists, or racists, or patriarchy, or HBD, or guns, germs and steel, or some other cultural cause; it's not important, for the left only the 'correction' of these inequalities is important, whatever their cause. The right, whether it's against communists in a homogenous country or against progressives in a diverse one, must make the argument that inequality itself is just, because 'equality' - in whatever form - is perverse, empty, and ugly.
Alamariu isn't rejecting white particularism or supporting mass immigration (or at least it doesn't seem like he is, that would be a pretty big shift), he's saying that basing that particularism on a perceived or real hereditarily higher white intelligence (when compared to some, but not all, other racial groups) is flawed. It doesn't have a powerful cultural message, and is only likely to annoy the many whites who have productive and friendly relations with lower performing minorities. Perhaps most damningly, it would expose far more of the public to the fact that Jews and Asians really are more successful than whites in many fields for genetic reasons, which is part of why many antisemitic wignats spend a lot of time online trying to disprove the substantial body of evidence that suggests Ashkenazim are around 2/3 of a standard deviation smarter than gentile whites.
And most importantly, it doesn't actually alter the political conversation in the US. The American right already has a compelling argument against mass immigration for reasons of culture, economics, language, crime and so on - that's why Trump won. And the problems with crime in the ghetto in St Louis or Chicago or Baltimore won't be solved by 'awareness' of HBD either, they're due to much more mundane issues with policing, sentencing, and the way that criminal justice is dispensed in liberal cities. American conservatives dislike illegal immigration from Central America anyway, what they need is a conservative political elite capable of solving the issue, not one focused on litigating what exactly is responsible for why second generation Salvadorans don't go into software engineering at the same rate as Asians.
Just as an aside, my interpretation of the studies I've seen was that ashkenazim had a higher verbal IQ but lower visual intelligence, and these differences were largely caused by the same alleles which are responsible for a lot of the sphingolipid disorders that are so prevalent in the community.
The argument made by the more intelligent nationalists I've seen is that the Askhenazim IQ curve isn't so far ahead of the white curve as to explain the disparities in outcome (the gentile population is so much larger that there are more gentiles at just about every point on the IQ spectrum), and that jewish nepotism plays a big role in their overrepresentation in a lot of areas. I think this is fairly plausible, not the least because you can point to actual specific instances of this kind of nepotism and discrimination in regular life - see Ivy league admissions offices penalising applicants for rural activities and jewish overrepresentation in admissions offices.
More options
Context Copy link
BAP is saying that a right-wing ethos has to be race-blind because it's the "only workable myth." But where does he think this myth came from? It is very recent, it was never believed at any other point in human history, it certainly wasn't believed in the United States or Europe during the peak of its civilizational advancement. Right now it is hard to imagine moving past that myth, but BAP is trying to steer the right wing away from exiting the orbit of that myth. It's subversive.
I agree that exiting the orbit of that myth is not a substitute for creating a better myth or having that influence gain traction among elite influencers, but it's certainly a prerequisite.
I agree, but it's a false dichotomy to pretend that the only two options are IQ worship and race-blindness. The Romans had a racial-mythos that oriented society. It was not race-blind, but it also did not constantly harp on IQ statistics. BAP saying that embracing race blindness is the only alternative to HBD evangelism is ridiculous. The Roman system was HBD evangelism without any statistics. HBD denial was likewise not established by statistics and charts but by myths.
So BAP saying the right has to accept the race-blind myth, despite its failures, is subversive.
That's an overstatement, one minor youtuber tried to take that on but it was widely panned.
I also do not see that fact as damning, as I am not an IQ-worshipper. All that matters is the advancement of civilization, that's the only contest that matters. Jews can test and finagle their way into Aryan civilization and Aryan institutions, but don't kid yourself into thinking income and accolades constitute a higher "achievement" than the people that built the civilization and core institutions which are hosting you. Not many Europeans are clamoring to be accepted into institutions in Asia or Israel or to assimilate into Asian Civilization or (lol) Jewish Civilization. It's the other way around.
Greece, Rome, the British Empire, the United States... The genetic substrate for civilizational achievement, and by the same token civilizational decline, is the actual important insight of accepting HBD, but so many get stuck in the local optimum of only caring about IQ and economic outcomes.
I think it's silly to say the argument is compelling when it is the argument that has been presented throughout the course of the most radical peacetime demographic transformation in human history. Those arguments are obviously not compelling.
I've already granted that HBD awareness won't solve the problems you describe. What it ought to do is inspire intelligent, high-agency people to search for a better mythos. The subversive function of BAP is to try to redirect as many of those people as possible back into the Conservative "We are the real MLK equal opportunity dreamers" 'opposition' to progressivism.
Ok what’s your plan for winning elections on an pro-HBD platform where non-Whites are at least 40% of the electorate?
If you get rid of disparate impact and all the implicit and explicit subsidies that exist for non-Whites you can totally overturn much of the incentives that have been changing Western demographics without having to go and campaign on a platform that insults half the populace.
There’s a reason BAP followed up his tweets by talking about Kazakhstan and Fiji - both of which empower the native population without HBD as a basis for their actions.
No you can’t. You can probably boost white birthrates on the margins in the short term, but offering them a slightly higher percentage of college professorships because they don’t have to compete with affirmative action will not do this.
Well currently in the US we have more people entering the country via claiming asylum than are being born so that’s a good start there if you want to prevent demographic change.
But a presumably race blind society would also phase out things like subsidized small business loans for rich minorities like South Asians and East Asians which help crowd out majority owned small businesses, government contracting set-asides, DEI departments, affirmative action in the Civil Service, etc.
Yes, none(and I mean that completely literally; by the time they get to the US they’re economic migrants)of these people are real refugees, but even if they were deported immediately the US would still become (nonHispanic)white minority eventually. Gotta change the birthrates, and no one knows how to do that enough to take effect- and changing official discrimination will do even less.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's a LOT more affirmative action than a few professorships.
It was an illustrative example, but civil servants and professors- and other typical beneficiaries of AA- are not known for their tfr to begin with. My point was that increasing the percentage of whites in high status jobs is not going to boost their birthrate, which is what you need to do to have a whiter country going forwards. And changing small business loan conditions in their favor won’t either.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link