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 -
Well, I agree that if that were the prevailing view then my point about being worse on meritocracy would be much weaker. However, I do have a factual disagreement there---I think we all have a very strong cognitive bias to hyperfocus on racial differences over much more informative characteristics. For example, if you see another person walking on the street late at night in a somewhat sketchy area, I think the person's age, mannerisms, dress, etc. would give you much more information about whether you're in danger than if the person was white or black even though race is what everyone instinctually pays attention to first. If you don't correct for this bias---and maybe its so strong that you have to do something extreme like actively ignoring racial information all together---you won't get a very accurate picture of the world.
Furthermore, I think there is a real problem of people covertly arguing for policies that satisfy their actually anti-meritocratic racial preferences by exaggerating the evidentiary value of race, actively manipulating people through this cognitive bias. Part of this admitted paranoia is from extreme right-wingers explicitly saying that this is a deliberate strategy. Part of it is also since I just don't see how actually believing what the quoted comment claims can be consistent with opposition to skilled immigration---for example, Steve Bannon's stated policy preferences, which would be extremely bad for making sure the most competent people get the job:
Again, I was under the impression that Bannon is a pretty well-thought of figure here. Even worse, all attempts of mine of trying to ask here for non-racial reasons to oppose skilled immigration (to this Steve-Bannon extent) that aren't economic nonsense have been unpleasant failures.
On the left, we have DEI excesses and "extreme" affirmative action---i.e. going beyond just attempting to correct for bias that undervalues the qualifications of people in marginalized groups to make sure that institutions actually choose the most qualified candidates. However, I think this sort of extreme DEI or extreme affirmative action is very unpopular and gets shut down whenever it affects actual policy too much---like even in California affirmative action loses in elections.
On the right, you have Bannon/Miller-style drastic reductions in skilled immigration (I'll link this Cato article again). These do not get nearly as much pushback---Stephen Miller is still going to be one of the main influences on immigration policy if Trump wins in 2024. Furthermore, the right in the US is extremely deferential to inherited wealth. For example, cutting estate taxes seems to be one of the most important priorities of the republican party and I'm pretty sure if they were offered a chance to cut the top income tax bracket at the cost of raising estate taxes equivalently, they wouldn't take it.
I think both matter. If you saw a man at night walking with a suit and briefcase, you'd be less concerned about him, regardless of race, I image. But I could see myself being affected by race in some settings a little.
I guess I don't really have a good sense of how much people's positions are insincere.
Personally, I'm way more open to immigration than most on this board. So I suppose, per you, I'm consistent, though others are not.
But some possible non-racial reasons for preferring less immigration might be:
Now, I'm not sure how much those align with people's motivations, but I think the first three, at least, play a factor often. I think it's also coherent to be meritocratic within a country, but view foreign relations sufficiently attached to one's national identity that one dislikes cross-border meritocracy. I'll note in particular that opposition to immigration isn't always racial; when hispanics care about border security (I know some who do) it's not due to hating other hispanics or something.
I personally found keyhole solutions a pretty compelling consideration, even if it would be hard to pass politically, especially in a way that isn't going to immediately slippery-slope itself. Maybe I should write up a post on that sometime; that might draw some downvotes, but whatever.
Thanks for the Cato article (even though the headline is slightly misleading), that was informative.
I think you're drastically underestimating how common this extreme DEI is. In use at all colleges, well, at least before the supreme court decision a year or two ago, and probably still, slightly more surreptitiously, afterward. Legally required for all government contractors (a quarter of the economy). Offering things like scholarships restricted to minorities is routine, and, I believe, illegal. Yes, it is quite unpopular among the electorate, but it is popular among those who set policy. Given who governs in this country, I think the kind of affirmative action you describe is basically never necessary.
I guess I haven't personally seen any opposition to estate taxes in particular, rather than being generically anti-tax.
I agree with you that support of restricting immigration as a whole isn't incompatible with valuing meritocracy. While I definitely support increasing all immigration, this depends on lets just say many much less certain moral and factual beliefs---it's not really something I'm prepared to defend on a forum like this.
My specific claim here is that as far as I can tell, opposition to specifically legal, skilled immigration is blatantly incompatible with valuing meritocracy to the point where I think people claiming to hold these contradictory beliefs either haven't thought very carefully or are being disingenuous---usually making bad-faith arguments in support of policies motivated by either hidden anti-meritocratic racialist values or anti-meritocratic selfishness to protect themselves from competition at the cost of the rest of the country. I don't think any of the 4 reasons you gave contradict this, right? 1 is the closest, but I think that unless your definition of "American culture" includes most people looking white (in which case you're back in the racist camp), it's pretty easy to include ability to assimilate in your definition of skilled.
I also consider opposition to cross-border meritocracy just as bad as opposition to within-country meritocracy. The main benefit of meritocracy is to make sure that the most competent possible people are doing important jobs and both versions get in the way of this. I guess Bannon is basically admitting to this justification so at least he's not being disingenuous. There are of course lots of reasons to not like meritocracy---someone recently pointed out to me idea of having non-meritocratic "reserves" to be super careful about avoiding homogenization and keeping ineffable, hard-to-measure values from being optimized do death. However, engines of progress like Boston, NYC, or SF should not be these reserves.
This is why I feel that Bannon/Miller-style anti-skilled immigration beliefs being represented at the highest levels of the federal government is much more of a threat to meritocracy than DEI. I do however, have to address the other side of the comparison---I've spent a lot of time at universities in extremely liberal parts of the country and even the most extreme DEI people I ran across were very purely motivated by factual claims that DEI policies would lead to more meritocracy instead of less by counterbalancing systemic discrimination. In particular, they could be convinced away from many damaging policies---anti-standardized testing, anti-math acceleration, "gentrification" justifications for NIMBY, elite-college "holistic" affirmative action, etc.---by arguing these factual claims. Despite stereotypes of "woke" closed-mindedness, these discussions were also far more pleasant and polite than anything here that wasn't buried deep in reply chains (though caveat, my time was all in math departments, and many people here have pointed out that the situation may not be so rosy in other situations).
Checking for yourself how much a threat something is seems like much stronger evidence than relying on dueling cherry-picked media reporting from both sides. The comparison between discussions in my departments and posting here made the "which is worse" judgement feel very clear.
I suppose you are correct that opposition to immigration is incompatible with meritocracy, if meritocracy is understood as an absolute, rather than as a general value that can be overcome when there are other interests at play. (Which, to be fair, it is often understood as exclusive.) That is, people can want things to be more meritocratic generally speaking, without being committed to meritocracy in every respect.
I don't think 1 needs to be racial. Say you're concerned about socialism, or some other political matter, for example. Having immigrants who have similar values to you will help with that, and the opposite will harm that. (Though, maybe that isn't the best example at the moment given just how bad economic knowledge is, at least online.) But sure, if you include that as part of your definition of skilled, that's includes it, but is an unusual way to do so.
There are also possible non-meritocratic non-racial values, like if people care about the American people (the current set of people) more than foreigners.
I'll reiterate that I think I mostly agree with you, most of the above is a "people could believe…"
Yeah, I would expect math departments to be better in that regard.
I don't think those are a good comparison. You are taking a set of people selected mainly along an axis that is not political (people in math departments, maybe also other life acquaintances), and comparing them to people selected mainly along an axis that is political (willingness to engage on a forum that permits and contains fairly right-wing political opinions.) If those had the same concentration of extreme views, it would be concerning.
Perhaps you are saying that the people holding one set of ideas are worse than the other. Sure, fair enough, though I'd perhaps argue that you should compare here to some portions of reddit, rather than your IRL acquaintances. But in terms of real world impact, I think it should be indisputable that racism on the left currently has a far greater impact than racism on the right.
I think the crux here is that I'm really at a loss for a better way to make this judgement than what I described. I think we can both agree that trying to get a sense from media reporting is not really a good idea. The next level up in credibility is trusting anecdotal evidence from your own life experience. Mine have made the judgement very clear in one direction and assume yours have done the opposite. Again, anecdotes are pretty weak evidence, but I really do not have anything better to base my votes/political support on---it's not like there are good surveys or studies. I would actually really love to be convinced of your judgement. At the very least, it'll at least make the next election feel a lot better. Also, who knows, maybe I'll be cynical and burned by something and feel differently in 5 years---having to base these factual beliefs on personal anecdotes really sucks!
For the other points:
It's more natural when you think from the perspective of the policymaker deciding whether to let someone in or not. Maybe skilled is a bad word here---"merit based", or something else might be better where "merit" is some measure of how much you can "contribute" to the country by being competent at a difficult but important job, assimilating well and building community, not corrupting important values, etc. The upshot is there is are many, many potential immigrants around the world that most Americans should be delighted to have come over, especially given how popular western liberal values are everywhere.
Again, I think with the right selection, there should be lots people that benefit the country even if you just measure the benefit to current citizens. I'm going to risk being concrete---I think giving green cards to every international student graduating from a top-20 undergrad who passes a security clearance, English proficiency test, and civics/values interview should be a win-win for everyone who doesn't care about racial considerations.
Section 3:
I think I agree.
Section 2:
Merit is definitely a better word than skilled, that's more sensible.
Section 1:
So what I was trying to make clear is that left-wing racism seems to have much broader effects. With regard to college, people with SAT scores hundreds of points apart, but of different races, can have the same chance of admission. Jobwise, I have a rather strong impression that things like hiring policies are largely shaped by left-wing bureaucrats and HR departments who want more women and non-asian minorities, and fewer white people, asians, and men. Do you disagree with that?
This includes at the level of governmental enforcement. The civil rights act prevents discrimination; this has been redefined to include unintentionally disparity-causing practices, which is everything, but for some reason you never see enforcement actions who favor the left-favored groups a little too much.
Meanwhile, my perception of the racist right is that it's not the largest, and in large part online. But I'm not all that sure about this. But I can't see that having many real-life effects, they'd get sued and lose easily in any instances of blatant discrimination. I'm pretty sure that the suburban, middle-to-upper class, not-terminally-online right is fairly not-racist. I don't really know what things look like rurally. But even if they turn out to be more racist, which, I don't know that I expect, that matters less anyway, in terms of power wielded—important institutions exist in cities.
How does this compare to your perception?
Given all the complaints people have made here and in other places, the SAT data etc, I can't disagree that this likely seriously goes against value of the most qualified person getting the job in lots of cases.
However my experience in all highly-selective settings I've personally been in has been that DEI/affirmative action policies in practice didn't actually do this. Specifically, members of the groups that benefited from it were not on average less competent than those that didn't. On particular group of affirmative action beneficiaries, women in math, were actually consistently more competent on average (specifically they were completely absent from the lower tail in competence).
It lined up exactly with the steel-man justification of affirmative action---that it was a necessary corrective to un-meritocratic biases. I can definitely believe that this doesn't hold in less selective settings, but it still makes me skeptical about the true magnitude of its material impact on meritocracy. Actually, I wish people here would talk more about personal experience with anti-meritocratic outcomes of DEI of just focusing on whatever cherry-picked, hot news story happened recently---studies/good statistics > personal experience > media reporting
Conversely, I'm not just focusing on skilled immigration as a hypothetical here. I've had many very competent friends (including two literal IMO medalists!) who have had to leave the country because they couldn't get work visas. The anti-skilled-immigration policies that forced them out seemed to be a direct consequence of the---I'll use a slightly different word here to be more specific---hereditarianism on the right (which they're doubling down on if you saw the end of JD Vance's acceptance speech when he started talking about immigration and national identity). Sure, there are a lot of crazy extreme policy preferences online that don't have a chance of being implemented, but the underlying hereditarian ideals really do cause significant material harm.
Of course neither is good, but we don't get to pick none of the above.
Okay, I find it fairly believable that women who choose to go into math might have a higher floor. My sense is that the cliche that women like people more, men like things more, is, generally speaking, true, and accordingly, at an equivalent level of ability, differences in tastes would produce the effect you describe (under the simplistic model of people going into a field based on how much they like doing the thing combined with how good they are at it). I don't expect this would carry over more broadly, in other fields and with other groups? Surely a lot of the discrimination going on elsewhere is wrong?
I think I don't have a good enough picture of what harms you see affirmative action as repairing.
But let's consider this from a different angle. Instead of what we have been doing—looking at efficiency, or those discriminated against—now consider the social effects upon those in groups which have been favored. Now in their every achievement, their bosses, colleagues, customers—no one is quite sure whether they earned it, or whether they were merely the beneficiary, at least until they show themselves manifestly worthy. (And so racism becomes warranted.) And themselves, even. Should they not themselves hold a touch of skepticism as to whether they are the equals of their colleagues, whether they are there on the merits, until it be proven? Their social accreditation, whether that be degrees, whether that be hiring, whether that be accolades, whether that be promotion—all of this is of less probative value. Why infantilize these people in this way, instead of treating them as your fellow men? Why treat these people as tokens, rather than as equals?
Regarding immigration, I don't think it's quite hereditarianism (in that it's not necessarily racial, but rather in reference to set of American people). It's more nationalism. But point taken, immigration is a big deal.
I'll try to say this as concisely as possible:
In the steelman justification, the harms are putting less competent people in positions of responsibility because of unconscious biases in their favor. Steelman affirmative action aims to counteract these unconscious biases to make sure that the most competent people are chosen instead. To my great surprise, most affirmative action I've personally seen in professional contexts has been very close to this steelman version, though it is definitely plausible that I've been in very non-representative bubbles.
Also, with steelman affirmative action, your third paragraph should never become an issue. The groups may be de jure favored, but this only counteracts de facto disfavor so the net effect is that of a level playing field. Everyone would see that they're just as worthy as any other group.
There are still however very good arguments against even steelman affirmative action Calibrating favoritism to exactly counteract biases is extremely difficult practically and especially politically. Maybe our current institutions are so incapable of fairly trading off welfare between various groups that even attempting it is a bad idea. In some sense, it's also going for "good" ends with "evil" tools---for the sake of achieving meritocracy, you are, at the bottom of it all, judging people in a hereditarian way. This usually has unexpected negative side effects and should always make one nervous.
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