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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34077 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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I saw someone making this sort of up their own ass and out the other side argument before. They expanded the context of DEI to the point where they claimed all vice presidential picks have been "DEI" picks. Because they are largely chosen on the basis of choosing someone based on identity to shore up the political coalition you are the head of.

I think that's bullshit, and that's not DEI. DEI is way, way dumber than that. DEI is the hammer that thinks every problem is a nail. In no world where George W Bush is choosing a "DEI" VP candidate to shore up his political coalition does he choose Dick Cheney. There were darker motives at play there.

DEI in practice is putting the cart before the horse. It's an almost religious belief that merit is a myth, and that you can assign job positions of the highest importance based on "equity" and the poor oppressed peoples denied the chance to prove themselves will rise to the occasion. It almost goes out of it's way to hire unqualified diverse candidates to make that point. Then it frequently obfuscates all markers of success or failure in the position. Frequently when the failure is so naked to see it cannot be obfuscated, it acts like success or failure was not the point, but only "equity".

So when people call Kamala Harris a DEI VP, it's because of that. Because Biden, bafflingly, didn't just pick a "black" woman. He picked the most unpopular, least qualified, dropped out first candidate from the roster. The fact that the always loser Stacy Abrams was also in the running is telling. As opposed to Tulsi, Yang, Buttigieg or any of the other people who hung in past Iowa that still count as "diverse" and might have actually brought some coalition building to the ticket.

Now if Kamala picks an absolute loser idiot white guy because she feels the need to placate white liberals, I could accept that being DEI. But it's looking like she's going to pick someone that actually brings something to the ticket, unlike she did in 2020. Most likely counting on Josh Shapiro to deliver PA's electoral votes.

FWIW I tend to agree with you in practice. DEI attached to an ideology that merit doesn’t matter or even in a more toxic form, that measures of merit are relics of white supremacy and patriarchy are pretty obviously ridiculous, and a road to ruin for any organization or institution that gets infected by this.

But I think you can also steelman the DEI ethos and get at some core realities underlying it.

Namely, there’s all sorts of implicit biases and lived experiences that might make it likely that for example, a black president/VP combo would prioritize issues that affect black communities and leave white guys feeling somewhat unrepresented, whether for legitimate reasons or even just illegitimate vibes based reasons.

This obviously is a framing that I set up to convey to white guys such as myself some of the gut level reactions that people who historically were never really represented in the way that us white guys have experienced as the norm.

Once you flip that, I think even conservatives would start to understand some typically progressive language, such as the importance of having diverse voices at the table, the dynamics of inclusion vs marginalization, equity for different groups when in comes to what decisions are made by the power structure, etc.

These terms have all become sort of strawmen and the well has become poisoned by all the crazy excesses that have gone on.

But at the core, IMO these are fundamental concepts of any race or cultural relations in a society and the typically dominant group would very quickly find themselves having to wrangle with similarly coded language if suddenly they were excluded.

So I could foresee a future in which conservative white guys see a need to argue for inclusion, I think it’s just a part of being in any multicultural society that representation at the seats at the table of power is going to be one of the primary sources of resentment.

And going all the way with this, it can even make sense why in some cases the inclusion of different groups at the table in some cases supercedes pure meritocracy in a democracy.

This is essentially why we aim to have representatives from all districts of a state. Say there’s a state with a blue tech hub but also an underdeveloped and neglected red district with some Appalachia or Deep South type issues regarding education, infrastructure, health, addiction, etc.

We should have some representatives from that community even if they aren’t at the top of the meritocracy.

That way they have a seat at the table and can at least provide a voice for that communities needs. Otherwise it’s just the tech hub guys and the backwoods are out of sight out of mind.

But there’s this delicate balancing act where meritocracy still has to form a fundamental pillar. Part of what I see the left wrangling with is trying to arrive at the synthesis of how to balance tribal desires for inclusion especially in a system where bias exists with meritocracy and the consequences of not giving it its due.

I think that flipping the frame to consider other examples helps think through the problem better. For example, how do we increase the representation of conservatives in academia? Should we? Is it pure meritocracy or are there a bunch of subtle factors and biases that led to the current state of affairs? Wading into the weeds of all this helps illuminate the culture war better IMO.

Flipping the frame does not work because the frame is held on by power.

You're not going to get academia to not be racist against whites because they don't hold these ideas for scientific reasons. You can't debate with power.

And attempting to dislodge power by remaining in its frame is a fool's errand.

So do you think Biden deliberately picked the worst black woman available? Isn't it much more likely he thought/thinks she was the best on some measures?

Isn't it much more likely he thought/thinks she was the best on some measures?

I mean, given how broken his brain is, I can't rule it out.

But the vibes I always got is that he gave an on the spot pledge to pick a black woman as VP without thinking it through, and then when push came to shove picked the least threatening VP possible. Someone without the acumen or political capital to get "uppity". Because one of the things we've always heard about Biden was that he's controlling, and increasingly so in his old age, and doesn't have any patience for people questioning him, talking back, or having their own ideas. It's one of the most consistent behind the scenes characterizations of him we've had since he entered politics.

Even this, well, not exactly a steel man, but the only reason I give aside from "Biden's brain is broken", isn't very far off from "Yes, he picked her because she's a fucking idiot."

Now we have Kamala crowned his successor without anyone ever voting for her, despite her never having accomplished anything, and having a history of everything she ever touches turning to shit.

I think once you've locked yourself into picking a black woman it's entirely defensible to go with Harris over a Stacy Abrams or a Susan Rice. Harris was a US Senator, Abrams used to be a member of the Georgia legislature and lost the race for Governor, Rice thought about running against Susan Collins in Maine but decided not to.

There is also the option of going for someone thats not a politician, i suppose.

We don't need to speculate too much. We have most of the facts. We know he committed very early on to pick a woman (maybe I'm misremembering but the Black half of that I think came later?), and that's mostly due to the overall political environment and happens on both sides for at least a decade, and also to offset the fact that he's extremely white and also quite old, so having some counterbalance is mostly common sense. He has to uphold at least some of the Obama diversity legacy, after all.

But when I say we don't need to guess I mean it. We have some good quality reporting for example here and especially here that explains what the process looked like. Kamala specifically won the final round because of a mix of personal comfort and Biden liked her pitch on being loyal.

But the vibes I always got is that he picked the least threatening VP possible. Someone without the acumen or political capital to get "uppity". Because one of the things we've always heard about Biden was that he's controlling, and increasingly so in his old age, and doesn't have any patience for people questioning him, talking back, or having their own ideas.

...

Kamala specifically won the final round because of a mix of personal comfort and Biden liked her pitch on being loyal.

I think these points are extremely consonant.

I mean, basic reasoning/logic my friend, just because she's loyal and Biden valued loyalty doesn't actually mean she has a lack of other positive traits. At least, it doesn't necessarily follow. There's a stereotype of dumb but loyal sidekick, but it's just that, a trope, and each major politician needs to be evaluated on their own merits.

I think there's a decent chance she's actually somewhat dumb (or at least as dumb/deluded as someone who is eventually able to pass the bar exam can be) but I'm going to give her a month or so to demonstrate it one way or another. I really don't give much of a shit about DA records, I have zero confidence in my ability to distinguish an effective or good DA from a bad one, but her Senate record which I do keep an eye on looked pretty thin (although it's still worth noting that her entire time was squarely during the Trump years where they basically had little to no room to work with). But all of this is beside the point. You're trying to present her very selection as VP as evidence of her incompetence, but that's not actually evidence. Nor is "uppityness" a good proxy for effectiveness either (and I'd be hesitant to use that word anyways, because it actually does have a legit and documented history of racial and discriminatory use, so it's a little too close to a slur for comfort).

I think Biden picked her less because she's an idiot and more because she's a machine politician who does what she's told.

I feel like we can think of meritocracy and inclusion as two axes.

Is it dumb to only consider the inclusion axis?

Obviously, someone with negative merit would be a terrible choice.

But should we neglect the inclusion axis and only look at the merit axis?

I think that’s also a mistake when we’re speaking about a representative democracy with very different communities inside of it.

But that brings the question, what’s the relative importance that we should assign to the merit axis and to the inclusion axis?

This part is tricky and has been the source of missteps for the left which has lost them a lot of political and cultural capital.

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