site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act

An article on how it changed how the country is governed:

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights

That is some pretty weak tea, even if one accepts his rather dubious causal claims. I am not sure that anything he talks about really constitutes "how we are governed," except in the broadest possible way. And, it is clear that if the changes he discusses were indeed caused by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they were unintended consequences thereof; it is hence a stretch to give credit therefor to the political skills of LBJ.

I would also have more confidence in that piece if he got simple facts right; Griggs v. Duke Power did not hold that intelligence tests can not be used in hiring; but rather that they cannot be used unless "they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance." And, per the EEOC, intelligence tests can indeed be used for hiring, and there seem to be companies that make a living providing such tests.

From your EEOC link:

Use of tests and other selection procedures can also violate the federal anti-discrimination laws if they disproportionately exclude people in a particular group by race, sex, or another covered basis, unless the employer can justify the test or procedure under the law.

This effectively makes it illegal to use IQ tests since by their very nature they will discriminate based on race.

“Oh but you just have to justify the test under the law!” Great! Give me just one example of a company successfully doing so, after being sued. Remember. The process is the punishment, therefore sometimes the is can be technically allowed in practicality they are illegal - which is how leftist lawfare works

As I noted, companies sell intelligence tests for that very purpose. Someone must be buying them. If you have evidence that the law means something different than what it says, please provide it.

Regardless, note that Hanania did not say that the effect of Griggs was to forbid the use of intelligence test. He said that the case held that, which is wrong.

Someone must be buying them

Non Americans

Ten seconds of Googling will demonstrate that that does not seemt to be the case.

As I noted, companies sell intelligence tests for that very purpose. Someone must be buying them. If you have evidence that the law means something different than what it says, please provide it.

This argument also supports the contention that the entire cryptocurrency industry wasn't actually breaking the law up until the point that the SEC stepped in and started messing around - "Look, there are multiple companies selling unregistered securities and running unlicensed financial exchanges. Someone must be buying them and using them." There are absolutely companies that make a living doing things which are technically illegal in the hope that nobody notices - and given the enforcement mechanism required for this (a black person suing after not being hired for a job due to this test), you could keep going for years before hitting a case that blows up the company.

You are completely missing the point. Using IQ tests where there is a legitimate business reason therefor s perfectly legal. OP's claim is that it is "practicality . . . illegal" and hence that no one uses them. But, apparently, companies do use them. So, OP is wrong, as is Hanania.

Whether crytpo companies got away with illegal activities until the SEC stepped in is irrelevant. That is literally the opposite of OP's claim.

Ironic that you accuse me of missing the point when you don't seem to have understood either the original argument or my response. The standard of "legitimate business reason" is definitionally impossible for an IQ test, and an IQ test will also create the kind of disparate impact which means it needs to pass and meet that impossible standard (if it is an actual IQ test).

Whether crytpo companies got away with illegal activities until the SEC stepped in is irrelevant.

You claimed that companies sell and buy intelligence tests for "that very purpose", with the obvious implication being that this is evidence that such practices are not illegal. The reason that crypto companies violating the law in plain sight and carrying on with their illegal business for years before facing any kind of prosecution is relevant is that it is a direct rejoinder to your example.

The standard of "legitimate business reason" is definitionally impossible for an IQ test

Says who? That would be true only if an IQ test can never be "a reasonable measure of job performance." Griggs, 401 US at 436. And if that is the case, what is the problem with banning them?

But, of course, they aren't banned, and they can sometimes be a reasonable measure of job performance. Which is why they are often used re public safety employment.

You claimed that companies sell and buy intelligence tests for "that very purpose", with the obvious implication being that this is evidence that such practices are not illegal.

No, that is not the implication. As I explicitly stated, those practices are not illegal. The evidence is rather meant to refute OP's claim that they are illegal in practice; ie, that compliance with the law is so difficult that companies do not engage in the practice, despite it being legal. That was OP's claim, and the fact that companies in fact ARE engaging in that practice is evidence that OP is wrong.

Hanania is on my "how was this guy ever taken seriously" list. I could halfway understand how there could be a Hananian school of thought, but he seems to be primarily popular with reactionary types talking your ear off about the Cathedral, and how politics is downstream from culture, and somehow the idea they like the most from this guy is that wokeness is the culture catching up to the Civil Rights Act. I cannot understand how people don't see the contradiction between these ideas.

I don't see the inconsistency. It seems entirely plausible to me that politics can be based off of cultural concerns, but those cultural concerns are themselves influenced by the institutional landscape which is itself shaped by past politics? Influence can flow in more than one direction, and through more than one mechanism.

Under that framing "[cultural phenomenon] is [act of law]" is at best hugely reductive, but in the specific case of the CRA I believe it's a contradiction. If the government was staffed with fanatical meritocrats there's nothing in the CRA that could prevent them from interpreting the law in a racially neutral way, and some pomo-AltRighters could probably interpret it to be anti-black or at least anti-jewish the same way it's being interpreted as anti-white today. If wokeness was the CRA none of that should be possible.