naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
I think you are significantly downplaying the motivations for Civil Rights. African-Americans were literally born into their oppressed minority status. Of course they weren’t choosing it. This is the motte behind the entire edifice—that fundamentally, a significant number of Americans were deprived of their rights purely on the basis of their birth. By all means, argue against the bailey of self-identification. It’s much harder to assume away the fight against segregated buildings, voter suppression, blatant disregard for the word and spirit of the Constitution.
I think you are significantly downplaying the motivations for Civil Rights.
I think maybe you misunderstand my criticism. Most sources suggest the civil rights movement spans the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. You are correct that, during that time, a lot of people were motivated by genuine infringement on their genuinely civil rights. The story of desegregation is the one that is most often retold because it is, I suspect, the clearest case: state actors harming citizens by violating their rights directly, and state laws explicitly requiring private individuals and companies to impose racial apartheid whether they wanted to or not. But "affirmative action"--preferential treatment on the basis of race--was also demanded early and often.
I do not think preferential treatment is a civil right--to the contrary. And so almost from its very inception the movement was deeply self-contradictory. And maybe that would have been okay, but--slowly at first, and accelerating through the end of the 20th century--the demand for preferential treatment for black Americans became, by far, the most important, visible, influential, and imitated aspect of the civil rights movement as it extended beyond the goal of ending the oppression of blacks. Consider: segregation, voter suppression, and the like was limited to a handful of places, but affirmative action was not! Today, racial minorities demand segregation with some regularity. Fewer than 3/5ths of black voters bother to show up at the polls. So what is the true and lasting legacy of the civil rights movement, then, if not preferential treatment--which is not a civil right?
I think the civil rights movement changed American culture for the better in some ways--more in some parts of America than others. Abolishing state-mandated segregation was, on my view, purely good. State-mandated segregation was a huge and serious violation of many rights I regard civil. But the people to my political left do not appear to agree with me about that, not anymore, and they definitely advocate for preferential treatment for groups they regard as political allies. These are the people who most often claim to be the inheritors of the civil rights movement, and they appear to me the people most opposed to genuine civil rights.
If by "civil rights movement" you just mean Martin Luther King, Jr., then sure, I can drop the "so-called." But I'm not sure how to extend the motte and bailey metaphor when the people in the bailey clearly regard themselves as holding the motte.
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Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
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Notes -
“So-called”?
I think you are significantly downplaying the motivations for Civil Rights. African-Americans were literally born into their oppressed minority status. Of course they weren’t choosing it. This is the motte behind the entire edifice—that fundamentally, a significant number of Americans were deprived of their rights purely on the basis of their birth. By all means, argue against the bailey of self-identification. It’s much harder to assume away the fight against segregated buildings, voter suppression, blatant disregard for the word and spirit of the Constitution.
I think maybe you misunderstand my criticism. Most sources suggest the civil rights movement spans the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. You are correct that, during that time, a lot of people were motivated by genuine infringement on their genuinely civil rights. The story of desegregation is the one that is most often retold because it is, I suspect, the clearest case: state actors harming citizens by violating their rights directly, and state laws explicitly requiring private individuals and companies to impose racial apartheid whether they wanted to or not. But "affirmative action"--preferential treatment on the basis of race--was also demanded early and often.
I do not think preferential treatment is a civil right--to the contrary. And so almost from its very inception the movement was deeply self-contradictory. And maybe that would have been okay, but--slowly at first, and accelerating through the end of the 20th century--the demand for preferential treatment for black Americans became, by far, the most important, visible, influential, and imitated aspect of the civil rights movement as it extended beyond the goal of ending the oppression of blacks. Consider: segregation, voter suppression, and the like was limited to a handful of places, but affirmative action was not! Today, racial minorities demand segregation with some regularity. Fewer than 3/5ths of black voters bother to show up at the polls. So what is the true and lasting legacy of the civil rights movement, then, if not preferential treatment--which is not a civil right?
I think the civil rights movement changed American culture for the better in some ways--more in some parts of America than others. Abolishing state-mandated segregation was, on my view, purely good. State-mandated segregation was a huge and serious violation of many rights I regard civil. But the people to my political left do not appear to agree with me about that, not anymore, and they definitely advocate for preferential treatment for groups they regard as political allies. These are the people who most often claim to be the inheritors of the civil rights movement, and they appear to me the people most opposed to genuine civil rights.
If by "civil rights movement" you just mean Martin Luther King, Jr., then sure, I can drop the "so-called." But I'm not sure how to extend the motte and bailey metaphor when the people in the bailey clearly regard themselves as holding the motte.
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