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 -
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