Things the Right get right

comelately said:

I am not sure I want to know what really goes on in the mind of Ted Cruz, for example.

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I think we now have a better idea about that lol.

vimothy said:

I read it and didn't hate it. I don't think it makes much sense, though. On the one hand, racism is structural (therefore pervasive and impersonal); on the other hand, we're all personally responsible for it (if we are white). We can also become better people by being mindful of our whiteness (even though this has no effect on a structural level).

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Structures are maintained by the actions of people. Your last statement in brackets isn't true at all - it's exactly when a lot/critical mass of people become mindful of structural racism and whiteness, that effects are seen on a structural level. That's how all change occurs. And it requires a few people to start it - most people base their opinions upon the prevailing cultural currents, so as soon as they see others thinking about race in a different way, they may consider it too.

Otoh, in reference to the article, I'm not sure I agree that 'all white people are racist' is a helpful way of putting things, more that racism is a system of privilege that white people can choose to plug into and use for their advantage at a million different points in any day. Whether they choose to do so, and to what extent they resist simply assuming that privilege, defines whether they're racist or not; no-one is essentially racist (hence change is possible), though every white person on earth does things that are racist in using their white privilege. It's too pervasive a system for that not to be true.

This however is a very good way of putting things: "Almost any defensiveness that you get from a white person trying to talk about racism is rooted in that good/bad binary," DiAngelo says. "They hear you saying, 'You are a bad person.'" It's why most conversations about racism or any kind of discrimination don't go anywhere, because people have a very low tolerance to any suggestion they might be a bad person (and the question as to why people's ego strength is so low is vital, of course - loads of possibilities), and misinterpret 'those things you do are bad - think about changing them' as 'you are inherently a terrible person'.

baboon2004 said:

Structures are maintained by the actions of people. Your last statement in brackets isn't true at all - it's exactly when a lot/critical mass of people become mindful of structural racism and whiteness, that effects are seen on a structural level. That's how all change occurs. And it requires a few people to start it - most people base their opinions upon the prevailing cultural currents, so as soon as they see others thinking about race in a different way, they may consider it too.

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If sufficient people become mindful of their racism and are therefore motivated to effect structural change, that's one thing, but being mindful isn't the same as structural change nor does it necessarily lead to it. One of the points made in that article is that it doesn't matter what you as an individual think or do as an individual, you still participate in a system that is racist, so don't feel good about yourself ("racism comes out of our pores as white people", etc).

vimothy said:

If sufficient people become mindful of their racism and are therefore motivated to effect structural change, that's one thing, but being mindful isn't the same as structural change nor does it necessarily lead to it. One of the points made in that article is that it doesn't matter what you as an individual think or do as an individual, you still participate in a system that is racist, so don't feel good about yourself ("racism comes out of our pores as white people", etc).

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We're just using different definitions of what 'being mindful' entails, that's all. To me, being mindful of one's whiteness involves a different response to events. And racist structures are perpetuated because they are reinvigorated every day by the actions of many people, including many who don't see themselves as contributing to those structures. As soon as people cease reinvigorating them daily, I think that is where structural change begins.

I don't agree with the part of the article you've quoted, for the reasons in my previous post. It very much matters what you think and do as an individual, even if you don't get everything right. A racist system relies upon 'white' people believing that whiteness has substance other than as a arbitrary category with a particular history, designed to protect privilege (and to divide and rule).

I discovered another article by Lionel Shriver that possibly deserves to go in this thread. It's about the disappearance of Europe, with a discussion of the philosophical and moral changes that are bringing it about.

Western fertility started to dive in the 70s... Numerous factors have contributed to the Incredible Shrinking Family...

Yet all of these contributing elements may be subsidiary to a larger transformation in western culture no less profound than our collective consensus on what life is for.

(...)

I propose that we have now experienced a second demographic transition. Rather than economics, the engine driving Europe's "birth dearth" is existential.

To be almost ridiculously sweeping: baby boomers and their offspring have shifted emphasis from the communal to the individual, from the future to the present, from virtue to personal satisfaction. Increasingly secular, we pledge allegiance to lower-case gods of our private devising. We are less concerned with leading a good life than the good life. We are less likely than our predecessors to ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask if we are happy. We shun values such as self-sacrifice and duty as the pitfalls of suckers. We give little thought to the perpetuation of lineage, culture or nation; we take our heritage for granted. We are ahistorical. We measure the value of our lives within the brackets of our own births and deaths, and don't especially care what happens once we're dead. As we age - oh, so reluctantly! - we are apt to look back on our pasts and ask not 'Did I serve family, God and country?' but 'Did I ever get to Cuba, or run a marathon? Did I take up landscape painting? Was I fat?' We will assess the success of our lives in accordance not with whether they were righteous, but with whether they were interesting and fun.

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/sep/17/society

SHRIVER IS A POX.

barty barges into the thread, says loads of well contentious stuff ('sometimes its necessary to gas the jews') then backs out saying, 'i dont argue about politics on dissensus anymore so dont even bother raising an eyebrow at any of this stuff k thx'

luka said:

barty barges into the thread, says loads of well contentious stuff ('sometimes its necessary to gas the jews') then backs out saying, 'i dont argue about politics on dissensus anymore so dont even bother raising an eyebrow at any of this stuff k thx'

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Followed up with a 'your Top Ten death camps' poll.

Still annoyed that Treblinka lost out to Omarska. That wasnt even the best Serbian death camp.

A problem that I've found to be prevalent among both the Left and Right - and more prevalent the further you head towards each extreme, generally - is that nowadays everyone is an expert on everything, because no-one has the right to tell anyone else their beliefs are untrue or their reasoning faulty. It's all of a piece with 'post-fact politics', Gove's obnoxious but actually fairly perceptive statement that "people have had enough of experts", and I can't help but link it to a worrying tendency among many apparently left-wing people to use the word 'rationalism' with scarcely less venom than they might say 'racism' or 'Fascism'.

Something I thought was noticeable with Brexit was that people who thought that it was morally wrong predicted dire economic consequences and people who thought it morally right predicted only the sunny uplands from here on in. So moral intuition determined economic assessment, rather than vice versa (which seems more immediately rational).

luka said:

barty barges into the thread, says loads of well contentious stuff ('sometimes its necessary to gas the jews') then backs out saying, 'i dont argue about politics on dissensus anymore so dont even bother raising an eyebrow at any of this stuff k thx'

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I've just been catching up with the politics threads and did cringe a little when I read my post.

sadmanbarty said:

I've just been catching up with the politics threads and did cringe a little when I read my post.

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The path to enlightenment starts with self-knowledge.

Regarding the discussion about cultural appropriation at the beginning of the thread, this blog post is one of the best things I've read on the subject. I'll quote some here but its well worth reading the whole thing. I especially like the list of questions that people making a claim about cultural appropriation need to consider first.

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2016/12/01...idea-what-is-and-isnt-cultural-appropriation/

There’s no coherent theory of cultural appropriation that can include all or most of the times that these claims are made that does not necessarily indict the people making the charge. No one will rise to this challenge. They can’t do it, and their attempts to do so will stand in direct and explicit contradiction with other people’s attempts.

You want a rule? Don’t mimic or perform being a type of person that you intend others to recognize as such, especially when that involves exaggeration or when intended to inspire contempt or humor. That is a rule about people, not a rule about culture. If you are knowingly attempting to look or act like a member of a group that others would recognize – if the point is to be recognized as doing so – then you are already guilty. That has nothing to do with cultural borrowing. It has to do with the mutual recognition of you and the people you are dressing up for that you are intentionally adopting another group as a role, costume, or similar. So no blackface, no Mexican “costumes” on Cinco de Mayo, no wearing a Native American headdress, no “talking ghetto.” If you intend to be seen as part of a group that you know you would not naturally be perceived as part of being, then it’s wrong. It’s not complicated.

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Still haven't read that Lionel Shriver thing so I dunno where it fits in, but I suppose this is what Mr Tea was trying to get at when he complained about spurious cases of cultural appropriation - though expressed much more eloquently, obviously

That sounds like a reasonable rule. Interesting that the examples should include people pretending to be Mexican. I recall a couple of years ago, around Hallowe'en, seeing among some friends of friends on Facebook the spectacle of some white British people going nuts, and I mean absolutely apeshit, at other white Brits for the crime of making/eating/selling/giving away sugar skulls. Because they're, you know, Mexican. As if anyone in Mexico would give half a shit if some of their compatriots decided to make jack-o-lanterns or wear pointy black hats.

But clearly there is a world of difference between that and someone wearing a ton of fake tan, a sombrero and a poncho and going around talking in a "Mexican" accent.

Why would anyone care in either case?

hah, just having a skim of the lionel shriver piece now and I see the mexican thing comes up as her first example!

I kind of agree with her that writing fiction shouldn't be condemned as 'cultural appropriation' (though it might be condemned for other reasons perhaps, depending on each individual case), but her defending people wearing sombreros at a mexican-themed party is really quite odious and an awful example to use in defence of her argument. They're really not the same thing, as the rule in that blog post quite nicely illustrates.

I guess cultural appropriation isn't really a very useful term then.

vimothy said:

Why would anyone care in either case?

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Ah, the trademark vimothian obtuseness! Well, at a pretty basic level, surely you appreciate the difference between adopting elements of another country's material culture (or even music, dance etc.) because it's fun/interesting/attractive/tasty or whatever, and pretending to be a person from that country? I mean, whatever your intention, there is surely a large risk that anyone who actually is from that country is going to see it as parody, even outright mockery.

Benny B said:

I guess cultural appropriation isn't really a very useful term then.

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Perhaps if we just said "talking the piss" instead, it'd be more direct and less prissy-sounding and maybe more liable to being taken seriously.