Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:07 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 5:14 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:23 am
Good point.
It's not at all clear that just because somebody is in a "down" position relative to somebody else, that that makes them any morally
"higher," anymore than it makes them morally "lower." It just makes them "in a different position."
But I think there's more to it. "Social justice," as a phrase, has the adjective for a reason.
"Justice" used to mean, "Each individual gets what he/she deserves or has merited." But "social justice" means that the alleged "injustice" is not so much the result of any individual person as it is said to be "systemic." To say it's "systemic" is to say it's a feature of "the system," a collective noun that NeoMarxists apply to the status quo of anything -- the "system" is the police, the businesses, the governmental structures, the way things are done culturally, the relgious institutions, the regnant social patterns, the infrastructure...etc. (Everything but the public education system, which they already own almost entirely.) And they allege that the "injustices" felt by "marginalized communities" are products of these "institutionalized" or "systemic" features.
"Systemic" is adjective used to generically describe ANY cause that is NOT necessarily any one person or group's fault but is an accident of the way the very causes are NOT due to SPECIFIC or UNIQUE bias.
This is partly true, in the sense that that is what "systemic racism"
claims to be about. it claims there is a bunch of racism "out there," that's nobody's fault. But when you ask them to point it out, they cannot. All they point to is unequal effects between "racial " groups, and then yell, "There! You see? Systemic racism!"
But notice the intention and the effect: since it stipulates that racism is "not any specific person's fault," it cannot be found. It's just "out there, somewhere." By making it impossible to locate and defeat, they make racism into a permanent problem...which is exactly what they want. Derrick Bell, for example, is quite explicit in saying that Social Justice claims racism as ordinary and permanent in everything.
Conveniently, this means that the witch-hunters of Social Justice will have a job and status forever. That works well for them. But it does not help society locate and remove the problem of racism, if it's "systemic"; in fact, it makes it utterly undoable.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. So those with stronger emotional experiences will tend to take the lead regardless in any novel political movements. I am always against these extremes TOO and often come across as though I'm their opposing enemy because of their emotions. But I can recognize this without bias....only to have it thrown back at me for demonstrating that I am not for advocating positions based upon religious emotional thinkers regardless of the side they are appearing to advocate for.
Yet, WHY do you think that I still argue for that 'side'? I'm a LOGIC 'advocate', not a SOCIAL one, meaning that regardless of who I am speaking to, I ignore the arguments based upon emotional interpretations or declarations of intrinsic 'virtue'. So I completely agree that IF your beliefs about what is true WERE true absolutely of the
social justice warriers I'd have to step out of politics altogether because I'd see them as equally corrupt as their opponents, ...your preferred 'side'. And I have for the most part. I cannot even bring myself to vote in my own country based upon my own disgust of the favoritism FOR the 'social' factors that exist. In particular with MORE danger are those who have more concentrated power to legislate with ease. It is easiest for those 'conserving' their political view when in power to dismantle any 'progressive' view. To me, the problem relates to the emotional factor most predominantly describing ones'
religious views that get used to make policy.
So MY reason for preferring the "left" is based on the logic of the Utilitarian view (to favor the most), the liberal/libertarian original view that demands as much freedoms as possible
without the infringement upon others of the same, and one that divorces itself from making legislation based upon non-human, non-Earthbound sources, like one's religious gods. Anyone in power representing us risks us for simply having the power to utilize their religious views. A PEOPLE's representative should not be able to back out of their accountability by asserting some religious justification for action/inaction when legislating.
The real distinctions that determine people's prosperity minimally requires looking at one's wealth. Given that the extremes of wealth define one's success (and why I opened a thread regarding whether success is due to luck or effort), I hold that governments must serve to give all people in society an equal chance to succeed. This is my 'socialist' part I favor in governing. It is NOT the predominating view though within the Left in practice any more than on the Right politically because everyone prefers that emotional utility of religion over logic or 'fairness' unqualified by virtues or vices based upon their various religions.
So the BEST hope is to favor the Left because where everyone is racist and sexist and just plain stupid regardless, I'd rather be with the side that cannot collectively agree to ONE or FEW specific "cults" of identity, AND who permits the modern "liberal" views of social lifestyle freedom, including a right to CHOSE your own culture versus accepting something inherent in something presumed 'genetic'. This cannot occur with the conservative Right because wealth creation FAVORS religious intolerance: the most optimal way to "capitalize" over others requires cheating others in some way (that 'deceptive' factor I loathe) and thus that side will foster religious extremes that beg others to TRUST or have CONFIDENCE in products and services because people buy more based upon the emotional and NOT the logical facts.
So the 'social warriers' while apparently defining of those on the Left, exist on the Right by default by their concentration of PARTICULAR biases based primarily on religious emotional thinking, where the Left has MANY PARTICULAR biases but from MANY different religious and emotional drives. The Left is thus SAFER for the independent individual AND who the most in number and variety are NOT wealthy but most representative among the poor and isolated in power however defined.
You propose above that the 'systemic' factors are unknowable indirectly by asserting this as a mere tactic that serves to LACK 'proof'. But that 'Critical Race' set of theorists were then hoping to determine these but you don't want them either because you assume they are ALL political SJWs only meant to foster lies??
An example systemic bias that I am aware of might be something like the
potential factor of whether those who are given a car by their parents before they turn 18 may statistically coincide with their relative 'success' in getting stable work. I believe this is a major factor considering my own experience and observations of others of the same. The 'systemic' part would be that while there is no intentional 'fault' of the parents giving their kids a car, the SAME people with these background who JUDGE someone as not trying hard enough, of which one factor is to be able to travel broadly just to apply for jobs. Given such people who lack such a 'right-of-passage' gift of one's first car, this makes such an apparent factor a SYSTEMIC contributer to why someone may not succeed.
You have to look at multiple such factors and you'll then get the essence of what the "critical race theory" concept of 'systemic' issues is about. The problem is that those emotionally invested are themselves running the 'lead' to associate the CLASSIFICATION of who fails as based upon race or sex RATHER THAN economic preconditions. !!!! <--- IMPORTANT FACT . Since you should be aware that the very conservative ALSO wants us to NOT CLASSIFY people based upon economic factors as the contributing significant factor of success.. This proves that BOTH political extremes run by the more emotionally driven extremes among them is being deceptive. But the VARIETY exists on the Left regardless and while the extreme SJWs there will attempt to frame the economic discrimination as due to some bias regarding things like "cultural genocide" when it was a bias due to economic preconditions instead. That the tendency to favor those who are most like ourselves then indirectly causes a concentration of wealth based upon those identifying factors of which racism and sexism eventually become an easy means to discriminate rather than investing in whether they 'fit' within the stereotypes that those ECONOMIC biases are being excused as being caused by.
In this post from "
Is Success Luck or Hard Work..." I gave an example to RCSaunders that may be helpful. Look at the bottom where I gave two distinct candidates who are assumed to be of equivalent qualifications. Which one would you choose to hire without knowing anything else.
The SJW extreme would recognize the correct reason why one might select the candidate living in a nice neighborhood but would reason that since we stereotype literal neighborhoods based upon common majority racial identies, they would point to that race as being biased to stay poor with its opposite biased to another race to stay wealthy.
Can you not see that the SJW will interpret race as the cause for statistically being unbalanced in numerical equal representation. While 50% of whites may be poor to the 50% of them on the wealthy side, you might find that 90% of Blacks are poor and 10% wealthy. This rationalization is coincidental but DOES contribute 'systemically' as a feedback when we use mnematic shortcuts to decision making. So instead of where I gave these candidates specific qualities based on economically based origins, we could replace or add a racial identity. Which 'race' of Black versus White (for simplicity) would those candidates likely have that represents the stereotype OF the poor and wealth today in say, Chicago?
So what if they are looking distinctly at a subset of the poor based upon which race is more dominant when I cannot even get you, who might otherwise agree with me, ALSO demand that we NOT look at someone's literal wealth as being what is unfair? I see both of you wrong. I am LESS welcome for me pointing this out where I have tried to on the left because the present dominating paradigm is to foster intentionally biased laws that discriminate against race (or sex) still by EXCLUSIONARY means and NOT to increase "social welfare" for the poor in general. That they DO favor a SUBSET of those in need where they have race/identity based quotas or incentives BIASES the race that most represents the opposing racial makeup on the Right. So White people who are poor suffer for the wealthy whites on the right intentionally scapegoated and certainly not voluntarily sacrificed on the part of being the goat.
In contrast, the poor whites will still have a better chance at work. However, the entry level employment jobs there where they exist represent mostly Right-wing based businesses like "McJobs" who prefer to exploit the desperation of the poor regardless and so represent the counter stupidity and discrimination BY the 'right' for systemically discriminating against the poor and for the nepotism in favoring one's own kind (race/sex) stereotypical of any culture that places 'family' first. Thus, the favoritism on the right DOES tend 'systemically' to favor the wealthy and more 'white' while the favoritism on the left 'systemically' favors anyone "non-white".
[I'll end this here given I meant for this to cover the topic. I preread the whole and so this
should cover the rest too. If not, I'll adress them where needed later. ]