Indoctrination Cult University

[Gadarene]

Wait. You're telling me that all this time I could have been a non-Authoritarian-Leftist?!

Ah well, too late now...

If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a....larger view of the political compass

 

[FireDragon76]

Mmmm....no, that might also be because plenty of people use the concept of privilege in order to moralise.

Those on the left that tend to take those critiques most seriously also tend to view solidarity as the normal response to being aware of oppression. It's not really moralism, at least in terms of how people in the US on the political-culture right would understand it.

This mismach of values makes it difficult for left and right to relate to each other . The right in the US values loyalty and purity far more than compassion and fairness.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Simply put,

It's the idea that one group can have significant advantages over another group based on the situations that previous generations were in, and how certain economic and societal scenarios can perpetuate for several generations before things are evened out.


For example, if your family was was poor and exploited by my family for 4 generations, even if the exploitative aspects of the laws and system were corrected and I, in no way engaged in any sort of exploitative behavior toward you, that 4 generations of exploitation would still be a huge factor in why, today, I'd be doing much better than you.

So white privilege doesn't apply to any white person who got here after the 70s?

And latinos, asians, and all the other non-blacks don't struggle because of it? A black immigrant today doesn't deal with the effects of white privilege?

 

[Ana the Ist]

I don’t see the harm in teaching it on its own provided there isn’t a racist component to it, which I don’t see as guaranteed with any definition of white privilege per se.

I've never seen it taught without a racist component.

I’m fine with it entailing a statistical advantage whites as a group have. If we start projecting that statistic onto individuals or generalising a group based on a statistic, that’s where we quickly run into bigotry territory. That definitely happens often enough to be a problem, not least because it makes the debate much harder to initiate and continue with.

Happens often enough to be a problem? It's the entire conversation. All other kinds of privilege are excluded from the conversation...and it's painted as whites have some universal advantage.

Quick experiment to highlight the point...

Two people...

1. Is an unattractive, white shorter, man from a poor family and of average intelligence.

2. Is An attractive black woman, slightly tall, from a middle class family and of slightly below average intelligence.

Who has more privilege? Take your time.

It’s not. I mean, they are basically cliches at this point and far from solid concepts at times, but there’s male privilege, cis privilege, straight privilege, passing privilege, thin privilege. There are irritating contrarian sods like me who make the case that female privilege is a thing.

Actually, I've never heard of any of those except thin privilege and female privilege. There's actual studies that show those exist...there's no "male privilege".

I think you have to consider the treatment along the same axis of oppression, to borrow the intersectionality term. I don’t consider black privilege to be extant, for one thing, not least because it’s entirely meta. Yes, whites get slammed unfairly at times in the race debate. I’d argue that’s pretty much the only disadvantage of being white, and it derives from the discussion on the race system, not the race system itself. It should be taken seriously - I don’t care for the Salonesque articles where people basically publish trolling and say whites should be disenfranchised, let white people die, etc, etc. But I don’t consider that a disprivilege where black people have a structural advantage over us.

At what point does it become a problem? Should be wait until whites are being dragged from their homes and shot in the street? We used to call this stuff out for what it was...if it was written about blacks, Salon would rightfully be out of business.

Now, male privilege, I do consider sexist, largely because gender is treated like any other oppression where there’s an oppressor and an oppressed, and reality contradicts that. It isn’t that simple, largely because there are significant advantages to each gender that don’t just derive from discussion of the gender system, and structural disadvantages that apply to each gender. I believe this is due to the fact that with gender the relative groups are roughly one-half each of the population. You cannot impose structural disadvantage on women to such an extent with imposing similar structural disadvantages on men to a similar extent. Male privilege is preached to us by people who do not consider female privilege to exist when it demonstrably does, as a consequence of the same gender system. That is why it is a de facto sexist term where white privilege is not automatically a racist term.

White privilege doesn't discern individual circumstances. A son of a poor white coal miner who's mom died of a heroin overdose is considered, through some magical thinking, the oppressor of a wealth black girl who's father is a senator and got into Harvard by nepotism.

It's inherently racist....not to mention ridiculous.

True, and I feel this is a stronger point here.

There will always be aspects of life where human beings generalise each other. It is possible to decondition oneself of innate bias, however sadly that conditioning doesn’t really inherit from one generation to the next and has to be learned anew in each person. The problem the debate on privilege seems to have generated is that people are getting increasingly creative in order to find a way they can claim to be oppressed - not surprising, given how awfully that debate treats those dubbed “privileged.” I don’t necessarily want every little social dynamic to be framed as oppressive, but equally I feel to do otherwise is to ignore some very long-standing injustices.

How awful people treat those dubbed privilege is entirely the point. It's a chance for whites to virtue signal and a chance for blacks to be racist. No one actually expects businesses to hire people who are the most qualified because of race. No one expects whites to give up money (more than they already do), land, or anything else because of race. It's simply a way to point a finger and blame your problems on someone else.

That’s quite a sweeping claim you’re asserting there.

I’m against white privilege as a clobbering tool, but as a mere statement of relative advantage/disadvantage deriving from history and power structures....yeah, it does the job. I’d argue you don’t see much of the latter, and that’s a problem, but it is out there.

I’m happy to stand up against those using those terms for little better than abject racism, but I’m not about to stand up and say the issues white privilege covers don’t contribute to an inequality either.

Wow...how compromisingly neutral of you. I, for one, can't think of a single moment where I got any special treatment because I was white...not once. I'm not claiming it hasn't happened...I'm just saying I can't know. Given that, let's assume most white people are the same (I've never heard any ever say "guess what I got for being white today!)....

How do we know how much inequality is actually due to white privilege? It could be anywhere from a ton of inequality....to almost no inequality. So why does it get treated like the answer to everything?

Who says it only applies if you’re aware of it?

That's the point, isn't it? Without knowing...who's to say whether or not it's a problem at all?

But that’s not really a privilege unique to black people. I’d argue there are a set of privileges that purely derive from the current debate on inequality rather than any actual pre-existing system of inequality that I’d call victimhood privilege, that apply to any group that is considered to be oppressed. Playing the <insert axis here> card is a tool available to any oppressed group, not black people. As such it is not an exclusively black privilege.

Fair enough...what's another "oppression card" you can think of? I can't think of any but I'll wait....

I would argue there are by contrast some very unique female privileges that do derive from the gender system we have. People are inculcated to protect women, which is often why women can get away with murder by acting plaintive - sometimes literally! I don’t think the same can be said with black people or any other oppressed group.



There is an aspect of this I agree with - I’ve seen the same point made in the gender sphere, where MRAs have framed the welfare system as state-as-husband, which I find quite an interesting take on the dynamic.



I’d argue that certainly is femtoaggression-level silliness.



But that’s also because as a group they carry the lion’s share of the power, influence - and wealth!

As a group, 0.01% carry more power influence and wealth than the other 99.99% of us. Yet somehow, as a group, there's more poor whites than poor blacks. That's the problem with generalizations about skin color.

What are you seriously expecting here - people who don’t have the same amount of money collectively as whites do to pay their way to the same extent as white people do?

What happened with the "as a group" argument you were just using?

So much of the racial inequality we see derives from a lack of social mobility and public services. I don’t personally think police racism is the main factor in black people being shot by police. The problem is that black people, often due to countries’ histories of discrimination at an institutional level, are much more likely to be poor. Poverty correlates highly with criminality, not least when impoverished areas have little to no public investment! As black people are more likely proportionally to be poor, they are more likely to proportionally commit crimes, thus more likely proportionally to commit violent crimes, thus more likely proportionally to be shot by the police.

This is absolutely one area where we need to be sinking more money into solving the problem, not less. I think it’s hugely unfair to complain that black people don’t pay a proportionate share of the taxes when they are not in any position to compared to white people.

Again, we aren't talking about individuals...but groups. If white privilege applies to some dirt poor white kid out in the country...well then this aspect of black privilege applies to blacks regardless of their economic background.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

SJWs only intend to ruin one country, not the entire planet.

I will ask you this before moving on because I'm genuinely curious: which country would that be?

So how about a deal? You guys stick with the topic (which has nothing to do with Trump)...and I'll avoid pushing buttons. Sound fair?

I brought up Trump because what you were describing is a major reason why so many Americans flocked to support him - and rightly so, because is an effective antidote - at this point the antidote for it, for all his flaws. You provided an excellent example of what the alternative to supporting Trump is.

So, I'll move on. Now, white college student who are exposed to this degree of hostility, for some of them, the indoctrination works, and they become ever more devout SJWs. For others, it seriously turns them off to leftist ideas, and you get the alt-right. I'm talking about the actual alt-right, not the countless people who have been branded with it as an epithet. They reckoned if their whiteness was so hated and feared, it must be an asset of significant importance. They also concluded that there is no reason to spare the feelings of people who hate them so much. On the contrary, they can actually accomplish something politically productive by being as offensive as they possibly can, to get under their enemy's skin. Of course, there are alternatives. Some become libertarians. A number of those, however, come on the realization that only certain people are interested in buying what they are selling.

That is who the hundreds of young white people who gathered in Charlottesville last August were. They were tired of apologizing for being what they were, and there to show that they would no longer kowtow to the sensibilities of a political class that hates them. As we can see, it certainly did kick a SJW hornet's nest.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

So white privilege doesn't apply to any white person who got here after the 70s?

And latinos, asians, and all the other non-blacks don't struggle because of it? A black immigrant today doesn't deal with the effects of white privilege?

You'll have to be more specific on which effects in particular you're referring to before I can answer. I'm not a huge fan of blanket statements when it comes to this particular topic.

 

[Rion]

I grew up hardcore right-wing in the rust belt (my home county has voted Republican in presidential elections since at least 2000, and went for Trump by about 21 points), flipped center left after college, now work in the entertainment industry. My wife has a masters from an ivy league university and works in academia. Most of my family is very conservative, while most of my social circles are made up of your typical music & artsy types and mid/upper-tier academics.

Yes, the center-lefties I hang out with now love to rag on Trump, but the amount of vitriol, blind rage, and butthurt over the smallest slights is dwarfed by what I hear and see on a regular basis coming from the right.

The truth is that these hardcore SJW's that you guys like to rag on just aren't representative of college students at large. Yes, most of the kids these days are probably sympathetic to SJW causes to some degree, but they're not the sort of raging psychopaths you like to pillory. Even among my super-lib theater friends, that sort of thing is rare.

I never said that they were the majority of students, although far more come out suffering from that madness than going in. I said that the majority of the schools are insane. National Review did a list of most PC things from 2017, and I don't really care about the article in and of itself, but notice where most of it takes place.

 

[Gadarene]

Those on the left that tend to take those critiques most seriously also tend to view solidarity as the normal response to being aware of oppression. It's not really moralism, at least in terms of how people in the US on the political-culture right would understand it.

This mismach of values makes it difficult for left and right to relate to each other . The right in the US values loyalty and purity far more than compassion and fairness.

It’s got nothing to do with a mismatch of values, if anything it offends people on the left because equality is one of their values.

My fellow white people: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem | Katherine Craig

Example. Tell me that’s not moralising. You’ve all sinned and have fallen short, but do what we tell you and you can be saved. Sounds very, very familiar. This is also not egalitarian because these same people would freak out if you imposed collective guilt onto black people as a whole for any reason.

I have no time for people telling me whites don’t have advantages, equally I’m not about to sit here and pretend these concepts aren’t used to moralise either.

 

[SolomonVII]

Those on the left that tend to take those critiques most seriously also tend to view solidarity as the normal response to being aware of oppression. It's not really moralism, at least in terms of how people in the US on the political-culture right would understand it.

This mismach of values makes it difficult for left and right to relate to each other . The right in the US values loyalty and purity far more than compassion and fairness.

Watching the video of the young liberal getting her butt nailed to the wall by the social justice warriors of the university faculty for showing an alternative point of view gives a whole new meaning to "compassion" and "fairness". No safe spaces for Lindsay Shephard from the nice fair people who were really enjoying the tears that she shed.

Smilie faced fascists of the post-modernist left have a wonderful way of defining words to mean the exact opposite of what they are in the dictionary. When truth is not a value, then it is fitting, isn't it, that this Lindsay Shepard, the white, heteronormative oppressor and perpetrator of injustice is sacrificed for the greater good as the normal response?

Once you learn the language of the post-modernists, then it is easy to recognize the dog whistles. "Purity" for example does not mean that we on the right wash our hands after we go to the bathroom, and those on the left don't. Maybe most post modernists still keep hygenice. It is just a way of calling people on the right racist bigots, whilst still thinking of oneself as nice, white like a soft Social Justice marshmallow, or a snowflake perhaps.
When it comes to eating their own when it is convenient, like the SJW's did to Lindsay, the marshmallows have teeth. Fairness and compassion is redefined as a stab in the back.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

Smilie faced fascists of the post-modernist left have a wonderful way of defining words to mean the exact opposite of what they are in the dictionary.

They're not so smiley face anymore though, are they? What happened to all that love and acceptance?

 

[FireDragon76]

It’s got nothing to do with a mismatch of values, if anything it offends people on the left because equality is one of their values.

My fellow white people: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem | Katherine Craig

Example. Tell me that’s not moralising. You’ve all sinned and have fallen short, but do what we tell you and you can be saved.

I'm not sure that's the message that progressives are really trying to convey, and not just your spin on it. The fact you see it that way could just be because you seem to resist the notion that human beings are social by nature and are more than individuals, and guilt and shame are potential consequences of that. That doesn't mean the intent of progressives is to guilt and shame people per se: they want oppression to stop, not for people to wallow in guilt.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I never said that they were the majority of students, although far more come out suffering from that madness than going in. I said that the majority of the schools are insane. National Review did a list of most PC things from 2017, and I don't really care about the article in and of itself, but notice where most of it takes place.

Yes, that's how NR presents it because that suits the narrative that NR and that one particular author wish to portray. (That article and all of the articles it references were all written by the same author - she basically compiled a greatest hits list from her own previous material) I looked into a couple of them and none of them seemed to warrant the level of outrage that the author attempted to stir up.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You'll have to be more specific on which effects in particular you're referring to before I can answer. I'm not a huge fan of blanket statements when it comes to this particular topic.

You were talking about generational oppression...so it stands to reason if you didn't participate in that generational oppression, i.e. your family got here sometime after the civil rights movement white or black, then none of this white privilege nonsense applies to you.

 

[Rion]

Yes, that's how NR presents it because that suits the narrative that NR and that one particular author wish to portray. (That article and all of the articles it references were all written by the same author - she basically compiled a greatest hits list from her own previous material) I looked into a couple of them and none of them seemed to warrant the level of outrage that the author attempted to stir up.

Oh, okay. So Berkeley, Dartmouth, Evergreen, Mizzou, etc. were all just strange coinkadinks.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

You were talking about generational oppression...so it stands to reason if you didn't participate in that generational oppression, i.e. your family got here sometime after the civil rights movement white or black, then none of this white privilege nonsense applies to you.

There's two different aspects at play
- The financial aspect
- The social stigma aspect

For the scenario you mentioned, the former would not really be applicable (unless the family came here with a pile of $$$ to begin with), the latter could be partly applicable depending on the region you live in.

For instance, if a white immigrant moved into a southern area that still had large amounts of racist sentiment against blacks, and business owners purposely went out of their way to hire whites before blacks, that could work out to that immigrants advantage in terms of job prospects. Basically, the "privilege" aspect would come into play with them getting preferential treatment for a job even though there could be more qualified people, simply because the business owner prefers their race over another....even though they, themselves, might not have a racist bone in their body.

 

[SolomonVII]

They're not so smiley face anymore though, are they? What happened to all that love and acceptance?

The most dangerous people are those who believe that the evil within them does not exist. It is the others that have to be done away with.
They smile to your face, and slip the knife into your back as they are patting it.
And all the while they are patting themselves on the back for nailing their fellow liberals, like this young girl, to the wall.
She is white, and therefore is by definition an oppressor.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

She is white, and therefore is by definition an oppressor.

A major tenant of leftist thought, very often held but rarely stated explicitly, is that "oppressed" people have every right to hate their "oppressors", but the "oppressors" have no moral right to return this hatred. In fact, "oppressors" have no legitimate interests at all, not even their own survival.

 

[Gadarene]

I'm not sure that's the message that progressives are really trying to convey, and not just your spin on it. The fact you see it that way could just be because you seem to resist the notion that human beings are social by nature and are more than individuals, and guilt and shame are potential consequences of that. That doesn't mean the intent of progressives is to guilt and shame people per se: they want oppression to stop, not for people to wallow in guilt.

*sigh*

I feel like I’m having the same conversation from two completely different directions, and both conversation partners are making the same mistake.

Just like Ana is wrong to say that there are no good usages of the term “privilege”, you are similarly off kilter by insisting there are no bad usages of the term “privilege.”

To put it mildly, FD - if white people spoke of black people in such a way, “moralising” would be a mild term compared to what we’d get called in practice. Tbh, your argument undercuts itself even more - if you think these problems are indeed systemic, then bollocking individuals is hardly going to address the problem. You can, believe it or not, talk about social issues affecting groups without being preachy, hypocritical, or selectively hectoring people over the guilt of their ancestors.

All you’re doing here is applying good faith to the group you’re defending, and poor faith to those that you’re not. Think on that social dynamic, perhaps.

 

[Ana the Ist]

There's two different aspects at play
- The financial aspect
- The social stigma aspect

Funny...you only mentioned the financial aspect in your previous post. This definition is expanding by the moment.

For the scenario you mentioned, the former would not really be applicable (unless the family came here with a pile of $$$ to begin with), the latter could be partly applicable depending on the region you live in.

Why would the former be applicable if you came here with "a pile of cash"? Obviously it wasn't made on the backs of the oppressed.

For instance, if a white immigrant moved into a southern area that still had large amounts of racist sentiment against blacks, and business owners purposely went out of their way to hire whites before blacks, that could work out to that immigrants advantage in terms of job prospects. Basically, the "privilege" aspect would come into play with them getting preferential treatment for a job even though there could be more qualified people, simply because the business owner prefers their race over another....even though they, themselves, might not have a racist bone in their body.

Ahhh...so the solution here is for whites to not get jobs until everyone else is hired first.

I'm only saying that, of course, because there's no "solution" to racism...we simply cannot change someone's beliefs.

Which brings me back to the original point, what is the point of all this talk about white privilege?

 

[Ana the Ist]

*sigh*

I feel like I’m having the same conversation from two completely different directions, and both conversation partners are making the same mistake.

Just like Ana is wrong to say that there are no good usages of the term “privilege”, you are similarly off kilter by insisting there are no bad usages of the term “privilege.”.

Whoa...pump the brakes there Gad. I didn't say there's no good usages of the term privilege. I think that the term is only used to shame whites and excuse blacks. I've never seen it as part of a larger conversation that includes all kinds of privileges from female privilege, height privilege, beauty privilege, and so on....

Instead, the whole conversation turns into a discussion of how while privilege is the explanation for every inequality there is....which is in itself, a racist premise.