Wouldn't that count as indirect perception? The apple appears green and I have learnt that apples which appear green are ripe and so "see" that an apple is ripe if it appears green. — Michael

There may only be correlation between the color of apples and their ripeness, but so long as there is consistency, there will be utility. That we consistently perceive color differences, and that these color differences consistently reflect evolutionarily pertinent facts, is what has mattered.

Color is not first hand information (nothing we have access to is), though it strongly appears to be derived from it.

It also tells you that the object is not red, or blue, or yellow. — VagabondSpectre

Which is just telling you something about how the object doesn't appear to you. But that's not really in question here. — Michael

It tells you something about how it relates, or doesn't relate (separation/difference), to other objects, and if the colors change, that tells you something about a change in the object (or the light striking it).

What exactly color differences and color changes tell us about objects is mostly fallible association, but evidently it has been useful.

That doesn't really tell you much about the external world. If I were to tell you that I'm holding two of the same thing in my hands, I hardly think that counts properly as conveying information to you about what's in my hand. — Michael

Imagine that nobody could perceive color, or only one color if that makes it easier, and could instead only differentiate light data on a scale of luminosity/brightness...

We would no longer be given access to as much information about material, chemical, and structural differences when we compare and contrast objects (only an objects tendency to absorb or reflect light would determine it's hue). In short we lose a powerful tool of discrimination.

Color differences are inexorably based on tangible differences between external objects, and while we abstract and run wild with fallible presumptions about the meaning of color, there is still some small amount of real information retained in our color coding of light data.

In the world without color, you could tell me the luminosity of the objects in your hand, and this could convey some information pertaining to the emmisivity of the objects (i.e: they're "bright"). In the world of color, you can tell me that they are "green" or "red" in addition to whether or not they are bright. The more of our abstract interpretations of sensory input that you convey to me (shape, weight, thermal behavior, smell, taste, noise, observable behavior) the more information I have about what is in your hand.

By telling me that the two objects in your hand are the same sort of thing, you have indeed given me information about the objects in your hand. If you can hypothetically be holding two of anything, the total number of combinations of things you could be holding would be the total number of possible things squared. By telling me that they are the same thing, you have effectively removed the squared function and reduced the number of options I can choose from.

In more or less the same way, when you tell me that the single object in your hand is green, you've given me information about what it is if only by narrowing down what it isn't.

Individual photons aren't colored, no. Light in wave form is colored. Again, that's what colors are. — Terrapin Station

Strictly speaking, color is abstracted from the force of the crashing of the light wave.

Color is derived from photonic after-math.

Different animals (and even different people) experience that wavelength in different ways. Does it make sense to say that two different organisms are given the same information about the object being looked at despite seeing it to be different colours (e.g. orange for one, red for the other)?

At best there's indirect knowledge after finding out what kind of wavelength elicits what kind of colour experience in oneself. But prior to any kind of scientific analysis of light and perception, what does me seeing a thing to be green tell me about that thing, other than that it is such that I see it to be green? — Michael

It also tells you that the object is not red, or blue, or yellow.

If I place colored balls before you (two green and one red) your eyes will tell you that the two green balls share a similarity that the red ball does not. If I place three apples before you, you may discern from color which of them are ripe and ready to eat. In these cases we use color as an empirical heuristic for other properties, but it's often quite reliable.

1. Does it dissolve the hard problem of consciousness by providing a scientific explanation for colors, sounds, smells, etc? — Marchesk

It doesn't dissolve the hard problem, though it does indicate that at least everything pertaining to consciousness but the hard problem is solvable.

We can imagine physical mechanisms which discriminate between different wavelengths of light, and we can even imagine plausible evolutionary histories...

The hard question would be, why does our experience of color feel like an experience at all?

2. Does this entail that direct perception is false, being that secondary qualities (color, taste, etc.) are not properties of things themselves, but rather coding schemes that relate to the chemical makeup of sugar or reflective surfaces of leaves (using the two examples above)? — Marchesk

The chemical makeup and other spectral properties of objects are indeed properties of objects. When photons strike an atom or molecule, it can be absorbed, reflected, or some combination of both. When white light strikes a "green" object a certain portion of its energy is absorbed and the rest is reflected as a photon with a different wavelength. That change in wavelength carries information about the chemical and molecular makeup of the object it last struck, and it is that information color discriminating eyeballs have tapped into. It might be fair to say that our phenomenological perception of color is an abstraction, but it is not fair to say that it does not convey information about the external world.

3. We know that color experience is produced after the visual cortex is stimulated. This can the result of perception, memory, imagination, dream, magnetic cranial stimulation, etc. If a person's visual cortex is damaged enough, they lose all ability to have color experiences, including being able to remember colors. It's hard to avoid concluding that color experiences are generated by the brain. But that sounds like the makings of a cartesian theater, which Dennett has spent his career tearing down. — Marchesk

In light of damage to the brain eliminating one's ability to have color experiences, Dennett would probably say that this validates his view that the hard problem is itself a fundamental misunderstanding (that the mechanisms of our behavior are the experiences, and without them the Cartesian homunculus ceases to apparently exist).

The teleological argument for god seems to be a main source of interest in teleology in the first place.

For example, bananas:

Suppose a 2 ton anvil is suspended precariously above your exposed toes, and you know the rope is about to break.

Why would you move your toes out of the anvil's path of destruction?

Do you think you should have to explain why the universe exists the way it does to have adequate justification to preserve your pedal digits?

Let's see...

I am eating this candy bar. Why?
Because I like the taste. Why?
Because that's how my body is built. Why?
Because of evolution. Why?
Because of the nature of matter and energy. Why?
Because of the big bang. Why?

Nobody knows why the big bang happened, and it's beyond any looking glass.

I looked into this.

Paul Joseph Watson (info wars editor) grabbed a ".gif" file from a conservative website (Daily Wire) and applied a "zoom". In all likelihood the creator of the original .gif file (which was likely created for the conservative website) manipulated the video himself by duplicating/replacing frames during the "action" to make the movement appear to be more sudden. The frame by frame discrepancies only occur at the moment of action, making it unlikely it was a result of the conversion process Watson used.

It would be pretty brazen of him to knowingly tweet doctored video. The original editor was clever enough to make very minimal changes, and because of the effect of those changes (makes Acosta look borderline violent) it rabble roused well in conservative echo chambers.

Watson in this case was just as roused as he was a rouser, which was then unwittingly echoed again by the witless white-house.

It reveals one of the frightening weaknesses of segmented network/data-structure that the internet has us contend with. Bottom up information flow (such as a manipulated gif created by an anonymous person and uploaded to a website viewed mainly by conservatives) only tends to reach parts of the network where users already condone, support, or are massaged by the content in question. This means different sets of facts, records, and repositories can happily co-exist by never actually interacting with their contradictory counterparts. That this particular instance of disinformation managed to leak into the mainstream was a matter of chance, and as long as we all get our information from disparate and disconnected sources (with highly questionable incentives) we will continue to form ideologically disparate and disconnected groups.

There comes a time when an issue is no longer debatable -- where there isn't some compromise that will satisfy everyone involved enough to keep on getting along. There isn't some true belief with respect to how we should set up this or that law. There are convictions, and some of them cannot be reconciled. You either cross the picket line or you don't -- you either support the North or the South -- you either vote for Kavanaugh or you do not. — Moliere

You make humans sound like emotional sticks arbitrarily stuck in the muck (not wholly inaccurate). I think that when we are most vehemently and emotionally opposed is exactly when we should be debating; it means we have a significant difference about a significant issue. But thorough and unbiased debate in the midst of a controversial and emotional disagreement (especially where issues quickly break down into complex ethics, biology, economics, ecology, etc...) is asking to much. Grimly, thorough and unbiased debate, and some form of reconciliation and compromise is exactly what we're expected and required to do as the body politic. The more in-depth conversation we actually have, the less room I think we will have to disagree (on basically anything), the problem is in a world of tweets, headlines, and digital blinders, in-depth conversation is somewhat of a rare luxury.

We don't have to agree on everything, but we should at least be capable of understanding each other's perspectives (let alone willing!), and if and when mutual compromise seems necessary, it won't be for lack of trying.

I think that the favoring is more because this is how we feel now. I mentioned the civil war because that was clearly a violent political moment where there could not be compromise, but it happened without social media or the internet or even very fast communication. — Moliere

But it did, critically, coincide with a rise in the ubiquity of new forms of (social) communication. Printing presses were being made smaller and cheaper, literacy was rising, and the social-political machine was revving up. Leaflets, letters, pamphlets, posters, newspapers and speaking events. Dues collecting unions, clubs, and political parties churned out propaganda with quickening pace and a diversifying body of literature. Compelling reform movements included the women's rights, the emancipation and abolition of slaves and slavery, healthcare, and the general reform/Christian perfection of mankind in the face industrial decadence and socio-moral decay (Millenialism, temperance, utopian communes, etc...).

They may have lived in a snail's world compared to the pace of our own, but they were still living in a time of increasing communication and were like us being overrun with new information they weren't prepared to process. Perhaps when a technological change finally stabilizes we can have a chance at predicting and adapting to its effects, but when the environment itself is changing unpredictably, we might be wholly unprepared to confront the new and hitherto unseen consequences (uncertainty of the future lads to fear, and that fear to leads violence). The expanded and newly segmented world of post Jacksonian politics in the 1850's was marked by division over an influx of new issues. When Minnesota became a state in 1858, it gave the north a clear majority in the electoral college, and the perception of their impending loss (and therefore loss over all those intractable disagreements) caused the southern states to declare succession, and war ensued. Environmental forces of the 1820's-1850's caused the body politic of the era to segment and divide faster than it could homogenize through democratic debate and reconciliation.

One problem, at least, is that if we continue to segment deeper into our divided and emotionally committed trenches, violence will be inevitable. I'm not hoping to reignite the Luddite movement by laying so much blame at the feet of digital communication, but I am hoping that we get around to maturing (learning how to use it responsibly, healthily, and sensibly) sooner rather than later (though, as long as technological change keeps accelerating, I don't think we can necessarily control ourselves).

Some bullies don't go to a far enough extreme that you need to declare war. They can be appeased well enough without infringing on your dignity, and their insecurity is their own problem to deal with. But that's not always the case. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bully is to say no, after which the bully will attempt to follow through with the threat -- and while sometimes what they threaten isn't actually of much worth or worth the effort of war, sometimes it is; such as when violence against people you love is threatened, for instance. — Moliere

I agree in principle that sometimes reconciliation or cooperation is not an option (I personally refer to it as a breakdown of morality) but I don't think everyone's interests are so fundamentally opposed that we must necessarily differ or allow ourselves to come to violence. I guess it will come down to whether we engage in politics with our heads or our hearts, or perhaps some ideal mix of both...

People who say "privilege is why" are using this descriptive sense. They mean in the social context some people have been put in difficultly by an unstated material cause, which is producing a society with this relation of privilege. In making this point, they are only describing someone on difficultly in relation to this social order. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But how can this ever be useful? If we could, hypothetically, impartially randomize the wealth and social status of every individual in society, we would still likely have a situation where outcomes are not universally equal. You could make the same statements about privilege and associate them with the racial categories that happened to have better dice rolls, but you would not be offering anything useful in terms of understanding or remedying the problem. Via the association of privilege with race or gender, you're begging equivocation with cause rather than effect. I think you will agree that the unstated material causes of our disparate outcomes extend far and widely beyond race or gender, and that to comprehensively explore them requires we exchange artistic lenses for numerous scientific ones.

They'll just say "It's privilege" because they already know associated material caused nested with that outcome. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But what are the causes? Claiming authority in these matters is hubris.

The biggest issue is a lot of people just don't do description of people in the social context. One of the reasons people get confused by notions of privilege is they relate only in terms of a justification or causal state. They take everything about giving a reason for a state, social organisation or event. Description of an event, a person, how someone is treated, how someone understood, is a rejected catergory of inquiry.

The appeal to intentionally is a great example of this tendency. Supposedly, something will only count as discriminationatory if it's intended. Only if someone is rejected for being black can there be an issue with racism. Social inquiry gets reduced to reasons for rather than being descriptive of people in social relations. — TheWillowOfDarkness

By defining discrimination (presumably unfair?) as unequal outcomes in and of themselves, without giving thought to whether unfair discrimination occurred, you're exploding the term and courting misinterpretation. In a previous discussion of ours, you pointed out that if and when a cop shoots a civilian (be they armed, dangerous, innocent, whatever), it will be a discriminatory act depending on the race of the victim, and not the circumstances, judgment, and reasons which caused the cop to shoot in the first place (in our previous example, shooting a minorityeven if they're an active shooter amounts to discrimination, but it's not as if the police officer should not have done it, or should have paused to ask themselves if they should refrain from taking action because of the race of the perpetrator).

Should police only take action in so far as it is consistent with proportionally representative outcomes for given ethnic groups (a race based quota system?). That would definitely lead to equal outcomes in terms of police violence and incarceration, but something tells me this approach wouldn't actually result in increased social or economic equality (it wouldn't fix material causes).

Thinking in just terms of reasons or intention just doesn't make sense. It leaves out some of the most aspects of social relations. To do so is like trying to think about poverty only in terms of people who we've already employed. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But by hooking terms like privilege and discrimination (which used to have specific meanings) and using them as a pointer for all possible causes, you're over-blowing connotations of prejudice and racism while saying nothing at all about anything specific.

I don't think you're that far off from a usable lens, I mainly take issue with your choice of words. I do appreciate that you have always calmly and clearly tried to lay out good reasons for your positions, and while I disagree with some of them, your attitude and the actual position you occupy is not comparable to the brand of inter-sectional feminism that I have outlined in the course of this thread. Outrage might not be a part of your own school of thought, but it's a sufficient part of enough schools that it can come to dominate the subject matter.

Causal reasons for difficulty are far more material. It's illness, lack of community, poverty, actions of other people to exclude people of a race, sex or gender, etc., lack of services, an environment in which people harm each others and a host of other events we could name. Privilege is just description of certain social relations and states formed out of those causes. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I have to be honest and say that I think you're on a theoretical island of your own. Merely equating disproportional outcomes with words like white privilege without any explanatory force behind them is an inversion of typical inter-sectional feminist theory: "privilege is why whites have disproportionately better outcomes". I can understand what you mean in your descriptive approach, but I don't see how it delivers anything useful, because to remedy the disproportional outcomes, we really need to understand legitimate causes.

Is it? How would one measure such a thing to make it evident? And from a political perspective, if politics is about power, and anger makes a "bandwagon" popular quickly, makes it travel further, and have a bigger impact then . . . what exactly is wrong with it?

Would you rather a political agent travel slowly, affect a handful of people, and not have much of an impact? Or is it the particular policies that the anger is directed at that are actually the problem -- as in, you'd rather these (effects -- policies, actions, what-have-you) be slow, local, and disappear?

My suspicion is the latter. But then if that were the case then outrage and anger are not your object of criticism -- it's what the anger and outrage are doing. — Moliere

This is a bit of a false dilemma. Just because anger, hate, and outrage propel us the fastest doesn't mean it's the most desirable or effective means of political locomotion, or that any alternative would be slow and ineffectual. Sometimes we move too fast, especially in anger, and we break things or do things we regret. In extreme circumstances a quick and angry response might be just what is required, but often times it is wiser to take the time to understand the problem before crashing into it at high speeds (which can often make problems worse).

I understand that you believe this -- But why would you say this?

Polarization isn't the result of a lack of ability to identify issues. That would be uncertainty -- but polarization comes about because people have convictions of which they are certain, and said convictions are in opposition to one another.

So we have two common identities in the states right now which want different things, and the different things they want annul each other. To use a common point of dispute, and your terminology of victimhood -- abortion can be seen as an issue where the innocent are harmed; the innocent in one case are unborn babies, and in another are women. Neither side deserves to be harmed for what they are: the difference lies in how we look at the two groups, and that manner of looking aligns pretty strictly with the two popular US identities.

But that isn't an inability to identify what is politically meaningful. In fact, both sides know exactly what is meaningful, and exactly what they want. — Moliere

Of course, abortion is a meaningful political issue, but it's already been thoroughly identified as such. I'm more worried about awareness of the steady stream of issues which the body politic is meant to confront; our ability, as a group, to expediently and rationally identify and address them.

Polarization can occur for many reasons (you've merely defined polarization, not explained how it can come about). Disagreement can turn to polarization when for whatever reason both sides have sufficient emotional stake in their positions, and in the course of defending against attacks from the other side they are driven deeper into commitment or extremity. On the subject of abortion, as you say, there is outrage on both sides, certainty on both sides, which has largely been brought about thanks to the emotional arguments each side uses. The uncompromising certainty held by either side pretty much guarantees that reconciliation toward truth (in whichever direction it may lay) is not possible. In this case outrage fuels the certainty and division that seems to otherwise prevent consensus.

What are some common responses in light to a social media campaign? No-platforming and firings seem to be the most extreme things I see.

But this pales in comparison to, say, riots, assassinations, and civil war -- all of which have a history of happening in the United States before social media.

How groups interact have changed, sure. But what does that have to do with outrage? — Moliere

A civil war is a pretty high bar to set before accepting that outrage has changed. The other examples you mentioned, riots and assassinations (at least assassination attempts), are also contemporary problems I associate with a change in outrage. Earlier I said it may be true that we're no more or less outraged than before, but it is surely true that as groups we're able to focus our outrage in novel ways. Riotous protests and demonstrations have been occurring for several years (antifa and the right/alt-right mostly), and there have been assassination attempts on politicians by nut jobs from both sides of the isle in recent years (the pipe bomber most recently). I submit that the tendency of social and news media to favor that which outrages (because it gets more clicks and views) has altered our previous balance of emotions toward a state of stress, irritability, and resentment (being inundated with enraging click-bait which has been selected because it reinforces our preexisting biases, is a main culprit).

People react to new environments differently, some more extreme than others, but in general I do see a rise in stress (at least the "on-line" cross section of westerners), increasing polarization, shrinking will for empathy and bi-partisanship; general cantankerousness. The inspiration for writing this thread came from one of the main conservative reactions to Dr. Ford's testimony: they were outraged that such an unfair witch-hunt was allowed to happen instead of even batting an eye at Kavanaugh's blatant lies and questionable character. It fit their polarized narrative, it gave them outrage of their own, and that's really all it took; meaningful issue successfully disregarded...

In the vulgar form of 'any injustice results from an institutional disparity' I agree, but I don't really think this is representative of intersectional thought. The entire point is to avoid reductionism of an account which renders that account unrepresentative for some groups of people. — fdrake

In my perhaps biased experience of intersectional feminism, it has been most significantly lacking in its descriptions of the specific mechanisms of structural power and discrimination it alleges perpetuate inequality. At best it relies on an appeal to widespread bigotry by presuming that the cumulative impact of widespread discriminatory actions by individuals from groups occupying more positions of power is what leads to statistically disparate outcomes for non-males and non-whites. Where discriminated identities are compounded (the intersection of multiple identities) so too is discrimination compounded (hence the progressive stack). As far as I have gathered, this is the exact lens of inter-sectional feminism, and while it is not necessarily wrong, when haphazardly wielded as broad explanatory tool it does at its core make the assumption that unfair discrimination based on identity is at the heart of all statistical disparities.

It's easy to see how the mis-application of this lens can go wrong. Where specific discriminatory actions, trends, and institutions cannot be identified, students of inter-sectional feminism are incentivized to invent them (micro-aggressions and cultural appropriation to name a few); wearing dreadlocks can amount to cultural theft, and asking about someone else's culture can amount to denigration, etc... (Through the intersectional looking-glass, any transgression becomes dire). As a hypothesis, inter-sectional feminism is very appealing to the progressive minded, but when applied as an untreated lens it obscures more than it reveals. In practice it cannot avoid reductionism, and it is forced to carry out investigations without the benefit of a broader imagination (the cause of X disparity must always come in the form "Y group has more power, therefore Y group employs that power to perpetuate X disparity"). As a hypothesis and heuristic we may use it to direct our inquiries in a hopefully right direction, but we cannot rely on it as answer. Statistical representations of whole populations need a lot of interpretation and analysis to be well understood or explained, let alone remedied, and while inter-sectional feminism is very good at presenting statistical outcomes, it is very poor at finding solid causal mechanisms that go beyond the scope of assumed human discrimination.

But that doesn't mean I believe there isn't a place for focussing on social issues that don't, at least at face value, relate to political economy meaningfully. I definitely think it's important to challenge norms when they're discriminatory or even just unpleasant for some of those involved. — fdrake

I'm not against challenging norms, especially norms perpetuated by discrimination, but not by any means. Take the norm of American presidents being men as example: I wish that people would give political candidates fair consideration regardless of their gender, but I do not wish for people to vote female candidates for the sole reason that they want to achieve parity in gender outcomes in the office of the president. When Hillary Clinton said that one of her merits is that she's a woman, to vote for her because she is a woman, she was appealing to the idea that unfairness in previous outcomes demands arbitrary correction; that instead of voting for her because of her ability to do the job, we can and should vote for her because the circumstances of her birth. A rather silly move if you ask me.

Also ironically, I generally see people getting butthurt over intersectional discourse as part of this politics of outrage. — fdrake

You're right, those left butthurt in the wake of intersectional feminism have been long festering, and overtime various evolutions/schisms within that group have resulted in the creation of the alt-right (it was bred in places like youtube where pundits trot out and "take down" the silliest examples of "regressive" politics, which has by now largely been co-opted by older political memes (which in the case of the alt-right were the neo-nazis and "ethno-nationalists")).

Some nebulous group of people without a modicum of objective social power dislikes my universal humanitarian outlook because it problematises 'universal' views on humanity is destroying discourse/society/politics! Is there really a better example of finding strange things to be a victim of? — fdrake

I'm not sure what you mean by objective social power. To the extent that any collection of citizens has social power, wealth not withstanding, inter-sectional feminists and the associated movement do have social power, but what is objective social power?

Oh, I see! I also see, I think, why I didn't understand the stack the way you do. Because your understanding doesn't seem to be reflected by the video. Maybe you should have used another example. Nevermind though, I'll do my own research! — Πετροκότσυφας

The video was a random example of the progressive stack's use I submitted in an effort to satisfy the "concrete" criterion of your request. I wouldn't call it research, but I fail to see how the video did not reflect my given definition of the progressive stack.

Thanks for your contributions to the thread so far! If the results of your own research prove relevant to the thread, please share them!

Don't get all fragile and guilt ridden at this stage of the game. Enjoy your upper hand while you still have it. The brown hordes are on the move. — Bitter Crank

Hear hear! They're takin' our peak experiences!!! :lol:

It doesn't seem likely to me that a major reason why Occupy failed was intersectionalism. It looks to me that it failed because it had lots of complaints but almost no tangible political goals, and it lost its momentum to move towards those goals by failing to exploit whatever asymmetries of organisation they could. They experimented like the small 60 and 70's communes, which had already failed to produce an anticapitalist politics for similar reasons. — fdrake

You're right that intersectionality did not kill Occupy Wall-street, but that wasn't my charge (it was disorganization and a lack of coherent demands that did it in). As far as I know the OW movement was about addressing wealth inequality (an issue which arouses my own passions) which is why I scarcely understand their need to divide themselves into categories of identity based relevance. In the video I posted, an objection is raised from the audience along the lines "it shouldn't matter what our race or orientation is, we're all here because we belong to a marginalized class". He was rebuked with laughter and a lecture about privilege being equivalent to identity. Imagine for a moment that the individual who objected has in fact lived an impoverished and disadvantaged life, despite the statistical correlation between race and wealth/access to institutional power. From their already marginalized perspective, "stepping up by stepping back/checking their privilege" is just more arbitrary marginalization, is it not? This is how it becomes divisive...

Whenever someone is excluded based on their identity, it makes sense to ask in what contexts are they excluded, and why they are excluded. Even if we grant that the concerns of white cis men are diminished in relevance compared to anyone outside of that category in intersectionalist movements and circles, it doesn't mean that white cis men are excluded from anything else. The 'divisive rhetoric' doesn't so much divide the populace as unite us into causes along identity lines. You can't have it both ways; that the rhetoric is divisive but nevertheless produces a unified front of outraged sheeple from all backgrounds. — fdrake

It's hard to not sound like a whiny entitled piece of work by lamenting the exclusion of white men from intersectional feminist spaces (which seems to include more than just academic round-tables), but I am indeed whining. I'm whining about the division it creates using outrage as its operant motivator. Many young white men don't see a unified front, they see a hierarchical pecking order with themselves as bottom fodder. Where passionate and dedicated activists go overboard with the precepts of intersectional feminism, they do real damage to the reputation of any legitimate causes they represent, their entire movement, and they fan the flames of division (which in recent years as made a stark contribution to the rise of the alt-right, their now ironically existent bogeyman).

Another major point, which I'm surprised that you're not tackling given how you've researched intersectionalism and privilege, is that privilege is a structural property rather than agent based one. The popular sense of privilege is rooted in two different types of privileges: spared injustice privileges and unjust enrichment privileges. Spared injustice privileges are like the disproportionate number of blacks in prison - white people and neighbourhoods are largely spared this injustice. Unjust enrichment privileges are like the rising tide failing to raise all boats when an economy grows - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and this isn't fair. — fdrake

Having a full discussion about these issues is a very large undertaking because of their loaded complexity, but to put in brief: institutional power structures service and disservice individuals far less rigidly on the basis of race or sex than inter-sectional theorists would have us believe. This is a thread I wrote regarding the issue of racism in police violence against blacks, which would constitute a spared injustice privilege for whites in the eyes of an inter-sectional feminist. That specific alleged privilege is loaded with complexity, engenders outrage when accepted, and is difficult to explore and discuss (exploring and discussing the entire gamut of privilege would be unending). I actually reject that discriminatory institutional practices are the main perpetuators of demographic inequalities in contemporary western society. For example, for white inmates and impoverished white families, there is no institutional lever they can pull to elevate themselves; the concept of white privilege to them, is quite alien. In a nut shell, I think the main error is confusing raw statistical outcomes with intent or design in institutional practices. I contend that impoverished white families are having about as hard of a time escaping poverty as impoverished black families are having, and the main forces which actually keep them poor have very little, if anything, to do with race or gender or identity. By assuming from the get go that all statistical disparities are caused by discriminatory institutional practices we're disregarding the many other circumstantial factors which contribute to contemporary statistical outcomes, in all their exhaustive complexity.

So we can't say that me, personally, as a white bloke, mistreats blacks, women and other identity categories just because I'm white. It's more statistically that I have less shit to deal with. — fdrake

But how do we export this statistical truth into a worldview? (Or in the case of the progressive stack, as race based rules of engagement?).

Regardless of how much effort I put into my arguments and how reasonable they appear, the selection criterion referenced in the OP will allow anyone to say 'yes, but this is quite reasonable, we weren't talking about that'. The people who believe in this stuff generally aren't idiots you know, most people aren't. — fdrake

And yet, there are idiots out there, and they tend to be relatively loud. What's worse is the loud idiots find one another through social media and reinforce eachother's idiocy. Worse still, the cacophony of their combined idiocy causes other idiots who take them seriously to rise in idiotic protest of their own, which eventually polarizes both sides into the very caricature the other ridicules them as.

I'm not saying that outrage is inherently bad, and I'm also not saying it's the fault of inter-sectional feminism that there's so much outrage flying around (it doesn't help), I'm simply saying there's too much outrage, and that has got to be affecting us somehow.. Disagree about specifics as you will, you cannot deny that the amount of polarized outrage observable in recent years is a worrying trend. The major cause of the polarizing outrage seems to be hand held media which corrals and reinforces us into segmented ideological compartments, and via the ensuing degradation of discourse it's our democratic health that becomes the victim. As the frequency and intensity of our outrage increases, we're less able to take satisfactory action, and the less emotional patience we have to listen and communicate effectively. It's as if we're being stoked into a growing and irritable mania, where dissent and deviation from our own understanding is less tolerable than ever before...

P.S. I'm not trying to obliterate dissent toward my own ideas in this thread by responding in a meticulous manner, but given the direction the content has taken, I would be too easily misconstrued or fail to make my point otherwise.

Applying intersectional methodology is nothing more than common sense applied to using testimony to study social circumstances. It does not mean that a person is automatically right in their descriptions of those social circumstances.

Also btw, as a cis white bloke, the intersectional feminists and trans folk I've spoken to have always been very receptive to my ideas, and they usually have something interesting to say. Especially postcolonial feminists. Maybe it's you? — fdrake

Feminism has more sects than any religion in my experience. I consider myself a feminist in the sense that I believe in equality of opportunity for everyone, but it's hard to wield the label these days and not catch flak because of it.

I just cannot get past the prima facie discrimination that comes out of the intersectional camp. Maybe it's me. I know that as a cis white het male I'm supposed to be made uncomfortable (because my unearned comfort comes at the expense of other identity groups), but I think there's a bit more to it than my own white fragility sensitivity.

Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about something that happened in our social circle one night. It makes sense to ask people who were there.

Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about how people from different backgrounds feel about stuff. It makes sense to ask them.

Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about the possibility of really different experiences from different backgrounds. Yeah, still makes sense to ask them. They might even reveal things that we wouldn't even have thought of, maybe even couldn't in some cases. — fdrake

It's certainly well intended, but its general application is silly and divisive. If we're trying to survey the opinions of a particular demographic, then yes we should be asking that demographic, but most discussions, such as those at an occupy wall-street rally, aren't so specific. By assuming in the general sense that race or orientation arbitrates the relevance of an individual's experiences, and acting on that, we're just practicing a kind of race/gender/orientation discrimination of our own, are we not?

On the one hand, the progressive stack is about elevating the previously silenced groups (doesn't exactly apply to individuals, (elevating an individual is not elevating a group) but that's fine), on the other hand it calls for a kind of favoritism and ostracization to actually get results. The strong and defensible version merely states that we should be listening to victims because they probably have relevant information, but just down the hill is the version which states that because one group is oppressor and another victim, we need to favor and disfavor individuals belonging to that group accordingly.

How about assessing working conditions in an office? Let's ask all the people. Should we only ask men when sexual harassment of women is one of the reasons the office is being externally assessed? No, that's freaking stupid. — fdrake

When we're talking about an actual survey, yes we need to get unbiased samples, but this isn't the progressive stack (or at least, it is the "motte" and not the "bailey"). In an educational setting, would it be equitable for professors to employ the progressive stack in the course of general teaching interactions with their class? I'm in favor of calling on students who should participate more, but why not seek to actually treat individuals fairly? If structural power dynamics are deeply at play in such discussions, how does merely inverting and enforcing the power dynamic result in social equity?

Why does it make sense to ask the people who were there and experienced stuff we wanted to find out about in any of the cases above? Well, because we want to know what events are relevant to them, if there are any patterns in those events, and how those events propagate through time - how they might stay as norms and so on. Fundamentally, the analysis of social circumstances begins with testimony of those people in them. Structure comes later. — fdrake

If we're investigating the sexual harassment of women, then we ought to get the testimony of the women who have been sexually harassed. That makes perfect sense to me. What doesn't make sense is that because there is sexual harassment against women, we ought to employ a progressive stack favoring women outside of discussions regarding the sexual harassment of women, to somehow combat it.

If we're looking to discover averages or trends, then sample selection is quite important; in discussions, content is what's important, and race or orientation as a heuristic for determining the merit of content will only work so well.

So what's intersectionality? Really. It's the apparently outrageous idea that since people from different backgrounds often have different experiences, it makes sense to get their testimony about it before trying to find any underlying patterns. — fdrake

This is like the Plushie™ version of inter-sectional feminism. This is where it began to be sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think students or activists are still in the testimony gathering phase; the patterns are in. They include: microaggressions, cultural appropriation, a lack of safe spaces, and systemic or institutional discrimination functioning as a safeguard for the colonial patriarchy. Rather than an investigative tool, it gets used as a social sanction.

I'd like to see how it is presented, analysed and argued by those that hold this view, not just your interpretation of it. — Πετροκότσυφας

I have faithfully reproduced the rhetoric, but if you would rather do your own research, that's quite alright.

I didn't understand from the video that the point of it all is for people from a "traditionally marginalised background" to speak last. What I understood is that they make sure that people from these groups get the chance to speak (and theoretically be heard) by moving some of them up in the list. If, say, you have in the list fifteen middle-class, white, male speakers and one working-class, black, female speaker, and if she originally was last in the queue of speakers, she'll be put, for example, somewhere in the middle, so that it will be ensured that she gets to speak and she's not among those that might lose their chance to speak, due to -say- time restrictions. I generally don't see how that's something revolutionary; it does not sound that far from quotas systems. — Πετροκότσυφας

I can see why you've misunderstood the progressive stack (it's pretty ridiculous after-all), but the point of the progressive stack is to have the most marginalized people speak first, which necessitates that least marginalized speak last (the progressive stack is a particular order of identities based on perceived levels oppression). Under the progressive stack the black woman would always be heard first in a room full of white men (is that fair?), and in rooms of mixed demographics, white males would always be heard last.

You have to understand that identity becomes credential; belonging to a marginalized group means you should get to speak first because your lived experiences directly reflect the systemic colonialism and patriarchy, and that is the boogieman we're here to fight. White men feeling like they are entitled to speak before other people is a part of the racist system that keeps women and people of color oppressed; white men don't actually have the right to speak publicly about the issue of racism or sexism because by definition they are a part of the problem.

I didn't express any personal opinion on it, either positive or negative. I wrote that it "aims to prevent what is understood as marginalisation.". Understood by its practitioners, obviously; you clearly don't share their understanding. I guess that this practice is preferred by those who want to actively promote and incentivise greater integration of the groups they perceive as marginalized. In general I think that's fine and worthy of support - the details of how exactly it's going to be implemented depend on the occasion. — Πετροκότσυφας

So we should organize groups by arbitrarily valuing the presence and ideas of people with certain skin colors, sexual, and gender orientations, and arbitrarily devaluing the presence and ideas of others. Doesn't that theoretically propagate marginalization?

What is "marginalization"? Noun: marginalization; treatment of a person, group, or concept as insignificant or peripheral.

But wait, it's not arbitrary. It all makes sense because in the western world, whites and males are more significant. The group "white males" in particular are advantaged center-stage attention hogs who have had nothing but privilege for their entire lives. This is why when you encounter an individual white male, it is O.K to make assumptions about their experiences and ideas based on their gender and race, and to therefore disregard them as racist or sexist. Just as non-white skin is a credential that gives your ideas instant merit, being white gives instant demerit...

Ironically, the redefintion of racism I've outlined becomes itself a classically racist assumption, and along with the cadre of associated ideas and pundits coming out of this school of thought, are partially responsible for creating the classically racist alt-right (both sides reciprocate bigotry with bigotry).

Are you old enough to remember the thinking behind "don't see color"? It was the attitude that skin color should not be taken into account when making decisions about individuals. "I don't see color" was said to indicate as much. Nowadays, the phrase is viewed as harmful, because by not seeing color, we therefore do not see the credentials of lived experiences of oppression, et cetra, et cetra..., and can therefore never combat racism (by, for instance, employing a progressive stack)...

Everyone is looking to be a victim these days, but intersectional feminism has made it its science.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I meant concrete examples of academics who profess that all white people are sexist/racist. — Πετροκότσυφας

There's really no point in citing individuals, but the strong form of this notion comes from the definition of racism and sexism as "privilege plus power" from intersectional feminism. Under these definitions, non-whites and and non-males cannot be racist or sexist respectively, because they lack power and privilege, and all whites and all males therefore inherently benefit from it (which is how the notion that all whites/males are racist/sexist emerges).

I think the correct way to deal with institutional racism is to enact laws to prevent it (along with spreading awareness of the issue). I've come to understand that in order to preserve some kind of demographic racial equality in university enrollment, they devalue the test scores of Asians because they tend to score higher on average. I think that should probably be made illegal, but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise. I think circumcision should be made illegal, despite significant objections on religious grounds. I think audits, oversight, and reform is needed in America's judicial and penal system (start by eliminating for-profit prisons), but I can't tell you the specifics or extent that would be required to get results.

The one is an example of a practice which aims to prevent what is understood as marginalisation. — Πετροκότσυφας

How does forcing a certain demographic to speak and participate last prevent marginalization?

I know the reasons falling out of academia, but I'm curious to know why you think the progressive stack is a good idea.

It's very difficult to disagree with the OP due to how it's framed. Everyone will agree that inappropriate emphasis should not be given to inappropriate outrage, and everyone will agree that appropriate emphasis should be given to appropriate outrage. As eloquently as you've defended your position VagabondSpectre, it boils down to the selective use of a tautology as a cudgel - or as an inert lamentation. Something like a political Barnum statement, people will fill up the OP with examples which are great for them; everyone can agree entirely within their own selection criterion; which ultimately reflects their personal preferences and ideological standpoint. — fdrake

It's true. I had to write the OP in a way that everyone could relate to, else it would just read like my own bias. It's not just that I think we're too outraged about things we ought not be, it's that we're too outraged in general, and that this is having complicated effects. In some cases we're too outraged, in others we're not outraged enough (due to exhaustion; outrage's inflation). The #MeToo movement has some good and some bad effects (some overreactions, some justice) and the awareness of sexual assault that it creates is a good thing, but being amplified so loudly and repeated so frequently has had adverse effects as well. Men's rights groups (which are also a mixed bag of good and bad) and conservative apologists perceive the new environment as the persecution of men and are hardening to the issue (Dr. Ford's testimony was brushed aside as single drop in an ocean of public accusations).

So yeah, as much as social media can be little more than a vector for invective, they're a universal message amplifier by design. If we're apportioning blame to Twitter for normalising outrage about Donald Trump's sexual misconduct, I'd put a hefty chunk of the blame on the way the algorithms work. Hashtag Trump aggregates all the nuances into an already dismissible narrative (FAKE NEWS, like what our OPs brand inappropriate outrage), and longer messages (what, 250 characters is long?) are harder to hear at the same time as their echoes. — fdrake

They're a universal simplifier, but as you say, what gets more clicks gets even more clicks. A small disparity of initial clicks leads to vastly increased exposure in the long run. If we're even slightly more interested in the negative, the salacious, and the outrageous, then they will be vastly over-represented in the mainstreams; social media is a biased amplifier. The disproportionate amplification is I think is a main cause of the overall problem, and looks to persist well into the foreseeable future.

Nice job, the opening post is most excellent.

It seems to me that political correctness in general is, in part, a channeling of some ancient psychological forces that can no longer be expressed in the usual manner. In the past if we wanted to feel superior to someone Jews, blacks and gays and other traditional victim groups were readily available and easily abused.

These groups have largely been taken off the table as targets (at least as compared to the past) but the urges which caused us to abuse them in the first place have not magically gone away. So we're on the hunt for new targets.

One example might be the group some would call "white trash trailer park hillbillies", that is poor southern whites. Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention.

If we were Catholics we might say that the devil always finds a way to sneak in the back door of even the most well intended projects. — Jake

It's frightening to think that you might be right that we thrive in opposition, and history is definitely a positive indicator of such...

I would not at all be surprised that the moment we all finally become politically unified, regardless of the platfom used to do so, in the absence of the next meal, we begin consuming ourselves, tail first. I know it to be true of some political outlooks (communism and intersectional feminism, notably), but if it really is just satisfying a basic need to blame, then as Bitter Crank suggests, the new ubiquity of outrage as currency and the ensuing segmentation and division will continue as long as our computers have electricity.

That's probably not a good thing...

It's just modern discourse in the age of tweets and simplified communication.

It's not that everybody has gotten to be more angry and less tolerant. With outrage you make the case that there's nothing to discuss here, your side is right and the other totally is not only wrong in every kind of way, but simply goes against simple reasoning or basic morals.

Hence you don't say that many people disagree. You make it into a bigger thing by calling that people are outraged. — ssu

Disagreements can be reconciled, but outrage prefers revenge. By simplifying and polarizing, we seem to have lost the resolution required to navigate our differences, along with the emotional will to do so.

I'd be interesting in concrete examples. I'd also be interested in concrete examples of non-misleading facades on the issue of racism/sexism. — Πετροκότσυφας

The "progressive stack" is an example of a misleading facade built to reflect and focus maximum sympathy and outrage with regards to sexism and racism (it is downstream from the original position you quoted).

Here's a video from an Occupy Wall-street rally (or something), which gets hijacked by a narrow worldview that appeals directly identity based victimhood, and defends itself via outrage:



The origins of the progressive stack and the worldview which produces it is a long story, but suffice it to say that it's founded on sympathy and divisive outrage, and promotes the very opposite of fairness and equality. For the most part it's a kept practice (it only tends to be employed among a certain kind of crowd), but it does reflect the genuine academic theory of "intersectional feminism" that is ubiquitous in academic humanities departments, and will inexorably be echoed in the sycophantic halls of mass media. It's just one brand of outrage though, and there are as many brands as there are worldviews.

"The caravan" is another concrete and more recent example of how a narrow world view can be hijacked via outrage inducing rhetoric, to the detriment of all. Mike Pence says that the caravan is a Venezuelan plot (I guess the plan was to have their own country fall into political and financial ruin, forcing thousands upon thousands to flee) because all the evil brown people want to ruin America. It's exactly the kind of simplistic and fact-ignorant rhetoric that works best on social media for its ability to induce sympathy and outrage, and when flung at high speeds through this series of tubes we call the internet, its impact is severe.

Regarding genuine issues of racism and sexism, most of my focus falls on non-western countries, but if I had to pick some issues, the list might look something like this:

• Racism in the judicial systems of America (against Blacks)
• Sexism in the judicial systems of America (against men)
• Sexism in the allowance of male circumcision
• Racism against Asians in university enrollment exams

I'm sure there are countless examples of racism and sexism in the west, but it is very difficult to find truly systemic issues (in part because we've spent a few decades trying to address unfair discrimination). I myself AM concerned about the genuine western discriminatory issues which remain, but very few of them win the competition for my attention. America's world record prisoner population might be the single greatest immediate human rights issue Americans of today actually face, and in so far as racism and sexism are contributors to that issue, I'll consider them systemic and worth fighting.

Somebody on one of the late night talk shows called these sorts of glittering generalities "deepities". They sound a lot profounder than they are. Another example of a deepity is "There is no such thing as an illegal human." Sounds good -- and is even true, but nobody has called "humans" illegal. Illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, illegal this, that, and the other thing, but no "illegal humans". — Bitter Crank

As you suggest, when a controversial deepity is shot at high velocity from a blunderbuss (along with lots of other nasty flak), the impact crater it leaves behind is altogether novel.

I think a lot of the outrage, sturm and drang, incessant meme'ery, and so on are a result of the media. It isn't a plot; it's McLuhan's principle that the medium is the message. The high traffic social media are really narcissistic MEdia--emphasis on ME--and not so much social.

Facebook, twitter, and the like are designed to amplify the personal, so that's what people do with it. Recorded sound, film, radio, and television have various effects on the way we experience life. Those media are mostly 1 way: we receive; we do not send.

The Internet/WWW/browsers/email changed that. Now we could receive and send. This forum is a receive and send site. Philosophy Talk (on the radio) is 99.999% receive and about .001% send (the one or two calls and two or three e-mail questions they feature on the show). Send and receive is much more interesting, generally.

So, until such time as social media stops being MEdia. stops doing what the Internet is good at promoting (connecting), or until we run out of electricity, it will probably continue to generate waves of bullshit outrage. — Bitter Crank

I've always wondered about that second part of McLuhan's most well known phrase "If the medium is the message, then the content must be the audience". I can't be sure exactly what he meant (cryptic as he was), but man does it ever ring true when applied to social media...

The content of social media is by definition an amplification of our subjective selves. Often we start out in circles of the already like minded, and we're corralled deeper into niche groups as we explore the online environment. The many to many format of social media does connect us, but it can also disconnect us from the differently minded. For example, someone who browses /r/The_Donald, Infowars, Facebook, and Youtube will seldom if ever interact with or be exposed to the same informations as someone who browses /r/worldnews, Vice, Facebook, and Youtube. Subscription to one inlet/outlet will crowd-out subscription to other sources, and even within specific platforms the nature of subscription and algorithmic content delivery (you see what an algorithm predicts that you want to see) ensures that our existing views tend to be reinforced and seldom challenged. It's a folie à deux (folie en famillie, really).

Apparently McLuhan didn't even like television because he felt it was too subjective (compared to the objectivity of reading). He thought that it left us too susceptible to manipulation, and thought we ought to be teaching, from a very young age, the critical thinking skills necessary to choose which media broadcasts we should be exposing ourselves to. I can only imagine that he would be screaming blue murder from the rafters were he around to see what has become of us.

Compare the treatment John F. Kennedy's, Bill Clinton's, and Donald Trump's sex lives received: Kennedy's promiscuous sex life was considered off limits by the 1960s press establishment. Bill Clinton's affairs received extensive, but reasonably restrained mainline media coverage. Trump's sex life news and views is a three-ring circus. Much of the change is owing to the Internet and the large social media corporations which, unlike the old mass media, are focused on the traffic volume on its sites. The old media like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times had a clear and definite stake in what they printed. (They still do, but it matters less.) Outrage, sturm and drang, and high velocity bullshit make for big social media traffic. — Bitter Crank

A similar contrast can be seen with FDR and Hillary Clinton. FDR took careful steps to conceal his physical disability from the public, and as far as I know the papers wouldn't dare attack his private health. In 2016 at one point there was a video showing Hillary slipping or feinting while being helped in to a limo, and conservative networks went wild with theories (Trump even incorporated it into an attack ad).

Some of the allegations against Trump regarding sexual misconduct do seem like they warrant attention, but they're just not compelling next to affairs with porn stars, mail order Melanias, and his uncomfortable affection for his daughter, so nobody seems to care.

The contrast in decorum is indeed stunning...

What happens now is rapid amplification of resonant outrages. (Resonant doesn't equal reasonable, of course.) And it isn't only the left that is outraged; the right too is outraged. Everybody is outraged because we too are interested in traffic volume, and mere irritation doesn't garner attention.

So I am saying that media is shaping the message. Outrage and non-negotiable demands fly, where modest proposals land with a thud. — Bitter Crank

The right have learned to cry victim just as thoroughly as the left. Kavanaugh and the senate committee are recent examples...

Given how perverse the incentive structure seems to have become, can we ever grow out of our newfound/newly imposed obsession with outrage?

Politics is about power. There is power in moving people -- be it fear, patriotism, or outrage the political agent will speak to whatever is moving people at the time.

Competition for attention isn't something new to social media. In some ways it actually opens up the playing field in competing for attention relative to television. And outrage is certainly not new. I mean, think of the children ;).

What's changed isn't the emotions in play, but what the emotions are directed towards -- I'd also say that we are more aware of a difference in values now than we were (or perhaps it's even more divided now, and it's not just our awareness) — Moliere

I do agree, but I believe there is something unique in the relationship between negativity/outrage and social media. I'll try not to bore you with causal explanations such as the psychological impact of negative and positive emotions from an evolutionary perspective (arguably, avoiding the "bad" is necessary while chasing the "good" is not) (Hey that wasn't so bad!), but it is fairly evident that the most popular bandwagons (or at least those which travel fastest, furthest, and crash hardest) tend to be fueled by anger and outrage.

I don't think that people are unable to identify what is politically meaningful. It seems to me that people are largely set in their ways and they are not going to agree. There is a difference in values, and a stark one at that. I don't think this is the result of outrage-saturation, though. Why would I? Isn't outrage just another of the passions that motivate people to move? And aren't there other emotions which are appealed to in the competition for attention? Even now? — Moliere

I would say that we're less able to identify what is politically meaningful where previously sympathy for victims and the ensuing outrage did help us to identify issues of merit. Now that all sides are victims, there's less sympathy to go around, and we're more liable to being hijacked by the polarized narratives which surround us.

...And if outrage is what works then why not? — Moliere

It's probably true that as individuals we're no more or less outraged than before, but group dynamics have changed thanks to hand-held social media; mobs form in a different manner. When a few million people are simultaneously incensed, even if each of them can only take a very small action, cumulatively it can amount to crucifixion. On the other hand, when were inundated with enraging click-bait, we have less time to take specific action. The result, I think, is that we're able to identify fewer issues of meaningful ethical concern, and of the issues which we do become concerned about (typically the most sensational) our responses come in inconsistent proportions.

Some day we may be so lucky as to have more fear and and disgust instead of outrage. ;) But one does not become politically motivated and go through the hassle without what are painful, and sometimes ugly, emotions. The sausage is good, but the process isn't the prettiest thing to look at. — Moliere

That's fair, but surely there are more and less ugly ways to make a sausage. Let's cook with love and not hate, for once :)

These suffice for now. Instead, you can choose out of those the ones that you consider prime examples of what you find problematic, point to the actual incidents and explain how and why they are problematic. — Πετροκότσυφας

I'll pick an issue that's a prime example, but you might not like it:

The issue/concepts of racism and sexism (a.k.a, white supremacy in the west; the colonial patriarchy) have been slowly warped into misleading facades. Beginning in academia (specifically in certain humanities departments), the idea emerges that all white people are racist and all men are sexist (a redefinition in terms), and that every non-white/non-male person suffers from racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry and oppression at the hands of the white male owned system. The "intersectional" feminist approach then divides all people into their relative identity stacks and orders them from most oppressed to least oppressed (this is the "progressive stack"). At large, this encourages students of the field to be vocal about the race, gender, and sexual orientation of their interlocutors, and the final result is the promotion and repetition of divisive and classically racist ideas and speech. These students also tend to be trend setters and highly vocal and organized on social media, giving them a lot of reach. Worse still, corporate media are all too ready to kowtow to this vocal minority, if only to escape their ire.

Enter identity politics: Your race, gender, and sexual orientation are now a liability or asset, depending on who you're pandering to; to disagree springs the Kafka trap and adds fuel to the fire... (An elegant killing machine, I must say...)

If you want to understand why the view described above is wrong we can get in to that, but for now I'll briefly explain why it's a problem:

It's extraordinarily divisive. Yes it empowers heretofore oppressed, shunned, attacked, disenfranchised, and otherwise down-trodden demographics , but it is done by shunning, attacking, and disenfranchising others; it creates conflict, not unity, and we're merely creating our own enemies. Example: a Canadian professor takes issue with a requirement to use newly invented pronouns such as xim, xer and xey, and a protest against him erupts. Jordan Peterson is born. Evergreen state has the bright idea to promote awareness of racism by asking all white students and staff to leave campus for a day, one professor refuses to do so, a protest erupts against him. Brett Weinstein is born. Antifa decides to disrupt a conservative provocateur's speaking event at Berkeley, violence erupts. The alt-right is born. The alt-right then begins trolling and harassing the left, which confirms their worst fears: the nazis have returned.

Before long the passionate among us are so fundamentally entrenched in mutually exclusive worldviews that reconciliation seems a distant pipe dream. The nature of modern media allows either side to compose reels and reels of frightening rhetoric from the opposition, which practically guarantees escalation... But at some point, at least seemingly, for most of us, it all becomes too foolish. We become so desensitized and so inundated that we care less despite caring as much as possible. The currency of outrage inflates, and we're left with a perception and a world that is less useful.

Haven't worked out what I think about the issue of the OP yet, but I really enjoyed the homage in the last line to the most famous poem ever by a Canadian. — andrewk

It's really a very moving poem about solidarity with victims; a poignant example how sympathy can be an ethically meaningful cause to act. It doesn't get much more meaningful, relevant, or genuine than the casualties of war, and the sympathy and outrage this poem has generated is an invaluable source of ethical motivation to oppose armed conflict.

What I fear is the dilution of these kinds of sympathies as opportunistic pseudo-causes are foisted into our emotional vernacular. We're over-doing it on a bunch of petty issues which causes us to miss or drop the ball on the meaningful ones.

P.S

For anyone who has never read the poem, it was written by surgeon and soldier John McCrae during The Great War (WW1), and for nearly a century has held a special place in Canadian culture:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. — John McCrae

Honestly I think people are already waking up to it. The groups themselves are in the minority and people are wising up to the dangers of this sort of toxic virtue signalling, im so tempted to call it a fad and a fading one at that....but....it has infected our academia, it permeates our media intake in subtle and not so subtle ways and although people may have noticed and developed disdain they still dont seem to see the danger. — DingoJones

I think it may come down to whether we have the self control to begin using social media responsibly (and for social media operators to begin using us responsibly). The most irrationally outraged are indeed the minority, but as long as our media and academic institutions pander to them they will have significant reach and force. When it comes to massive corporate entities, I hold out no hope, but I do expect academic institutions to figure it out.

Your outrage seems entirely justified to me, and theirs certainly does not. — DingoJones

It's definitely a let-down that information and communication technology now degrades and exploits public discourse in these ways, and the more I see, the more I can lament about. However, I do reckon that if we are to get through these most emotional of times, that our present discomforts are necessary growing pains.

Since you're able to avoid unhealthy and unwarranted frustration, while the body politic as a whole isn't, it remains to be seen how you're different. — Πετροκότσυφας

My frustration pertaining to the thread's subject is not the persuasive basis for it, and it does not resemble what I have described as the uncritical amplification of whatever happens to be salacious. I'm not wholly immune to outrage, as I have explained, and while I do seem superficially capable of setting aside my emotions for the sake of discussion, I'm not harboring a panacea.

In this difference lies the reason why people have become inculcated with an obsession for their own outrage (and you haven't). There also lie the instructions of how to avoid unhealthy and unwarranted frustration. — Πετροκότσυφας

What if I'm just experiencing a momentary lapse of outrage?

Yeah, it's more of a master key than a key. If it doesn't fit your lock, remains to be seen. We will still have learnt a lot, as I explained above. — Πετροκότσυφας

I no longer understand the key metaphor. I am trying to say that asking about my personal mere differences will reveal very little about the ethical-social phenomenon I'm interested in. You're telling me that, not only is what makes me different the key to understanding the inflating value of outrage in western culture, it is in fact the key to understanding even more?

Sure, that would be nice — Πετροκότσυφας

Even mundane things like fashion, food, and humor can suddenly be polemicized: wearing a t-shirt depicting scantily clad women, as an academic, becomes both symbol and mechanism of the disdain for women in the sciences; a recipe learned in a South American country and used by a North American food vendor becomes cultural appropriation and theft; an awkward joke becomes overt sexism and grounds for professional exile; a wedding cake becomes a religious battle ground; a burka becomes support for terrorism or oppression of women; a cartoon of the Islamic prophet becomes intolerable; a joke about your favorite politician becomes part of a greater witch-hunt.

Would you like to know more?

At its base, this seems to stem from scoring social points which is normal in human cultures but there is something darker and more negative about what you are describing isnt there? The social points are being scored in a game of us vs them, rank tribalism. The harder you attack the more virtuous you are and the more points you score. The more points you are trying to score the more you become enslaved to the group think, and dependant on scoring, its cyclical and escalating. These groups will quickly turn on dissenters, because of course they are awarded social points for doing so. — DingoJones

It's a game that we're hard-wired to play, which is one of the reasons we're so vulnerable to it.

Im not exactly sure what exactly you are offering for discussion here, but your coments seem accurate to me. There is a problem, and its clearly firmly entrenched. — DingoJones

If you agree then perhaps there's not much to discuss. What this means for the future is perhaps worth discussing.

I understand from the OP that for you victimisition and outrage is something bad — Πετροκότσυφας

I've described them as natural and essential tools for certain kinds of ethical action. Some outrage is healthy and warranted, and some outrage is not. Would you like examples?

So, your outrage might be a case in point which helps us explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture. — Πετροκότσυφας

I'm frustrated because I see social media exploiting our sensitivities, which divides and stupefies us. Is my frustration warranted? Sure, Is it avoidable? No. What does this tell us about why people have become inculcated with an obsession for their own outrage?

At the same kind you acknowledged that you're doing the same thing which you find problematic and I was wondering why you do that. For example, it might be unavoidable or inescapable for some reason. Or, you might be entitled to it more than others. — Πετροκότσυφας

Parenthetically mentioning my own feelings of frustration was a matter of full disclosure (having feelings is something humans do afterall, and I'm not an unfeeling robot). However, my feelings are not the result of a single instant communication which happens to incense me, nor have they been cajoled by a box of emotionally reinforcing rhetoric. I can appreciate that you would like to show the apparent hypocrisy of being outraged at outrageous outrage, but I don't think that's the key to the issue I've identified.

Perhaps you could clarify the relevance of the questions, because I don't quite understand them. The thread is not about my outrage, whether or not my outrage is avoidable, or justified relative to the many outrages of others.

The point of the thread is to explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture, and in doing so altered it. It's curious though, that you begin questioning how my own outrage compares to the outrage of others, as if to instantly begin playing that aforementioned sport-like game...

Are you outraged? Is your outrage unavoidable or more justifiable than my outrage?

Is your outrage unavoidable or more justifiable than others' outrage? — Πετροκότσυφας

My outrage isn't on its own a standard of justice.

The body politic.

That the culture of outrage causes me outrage...

I wrote this OP not to play my own game of outrage (though I can't deny it), but rather because understanding the social and political value of outrage as currency helps to explain and predict the progression of the current political and social climate. It explains, for instance, why the credible Dr. Ford's testimony was so easily brushed aside by millions of conservatives (they're desensitized to sex related claims, third parties are ready to spin the accusations as false to create outrage of their own, and media corporations catering to politically segmented individual markets are either taking the lead or happily amplifying these forces). Another phenomenon that could use explaining is the rise of "identity politics": certain demographics which historically have been or are currently oppressed and exploited are seen as victims, so to belong to such a demographic is to be a victim, which generates instant sympathy (more so than ever before thanks to instant media); normally personal experience is the standard for victimhood, but it can be replaced with with the proxy of identity based credentials.

We've conditioned ourselves into a more fundamental kind of division, and now our mere differences more so define us. It has probably always been this way to some extent, but as people become more social media connected they intrinsically (algorhythmically) establish themselves as disconnected from opposing parts of the whole network. We're all being pushed in to boxes with people who share our exact delusions, where they're easily reinforced and nursed to strength.

Apart from coming to realize that social media which feeds us an endless series of links and connections based on what is most emotionally appealing. is not healthy for our individual and overall cognitive health, I don't see the world becoming less divided or less confused any time soon.

Of all Trump's chicanery, this business with Saudis, weapons sales, and butchered journalists disturbs me the most.