Yeah, my answer is that I'm not giving consideration to anyone under any circumstances and 0=0.

National identity certainly is less ambiguous, I really want people to be able to band together on this because national identities are great fun, they're inclusive and they give people some common ground to work together constructively. There is a pathological element to the way the "white" race is referred to, it creates a new us vs them which didn't exist in the past, as you've previously pointed out. I think that the way we refer to the "white" race as somehow encompassing all of these very different cultures shows that we could do this for western culture as well. Similarly encompassing differences which we once felt were so important but for it to work, people have got to let go of their ethnic histories and differences, they've got to find that common ground like "whites" seem to have done, with how not just the alt-right but many just don't think the differences between "whites" are all that important anymore.


Black individuals, as believers in equal opportunity, angry at their unjust treatment, desiring a better future for America and as individuals who want better lives for themselves, would have every right to resent their circumstances and the people and structures causing them. I would hope that people with similar values, irrespective of their skin colour would stand in solidarity with them on these issues. I hope the takeaway from these terrible circumstances would be that unfair prejudice based on race is wrong, no matter which race is being prejudiced against.

I would hope that these circumstances helped to demonstrate the destructive and unreasonable consequences of making race the defining factor in how you perceive and treat others. It would be a terrible mistake if black individuals would retaliate with the same incorrect, harmful way of thinking of making race an interpretative focus and basing their own perspectives around race and racial histories.

It's true that their race being meaningful is a choice that has been made for them by those who prejudice against them based on their race but somebody has to start being better. While I can appreciate that the temptation is there, it is not okay to condone bad behaviour because someone else did it first. I do not think that what would be required in those circumstances was consideration but rather trying to convince both sides that they're in the wrong, trying to encourage both sides to adopt a better perspective. I want to seriously believe in the potential of everyone for that.

What are my "facts"? I'm offering interpretations to you, not facts, you actually still can't tell the difference lol.

I have told you many times that I understand you are arguing from the context of history, that is a choice you've made. As a pragmatist and an individualist, my priority is the individual and his current circumstances. I wonder what you might think about the movie The Black Panther if you've watched it? There might be historical reasons why The Black Panther is palatable for people in a way a similar movie of a different race might not be but I don't see why we should tolerate promotions of race being something that can elicit a moral imperative as it was in that movie. It shouldn't just be bad when it's white people.

Now, people keep using the word celebration but I'm not interested in it. I think "celebration" is being purposefully used as the least egregious example or even possibly the only acceptable example of highlighting racial differences. I have been talking about the alt-right thinking politically as a group of whites, thinking culturally as whites, evaluating people based on their race and so on. I'm not saying the alt-right are just trying to peacefully celebrate their race, that's clearly not their motivation.

As for the alt-right white ethnostate, that's clearly going to be unique for a white person living in the west because compared to other races who don't even hold a majority, it's a bit pointless to talk about turning the west into an ethnostate of their race. That's why I liken that aspect of the alt-right to other countries like in east-Asia and across the world.

Also, I'm not saying the alt-right shouldn't be demonized for their position, I'm actually in favour of demonizing other groups/individuals which replicate alt-right thinking rather than limiting criticism to groups of white people. However, I do think it is inconsistent to criticise particular aspects of the alt-right without also criticising it from other groups, although people like you do give their reasons which are not inconsistent, even if I disagree with them.

I also feel that the alt-right position becomes more or less strong based on how well we're able to reduce the prevalence of race being interpretatively significant. You telling me that you're not a westerner when you were born in the west and presumably subscribe to cultures originating in the west is really the kind of thing that makes the alt-right look like they have a good point. As someone who values western culture, is it true that I should want to maintain the white majority in western countries? If all non-whites thought like you, then the answer to that would probably be yes, thankfully, I don't believe that to be the case.

I understand perfectly well that you believe in different standards for different races as a result of different racial histories. You're the one who doesn't appreciate that what I've just described is an interpretation and not something that can be called a fact. The history that took place has a causal relationship with the present but that is not what is being disputed here. What is being disputed is that the causal relationship of the past and the present justifies or warrants a particular attitude towards racial groups TODAY and that is an interpretation, not a fact.

What are you talking about? I appreciate you think racism can be unlearned, you're the one telling me that I don't think it can be unlearned because I see discrimination (not racial discrimination) in the way Sushi has laid out is just part of the way the human mind works. We value, we interpet and the result is discrimination, what I'm against is not that process but the involvement of race in that process. Primarily because race is a collectivist way of thinking and people use it to make claims without sufficient evidence.

Are you serious? You must have read what I wrote before that but you still interpret me as saying racial discrimination is unchangeable and we should just accept it? You're a joke.

Let it be something else then because there are pragmatic reasons for caring about particular characteristics and traits, race is one of the worst things to be feeding us information about people. I am not denying that people categorise differences, I'm suggesting that particular differences are highlighted and used excessively for the purpose of extracting information and meaning. You can meet a black man, he's attractive, tall, intelligent, loves cricket and his ps4 but we aren't going to focus on all of these things equally. For me, it may really matter that he loves his ps4 because I love my ps4 and now I think, we're gunna be best buddies. For someone else, the fact he's black really matters and that's what they focus on.

I'm still aware that a black man is black, I just don't extract information from that, it has not much meaning to me. I want to prioritise other interpretations and prejudices over race. I am not against discrimination, prejudice, categorising people and so on, I accept these things as unchangable.


I think that people do call themselves alt-right though i generally agree that most of those terms are inherently derogatory and not used self-descriptively all too often but I do identify with your contempt for both sides.

The problem is that he's perpetuating it Sushi, his only defence for his perspective is the historical inequities and injustices that took place and their role in the modern context but that's just not good enough. You're severely underestimating how apathetic we could be towards race if people like Anaxagoras changed their ways. There are some things I'm more pessimistic about like attractiveness, height and status for example but I don't believe we're genetically hardwired to care about race, it's an interpretative distinction which could be reduced.


I have debated whether to get into an argument about whether Jews are Caucasian or not but I decided it wasn't worth it because I am not Jewish and I don't really care. I have always been under the impression that there was a Jewish race and culture which was separate from the religion and after doing a bit of research because I was challenged on it, realised that I could easily find sources that confirmed and denied it and I guess I'd have to dig deeper to determine the truth. You're even talking about Indians and Iranians being causation and while you're welcome to give me an argument for whatever it is you believe, I wouldn't have said what I said if I realised people were going to dispute it so strongly and I got no real stake in what the truth is.

It is an empirical fact, I suppose, that you are a citizen of the US. What is a westerner to you then? A white person? Do you realise how validating that perspective would be to the alt-right? If we're diluting the percentage of literal westerners with non-westerners then, of course, western culture is under threat. It won't be long until in America, whites will no longer be a majority (more than half) of the US population. That would essentially mean, America would have fewer westerners than westerners if we posited that were true, doesn't the alt-right have a valid concern?

You also answered the question of OP, whether the alt-right is repugnant mostly because they're white, your answer is yes. The poor black people, with their poor ethnic histories, are playing an entirely different game than whites doing exactly the same thing. Different responsibilities as a result of different racial histories and it doesn't matter if you're born rich or poor, attractive or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short - none of it matters, it's just your skin colour. It's an interpretative focus on race, it's not facts, you can't even tell the difference.

You're the one telling me that half the reason they can't be compared to BLM is that BLM is more inclusive!? The other reason is that they're actually trying to do something good? So you're not comparing them but only because that would be a disservice to the BLM movement, alright. I hate BLM probably more than the alt-right, that you're only flirting with the idea of comparing them but choose not to because the BLM is better is not justification to start talking about cognitive dissonance lol.

I am not sure what you're saying you studied in college.

You want me to give quotes of you having an ethnocentric, racialised perspective while telling me you're not a westerner and blacks have different rules to whites in the same post? I don't really see the point. You've already demonstrated that you have a collectivist, racialised way of looking at history and the present. The majority of imperialism done by the West were done by monarchies, 99.99% of westerners had absolutely no say in what happened and 99% had nothing to do with it or even visited Africa or South America.

You could choose to blame individuals for what happened but where does that leave you, they're all dead. Better to instead harbour contempt for the entire western culture. Black people born today in America are not slaves or Africans, they're individuals who should be held accountable for destructive, racialised perspectives and they're not beholden to the history of their ancestors. I'm not denying the history, I'm denying your collectivist, racialised perspective, let's get that right. So I don't know what you learned in university but what is absolutely clear is that you don't understand the difference between a fact and an interpretation.

Now I don't know why I_like_sushi is paraphrasing me, perhaps he thinks we're not as opposed to each other as we are acting? I disagree though, I may be making errors in some of the things you think but I've heard enough to know that you're the kind of person that I wanted to criticise while making this thread. Even if we grant that me trying to use the alt-right to draw comparisons was wrong because they're far more racist, hateful and unreasonable than I've made it out, things have still been more or less as on topic as I can expect. The people who disagreed with me said enough for me to know, we wouldn't now be agreeing with each other if I changed my position on the alt-right and said they're being condemned because of what they are and not who they are.

Do you ever have the same kind of suspicions towards races other than whites?


Just wondering since you use all these terms like white blindness and white privilege and it's something I think most people would just take for granted but when it's the West and white people doing it, it's much worse. We gunna talk about the Chinese ethnocentric culture which genuinely put emphasis on race rather than white people in the west who by and large, are against that way of thinking? Enough so that the alt-right is criticised the way they are.

You realise when you talk about terms like white blindness and white=normal that you're telling me about how I think as a white person right? Those things couldn't exist if white people didn't think in those ways. White privilege directly impacts and affects me but you're not making any claims based solely on skin colour?


I am not saying "alt-right" instead of racism, if I wanted to say racism then I'd just say it. here's a quote to show the direction I was trying to go in:

Alt-right speakers I've listened to talk about the sanctity of white cultures, of white people having indispensable value, of white people banding together and thinking collectively. They want to secure the survival of their whites and the lands traditionally owned by whites. They want to be proud to be white, for their governments to prioritise whites over other ethnicities as the main citizens of the land. They feel the alternative is to reduce them to statistics in their performances economically, educationally and how they contribute to society.

My main challenge to people is to ask, not whether this is a good way to think or not but to discuss the prevalence of this way of thinking among ethnic groups outside of the Anglo-Saxon white citizens of Western nations. I would argue that the vast, vast majority of nations outside the West have cultures that can be characterised by alt-right thinking. Secondly, I would argue that outside of Anglo-Saxon whites in the West, all ethnic groups think like the alt-right, sometimes less extremely and sometimes more. — Judaka

When I'm talking about nations outside of the west, I'm not talking about racism, I'm talking about ethnocentric perspectives, favouring the main race and trying to maintain ethnic hegemony. That's what the alt-right is preaching and that's the similarity I see.

Not only do I think that goes uncriticised but when we see ethnic minorities within the West talking in ethnocentric terms which I think is fairly common, this is not treated the same way as when whites talk in ethnocentric terms which for some people is a clear indication of a racist ideology. I recognise there are reasons for this which are legitimate but I wanted to ask whether or not this was consistent, whether or not we should criticise any who take race to be interpretatively relevant and in what circumstances.


I know enough about the alt-right to talk about what some of them think, I just can't tell you whether or not the majority think that way or not. Your historical facts did absolutely no such thing, you are telling me that the West is responsible for racial tensions in Africa, South America and let's throw in the middle east. Not only is that a stupid idea but what does it have to do with the topic at hand? It has nothing to do with the alt-right either. Do you consider yourself a westerner? Do you distinguish between versions of the West based on how white it was?

There's really not much point in discussing the alt-right when you see them as the white version of BLM. If they're a borderline terrorist hate group then no, I'm not saying that we should be worried other ethnicities are thinking like BLM. Honestly, I think you're the only poster I have had problems with due solely to me bringing up the alt-right, perhaps NKBJ but I knew about him before this thread and I expected trouble with him regardless.

So, we acknowledge the ethnic histories, we treat blacks differently from other races because of racialised statistics and then we aim to solve black problems. How does your racialised solution perform better than simply identifying the problems of individuals with black-skin as problems of Americans and trying to solve them as efficiently and effectively as possible? That would mean focusing more on the perpetrators of racism than the victims, solving problems without making it about race. What you're saying is really in my estimation, is not all that different from the alt-right's ethnocentric, racialised perspective. There's a moral high ground for you because you see minorities as victims, you see people as extenuations of victims of their ethnic histories but it's superficial. At the end of the day, race means too much for you, condemning that would be a step towards ending racism.

It's philosophy, I always come in expecting to convince absolutely nobody. It's really hard to get reliable information about what the alt-right is and what they're not. I've come across content that claims to be from the alt-right and it's absolutely atrocious, like "what the hell are these people smoking?". I don't know if they're bad apples or the bunch though right? I'm trying to draw parallels between the alt-right and other groups which are not criticised for the same type of behaviour and attitudes. If we view the alt-right as neo-nazi white supremacist nut jobs then this entire thread is pretty much debunked or at least, I should have chosen an entirely different way to go about it. I clearly didn't think that when I made that thread and so there was no way I was going to express views that that's what they were like as some people have asserted.

I mostly made the thread because I watched a video from a more reasonable youtuber who calls himself an alt-right speaker named millennial woes and got a lot of my information about the alt-right from him. Others who got their information from neo-nazi protests or the left-wing media are not going to have the same views but that's unavoidable, what can I do?

How would you rate the West in how racist and unfair of a society is relative to the rest of the world?


There isn't an example of racism or racial prejudice you can give where you condemn it and I don't. If you can spot it, we condemn it together, your views are not tougher on these issues than mine, we seem equally strongly opposed to unfair treatment of individuals based on their ethnicity. It might be fair to say that I extend my views to protect white people while with you, I am not convinced that you would, you can confirm or deny that.

If you find a successful way to address the problem, I'm going to support it. I'm trying to point out that my views don't leave me weak on these issues, they aren't making me more tolerant of racism than you are. So maybe neither of us know how to fix the problem but you're not closer to the answers than me just because you've got an interpretative focus on race.

I don't know if I am a libertarian or not, I think different tools are better for different problems. I do support the decriminalisation of drugs, Portugal has a good system on this.

I am a great fan of Martin Luther King, I think he was going for the same thing I'm going for. I don't like any kind of racial prejudice because I believe it falls under the greater fault of using insufficient information to make judgements about people. You know someone's race and now you have strong feelings towards that person but you actually know nothing about that person, I think it's ridiculous.


Yes, they clearly didn't choose to be born in America, you can't choose to be born. So why talk about black Americans as if they were stripped of everything they owned and forced here? They were born here! Obama was the American president, he was the leader of the Western world but he's not a westerner? He's just an African descendant who was forced to be here by white slavers? You can't be serious.

Also, clearly Anglo-Saxon whites didn't always try to exclude race from their understanding of people, they used to be extremely racist, you can't seriously think I'm talking about 1960's or before right? It's a recent thing that by and large, Anglo-Saxon whites have to be sensitive about it because they're absolutely lambasted for any kind of racist remarks or perspectives. Well, I'm not trying to say it's something like 90%+, I'm just saying it's a majority and honestly, it's not something that matters to me either way and my experience is obviously biased and anecdotal.


They're kind of whining about nothing? To go back to the OP, do you think the alt-right is alone in the world? In Asia, Africa, the middle east, Eastern Europe and so on, the MAINSTREAM cultures there don't resemble the alt-right way of thinking at all? When I listen to some people talk about black issues in America, they sound like the alt-right to me, they're so racially motivated and they really feel like it's an us vs the world situation. You disagree with it?


You think so? This is already my second most commented on discussion by far and who knows, maybe it'll be the most commented on given time. I haven't really felt that many people have thought I am defending the alt-right, mostly people are just annoyed that I'm not accepting their leftist narratives.

So I keep talking about interpretative relevance in this thread and what I mean is that something with interpretative relevance is something we draw meaning from. So if we put someone in a room with four other guys, what might they say? Two black guys and two white guys? Two noisy guys and two quiet guys? Three tall guys and one short guy? And then you ask well what do those things mean and for someone, it might be like "well, I can't stand noisy people so I wouldn't want to interact with the noisy ones".

It's not as if I am ignorant of race or ethnicity, I have just worked through what it means for that person to be that race until I had nothing of note to say. I want to focus on their individual characteristics and make heads or tails of them that way, rather than saying "he's black therefore he probably has to deal with this and that and he's disadvantaged in society and I'm sure he's experienced discrimination before and I could understand if he's angry about the state of the black community and how the government treats black issues". Similarly, when NKBJ has a book to write on me just because I'm white, that's no way to think.

I am quite aware that race is a factor to why certain people are unfairly targeted by police, I am not denying that. I'm not surprised that it happens though, when in America they continually show crime data by categorising offenders by race. Poverty, education levels, family circumstances, mental illnesses and so many factors but you tell everyone over and over that black people are more likely to commit crimes and people start to actively make that connection. Is it surprising that attitudes develop that stereotype young black men as criminals? Is it surprising that leads to disproportionate conviction rates and the like? Not to me.

Police brutality and similar injustices I think, already offend everyone regardless of whether it's your race being targeted or not. I am certainly not okay with police brutality no matter who it happens to, lets work through solutions as we can but honestly, I think the best solution is to stop drawing information and meaning from race, then people will not focus on race and draw unfavourable connections on the basis of race. So long as we continue to go down that road, I think there will always be racism in some form or another.


I don't really care if all or most alt-right people are racist or not, that's not the point? I don't like the alt-right, I'm not here to improve their image, only some people are being very unfavourable past the point that I think is reasonable. Anaxagoras is calling them a bunch of whiny white men, what's the point of even discussing the alt-right with him if that's where he's at?


Yeah, I don't know what you disagree with or what post you're referring to, is this a comedy routine?


My observation regarding ethnicity is factually wrong because of what resistances? Who wasn't given much of a choice? Are you talking about ethnic histories again? Listen, that's got nothing to do with modern-day Americans with black skin, they chose to be born where they're born as much as someone with white skin did. You're still going on about ethnic histories while telling me you're not guilty of contextualising people by their ethnic histories.

If you made a list of problems for a race, I would rewrite the list as problems for citizens in America and then we would proceed to come up with solutions as best we could. If you gave specific examples of problems for people of a particular ethnicity, I would treat them as problems that a specific individual went through. As for things like racism, there are racist individuals and victims of racism but they're still all individuals.

You want racism to disappear while maintaining a racially motivated outlook but it goes against common sense. A lot of what you're saying literally only makes sense when looking at it from a racialised lens, when you treat poor black people as just poor people and black victims of police brutality as just victims of police brutality, things change dramatically, it can't be avoided. The problems of the race become the problems of the people.

We are without power and all I can do is aim to be the change I want to see in the world. Black people are just people with real problems, I hope those with the ability to reduce or fix those problems will do so, be they bodies of people or individuals. I hope people will individually limit the interpretative relevance they put into race and convince others to follow suit or condemn those who refuse to do so.

That's what I am doing now, imploring you to stop thinking in such racialised terms and see people as individuals and condemn you when you don't. It may not make much difference but I will do my part nonetheless.

Okay, why did you bring up that racial intolerance in South America and Africa are the fault of European colonialism? You're telling me that you had no intentions of blaming any group for this?

The historical facts do not speak for themselves, you've interpreted their meaning and you've interpreted that individuals should be held accountable for the actions of people of a similar race or ancestry. I would have no problems calling this racism.

As for your views about the alt-right, you aren't really making an effort, I don't want to talk about them with you.


Yeah sorry, I don't know what the "the post above" refers to.


Yes, it's very clear that you and I come from very different perspectives. First of all, I don't really believe that either white or black people should be taking responsibility for slavery, the people who perpetuated and practised it are long dead. If you think that as Americans, who are the continuation of a culture that practised slavery, you should be taking some form of responsibility for that (not seeing yourself as responsible, big difference) then it shouldn't be on the basis of your skin colour but because you are an American.

If you would argue that white Americans should be taking responsibility for slavery but black people should consider themselves (as a group) victims of it then where does that kind of mentality stop? It's madness. You promote viewing things through a racial lens, you promote interpretations based on race, who are you helping?

If we've got problems in society then let's fix them for all citizens of the country, not taking their race into account at all, that's what a non-racist country would look like. The problem is that people just keep trying to racialise everything until a white American and a black American are distinct and separate things. That opens the door to all kinds of problems.

I want to reduce the interpretative relevance of race, for me, that means prioritising individual characteristic to inform yourself and form opinions about people rather than the groups they belong to. You can't do that while also piling on the ways people should think about things based on their race and the races of others.

To reiterate, I absolutely did not say black people were responsible for slavery, especially the black people who actually were slaves, that would have been an outrageous comment but it's not what I said.

I am not talking about the alt-right as synonymous to racism, I've laid out their views in this thread. I am scared now, if I was talking about racism, you think I would have difficulty demonstrating the existence of racism across the world? What I am saying is that there are a lot of similarities between the east Asian countries trying to maintain ethnic hegemony and what the alt-right want, similarities between the alt-right wanting whites to be prioritised in "white" countries over non-whites in the same way that governments across the world prioritise their majority races.


You disagree Anglo-Saxon whites are sensitive to interpretations based on ethnicity or that other ethnicities/races aren't sensitive to it?

As for your other comments, a lot of people are criticising you for being historically inaccurate but I don't care about that for this topic. I have a problem with you claiming that whites are responsible for things that happened before their lifetime purely because they're white. This idea of ethnic history is a huge problem in so far as negating the interpretative relevance of race, not to mention it doesn't make much sense to blame individuals for the actions of groups they belong to. I think that is an appalling way to think.

So either you're blaming people who have been dead for a long time or you're blaming people for crimes on the basis of their ethnic heritage. If it's the former, listen, it is the way it is, the cause doesn't change that and I don't see what changes based on whether we accept your beliefs or reject them.


You'll have to be more specific, I don't know what you're rejecting. I don't think I even gave any evidence in your quote. I have explained those positions in posts to others but I'm happy to extrapolate on and provide reasoning for whatever you find contentious.


I think you're correct, though the alt-right is specifically saying that they don't want people to be viewed purely in terms of what they bring to the economy because of how that minimalises the importance of preserving the white race and the individual cultures under it.

Oh, I agree, the alt-rights views about the "white race" are absurd. It is clearly a reactionary movement to recent events portrayed on the media. In Australia, racism towards the Greeks and Italian immigrants occurred when they started immigrating here and now they're pretty much part of the family and the alt-right here doesn't even distinguish between them and other white ethnicities. I am clearly generalising when talking about "Anglo-Saxon whites thinking differently than the alt-right" and I apologise for that but I think it's necessary for me to draw a distinction between standards for whites and other races because that's what I am criticising. The visibility of the ethnocentric ideologies and terminology is limited to when it's done by whites and whites self-regulate the prominence of this way of thinking and identify it as evil in their criticism of the alt-right. Though, I do not think they are innocent of treating race to be interpretatively relevant in other ways such as shown with NKBJ and Valentinius.

There are no similar expectations for other racial groups in the west, the expectations are that they are bringing their/have their own culture and history which will enrich the west and we need to respect their differences from us. I disagree with this idea, I want anyone who thinks race/ethnicity is interpretatively relevant and important to be criticised for it and not just the alt-right.



That's right.

I shouldn't have said "for good reason" but rather the reasons for why they think race is important are fairly self-evident when you consider the relationship between culture and race that exists across the globe. Particularly when co-operation is required between ethnic groups which subscribe to different ways of thinking, it does become something more complicated than "disliking" the others. The alt-right who want to preserve white, western culture as they see it, do not have to dislike those who are immigrating to the west, many do subscribe to a belief in ethnocentric states whereby they support nations like Japan and South Korea for maintaining ethnic hegemony and want that same thing for themselves.

It's not easy to separate the beliefs of a culture (often tied to an ethnicity) and that ethnicity. Islam is the most terrifying example in my view, because it's literally an optional religion but still, criticism of it is considered hate speech and racist. I haven't been able to read the news here in Australia because of the NZ mosque shootings leading people to use that tragedy as a political means to shut down discussion about Islam and immigration. Clearly, the problems of Islam and some lunatics who shot down a lot of innocent people have nothing to do with each other but that's the way some people think.

I wouldn't argue that being scared of the alt-right because of sensitivity to racism from white people is inconsistent but rather that I am not aware of this kind of criticism of the alt-right. If we agreed that the problem with the alt-right compared to other kinds of ethnocentric political views is that the alt-right is white then I'd be satisfied with that. That is not really the answer I want to bring to people though, it's to ask whether we should extend the criticism of the alt-right to others both outside of and within the West. That is what I want and it would be undermined if we just admitted that it's fine unless you've got a history of offences such as but not limited to 18th, 19th and 20th-century racism perpetuated by whites.


Your conclusions are the same as mine.

I have been asked this many times in the past, I heard about her and objectivism after forming most of my opinions on this and so I suppose my answer is no. That being said, the similarities between what she says and my views is enough that one could roughly inform themselves about my views by reading her work. I won't talk too extensively about my views on individualism here, it is a subject I feel very strongly about though and I dislike collective thinking in pretty much every context, only exceptions being ones which create responsibilities to do good but even they're walking a tightrope.


France is part of the West, I am not entirely knowledgeable about Israel but somehow I imagine they do care about maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel but that's a more complicated subject.

China, Japan, South Korea are nations which are wealthy like the West, you'd assume people would want to go there but they're some of the most ethnically homogeneous nations in the world.

Many countries in the middle east are infamous for their treatment of workers from India and Africa. Most of the nations there are not easy to immigrate to and any lack of ethnic hegemony can be explained historically.

Africa and South America are notoriously having difficulties with racism and tribalism, you see the same in many countries in Eastern Europe who for the most part are also trying to maintain their ethnic hegemony. Countries in SEA are often ethnically diverse but once again, extremely racist countries with very complicated situations. India is the same once again, it's not like there's no celebration of culture, my thread was never about a celebration of culture to begin with but the ways in which people are looking through a collectivist, racial lens which is similar to the alt-right.

I would say Jews in the West are another example of alt-right thinking but it appears the Jewish race is a controversial topic so I won't bother talking about that. If you want to try to go specifically into something to analyse it more deeply, pick a country and we can do some research..


I have no interest in discussing the validity of your claims, I disagree with the way you've framed the topic to begin with. What you're saying only makes sense from a racial lens, which I don't subscribe to. You're looking to explain things in racially motivated terms which may or may not actually be relevant to explaining something like the representation in statistics of various subjects.

Ethnicity to me is the most visible way to interpret differences between people, it's also the least subjective and the most simple. If you really wanted to talk about the innate advantages one individual has over another, there would be so many things that you could focus on. Height, attractiveness, athleticism, intelligence, wealth and those are just similarly obvious and apparent ones. You could choose to become fixated on something neurological, hormonal or specific nurture cases like family circumstances, traumatic events, addictions or whatever else. The opportunities for you are endless.

There are many in this forum who choose to talk only about race and race whenever they can, you won't hear these individuals talk about something else. They bring it up in circumstances where they didn't have to, it's a fixation, an obsession. I call it an interpretative state, whereby you explain the meaning of everything using the same interpretative argument and for you, perhaps that's "this person belongs to this race". When I tell you I'm white, you've got a whole story for me don't you? You've got so much to say, you could write a small paper on it. Well, I don't like that. I seek to discredit your way of thinking, I won't contend with it by using your fixation on race.

If you can point out a particular example of racism then we're on the same team, I don't like any example of people using race to inform themselves about people. I will not deal with your race fixation, that's exactly what I'm challenging in this thread.

Alt-right speakers I've listened to talk about the sanctity of white cultures, of white people having indispensable value, of white people banding together and thinking collectively. They want to secure the survival of their whites and the lands traditionally owned by whites. They want to be proud to be white, for their governments to prioritise whites over other ethnicities as the main citizens of the land. They feel the alternative is to reduce them to statistics in their performances economically, educationally and how they contribute to society.

My main challenge to people is to ask, not whether this is a good way to think or not but to discuss the prevalence of this way of thinking among ethnic groups outside of the Anglo-Saxon white citizens of Western nations. I would argue that the vast, vast majority of nations outside the West have cultures that can be characterised by alt-right thinking. Secondly, I would argue that outside of Anglo-Saxon whites in the West, all ethnic groups think like the alt-right, sometimes less extremely and sometimes more.

I am asking if this is really consistent from a philosophical perspective or whether the alt-right are being subjected to higher standards or greater suspicion and fear, primarily because of their white skin. My objective isn't to then go easier on the alt-right, it's to be more critical of all individuals who find race/ethnicity to be interpretatively important in the same ways the alt-right do.


I'm not completely against talking about the alt-right as those things and I know that some of the alt-right contains some of those things but I think it's overblown due to the media and the left trying to use the alt-right as a tag to destroy moderates and right-wing speakers. I'm dealing with a different understanding of the alt-right than this definition you've given, if I accepted the wiki page as my understanding of the alt-right then I would agree that other ethnicities are not doing similar things to what has been listed.

Here's a video along the lines of what I'm talking about : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3MvOSyE0ow


As I've said earlier in this thread, it seems to me that there are some problems that exist which will lead to those fears of a culture being dissolved by a higher proportion of different ethnicities to be accurate. The big one you're being extremely guilty of and that's ethnic histories, whereby because you're white and because someone else is black, there's a three-hundred-year-old story for the both of us that paints us as enemies. Can a black-skinned American think back to the origins of Western culture and associate with it despite the difference in ethnic heritage? If the answer is no, that's a serious problem. Black-skinned Americans in my view, should be taking responsibility for slavery just as much as a white person should, why? Because ostensibly they're both Americans and they're both living in the extension of the culture that practised slavery.

Provided people who come to the west, irrespective of their ethnic origins, cannot relate with western origins or western history but rather relate to their own ethnic histories then how can we think the west will not change by having the current ethnic "white" history with the other ethnic histories? There are more problems than just this but I think we we have to be realistic also. African-Americans don't resemble any African culture, they are assimilated and only a few problems remain.

Personally, if Australia, where I live, became inhabited by mostly those of Asian descent in X hundred years then I would have no problem with this provided I could relate with their Australianness. Let enslavery based on ethnicity, or anything based on ethnicity, become a thing of the past. That's what I want.

You've hit me with white blindness, white privilege, white=normal and so on. These are all condescending, ideological assertions which make me really wonder about where your head is.

This thread is about whether the strong criticism of the alt-right is unreasonably not also directed at ethnic minorities because they treat alt-right differently because it's white. That isn't entirely racist, there are legitimate reasons to fear white ethnocentricism above other forms but I wanted to discuss whether or not it is the case that the alt-right is worse because they're white.

You are kind of proving that it's true because again, it is advantageous in almost any country outside the West to belong to the majority. Where that's not true, there is still a privileged ethnicity. The only culture in the world that comes close at all to some degree of fairness is the West. Are you asking me to be ashamed that we're not perfect? The west isn't perfect, everyone else is fucked and what we're left with is that the ethnic minorities in the west are spotless. They aren't racist, they aren't ethnocentric, they don't view ethnicity to be interpretatively significant? That's obviously not true, so the question remains, what's going on here? Why do we always look at the white examples of the making race interpretatively important and celebrate it when minorities do the exact same thing?

I don’t think “many liberals” are. A few making enough noise, especially with the internet to work with, can make the political landscape seem far more skewed than it really is ... yet I do admit that because of this the “skewed” view can become considered the “norm” even when it isn’t. The effects of this we’ll be able to assess in a few centuries I reckon? — I like sushi

So here, you've reference liberals and I assume you are talking about the West or a country in the west.

As for race vs skin colour, I said they're synonymous when the skin colour is different and that's only for some people like the alt-right for example. The alt-right sees a "white" race and white means your skin colour. I am with you on how absurd the whole thing is but I am trying to talk in terms that make sense for the alt-right.

White supremacists certainly don't agree but I don't see the point in arguing with you. What you're saying has actually nothing to do with the topic NKBJ, this isn't a thread about white privilege or whether whiteness is celebrated. Those are difficult topics that you can make your own thread about if you wish.


Watch the video or don't, don't give me half-assed comments. As for Einstein, I didn't realise Jews being a distinct ethnicity was a controversial subject, it is not relevant to my OP so I'll drop it. I don't even know what NKBJ is getting at or how it relates to this thread.

I don't draw the ethnic lines, I let others do that for me, as westerners we are often ignorant of different ethnicities in Africa and the middle east but the people living there aren't. The middle east as you know is a far cry from a peaceful place, there are many ethnic disputes causing wars that are being waged, not just historically but they're going on right now.

I do not know if it is accurate to say that Islam has unified the various ethnicities in the middle east, I don't think that's even close to true. Clearly, when I am naming continents, I am using a broad brush but the reason I said the alt-right had ideas which had to be contended with is that race is just significant to most people on Earth and for good reason. I don't think people are being pessimistic enough about racism, it's not as simple as disliking people who are different from you.

The alt-right are not being bested by the attitudes in the middle east, I think you'll find that the alt-right is considered more repugnant because of factors beyond the fundamental attitudinal differences towards race with other ethnic groups outside of Anglo-Saxon whites. Namely that the West is already filled with minorities, that the West is hypersensitive to white supremacy and that many in the West don't even recognise non-white racism to begin with.


White supremacy has a meaning, the alt-right are completely fixated on race and identity politics but they are not, for the most part, unconcerned with the superiority, equality or inferiority of the white race compared to other races. What links the alt-right is "white land for white people" - essentially.


I don't know that I even understand what your post is talking about, I just saw the word "maybe" too often and thought this isn't going anywhere.


I refer to your comments about liberals. I have not chosen the level of analysis for race or skin colour, the two are interchangeable when the skin colours are different for the most part. The alt-right care about "white" races, wherever they are found. I can only respond to what others have determined to be relevant to them, personally, I aim to limit the interpretative relevance of race as much as I can. Things become tricky when we start talking about culture and how well it can be divorced from race.

Your post isn't exactly on topic but that we celebrate individuals means we celebrate whiteness? Are you okay? Einstein wasn't even white, he was a Jew. That you don't know that shows how little we care about the whiteness of the people you listed. This thread isn't about the celebration of ethnicity, it's about making ethnicity interpretatively relevant, particularly in the context of culture.


I think there's lots of evidence to support the idea that the alt-right is not particularly concerned with culture but the literal whiteness of the West. An example is that they don't just care about one country but all of the West, Eastern Europe and basically any white country maintaining their whiteness. There is a belief in ethnic-states, the cultural importance of race and so on. They are not interested in Arabs and Asians going to Shakespeare fares and assimilating into Western culture. It's actually more someone like me who cares about Western culture irrespective of the ethnicities following it that should be doing what you suggest, the alt-right don't want what you're talking about.


Right, I'm not interested in talking about the strawman alt-right that people who disagree with the left need to constantly deny affiliation with. The alt-right does exist, they are not neo-nazis and their views actually kind of need to be contended with. Here's a good representation of the alt-right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3MvOSyE0ow&t=2126s

The reality is that almost ALL countries in Asia, the middle east, Africa, Eastern Europe and pretty much the whole world think like the alt-right. Their culture is tied to their ethnicities and ethnic heritage and if their ethnic group were wiped out, their culture would be too. The West is unique, this is not recognised and the concerns of the alt-right are treated like toxic and hateful positions, despite the absolute prevalence of similarly minded people across the world and even within the West, they're just not white.


The alt-right has a pretty specific message and agenda, it's not really a broad stroke. I'd recommend watching the video linked earlier in my post for a better understanding. I disagree with your general sentiments about how the state of the West. Criticising multiculturalism basically needs to be accompanied by pleas that you're not a racist, arguments for reducing immigration need to come after an explanation of why you're not xenophobic. It's bad.

It's good to look at something like the "black community" (despise this term) and see what seems familiar to you and notice the hypocrisy. For many, being black means you have a unique experience, you can refer to other blacks as your "brothers" and "sisters", you share an ethnic history as former slaves, you struggle together against the greater society, you need to vote together to receive favourable outcomes for your race, you need to support your "black communities and businesses" and so on. The hypocrisy is that this is often celebrated by the left, this kind of behaviour is accepted and normal, this kind of rhetoric isn't considered racist or dangerous unless it's coming from white people. The alt-right aren't exactly the same but the similarities are striking to me.


Lots of theory wax, not exactly a wise way to try to understand something. I recommend watching the video linked earlier in this comment to get a better understanding of the alt-right.

Oh yeah? So what is OP guilty of? Who are the vulnerable people and who are the privileged people?

You pointed out the biggest fallacy of the other posts and of racial discussions in general, one that's hard to counter - Why did the original poster and the followers pick the statements of the most vulnerable people to criticize. It is a sign of their, of society's, lack of social and psychological awareness and moral courage. — T Clark

Sure, the "vulnerable people" and the "privileged" people have nothing to do with ethnicity. To say this while supporting someone who absolutely was bringing up race is no excuse, how poor of me to jump to conclusions.

His post is a criticism of a political movement, how in your mind is that an unstable foundation? My interpretation is that you're far more of a racially motivated person than OP, he doesn't appear to put a lot of stock into race and prefers for people to deal with the facts, I support this. Also, I said that unenlightened insinuated he is a racist, not that he directly called him one. He's willfully misrepresented OP's argument in many ways, you think it's wonderful, I don't, not going to bother having an argument about it.

While it was necessary to confront your nonsense, I don't want to get into a debate with either of you so that's my role in this over.

OP clearly framed the context of how the left prioritises the lived experience of particular groups as a political agenda, he explained his interest in this problem as a problem with the left and not just generally. If there was another political group who were talking about the "white" experience and using it in arguments that OP felt empirical facts should be relevant, he might've been making a thread about that instead. Both you and @unenlightened have presented this red herring which has absolutely nothing to do with the OP.

Your whole post is absolutely ridiculous, such self-righteous drivel. Do you think you and unenlightened, by insinuating OP is a racist and challenging him on that posited racism have shown moral courage? News flash, racism is not fashionable, what OP is saying is the harder thing to say because people like you judge him unreasonably.

I honestly don't know why OP is being so reasonable to unenlightened after the show he's put on here. OP tried to bring up examples that have nothing to do with race, unenlightened practically made OP plead to him that he's not a racist and there's absolutely no justification for it. He clearly framed that he was criticising the aspect of the left that did it, there was no reason to bring up an example of it outside of what the left was saying. I wouldn't have had the patience to even continue replying.

The real problem with this way of thinking is that regardless of how generously we should accept the validity of lived experience, the idea forces us to work backwards. You have a bad experience, that's been granted, now what's the cause? They start playing guessing games because there's really no way for us to proceed. The left assumes the cause is systemic or societal and start prescribing solutions. There's a level of courtesy and generosity in giving people the benefit of the doubt but the left uses this generosity to levy heavy criticism towards groups, systems and the like which isn't really appropriate. They use the moral aspect of compassion and concern to protect their criticism which really hasn't been formulated using a credible method to begin with.

We need to sit philosophy down and get his approval, the question is how can we convince him?

What constitutes "proof of an empirical claim" is an epistemological position based on interpretation. It's not nonsense, it's just subjective.


It is relevant because it shows that many atheists are not basing their views on empirical claims but rather cultural influences.

does the belief that others should all ascribe to atheism itself necessitate a nonbelief in all things of this nature? — kudos

The answer is no. Atheism does not necessitate a nonbelief in similar things.

I think there are five main reasons to be an atheist. Arguments using history, science, epistemology, culture and intuition. Similarly Christians aren't just Christian because they've determined God is a reasonable epistemological or scientific claim. So to say that atheists are always predisposed towards the epistemological stance of nonbelief in things that lack proof or to say Christians are necessarily against the epistemological stance of nonbelief in things which lack proof are both wrong.

More likely, the Christian takes exception about Christianity because of other factors and the atheist is not just lacking belief purely because of his epistemological stance, he probably has other reasons too. Sometimes it really is that simple but generally, I think it's not.

The notion that atheists don't believe in things which they have no proof of is true of only a portion of atheists. While some atheists believe that atheism is the only logical position, many atheists are not following atheism for better reasons than Christians follow Christianity. Born into atheist parents, with atheist friends and it's just as natural for them to be atheist as a Christian would be Christian given their parents, friends and community all being Christian.

Many atheists are just as prone to fantasy as religious folk but make an exception on this one issue, they are still liable to believe in ghosts, spiritual nonsense, bad science and whatever else.

I think many atheists give themselves too much credit, I'm an atheist but I don't feel that I would trust an atheist to be more independent, wiser or fairer than a Christian at all. There's a huge difference between choosing not to become a Christian and choosing to no longer be a Christian and I don't think it's as easy to blame people for not choosing the latter as many of the people who belong to the former group believe.

There are many reasons for an atheist to be an atheist, many of them are not based on empiricism. There are many reasons for a believer to be religious, many of them have nothing to do with empiricism. The main difference is an epistemological distinction between what is required for belief, truthfully, there are many things that atheists will believe despite not having sufficient proof, the alternative is too impossible to imagine.

I meet atheists who believe in ghosts, such things are possible. I think that Christianity in particular, a lot of smart people make exceptions for it - they're still completely competent to determine the truthfulness of claims but they don't apply that rigour to religion. It is rather clear that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny in so far as "proving God exists" is concerned.

Who's blind here? So many privileges exist, what's your solution? Why do you think the only privileges which people harp on about are group identities?

It's an interpretative focus that causes destruction and pain, all I saw on international women's day was comparing women to men, making politically motivated arguments demanding equality of outcome for women and explaining statistics as evidence of sexism despite not being able to eliminate alternative explanations. Placing the "female" identity above all individual characteristics.

I don't share the absurd goals people who talk about "privileges" do and even if I did, I can only see madness in their methods. Most women I speak to just want to be seen for what they bring to the table just like anybody else, to get what's fair. That means placing their individual qualities above their group identity, reducing the interpretative priority of their gender which might overshadow their individual traits, not harping on about privilege and throwing a pity party or giving them handouts.

If there are serious problems, let those problems be dealt with as problems for everyone, all who believe in equality of opportunity and prioritisation of the individual.

I don't think what I want will happen, we'll see how well focusing on group identity reduces the prevalence of negative or harmful opinions about group identities.

I am referring to expertise where it is possible to show results with your expertise. A political pundit or historian or a philosopher, might struggle to do that, what does "show results" mean? I am sure that belief of "results" in philosophy would be a philosophical position... kind of makes the whole thing impossible.

So basically, no, I am not talking about expertise in critical thinking, engineering is also a tough one because the average person knows that they know nothing about engineering.

Better examples are like managing your money, decorating your house for sale, finding an exercise routine, learning a sport/skill and so on. Where people could imagine their own understanding/reasoning to be sufficient.

From the social constructionist perspective, every social problem is the result of a social cause and society can be held accountable for every difficulty. They imaginatively produce politically-motivated explanations to problems that are far deeper and more complicated than they could possibly realise. When interpretation guides your understanding, that makes it possible for every female problem to be the result of male tyranny, the existence of which has been proven by the problems which must have been caused by male tyranny because, well who knows really, interpretations aren't always sensible.

Hope for better days... and try not to make the problem worse by blaming the wrong people.

I agree this problem happens all the time, most of the conversations I have with you, in fact, you tell me I'm an idealist even though I argue/explain that I'm not, I didn't even realise that you were referring to at the times you first labelled me with that. I've had instances where I am guilty of making incorrect assumptions about people as well. I agree with @Hanover about the development of terminology but I also think that we interpret what people are saying in ways that include more than just what they said. That might include their tone, a connection drawn between a larger belief system, their intent and etc.

That's when we're playing with fire and it can lead to a lot of confusion. I've talked with you and the whole time you were talking to me as though I believe reality is mentally constructed. I can't imagine what your perspective of that conversation must have been like but it can't have been similar to mine.

To stop it, we must limit our dealings with only what has been said as much as possible and when we think miscommunication has occurred, being able to identify that and put a stop to it. It's not as easy to do that as it sounds, when that same miscommunication may have already produced a lot of irritation and negative feelings.

I will do what I can but that isn't much and I'm okay with that.

Yes, I feel that putting racism aside, indiscriminately treating all cultures as equally valuable is one of the most disgusting ideas around. It makes no sense from any rational perspective, people have just thrown up their hands and said "difference must have merit" which just isn't true. When people conflate race and culture, it really bugs me, we should be able to brutalise bad ideas and let no armor save them.

The egos and identities which rely on groups in general, I think cause problems, people talk about celebrating the group but I don't like it. Individual traits should be celebrated, maybe even ideas but not groups. I don't think that as a particular skin colour that you own a history, that you can take credit for the actions or inventions of others with the same skin colour, that you share the suffering of people with the same skin colour as you more than someone else. T

There are some examples where the positives outweigh the negatives but generally, it introduces a necessarily unproductive factor into the equation. National identity is possibly the best example, I actually think this is pretty good, to feel a responsibility towards other citizens probably makes the country a nicer place to live. Negotiating what is beneficial and what isn't should be part of the wider conversation and attacking negative interpretations is necessary. I believe eliminating race as a major interpretative tool would be best but there are more options, just anything other well-meaning option than what we're doing would be a step in the right direction.

What happens after life is inconsequential to what happens within life. A lack of an afterlife is as meaningful as a lack of prelife existence.

All of these problems for my descendants... I wish them luck, I don't care if they blame me, I've given up.