For the Left, there is nothing to give. It’s description of society identifies values and identities which are defined by oppression of other groups. There’s no compromise to make on how racist it is to systematically detaining and deporting millions Latinos from the US. It’s a descriptive fact that amounts to denying civil rights to particular ethic groups and uprooting millions of their people. If someone voted for Trump, they’re racist because they’ve approved this approach. Rather than mere moralising or insult, it’s description of how their values, identity and action relate to groups of people in the US.

Our identity is what is at stake. Do we envision ourselves belonging to a community where people of any race belong? Or do we think that our society is really for “white” people, whether it be an active position or a subconscious assumption? It’s the later the Left is coming up against. People aren’t upset at the Left for making moralistic arguments (everyone does that), they are angry because the Left is attacking their values and identity. Whether it is the white nationalist or the mainstream liberal who subconsciously engages in racism, the Left is pointing out their oppression and saying their present image of themselves in society is a problem. Anything less, we aren’t being honest.

It’s never been about transcending racial categories. That’s just “colour blindness.” The point is to form a new identity which holds society belongs to a person of any race, rather than treating it as if it were merely white. Part of this means recognising people have their own place, a space where someone else doesn’t automatically have an interest or wisdom to speak. When the minority ethnicity can participate in culture without having white people make it about white people, there will be something approaching an identity that envision America belonging to more than white people.

Again, I can't emphasize enough how pointing this out doesn't necessarily mean one is a Republican partisan or an enthusiastic Trump supporter. An unintended consequence of their crusade against the perceived injustices of white males is that it has turned some of us (or more than some) who would otherwise be inclined to sympathize with quite a few of their positions (on economics, the environment, social programs and the like) against them - and many people who didn't previously give a shit about their 'race' - and who have never picked their friends, their spouse, their employees etc. based upon such narrow-minded tribal loyalties - have come to see that they are hated precisely because of it.

And no, I don't think pointing this out makes one a racist; I will acknowledge the many injustices non-whites and all 'others' (non-white male heterosexuals) have been the victims of in the US and abroad, and the genuine need to rectify these legitimate grievances to the best of our abilities, but I will also disagree with them on how best to transcend racial categories in favor of a more inclusive identity-- assuming of course that that's their goal, which I'm beginning to think isn't the case. Seems many would like to invert the old racial hierarchy instead of superseding it altogether. — “Erik”

This is exactly the sort “making it about white people” I’m talking about in the last paragraph. When someone points out instances of white people being favoured, it’s treated like a destruction of American identity. Point out that Trump supporters have voted for a racist platform and policy, someone is (supposedly), to take the line of thought to its conclusions (“reversing the racial hierarchy”), turning white people into slaves. All because in this instance, on this issue, it’s been denied that a white person (e.g. a Trump supporter) has an opinion of relevance.

No doubt people are reacting against the Left’s criticism, but it is not a new tribalism. The Left is going after the unstated tribalism no-one thought about or even recognised, the subconscious assumption of the US as belonging to white people (in terms of race).

Why do you believe that these symbols correspond to anything without a mind to judge what they correspond to? — Metaphysician Undercover

I want to know how there can't be mathematical truths without a mind, yet it remains truth there is paper with symbols on it. The presence of paper and symbols in experience/judgement/concept requires no less mind than mathematics.

Your problem is asking the question in the first place. Like the person who equates life only with happiness, you view living as a question of living "for a purpose." Lots of things happen in your life, but you only come away saying: "Is that it? I can't live just those small moments and be satisfied. I need some truth of purpose to reduce my entire life to. What's the purpose that will satisfy me?" What you seem to want (a purpose) is the very thing you deny is so (human life is just many different finite states).

This is the nihilism of purpose. An understanding which rejects the meaning of living a finite life for the notion some purpose must enter in from the outside and make things matter. With respect to living, it's self-defeating. It turns fulfilment and worth into an impossibility for your own life. Only the reductive fiction (purpose) can be worth anything. Life is just a nothingness to be ignored or miserably wallow in.

Asking the question "What purpose to life for?" is perhaps the worst question when it comes to understanding the meaning of living. One lives. There is never a nothingness to escape from. Meaning is replete.

It's worth adding that "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies" fits in with the understanding our epistemology is driven by our values and the pragmatic defence of them.

Our convictions will see us claim truth to a lie when it is right in front of us boldly proclaiming its dishonesty.

I'd go further, removing such forces is impossible without a myth that drives everything else down. "Family" is itself a social myth that drives doxa. The structures of social power become parasitic on family. While family is no doubt an altruistic force, in the social context it turns into the myth that drives the politucal machine. A defence not of family members, but of a political force or organisation.

TGW misunderstands what voting is about. Like many, he thinks it's goal is to have someone who advocates for one's own interests. This is a bit a a red herring. To many people, it doesn't really matter who is in power. Their life goes on regardless of which part is in power, without being affected too much. The impact of elections is on the few who are actually impacted by differences in value and policy.

Most of us don't vote for our own interests, but with respect to the internets of others. An election is all about the myth we value, about the team we grant power to, the group of people we say have the right to impact on the lives of a minority of others in some way. That's what politics is all about. It's what happens when human communities grow large enough that people don't already have an interest in acting.

The trouble is the mature arguments of the "SJWs" are descriptive of social relations, which people like yourself steadfastly deny. There something else going on than just being disgruntled at youthful idealism. To use are recent exchanges as an example, you would not accept the descriptive argument about the racism (the genocide and dispossession of the Native Americans for mainly economic purposes) of the US towards the Native Americans. You dismissed it with appeals to that "it was just capitalism" or "other people did or would do the same thing (indeed, you sounded just like Hanover does in this thread).

For most people objecting to the isms and phobias, it the same. Their arguments are made with direct denial of the descriptive points about society and people, rather than on the basis of some "SJWs" being abusive or lacking pragmatism. You don't, for example, stand-up and say: "The US was undoubtedly racist against the Native Americans. Europeans destroyed and exploited many indigenous people and cultures... but that doesn't means we have to go around abusing racists, sexists, etc.,etc. and getting lost in the world of magical utopias." Rather you treat these descriptions of societies as if they were just virtue signalling, as if it were about saying white people we inferior to everyone else or being seen to be supporting oppressed groups.

You treat out understanding of society as if it must be sanitised of description of oppression.

The trouble is people begin a the rejection of universality and difference in the first instance. Both become lost in an attempt to define each other in the basis of the other.

Are we humans? Well, that universal (or rather similarity) is thought to be given by difference-- have the arms, the legs, the DNA, etc.,etc. and one is human. Lack them and one is not. Yet, this narrative always bashes up against are usage and values. We claim the genocidal manic is not human. We pronounce the entity with experiences and intelligence like us belong to humanity. The difference we thought defined the universal of human doesn't so at all-- turns out we may human robots and inhuman homo sapiens.

A similar mistake is made with difference. How do people usually think difference is defined? By a universal of some sort. Humans are not animals because they always have this particular sort of brain with intelligence. To understand and spot difference, it is thought we pick out a universal form an then note the different states of the world it constrains. Yet, this is never satisfactory because we find it is different beings who are similar.

Supposedly, the universal (Willow) defines the difference (to be tortured Willow and tortured Willow) and is needed for me to care about a difference (tortured Willow), but we can see this doesn't make sense, for the two Willows are different. My to be tortured self will never experience torture. By difference it has no torture to fear.

The fear only make sense when tortured Willow matters. Concern not for the universal, but for difference. When tortured Willow matters, it's to different Willows that proceed them. I do not fear my present self, but for the person who comes after me. Identity over time is not a universal that constrains the world, but difference expressing some sort of link or similarity-- the body, actions and experiences of the to be tortured person are linked to the difference of tortured person.

Over time, I am many different people who's actions affect those to come, who follow from my present body and experiences. If I care which person exists in the future, I have to be careful about what's happening in the present. To be condemned to torture means that, barring some cultural change, pardon or incompetent guards, a future person linked to my body an experiences will experience torture. If I want to avoid that fate for the person who comes after me, my fear makes perfect sense.

The "problem of universals and continuity" is an illusion generated by not accepting difference and universality for themselves.

No, it may be possible that you would not fall or it may not be possible — John

That's wrong. "May be" is a reflection of might or might be actual.

It is possible they would (or wouldn't) fall. Possibility isn't actuality. An event occurring isn't a measure of what's possible. Doubts or uncertainty over what occurs (i.e. what is actual) have no impact on possibility.

Nothing.

That's the problem with law. It doesn't allow freedom. If everything is destined to follow the law and there is no possibility. Without law, every event becomes a possibility, a state which may or may not occurred, allowing the space for states themselves to determine what happens, including our decisions (free will).

Part of the point is we can't say, absolutely, that anything is "likely" or "unlikely," for that would require the world to work to a system which supposedly shows us a pre-determined future.

Without law, causality becomes about what happens and what is chosen, rather than narrative speculation which is (usually) presented to proclaim whatever we prefer must occur. We can't use logic as a shortcut to knowledge about the world. We have to address states themselves.

Exactly. That's what it means to be material. Since imagination is not enough to amount to existence, the whims of imagination can never amount to the definition of an existing state.

If there were an "explanation," some idea, some meaning imagined, would have to mean the given state must occur. All we would have to to is imagine FLT and it would happen necessarily.

But that's not how the world works. Existing states are not mere representation. Logically, there can to be no "reason" for the order of the universe because that amounts to saying imagination (the meaning of the "order" ) is enough to make it exist. Radical contingency is not a "problem." It is the only position which respects that imagination does not define existence.

In fact, that's a problem for the Humeans. Why can't we do those things? — Marchesk

Possibility is not actuality. There is no problem for the Humeans. They never claimed radical difference has occurred or must occur, only that it might. We can't do those things becasue, so far as we've encountered, they are only a possibility. To do them, they would have to be actual.

And indeed, this means we might never do them at all.

But that gets it backwards. A perpetual motion machine is entirely possible-- all it would take is a machine that kept moving itself.

Sure, it impossible by our models which currently fit with the world we have observed, but those models (the "Laws" ) are only our imagination. The world may have different ideas at any point. It may change such that the present rule of conservation of energy is no longer expressed. Nature is allowed such a machine. It's possible. So far as we have observed, it is just not actual.

That's a category error. Possibility is not an empirical state. One does not observe it to confirm or falsify it's presence. It's not a state. In this sense, it has no presence.

One might say it is, indeed, our imagination at work. The world as it occurs doesn't present possibility. Each state is, by definition, itself and can never be anything else. Possibility plays out in the realm of imagination, in representation and logic. It's an awareness about how the meaning of things relate to each other.

When we talk about possibility, we are discussing what's beyond the empirical, what the world cannot and cannot do based on logical reasoning, as a way of discounting the incoherent states which cannot (as opposed to "do not" ) exist.

Indeed, nature does not have the problem, but that's sort of beside the point. We do-- and that's where it matters, for possibility is us trying to give an account of how logic (NOT nature) relates to what occurs in the world.

No one claimed the future must be radically different, only that it's always possible: there are no "laws" which govern what occurs. The world only works in some way for as long as it does. "Laws" do not constrain the world to any one set of particular outcomes. Our shining sun is only given, with its relationship of mass, energy, hydrogen and helium atoms, for so long as it is given. At some point, one or more of those aspects might change and leave use without a shining sun, at least as we know it now.

The point is that, at any time, it is possible, that the world may be radically different. But that doesn't mean that it it is.

I think the question of continuing identity is a red-herring. To fear to to be worried about what is to come. We run or eliminate a threat to avoid damage of destruction which has happened yet. The present individual is never what fear is concerned about. Worrying about future events was to be concerned about someone else all along.

Suggesting fear's concern for the future is dependent on the present is to miss the point entirely. The point is difference, not continuity. One worries not for themselves, but for a person who is yet to come.

Parts of Islam as it's currently practiced? For sure.

Islamic identity and history? No. Muslims can disavow those parts (even if they are big) of Islam without saying that everything about how the lived, their past and where they think of themselves as belonging, is savage.

Absolutely. Muslims being "westerners" is effectively where the argument ends up: we are demanding changes to Islam which make it, in practice, more or less indistinguishable from the culture in Western democracies. It's saying practices of Islamic culture are unethical and they ought to change.

The point is that it is done with Islamic identity, as our society changed with history of Christian tradition, rather than viewing Islam and its people as an identity that needs to be wiped off the Earth (no doubt traditional Islam being abandoned, but that was the point all along).

In the sense that a neo-nazi or KKK member might change their culture, sure. Like a muslims (or anyone else), they are no less capable of devloping an ethical position on particular people or issues.

The problem is, at that point, what is left of neo-nazi or KKK identity? Neither of those groups a historical tradition bound-up with the everyday life and functioning of a society that extends beyond racial (and other unjust forms of discrimination). It make senses to speak, for example, a pro-gay muslim. A neo-nazi or KKK member in favour of multicultural society? Not at all.

Yikes indeed-- but it's true.

I mean there are different levels. If follow you about repeating what you are saying back to you, you'll find me annoying and criticise me. You'll think me annoying and unsuitable company until I stop-- until I behave differently, I will not belong around you. But that's about as far as it will go. You won't think of me as an living embodiment of a culture and history which cannot fit with a civilised society.

The point about Islam is our reaction is frequently the latter. And we mistake this prejudice for being serious about injustices within Islamic cultures.

Clearly not. Let's give you an example. If I say: "Radical Islam is the greatest philosophy ever. All other beliefs are nonsense and we ought to abandon them." is this statement harmless? Would you accept me saying it all over the place and it garnering respect from all corners of society?

Words, understanding, lives and belief systems are all bound up together. What we say and think about others matters.

Criticising someone's beliefs, actions and values is to attack their place in society. It is to say they are too heinous or savage to belong. And that's the problem with the West's discourse surrounding the problems of Islam. They don't attack the belief and actions in terms of Islam (e.g. it's wrong, under Islam, to think gay people ought to die or for tradition to be beyond criticism, etc., etc.), but in terms of people with a history within Islamic culture of being unable to participate in civilised society. We scapegoat people to feel like we are making an impact on problems we recognise.

For sure. We, a society and culture previously prejudiced against gay people, changed to one that was not (or at least so much).

A question of our behaviour, not anything necessarily unique to our heritage. Islamic culture could alter in a similar way. It would take a lot of change, perhaps even within the major tenets of the religion itself (the notion of God as an authority above challenge is a bit of a barrier here, but then culture of our history thought much the same at some point).

OK, but I just don't believe this. Being from somewhere else on the planet doesn't give you free reign to do whatever you want to gay people. And they matter more than the feelings of Muslims whose religion gets criticized. — The Great Whatever

Neither do I. I don't know anyone who agrees with the argument: "Yes, killing gay people is good. They ought to be doing it." The point is our reaction ( "Islam is savagery which has no place in civilised society" ) isn't about that sort of issue. It's just us lashing out at a present problem which we can't fix more or less immediately-- well, unless you're into genocide.

That was never the point though. You are only speaking of the (classical) liberal utopian myth, where every person gets whatever they want, whenever the want it.-- "everyone equal no matter what"

At some point, whether at home or abroad, someone's doesn't get their values and beliefs respect. They are discriminated against and it is just--e.g. those who want to own slaves don't get what they want. The question is when such discrimination applies.

The "universal" application isn't needed at all. In some cases it may make sense for the discrimination to apply in one place (e.g. one's home) but not in another (e.g. another culture which has slavery enshrined). Slavery in the US, for example, can be addressed by us (whether it results in war or occurs by some better means). Deeply embedded prejudice against gay people within Islamic culture in other countries? We can't really touch that. It needs to be addressed from the inside.

Consistency isn't what makes ethics. That's the old myth that ethical significant comes from an image. Difference is what makes ethics, an expression of a particular time and place, which means some actions are preferable to others. Sometimes this means living with people and actions you disagree with.

I wasn't saying white people couldn't be muslims.

My point was that many muslims aren't "white," and so acting like Islam is just savagery amounts to equating their way of life, and so them (the non-white muslim), with nothing but a heinous harm to the world.

In terms of ethic identity, it may even end-up getting white muslims-- what do you think would be the reaction of many to white muslim who defined Islam? Accusations they had betrayed all that was good for a savage way of life.

And we DO know better. Homosexuality can be punished by death in Saudi Arabia. Surely you can't excuse this with an appeal to cultural relativism? — dukkha

Do we know better? What of all the muslims in Saudi Arabia who find that punishment abhorrent? Us Westerners aren't the only ones capable of recognising the worth of gay people. People from Islamic cultures and traditions can do so too. Just as we, from a Christian culture and tradition that despised gay people, did (at least to some degree).

In terms of how it usually manifests within the West, yes. Islam is the "The Other," a people with a history and culture considered outside anything worthwhile, something understood to be so savage that it ought to be wiped off the face of the Earth. I would go as far to say a lot of us think of Muslims as "savages" who we must enlighten.

To disapprove of a religion is certainly discrimination. Whether it is racist will depend on how deeply a religious tradition is embedded and tied to a racial or ethic group. Given the place of most major religions in their culture, I would say that most disapprovals of religion would be racist, if they are suggesting the religion is entirely Other to culture and civilisation.

Religions teach many unethical things. Most, if not all, have I would say. Islam is no exception to that (whether it be "textually supported" or merely "cultural" ). As such I'd say they are all worthy of disapproval in some way or another.

The point is our criticisms don't usually talk about these issues effectively. We don't name a particular issue and how to build a just society from the point of view of the religious tradition (i.e. we-the religious tradition- were wrong). Rather, we call for the tradition to be wiped out, acting like it gave nothing of value or provided nothing to a community, turning entire populations of people into "savages" who never had a civilisation (unlike us enlightened liberal Westerners).

It's more to do with recognising the "oppressive" impact the West has on other cultures. Not so much a question of creating monolithic enemy, but being careful of putting down another culture and its people, pretty much regardless of the exact ethical worth of their practices. I mean does Saudi Arabia needs us in their country spreading our "enlightened" values to their ignorant people? Or are they their own people, with their own values, who a worth enough to practice the culture the believe in?

The point is there is a racism in our insistence that we must know better. If we are to say, for example, that Islam is a tradition of war that has no just place in our world, as is the standard of many critics, we are really calling for a genocide of the tradition in a favour of our own.

"Islam" becomes a scapegoat. In our denouncing of Islam, we create an image that we are addressing a problem (Islamic terrorism, local oppression within Islamic countries, tensions between Islamic immigrants and our culture, etc., etc.) which makes us feel safer. But does nothing of the sort. All the problems we are so worried about continue, only we now dump derision upon the way of life of many respectful and peaceful people within our own communities too.

Or we support a situation and policy which have deeply damaging effects on Muslim communities around the world (e.g. the war in Iraq, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, etc.,etc.), where our political interests (e.g. oil, rallying our community around an enemy, the safety of Israel) are more important than Muslim lives and communities.

It would be, but are other people going to agree with it? To open with a policy of: "I'll pay you to free your slaves" is a great, but will people agree to it? Some will, no doubt, if you offer enough. But what of those people who's identity is tied-up in being owners of slaves? They'll read the buyout as a betrayal of how people need to live and recognise it as a existential threat to their way of life. We could well have war anyway.

I know... but that's not going to happen if everyone else behaves if they ought to own slaves. Even if you start privately and small, if it going to have an effect, it will become a movement that grows a public profile, one which is arguing people ought to give-up their slaves.

No doubt a buy-out would offer a way to avoid conflict in some circumstances, but would it have worked in the US? I mean would the government had the funds to buy out the many slaves? What happens when people say no to the buyout (and likely they would, given the social and economic place of slaves in the US)? And if the buyout isn't mandated, what does one do when the tradition of slavery continue to be passed down? Given the context of the US at the time, we end-up with a situation where any method of effective change is going to lock horns with the deeply embedded tradition. Does it mean war? Not necessary (that would be up to how people handle challenge to tradition), but the change will not occur with the presence of behaviour that slavery is a problem.

For sure, the point is to describe what is lost for a point of view "oppressed" with secular liberal democracies. If he were "neutral" (whatever that supposed to mean), he would be hiding what was lost. He would not be honest about our rejection of the value and power structure in question. We would not understand that, in our values and power structure, we were putting down another and their values.

In the sense of power, the Iranian Revolution is similar to any other movement for change within our history. Those who's values and beliefs aren't respected within the power structure (theocracy in this case), imagine a world in which they are (often the "utopia" ) and rise up to change it.

The "oppressive" power structures in question is replaced by one that respects the values or beliefs in question, at least in some way (revelations differ in their degree of success).

This is all descriptive though. In saying this, he not making the argument the Iranian revolution is ethical, just that it driven by developing a society which respects a value or belief rather than repressing it.

I doubt that he has.

Indeed, I think it's the critical mind that saw him make the argument. A description of secular democracy's "oppression" of a society where power is defined by religious belief, and how that might make the Iranian Revolution attractive to some, even if it did offer a warped image of those traditions and values. He's not thinking wishfully. He's describing relations and motivations of power.

Descriptively, it's right. In the secular liberal democracy, who is more "oppressed" (here this means "has their values, ideas rejected and organisation of power rejected" ) then the spiritual theocrat who wants religion to be an integral part of politics and everyone's lives? Just about no-one.

Power is also diffuse (many different values respected, rather than everyone having to follow God) and "hidden" in a sense (everyone thinks even else is free to be the individual who they are-- the theocrat will be insulted with: "You aren't "oppressed. You are free to practice your individual religion").

They would not end it at all. Such a conservative free their slaves and... everyone else's would keep doing what tradition and power dictated.

Now there are many alternatives than a "magic" and immediate cure to slavery, to getting up and saying: "It's wrong. Cast it out with violence tomorrow," but any of the alternatives end in making a disruptive ethical proclamation in public.

If I just talk about freeing my slave with my close friends, they're going to ask why I did it, and if I answer honestly and without burying my own ethical concerns, I will raise the problem with the given tradition. Now, if they do the same as me, our limited ideas will grow into a movement. We will become public and the established tradition will react.

We'll either have repression of our idea or, if we have a will and power to survive, war. Unless, we've built up a culture which accepts changes without jumping to war to defend tradition, culture or an idea.

Your reading of the Left is, well, ignorant. The idea it views images as a solution is an illusion created by only looking at wide-eyed advocates. For most of the Left, the question of oppression is descriptive, not utopian. We walk in the hall of mirrors which show us all the horrors. From our ivory towers, we watch and see all the different instances of oppression. And what use is it to avoiding them? Frequently none. A lot of the time we don't even pose a solution to and oppression we identify, but them I don't think that was really ever the point. Many of us know there isn't one, at least within the time frame people usually think in. Our project is a knowledge, for a limited impact on some oppressions.

What "progressivism" really does is disrupt our image of survival. Under it, our survival is no longer sacred. We destroy our myths that we, or our way of life, must always continue. It doesn't mean we must die, but it does mean we are not above death. The next generation may live utterly differently to how we do. There may even be no next generation at all. It's not really "nihilistic" or "tabla rasa" at all. What it cuts downs is the idea we are made by something other than ourselves (including our instincts and traditions), so we have no guarantee of survival. We may always by wiped out. The image of our own necessity is lost.

The lack of worldly difference and so anything "to know about" in that sense is the point. The Real is the infinite. God which is the same regardless of what happens in the world.

This is the difference/distinction of Real and the only thing to know about God.

Not at all, for the alt right only expesses the very values of oppression and ideology that feminism took out (and is taking out). The post-modernist aren't relativists. Feminism is, for example, a project of objective ethics-- the feminists treatment of women is ethical, the alt right's is not.

What we have is not a relativism biting anyone in the arse, but an ideology reacting in an attempt to avoid it's subjugation and destruction. The alt right wants to oppress women in ways the feminists rightly argue are objectivity immoral.

Men have always played the game, proclaimed and thought themselves superior. The alt right rhetoric about women can be found all over commentary about women's nature and place prior to the rise of feminism. It's not new.

Logically, God cannot exist if they are Real. To exist is to be an illusion, only a finite state. It would take away what makes God God.

For us to suggest God exists is like arguing the transcendent is worldly. The point of God is they are the infinte beyond the finite world. For God to exist, to be of the finite flux, is to reduce God to man. God becomes not the Real beyond the world, but just another material actor.

Well, he's sort of right to say that. The point of these social analysis is they are descriptive of a social relations between people. Does the West greedily exploit other countries? Absolutely, sometimes more, sometimes less (and perhaps sometimes they managed to avoid it). In this respect, they are, in a sense "evil" and self-serving. It's a descriptive fact of behaviour. Did the West treat other cultures equal, give a fair price in trade, respect the rights of individuals in other cultures? Not in the many situations we are talking about. One cannot accurately describe what has happened without mentioning this exploitation-- it's in a sense "essential," the logical expression of the part of the world we are talking about.

It's not essential to any identity though. Europeans aren't destined to always exploit. To have a European identity doesn't somehow mean your destiny is to exploit someone else. The exploitation identified is only the acts of some Europeans-- their behaviour towards other people and their understanding of themselves in relation to others. The only Europeans who "must be" "self-serving and evil" are those who have acted that way.

Identities are both. They are all socially constructed (a discourse we use), but they are also facts (a way people are understood and how this relates to others and the world around them).

It's just a different usage than a lot of people would use when referring to themselves of describing the skin colour of their ancestors. I'm not talking about that specific usage of "white."

You might use that just as a description of your skin colour rather than attempting to claim a history and superiority of the "white" identity, but that doesn't make any difference to my argument.

I'm talking about the expression of "white" identity as a dominating culture of the few hundred years, a culture we are a part of regardless of how we might otherwise use "white" as a description of our ancestors skin colour. It's neither lazy nor stereotypical. Just a description of a identity category expressed within our society and the West in the (relatively) recent history.

We derive our meaning as persons from many layers of experience, including religion, language, race, ethnicity, diet, altitude (sea side to alpine), landscape, education, music, and a few dozen other factors. If people want to claim that one of their layers is race, I think they are entitled to that, and they are entitled to think positively about it.

I would not appreciate you, WOD, or anybody else telling me that my religion, diet, clothing (or lack thereof), sports, or anything else -- including race and ethnicity -- were actually negative factors that I should apologize for or remain silent about. I would be inclined to invite you to go fuck yourself in some politically incorrect way. — Bitter Crank

This is where the usage of "white" that I'm talking about frequently becomes muddled with the description of ancestors. Various aspects of religion, language, race, ethnicity, diet, altitude (sea side to alpine), landscape, education, music and the dozens of other factors become bound up with thinking about our ancestors. People don't just think of them being fine for their skin colour, but that all their ideas, actions, etc., etc. were fantastic. They refuse to admit their ancestors did harm to some people.

Since people treat identity "essentially," they can't make the distinction between having skin colour and worth of action, idea or tradition. You won't, for example, admit the economically driven manifest density of the American colonisation particularly racist and unethical action because you think it reflects badly on you. It as if, by having white skin, you were the one who committed the genocide and are in the wrong.

Do I need to point how nonsensical that line of thought is? Your identity is not your ancestors. Even if they belong to the same "ethnic group (whether spoken by you or someone else)," you are not the one who committed the acts in question. Your identity as someone who has white skin not theirs. To point out their failings, including those involving "white identity," is not to say that you fail in the same way.

No doubt you might to appreciate people talking about horrible things ancestors have done and their relationship to the culture you are connected to, but that is sort of beside the point. We don't sit back and let the rich heir say that his society's tradition of Capitalism never harmed anyone, just so they can think their ancestors have a "perfection" which they inherent. It's no different for any other issue (e.g. racism, sexism, gay rights, trans rights, etc.,etc.). We don't get to ignore the harm which has been caused to people becasue we don't like to look at it.

Who are you to say "Well, that's not what black means!" — Bitter Crank

I don't. If I was using "black" to refer to the identity which was socially oppressed, it would be a different usage. One that was describing a social relationship, rather than an individual's expression of worth. Their usage of "black" means what it does just fine.

No, they don't. They describe horrors and wrongs which "white (the ethnic identity of the last few hundred years, as opposed to someone skin color)" people have enacted upon the world. To simply be "white" isn't to do anything wrong. Sure, it means to have racial advantage in the West, but that's not any sort of (un)ethical act a person performs.

I talk about the Enlightenment eating itself becasue post-modernism isn't really "relativistic." Rather it is concerned with the objectivity of our relationships as subjects. The same concerns: knowledge, reason, social improvement, individual freedom, which drove the Enlightenment also drive post-modernism-- it was born in realising the narrative of the liberal enlightenment (the free everyman individual) was not happening for many people.

If we are to value reasons and knowledge above all else, the Enlightenment was always going to dissolve into post-modernism because the universal is an inadequate description. People are always distinct. The "Enlightenment spirit," the universal story, cannot be maintained unless we abandon knowledge and reason when it comes to describing the individual. Without this ignorance of distinction, the world dissolves into an array of objective subjectivities.

We are "post-enlightment" in the sense we worked out the Enlightenment was telling us a great big lie with regards to "common intellectual faculty"; it effectively meant "rich white male." A spirit blind to how power is express on and by individuals ("colourblindness," the free everyman of classical liberalism), where there is only the stagnate facts of the world to investigate (e.g. someone has white ancestors), rather than a conflux of interacting people who each define the lives of the other (e.g. a white identity which defines how a person belongs to a social context.

In the last two or so centuries, the enlightenment spirit ate itself. Reason and concern for knowledge turned to describing out society power relationships, where upon we found the "common sphere of reason" was not common at all-- the poor are missing (Marxism), people of other ethnic identities are missing (Racism), women are missing (sexism), queer people were missing (LGBTIQA+ discrimination), etc., etc.

In a sense it is not a pretty world, no longer is there the illusion of common freedom, but then when there was, the ugliness was just hidden.

I have to say, I think it is this illusion you covet. The "post-enlightment" doesn't demand anyone be ashamed who who they are per se, at least not unless they are doing something wrong (which is, you know, par for ethics). It demands we be honest about the impact of our actions on other people or how, that we recognise when we have destroyed others or taking away their power, rather than passing it off as "nature" or just giving savages what the deserve. I think it's this conflict, the awareness of ugliness and/or wrong done, which irks you. You'd rather just hide it away so people could get on with their lives rather than spending their days worrying about power relationships.

Absolutely. It's tied up in our culture and desire for superiority. The principles of knowledge, technology and domination which drove the Enlightenment and colonisation, in a sense, drive our concern for identity politics. We will be the ones who overcome, through our "civilised" culture and society, to make people's lives better. It's, in a sense, a desire of empire building.

I mean it is a bit of an accident of being the world power, in that it they who are usually concerned with the maintenance and development of power in society, but it's still the same sort of focus on building a nation greater than any other. We aren't, you know, content to sit back and live out century old traditions. The world is ours to know and improve (or so we think).

Clearly not.

People would, as you say think differently about dark people. They would not have the ethnic identity of "black" they do now. A different set of social relations and would apply to them. You've literally pointed out that the idea of being "dark" (i.e. the social significance of a dark person to society and other people)would-be different.