I just don't care enough. Sorry. — frank

You did not address the role of government as highlighted by Land.

On top of that, it is a good cause this is happening for, as in stopping real racism, so this cashing out on principle turns something good into something wrong — kudos

The left uses the phrase "systemic racism". I'm not fond of the term "systemic". I prefer the idea that racism has been "structured" -- meaning built. Slavery, of course, then decades of Jim Crow law, the Klan and all that.

The modern structuring of racial segregation began during the 1930s --1950s when the Federal government resolved to expand its long-term housing renewal program. Federal backed loans, zoning rules, location of cheap land, covenants, transportation patterns, and yes, racial prejudice, resulted in a major serration of urban / suburban space, with blacks being kept out of suburbs. What blacks received out of these programs were public rental housing. In time the public rental housing became extremely problematic (for the residents, certainly) because administration and maintenance went to hell. The quality of the public housing buildings were really fairly good, but renters do not accumulate equity in their apartments.

So, segregation of urban spaces led to segregation of school systems, since schools have been funded locally out of city / school district property taxes. Increasingly poorer cities could not provide the same level of quality which the increasingly prosperous suburbs could afford. Not initially, but over time some percentage of employment opportunities became distributed into the suburbs. Again. limited transportation options made it difficult for urban residents to conveniently (or even inconveniently) reach these locations.

All this resulted in physically excluding racial minorities from the means to advancement through quality education, equity in property, and improved employment--all factors that can lead to an upward spiral, or in their absence either a downward spiral or flatlining of income growth.

The downward spiral has, in turn, led to a reduction of 'cultural capital' in minority neighborhoods which makes it more difficult to progress economically and socially.

So, to make a long story short, that many people who are minorities are disadvantaged is true. What to do about it? Two approaches: "pull in" and "push in". 'Pull in' is the DEI EO approach: The agency or firm sets a goal for minority presence, and then goes out to find and pull in enough minorities (however defined) to meet the goals. The other approach is to wait for minority group members to agencies or firms they want to work for, and present their credentials, whatever they might be. If there are DEI / EO targets, they might or might not be met.

There are two things people on the job tend to dislike about DEI / EO programs: One is the reality or the suspicion that 'pull in' efforts hired less trained / less capable people. The other disliked feature is the training of existing employees to acquire the "proper attitudes" about minorities. The training programs can be overbearing, heavy handed, tediously obvious, and so on.

So if that doesn't work, what should be done? What should be done is the very difficult job of long-term economic development among disadvantaged people (minority or majority) to enable them (and future generations) to compete in the open markets of society. This is not an easy, quick, or cheap approach, and it is much more complex than just handing out money to people that don't have much of it. It addresses material conditions, not symbolic issues.

Question: do you see this as a power struggle ? As in, is it ‘enough said’ and the only thing left to do is to take a side and ‘be the force’ that counteracts the perception of an opposing force? And it is your role as a member of your country to become opposition, distinction, and separateness. It’s sort of to me like a unity of democratic spirit and Rawlsianism. Is this unity a truthfully universal one?

your role as a member of your country to become opposition, distinction, and separateness — kudos

I've always been opposition, distinction, and separateness, chosen and otherwise. I was an early conscientious objector in response to the Vietnam draft; I'm gay; I've never had very high material aspirations; I'm a socialist (covers a lot of territory); I have difficulties with authority figures; now I'm old, on top of everything else.

Rawlsianism is a political and economic theory of justice that advocates for equal rights and opportunities, and prioritizing the well-being of the least advantaged.

I quote this, because I haven't read Rawls (shame shame); just wanted to know if we're on the same page.

Yes, the well-being of the least advantaged. I've spent quite a few years working with this group. The advantaged sector of the population, let's say 20%, are perfectly capable of providing for their own well-being, whatever happens to them (within limits, of course). The bottom 20% has difficulty providing for their basic needs, never mind more expansive 'well-being'. The 60% in between the top and bottom have progressively more difficulty providing for their well-being, as they descend the income ladder.

Part of the problem here is that the pressure to consume stuff is constant and the rewards are often minimal. Not talking about consuming healthy food or basic clothing here, but more buying the glittering plastic schlock which is on offer everywhere all the time.

One of the features of Trump's MAGA (Make America Grotesque Again) is that he is slashing a lot of government programs that aim to assist the least advantaged to achieve--not well-being, but something more than the flat-out minimum. Landing an apartment in public housing, for instance, is a huge step up from living on the street, even if it is a but spartan, The minimal welfare payment for single, childless adults is painfully low, but if one can qualify for other programs (like Medicaid, public housing, and food assistance) it doesn't lead to lavish well-being, but it's better than untended disease, living in a box, and eating from garbage cans.

We CAN do better than this, without having a revolution. It requires a redistribution of wealth -- something the United States has actually done in the past. The main tool is taxation. The wealthy have been taxed at much lower rates in the last 45 years than what they were paying in the 40 years before 1985. Indeed, it is a low tax rate that is partly responsible for the top 20% being as rich as they are.

Wealth can be redistributed downward, and to be honest, there isn't quite enough wealth to satisfy the needs and wants of everyone. One can live a quite decent life on a relatively low income, but it requires a focus on the basics and discipline. The least advantaged people in the United Stats are not suffering because of a lack of focus and sloppy indiscipline -- they are suffering because they do not have anywhere close to enough money to make ends meet.

I've always been opposition, distinction, and separateness, chosen and otherwise. I was an early conscientious objector in response to the Vietnam draft; I'm gay; I've never had very high material aspirations; I'm a socialist (covers a lot of territory); I have difficulties with authority figures; now I'm old, on top of everything else.

At some point in the past, all these things have been normal, so it would be absurd for anyone to complain here, of all places, about those things. But why do they make opposition, distinction, and separation necessary? Perhaps one must define onesself before becoming systematically defined by another, another that does not have your best interests at heart.

Often, I think many Americans hold the view that accomplishments are the path towards virtue. However, in some senses it isn’t accomplishing the thing that is problematic, but that it is being accomplished for an end that makes one succeed at another’s expense. One says it is right that ‘x should be doing y’ because they are the best at y, and thus the person most fit to do it. But x doing y also means that z doesn’t do y, or maybe y means that z inherits a loss q.

It seems like you have a lot of individuals chasing a teleological notion that strength deserves power. I think this way of thinking gained popularity amongst modern intellectuals above all else, and points to a reductiveness in the following of reason. Do you think it is virtuous?

Some of the findings supporting eugenics turned out to be wrong. Others are quite robust. For instance, some mental illnesses are indeed quite heritable. The question of whether eugenics is a good public policy is quite different from "are some conditions/behavior patterns heritable," which was the key idea motivating eugenics.

Eugenics has, in some sense, always been a thing. Some people have decided who to have children with, at least in part, based on a folk understanding of heritability from time immemorial. Plato is talking about a state-led program of intentional breeding back millennia ago. Similarly, today people who know they have recessive genes for serious disorders often do consider this sort of thing. The whole burgeoning field of genetic counseling gets at precisely this concern.

The most obvious place where this plays out is with disorders like Down Syndrome, which are now screened for early in most pregnancies in some countries. People terminate these pregnancies at vastly higher rates, leading to very stark declines in prevalence in some countries (e.g. Iceland).

So, in a sense, eugenics is alive and well and a big industry. However, the term is now largely associated with state mandated programs that involved extremely invasive state action, such as forced sterilization for criminals. It's also often associated with a racial component, although in many cases the focus was on health (which I suppose is where it also still thrives today). Where people advocate for state programs today (which is rare given the history) it is normally instead in terms of incentives to, or not to have more children.

However, we are now at a point where it is possible to screen embryos for not only disease, but for sex, genes associated with intelligence, height, eye color, etc. This is where the sorts of things you see in films like Gatica are a bit more plausible in the short term. Many embryos are fertilized, and then the "best" is selected. Although, sex and disease is, from what I understand, overwhelmingly what is selected for when this sort of thing is done.

Anyhow, the Alt-Right is fairly broad and in some sense the idea of "race realism" is more tangential than I think a lot of coverage suggests. Since immigration is such a huge focus, one might think these sorts of heavily racialized ideas play a huge role here, but I don't think this is quite accurate. Rather, it's the most obviously objectionable thing for critics to focus on, but many of the Alt-Rights arguments against migration have nothing to do with "race realism" or anything that seem particularly explicitly racist.

You can see this with alarmism over "Replacement Theory." There are indeed people who say that there is a vast Jewish conspiracy to replace White populations across the globe. However, there are also think tanks and government agencies, for instance the UN that have put out memos on "replacement migration" as a solution to aging populations, and some liberal parties have explicitly pointed out in their internal strategizing that this could be a windfall win for their long term electoral prospects (assuming demographics continue to dictate party alignment in the same ways, which seems increasingly to have been a bad assumption).

For instance, the New York Times just had a (fairly unconvincing) op-ed claiming that the solution to Germany's Far-Right problem was in fact more migration of this sort. But the political response from critics was to conflate any mention of replacement with the extreme, fringe Neo-Nazi theories, and I would at least agree with some of the targets of these charges that they are in bad faith. The fact that many of Europe's largest countries will be minority European by the time today's children are in middle age is a historically huge shift, and it hardly seems that all concerns about the pace of change can be dismissed as racism of conspiracy theory fever dreams. But there is a political incentive for both left-wing critics and far right racists to both try to pivot discussion towards things like "race realism."

The most obvious place where this plays out is with disorders like Down Syndrome, which are now screened for early in most pregnancies in some countries. People terminate these pregnancies at vastly higher rates, leading to very stark declines in prevalence in some countries (e.g. Iceland). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Downs isn't passed down genetically, though. It's a malfunction that takes place early during gestation. There wouldn't be any eugenics benefit from ending a Downs pregnancy.

I understand the motivation behind eugenics, but I don't think we know enough to engage in it large scale. Knowing how genetic manipulation will effect a handful of people doesn't tell us anything about the wider implications for the whole population. Diseases sometimes come in pairs where having one condition gives immunity to some other. A broad eugenics program might show us the benefit behind some conditions that we now think of as noxious.

Anyhow, the Alt-Right is fairly broad and in some sense the idea of "race realism" is more tangential than I think a lot of coverage suggests. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nick Land's sentiments are central to the contemporary alt-right and the opening lines of Dark Enlightenment are about race. That's why I brought it up. I wasn't looking for low hanging fruit. That would be disingenuous.

Sounds like an interesting read. Do you know of a free copy of the essay, or did you buy it? I’ll read it then comment.

Sounds like an interesting read. Do you know of a free copy of the essay, or did you buy it? I’ll read it then comment. — NOS4A2

I couldn't find it on line. You can buy it from Amazon.com . It comes as a little paperback.

Thanks

One of the features of Trump's MAGA (Make America Grotesque Again) is that he is slashing a lot of government programs that aim to assist the least advantaged to achieve--not well-being, but something more than the flat-out minimum. Landing an apartment in public housing, for instance, is a huge step up from living on the street, even if it is a but spartan, The minimal welfare payment for single, childless adults is painfully low, but if one can qualify for other programs (like Medicaid, public housing, and food assistance) it doesn't lead to lavish well-being, but it's better than untended disease, living in a box, and eating from garbage cans. — BC

It's not the poorest and the unemployed that make a revolution, it's those that do have work and do own a home.

Unemployment or homelessness is a personal stigma. People in the most dire situation aren't going to make a revolution. I remember so well once in my youth when my country was hit with one of it's histories hardest economic depressions visiting the Central Bank and an economist saying bluntly to us students the reality: "The unemployed won't revolt." And he was right. The highest unemployment, higher than during the Great Depression, and they didn't revolt. The administration went on through the worst economic crisis and the growth path was worse. No revolt from the masses of unemployed.

I think — ChatteringMonkey

This is not hte way to do things. This leapfrogs everythign I think is important in that discussion/post.

I think the methodology you are proposing is not the right one, because if you lift out one policy or one goal, and look at it in isolation, you are missing something important. These things hang together in whole worldviews and ideologies, which includes ideas about what groups should be in power etc.

Again, you have leapfrogged the entire point I have made.

THe methodology I'm using would expressly ignore policy at the first stage of discussion, and only focus on getting on the same ground about goals. You cannot speak about policy unless you're clear on what your goals are. And you cannot speak about all policies. This is the fatal flaw in modern politic discourse, as far as i'm concerned, and why discussions like the (overwhelmingly, anyway) political threads here - they're trying to make meta-political points by way of specific policies or outcomes. Doesn't work like that, plainly.

Unless your goal is to ignore your opposition, not make any effort to understnad them, and not make any effort to actually achieve some kind of unity or peace, then sure, that's the way to go. IF you are wanting that, understanding people's aims and how their values inform them has to be prior to policy. You're literally grasping around in the dark (usually in anger) otherwise.

I don't think the US government has any clear goal at the moment.

Ok I see, I was originally talking about ideologies and what policies they tend to go for in practice (and the implications of those policies in relation to the OP), as a description, not as an attempt to find alignment in goals, and/or policies.

One of the main goals will allways be, to be the ones in power, so they have diametrically opposed goals from the start, no?

Ideologies are designed to give simple answers to complex questions in an appealing narrative, to get as much people to vote for you. What gets parroted arround is usually some form of that, that's right.

But then you have these ideologies in peoples heads - that weren't really meant as real solutions but more as propaganda - creating expectations that you have to take into account when choosing policies, because it's on these created expectations that you get evaluated as a politician in elections.

The space for alignment of goals and policies is already resticted by ideologies and the political proces, is what i'm getting at.

Possibly, although I think it's been around 10 years since I've read it, so who knows what elements of the book I've absorbed. Perhaps I'm more invoking Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo.

After considering the essay as a whole, the argument assumes all consent is manufactured and that there are only two producers of that sort of thing in the market.

That argument does not touch the common "enlightenment" value of seeking a less cruel environment. The invitation to abnegate the commons for the sake of preventing cruelty is being measured by what the thesis proposes does not exist.

It is a brilliant bit of sophistry.

Haha, possibly. I think they do, they just aren't ones you'd agree with. Mostly, not ones i'd agree with either. THough, this actually raises my point to much more clarity: If I am right, it is much easier to point out to Republicans how their government is not moving toward their goals.

One of the main goals will allways be — ChatteringMonkey

I don't think this is a fair, or reasonable thing to say, no matter what comes next.
I don't think you'll get this answer from anyone having this discussion. That, again, would make it very clear when their actions align with this goal rather than others that they might profess.

The space for alignment of goals and policies is already restricted by ideologies and the political process, is what i'm getting at. — ChatteringMonkey

But again, this absolutely ignores what I'm saying: Sure, to stop it. Start by having this discussion. It is not possible for ideology to get in the way of this. All it can do is leave someone bereft of answers, and egg on their face. Not that this works in all cases, but it has almost universally allowed me to find common ground and understanding with people who's chosen polices are in the negative column, for me.

I don't think this is a fair, or reasonable thing to say, no matter what comes next. — AmadeusD

If you disagree with that statement, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

But again, this absolutely ignores what I'm saying: Sure, to stop it. Start by having this discussion. It is not possible for ideology to get in the way of this. All it can do is leave someone bereft of answers, and egg on their face. Not that this works in all cases, but it has almost universally allowed me to find common ground and understanding with people who's chosen polices are in the negative column, for me. — AmadeusD

Look this was just not why I was posting in this thread. And furthermore I don't see why we would need to find common ground to begin with, I'm in Europe and you're in New Zealand, we are not the ones that need to see eye to eye.

If you disagree with that statement, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. — ChatteringMonkey

Please leave me out of this. :grin:

Happy to agree to disagree.

Noting that if that wasn't your reason for posting, I may have inadvertently mislead you, I find your conclusion there bizarre. We should be positive about any instances of finding common ground and understanding, I think.

We may not need to see eye-to-eye, but that's true of literally any two individuals. Policies cannot be adequately discussed without assessing goals first. Point blank period. Ignoring this will ensure you cannot have a reasonable conversation about policy.

If I am right, it is much easier to point out to Republicans how their government is not moving toward their goals. — AmadeusD

How do you see this observation in the context of Land's essay?

Probably hte main read-across is that his conception of how media works (if correct) should mean Republicans never read it, and instead have these types of conversations.
Weirdly, I think republicans are better at starting this conversation - but being widely religious and/or impervious to reason in the specific context of arguing their views with dissidents who see them in a bad light they fail to follow through with finding the common ground I want to find.

Democrats (card carrying, lets say) shouldn't read the media either, because they tend to not accept that the conversation is legitimate, and that all those opposed are moral monsters. The media confirms this. Neither position is helpful, and largely is just the narrative media spins about each group, to each group - I.e almost wholly inaccurate.

I think his point on Oligarchy per se (buying power) in light of democracy is far more apt that probably anyone wants to accept for their own side too - if people could speak about avoiding things like this, we'd have a better conversation about what policies to implement.

"drain the swamp" wouldn't have been a joke to Democrats if they accepted tehir party is incredibly corrupt too but republicans wouldn't have made it a joke if they'd accept it about theirs. Without the cross-party (socially speaking, not politically speaking) conversations about shared goals are essential to avoid constantly talking to bumper stickers instead of arguments.

I was just trying to figure out what is going on with the recent cultural, ideological and political devellopements in the US, as these usually spill over into Europe the years thereafter.

But sure let's play, suppose we agree on the goal that we should do something about the enormous public debt. Don't you think you will get wildly different policy answers depending on which side one is on, or what position one has in society? People do have different interests.