The ubiquity of slavery in ancient history should be apparent in reading any histories of the era. It existed in all state level societies. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Many slaves were white and well-educated--better educated, in fact, than their masters in some cases. — Ciceronianus the White
This is very interesting. This reinforces my view that CRT and also the "Culture Wars" play well to those in power as a divide and rule -strategy to separate the middle and lower classes and being in separate groups.19th and early 20th century industrialists made no secret of their attempts to intentionally hire a diverse workforce because it reduced the risks of worker cooperation and unionization efforts. Moving to today, Amazon had a leak showing that it also pursues diversity as a means of reducing the risk of unionization efforts, using it as a key metric of risk in statistical models. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Sharing the same skin color didn't stop racism as 20th Century Europe clearly show. To the European racists the idea of Germans, Poles and Russians all belonging to the same racial group is very new. Yet this is happening, as you said.White, as an overarching identity shows up first as a meaningful social force in the US, and has gained relevance in Europe following the Post-War integration of Europe and the introduction of large non-European populations into Europe. Certainly a form of white identity existed in Europe prior to the 20th century, but it was not the inclusive identity it became in America. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The ubiquity of slavery in ancient history should be apparent in reading any histories of the era. It existed in all state level societies. — Count Timothy von Icarus
As for levels of violence in pre-state societies, the bibliography of Pinker's "Better Angles of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined," has a copious list of sources. Both modern observation of hunter gatherer societies and forensic archeology converge on extremely high rates of homicide, significantly higher than Europe even if you take 1914-1945 as your measuring period, or the nations with the highest homicide rates today (concentrated in Central America). — Count Timothy von Icarus
I mention Africa in terms of neopatrimonial political systems because SSA has the best examples of pure neopatrimonial models, and Francis Fukayama draws most of his examples from the region in his "Origins of Political Order," and "Political Order and Political Decay." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Countries with governments set up to ensure given levels of representation by given ethnic groups, rather than open elections (e.g. Lebanon's history) are far more likely to enter a civil war and more likely to return to war if an ethnic based political system is used following a cease fire. This is a replicable finding, although obviously all IR studies deal with low N studies and lack of experimentation. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't know what you mean by "intentionally exploitative policies." This is obviously true, although you could argue that modern capitalism was less exploitive that the systems that preceded it. In any event, my point was specific to colonies. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It's certainly not a settled matter, but the balance of findings in historical macro economic analysis is definitely on the side of colonies being net money losers for European nations. — Count Timothy von Icarus
They were pursued for prestige and strategic reasons, and had the side benefit of letting the well-connected loot the treasuries of European nations, but they were a net drain on the host nations, particularly later colonial projects during the 19th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Secondly, the nations that gained the most from colonies (analyses generally conclude Spain saw short term benefits from gold and silver inflows) were impoverished by the early 20th century and relied on "catch up growth," to grow near to the main European powers in terms of development. Even today, Spain and Portugal, with their vast, early empires are significantly poorer than France and the UK.
Meanwhile, Denmark's rise to being one of the most developed nations in Europe occured after it lost its colonies. Austria's development trajectory increased after losing its empire. Switzerland and the Nordic nations are the most developed in Europe, despite the lack of colonies. Finland and Korea were impoverished backwaters into the 1950s, and modernized via institutional reform, not colonization, meaning colonies are neither necessary, nor sufficient for development. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The risk of CRT reducing development to extraction is that it then follows that simply transferring wealth to marginalized groups will be enough to reduce violence and increase standards of living. Yet this experiment has been run, with many poor nations inheriting vast natural resource wealth, and the result has often been a small minority benefiting from said wealth. — Count Timothy von Icarus
As to immigration causing congestion effects for other immigrants, or immigration reaching a tipping point at which the host nation's populace experiences an increase in anti-immigrant and anti-welfare state sentiment, this is a finding that appears in the immigration literature over and over, and can be found on Google Scholar readily. For example: — Count Timothy von Icarus
Aside from academic sources, you can also look to industry. 19th and early 20th century industrialists made no secret of their attempts to intentionally hire a diverse workforce because it reduced the risks of worker cooperation and unionization efforts. Moving to today, Amazon had a leak showing that it also pursues diversity as a means of reducing the risk of unionization efforts, using it as a key metric of risk in statistical models. — Count Timothy von Icarus
As to Whiteness existing outside the US in the early 20th century as a unifying concept, I submit as evidence that it wasn't the fact that Europe experienced huge waves of ethnic cleansing (Germans totally removed from large swathes of Eastern Europe they had inhabited for centuries, Armenians subject to genocide in Turkey, the Holocaust of European Jews, the genocided in the Balkans, etc.). Racial theorists of the time also posited different European groups as different races. White, as an overarching identity shows up first as a meaningful social force in the US, and has gained relevance in Europe following the Post-War integration of Europe and the introduction of large non-European populations into Europe. Certainly a form of white identity existed in Europe prior to the 20th century, but it was not the inclusive identity it became in America. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Finally, as to: "The only way equality can be measured is by comparing outcomes," sure. The next step though, advocating for the elimination of anything that shows disparities in outcomes, is necissarily making the error of confusing correlation with causation.
CRT advocates have a real problem with doing absolute junk science, or badly misrepresenting the results of academic research, and then, when confronted with this, deflecting in an almost Freudian way with: "academia itself is a racist institution, and your disagreement is a sign of internalized racism/white fragility."
For example, the slide below is the definition of statistical error: — Count Timothy von Icarus
Standardized tests for civil service positions were implemented with the exact goal of reducing bias in hiring. If the goal is to increase minority hires/admissions, then the solution might be to give those groups even larger preference on exams. The push to remove testing entirely isn't required to shake up admissions rates. A quota system would be the most effective means of doing that. I'd argue that tests are being jettisoned more because disparities in the test scores of those admitted/hired allow critics of affirmative action to use an easy quantitative means to critique said practices, rather than for any practical selection reason. Standardized tests allow bright students with poor grades due to poor quality, non-challenging academic settings to demonstrate their talent, which could be a boon for minority students. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This may be true, but I'm not sure what we can conclude about the merits of immigration strategies based on such sentiments, because they're not natural occurrences but results of political and ideological conflict.
But clearly keeping the wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority isn't really a solution either, so I'm not sure what the thrust of this argument is. Are you arguing that the approach of CRT to wealth redistribution is wrong, of that wealth redistribution is generally inefficient?
David Theo Goldberg, in the article I cited, put it best:
"It is true that anti-racism today has been turned into something of an industry. But “diversity training,” “racial equity,” “systemic” and “institutional” racism, and indeed “anti-racism” itself are not the inventions of CRT — StreetlightX
Yet that is the phenomenon. And it's the corporate grifters that do take the important role. Or perhaps it's the powerful PR-people (and timid CEO's) in the corporate structure trying to keep the corporate brand totally spotless by hiring Robin DiAngelo and "going woke".Robin DiAngelo has been mentioned too, but she's a corporate grifter exploiting the self-serving guilt of white liberals who milk catharsis from having their 'guilty feelings' recognized and acknowledged so they can feel like they have a part to play in combating racism — StreetlightX
nobody actually has defended CRT by correcting the views presented — ssu
A theorist can simply deny his or her influence in anything (that is negative), yet it's the influence that typically is important. — ssu
And even easier is just to call others idiots and leave it that...An idiot can simply make up a line of influence for anything (that is positive), yet they're still an idiot whom no one has to 'defend' anything from other than to point out they they made shit up. — StreetlightX
So far the only person who has actually cited a single line of anything remotely resembling CRT has been ssu — StreetlightX
On a side note, I do think people overstate how cosmopolitan and open people were throughout history. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think the problem here is that most of these countries have to deal with arbitrary border drawn without regard for ethnic groups, as well as with a lack of institutions to deal with the resulting conflicts. This doesn't seem to be good evidence that the quota system here is significant as a cause of the problem.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. What would make a cross-cultural political trend natural versus unnatural? — Count Timothy von Icarus
In any event, it seems apparent that public sentiment and political conflict vis-a-vis political feasibility, are essential to public policy decisions. In general, how people do act is far more important to formulating policy than how they ought to act. If people acted how they ought, we shouldn't need armies, taxes to cover externalities such a pollution, or prisons. However, they act how people do act, necessitating things like standing armies and prisons. — Count Timothy von Icarus
As evidence of the destabilizing effects of rapidly shifting demographics in West I'd submit the rise and major electoral success of Far-Right parties, and the large shift towards minority rule and ethno-nationalism in the American Republican party. You can see this in any week's headlines. This week France's military is warning of a civil war over migration for example
This destabilization has far reaching consequences not just for the citizens of Western nations, who are protected by stable institutions and high functioning states, but more so for people living in developing nations who stand to benefit from a stable international system, particularly vis-a-vis developed nations getting thier shit together on global warming. It's not that much of a winding causal path between the destablizing effects of rapid demographic shifts on politics, the rise of the Far-Right, and the lack of progress on containing carbon emissions. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Direct migration to developing countries can only benefit a vanishingly small minority of people in developing countries. Even if the US and Europe trippled immigration rates, you still wouldn't get close to 5% of the developing world moving to developed nations. This is why, to my mind, the left should take the destablizing effects of immigration more seriously, or at the very least get rid of the fantasy that pops up fairly often (from John Oliver for example) that declining birth rates in developed nations will allow meaningful percentage of people in developed nations to act as "replacements," for the declining population. The numbers don't add up, you're talking slow decline in developed nations versus multiple billions in population growth in the developing world, primarily Sub-Saharan Africa, over the next 80 years. — Count Timothy von Icarus
People in general underestimate the scale of the shift. The major European nations, France, the UK, and Germany, will all be minority European by around 2080. This represents a more rapid demographic shift than the Americas saw after 1492. Governments need a plan for handling that shift, and CRT, with its extreme moralizing trend, is supremely unhelpful at framing the discussion. — Count Timothy von Icarus
My problem with CRT is that it generally refuses to conceive of immigration in any terms except racism. That is, any policy in favor of restricting immigration must have at its core, racist intent. This simply isn't the case. Given that immigration appears likely to be, with enviornmental issues related to pollution, the defining political issue of the next century, it's a pretty big liability to be caught up in reductive moralizing on the issue. — Count Timothy von Icarus
1. Historically, essentializing race as respects political representation doesn't tend to end well historically, as it results in the increased politicization of demographics. This doesn't mean race based interventions are necissarily wrong. There is a powerful case to be made for affirmative action alongside other forms of redistribution. However, I'd default towards overall redistribution in most cases. Money, access to healthcare and housing: these are relatively fungible. Access to elite schools, government posts, or mentorships are comparatively quite scarce, so in those cases race based programs make sense, since extending the benefit to everyone isn't feasible. — Count Timothy von Icarus
2. CRT fails to motivate voters. It makes voters less likely to support redistribution, even those it is intended to help most. This seems like a pretty glaring flaw for a framework that aspires to become the main paradigm for left leaning political parties world wide. — Count Timothy von Icarus
On a related note, one of the few academic studies I've seen on anti-racism training at a university had the effect of making students less likely to be friends with members of another race. That does seem like an issue, when your treatment makes you patients worse. And as much of an issue is the fact that CRT can dismiss such positivist critiques of the results of its interventions by claiming that the social sciences themselves are tools of oppression and not to be trusted, which leads to...
3. CRT's focus on moralizing and zeal, and rejection of the validity of various branches of science would appear to make it difficult for adherents to reform their efforts. If you start with the assumption that you are right, and dismiss established methods for testing your assumptions, you end up with a political doctrine that lacks internal course correction mechanisms. Essentially, you swap doctrine for dogma. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Anyhow, I think it's overly pessimistic to think that multi-ethnic states are doomed to faliure by their borders. Ethnic identity is something that gains utility as other institutions and forms of identity fail. That is, ethic identity tends to be important because the state is failing moreso than the states fail due to ethnic identities. — Count Timothy von Icarus
People generally blame instability in the Middle East on its post WWI borders, but you'd be hard pressed to find any place on Earth other than China where the populations have spent more time living under consolidated empires than the Middle East, which was unified far more often than not throughout its history. Tribal antipathy wasn't an intractable problem when the Ottoman, Persian, Roman, etc. states were ascendant in the region, it became one when strong states disappeared. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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