You didn't answer if you'd heard of Adams before this incident. — frank

I didn't answer that because I don't see the relevance.

It actually does, thanks. — frank

You're welcome. :up:

And tolerant of racism, which is why the likes of Adams ought to be called out instead of being painted as some kind of a misunderstood victim. He's not. Read his Twitter, look at some of his past statements. He has plenty of confidence in his bad behaviour.

:yawn: It's a standard dictionary definition, not mine. You, on the other hand, are just making things up. If that helps you in some way, great. Reality is not on your side.

I know you're black. That's not relevant to the argument about the definition.

Your questions appeared rhetorical. His statements were racist. I don't know why he's a racist or what you're driving at. Just spit it out if you want to.

The OP was about people making excuses for Adam's comments. If you want to expand the conversation, feel free.

So, if someone were to say black people are stupid and then come up with some fatuous data point to support that, that wouldn't be racist either? That's not the way it works, frank. I mean you're welcome to your own idiosyncratic definitions of whatever you like but this is racism:

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized."

https://www.google.com/search?q=racism&oq=racism&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4.1608j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&cs=0

And the characterization of blacks as a "hate group", whites should "get the hell away from" is clearly antagonistic at least.

You are just plain wrong here.

It's actually not transparent. I think you recognize that at face value, his rant wasn't racist. You're saying your dog whistling receptors are picking up covert ill intent. — frank

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. He made racist statements. Period. His excuse, that a quarter of black people dared disagree with a slogan associated with white supremacists, is stupid, which is why I choose to disbelieve it.

:100:

For me the fact that people use racial categories to divide human beings doesn’t entail that races themselves are true in any way, social or otherwise — NOS4A2

This just shows an ignorance of what social facts are. As above, if people in society self-identity in a particular way socially and mutually recognize such identifications, these are social facts by definition. I agree we ought to get beyond such identifications eventually but conflating this with racism is unhelpful at best.

"It's okay to be white" is an slogan that's been around for years and used by alt-right trolls to spark media backlash. You don't think that Adams knew that? — praxis

The naivety of some posters here re this is surprising. The way Adams chose and spun that poll (even on the basis of which three quarters of respondents showed no animus to the troll slogan) as proof that black people hated whites and therefore whites should "get away" from them is transparent in its racist intent. The idea that he just got his feelings hurt because he tried so hard to help black people and they just won't appreciate him is mind-numbingly silly given the context.

Hard to work out what you're saying here. Biologically, the categories are false; socially, they're true. Being a social animal is a double-edged sword; we look for reasons to unite in groups and divide against other groups and find the stupidest ways of doing that. That those ways are stupid and unjustified doesn't make them any less real.

Sez's comments — Tzeentch

?



I know race is a social construct and not a biological reality. I don't think NOS even recognizes social facts though.

I bet you do not welcome racist biases at all and that it must pain you to have them. You have my pity. — NOS4A2

So intellectually honest are you that you like to lie about what I said. But at least you were honest enough to admit your racism. So kudos for that. — NOS4A2

Racial biases are pretty much ubiquitous. They're built into the structure of our societies and therefore into the structure of our minds. The best we can do is recognize their reality, not feed them in our behavior but analyse and resist them.

You're conflating those who recognize their biases and potential prejudices (as we all should) with racists who embrace them and act them out.

My assumption is that everyone -- even Baden -- is biased, prejudiced. I fault him for deciding to let his biases loose. (There was nothing spontaneous about his vlog entry.) — BC

:up:

Adams saying he was going to live with other white people is hardly a remarkable stance. — BC

Characterising it like this is misleading (and just what he's doing on Twitter now btw as he comically tries to save his dead career) because he didn't just neutrally say he was going to live with other white people but ranted publically that white people should "get away" from black people. The mode of presentation counts here.

Granted, individual racist meltdowns like this in isolation are not the most damaging aspect of racism and the executives who are cancelling him may have similar (but hidden) views and their response may be "easy", but none of that amounts to an argument that their decision not to run his comic is a bad one. It's likely a good economic decision on their part (racism is bad for business), and what else is there to consider? Unless you think they have some moral obligation to support the guy?

No one banned Dilbert. Adams can go self-publish if he wants. All that happened was he made himself toxic. His decision, his responsibility.

Well, yes, analysis, link from specific to general etc.

That's on the way to developing something, yes. I'd like to see more of that in OPs of this sort.

Is the idea that people are more racist than you thought? Is there anything else to it than that? What are we supposed to be debating here?

Don't reckon this dipshit merits a discussion unless you can flesh out some generalized thesis that you think his comments illustrate.

Unfortunate, was an affable member and probably a cool person in real life. Right decision, but I wish him well anyhow if he's reading this.

"Just" a word. :chin: Getting to be a word is tough. Try it and see how you get on!

@frank I'm not sure Nikki Haley merits her own thread. Can we just rename it "Election 2024" or something and put all that in here?

Who wouldn't be? :love:

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas.

Excellent.

:cool: :up:

I've read bits too but not the whole thing. They are pretty direct. Typical excerpt:

"Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce."

:clap:

But in a world where everyone is the sociopathic embodiment of an imaginary token that subsumes all human relationships, it's fine.

Homo Economicus is a myth? — Banno

Yes, that's what makes it dangerous. The bigger the lie...

Filling out the above a bit:

A rational analysis of the set-up recognizes it as an exchange relation between the currencies of respect and money which are transferable on the symbolic level, so any unequal division translates into an offer of money for respect. And it’s rational to give respect a non-zero value (even common sense informs us that in many social situations, respect can act almost indistinguishably from money, e.g. in influencing people, gaining favour etc…).

Also, note that the exchange happens on both an interpersonal and an intrasocial level (i.e. between the two game players and in their social context). On an interpersonal level, respect is valued against money as a ratio of comparative gain (80:20–that’s bad!..); on the intrasocial as a relative norm (...but 5000 bucks is a lot of money!). And the interpersonal and intrasocial must be taken into consideration even if the latter recedes into relative irrelevance for lower sums. So, it makes sense as per Hanover’s analysis that as the sums increase the intrasocial monetary benefit begins to outweigh the interpersonal loss of respect.

Anyhow, respect (along with dignity, honour, etc, however you want to characterise it) is as real as money (and yes, pies) but these “puzzles” with their gerrymandered versions of rationality seem designed to obscure that.

You're welcome.

"Advertisers, spammers, self-promoters: No links to personal websites. Instant deletion of post followed by a potential ban."

I deleted your OP and just sent you a PM. You are not allowed to start OPs to advertise your website / books etc. See the guidelines.

Let me add that economists are amongst the most deranged group of fabulists on the planet and their versions of "rationality" tend to hover in that unenviable single-consonant space between the inane and the insane.

We're getting there. Social relations have symbolic importance and money is a form of social relation, but not the only one. Of course, we're so degraded in our understanding of ourselves, we can with straight faces talk about game theory and evolution as if they matter more than the fact that we are constituted as sets of symbolic relations and don't exist as subjects outside those relations, so when we talk about rearranging them, that process has to be looked on holistically to be understood. Fracturing it into a bunch of mathematical, economic and evolutionary hoohaha is symptomatic of a deeper problem that makes such puzzles even superficially coherent. The whole discourse is intellectually stultifying imo.

Cheers, bruv. :up:

Great, I can go to bed now. Whoopee! :grin:



All yours, bruv. :wink:

My point was it is "misleading" to posit it as such in this context as doing so suggests the same sense that individual religions are theistic belief systems (the relevant comparison). But the primary ideological force behind individual religions is obviously and clearly theism and this is not the case with Marxism as it relates to atheism. So, if you could call any belief system that has atheism as a significant element "an atheistic belief system" and do so in any context without being misleading, you would be right. I don't accept that's the case but I can agree to disagree.

As in, if you don't disagree with the post I wrote to @Hanover, I don't know why you interjected. If you do, you better quote what you disagree with. Because you don't seem to be saying anything now beyond atheism was part of Marx's theory. We know that, yes.

The last line referred to the recent discussion in general. I may have misunderstood you as having something relevant to say with regards to the debate I was pursuing with @Hanover as that's where you interjected.

Probably taking this off-topic. I'll stop now.

Although a tiny proportion of Marx's writings may treat of theism, atheism seems obviously to be a central plank of his theory. The masses need to be mobilized and how are the masses to be awakened if they are mesmerized by theism — Janus

It's an element of his theory as I've said. An element that you appear, with all due respect, not to be familiar with beyond one line. And the salient debate is over the idea that Marxism is primarily an anti-religious theory rather than a socioeconomic one. That's false. Even the justification for claiming Marxism's unswerving hostility to religion doesn't fare too well when you read beyond the oft-quoted line. Certainly the suggestion he was advocating for violence against the religious isn't supported.

Wheen enjoys showing the inanity of Marx’s detractors, as when they reduce his complex view of religion to unconditional hostility, quoting repeatedly his statement that religion is ​“the opium of the people.” The full quotation, from his 1843 essay, ​“Toward a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” shows a more nuanced and sympathetic understanding of the social role of religion: ​“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions, it is the opium of the people. — Howard Zinn

https://inthesetimes.com/article/karl-marx-howard-zinn-birthday-capitalism-200

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. — Marx

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

+

Marx did not object to a spiritual life and thought it was necessary. In the "Wages of Labour" of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx wrote: "To develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their bondage to their bodily needs—they must cease to be the slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual creative activity and spiritual enjoyment.

There are those who view that the early Christian Church such as that one described in the Acts of the Apostles was an early form of communism and religious socialism. The view is that communism was just Christianity in practice and Jesus as the first communist. This link was highlighted in one of Marx's early writings which stated that "[a]s Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty" — Wiki

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion

Again, I don't object to pointing out the evils carried out against the religious by those who are nominally atheist or communist. But I do object to the fuzzy thinking, misrepresentation, and caricature going on here.

Sure, but it's a socioeconomic theory that does not merely not require God, but one which cannot tolerate God, since "religion is the opiate of the masses", and the masses must be awakened from their slumber. — Janus

Yes, as I said, that is an element of Marxist theory. One that he spends a tiny proportion of his writings on and that one line is all many people know of Marx, which is a pity.

I grant that orthodox Marxism, which I think Marxism-Leninism is the canonical case of (with an incredible amount of records to boot), is atheistic. But I want people to know there really are other variants. — Moliere

:eyes: :up: