Idaho and Critical Race Theory

[Satinavian]

Oh, that are some interesting questions.

So again, let's go back to the first question, why do you think you don't live in a rational utopia? What about this society do you think is irrational and, here's the really important bit, relative to what.

I think a rational utopia would in practice be run as a technocracy. And not because experts took power but because everyone wants experts doing all the important decisions. Dreams, charisma, the ability to inspire ... nothing of that would be useful for a politician if what the actual people want is reason.
I also think it would not be capitalist. There is no actual reason to "own money" for making investment decisions. And i think we do have the information technology available to balance supply and demand properly without an actual market instead of writing 5-year-plans. A rational society would never waste immense energy to create bitcoin just because the markets make it profitable because there is a money glut.

Imagine going back in time and trying to explain the society you live in to someone like Kant. Do you think, provided you coul;d convince him you were not crazy, that he would see the society you live in as utopian? After all, it's full of things that he either thought were impossible, or never dared to imagine at all. Imagine trying to explain that science has put people on the moon, or discovered the fundamental particles of the universe. Imagine trying to explain the mass eradication of disease, the virtual abolition of war between major states, democracy, the principle of universal equality being enshrined in law.

I am not sure he would think it was utopian. He probably would be quite impressed by technological advance, but that doesn't make a society. He would very much like the universal equality per law but would probably be disturbed by the rise of atheism. As for war, he has never seen anything of war on industrial scale and would be utterly horrified by the idea of armies counting millions or of things like strategical bombardement. And he would seriously doubt the validity of modern societies once someone explains MADness to him or that all the most important nations were fully commited to a war that could eradicate humanity.
So overall, i think he would be pleased with technological advancements, but really really disappointed by what humanity achieved with it.

When you declare your own society to be irrational, are you comparing it to the society of Prussia in the late 18th century? If not, what are you comparing it to? What society would or has ever been rational? And if the answer is that you don't know, then how are you making that comparison at all? How are you deciding what makes a society rational, and if rationality is truly impossible and imagining it is pointless, then how are you able to make any kind of judgement? Moreover, how did you arrive at that conclusion at all? Is it a rational conclusion?

Late 18th century Prussia... I don't think it is more or less rational as our society. There would be a huge difference in education and knowledge but that is not the same thing as a difference in reason, is it ?

You've just said that prejudice is literally hardwired into human neurology and the only way for a non-racist society to exist would be for us never to come into contact with each other. Faced with that, how are most people somehow managing to come to the conclusion that racism is bad? Did they all spontaneously mutate and grow extra parts to their brain?

Because that hardwired prejudice works on emotional level. People can totally accept the idea that everyone should be equal and fairness is an ideal and still fundamentally dislike the other and be willing to believe anything bad about them while always giving the benefit of doubt to a member of the in-group. They would probably somehow convince themself that they are actually acting fair all the time.

As you correctly pointed out, scientific racial theory used to be taught in schools as fact. Almost everyone believed it and accepted it as true. What happened? How could almost every person on an entire continent, armed with broadly the same theories of science that we have today, have turned out to be completely wrong for centuries, and what changed? The answer, I'm afraid, is likely going to require philosophy.

What happened ? Some people founded an ideology on that basis, then alienated half the world and then lost a world war. After that everyone wanted to be ideologically as distant as possible from whatever they taught. It also did help that one of the war winners had an ideology based on equality and linked everyone less commited to it ideologically to the losers for propaganda purposes. So the only philosophy that had anything to do with the fall of race theory was social darwinism and its abject failure and communism and its allure. But people hardly count both of them as philosophy.

A transitional period requires a theory adapted to the reality of a transitional period, not a theory that simply pretends to exist in an ideal colourblind utopia, but a theory that embraces the possibility of a raceless society as a critical position from which to attack the raced society in which we live. In other words, a critical theory of race. If only such a thing could exist..

Sure, our societies are not a colourblind utopia. But to really understand this, we need social science, not philosophy. We need models and experiments refining them. We don't need a new epistemology. Doing the proven, traditional empirical research should be enough. And if that gets us scientifically proven models, we could try to use them to manage the transition.
I don't see philosophy being of much help here.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What happened ? Some people founded an ideology on that basis, then alienated half the world and then lost a world war. After that everyone wanted to be ideologically as distant as possible from whatever they taught. It also did help that one of the war winners had an ideology based on equality and linked everyone less commited to it ideologically to the losers for propaganda purposes. So the only philosophy that had anything to do with the fall of race theory was social darwinism and its abject failure and communism and its allure. But people hardly count both of them as philosophy.

That is rather obviously not true. The civil rights movement in the US didn't start in 1945, eugenics didn't disappear, the US didn't let the Chinese get Taiwan, not everyone (again, thinking of the US) shunned Spain or South Africa.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Satinavian]

@Thaluikhain
That question wasn't US specific and i am not an expert on the US civil rights movement. But afaik the experiences of WWII did have quite some impact on it as well. And the Soviet Union was quite willing to paint the US as nearly as bad as the Nazis for still having segregation. Not sure what Taiwan has to do with it.

We can probably get more specific on a country by country base, but on the whole i stand by my statement that WWII was what brought race theory out of fashion.

So how do we determine who is more reasonable?

Well, that is the question, isn't it ?

Termimal Blue asked me how i imagine a rational untopia, not how i think we can reasonably get one. I honestly don't have the slightest idea how to achieve that in practice. Which is why i don't argue for abolishing democracy.

Though, as for infrastructure and looking at Germany now with having had a decade of career polititions mishandling it and producing one costly scandal after another by chasing populist unrealistic projects, i really really would prefer some boring engineer for once.

 

[tstorm823]

If you're fleeing towards higher ground, you have a destination. The destination is higher ground. In this metaphor it's even more apt, because it implies you can judge the relative height of ground, which isn't easy to do in political terms.

But there are a million different high grounds, none of which is necessarily better or worse than the others. Which is very, very different than "if there's a "better" that means there's a "utopia"."

Yes. But the idea of an idealised past is generally based on the same notions as conservatism is: belief in tradition and aversion to novelty, that the old tried and tested ways work. It's just a typical conservative, after change has occurred, tends to tolerate it and move on. The reactionary does not tolerate it and fights for reversion.

You're still not describing conservatism. Resistance to change is not aversion to change. The position of the conservative is that we do things the way we do now for a reason, and those reasons ought to be considered before changing anything. There a story told by G. K. Chesterton, usually referred to as "Chesterton's fence" that does a good job describing it.

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

Conservatism is not arbitrary, it's based on the very simple logic that our predecessors did things for a reason, and that reason might still be valid.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Satinavian]

Well, of course rationality is just a method to make decisions. By itself it tells you nothing about your goals.
If you use it to be more economical or profitable but don't include safeguarding against a crisis, you only have to blame yourself.

Rationality has you given you many tools for risk analysis and risk management. If you don't actually use them because you are a gambler, that is on you.

 

[Agema]

You're still not describing conservatism.

Yes, I am, just not in the words you want it described. Your argument there is primarily just semantic.

Secondarily, it is describing an (idealised?) intellectual philosophy of conservatism, but that does not really account for why a lot of people are conservative.

 

[tstorm823]

Yes, I am, just not in the words you want it described. Your argument there is primarily just semantic.

Secondarily, it is describing an (idealised?) intellectual philosophy of conservatism, but that does not really account for why a lot of people are conservative.

We're talking specifically about the meaning of a word. How could it be anything other than semantic?

 

[Agema]

We're talking specifically about the meaning of a word. How could it be anything other than semantic?

Trying to argue that "aversion" is meaningfully different from opposing / disliking is a matter of such triviality and dubious accuracy it's not worth wasting everyone's time over.

If you want to expand to a more complex analysis of what underpins that aversion, that makes for a useful conversation. This could be viewed in a narrow sense as semantics, but I would argue it is more fundamentally an examination of philosophy and psychology that drives belief and action. To do this you'd ideally want a vastly more complex and detailed vision of conservatism than merely what approximates to "if it ain't broke don't fix it" made political ideology.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The position of the conservative is that we do things the way we do now for a reason, and those reasons ought to be considered before changing anything.

(Marxian) Revolutionary Socialists agree!

 

[tstorm823]

Trying to argue that "aversion" is meaningfully different from opposing / disliking is a matter of such triviality and dubious accuracy it's not worth wasting everyone's time over.

If you want to expand to a more complex analysis of what underpins that aversion, that makes for a useful conversation. This could be viewed in a narrow sense as semantics, but I would argue it is more fundamentally an examination of philosophy and psychology that drives belief and action. To do this you'd ideally want a vastly more complex and detailed vision of conservatism than merely what approximates to "if it ain't broke don't fix it" made political ideology.

It's not aversion, that's what I'm trying to tell you. If someone is averse to change, that would imply disliking any change on principle. It would be just as silly to say a progressive celebrates all change, irrespective of what it is. Putting resistance in front of change, such that those changes must be deliberate, is a far thing from outright opposition to change.

(Marxian) Revolutionary Socialists agree!

Well that's great, except 99% of the time you make up reasons for things to have been done to justify burning them to the ground.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Well that's great, except 99% of the time you make up reasons for things to have been done to justify burning them to the ground.

"Make up"

 

[Agema]

It's not aversion, that's what I'm trying to tell you. If someone is averse to change, that would imply disliking any change on principle. It would be just as silly to say a progressive celebrates all change, irrespective of what it is. Putting resistance in front of change, such that those changes must be deliberate, is a far thing from outright opposition to change.

Well, I think you're splitting hairs and putting more exaggeration on "aversion" than you need to, but if it will make you happer, "resistant to change" then.

 

[Trunkage]

Sorry, out for the long weekend

More relevantly, there are progressive conservatives. Resistance towards change doesn't give an indication either way what sort of change you find more allowable. A reactionary conservative would be one resistant to change, but giving preference to past tradition. That's certainly a valid description of some people. Someone who demands radical change is not a conservative, regardless of whether that change is to try something new or to try something old.

Well, I was probably more talking about a different group that has a calcified tradition built up, and has another part of my definition of 'reactionary' - belligerence, usually verbally but sometimes physically. That would be 'cancel culture'. But I'd also put the TERFs in there too. Two different belligerent traditions that keep fighting over the same thing.

I've talked to Canadians that go for the PC political group. They seem alright, but then maybe its just that they're Canadians. The Hill isn't that bad either

A huge part of Trump's popularity was his claims about explicitly challenging the status quo. "Drain the swamp" is not a conservative mantra.

Sometimes its not about what is said. Its about what is done

It's not aversion, that's what I'm trying to tell you. If someone is averse to change, that would imply disliking any change on principle. It would be just as silly to say a progressive celebrates all change, irrespective of what it is. Putting resistance in front of change, such that those changes must be deliberate, is a far thing from outright opposition to change.

Well that's great, except 99% of the time you make up reasons for things to have been done to justify burning them to the ground.

Most reasons are made up. Most traditions may help some people but burn a lot of others. Don't expect those that are burnt not to try and put out the fire. Taking a historical example, I could that say that Soviet Russia was bad. I cannot say it was worse than Tsarist Russia. Because it wasn't even close. And many of the problems arose not just from illogical ideology, but from keeping too many traditions of Tsarist Russia. Sure, the solution was bad. Keeping the old traditions was worse.

If you don't want to be burned, turn your flamethrower off

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think a rational utopia would in practice be run as a technocracy.

I think the opposite.

I think technocracy is symptomatic of a society that is so saturated in irrationality that only a tiny minority of people are ever able to develop the level of education and rational thinking required to make reasonable decisions. In a rational utopia, I think there would be no political class at all, or rather everyone would be part of the political class, and every single person (or at least the very great majority) could be expected and trusted to exercise their own reason.

I also think it would not be capitalist.

I very much agree with that.

I am not sure he would think it was utopian. He probably would be quite impressed by technological advance, but that doesn't make a society.

However, a society makes that possible.

Kant lived at a point where science was in its infancy. I don't mean scientific knowledge, I mean science (or "natural philosophy") as a concept. Secular academic institutions were still a rarity and religion held a huge influence over academic life. Most countries were ruled by autocratic monarchies who aggressively censored and persecuted both religious and political non-conformism. The aristocratic class still dominated society. The enormous scientific advances of the past two centuries are largely a result of the changing culture and organization of society.

Gifted individuals alone don't put people on the moon, or build a large Hadron collider. These things are the work of generations of people trained, educated and supported by a society that values secular scientific knowledge, and that is versed in philosophical ideas like empiricism that were extremely controversial in the late 18th century. We take this for granted now, but in real terms it's a very recent development.

What happened ? Some people founded an ideology on that basis, then alienated half the world and then lost a world war.

People founded an ideology on that basis centuries ago. They conquered half the planet in its name. They also won that same world war without changing or compromising their ideology at all.

I'm going to go off on this, because I think it's weirdly symptomatic of the way people view racism. Racism isn't some exceptional evil confined to a small group of bad people who say and do racist things because of some interior weakness of character. It's an incredibly powerful ideological system that literally dominated the planet for centuries, and is only just beginning to come apart. Seeing racism as an exceptional evil, rather than everyday reality it is, is certainly very convenient. It means as long as you aren't one of those people, those special weak bad people, you're fine and not racist at all. But sadly, racism is a bit more insidious than that, hence the need for a critical theory of race.

We need models and experiments refining them.

How do you produce those models? How do you decide what experiments to do?

You think racists didn't have models and experiments? You think the literal Nazis lacked for models and experiments? You think they couldn't provide empirical proof of their ideas? You think they can't do so, even today? Of course they can. Social science without the direction of a critical epistemology is meaningless, it says whatever you want it to say. It's nothing but a thin coat of pseudo-intellectual language you can apply to anything to trick stupid people into thinking it's more reasonable than it actually is. We kind of learned that one the hard way.

This isn't to shit on social science. Heck, I have a degree in social science. But social science works because practically everyone working in it knows this, it's kind of obligatory to be aware of the limitations of being a human being studying human beings. Again, it's something we learned the hard way, and part of learning the hard way was the fact that the social sciences were so deeply implicated in theories about race that turned out to be utterly, fantastically wrong, and which lead to millions of deaths.

 

[Satinavian]

I think the opposite.

I think technocracy is symptomatic of a society that is so saturated in irrationality that only a tiny minority of people are ever able to develop the level of education and rational thinking required to make reasonable decisions. In a rational utopia, I think there would be no political class at all, or rather everyone would be part of the political class, and every single person (or at least the very great majority) could be expected and trusted to exercise their own reason.

Tried that once when i was in the Pirate party. Doesn't work. Even if everyone was able to take part in every decision both from ability and opportunity, that is just way too time consuming and stressfull. Politician is most of the time a full time job for a reason. And that is why you always will have a political class if you want to call it that.

Kant lived at a point where science was in its infancy. I don't mean scientific knowledge, I mean science (or "natural philosophy") as a concept. Secular academic institutions were still a rarity and religion held a huge influence over academic life. Most countries were ruled by autocratic monarchies who aggressively censored and persecuted both religious and political non-conformism. The aristocratic class still dominated society. The enormous scientific advances of the past two centuries are largely a result of the changing culture and organization of society.

I know the difference of science and natural philosophy. And Kant living his adult life in latter half of the 18th century lived at a time where science was long firmly established. Yes, most of the flashy innovation come later but a lot already had been discovered in those roughly one and a half century of scientific progress.
Sure, autocratic rulers were still the norm and people still talked about enlightened despotism. And the nobility while more or obsolete still hold their power. But both of those are not really important for science.

People founded an ideology on that basis centuries ago. They conquered half the planet in its name. They also won that same world war without changing or compromising their ideology at all.

I'm going to go off on this, because I think it's weirdly symptomatic of the way people view racism. Racism isn't some exceptional evil confined to a small group of bad people who say and do racist things because of some interior weakness of character. It's an incredibly powerful ideological system that literally dominated the planet for centuries, and is only just beginning to come apart. Seeing racism as an exceptional evil, rather than everyday reality it is, is certainly very convenient. It means as long as you aren't one of those people, those special weak bad people, you're fine and not racist at all. But sadly, racism is a bit more insidious than that, hence the need for a critical theory of race.

You didn't ask where racism or even only race theory comes from. If you had, i would have started way earlier. Instead you asked about the event that led to race theory being no longer taught. And the reason for that was the fall of the Nazis.

I also would not call racism an ideological system. It is not. There are ideologies that are racist by incorporating racist prejudices and motivating to people to act on them.

You think racists didn't have models and experiments? You think the literal Nazis lacked for models and experiments? You think they couldn't provide empirical proof of their ideas?

Yes. They did only bad pseudo science.

You think they can't do so, even today?

Yes, even today. They can't. And if they actually could prove race theory, the proper thing for us would be to accept that they were right. But they can't. They only have lies, some outlier results that can't be repeated and some flawed experimental setups with the falws widely known.

Of course they can. Social science without the direction of a critical epistemology is meaningless, it says whatever you want it to say. It's nothing but a thin coat of pseudo-intellectual language you can apply to anything to trick stupid people into thinking it's more reasonable than it actually is. We kind of learned that one the hard way.

What are you talking about now. Proper empirical methods, like trying to falsifyable predictions and designing your experiments to test them ? That is called science. Beyond that there is no guidance needed.

This isn't to shit on social science. Heck, I have a degree in social science. But social science works because practically everyone working in it knows this, it's kind of obligatory to be aware of the limitations of being a human being studying human beings. Again, it's something we learned the hard way, and part of learning the hard way was the fact that the social sciences were so deeply implicated in theories about race that turned out to be utterly, fantastically wrong, and which lead to millions of deaths.

Well yes. But that is just the science part of "social science". That is not some recent addition from philosophy. Science has battled with experimentator bias a long time. Especially for experiments where humans are involved a lot. Blind experiments to limit bias were already done in Kants time.

Scientists have been aware of those problems for many centuries and have been busy refining methods to combat bias during the whle time. What have philosophers to contribute ? Reminding people that bias exists ? They know that already. Provoding a better way around it ? No, they can't actually do that. I mean, if it had been a philosopher who invented double blind studies or mathematical models to find systematic errors in randomness, you would have a point. But that is not actually the case, is it ?

 

[Schadrach]

that can't be repeated

Isn't this a significant percentage of the social sciences, like in general? I believe the term is "replication crisis"?

 

[Trunkage]

Isn't this a significant percentage of the social sciences, like in general? I believe the term is "replication crisis"?

Just gotta point out, this seems to be similar for medicine. Like 44% of medicinal experiments cant be replicated. While not as bad as psychology and economics, still pretty bad. It's a problem we have with science in general

 

[Agema]

Just gotta point out, this seems to be similar for medicine. Like 44% of medicinal experiments cant be replicated. While not as bad as psychology and economics, still pretty bad. It's a problem we have with science in general

Shush. You're not supposed to mention that when people want to diss social sciences.