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Classism in America

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Re: Classism in America

#61

Post by SEJeff »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #58
falsestprophet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A cabbie asked me if I supported Donald Trump and told he we was surprised I didn't. He told me all Americans supported Trump. So I asked him if he was an IRA thug/terrorist, to which he naturally said no." It's hardly reasonable to compare being a member of a terrorist organization to supporting the leading candidate of one of two major parties. Consider just the sheer effort of participating in terrorism is far gr…

Can you come up with a better analogy on the spot that would have worked in that situation? SEJeff obviously isn't saying that Trump support and IRA support are exactly equivalent. He's saying they're both subgroups in a larger population that outsiders stereotype as representing the entire population, to the disgust of many of the people stereotyped. It's an excellent analogy because it references a situation that's…

bingo!

Re: Classism in America

#62

Post by PaulHoule »

ska wrote: post #26
nxzero wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think it's very possible that you believe law enforcement thinks about the world differently than someone trying to avoid law enforcement. My understanding is that they share the same mental model of the world on average; which is not a critical view of either, just what I've heard from people that know much, much more about how different types of people think than me. To be clear, it would be foolish to say all peop…

To be clear, it would be foolish to say all people, even of a given type, think the same. This statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of the main purposes of training for many jobs (lawyers, physicists, police, etc.) is explicitly to modify the mental model you apply to the world.

I found his comment interesting but I don't know what to think about it.

Certainly cops and criminals have plenty of reason to get into each other's heads.

Maybe a better analogy could be the rift that exists between police and the black communities in many places. Definitely these people have a different perspective about things. There is definitely a hard core of criminals who are coincidentally black who are playing a "cat and mouse" game against the cops, but then there are a lot of blacks who have surplus trouble with the police as well as situations like

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/the-m...

where cops feel driven to do things that look brutal, maybe are brutal, but they don't see an alternative.

Re: Classism in America

#63

Post by kbenson »

JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

Is this a predominantly east coast thing, or am I just oblivious?

Re: Classism in America

#64

Post by nxzero »

ska wrote: post #52
nxzero wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. While I'd agree that mental induction into a field does happen, that unlike in many fields, law enforcement has a very primal nature, and many that take on this domain are predoposed to it; within nature, the domain would be the relationship between predators and their prey.

I don't think you are articulating your point very well, and the last bit seems to be veering towards ev-psych nonsense. Can you clarify what you are trying to say?

Happy to do so, please explicitly state a question, refrain from the tone you've taken, and state what if any experience you have on the topic.

Re: Classism in America

#65

Post by gjm11 »

RodericDay wrote: post #16

It's a bit disturbing to me how enthusiastically the SlaterStarCodex crowd latches onto this "fuck you, got mine" essay, gushing with praise and admiration about telling it like it is. The entire thing is a rationalization for the thinking illustrated in these quotes: > I feel the need for a disclaimer of sorts. I am writing about class and some of the injustices of classism, but I do not particularly pretend to posi…

> The entire thing is a rationalization for the thinking illustrated in these quotes

What makes you say that?

It doesn't look that way to me, because (1) nothing in "the entire thing" particular looks (superficially or otherwise) like a justification for that thinking, and (2) the author doesn't cite any of the rest of "the entire thing" to justify that thinking.

It looks to me as if the entire thing is an attempt to describe how the author sees social class in the USA, and those quotes are just what they say they are: "a disclaimer of sorts".

Re: Classism in America

#66

Post by gjm11 »

maldusiecle wrote: post #22
RodericDay wrote: post #16

It's a bit disturbing to me how enthusiastically the SlaterStarCodex crowd latches onto this "fuck you, got mine" essay, gushing with praise and admiration about telling it like it is. The entire thing is a rationalization for the thinking illustrated in these quotes: > I feel the need for a disclaimer of sorts. I am writing about class and some of the injustices of classism, but I do not particularly pretend to posi…

It's a common attitude in a lot of LessWrong-adjacent blogs: analyze some complex phenomenon that the social sciences have studied in depth, but act as if no one has ever thought of it before. So when class comes up, it's better to think of in the terms of some rando blogger, not (for instance) Bourdieu or Weber. And then when you get absurd results, it proves your originality and willingness to look past conventiona…

> And then when you get absurd results, it proves your originality and willingness to look past conventional wisdom.

Do you have any particular absurd results in mind?

Re: Classism in America

#67

Post by reneherse »

SEJeff wrote: post #24
hyperliner wrote: post #3

This is a very good article. In America, there is also an example where we "build up" the social class of some segment to compensate for our self-centered guilt. Take the example of the military service. The vast majority of people would rather be at the mall and let someone else fight and die for the country. But the "I support our troops" bumper sticker is everywhere, or maybe they sent ten bucks to Fisher House or…

FWIW, the Wounded Warrior Project is a sham of an organization, see: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary... 59% of the money goes to actually helping vets, which is pretty crap. Here are a few more credible alternatives: http://bearingarms.com/four-charities-better-than-wounded-wa... I entirely agree with your observation however. Disclaimer: I'm a combat vet of OIF II from 03-04

I'd add the Semper Fi Fund/ America's Fund to the list of reputable organizations: http://semperfifund.org

Re: Classism in America

#68

Post by nxzero »

PaulHoule wrote: post #62
ska wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, it would be foolish to say all people, even of a given type, think the same. This statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of the main purposes of training for many jobs (lawyers, physicists, police, etc.) is explicitly to modify the mental model you apply to the world.

I found his comment interesting but I don't know what to think about it. Certainly cops and criminals have plenty of reason to get into each other's heads. Maybe a better analogy could be the rift that exists between police and the black communities in many places. Definitely these people have a different perspective about things. There is definitely a hard core of criminals who are coincidentally black who are playi…

Are you responding to my comment?

If so, unclear what race has to do with my comment, or for that matter, the topic.

Re: Classism in America

#69

Post by tamana »

secstate wrote: post #15
JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

That's fascinating. I remember reading something a while ago about the loss of regional accents (there's a great "Downeast" accent up here in Maine that no one has anymore, except lobstermen). People like to blame mass media, but in reality it's mass communication and the stigma of having a thick Brooklyn, Southie, or Downeast accent that encourages folks to pretend they don't have one. On the flip side, there is som…

And remember: if he had encountered a black civilian at that moment, the civilian would not have escaped with his life.

Re: Classism in America

#70

Post by Roboprog »

zeveb wrote: post #34
JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

It's remarkable to me how folks who would never, ever be seen to say anything rude about other races (or who would only do so very obliquely) will quite loudly smirk about how much they hate Southerners, how stupid they think Southerners are &c. It's all just class. One can be just as intelligent with a Southern accent as one can be stupid with another.

On the other hand, look at how (politically) "those people" behave in aggregate. It might only be a majority of 51%, but clearly there is a sizable portion of people in the (traditionally somewhat sparsely populated) south / center of the country that have quite different values than the the people living along the crowded coasts.

Not saying one group is smarter/dumber, just that the difference in values makes it hard to come to an agreement, which can make the "other" side seem stupid / "full of shit" / nuts.

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