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In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

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Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#211

Post by weberc2 »

icebraining wrote: post #205
weberc2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my post agrees with your first paragraph, but your post reads like a rebuke. I disagree that conservatives are more likely to believe that C(slavery) was better than C(now), but I agree that conservatives are more likely to process an absolute morality position (with liberals it seems more complicated--most would say they support moral relativism, but they seem to view other moral systems as fundamentally rac…

evil, which can't be far from moral absolutism Why? I can consider something subjectively evil, that is, I can feel a strong moral repulsion without considering that judgment to be universal.

Definitely. It's veering on absolutism when you try to enforce your subjective morality on everyone else. This was the left's principal criticism of the right only a decade ago, after all.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#212

Post by echaozh »

stinkytaco wrote: post #183
kareemsabri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called moral relativism. It does't get you very far, because it is a belief system with no values, and therefore nothing to aim at. There are some tools for objectively judging morality aka "good and bad". One is the principle of universality. So an outcome is moral if you can reasonably state that you would be equally happy to be on either side of the table. Slavery generally fails this test, since most peopl…

As an interesting aside, this statement shows the massive impact Kant has had on modern thought. To the point that it's difficult to overestimate his impact. The principle of universality is a relatively modern phenomenon. For much of recorded history that was not the dominant value.[1] [1]: There's several good texts exploring how people may have thought at various times in history (because it's all speculation, of…

The principle of universality was and is still dominant value in east Asia by the teaching of Confucius.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#213

Post by weberc2 »

kelnos wrote: post #207
stinkytaco wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps with the best of intentions, the left seems to be silencing the discussion, or at least attempting to. It's a paradoxical defense of cultural relativism with a morally absolute position (saying x is bad and should be institutionally censored). I don't have an easy way to resolve that dilemma, but sometimes it seems the left is more concerned with appearance than with discussion.

Yeah, I definitely see that, and it worries me as well. I do believe that the concept of tolerance can go too far, and that simply tolerating intolerant people can actually give you a worse outcome than censoring them. But I'm afraid that the left (of which I consider myself a part) goes too far sometimes. It's taboo to even try to discuss some topics, and people who don't understand and are just trying to learn get…

Disclaimer: I'm an Obama-voting moderate liberal (for whatever that's worth), and I'm writing this from my phone in great haste. Please forgive bluntness and typos.

One concern I have is that the left is arguing that it should be okay to punch intolerant people ("what's wrong with punching Nazis?"), but they are also happy to use "intolerant" to describe pretty much anyone with whom they disagree (the Christakis/Yale incident and the Google Memo fiasco come to mind, but I see this all over). Anyone who isn't convinced about theories of structural racism or discrimination as the root cause of all disparities are increasingly called intolerant (to your point about people getting slapped down), and it seems like only a shallow victory for liberal thought (people are "accepting" these theories out of fear, and will probably vocally challenge them again when the fear is removed). The left should do the hard work of persuading, and if they fail to persuade huge swaths of the population, perhaps they should step back and examine their theories instead of taking it as evidence that the country is indeed full of Nazis (because only Nazis would disagree, right?)

Besides being concerned about abusing a hypothetical "right to punch Nazis", I'm equally concerned that suppressing hate is more likely to have the reverse effect (which probably best explains the uptick we're seeing now, though I can't prove it). It seems like the left had a really good system several years ago, which was to challenge bigoted ideas in open debate. It may not have completely rooted out hate, but that could be because it wasn't practices long enough or well enough or perhaps there is simply some small percent of people who are unreachable with reasoned debate and we reached everyone else (we seem to have done a good job of making these people insignificant, prior to the last couple of years).

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#214

Post by icebraining »

weberc2 wrote: post #211
icebraining wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

evil, which can't be far from moral absolutism Why? I can consider something subjectively evil, that is, I can feel a strong moral repulsion without considering that judgment to be universal.

Definitely. It's veering on absolutism when you try to enforce your subjective morality on everyone else. This was the left's principal criticism of the right only a decade ago, after all.

No, it's not veering on absolutism.

If moral relativism is true, as I believe it is barring evidence showing the opposite, then enforcing one's subjective morality is inevitable. Banning slavery and rape, enforcing property rights, all of that is enforcing subjective morality, since there's no other.

But it's not absolutism if one recognizes that the enforcement is based on subjective opinion and not on intrinsic qualities of the actions being banned.

Essentially, it's might makes right, and I just happen to be lucky that we opponents to slavery are mightier than its advocates.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#215

Post by padseeker »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #209
padseeker wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Prop 58 amount to an anti-assimilation ideas? It allows for bilingual education. If it were advocating for something other than English it would have merit. But that is not the case; "it preserves a portion of the statute mandating that all students become proficient in English, no matter what program they choose."

Teaching in Spanish inherently is advocating for something other than English, and is definitionally anti-assimilation. You can see the meta message in this article. Fewer Latinos are speaking Spanish, so teach them more Spanish in schools to preserve the language and culture. Whether you think that's a good idea or not, it is anti-assimilation. http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article120912998.html

You need to do a lot better than Prop 58 before I can validate your anti-assimilation argument.

#1 - At no point does the article you posted about prop 58 (from LA Times) say strictly English/Spanish bilingual education. Good idea or not, learning another language does not make it anti-assimilation.

#2 Most European nations require learning another language. The French learn English, the Germans learn French. At no point does anyone in France feel like they are assimilating because they have to learn English.

On top of that it wasn't that long ago Sarah Palin was revolting against teaching Chinese in California. Chinese is spoken by over a billion people and is a trading partner, it seems like a useful skill to have. But the whole thing reeked of xenophobic behavior.

I am not Latino. I want my kids to learn another language. Spanish seems most useful considering the languages used south of the US, as well as South America. Most of the world's industrialized nations advocates for learning a second language. Only in the US with the cult of ignorance does someone look at bilingual education as an attack on their own culture.

All the kids in the bilingual school my children attend learn Spanish. All speak English as their primary language.

The whole revolting against learning another language, specifically Spanish, sounds like some sort of fabricated justification to take a swipe at Mexicans. Learning to speak another language != anti-assimilation. The "anti-assimilation" argument allow intellectuals to make their racist ideas sound like they have some principle.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#216

Post by weberc2 »

cortesoft wrote: post #124
exelius wrote: post #75

I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with the original author's thesis: not all cultures are created equal. But the author does make a critical conservative assumption by implying that economic output is a proxy for "value". This is honestly the critical point: our culture defines how we value things. Some cultures are not bothered by things like social welfare or socialist policies because the base unit o…

This is spot on; cultures don't exist in a vacuum. How much of the success of the 'bourgeois culture' of the 1950s was due to the exploitation of other cultures? Some things are zero-sum games, or at least don't scale to everyone getting the same benefit. I guess zero-sum is not the correct term; there ARE ways we can improve the sum total quality of life in our country and planet, but we have to really think about w…

While I'm inclined to think that personal choices are a more powerful predictor of outcomes than race, I agree that we don't understand cultural dynamics well enough. I think this is all the more reason we should pause before accusing someone of white supremacism, etc.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#217

Post by stinkytaco »

echaozh wrote: post #212
stinkytaco wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interesting aside, this statement shows the massive impact Kant has had on modern thought. To the point that it's difficult to overestimate his impact. The principle of universality is a relatively modern phenomenon. For much of recorded history that was not the dominant value.[1] [1]: There's several good texts exploring how people may have thought at various times in history (because it's all speculation, of…

The principle of universality was and is still dominant value in east Asia by the teaching of Confucius.

Fair enough. I stand corrected. I should have specified "western thought".

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#218

Post by weberc2 »

kelnos wrote: post #156
Veelox wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An aside, I grew up in a small Midwest town. There was one black family in town. One of the sons was in the grade above me in school and people would joke that he wasn't really "black". This was because he had been raise in a small Midwest town and had small-town values and habits. He and his family were an accepted part of the community because they had the same values. If a member of the Bloods had moved in town, t…

You're assuming that "inner-city black values" is a thing, and that black people living in inner cities all have the same values. That's the part that's racist.

All discussion of culture is generalization. If you can't deal with that, you're going to have a very tough time. We can talk about cultures that generally fall along ethnic or racial lines with the understanding that the values don't hold for every person of that race or ethnicity.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#219

Post by weberc2 »

darawk wrote: post #82
manofstick wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> NZ is a small, ethnically (and therefore more importantly culturally) homogenous country Not according to the CIA Factbook it isn't: NZ: European 71.2%, Maori 14.1%, Asian 11.3%, Pacific peoples 7.6%, Middle Eastern, Latin American, African 1.1%, other 1.6%, not stated or unidentified 5.4% USA: white 72.4%, black 12.6%, Asian 4.8%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.9%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2%,…

That breakdown leaves Hispanics out of the US, which seems to me to be, a pretty enormous oversight. I imagine they're being lumped in with 'white'. If you break them out separately, I imagine you'll see quite a difference.

The US is something like 62% white when you don't conflate whites and Hispanics.

Re: In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values

#220

Post by weberc2 »

icebraining wrote: post #214
weberc2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. It's veering on absolutism when you try to enforce your subjective morality on everyone else. This was the left's principal criticism of the right only a decade ago, after all.

No, it's not veering on absolutism. If moral relativism is true, as I believe it is barring evidence showing the opposite, then enforcing one's subjective morality is inevitable . Banning slavery and rape, enforcing property rights, all of that is enforcing subjective morality, since there's no other. But it's not absolutism if one recognizes that the enforcement is based on subjective opinion and not on intrinsic qu…

That's all well and good, but that wasn't the argument employed against conservatives when conservative values were mainstream; the argument was "you can't enforce your values because it's not fair to folks with different value systems". This argument was generally characterized as "moral relativism". Regardless of terminology, my point is that the left flip flopped as soon as they became the moral majority.
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