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‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#121

Post by barry-cotter »

charlesu wrote: post #113
barry-cotter wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? That’s the entire point of comparing CUNY and Berkeley. You can maintain pre…

Fine, the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and almost all of the elite liberal arts colleges (Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, etc) are test optional or test free and no worse for it. Standardized tests are one measure of academic merit and not even the best one. There are plenty of 1500s reporting to 1250s.

Elite colleges relying on high school grades and letters of recommendation instead of objective blindly marked tests open to all is replacing one test with others. The others allow much more room for picking the right sort of person. That was the entire point of instituting holistic admission at prestige US universities, to keep out Jews. The modern drive to eliminate tests is in large part to keep out Asians. Nothing ever changes. Those in power change the standards to stay in power.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#122

Post by pjc50 »

rayiner wrote: post #27
pjc50 wrote: post #5

Yes. The culture war is to a great extent a US import. The US is extremely polarised, possibly uniquely so for a country with a single national language and mostly-shared ethnic background (compare Belgium, which is highly polarised but along language lines). The UK has its own natural fragmentation lines (north/south, class system, four nations, catholic/protestant) but those are not the lines on which the culture w…

I’m not saying talk Radio and Fox News aren’t part of the problem, but blaming that alone for the polarization is short-sighted. A huge part of our polarization is due to our Supreme Court resolving social disputes before society has reached a consensus. Folks in Europe often don’t appreciate how different American constitutional law is on social issues compared to European norms: The UK makes teaching religion manda…

The US replaces state religion with a religion of the state; the weird mandatory recitation of the pledge of allegiance. Nothing like that in British schools. As Arethuza points out, state religious education and the official Church of England are only in England. Scotland has various forms of protestant nonconformist and Northern Ireland had a religous civil war whose bombs were detonating until 2001.

The US's leaning on the Supreme Court to make social progress is really a result of its inability to make social progress in sane ways through legislatures. The fact that it took a Supreme Court decision to legalize interracial marriage only two years before the Moon landings should be a source of profound shame on its legislatures.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#123

Post by croon »

TMWNN wrote: post #118
croon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion is a very specific charge. I wouldn't call "Russiagate" in any way debunked given this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...

No American on that list got indicted of anything related to "Russiagate", but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation. (You know the saying that everyone wittingly or unwittingly commits three crimes a day?) Several Russian agents were indicted for Russiagate-related things; Putin will turn his goons over to US custody any day now.

> but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation

The "unrelated" is completely false, which invalidates your entire argument.

Name an American indicted for unrelated crimes and maybe I can fill in the connection. It's mostly covered in the wiki under each of their paragraphs though.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#124

Post by luckylion »

germinalphrase wrote: post #108
luckylion wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have to say "I'm a gatekeeper of white supremacy" to complete the training? Either your threshold for "looks cultish" is very high or you didn't go through that kind of training.

I was never compelled to say anything at all; however, it did cause me to think more subtly about racism and white supremacy in my life rather than simplifying it to a reactive good/bad:racist/not racist dichotomy. Perhaps this is all more subtle, complicated, and bonding than the fringe culture warriors would like us to believe.

As with many things, nuance is important. Sensitize people to larger issues is one thing, creating a cult they have to submit to is another.

You can tell people about factory farms without screaming "cow rapist". You can tell people about privilege without spiraling into some racist cult. But that would probably be class privilege, which is much better at predicting success than the color of your skin.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#125

Post by germinalphrase »

luckylion wrote: post #124
germinalphrase wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was never compelled to say anything at all; however, it did cause me to think more subtly about racism and white supremacy in my life rather than simplifying it to a reactive good/bad:racist/not racist dichotomy. Perhaps this is all more subtle, complicated, and bonding than the fringe culture warriors would like us to believe.

As with many things, nuance is important. Sensitize people to larger issues is one thing, creating a cult they have to submit to is another. You can tell people about factory farms without screaming "cow rapist". You can tell people about privilege without spiraling into some racist cult. But that would probably be class privilege, which is much better at predicting success than the color of your skin.

Based on the experiences that I - and my wife - have had in trainings of this type, I am somewhat skeptical that any such “cult” exists. There were moments of discomfort, but I was never coerced or made to feel negative about myself as a white man. I have always walked away from these events with a better sense of myself (for good and bad) which I view as a positive thing.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#126

Post by nailer »

croon wrote: post #97
nailer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simultaneously absolved Trump of any links to Russia The investigation also failed to find sufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump administration with collusion. At this point Russiagate is thoroughly debunked.

Collusion is a very specific charge. I wouldn't call "Russiagate" in any way debunked given this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...

> Collusion is a very specific charge.

Yes. And Russiagate was the belief that the Trump org colluded with the Russians. Which was debunked.

Not that citing Wikipedia means anything, but from the main article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...:

> there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#127

Post by rjkennedy98 »

readarticle wrote: post #109
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly-shared ethnic background America at this point has little shared ethnic background. It’s largest states are minority-majority for example and that will be the case everywhere soon as minority babies are already the majority.

America in 1998 had little shared ethnic background by the standards of America in 1898, which had a frankly hilarious lack of shared ethnic background by the standards of 1798. California and Texas are utterly dominated by Non-Hispanic and Hispanic white people, the two ethnic groups with by far the highest rates of intermarriage in the United States of America. England 1798 -> Europe 1898 -> Western 1998

First, I've honestly never hear of "Western" ethnicity, but I get what you are trying to say. Hispanics tend to self-identify as white, especially after a few generations.

I think the rest of your analysis is just wrong. First there was no "English" America. America from the start had European immigrants. New York was a Dutch colony. The early censuses used "white" and it always meant the same it means today.

This idea of a "progressing" whiteness is way way overblown to make people feel like the demographic changes we are facing are not unusual. But they are. Even if a huge percentage of hispanics start to self-identify as white - White people will still likely become a minority when they were around 90% of the population at the turn of the last century. Asians and Blacks are around ~20% of the population and Asians are the fastest growing ethnic group.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#128

Post by arethuza »

arethuza wrote: post #38
gampleman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the Scottish intellectuals I've talked to where pretty explicitly Marxist (including, but not limited to, my supervisor who had a poster of Lenin in his office). Also I think current SNP politics are pretty close to Marxism-Leninsim.

"Also I think current SNP politics are pretty close to Marxism-Leninsim." Care to share which policies those might be?

It's not like the Socialist party in Scotland are fans of the SNP:

https://scottishsocialistparty.org/?s=snp&submit=Search

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#129

Post by cabraca »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #106
cabraca wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please elaborate on what you mean by "warp the definition of racism" changing the definition of racism so a specific targetgroup is included. For example instead of "discriminate minority groups" they say "disadvantage minority groups" and then include things like those entrence exams as a disadvantage. In the end everything is somehow racist.

> For example instead of "discriminate minority groups" they say "disadvantage minority groups" But to intentionally disadvantage a minority group is to discriminate against that minority group. Are you suggesting that intentionally disadvantaging a group is not discriminating against that group? Or are you suggesting that unintentionally disadvantaging a group is not only not discriminating against that group, but t…

> But to intentionally disadvantage a minority group is to discriminate against that minority group.

I would argue that depends on the intent. Do i put them in a disadvantage because they are part of that group or because a large part of that group wouldn't fit the requirements i have.

Lets say i'm looking for someone doing voiceover. Someone without an accent. That would probably put a lot of non-native english speaker in a disadvantage. Would you argue, that i'm discriminating against them or have racist intentions?

In this diversity session they would then argue my knowledge that non-native english speaker are put in a disadvantage by this requirement was the reason to put it in and therefor i'm racist.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#130

Post by charlesu »

barry-cotter wrote: post #121
charlesu wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and almost all of the elite liberal arts colleges (Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, etc) are test optional or test free and no worse for it. Standardized tests are one measure of academic merit and not even the best one. There are plenty of 1500s reporting to 1250s.

Elite colleges relying on high school grades and letters of recommendation instead of objective blindly marked tests open to all is replacing one test with others. The others allow much more room for picking the right sort of person. That was the entire point of instituting holistic admission at prestige US universities, to keep out Jews. The modern drive to eliminate tests is in large part to keep out Asians. Nothin…

Standardized tests could also be considered a way for picking the right kind of person: namely, people who know that standardized tests are something to prepare for. I’ve tutored students at both elite and underperforming high schools. Students at elite schools, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, are highly aware of the importance of standardized tests. Some of the underperforming high schools don’t even administer the PSAT. Many, if not most students at the low-income schools think the SAT is an IQ test where the results are predetermined. I’ve had kids go from the low 30th percentile to the mid 80th percentile with just a few months of tutoring. After I’ve taught them how to practice the test, they improve dramatically. I’m not making them smarter, just passing along some cultural and educational capital they literally would not get otherwise. Their parents and teachers do not know this stuff.

As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans.

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