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John McWhorter: The Neoracists

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Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#181

Post by ceilingcorner »

anm89 wrote: post #162
ceilingcorner wrote: post #34

Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing m…

>It’s continually amusing to me that some of the most outwardly “anti-religious” people (I’m reminded of this Silicon Valley scene [1]) adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism, This is an empty statement. You accuse him of somehow behaving similar to "protestants" with zero further description of why or how this is true. Lot's of disparate intellectual moveme…

I’m quoting the author, who made the comparison. If you disagree, take it up with him.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#182

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

beaner wrote: post #46
widdershins wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that black people are killed by police in disproportionate numbers, and are incarcerated in similarly disproportionate numbers. https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

I'm not sure that page shows what you want it to. It doesn't seem to account for the demographic distribution of people being caught committing crimes to begin with. Here's a thread with numbers from 2019 claiming blacks are actually killed less: https://mobile.twitter.com/LeonydusJohnson/status/1267466345... Here's a famous (now notorious) article from nytimes claiming there is no racial disparity when it comes to p…

Shootings is one aspect of overpolicing of the black community in this nation.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#183

Post by omginternets »

dpoochieni wrote: post #174
omginternets wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a clinical psychological perspective, one of the things you often see in a therapeutic setting is that people fall prey to behavioral patterns they don't fully understand. Often, they don't understand them because they're deliberately ignoring them. I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For ex…

It is usually a case of "the lady doth protest too much". They project their own emotionality onto others while professing to follow logic and restraint. I'm not a trained psychologist by any means but is the modern cultural obsession with image a kind of widespread narcissism? I see these self-professions of rationalism as just another flavor of the same thing "look at me, I'm special, I'm very logical". Furthermore…

>I'm not a trained psychologist by any means but is the modern cultural obsession with image a kind of widespread narcissism?

I agree to the point where I'd rather hold my tongue than risk creating an echo chamber :P

I will say one thing, though. I grew up in the US and spent about a decade in Europe, and one thing that seems apparent to me (though I can't quite articulate it) is that our short view of history produces a shallow view of culture, and that this in turn inhibits the development of a truly meaningful form of conservatism from emerging. Conserve what, exactly? There are obviously good answers to that question, but nobody seems know them, here. All we have is a narrow, shallow and intellectually stunted slogan of "America was founded on Christian values!". It certainly was, and much of that is worth preserving. So why is it that nobody seems to have a deep understanding of (1) what these values are, (2) their philosophical, theological, historical and political origins, and (3) their absolute singularity? And why isn't anyone talking about these things (except, arguably, someone like Jordan Peterson)? With such a soft target in its sights, it's no surprise that progressives have fallen to the same level of hollow, saccharin discourse. Calling Christianity a fairy tale is a good counter-point when arguing with fundamentalists, but it's literally no smarter than that. It ignores that fairy-tales are informative, universal, and incredibly resilient to the the passing of time. They're actually useful.

I don't know how to fix this. I don't even know how to properly express it. My point seems to be devolving into a ramble, but hopefully you kind of see what I mean.

Reading recommendations are welcome. :)

>One interesting essay on the history of some philosophies and worldviews you might like is Eric Vogelin's Science, Politics and Gnosticism (1968).

This seems right up my alley. Thank you for this.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#184

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #170
ceilingcorner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t intending to stereotype Protestants at all. But I think it’s not a controversial thing to say that American Protestantism in particular has some very unique aspects, especially in comparison to say, German Protestantism. Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. If you look at them from a certain angle, the first two have nearly iden…

> Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. Puritanism obviously isn't particularly American (nor is it a thing anymore in any coherent, nonmetaphorical sense), Prosperity theology isn't broadly characteristic of American Protestantism (though, yes, it's origin is within American Protestantism and it is more common within American Protestanti…

[deleted]

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#185

Post by AnimalMuppet »

olivierlacan wrote: post #33

I'd recommend reading Ibram X. Kendi's counter to another piece by McWorther which demonstrates similar straw man rhetoric (pointed out by lisper) as this piece: agglomerating disparate positions from hundreds of people and pointing to a lack of internal consistency in such disparate points of view. Well yeah, if you assemble myriad opinions about racism in society in a long list, many of them won't be coherent. It's…

I agree that if you aggregate opinions from a bunch of people, you're going to find inconsistencies. Using that to point out the intellectual incoherence of their position is a flawed argument.

But maybe I'm not trying to refute these "Elect" intellectually. Maybe I'm just trying to live my life. Their diverse opinions means that there is nothing I can do to keep them from yelling at me and trying to destroy me. Forget whether it's coherent or not; forget whether within the spread of their opinions there is a credible intellectual position or not. Collectively, they have created a game at which I can only lose.

So to them I say: Forget that. I'm not going to play your game.

In terms of the actual effect on society (and people in society), the contradictions matter. To steal a phrase from a former co-worker, dealing with the "Elect" as a group is like dealing with a psychotic.

(Note well the "as a group". I am not saying that the members of the group are psychotics. I'm saying that the group as a whole interacts something like a psychotic.)

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#186

Post by beaner »

roywiggins wrote: post #101
beaner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems hard to make an argument either for or against racial disparities in police shootings then, if the data is unreliable. In which case the answer is to not make assumptions, but collect better data. A lot of people seem to take the approach of: the data's good if it says what I want; if it doesn't, it's probably wrong.

Hard doesn't mean impossible. There's been a lot of good reporting on this in the last half-decade. But it's required sustained effort from journalists, and insofar as statistics are getting better, it's not because the US has become more first-worldier than it was.

Any argument becomes easier if you're willing to dismiss data to base it on.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#187

Post by dragonwriter »

Digory wrote: post #180
dragonwriter wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then, with respect, you are not listening to and understanding the people to the left of you Yeah, no, as someone fairly far to the left on race issues, I'm going to agree that lisper is right and McWhorter is a strawman-beating hack selling the kind of pro-elite concern-trolling progressives-are-ruining-progressivism narrative that's always been a lazy but effective way to make money as a commentator in the establ…

>reverence for the founders and the conditions established at the founding, including Washington, has been integrated into a deeply racist quasi-religious civic cult model of what America means, largely in direct response to and as a tool to impede further progress on racial equality. I think this fairly makes my point. The left-left doesn't think of a few "leftovers of racism" as much as "eternal and adaptive vigila…

> The left-left doesn't think of a few "leftovers of racism" as much as "eternal and adaptive vigilance" against a "deeply racist quasi-religious civic cult" of American meaning that identifies with the founders.

No, the antiracist left (which is not the same as the “left-left”; the relation between degree of leftism and priority to antiracism is not simple) thinks of significant (but relatively smaller compared to what was present before—for most of the antiracist left, there's diversity on this point to be sure) remaining racist features supported and defended by a deeply racist quasi-religious civic cult, which has been deliberately constructed by reactionaries, as I said, in response to and as a means to block further progress on race issues.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#188

Post by dandersh »

anm89 wrote: post #178
dandersh wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The N word is a well known example of racist speech/action and social media is often where these uses are drug up and litigated. But I don't use my identity as a white male to paint myself a victim, so maybe I'm off base? Are there other avenues where these previously non-racists were bullied into becoming racists?

That is a sentence that contains words I wouldn't dispute. I still fail to connect it to the original post in any way.

I took it that social media was the primary way under 40 white males were being told they were racist or were seeing others being called racist.

Specifically I recall the many posts I've come across to the effect of "I used to be X but the community of Y caused me to become Anti-X".

I'm an under 40 white male who doesn't feel doomed to an existence of being a racist so I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be seeing this?

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#189

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

omginternets wrote: post #88

I wish we could stop flagging posts like this. The discussion is thoughtful, and the topic is interesting.

The post is getting flagged because such posts that touch on racism in the context of US invariably end up being a celebration of anti-black resentment.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#190

Post by f154hfds »

dragonwriter wrote: post #175
loevborg wrote: post #6

I haven't read the article yet, but McWhorter is the mastermind behind Lexicon Valley, a linguistics podcast and perhaps my favorite podcast of all times. McWhorter is both a bona-fide expert and a thoughtful, funny communicator - a rare combination. Oh, and he's also into musical theater, as you will learn very, very quickly if you listen to any Lexicon Valley episode. https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley

> McWhorter is both a bona-fide expert On linguistics? I'm willing to assume that for the sake of argument. On racial politics? Given his writing on that issue (and not just the current piece) the generous assumption is “no, not at all, he's just a blowhard that's been given a platform because he can spin a tale that people in power like to hear well”. Being a “bona fide expert” in a different field plus being black…

How many books does one have to put out on a subject before you decide they can be called an expert? (https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/17151107.John_McWhorte...)

John McWhorter (and Glen Loury) have hosted a podcast for 14 years on the issue of race in America. You may not like what they have to say, but to say they aren't 'qualified' is ridiculous and it denigrates their work. They are as capable of lending insight into the enigma that is 21st century Black America as any living person.

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