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Encountering Thomas Sowell

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Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#251

Post by kyrra »

debacle wrote: post #243
brodouevencode wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hughes can do that if anyone can. I know among the right, Ben Shapiro is often viewed as the great argument destroyer but I think Hughes could give him a run for his money.

Shapiro is nearly universally reviled by the left and right. It's hard even for an open minded person to not see him as openly racist and misogynistic.

Shpario is a little too much doom-and-gloom for me, but I'd be interested in SPECIFIC examples where you see him being openly racist and/or misogynistic. As far as I understand, cases where he has said offensive things, he's apologized/corrected for them later. See: https://www.dailywire.com/news/so-heres-giant-list-all-dumb-...

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#252

Post by rayiner »

chmod600 wrote: post #221
rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alliance of necessity between social liberals and racial justice advocates creates this problem. There is not anything inherent about “people of color should be treated equally” that also requires buying into “we should disrupt the nuclear family.” That’s just how the political alliances have worked out. The latter ideology in practice works to undercut the former ideology. The contribution to racial inequality i…

But why does that alliance exist, I wonder? What is necessary about it?

It’s simple. A disproportionate share of racists and nativists are in the conservative wing, and more to the point conservatives are ideologically resistant to potentially aggressive government interventions to eliminate discrimination. So racial minorities are forced to ally with white social liberals. But that alliance doesn’t come for free. Social liberals insist on driving the bus on non-civil rights social issues, such as norms around marriage, child bearing, and premarital sex. (To this day, Black Democrats are far more likely to call premarital sex immoral compared to white Democrats. On that and similar issues they’re actually as conservative as Republicans. But that aspect of the culture is muted as a result of the alliance with disproportionately white social liberals over civil rights issues.)

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#253

Post by chrispai »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #5

I began studying sociology in my mid 20s. That's what threw me off the left most than anything else. I remember I discovered Sowell about that time, and it was challenging and refreshing. I'm still a strange flavor of a utilitarian social democrat, but he's the reason why I picked up this routine of reading libertarians and conservatives. I dismissed some controversial right-wing figures in my country and reading the…

Despite considering myself very politically aware, I first learned of him just in the last few years. I'm perpetually amazed that more people are not familiar with Sowell's work over many decades. It makes me wonder whether he was ignored because he was a black man challenging many of the left's dogmas.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#254

Post by dragonwriter »

throwawaysea wrote: post #173
ceilingcorner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that BLM is decentralized and I agree that most people are just protesting injustices, but then my question is: to whom did all that money go? Clearly it went to someone . Isn't it fair to consider this organization representative of BLM? > Black Lives Matter raised more than $90 million in 2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-raised-...

It's not just the $90 million given to this one organization either, although they are facing their own controversies with BLM chapters raising alarm about the lack of transparency from BLM leaders ( https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-90-million-fin... ). Corporations have given massive quantities to many other organizations ( https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/want-know-where-al... ), which are pur…

> these donations in the name of racial policing equality

Neither the BLM movement generally not most of the organizations associates with it nor their supporters nor their donors pretend that it's about simply “racial policing equality”.

But it's cute that conservatives scaremonger about bourgeois identity politics (though they don't tend to call it out as bourgeois) for being needlessly divisive and counterproductive to their overt goals by not incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of the groups notionally served, but also criticize progressive identity politics as counterproductive to their overt goals for incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of groups they serve.

It's almost as if the problem wasn't about the approach to the problems of the particular populations, but that any approach is taken to those problems at all.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#255

Post by Viliam1234 »

jimbokun wrote: post #97
genghisjahn wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the language from the BLM site regarding disrupting the nuclear family. I'm very pro nuclear family. This didn't seem bad to me. -------------------------- We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justic…

Those paragraphs go through great contortions to avoid using the word "father".

Well, they said "patriarchal", I am sure that is linguistically related.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#256

Post by bhupy »

prionassembly wrote: post #233
bhupy wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any examples in your comment.

I might be engaging a troll, but I'll ctrl-c ctrl-v. "It may be that libertarian/authoritarian Left is a meaningful distinction in some contexts and not others; or that authoritarian Left/Right is a useful categorization for some purposes, but not for others."

Seriously, I am not trolling. Those are not an examples, you're just re-iterating why you think the quadrants are inappropriate. My question is what are some specific examples of "contexts" in which lib/auth left/right is NOT a meaningful distinction?

From where I sit, the quadrant is the least bad way to classify and categorize ideological views. It's certainly less lossy than categorizing on a single dimensional left/right spectrum.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#257

Post by a9h74j »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #36
kyrra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read critiques of Kendi's works? Here's Coleman Hughes review of one book: https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist

Whew, that was a dismantling if I ever read one.

Had to read the article after your comment. Hughes:

--- Indeed, what makes Kendi’s personal story so compelling is precisely the fact that he’s constantly changing. That said, when reflecting on his college days, Kendi describes his former self as “a believer more than a thinker,” so perhaps not everything about him has changed. ---

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#258

Post by chmod600 »

wcerfgba wrote: post #238
chmod600 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist'" -- Kendi https://millennial-grind.com/30-quotes-from-how-to-be-an-ant... That philosohy departs from popular understanding of MLK dramatically . Inequities are results , so he's basically saying that you will forever be trying to manipulate outcomes to a…

Thanks. I've also found a definition of 'racial inequities' and an example from Kendi from the same chapter: > Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing. Here’s an example of racial inequity: 71 percent of White families lived in owner-occupied homes in 2014, compared to 45 percent of Latinx families and 41 percent of Black families. Racial equity is when two or…

Groups are unequal for all kinds of reasons. It's the norm. Some are "meritocratic" reasons, some are cultural, some historical, some due to prejudice and a lot (most?) are just happenstance. And these reasons also take part in positive and negative feedback loops.

The idea that any difference is due to an "ism" is ridiculous.

That being said, we should respect and help whatever individuals need it.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#259

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #232
rayiner wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall that argument, I just don’t read the platform page as charitably as you do. Even in an extended family network, the two parent unit is the nucleus. Particularly in view of the conspicuous absence of the word “father,” I read the platform point as seeking to further normalize the situation where kids are raised in households that lack fathers but includes other relatives (usually grandmothers and aunts). I ag…

Thanks. But, see, now it's you reading tea leaves. The original language read: We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another , especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. (em mine) It's explicit about extended families. I think we should be able t…

The platform statement mentions mothers and parents, but not fathers. I don't think it's tea-leaf reading to figure out what it's talking about.

> There's apparently this whole sort of internal cultural debate about Black advancement --- I'm a white dude and talking out of my ass here, but, like, I read some stuff --- between what you might call the Booker T. Washington school, which says Black advancement has to come from Black people improving their own circumstances and correcting the problems that are holding them back, and the W.E.B. DuBois school, which says that the first order of business is to secure formal, recognized equality with white people. It strikes me that you can read Sowell vs. BLM in that light.

My point is the internal debate is filtered through a media and academic framework controlled by white social progressives that elevate one view and suppress the other based on their ideology. Don Lemon faced intense criticism when airing the Booker T. Washington view, because Bill O'Reilly said the same thing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/07/29/don.... It's pretty hard to get tenure at an American university doing work based on the Booker T. Washington view. But the W.E.B. DuBois view gets amplified through those same outlets. That's not because the Booker T. Washington view isn't extremely common. It's because the alliance between Black people and white social liberals suppresses the strong social conservatism in the Black community, as a matter of political necessity.

Now, I understand why the alliance exists. But as applied to Asians, I think the Booker T. Washington view is obviously correct and the W.E.B. DuBois view would be disastrous. I worry that the increasing affiliation of Asians with the left will suppress the very necessary and important social conservatism that exists in the Asian community.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#260

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #259
tptacek wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. But, see, now it's you reading tea leaves. The original language read: We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another , especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. (em mine) It's explicit about extended families. I think we should be able t…

The platform statement mentions mothers and parents, but not fathers. I don't think it's tea-leaf reading to figure out what it's talking about. > There's apparently this whole sort of internal cultural debate about Black advancement --- I'm a white dude and talking out of my ass here, but, like, I read some stuff --- between what you might call the Booker T. Washington school, which says Black advancement has to com…

I think it's quite a rhetorical lift to try to discredit W.E.B. DuBois given how the 20th century turned out, which is what you're inadvertently doing when you suggest DuBois approach wouldn't work applied to Asians. The circumstances of Asian Americans and Black people aren't directly comparable.

We probably don't disagree that much! The bullshit I am on, generally, is that left liberals underestimate just how conservative Black people are, and instrumentalize them in the service of their own policy agendas. It's not hard to find Black advocates of the Booker T school; I think you provided one a week ago!

I think it's important to recognize the validity of both trains of thought.

By all means, take potshots at trust-fund leftists. They richly deserve it! But I'm going to call you out when you pick bad targets, as you did here. There's stuff to criticize even in the specific BLM messaging about families (BLM is a deeply imperfect advocate), but to suggest as you did that "nuclear family" bias is a baffling leftward shift is beyond the pale. It's square in the middle of real, practical problems.

I appreciate the response, as always!

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