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Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#51
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Harry Potter game is a perfect example. They went around screaming the game and JK Rowling were causing 'real world harm to trans people' which of course was BS. But the people trying to boycott the game couldn't leave it at that. They bullied and doxxed streamers just for enjoying a game without gender politics. Because of perceived slights they resorted to becoming actual bullies. We have come full circle.

I mean JK herself literally is, the game definitely isn't. If you've stayed out of this dumpster fire enough to actually not know you're probably better off. JK is a 70's-era radical feminist who's always been a little transphobic (that was the era, everyone was) but in this decade got sucked into the feminist-lesbian-to-TERF pipeline and dug her heels in when people started calling her out for it. Ever increasing le…

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Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#52
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Harry Potter game is a perfect example. They went around screaming the game and JK Rowling were causing 'real world harm to trans people' which of course was BS. But the people trying to boycott the game couldn't leave it at that. They bullied and doxxed streamers just for enjoying a game without gender politics. Because of perceived slights they resorted to becoming actual bullies. We have come full circle.

I mean JK herself literally is, the game definitely isn't. If you've stayed out of this dumpster fire enough to actually not know you're probably better off. JK is a 70's-era radical feminist who's always been a little transphobic (that was the era, everyone was) but in this decade got sucked into the feminist-lesbian-to-TERF pipeline and dug her heels in when people started calling her out for it. Ever increasing le…

[dead]

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would be curious what kind of person feels like they're on the receiving end of hate from "woke" people. An arbitrary example I saw yesterday: An elderly white man was leaving a parking lot with one-way traffic flow. A young white woman was standing in the road talking with a friend. He pulled few feet away from them, waited, then politely asked them to move when they didn't. One woman started accosting him about…

This isn't "woke", this is just being an asshole. The term "woke" is supposed to be related to awareness of racial injustice and inequality. Not one group exercising prejudice and bias and against another based on ethnicity. Furthermore, this term has become a label associated with loaded language employed by the conservative right to vilify opposition. It is a reflexive control word and propaganda device to used to…

Being woke and being an asshole are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. As you say,The term "woke" is supposed to be related to awareness of racial injustice and inequality. What you do with that awareness is an entirely different question. If you use the fact that someone is part of privileged group as a justification for harming them, that makes you both woke and an asshole.

>Either way, claiming that people "who are aware of racial injustice" direct hatred, resentment, and prejudice against others because of their race, age or gender is so blatantly contradictory that it is absurd.

I don't think this is contradictory at all. Victims of abuse and Injustice are certainly capable of victimizing others and carrying out injustices of Their Own.

The idea that a victim of racism, for example, can't also harbor racist prejudices themselves is laughable. History and the contemporary world are full of examples of people who are simultaneously victims and abusers.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#54
post #49
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical theory does not in fact "center discrimination against Black people at the center of the political universe".

CRT places black people in the center of the political universe in the same way that Marxism places the proletariat at the center of the political universe. (I’m not using the comparison to Marxism pejoratively, it’s simply apt.) That’s the whole point. It is by design a framework for criticizing the failure of traditional liberal principles to remediate the disadvantages facing black people in America. When CRT purp…

Critical race theory isn't critical theory, as you know.

Critical race theory qua critical race theory is a legal theory that explores the ways in which critical legal studies --- itself a separate concept from critical theory --- fails to account for the varied ways in which the US legal system fucks over Black people. It is not, in fact, a general theory of why white people are evil. In fact, some of the earliest/most influential critical race theory papers try, in a sense, to ask critical legal theorists to dial it back a little bit. You should read Crenshaw; those papers aren't the caricature subliterate culture warriors want them to be.

Critical race theory qua "CRT" is a meaningless culture war slur/valediction, and a strong signal that whoever's non-ironically using it (whether from the left or the right) isn't operating in good faith.

The problem with the way you operate in these discussions is that it's very clear that you want "liberals" to occupy luridly stupid positions, like "the true purpose of all US institutions, which we as liberals support wholeheartedly, is to suppress white people". And, if you go looking for people to hold those positions, you'll find them (often because, like DiAngelo, they're looking to make a buck off it). There are people occupying every lurid position. We contain multitudes.

That's no way to have a curious conversation.

Late edit

I wrote "critical legal theory" where I meant "critical legal studies". Might as well get the names right myself.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't "woke", this is just being an asshole. The term "woke" is supposed to be related to awareness of racial injustice and inequality. Not one group exercising prejudice and bias and against another based on ethnicity. Furthermore, this term has become a label associated with loaded language employed by the conservative right to vilify opposition. It is a reflexive control word and propaganda device to used to…

Being woke and being an asshole are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. As you say,The term "woke" is supposed to be related to awareness of racial injustice and inequality. What you do with that awareness is an entirely different question. If you use the fact that someone is part of privileged group as a justification for harming them, that makes you both woke and an asshole. >Either way, claiming that people "…

You labeled them as 'woke' and then subsequently said they were demonstrating prejudice. The idea you may assert your opinion that they both have awareness and that they do not is your self-contradiction, not theirs. Claiming they are both is doublethink.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being woke and being an asshole are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. As you say,The term "woke" is supposed to be related to awareness of racial injustice and inequality. What you do with that awareness is an entirely different question. If you use the fact that someone is part of privileged group as a justification for harming them, that makes you both woke and an asshole. >Either way, claiming that people "…

You labeled them as 'woke' and then subsequently said they were demonstrating prejudice. The idea you may assert your opinion that they both have awareness and that they do not is your self-contradiction, not theirs. Claiming they are both is doublethink.

I honestly don't understand where you think I said they don't have awareness. They obviously have awareness that privileges exist because they are accosting someone for having them. Where do I deny their awareness intimate doublethink?

I can be aware and angry that someone hates me for my identity while simultaneously hating someone else for theirs. This does not negate my awareness of their identity.

Do you think that being 'woke' (aware of racial injustice and inequality) means that a person is incapable of holding hate and biases of their own?

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You labeled them as 'woke' and then subsequently said they were demonstrating prejudice. The idea you may assert your opinion that they both have awareness and that they do not is your self-contradiction, not theirs. Claiming they are both is doublethink.

I honestly don't understand where you think I said they don't have awareness. They obviously have awareness that privileges exist because they are accosting someone for having them. Where do I deny their awareness intimate doublethink? I can be aware and angry that someone hates me for my identity while simultaneously hating someone else for theirs. This does not negate my awareness of their identity. Do you think th…

The differentiation is based on which person is making the observation.

>I can be aware and angry that someone hates me for my identity while simultaneously hating someone else for theirs. This does not negate my awareness of their identity

This statement is correct because you would intimate and factual knowledge concerning the matter.

>One woman started accosting him about entitlement, white privilege, male privilege, and refused to move. The scene went on for a while until he was able to reposition the car and barely drive by her brushing her with the car.

To then further say that woman or those people are woke is not, because you do not have any intimate or factual knowledge of them to make the claim.

It's like saying that you saw man in a firefighter jacket intentionally set fire to a building and run away and then said "That firefighter burned a building down." In reality, you only observed a man commit arson but had no idea of whether he was actually a firefighter despite what his clothing might have suggested.

In the instance where the two things are contradictory, and you have one unknown, the assessment must be based on the known (they were assholes). You cannot claim both.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand where you think I said they don't have awareness. They obviously have awareness that privileges exist because they are accosting someone for having them. Where do I deny their awareness intimate doublethink? I can be aware and angry that someone hates me for my identity while simultaneously hating someone else for theirs. This does not negate my awareness of their identity. Do you think th…

The differentiation is based on which person is making the observation. >I can be aware and angry that someone hates me for my identity while simultaneously hating someone else for theirs. This does not negate my awareness of their identity This statement is correct because you would intimate and factual knowledge concerning the matter. >One woman started accosting him about entitlement, white privilege, male privile…

I see what you are saying, but disagree that it is unknown. They are verbally accosting him of having unequal racial privilege, which is direct factual evidence that they are "aware of racial injustice and inequality".

What could possibly be stronger evidence of awareness then them verbally demonstrating it? Am I to think that the person shouting about someone having white male privilege verbatim is not aware that the concept of white male privilege exists?

It is like saying that "a person who knows how to make fire burned a building down". The evidence is in the observation.

>In the instance where the two things are contradictory, and you have one unknown, the assessment must be based on the known (they were assholes). You cannot claim both.

Why would there be any contradiction? Being woke has no bearing on being an asshole or not.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Duke probably hasn't killed anyone either.

Forming a lynch party and burning crosses on people's lawns is different than tweeting "I think being female is an important part of being a woman."

Something even less benign than that, such as "men cannot get pregnant" is enough to be labeled a transphobe. If you went back as little as 15 years ago and told people "men can get pregnant" they'd rightfully laugh at you.

Re: Will UT Austin and Texas A&M survive beyond this week?

#60
post #54
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRT places black people in the center of the political universe in the same way that Marxism places the proletariat at the center of the political universe. (I’m not using the comparison to Marxism pejoratively, it’s simply apt.) That’s the whole point. It is by design a framework for criticizing the failure of traditional liberal principles to remediate the disadvantages facing black people in America. When CRT purp…

Critical race theory isn't critical theory, as you know. Critical race theory qua critical race theory is a legal theory that explores the ways in which critical legal studies --- itself a separate concept from critical theory --- fails to account for the varied ways in which the US legal system fucks over Black people. It is not, in fact, a general theory of why white people are evil. In fact, some of the earliest/m…

You just restated what I said: CRT is a theory centered on black people. Which it is, by design, the same way Marxism, as a political and economic theory, is centered on the proletariat. Insofar as it doesn’t ignore the needs of other groups, such as poor whites, it leads to incorrect and actively harmful conclusions, such as for Asians and Latinos.

However, CRT, like Marxism, is designed to undergird a political movement, not just an academic theory. The repurposing of terms like “white supremacy” to describe things other than KKK members, or “racism” to describe things other than prejudice, is advocacy, by design. And that political movement, which I refer to as “wokeness” above, is antagonistic to white people (and often Asians and Latinos) in the same way that Marxism as a political movement is often antagonistic to rich people. There is a direct line from CRT to Alison Collins.

I’m not criticizing liberals for anything other than failing to defend (little “l”) liberal ideals, and relatedly for uncritically adopting an analytical framework developed for black people onto other non-whites, in ways that are harmful to those groups.[1] That’s a sufficient indictment. No need to resort to caricature.

[1] For example: insofar as Latinos and Asians face prejudice and not structural racism, making society more conscious of race in an effort to change existing structures is almost certainly bad for them. Likewise, insofar as those groups are assimilating into the majority society like prior immigrant groups did, it’s probably a bad idea to teach Latino and Asian kids about historical racism against their groups, for the same reason we don’t teach Italian kids about the same.

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