Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#321

Post by demondemidi » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

indigo945 wrote: post #101

> When I was growing up in foster homes, or making minimum wage as a > dishwasher, or serving in the military, I never heard words like “cultural > appropriation” or “gendered” or “heteronormative.” > > Working class people could not tell you what these terms mean. But if you > visit an elite university, you’ll find plenty of affluent people who will > eagerly explain them to you. I figured out as soon as I saw the l…

I smelled that too!

And the author didn’t fail to deliver. The George Floyd protests in Portland Oregon were massive. I find it hard to square that with a yougov poll that says only upper middle class people were protesting to defund the police because the crowds were young people who aren’t even old enough to have achieved that economic status.

The author hilariously tries to paint small liberal movements as cultural capital, which is the same smear conservatives play when using “virtue signaling.” I’m sorry but 30 years ago Silence=Death fell under his category, and here we are today with overwhelming support nationwide for gay rights.

This paper is interesting but seems intentionally geared toward wrapping antiprogressive rhetoric as insight.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#322

Post by bryanrasmussen » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

jocaal wrote: post #227

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok - in that case: when I switched to a white collar job suddenly all the world's knowledge was unlocked in my brain, and I knew the meaning of all these terms that had heretofore been opaque to me.

The author addresses this in the text. He claims the wealthy have the time (And I will add access to resources like the internet and books) to spend on learning esoteric knowledge. From my N=1 experience, that seems to be true. I don't really get why that offends you. Is it really hard to believe that people in different social classes prioritize learning different things?

>I don't really get why that offends you.

well probably because I have learned more esoteric knowledge than almost anyone I know despite having come from poorer circumstances than anyone I know, and I learned it while being poor.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#323

Post by erkt » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

notaustinpowers wrote: post #284

erkt wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a fancy way to argue that it’s ethical to discriminate against white people because there is a historical debt to settle. Laying claim to culture is dumb, but everyone wants to feel special. One’s culture is less at risk from appropriation than from extinction as the world continues to trend towards an internet transmitted monoculture.

Also, not sure what discrimination against white people over a historical debt you're referring to. The appropriation statement is specifically about how a significant aspects of certain cultures are repressed in modern American society, but when they are utilized by the majority (in America, white Americans), they're celebrated as fashionable or acceptable. Laying claim to culture is dumb? That's kinda how things ha…

Oh you are right I definitely over projected here and did not recognize the nuance in your argument. I do find in my experience, that most people do not restrict their definition as much as you have.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#324

Post by peanutcrisis » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #95

"Class", by Paul Fussell, is a fun read. It's from 1981 and reads like a period piece today, but it's still a good read. Somehow, "Black Lives Matter" morphed into "Defund the Police", which turned into a joke. It derailed any serious effort to fix the real problem of cops shooting too many black people. Not quite sure how that happened. The hard work thing seems to be the reverse of the criticism usually leveled in…

I think you should take a look at this [0]. It goes deep into the academic literature on police shootings, so it's not exactly a short read. The author writes in good faith, and exerted considerable effort to substantiate his points. In short, there appears to be a trend of police shootings tending towards white offenders, while non-lethal confrontations are more prevalent during encounters with black offenders.

[0] https://kriegman.substack.com/p/post-leading-to-termination-...

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#325

Post by littlestymaar » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #236

gizmo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue you find that kind of left wing extremist exclusively on twitter and at the fringes of academia. They have no power and are not taken very seriously.

You also find them published in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

You just found this on Google and because this is behind a paywall you haven't read it, right? Because the argument made here isn't the one you think it is: it's about financing social care in order to be able to make crime disappear (making the police “obsolete”).

Now I don't think that's realistic, and no matter how fair your society is going to be there would always be the need for some police in the end (the author themselves acknowledge that as well when talking about “less needs” for the police), but claiming that they want to abolish the police in the sense of "directly removing it in today's society" is a strawman. (Yes the provocative title is an invitation to strawmans but you fell for the trap)

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#326

Post by erik_seaberg » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #239

j7ake wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying the upper class in UK eg the royal family actively avoids flying private and making their own breakfast and doing their own laundry? Or is the royal family not classy? Would be happy to hear examples of upper class UK people who still do their own laundry and flies coach.

The royal family is rather an extreme example; they are classy as well as being powerful and wealthy. They royals are the epitome of aristocracy; people descended from kings and peers of the realm are a small minority of the upper class. Sometimes classy people fall on hard times; so yes, they make their own breakfast. But they don't lose their class. Flying coach is also an extreme example; anyone who can afford bus…

When Americans see “public school” we think of what you would probably call a “state school,” funded by taxes and not at all targeting elites.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#327

Post by littlestymaar » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

automatic6131 wrote: post #152

gizmo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is pretty incendiary so I won't go through it point by point, but I'd like to emphasize the distinction between defunding (i.e. demilitarizing) and abolishing the police. Abolishing the police altogether is more of a utopian goal and very few people think society can function today without some kind of police. That said, the typical day-to-day work for a police officer doesn't require violence or the thr…

> I'd like to emphasize the distinction between defunding (i.e. demilitarizing) and abolishing the police You are playing the Motte and Bailey[1] tactic perfectly. You say that defunding means only "demilitarizing", which many people would probably agree with. But when put into practise, it's never that. I mean, you don't need to delve very far into academia or lefty twitter to find extremist people saying exactly th…

> But when put into practise, it's never that.

What do you mean? Where has police abolition been ever "put into practice"?

> I mean, you don't need to delve very far into academia or lefty twitter to find extremist people saying exactly this, that defund does actually mean abolish

If you're trying to find the point of view of stupidest leftist in existence to say “the left is stupid” then sure. Of course there are idiots/teenagers/trolls on Twitter that think that abolishing the police is the way, but that doesn't mean it's some shared position from everyone on the left or that the others are clueless.

Also, by doing this your message is violating HN's guideline.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#328

Post by nec4b » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #312

nec4b wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Let’s consider the contrary. Do poor people sometimes hold highly questionable beliefs, promulgated by institutions, and does professing these beliefs in expensive and flamboyant ways confer status? I would consider those beliefs pretty harmless compared to what intelligentsia believes in, even after 100 millions of people died because of their social experiment in the 20th century.

> I would consider those beliefs pretty harmless compared to what intelligentsia believes in Is it that the beliefs are inherently less harmful or that poverty inherently involves less capacity to affect the material conditions of others? That is, are poor people's dangerous beliefs less dangerous than those of richer people because of their content, or simply because the people holding them are less powerful?

I guess both, one hand they don't have the time to come up elaborate ideological concepts/fantasies and on the other hand they don't really have the power to change anything. If the most egregious thing you can be accused of is "publicly dumping cases of Bud Light", I don't think you are at the same level as the inventors and executioners of the cultural revolution for example.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#329

Post by jccalhoun » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

JanSt wrote: post #230

danaris wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, no; it's absolutely part of it. Cultural appropriation involves the dominant culture taking practices (including things like clothing, music, dance, etc, especially if it's part of a religious practice) of a colonized or marginalized culture, removing them from their cultural context, and using them for their own purposes. That's absolutely subjugating the identity of the colonized: it takes these parts of their…

As I said, the european/my german perspective does not see this - at least what I have learned. An essential motive of colonialism was the missionization and education of the "primitive, uncivilized race". The Germans saw it as their task to civilize the colonial population by introducing them to German culture and the Christian religion. Other colonial powers, such as Great Britain or France, also followed this ideo…

It is exploitation of culture in the same way that natural resources of other countries were exploited: they were seen as something they could take and do what they wanted with it regardless of what the people that were already using it though.

Food is more of an edge case. I know there have been situations where someone who is white opened up a restaurant that sold food of a particular ethnicity. I'm not familiar with the specifics however. I would imagine that people debated whether or not that was cultural appropriation. Again, I don't know any specifics in that case.

I would say that cultural appropriation is less about individuals and more about the overall taking of something that means something to one culture and removing all that meaning. An example that comes to mind are things like turning Native American clothes into fashion or kids dressing as indians for Halloween.

So eat what you want to eat.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#330

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #328

dragonwriter wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would consider those beliefs pretty harmless compared to what intelligentsia believes in Is it that the beliefs are inherently less harmful or that poverty inherently involves less capacity to affect the material conditions of others? That is, are poor people's dangerous beliefs less dangerous than those of richer people because of their content, or simply because the people holding them are less powerful?

I guess both, one hand they don't have the time to come up elaborate ideological concepts/fantasies and on the other hand they don't really have the power to change anything. If the most egregious thing you can be accused of is "publicly dumping cases of Bud Light", I don't think you are at the same level as the inventors and executioners of the cultural revolution for example.

> If the most egregious thing you can be accused of is "publicly dumping cases of Bud Light", I don't think you are at the same level as the inventors and executioners of the cultural revolution for example.

The people doing that (and moreso, spreading the idea of it) largely are the intelligentsia (and largely not the proletarian intelligentsia), and while that’s one particular demonstrative act, its not by far the worst the faction doing it can be accused of.

So I’m not so sure that works as an example on multiple levels.