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Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#371

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

noch wrote: post #299
thisgoesnowhere wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the majority of the people who say defund the police believe that? Just because a minority of people have a terrible opinion doesn't mean the entire movement does. Also even the author doesn't believe they can actually abolish the police. > I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police or simply to make them…

> Do you think the majority of the people who say defund the police believe that? You made the following claim: >> This isn't what defund the police was about at all and is just a strawman to stop inquisitions into the actual point of the defund the police movement. I was merely providing an example, published in a paper of record in the U.S., that claims to speak for a "we", to show that indeed the spokespeople for…

This isn't worth responding too, have a nice life

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#372

Post by philwelch »

littlestymaar wrote: post #341
philwelch wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just found this on Google No, it went viral three years ago when it came out and I remembered it. > 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”). Yes, and? That’s exactly the argument I think it is. > Yes the provocative title is an invitation to strawmans but you fell for the trap A stra…

> Yes, and? That’s exactly the argument I think it is. Then why are you responding in a thread along with someone who takes the argument as in “literally remove the police directly and let the chaos begin”? And why are you using this article as a support for their argument? > A strawman is when you misrepresent a position as being absurd No, a strawman is when you misrepresent someone's argument as being another absu…

“Defund the police” means to reduce funding to law enforcement and reallocate that funding to social programs. In the limit case, you eliminate law enforcement directly. Some people in this thread were denying this or claiming that this idea was only advocated on “Twitter and at the fringes of academia”. This claim was false because the idea was actually published by the New York Times.

Whatever particular hair you’re splitting doesn’t change that, and the fact that you’re focused on splitting that hair in particular only demonstrates the degree of bad faith and intellectual dishonesty required to make this extreme proposal sound like anything more than the gibbering nonsense it is.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#373

Post by mock-possum »

erkt wrote: post #274
notaustinpowers wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the comments I see kinda get to the point, but not all the way. I've grown up in a fairly liberal part of the southern US, with a high African American population so these are the kind of conversations I encounter fairly often. Cultural appropriation is widely understood to be when someone in a position of power (most commonly a white person) utilizes something that is heavily related or socially seen as "par…

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.

Discriminate against white people how though

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#374

Post by mock-possum »

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…

The food thing - and a lot of the other cultural appropriation touchstones - is more about double standards than anything else.

So if you’d be worried about hiring a black man with dreads, but you wouldn’t have the same hangups about a white woman with dreads, that’s an example. Or if when you make Foul Madras it’s very cultured and experimental and basically laudable of you - but if someone from Egypt brings it in, it’s more like a “oh isn’t your culture quaint” kind of situation, if not flat out “why did you make food that smells so bad.”

Like the enduring nonsensical racist gripe that people from indo/pak background smell like curry… while the UK had simultaneously made tika masala into a national dish. It’s brave and adventurous when white people do it, it’s separatist and foreign when brown people do it, even though it’s what brown people grew up with. That’s the angle.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#375

Post by littlestymaar »

philwelch wrote: post #372
littlestymaar wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, and? That’s exactly the argument I think it is. Then why are you responding in a thread along with someone who takes the argument as in “literally remove the police directly and let the chaos begin”? And why are you using this article as a support for their argument? > A strawman is when you misrepresent a position as being absurd No, a strawman is when you misrepresent someone's argument as being another absu…

“Defund the police” means to reduce funding to law enforcement and reallocate that funding to social programs. In the limit case, you eliminate law enforcement directly. Some people in this thread were denying this or claiming that this idea was only advocated on “Twitter and at the fringes of academia”. This claim was false because the idea was actually published by the New York Times. Whatever particular hair you’r…

The one building strawman is then accusing others of intellectual dishonesty, the poor man's argument playbook has been followed till the end and we can now stop this conversation. Thanks for making everyone lose their time.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#376

Post by mock-possum »

someuser2345 wrote: post #339
danaris wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one thing, food is, for the most part, something you're doing purely for yourself, in the privacy of your own home. Clothing is a much more visible identity marker: if you're dressed in clothing from particular African cultures, that's a strong signal that you belong to that culture—so if you do not, in fact, belong to it, that can cause a number of kinds of problems in the right (or wrong) circumstances. F…

So if I brought African food to work with me, and ate it during lunch with my co-workers, that would be cultural appropriation? > Furthermore, for many cultures, the clothing that most recognizably signals membership is related to some form of cultural or religious ritual, and wearing it outside of that context can be very disrespectful Fair enough; it would be wrong for me to wear a soldier's uniform if I've never s…

It’s more cultural appropriation if you bring something in to the office and everyone is like “oh, that’s interesting, what is that, can I try it?” - while your coworker brings the same thing in and everyone’s reaction is different, “um, what is that, what is it, why don’t you just bring normal food” - followed by a passive aggressive note on the microwave not to reheat particular foods. You know?

It’s not just whether you’re ‘allowed’ to eat certain foods - it’s more whether your allowance for foods is different than someone else’s, because of your level of cultural status versus theirs. It’s about double standards.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#377

Post by mock-possum »

surrTurr wrote: post #114

On the point of success and the rich believing it is just luck whilst the working-class beliefs it's hard work: Maybe both is true. Becoming successful in working class jobs often *does* require hard work, whilst becoming successful in upper-class jobs depends more on other factors such as luck. For example, to become a great construction worker, you need physical strength, stamina, and a strong work ethic, as the jo…

The way I like to think about it is: success requires 1) being in a position to be presented with windows of opportunity and 2) being willing to commit to working towards taking full advantage of those windows when they are presented.

It’s luck, and then it’s work to take advantage of the luck. Except in extreme instances on either end of the spectrum, it’s always both.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#378

Post by mock-possum »

TerryGrampl wrote: post #119

This reminds me of an interesting piece I read last month, which looks at one particular luxury belief that is especially divisive right now, and criticizes it with regards to class: https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/25/trans-the-new-ideol... Like those described in the article above, this is very much a middle-class movement whose proponents have seized the opportunity to sneer at working-class people as bigoted…

> Yes, class domination has had a makeover. It wears bad wigs and stilettos now

Jesus Christ that’s bad, and it’s right up front in this article. Really makes it obvious the kind of audience this is written for.

There’s really only a particular kind of person that thinks it’s funny to tease trans people who don’t pass.

> Civil servants who surely have better things to do are being given LGBTQ+ education and shown training videos about how sinful it is to stop a ‘transwoman’ – ie, a fella – from using the women’s loo.

Wow it just keeps going, it rolls straight into proudly misgendering trans people, wow wow wow.

And you actually want other people to associate this kind of bullshit with you? You recommend it, you link directly to it? For shame.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#379

Post by TerryGrampl »

mock-possum wrote: post #378
TerryGrampl wrote: post #119

This reminds me of an interesting piece I read last month, which looks at one particular luxury belief that is especially divisive right now, and criticizes it with regards to class: https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/25/trans-the-new-ideol... Like those described in the article above, this is very much a middle-class movement whose proponents have seized the opportunity to sneer at working-class people as bigoted…

> Yes, class domination has had a makeover. It wears bad wigs and stilettos now Jesus Christ that’s bad, and it’s right up front in this article. Really makes it obvious the kind of audience this is written for. There’s really only a particular kind of person that thinks it’s funny to tease trans people who don’t pass. > Civil servants who surely have better things to do are being given LGBTQ+ education and shown tra…

Yes I enjoyed the author's plain speaking and his use of irreverant humour to make serious points.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#380

Post by littlestymaar »

junofan wrote: post #267
indigo945 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the examples correlate with affluence, which is a necessary condition for them to be included in this article; but it is obviously not a sufficient condition, as all "luxury beliefs" from elsewhere on the political spectrum are excluded. My point is that this is a bad faith argument. The author pretends to care about "luxury" beliefs, but in truth, all he cares about is finding a cheap shot against feminist posi…

I dunno, I read it apolitically. Normal working-class people don’t give a shit about any of this stuff, and as soon as they do, it’ll become unfashionable, and we’ll move on to the next thing.

> I dunno, I read it apolitically

Then you've been duped by the author faking a neutral tone. This post is definitely not apolitical.

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