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

scottaaronson.blog

61–70 of 73 posts

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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What usefulness does that sentence hold? It is true that in our society some people who you'd socially describe as men are able to get pregnant, because they have biologically female sex organs. We also know that following their social wishes (i.e. referring to them as men) dramatically increases their quality of life.

Given these facts, can you really not understand why people see that sentence as transphobic? It doesn't accurately describe our social landscape, and it hurts some of the more vulnerable among us.

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

#62
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…

[flagged]

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

#63
post #60
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mov…

Marxism is defined in part by a totalizing focus on class struggle in virtually all aspects of politics, policy, law, and economics (critical theory is an extension of that idea to culture).

Critical race theory draws on (and pushes back on) critical legal studies --- which is a weird counterculture fringe movement that happened to have been au courant when the critical race theorists were getting started. Both of those movements are ways of looking specifically at the law and the way the law is studied and interrogated. Intersectionality comes from observations of things like cases where Black women were denied standing because either their Black heritage or their gender were escape hatches for judges (they either couldn't represent all women, or couldn't represent all Black people). Structural or implicit bias, another big critical race theory idea, is an idea you yourself repeatedly endorsed and explained: after operating for decades (centuries) on a program of overt discrimination, simply ending the discriminatory rules isn't enough to eliminate the bias; the system is in a steady state primed, powerfully, to exclude (women, Black people, whatever).

These are straightforward ideas. Importantly: they are, in context, legal ideas, and specific ones. They are not assertions that white people should move to the back of the grocery store line to make way for Black people.

There's a Nelson Muntzian element to the argument that critical race theory is somehow as risible as classical Marxism. Critical race theory is literally the legal field's attempt to work through the implications of the segregation that continued into the 1980s. It's as obviously a legitimate focus of study as virology is for a biologist, or compilers are to a computer scientist. It strikes me as profoundly disingenuous to attempt to disqualify it by suggesting, as its critics seem to, that any study of structural racism in the law must be diluted, or else be just another flavor of Marxism.

I read things like this and think of Berny Belvedere's quip in response to this argument: "new Marxisms just dropped! Chipotle raising their prices is burrito Marxism! Daylight savings time is temporal Marxism! Alarm clock ringing is snooze Marxism!"

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

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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?

The fact that they screamed what they did at him shows they do not understand the concept, as what he was doing was not an expression or instance of white male privilege.

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

#65
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What usefulness does that sentence hold? It is true that in our society some people who you'd socially describe as men are able to get pregnant, because they have biologically female sex organs. We also know that following their social wishes (i.e. referring to them as men) dramatically increases their quality of life. Given these facts, can you really not understand why people see that sentence as transphobic? It do…

>What usefulness does that sentence hold?

What usefulness do objective facts and the truth hold?

>It is true that in our society some people who you'd socially describe as men are able to get pregnant

That is not true at all. It's actually a gross inversion of the truth, a foundational feature of Big Lies. There are trans-men, who are actually women, that may get pregnant, but they're by definition not men. They are human females, AKA women. No amount of cross-dressing and body mutilation will change that.

>because they have biologically female sex organs

Yes, they're women. Glad we agree.

>We also know that following their social wishes (i.e. referring to them as men) dramatically increases their quality of life.

"We also know telling schizophrenics that the coffee maker IS indeed an evil demon and removing them from the office will dramatically increase their quality of life."

No, feeding into delusions will not increase their quality of life.

>Given these facts

"Given the fact that the coffee maker is a demon".

>can you really not understand why people see that sentence as transphobic?

"can you really not understand why not believing that coffee makers are demonic is schizophobic?"

>It doesn't accurately describe our social landscape, and it hurts some of the more vulnerable among us.

It does accurately describe our social and biological landscape. If biological realities, truth, and objective facts hurt "the most vulnerable among us", it sounds like they have a mental illness.

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

#66
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…

Yes how has that federal structure been working out for Kashmir, or Barak valley of Assam?

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

#67
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes how has that federal structure been working out for Kashmir, or Barak valley of Assam?

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

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

#68
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes how has that federal structure been working out for Kashmir, or Barak valley of Assam?

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Replied to wrong comment by mistake.

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

#69
post #27
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a thing is practically the anthesis of what it even means to be part of that group. "Woke" is a synonym of "enlightened." Don't trust anybody who claims to be enlightened, or rails against enlightenment.

Oh I completely agree which is why I put it in quotes. I've never found anyone on any side of the political spectrum actually self-identify with that label except ironically. Right now today it just seems to be pejorative-de-jour for people who are vaguely liberal.

They're not liberals, they're authoritarian leftists.

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

#70
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What usefulness does that sentence hold? It is true that in our society some people who you'd socially describe as men are able to get pregnant, because they have biologically female sex organs. We also know that following their social wishes (i.e. referring to them as men) dramatically increases their quality of life. Given these facts, can you really not understand why people see that sentence as transphobic? It do…

>What usefulness does that sentence hold? What usefulness do objective facts and the truth hold? >It is true that in our society some people who you'd socially describe as men are able to get pregnant That is not true at all. It's actually a gross inversion of the truth, a foundational feature of Big Lies. There are trans-men, who are actually women, that may get pregnant, but they're by definition not men. They are…

The best our actual doctors (obviously not you) have been able to determine, yes it really does increase their quality of life. I know that doesn't matter to some people, but a lot of us do care.
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