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Shut Up and Listen

whatever.scalzi.com

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Re: Shut Up and Listen

#61

Post by jiggy2011 »

unalone wrote: post #58
jiggy2011 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that various forms of discrimination don't exist. It's that some forms are considered more "just" than others. If you are born with a low IQ, people will certainly judge you for it. You will also be punished for it, for example by scam artists who will take advantage of you. Then people will respond with stuff like "well, if your dumb enough to fall for that you deserve what you get". So I think boiling down…

You... are aware that there's a huge movement against treating people with low IQs like they're subhuman, right? There's a thread currently on the front page in which people are arguing about whether or not the word "retarded" should be used as a casual insult. I don't understand what your end goal is here. Either we talk about imbalances or we don't. And if we do, we have to talk about specific imbalances, or else t…

People will speak about discrimination against those who low IQ enough to be considered mentally handicapped, but there is a great class of people with IQ of say 80-100.

My peeve really is the "straight white guy" meme which seems to suggest "hey, you are straight and white you have it easy" which is necessarily going to alienate huge numbers of people from the debate.

I think the intelligence example is especially important because intelligence is such an amazing tool for overcoming over disadvantages.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#62

Post by shardling »

beachstartup wrote: post #26

the example of walking through a dark parking lot to demonstrated 'straight white privilege' is pretty shitty. in fact it's probably the worst example you could choose. his 'privilege' of not worrying about being assaulted comes from the fact that he is 6' 280 pounds, not because he's white or male or straight. a big gay black man (or woman, for that matter) of the same stature probably doesn't feel that twinge of fe…

I am a 5'6" white guy weighing 120lb. I don't feel fear walking through dark parking lots. The shortest path between my house and the closest grocery is through a large, poorly lit lot. The better lit street route would add, oh, about a minute to the walk.

I would absolutely not walk through there if I was a woman. I don't really mind the small chance of being robbed -- a small chance of being raped is a completely different thing.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#63

Post by shardling »

revelation wrote: post #52

The concept of privilege only makes sense on a statistical basis. Whats the obsession with constantly applying it to single persons? That speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding. If being white is correlated with being high-earning, that doesn't mean every white is high-earning. That is just not the implication.

That's not what the concept of privilege means, though!

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#64

Post by unalone »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #61
unalone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You... are aware that there's a huge movement against treating people with low IQs like they're subhuman, right? There's a thread currently on the front page in which people are arguing about whether or not the word "retarded" should be used as a casual insult. I don't understand what your end goal is here. Either we talk about imbalances or we don't. And if we do, we have to talk about specific imbalances, or else t…

People will speak about discrimination against those who low IQ enough to be considered mentally handicapped, but there is a great class of people with IQ of say 80-100. My peeve really is the "straight white guy" meme which seems to suggest "hey, you are straight and white you have it easy" which is necessarily going to alienate huge numbers of people from the debate. I think the intelligence example is especially i…

> My peeve really is the "straight white guy" meme which seems to suggest "hey, you are straight and white you have it easy" which is necessarily going to alienate huge numbers of people from the debate.

Yeah but nobody says that. They say "if you're straight you don't have to think about what gay people go through", and "if you're white you don't have to think about what black people go through", and "if you're a man you don't have to think about what women go through", and this is all true. And I would wager that the shit your average woman or minority or gay person has to go through in their lifetime is overwhelmingly more severe than what your average person with an IQ of 100 has to face.

If you really want to get into this derail, I suggest you look at people talking about biases in education and education access, specifically at the conversations which deal with how lack of access to certain kinds of education make it vastly harder to deal with modern life. This is a conversation that people do have, and they have it often. But it is still not what this conversation is about.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#65

Post by kalkin »

cantastoria wrote: post #8

Great, another guilt ridden diatribe against John Scalzi from John Scalzi. I've never read someone who is more obsessed about being a "privileged white male" than he is. I wish he would take his own advice or at least the first part of it. I'm not going bother arguing with him because really what's the point, this self-flagellation obviously gets him off and as usual it's all about him. Is "self-hating narcissist" a…

There's nothing self-flagellating about Scalzi's post. And I say this as somebody who is not particularly fond of the language of privilege. But also, if you've never read anyone more obsessed with privilege than Scalzi, you've managed to live in a pretty politics-free bubble.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#66

Post by jiggy2011 »

Steuard wrote: post #59
jiggy2011 wrote: post #13

I think that the biggest privilege one can have, at least when it comes to matters of career and finance is being born to middle-class or better parents and having an above average IQ. I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success than a straight white guy from the trailer park/slum who struggles with reading/writing skills. I find it interesting that it is genera…

Others have responded to parts of this already, so I won't repeat their points. But one issue that I haven't seen anyone comment on is that race and sex are very overt traits, while family wealth and IQ are a good bit less obvious at a glance. Being born in a poor family makes life much harder, no question, but (e.g.) if a straight white man from a trailer park does get into a good college then the people around him…

But the straight white guy from the trailer part won't get a good educated because he will be discriminated against for being dumb.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#67

Post by camelite »

unalone wrote: post #20
camelite wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not his intended audience IMHO - people like you (who already approve of his politics) are.

John Scalzi is an award-winning author with a considerable fanbase. Last time I was in Times Square, his latest book was being projected on the largest screen there. I humbly suggest that among his immense readership are people who either disapprove of his politics, or who are not quite as aware of their privilege as he is and would benefit from having a smart, eloquent person point it out publicly.

Possibly, but irrelevant. I think he is addressing male and female feminists - women who don't think their voices are heard and men who've already had some sort of come-to-Jesus moment regarding "privilege".

To me - not exactly anti-feminist but certainly anti-a lot of people who call themselves feminists, it comes across as a load of smarmy, self-congratulatory, intolerant not-even-wrong rhetoric and I suspect that I it was his intention to convince others like me, he would have written in a different register.

edit: eliminated a renegade apostrophe

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#68

Post by btilly »

beatpanda wrote: post #24
jiggy2011 wrote: post #13

I think that the biggest privilege one can have, at least when it comes to matters of career and finance is being born to middle-class or better parents and having an above average IQ. I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success than a straight white guy from the trailer park/slum who struggles with reading/writing skills. I find it interesting that it is genera…

But the point is, you're just imagining those things, which is what causes you to set up this neat little world where a black lesbian has an Ivy League education just because she's smart, ignoring all of the extra obstacles that would be in her way compared to someone with more social privilege. You're able to do this by comparing different kinds of circumstances — the person born with white and male privilege but li…

When oppressed people reach recognizable pinnacles of success, like an Ivy League education, it's because they worked harder than lots of other people might have had to, despite other advantages they might have had.

That would be better than the world we have.

Until I moved to the USA and observed the process first hand at an Ivy League school, I would never have credited the claim that there are people whose whole lives are based on having won the affirmative action lottery, and then playing the race card. This ticks me off, because having known such people I can no longer discount the possibility that any FUTURE minority person that I meet with the trappings of success is one of them. Most aren't. Most got there on their own merits, against all odds. But the nature of business is that a bad hire frequently costs much more than the opportunity cost of waiting to make the right hire. And that pushes you to not give the benefit of the doubt.

In particular I witnessed watching a black woman who had played the race card her whole life getting kicked out with a masters in math despite objectively knowing less math than I expected from undergrads. At the same time a much more competent white man who had a block in ONE subject area (and enormous success in many others) would have been kicked out with no degree at all if I had not taken a month of my personal time out to teach him all of topology. And a third person, an undergraduate black from England who had never received any preference, took an extra quarter to finish a well-earned masters on top of his BSc.

All three frustrate me in different ways. I hated seeing the ridiculously easy qual she was given compared to the rest of us, in written take home format yet, with a blind eye turned towards the fact that she was begging other grad students to do it for her. At the same time a student who had worked much harder and done much more got no breaks at all from the system. And in parallel I saw a truly deserving minority student, and know that for the rest of his life upon first meeting someone like him, I'll need to unfairly suspect his deserved accomplishments until I know him better.

Yes, I recognize the historical injustice. Yes, I recognize the barriers. But our current affirmative action policies give some a lottery ticket at the cost of perpetuating the problems into future generations. That's not what we need to do.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#69

Post by Anechoic »

A textbook example from a Reddit thread: in a conversation about college, one poster lamented the existence of women's and minority groups (like the Society of Women Engineers or the National Society of Black Engineers) that exclude white males. A second poster pointed out that those organizations don't exclude white males, and in some cases white males are actively courted. The third poster responded to the effect of "sure, they let white males join, but I attended a NSBE meeting one and I was the only white guy in the room. As the only white guy I was extremely uncomfortable and that discomfort was basically the same as not welcoming white guys."

I don't think this poster was a racist or a bad guy, just someone that didn't realize how his privilege colored his perceptions, or how the privilege (or lack thereof) of others can affect their perceptions.

Re: Shut Up and Listen

#70

Post by unalone »

camelite wrote: post #67
unalone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Scalzi is an award-winning author with a considerable fanbase. Last time I was in Times Square, his latest book was being projected on the largest screen there. I humbly suggest that among his immense readership are people who either disapprove of his politics, or who are not quite as aware of their privilege as he is and would benefit from having a smart, eloquent person point it out publicly.

Possibly, but irrelevant. I think he is addressing male and female feminists - women who don't think their voices are heard and men who've already had some sort of come-to-Jesus moment regarding "privilege". To me - not exactly anti-feminist but certainly anti-a lot of people who call themselves feminists, it comes across as a load of smarmy, self-congratulatory, intolerant not-even-wrong rhetoric and I suspect that…

It's also possible that your perspective on feminist issues is distorted enough that while you're interpreting this as smarmy and self-congratulatory, it is in fact reasonable and well-argued. Right? That sort of argument by its nature swings both ways.

Clearly a lot of people here find something worthwhile in how Scalzi writes about this, and some of the literally hundreds of commenters on that blog post are at least finding it worth discussing. Perhaps you'll get something out of them, if not out of Mr. Scalzi's post itself. I do hope so, because from where I'm sitting you're the one being intolerant and not even wrong, and I'd love if this could at least make you pause and reconsider your perspective.

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