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Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

southampton.ac.uk

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Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#81

Post by rayiner »

nitrogen wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (same thing in Germany where you have to pass a cultural test to gain citizenship, imagine such a thing in America! [And no, answering questions about the constitution, the foundational legal document, is not the same thing]). I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I kind of like that we're more liberal than Germany or France on this. I don't like how liberals in the U.S. fail to appreciate that fact and…

Different parts of the US exemplify the full spectrum of tolerance to xenophobia. Our bests are pretty darn good (not near perfect), but the variance is high.

As a brown guy with a beard, I’ve felt comfortable almost everywhere in the US I’ve been, including rural Illinois, Georgia, and Texas. In my experience, Americans are very uniformly warm and welcoming. Sydney I felt less welcome.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#82

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #54
acephal wrote: post #48

I'm very very surprised that the number one parallel has yet to ever be mentioned in these kinds of discussions: the 2005 Paris riots. French police were held responsible for the deaths of North African teenagers and riots broke out all over suburban Paris that caused waaay more property damage than anything we've seen in America this summer. French media framed the entire issue as brown people showing their true col…

> (same thing in Germany where you have to pass a cultural test to gain citizenship, imagine such a thing in America! [And no, answering questions about the constitution, the foundational legal document, is not the same thing]). I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I kind of like that we're more liberal than Germany or France on this. I don't like how liberals in the U.S. fail to appreciate that fact and…

This is a peeve of mine as well, but in the other direction: the American right is motivated by appeals to American exceptionalism, and should be hitting everyone over the head with how exceptional our citizenship law is. We have universal birthright citizenship! It's in the Constitution! That is an amazing thing that we should all be proud of.

(I acknowledge as well that the American left is motivated by appeals to transcending our history of racism, and agree with your implication that American antiracism is itself exceptional among nations of our global stature. You're right, we focus almost entirely on the negative, in the mistaken belief that only negative appeals will persuade.)

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#83

Post by tptacek »

nickff wrote: post #67
nitrogen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different parts of the US exemplify the full spectrum of tolerance to xenophobia. Our bests are pretty darn good (not near perfect), but the variance is high.

US law/regulatory policy may be a good measure, and is definitely less xenophobic than than of many/most European governments. The best example is what happens with refugees and immigrants, who are treated as interlopers in France; American policy is 'skeptical' of refugee claimants, but much more likely to permit them to settle and work if the claim is accepted.

To say nothing of the fact that their children born in America are natural-born citizens of the United States, unlike almost every other similarly industrialized/wealthy country (the Maple Leaf State doesn't count!).

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#84

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #82
rayiner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (same thing in Germany where you have to pass a cultural test to gain citizenship, imagine such a thing in America! [And no, answering questions about the constitution, the foundational legal document, is not the same thing]). I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I kind of like that we're more liberal than Germany or France on this. I don't like how liberals in the U.S. fail to appreciate that fact and…

This is a peeve of mine as well, but in the other direction: the American right is motivated by appeals to American exceptionalism, and should be hitting everyone over the head with how exceptional our citizenship law is. We have universal birthright citizenship! It's in the Constitution! That is an amazing thing that we should all be proud of. (I acknowledge as well that the American left is motivated by appeals to…

Agreed.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#85

Post by rayiner »

packetlost wrote: post #11
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I think is pretty fair. There's always bad actors who try to justify riots, but almost everyone agrees that they're bad - the "pro-riot" side of a discussion is usually along the lines of "you know, a violent crackdown just isn't going to work, so we'd better do suchandsuch or they'll keep on being angry".

I think you'd be surprised at how many (particularly young) people and leadership from organizations either refuse to denounce or outright condone rioting.

I’m not surprised at all. This is a novelty for them. If this were a regular occurrence as in countries where rioting is socially mainstream they’d be singing a different tune.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#86

Post by devnull255 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #78
devnull255 wrote: post #68

This is a fantastic article and reading list. I'm disappointed at how so much of the discussion around the most recent rioting has devolved to being pro-protest vs anti-rioting. The riots, like the spread of the pandemic are symptoms of wide-spread, systemic failures in our social, political and economic institutions. The psychologist Stephen Pinker, has pointed out that violence itself is a tool of last resort in th…

> determine the changes that are necessary to remediate legitimate grievances Except that the grievances don't appear to be that legitimate and the changes that would be necessary don't appear to be too popular with the majority of the population. Capitulating to a violent mob out of fear of further violence surrenders control from the democratic process to escalating barbarism.

Well, one particular grievance among them, that a person passing off a counterfeit 20-dollar bill doesn't deserve death at the hands of police, probably is legitimate. Choosing to remediate that injustice is not capitulation to the mob, but fulfillment of the promise of equal protection under the law that the democratic process was supposed to protect.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#87

Post by pen2l »

rayiner wrote: post #81
nitrogen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different parts of the US exemplify the full spectrum of tolerance to xenophobia. Our bests are pretty darn good (not near perfect), but the variance is high.

As a brown guy with a beard, I’ve felt comfortable almost everywhere in the US I’ve been, including rural Illinois, Georgia, and Texas. In my experience, Americans are very uniformly warm and welcoming. Sydney I felt less welcome.

Yeah but come on (I fear I may be verging on no true scotsman territory here, but...) you're not culturally a brown guy, I doubt you even have a non-American accent (do you?).

I'm an American brown guy but I've often felt like an outsider. Having traveled quite a bit, some experiences that stick out in Germany and Iceland is random folks casually starting conversations with me, I struggle to recall this happening to me in America.

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