John Staddon: "Racism Is Everywhere...Is It Really?"; Also: The Crapification Of Philosophy
[1] No. No it isn't.
[2] I think a philosopher who published something like this in, say, Philosophy Today would be dogpiled by leftist philosophers.
I tend to think that the left (at least the vocal vanguard of the left, at least in the States) is more racist than the right (at least the relatively mainstream right, excluding the overtly crazy cases on the far right). The right's alleged racism, as charged by the left, tends to be hypothetical. That is, for example, many on the right want to decrease illegal immigration. The left asserts that this is racist. They seem to be thinking: a large percentage of illegal immigration involves Hispanics coming across the southern border; conservatives want to decrease this. It must be because they are racist against Hispanics. The obvious alternative hypotheses, disconfirming evidence, etc. are simply ignored.* The racism on the left however, currently, tends to be overt: "Dumbass fucking white people," "white men are bullshit," etc. The overt racism of the left is explained away in various ways, including by simply redefining racism so that racism against whites / by non-whites is impossible. But there's no reason to refute such rhetorical bullshit yet again. Double standards are bad. And racism is bad. And false accusations of bad things are bad. Blah, blah, blah.
At any rate, Staddon is basically addressing the former point, and I've addressed that before: it's fashionable on the left to (a) hunt for racist hypotheses to explain actions, then (b) treat those hypotheses as if they are proven. That's a bad combination, as should be obvious. As one, weirdly, is expected to say nowadays: racism is real. It's just probably not nearly as common as the progressive left wants to believe. They believe it's everywhere, but it isn't. I don't know how prevalent it actually is, but it's less prevalent than they think and say it is.
But also: I'm really concerned that such errors seem to have become undiscussable in philosophy--at least on the web.
Eh, there's more to say about that, but I've got work to do.
As always, I could be wrong.
* And this is all aided by a few peripheral expedients, like consistently saying that conservatives "are taking aim at immigration" (instead of illegal immigration), etc. This happens so consistently that it's pretty hard to believe that it's an accident.
[2] I think a philosopher who published something like this in, say, Philosophy Today would be dogpiled by leftist philosophers.
I tend to think that the left (at least the vocal vanguard of the left, at least in the States) is more racist than the right (at least the relatively mainstream right, excluding the overtly crazy cases on the far right). The right's alleged racism, as charged by the left, tends to be hypothetical. That is, for example, many on the right want to decrease illegal immigration. The left asserts that this is racist. They seem to be thinking: a large percentage of illegal immigration involves Hispanics coming across the southern border; conservatives want to decrease this. It must be because they are racist against Hispanics. The obvious alternative hypotheses, disconfirming evidence, etc. are simply ignored.* The racism on the left however, currently, tends to be overt: "Dumbass fucking white people," "white men are bullshit," etc. The overt racism of the left is explained away in various ways, including by simply redefining racism so that racism against whites / by non-whites is impossible. But there's no reason to refute such rhetorical bullshit yet again. Double standards are bad. And racism is bad. And false accusations of bad things are bad. Blah, blah, blah.
At any rate, Staddon is basically addressing the former point, and I've addressed that before: it's fashionable on the left to (a) hunt for racist hypotheses to explain actions, then (b) treat those hypotheses as if they are proven. That's a bad combination, as should be obvious. As one, weirdly, is expected to say nowadays: racism is real. It's just probably not nearly as common as the progressive left wants to believe. They believe it's everywhere, but it isn't. I don't know how prevalent it actually is, but it's less prevalent than they think and say it is.
But also: I'm really concerned that such errors seem to have become undiscussable in philosophy--at least on the web.
Eh, there's more to say about that, but I've got work to do.
As always, I could be wrong.
* And this is all aided by a few peripheral expedients, like consistently saying that conservatives "are taking aim at immigration" (instead of illegal immigration), etc. This happens so consistently that it's pretty hard to believe that it's an accident.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:32 AM
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