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How Nazis Recruit Normie Conservatives For Meme Wars

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MisterSwig

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For the record I am not in favor of America converting into an ethnostate.  America has never been an ethnostate, becoming one would require mass genocide,  and there would be no advantage to being one.  In summary ethnostates are immoral and impractical. 

An ethnostate is a nation-state with citizenship qualified by ethnicity, ethnicity being a combination of race and/or culture.   Some examples of ethnostates would be Israel and North Korean and South Korea and Japan.  

This topic is about a meme.  Its really shows the power of this particular meme that this idea ethno-nationalism even comes up.  Some people just can't bear to think about white people as just another racial pressure group among all the other racial pressure groups.  It means something has been lost, possibility of a truly colorblind individualistic society.  But that is where "social progress" and "social justice"  has brought us.  Leftist racists exist in significant numbers and have influence and political power.  Martin Luther King is dead and so is his dream. It will never come back.

 

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5 hours ago, Eiuol said:

But you aren't so responsive to argument and other signs suggest you are really are taking a racist perspective and embracing it. I don't suffer racists nor should anyone else. No more than we suffer Communists railing against capitalism all the time.

8 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Rand wrote that racism "is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage--the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry...Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited."

By Rand's definition I am exonerated from the label of "racist."

"[Racism] is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage"

No argument that I have made here applies to any particular individual, to no man in particular. Nor does any belief that I privately hold or publicly espouse. Rather, my arguments apply to any sufficiently large group of men. This dichotomy between the group and the individual is one that I have belabored to the point of exhaustion, carefully crafting my words to ensure that not even the appearance of me judging the individual based on race is present.

"the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry..."

I would agree with Martin Luther King that we should not judge an individual by the color of his skin, but rather by the content of his character.

"Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited."

I have said nothing in regards to content of a man's mind being inherited. Everybody is born tabula rasa. Ayn Rand went out of her way to specifically exclude "not his cognitive apparatus" from her definition. That would seem to indicate that she viewed cognitive apparatus as being inherited... at least to some extent.

Edited by CartsBeforeHorses
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4 hours ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

No argument that I have made here applies to any particular individual, to no man in particular. Nor does any belief that I privately hold or publicly espouse. Rather, my arguments apply to any sufficiently large group of men.

The problem is that these particular men exist within these groups. So your arguments do apply to particular men. You're just not identifying them.

 

4 hours ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

This dichotomy between the group and the individual is one that I have belabored to the point of exhaustion, [...]

There is no such explicit dichotomy. Every statement about the group is derived from individuals and every statement about an individual implies something about a group. A group doesn't have a higher, separate existence. You wouldn't be able to say that '99% of the people in this group are colour-blind, but I'm saying nothing about individual men'; by that statement, you would be saying something about individual men, but you're leaving them unidentified (i.e., you don't know which particular men fall under the 1% and which particular men fall under 99%. However, just because you don't know who they specifically are doesn't mean that you're not referring to them. You're still referring to particular, unidentified men). If you say "capitalists are evil", you're not talking about any particular men (say Amit or Dhruv). But these particular men exist. Statistics isn't exempt from this.

 

4 hours ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

This dichotomy between the group and the individual is one that I have belabored to the point of exhaustion, carefully crafting my words to ensure that not even the appearance of me judging the individual based on race is present.

You are claiming that you would never judge any particular individual you encounter in real life because you don't know which part of the curve they fall on. But you're still making an important claim: that a lot of specific, particular, unidentified men have a tendency to have a low IQ, because of their race.

'Specific' and 'unidentified' aren't two mutually exclusive categories. They are related by the theory of measurement omission (that is the way statistics works too, since they are an abstraction):

"Bear firmly in mind that the term “measurements omitted” does not mean, in this context, that measurements are regarded as non-existent; it means that measurements exist, but are not specified. That measurements must exist is an essential part of the process. The principle is: the relevant measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity".

In summary: you are referring to particular individual men. You are just not identifying who these particular individuals are. Just because you don't know them personally or are not identifying them individually doesn't mean you're not making claims about particular, individual (unidentified) men. Without reference to any particular men, what you would have is a floating abstraction. Statistics isn't a floating abstraction.

 

Also, at times, your "arguments" boil down to this: since we know that humans differ in their inessential characteristics (some have dyslexia; others don't), isn't it possible that humans differ in their essential characteristics (capacity of reason) as well? You are evading what a difference in such an essential characteristic would imply: they are not human. You're not saying that some humans differ in their essential characteristics by degree. You're making a categorical distinction ("unable to understand capitalism"). This is like saying that: we know chairs differ in their inessential characteristics (differences in color for example); isn't it possible that they differ in their essential characteristics as well (isn't it possible that some of them aren't made to be sat on)? This is nonsensical.

 

Regarding success, you are also ascribing innate guilt to some groups of people: because your ancestors haven't achieved something in the past, you're never going to achieve something in the future. This isn't how humans work. Humans don't necessarily inherit the concrete methods of functioning of their ancestors.

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7 hours ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

This dichotomy between the group and the individual is one that I have belabored to the point of exhaustion, ...

Step back and consider this: Objectivist epistemology does not make so sharp a distinction between a concept and a premise or a proposition. Some philosophers will belabor the differences, but you don't see Rand doing so. In Objectivism, concepts are not "just there" in the real world, nor are they arbitrary.

So,  a concept for "black people" does not exist out there in external reality. Nor should such a concept be arbitrary. The same for "hounds", the same for "greyhounds". If we create these concepts, we do so to serve an epistemological purpose. The implication is this: when we form a concept, we are not just grouping arbitrarily. Rather, we are making a statement about the characteristic(s) that are common among the members of that group. [Edge-case exceptions and borderlines excepted.] So, concept formation is the positive assertion of one or more proposition-like facts, but to a group of entities we want to name. And, it is also an assertion that the characteristics we identify are important to us, in some context.

Next, when we make propositions about a group (i.e. about entities grouped by the concept), positing some attribute about those entities, we could be doing two different things: we could be making a statement that derives from the actual characteristics of the entities (even if its not the defining characteristic). For example: "All men are mortal" or "hetro men love looking at women". We can understand the strength or weakness of these two propositions by their tie to the facts that led us to create the concept. 

One does not have to use "all". Even a quantifier like "most" posits a causal link. E.g. "Most humans have 2 thumbs and 8 other fingers" is a trivial example. 

One step away, we start to get propositions like: "Vegetarians are healthier", or "Smokers have a higher chance of getting lung-cancer". Of course, we are not making a statement about any individual vegetarian or smoker. However, those concepts have been defined by a common characteristic. We are actually making a statement about a link between that characteristic and the outcome we mention in each case. 

 

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16 hours ago, DonAthos said:

You're responding to me, so I don't know whether you are also referring to me, but I don't think I've accused anyone of burning crosses.

I responded to you because I wanted to nix the idea that my silence in any way amounted to an endorsement of the evil ideas being bandied about.  I did not mean to suggest that you were among those slinging mud.
 

16 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Yet I believe that there is racism on display in this thread

It is possible.  I can't say because once the mud started flying, I stopped paying serious attention.  In any case, here is my take on racism (you'll note that I'm addressing the idea, not the character of anyone in this discussion):

 

Let me first define what I mean by "racism":  The denial of essential humanity to a person on a ground that they possess some irrelevant characteristic such as skin color.  This denial is typically manifested by a racist forwarding the proposition that a person possessing the characteristic should be denied some or all of the rights accorded to the racist's preferred group.

There is this folklore that redheads have more of a temper than other people.  Now, suppose I decide that I don't care for women who have  a temper and so refuse to date redheads. Am I a racist? No.  Because I have not denied essential humanity to redheads, nor does my refusal to date them deny them of anything they have a right to.  This would be as true if I refused to serve redheads at a restaurant I owned, or if the irrelevant characteristic I acted on was dark skin color.  I would be stupid to act this way, denying myself the benefits of association with redheads or people with dark colored skin, but I wouldn't deserve the tag "racist".

Conversely, if I decided that temper was a Bad Thing and that, as it was heritable with hair color, redheads should not be allowed to reproduce, I would be a racist, and deserving of vehement condemnation.  Ditto if I decided that dark skinned people -- or transgendered people -- should be denied the right to use public bathrooms that were appropriate to their plumbing.

So what would I make of someone who argues that Blacks in Africa were less intelligent than Whites in Europe and thus could not have developed capitalism?  I would think they're ignorant and prone to get their information from unreliable sources.  I would not think they're racist.  I might killfile them, on the ground that I don't want to waste my time on someone so ill-informed, but that's as far as I'd be willing to go.

 

I am aware that many people will not make the distinction I make, between people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide who to associate with and people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide who is truly human.  But that this is an important distinction should be evident, and I'm simply not willing to lump together both sorts of people and claim them equally evil.

I'm more sympathetic to the view that people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide on whom they associate with might enable the true racists and thereby promote racism.  This is, in fact, why advancing the notion that redheads have more temper than most isn't as big a deal as advancing the notion that Blacks on average have lower IQ's. The former can be treated as merely silly; the latter could play right into the narratives of true racists, and might properly be denounced on that ground -- but not as racist per se.

 

(Watch Invictus duck for cover, expecting mud from certain quarters....sigh.)

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4 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:

Let me first define what I mean by "racism":  The denial of essential humanity to a person on a ground that they possess some irrelevant characteristic such as skin color.  This denial is typically manifested by a racist forwarding the proposition that a person possessing the characteristic should be denied some or all of the rights accorded to the racist's preferred group.

I'm uncertain about the phrase "denial of essential humanity." Further, regarding skin color as an "irrelevant characteristic" seems to be begging the question in a certain sense, although I would bet that most modern racists would agree that skin color is, itself, "irrelevant"; I expect that they would say that it isn't so much the color of the skin, as it is what they associate with the skin color.

While I would agree that it is important to note how this impacts "rights," I don't agree that racism is purely a political phenomenon.

Quote

There is this folklore that redheads have more of a temper than other people.  Now, suppose I decide that I don't care for women who have  a temper and so refuse to date redheads. Am I a racist? No.  Because I have not denied essential humanity to redheads, nor does my refusal to date them deny them of anything they have a right to.  This would be as true if I refused to serve redheads at a restaurant I owned, or if the irrelevant characteristic I acted on was dark skin color.  I would be stupid to act this way, denying myself the benefits of association with redheads or people with dark colored skin, but I wouldn't deserve the tag "racist".

I don't think that believing that "redheads have more of a temper" is racist, as redheads aren't normally considered a "race," but I would say that it is a form of prejudice. Of course no one has the "right" to force anyone else to a date, or anything else; so again, I have to note that my conception of prejudice (whether "racism" or "sexism" or, here, uhm... "hair color-ism") is not strictly political.

I agree that holding such prejudices and acting upon them would be stupid of you, in denying yourself benefits, and thus immoral; but I would also continue to describe it as prejudiced behavior -- and say that it "deserves" to be recognized and described (and treated) as such, accordingly.

If someone believes that black people are awful by nature, and refuses to let them into his restaurant, then I would be comfortable describing both the belief and the behavior as "racist." In a culture where such beliefs and behaviors are typical or common or acceptable, I would also expect to see an erosion of rights (or differential political treatment) -- but as I say, I don't consider that development necessary to recognize racism or prejudice more generally. It is racist to ask Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person whether the bus is a public or private concern, and the root of that decision remains the same, as well. We don't need separate concepts to describe the same phenomenon.

Quote

I am aware that many people will not make the distinction I make, between people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide who to associate with and people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide who is truly human.  But that this is an important distinction should be evident, and I'm simply not willing to lump together both sorts of people and claim them equally evil.

I don't know about "equally evil"; is the man who refuses to serve black people in his restaurant "equally evil" to Adolf Hitler, or to a KKK Grand Wizard or something? No. But that's not what I'm saying when I say that the whites-only restaurateur is racist. We can draw appropriate distinctions while also recognizing appropriate similarities (which is "lumping together both sorts of people" in some respects, yet not others).

Quote

I'm more sympathetic to the view that people who rely on inappropriate characteristics to decide on whom they associate with might enable the true racists and thereby promote racism.

This is true, too (not that they enable the "true racists" -- the racist restaurateur is as "truly racist" as anyone else -- but that they enable those who would do worse), but again, I do not consider it essential.

Edited by DonAthos
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38 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

I'm uncertain about the phrase "denial of essential humanity."

I mean a rejection of the proposition that someone is in fact a human being.  Generally, today, this isn't explicit.  Racists rarely say, "Blacks aren't really people".  Instead, they might say that Blacks are genetically disposed to do bad things, thus rejecting the idea that Blacks have free will, an essential aspect of being a human being.  Does that clarify what I mean?

47 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

Further, regarding skin color as an "irrelevant characteristic" seems to be begging the question in a certain sense, although I would be that most modern racists would agree that skin color is, itself, "irrelevant"; I expect that they would say that it isn't so much the color of the skin, as it is what they associate with the skin color.

Likely.  But they're still focusing on some irrelevancy, something that has nothing to do with whether Blacks are really people.

48 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

I don't think that believing that "redheads have more of a temper" is racist, as redheads aren't normally considered a "race," but I would say that it is a form of prejudice.

I think we're disagreeing more on terminology than substance.  I use the word "racist" because I really don't want to have umpteen different words for what is essentially the same phenomenon.  What people do when they deny the humanity of Blacks is racist.  Of women, sexist. Of adolescents -- there is no name for it, but it's equally evil.  So what word covers all of these things?  If you have a better word than racist, by all means toss it my way!

So, understanding that I'm grouping all these -ists (and many more) under the rubric of racist, I would identify two different concepts.  A racist rejects the humanity of some group of human beings.  He typically demonstrates this rejection by denying rights to people in that group. A person who is prejudiced holds unfounded notions about some group, without denying their humanity.  He typically demonstrates his prejudice through his associational decisions.  (A person might not deny another's humanity, but nevertheless deny rights to that person.  I would also call that racist, because that denial of rights amounts to a denial of humanity, even if the racist consciously affirms the humanity of those whose rights he would violate.)

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

We don't need separate concepts to describe the same phenomenon.

The two things I described are not the same.  Using the words as I just described: The prejudiced person does not deny the humanity of those against whom he is prejudiced.  The racist does.  Associational decisions are not a legal matter.  Denying rights is.  Prejudice is, in general, merely stupid.  Racism is always reprehensible.  I thinks those differences are enough to make it worthwhile to have two separate concepts.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

We can draw appropriate distinctions while also recognizing appropriate similarities (which is "lumping together both sorts of people" in some respects, yet not others).

Well, it's certainly true that racism and prejudice (as I'm using the terms) have a lot in common.  Both involve unfounded negative  beliefs about people of some group.  Perhaps we might resolve this by describing both phenomena as "prejudice", and calling what I labeled "prejudice" as "mere prejudice", as opposed to its nastier brother "racism".  That is, the upper level concept, subsuming all sorts of unfounded negative beliefs about groups, is "prejudice".  It has two sub-concepts, differentiated by whether those unfounded beliefs amount to a denial of humanity.  When they don't, it's "mere prejudice"; when they do, it's "racism".  (I'm still using "racism" here to include every variety of negative -ist.)

 

The thing is, I really can't lump together those with mere prejudice, even when it's against a historically abused group, with people who deny another's humanity or trample on their rights.  There is a world of difference between the guy who won't date redheads because of their reputed temper, and the guy who thinks that Blacks can be relegated to the back of the bus or even bought and sold. It has nothing to do with the fact that redheads aren't a race and Blacks (supposedly) are.  The important distinction is that the former does not deny the humanity of redheads and would not deny their rights, but the latter would.

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Although I believe we have self proclaimed objectivists who are apparently ready to abandon reason by embracing studies that fail to adhere to basic methodological and scholarly standards, ready to abandon individualism by drawing invalid inferences about people based on these studies, and ready to abandon liberty by supporting deportation of those individuals that don't have the culture they want them to have, however I want to discuss is the original topic.

The basic contention to me is within two opposing theses.

On the one hand we have the "pro meme" thesis, which holds that the only conceptual content that matters is whatever you want it to mean (e.g., "ill say whatever I want to," "I'll take from the package whatever I want to,") and one can ignore the rest.

On the other hand we have the "anti meme" thesis, which contends that the former is guilty of context dropping and that the origin, agenda, and background intent of a meme have consequences for the implicit meaning of that slogan. 

Consider that the meme was posted on a section of forums frequented by white nationalists claiming that spreading the message would feed social unrest and sway people to embrace white nationalism. The poster claimed that normal Americans would see that news outlets and leftists hate whites and then these would "convert to the white nationalist, alt-right side."

White supremacists and neo-Nazis have believed for a long time in the strategy of the "white victim" as a means to gain more adherents. They also discuss watering down the message and removing references to other races in order to make it more palatable to normal white Americans to participate in their advert campaign. White nationalists and alt-right groups are also making efforts to "clean up" their image from the tattooed, cross burning skinhead, and taking their newly watered down message to campuses. They also are attempting to exploit social media and meme warfare. This is a young, hip, tech-savvy white supremacist movement, and they want to bait new believers and adherents by using social media to play off "leftist anti-white bias" (which certainly does exist on the leftist fringe) and portray campus diversity as inherently anti-white.

By using a grain (a very small grain) of truth and a watered down message of triviality, they succeeded in getting "the normies," and apparently some self-proclaimed objectivists, to dance on a string.

Although Grames claims I don't understand how memes work, I contend I perhaps understand it better than him, and I wholeheartedly reject it. As an individualist, I would rip one of those papers off and throw it in the dirt, happily.

No alliance with fascists, no alliance with white supremacists, and objectivists cannot put enough daylight between themselves and these alt-right groups. 

We know how spontaneous orders work in economics, but there are also negative spontaneous orders that serve to sustain statism. We know that Republicans, right wingers often times hijack the rhetoric of capitalism and free markets to defend and advance statism.

Just look at Rand's comments on Regan. She was an individualist of the old school, having been influenced by Rose Wilder Lane and Isabelle Patterson. The conservatives have been doing it for decades and now alt-right white nationalists and neo-Nazis are joining in. They are openly trying to water down their racism and cloak it under the guise of scientific studies, and wrap it in libertarian and free-market packaging. I hope my fellow individualists and objectivist friends are not so easily deceived. 

 

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Also if one wishes to fight against leftist anti-white biases then one should actually attack that directly instead of joining in Nazi campaigns. 

This philosophy stems from the Marxist wing of postmodernist philosophy, a derivation of the Frankfurt School of social thought. They saw that classical socialism was failing and losing traction became disillusioned. They sought to update it to the modern age and mixed it with Freudian psychoanalysis and existentialism. The main inspirations are from the philosophers Faucault, Derrida, and Marcuse. The result is oppression theory or social dominance theory. 

If you want to defeat anti white leftism, you need to defeat this argumentation. Helping white nationalist flier posting campaigns will only tarnish yourself by serving as conflation of resistance to leftist racial collectivism with support for rightwing racial collectivism. The proper individualist response is "a pox on both your houses."

And also, I forgot to add: there's plenty of good free online content from Profs. Steven Hicks and Jordan Peterson on postmodernism if anyone is interested.

Edited by 2046
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36 minutes ago, 2046 said:

Consider that the meme was posted on a section of forums frequented by white nationalists claiming that spreading the message would feed social unrest and sway people to embrace white nationalism. The poster claimed that normal Americans would see that news outlets and leftists hate whites and then these would "convert to the white nationalist, alt-right side."

Well said. You've clearly done your homework. One thing I can add is how these propagandists work after they've created the meme and are trying to spread it. They provide clear directions on how to propagate the message. For example, they routinely tell potential distributors to place the flyers on high schools and colleges. To go at night and wear hoodies and sunglasses. To be aware of security cameras. To not cover other posters. To not break the law. And most importantly to not alter the content one bit. They've been pounding the idea that there is no phase two to this campaign, and anyone who tries to change the wording is an enemy shill.

Many people have an uninformed view that memes are these silly things that sort of go viral, and they don't know or care why it happens. The normies call it meme magic, the Nazis call it meme warfare. In war you gather intel, develop plans, make weapons, and mobilize troops for combat. The Nazis and Marxists understand this, because in their souls they are perpetual warmongers, always looking for the next enemy group. Regular folk don't get it so much, because we don't like war.

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45 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

I think we're disagreeing more on terminology than substance.  I use the word "racist" because I really don't want to have umpteen different words for what is essentially the same phenomenon.  What people do when they deny the humanity of Blacks is racist.  Of women, sexist. Of adolescents -- there is no name for it, but it's equally evil.  So what word covers all of these things?  If you have a better word than racist, by all means toss it my way!

I suspect we're getting into some fairly technical ground (though which part is syntax and which semantics, I couldn't yet say), but I think we could see these as variants of prejudice (racism being prejudice based on race, sexism prejudice based on sex, ageism prejudice based on age, and etc.).

I know that you draw a further distinction between "mere prejudice" and whatever (stronger, worse) forms "deny humanity," but (despite your explanation) I am so far unconvinced of this distinction. My refusal to date redheads because I believe that redheads have bad tempers does not deny anyone their rights, and it may not speak to the "essence" of humanity, as such, yet I believe that it does deny the total humanity of an individual redhead who, of her nature, of her volition, of her individual soul, may or may not have a temper.

I am failing to regard and treat her as an individual with a self-made soul.

45 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

The thing is, I really can't lump together those with mere prejudice, even when it's against a historically abused group, with people who deny another's humanity or trample on their rights.  There is a world of difference between the guy who won't date redheads because of their reputed temper, and the guy who thinks that Blacks can be relegated to the back of the bus or even bought and sold.

To make this somewhat more apples to apples, I'd agree with you that there is an important difference between the guy who won't date black women because he believes that they have bad tempers, and the guy who believes that blacks ought to use separate facilities, by law, because they have bad tempers. But I don't believe that the difference can be described as, the second guy is racist but the first guy is not. I consider them both prejudiced -- prejudiced on the basis of race, specifically, and therefore both racist.

The second guy proposes to initiate the use of force, which, in my opinion, is another order of evil -- and this speaks to the important difference we both recognize. That said, we can (and should) recognize the commonality in belief that they share, and also that the first person and his beliefs will help to create the conditions in which the second is possible, or even likely.

(By the way, just to check in, because you had expressed this concern -- but do you consider me to be discussing this with you in an appropriate manner thus far, or am I slinging mud? I'm doing my best.)

45 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

It has nothing to do with the fact that redheads aren't a race and Blacks (supposedly) are.

I appreciate your "supposedly."

45 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

The important distinction is that the former does not deny the humanity of redheads and would not deny their rights, but the latter would.

I agree that this is an important distinction, and one worth making, only that it does not suffice, in my opinion -- based on the way I use the terms and see them used elsewhere -- to render a man's decision to open a restaurant for white's only, because he considers black people to have awful tempers of their nature, as other than "racist."

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11 hours ago, human_murda said:

You are evading what a difference in such an essential characteristic [the capacity for reason] would imply: they are not human. You're not saying that some humans differ in their essential characteristics by degree. You're making a categorical distinction ("unable to understand capitalism").

I believe he's also equating the rejection of capitalism with not understanding it. It's not like the average black person can't learn the fundamental idea of capitalism. He simply rejects it for socialism, like the majority of whites do.

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16 hours ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

carefully crafting my words to ensure that not even the appearance of me judging the individual based on race is present.

No, you just don't notice that your belaboring is -showing- the very things I'm saying you're wrong about. The more you say to justify your claims, the more racist (read: tribalist) you appear. It is absolutely fine to say there are populations which have a lower average IQ, but that's not the problem. The problem is attempting to generalize that information to explain why capitalism did not develop in Africa. Such reasoning is invalid. The problem with it is that it is not possible to explain beliefs with IQ. To do so would be racist because it depends on saying race plays a major role in one's beliefs or abilities in life. You would be able to say "white people are on average smarter than black people". This is an abuse of IQ. Although you claim the opposite, you are also saying that some content is inherited or heavily influenced by genetics. That's the only way your claims could work.

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12 hours ago, human_murda said:

Also, at times, your "arguments" boil down to this: since we know that humans differ in their inessential characteristics (some have dyslexia; others don't), isn't it possible that humans differ in their essential characteristics (capacity of reason) as well? You are evading what a difference in such an essential characteristic would imply: they are not human. You're not saying that some humans differ in their essential characteristics by degree. You're making a categorical distinction ("unable to understand capitalism"). This is like saying that: we know chairs differ in their inessential characteristics (differences in color for example); isn't it possible that they differ in their essential characteristics as well (isn't it possible that some of them aren't made to be sat on)? This is nonsensical.

I have to disagree with this.  Even among white people that I have personally known there is range of intellectual capacity, and I personally was at my limit when studying vector calculus in order to use Maxwell's equations in classical electromagnetism classwork.  That limit would hardly be a threshold appropriate for defining humanity, nor would any other particular concept.   The ability to speak and reason at all in any degree is adequate for qualifying as having a conceptual consciousness.   

"You can't understand this, therefore you are not human"; that 'therefore' clause comes from you.  It is up to you to explain why this thought would occur to you as plausible.   It is bizarre, and is a form of the "master race" or "chosen people" theory.

Birds differ in their essential ability to fly.  Even well before there was a theory of genetics as the essential biological cause there was no difficulty in identifying flightless birds as still birds.  We are not even discussing mindless persons.

addendum:  It is a rationalistic error to equate a concept with its definition.  This seems to be the problem here.

Edited by Grames
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40 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

 To do so would be racist because it depends on saying race plays a major role in one's beliefs or abilities in life. 

So diversity is good, but there is no actual diversity even between races?

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I'm saying IQ does not and cannot be used to explain differences in beliefs (even on a cultural level) or intelligence as far as intelligence as a whole. Race is minor at best, on top of how there are methodological issues with applying an IQ tests to people who don't attend decent schools.

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1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

I suspect we're getting into some fairly technical ground (though which part is syntax and which semantics, I couldn't yet say), but I think we could see these as variants of prejudice (racism being prejudice based on race, sexism prejudice based on sex, ageism prejudice based on age, and etc.).

I think we are agreed on what constitutes prejudice: an ungrounded belief about a person based on group membership.  In this sense, it doesn't matter whether the group is defined by hair color or skin color, age or sex, because the essence is "ungrounded".  (A grounded belief, such as the proposition that racists are immoral, would not be prejudice.)

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

I know that you draw a further distinction between "mere prejudice" and whatever (stronger, worse) forms "deny humanity," but (despite your explanation) I am so far unconvinced of this distinction. My refusal to date redheads because I believe that redheads have bad tempers does not deny anyone their rights, and it may not speak to the "essence" of humanity, as such, yet I believe that it does deny the total humanity of an individual redhead who, of her nature, of her volition, of her individual soul, may or may not have a temper.

I am failing to regard and treat her as an individual with a self-made soul.

I think I see where our difference lies.

If I am judging people based on whether they are prejudiced, the difference between the person who won't date redheads, believing them to have a temper, and the person who would legally consign Blacks to the back of the bus, believing them to be subhuman, is one of degree rather than of kind.  In this case, it makes no sense to distinguish between what I called "mere prejudice" and racism, however defined.

It is a different matter if I am concerned with the social consequences of prejudice.  The guy who won't date redheads only harms himself, but the guy who would legally consign Blacks to the back of the bus intends or desires to violate the rights of Blacks.  In this case, the difference is not merely one of degree but of kind.

So, whether there are subordinate concepts to "prejudice" depends on one's purpose -- as it should.  You're more concerned with judging the individual, I'm more concerned with the social consequence.  From your point of view, all -ists are essentially the same, because they share the same moral fault. From mine, I want terms to distinguish the -ists who would violate rights from those who would not, because of how their shared moral fault differs in its impact on society. (And I'm still open to a better term than "racist'. "Tribalist"?)

In other words, except in the matter of word choices, we're both right. :)

2 hours ago, DonAthos said:

(By the way, just to check in, because you had expressed this concern -- but do you consider me to be discussing this with you in an appropriate manner thus far, or am I slinging mud? I'm doing my best.)

I see no mud slinging.  Contrast our discussion with the ad hominems floating about.  When someone claims that another person is "evading" (to take a single example) , he is not merely asserting that the other person has failed to take something into account, he is asserting that the other person is immoral.  Even if that were true, such an observation is not useful -- except possibly to explain why he won't continue the discussion.   It has no place in a discussion.


 


 

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The World's IQ=86 is an article about "...  the largest and most carefully described collection of the world’s intelligence results."  Which means "Test results of 550,492 individuals in 123 countries".

A caveat appearing the text is:

"So, it is overall important for me to say that this is a work in progress and the dataset is more suitable to find global patterns rather than the exact IQs of single nations."

Links to the actual test scores are in given in the form of spreadsheets hosted on Google Drive.

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4 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

In other words, except in the matter of word choices, we're both right. :)

I never doubted it. ;)

4 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

I see no mud slinging.

I'm glad to hear it. If you ever see me fall short of this standard (whether in discussion with yourself or another), I'd ask that you contact me (preferably in private) to let me know.

4 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

When someone claims that another person is "evading" (to take a single example) , he is not merely asserting that the other person has failed to take something into account, he is asserting that the other person is immoral.

Perhaps that's what's often intended. My own views about evasion, and its relationship to morality, have become somewhat... nuanced over time. If you'd ever like to take up a discussion about that, my evasion thread stands ready.

4 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

Even if that were true, such an observation is not useful -- except possibly to explain why he won't continue the discussion.   It has no place in a discussion.

Mostly I agree, and discussions such as this board hosts ought to be focused on ideas rather than the people who advocate those ideas -- a standard that I try to hold myself to, though I'm certain I do not achieve it perfectly.

My only caveat here is that I believe that there are some discussion contexts in which it might be appropriate for one person to -- not accuse (let alone condemn), but -- inform his discussion partner that he suspects evasion; part of my interest in creating the evasion thread, in fact, is in developing the conceptual context to allow this to happen in civility and reason. Because, if I were evading (and I judge this is possible to me), I would want to know it and to correct it.

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3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

My own views about evasion, and its relationship to morality, have become somewhat... nuanced over time. If you'd ever like to take up a discussion about that, my evasion thread stands ready.

I've got too much on my plate right now.  I am still nitpicking "The Objectivist Ethics" and hope to have a new post sometime before Hell freezes over.  I think I will have to write something to restart the discussion about my proposed city, since everyone seems to have deserted it at the same time.  And the immigration discussion has prompted me to start an essay on immigration in an Objectivist society. (Which I can justify to myself on the ground that I will have to examine the topic sooner or later because it will be an issue with my proposed city.)   I just don't have time for another serious discussion.  I wouldn't have posted here, except I just couldn't remain silent in the face of the unwarranted verbal abuse going on.

3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

My only caveat here is that I believe that there are some discussion contexts in which it might be appropriate for one person to -- not accuse (let alone condemn), but -- inform his discussion partner that he suspects evasion

As a general proposition, I would say that it's better to say that someone has failed to grasp a particular point of reasoning than to say that he was evading it.  In Objectivist circles, "evasion" is just too loaded to use casually.  And I'd suggest that any such comments should always be made privately, for much the same reason.
 

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3 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

As a general proposition, I would say that it's better to say that someone has failed to grasp a particular point of reasoning than to say that he was evading it.  In Objectivist circles, "evasion" is just too loaded to use casually.  And I'd suggest that any such comments should always be made privately, for much the same reason.

Generally speaking, I agree.

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2 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

As a general proposition, I would say that it's better to say that someone has failed to grasp a particular point of reasoning than to say that he was evading it.  In Objectivist circles, "evasion" is just too loaded to use casually.

Nicely put, and cogently stated

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On 11/8/2017 at 5:09 PM, JASKN said:

I think "It's OK to be white" all the time to myself when I read the moronic public, racist displays of "black lives," "mormon lives," "women lives," or whatever else.

When blacks take pride in their skin color, it's moronic and racist. When whites do it, that's okay. Is that your position?

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1 minute ago, JASKN said:

How is it possible to "take pride" in skin color?

By thinking "it's okay to be white." What do you think that statement means? Why do you think about it when you hear about "black lives"? I'm trying to understand what you meant.

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