Well I didn’t have many specific things I disagreed with, overall I agreed with quite a few things. The Soviet Union being racist I am in agreement with, the ideas about racism being associated with individuals who aren’t very well educated(more educated people are less racist this is very true), and so on about the Nazis.
I understood the whole thing much better once you mentioned that it was referring to the philosophical idea of the word rather than the political. So in essence I would agree with the majority of the article.
The only things I have issue with are:
“It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world. It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.”
–This is true, but it is the same capitalist North that failed to follow up reconstruction and rehabilitation of the South to promote integration and crush racism. This lead to the same racists who fought in the civil war and lost (and were bitter about it) to take power in the South and impose a different kind of discrimination in the form of jim-crow segregation laws which weren’t abolished until the civil rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s.
"In its great era of capitalism, the United States was the freest country on earth – and the best refutation of racist theories.
–I am not sure when this is referring to so I can’t agree or disagree. It mentions the 20th century in the previous paragraph but it is unclear if the two paragraphs are linked.
"It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds – it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.
But that is the principle of the worst Southern racist who charges all Negroes with collective racial guilt for any crime committed by an individual Negro, and who treats them all as inferiors on the ground that their ancestors were savages."
–I am guessing that this is referring to affirmative action. In my opinion affirmative action is not penalizing white people for ancestors actions so much as trying to bring blacks up to a level playing field after experiencing centuries of enslavement and legalized state sponsored discrimination. I used this picture in my affirmative action debate to help illustrate this.
I concede that the concept is similar, she has a point about affirmative action having something similar to racism as its moral base for the struggle for equality as inherently wrong. The main difference is how racism is institutionalized. As long as this country has been in existence all of the institutions of society have been dominated by white male Caucasians. Nearly every aspect of society is still dominated by them decades after the civil rights struggle, and more than a century after slavery has ended. That is primarily because the institutions that society have created are not effected as much by the ending of slavery or racist individuals being prevented from lynching someone on the street. Those in power have entrenched themselves and their ideals very well in their positions so much so that it is difficult to change an institution even when the battle against racism and slavery has been “won”. They simply change tactics, and instead of being openly racist, discriminate against minorities through other legal channels.
The idea behind this being that unless all the institutions of society are arrayed against a particular race, and/or races cannot be inherently racist. I mean when you think about it, yes it does violate the rights of an individual (the white male who did not get the job) but society is set up to accept that white male instantly over any one else.
Additionally one huge difference is that there is no violence connected to this form of “racism.” Violence and racism go hand in hand, especially when one refers to state-sponsored racism. The lack of violence to enforce affirmative action suggests that it is something other than racism, albeit with some consequences that could be determined as “racist.” Really the only thing that keeps a racist system in place is having the backing of an organization who can enforce its position or laws with force(which I concede I can see how the US govt could be fitting of this explanation too, that is enforcing affirmative action). There is a major difference though between lynching someone because of their skin and losing a prospective job. For a white person after they lose a job offer, they could try any number of different positions and/or job offers simply because institutions are very willing to hire the average white guy. As an example I have never applied to a job that I have not gotten. So far I am 5 out of 5, and I honestly don’t think that is from any extra-ordinary merit on my part.
I didn’t really mean to turn this into a debate, and ended up rambling on and on, but that is just my opinion on that. Perhaps you can answer some of this and clarify what was meant in the article.
Also look at this picture:
No I like talking about this stuff, I don’t see it as a debate but more a friendly intellectual conversation. I will respond sometime later because I am heading home today.
Also, on that picture you tagged along. An objectivist would generally say that most if not all of those problems in that picture are due to realizations of problems created by the altruistic philosophical basis that is the root, in some way or another, of all left-leaning socio-political philosophies (i.e. leftist both in social affairs and economic affairs, democrats, progressives, greenies, socialists, marxists, fascists, national socialists, and so on down the line). Although this would require a seperate and much deeper discussion frankly…
The ones I can instantly debunk based on such an argument personally are:
poor schooling
bias
standardized testing
underemployment
This is also somewhat exaggerated of an illustration, though that is nothing new for things based in social-conflict theory which has a number of problems with it as far as how it evaluates society.
"I very much disagree with your lumping of fascists and national socialists together with Marxists and socialists. Marxism/socialism are ideologically opposed polar opposites to national socialism/fascism. One is a nationalistic system (fascists obviously) the other is international system. One relies upon the discrimination and exclusion of minorities and the other relies upon the inclusion of minorities and fights against that discrimination.
A number of examples of this exist. The Soviet Union, even in its corrupted form viewed the war against Germany (wwII) as an ideological struggle, not just a struggle for its own existence. Germany recognized this as well, and Hitler and Stalin both have numerous writings about this. Trotsky recognizes the differences, and criticizes the Soviet Union for its similarities in a number of writings, but most of all in his book “The Revolution Betrayed.”
In Germany during the Wiemar republic, the government was largely controlled by Social Democrats(who were actually pretty moderate), who (obviously) failed miserably at improving the economic situation in Germany during the post WW I period. The government was plagued by assassinations of prominent leaders (most of them singled out because they were Jewish) and was very unstable. (There were actually 2 official new German governments in the post WWI era, in addition to a short lived soviet republic in Bavaria.) Into all of this came Hitler who staged the bombing of the Reichstag blaming it on the Communists, and Socialists. Right away, you see even Hitler identifying clearly who is his enemy and who’s ideologies are directly in conflict with his own. This was re-enforced by the book burning in 33’ of all socialist, Marxist, Hegelian writings considered “leftist.” By all accounts that would put Nazism as a “rightist” organization from Hitlers own actions and ideologies.
One of the major arguments in concurrence with this is that Hitler viewed not only the German people as superior to all others, but German culture as superior to all others. Hitler turned to German philosophers who were “conservative” in that they supported nationalistic, culturally affirming arguments for him to justify his ideals of superiority.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Conservatism
He was trying to not only preserve the traditions and culture of the German people but to also bring back the former “glory” of the German Empire pre-WW I. That is traditionally a pretty rightist conservative move, trying to continue tradition along with revitalizing and renewing old traditions.
Would you mind showing some sources as to why you personally debunk those ideas in the picture? You really did not explain why you do not agree with that picture, you merely said you don’t agree. I would be interested in reading some of the writings you reference as debunking the conflict theory etc. If you could give me a list of them I will do what I can to read what I can and see if there is any valid points or what I can refute."
I would appreciate it if someone could explain this (the counter-argument) in depth instead of in a few sentences (the normal reply) as I need some clarification on this as well.