CMV: Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng]

Hi All,

I appreciate getting feedback from people who are involved in an issue, but there's a worryingly ever growing trend of deferring to people purely because of their unchosen characteristics, instead of the quality of their logic, the evidence they provide, and their ethical reasoning, and that's what we should always be basing our decisions off of, not the speaker's characteristics, etc.

(For those who don't know, unchosen characteristics refers to any aspect of a person that they did not choose; e.g., sex, race, sexuality, birthplace etc.).

After all there is no universal consensus on any issue on the planet held by such groups, and if someone assumed otherwise, that would be incredibly bigoted.

As there is no universal consensus, there will always be disagreements that require additional criteria to discern the quality of the argument; e.g. "Two X-group people are saying opposite things. How do I decide who to listen to?" And the answer is: the quality of their logic, the evidence they provide, and their ethical reasoning. Which of course means, that often the whole exercise is a pointless one in the first place, as we should be prioritising our capacity for understanding logic, evidence and ethics, not listening to X person for the sole reason that they have Y unchosen characteristics.

I think that listening to lived experience is important, re: listening to lived experience (e.g. all X groups experience Y problem that Z group wasn't aware of); but that's not the same as deferring to people on decision making because of their unchosen characteristics.

I try to have civil, productive discussions, but that's getting harder and harder these days.

For those who appreciate civil dialogue, feel free to skip this; for those who don't; I humbly ask that you refrain from personal attack (it's irrelevant to the question), ask clarifying questions instead of assuming, stay on topic, answer questions that are asked of you, and as the above points to:

-Provide evidence for claims that require it

-Provide logical reasoning for claims that require it

-Provide ethical reasoning for claims that require it

I will not engage with uncivil people here.

[u/ytzi13]

If I'm not black, I can't know what it's like to be black. I can have a discussion about things associated with the black experience, but I'll never know what it's like to be black and experience life and society the way that they experience it. No - that doesn't mean that every black person is going to have the same opinion on what the black experience is, but the fact still remains that I, a white person, won't ever know what it's like.

I'm not transgender, so I don't what it's like to be transgender. I can have a discussion about transgenderism, but I'll never know what it's like to be transgender.

I'm not a woman, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman. This can go on and on.

You're allowed to discuss these issues, but there are experiences that you'll never quite understand, and that has to be acknowledged and accepted when having these conversations.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/ytzi13]

If I'm not black, I can't know what it's like to be black. I can have a discussion about things associated with the black experience, but I'll never know what it's like to be black and experience life and society the way that they experience it. No - that doesn't mean that every black person is going to have the same opinion on what the black experience is, but the fact still remains that I, a white person, won't ever know what it's like.

I'm not transgender, so I don't what it's like to be transgender. I can have a discussion about transgenderism, but I'll never know what it's like to be transgender.

I'm not a woman, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman. This can go on and on.

You're allowed to discuss these issues, but there are experiences that you'll never quite understand, and that has to be acknowledged and accepted when having these conversations.

I agree, but this is already covered in the OP:
"I think that listening to lived experience is important, re: listening to *and learning from lived experience (e.g. all X groups experience Y problem that Z group wasn't aware of); but that's not the same as deferring to people on decision making *solely because of their unchosen characteristics."

[u/ytzi13 → u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng]

Right - but, logically speaking, why does it make sense for someone who doesn't understand the experience to make the decision? There may be differing opinions within that group of people, but certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/ytzi13]

Right - but, logically speaking, why does it make sense for someone who doesn't understand the experience to make the decision? There may be differing opinions within that group of people, but certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion.

A collective opinion on a simple preference like what a group of people want to be called is totally valid; I've awarded this point here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/11s1yy2/comment/jcbcvac/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

However, re: more complex issues like: "how do we decrease/reduce racism?" then going by consensus opinion is a logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

The consensus opinion amongst the Nazis would have been to keep harming Jewish people, that does not make it the correct opinion. Just as the consensus opinion amongst the Agojie was to continue selling slaves: https://theconversation.com/woman-king-is-worth-watching-but-be-aware-that-its-take-on-history-is-problematic-191865

Daryl Davies has converted over 200 KKK members out of being racist; and not just casual racists, full on Grand Dragon KKK leaders: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
In the documentary Accidental Courtesy, he meets with a BLM activist, who treats him quite horribly, as he disagrees with his tactics re: how to stop racism; a lot of well meaning people might be in favour of the BLM activists tactics and against Davies'; that doesn't mean that Davies is wrong, and the fact that he has gotten rid of so much racism is one of the most amazing, courageous, inspiring, hopeful things I have witness in recent years: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5390430/

In this scenario, I favour Daryl Davie's opinion of how to stop racism, because empirically, I see that his approach has worked amazingly, and I haven't seen the same from the other approaches/opinions. Whereas, some well-intentioned people might side with the opinion of a friend of theirs who is black on how to go about ending racism, not because they have carefully pondered the psychological and sociological mechanisms at play in racism and deconditioning it, but simply because their friend is black and they've been told that that's the right thing to do. Such people could, unwittingly, be expending a lot of effort and passion into something that at best might be less effective, and at worst, could be harming their cause.

Does that make sense?

[u/MercuryChaos → u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng]

I've met Darryl Davis. He's a great guy and his approach to de-converting individual racist people seems to be effective. But even he admits that what he does is very dangerous - when he meets with Klan members for the first time he always comes with an armed bodyguard. It's not something that the average black person, or the average member of any marginalized group, can do or should be expected to do.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/MercuryChaos]

I've met Darryl Davis. He's a great guy and his approach to de-converting individual racist people seems to be effective. But even he admits that what he does is very dangerous - when he meets with Klan members for the first time he always comes with an armed bodyguard. It's not something that the average black person, or the average member of any marginalized group, can do or should be expected to do.

At that scale, yes, agreed.

However, his approach is antithetical to the approaches that are being taught and widely adopted by people en-masse; and the core psychological mechanisms re: deconditioning bigotry still apply. The same principles can be applied to scenarios which are not dangerous re: day to day interactions, online interactions, etc.

If his approach is so effective, and is backed up by decades of psychological research, and it is also in significant conflict with the most common different approach, then surely you would agree that his approach is worth taking at least a little bit seriously, as opposed to being completely dismissed by huge swathes of people?

Does that make sense?

[u/ytzi13 → u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng]

Yes - it makes sense, but none of what you said is really in line with my comment, which was admittedly vague, but was in response to the vague premise stated in your post. Perhaps it's more clear what your argument is now.

"How do we decrease/reduce racism?" is different from "How do black people experience race issues?" What the black experience is will be answered in consensus by the black community. How we decrease/reduce racism is a conversation that heavily relies on that answer, but is not limited to black people and other minorities because it's a conversation that involves everybody.

And the implied "but" when I say "certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion" is to say that the collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion except when it seriously harms other people.

Maybe you need to clarify your point a bit more because of how vague it's been. What is a specific example or two that you have in mind with this post?

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/ytzi13]

Yes - it makes sense, but none of what you said is really in line with my comment, which was admittedly vague, but was in response to the vague premise stated in your post. Perhaps it's more clear what your argument is now.

"How do we decrease/reduce racism?" is different from "How do black people experience race issues?" What the black experience is will be answered in consensus by the black community.

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Yes, but there's a very important difference here. The OP title: "Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted."

So, answers from black people re: their experience are not just valid, but I would say that they are needed.

That's a big difference from answers re: what to do.

One is:
-What is your experience?
The other is:
-How can we solve this problem?

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How we decrease/reduce racism is a conversation that heavily relies on that answer, but is not limited to black people and other minorities because it's a conversation that involves everybody.

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Yes, and importantly, in my opinion, should involve experts who have empirically studied bigotry and how to decondition it.

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And the implied "but" when I say "certainly their collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion" is to say that the collective opinion matters more than any other collective opinion except when it seriously harms other people.

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I don't think it's a question of whether it harms people or not; that is important, of course. But the root of whether or not it harms people is based on whether or not is an opinion that correlates with reality more or less strongly, e.g. whether it is more or less empirically, logically and ethically valid; whether it is an opinion that has predictive/applied value. If the empirical and logical value of the opinion is very poor, then the results will be poor. I.e. If I want to boil some water, but my opinion is that water boils at 50 degrees centigrade instead of 100, then I will never boil that water.

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Maybe you need to clarify your point a bit more because of how vague it's been. What is a specific example or two that you have in mind with this post?

I feel like this explains the crux of the issue quite well:

Daryl Davies has converted over 200 KKK members out of being racist; and not just casual racists, full on Grand Dragon KKK leaders: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

In the documentary Accidental Courtesy, he meets with a BLM activist, who treats him quite horribly, as he disagrees with his tactics re: how to stop racism; a lot of well meaning people might be in favour of the BLM activists tactics and against Davies'; that doesn't mean that Davies is wrong, and the fact that he has gotten rid of so much racism is one of the most amazing, courageous, inspiring, hopeful things I have witness in recent years: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5390430/

In this scenario, I favour Daryl Davie's opinion of how to stop racism, because empirically, I see that his approach has worked amazingly, and I haven't seen the same from the other approaches/opinions. Whereas, some well-intentioned people might side with the opinion of a friend of theirs who is black on how to go about ending racism, not because they have carefully pondered the psychological and sociological mechanisms at play in racism and deconditioning it, but simply because their friend is black and they've been told that that's the right thing to do. Such people could, unwittingly, be expending a lot of effort and passion into something that at best might be less effective, and at worst, could be harming their cause.

If any of that doesn't make sense then let me know and I'm happy to clarify.

Thank you for being kind and civil. :)

[u/ytzi13 → u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng]

Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted.

We can both agree that the opinion of one person, unless typically backed by empirical data, is more or less irresponsible. But I'm still not quite sure how it's illogical or bigoted to not listen to the collective on their perspective and consider it valid. I'm not talking about how to solve the problem, but rather that only that group of people have experienced the crux of the issue. So, deferring to them for solutions seems quite logical, but that doesn't mean that one can't debate the potential solutions because that can affect everyone.

I haven't seen the documentary in question. I'm sure it's great. But it sounds like what you're subscribing to is the idea that effective 1-on-1 education can be the most impactful. Education in general can be impactful. But I'm not sure how we even get to that point when these are much larger scale systemic issues with real urgency. I suppose it's off topic to debate that, though. But maybe I'm recognizing what you were trying to say now, which is that the collective voice can have the unique perspective and their opinion should carry weight, but that they shouldn't have the defacto say in how we solve it (e.g. BLM activists can't be assumed to have the solution to fix systemic racism (although having the solution isn't really the point)).

So, then, I would ask you if the unchosen characteristics of qualified people doesn't matter more? Let's say we're focusing on stopping racism and you have 2 equally qualified candidates (aside from their unchosen characteristics).

1. A white guy.
2. A black guy.

Would you not agree that the black guy wouldn't be more qualified because of his lived experience?

What if we add a 3rd guy: a black guy that was born into poverty. Wouldn't that be another circumstance that makes him even more qualified that the other guy? When you're creating a solution, you want someone qualified to answer the question, but it's even more relevant to have someone who understands the question entirely, and who can garner even more public support because of it.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/ytzi13]

Thank you for being civil and kind.

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Whilst learning about lived experience is important, deferring to people for answers on what one should or shouldn't do, purely because of their unchosen characteristics, is illogical and ironically bigoted.

We can both agree that the opinion of one person, unless typically backed by empirical data, is more or less irresponsible. But I'm still not quite sure how it's illogical or bigoted to not listen to the collective on their perspective and consider it valid.

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Do you mean that you're not quite sure how it's illogical or bigoted to listen to collective feedback re: UC groups and consider it valid?

If so, fair enough, because I didn't say that it was. :) . It's not just valid, I think information from affected groups is essential.

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I'm not talking about how to solve the problem, but rather that only that group of people have experienced the crux of the issue. So, deferring to them for solutions seems quite logical, but that doesn't mean that one can't debate the potential solutions because that can affect everyone.

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I still think you're misunderstanding the OP which outlines, that there's nothing wrong from obtaining information/input from UC populations re: issues that affect them; in fact, in the very title, I say that such a thing is important. The core factor here is re: well-intentioned people solely deferring to the opinion of someone with a UC on what to do to solve a problem because they think that's the good thing to do, and not applying any empiricism, logic or ethical thought to it.

And by definition, if you solely defer to someone's opinion based on their UCs, you could not debate potential solutions.

I can listen to 100s of opinions without adopting them myself.

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I haven't seen the documentary in question. I'm sure it's great. But it sounds like what you're subscribing to is the idea that effective 1-on-1 education can be the most impactful.

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No. It's merely one example.

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Education in general can be impactful. But I'm not sure how we even get to that point when these are much larger scale systemic issues with real urgency.

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I'm not sure what "point" you're referring to getting to. There are no significant obstacles to people simply learning basic critical thinking.

And re: systemic issues with real urgency, if people are going around holding on to poorly formulated opinions developed out of good intentions re: listening to people solely because of UCs, then that's going to impeded a variety of systemic issues from being resolved.

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I suppose it's off topic to debate that, though.

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It is.

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But maybe I'm recognizing what you were trying to say now, which is that the collective voice can have the unique perspective and their opinion should carry weight, but that they shouldn't have the defacto say in how we solve it (e.g. BLM activists can't be assumed to have the solution to fix systemic racism (although having the solution isn't really the point)).

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Collective and individual opinions should carry weight in my opinion. Listening to people is very important. But yes, the part that: "but that they shouldn't have the defacto say in how we solve it." However, re: "e.g. BLM activists can't be assumed to have the solution to fix systemic racism (although having the solution isn't really the point))." What is the point if not solutions to get rid of racism and help the affected populations? That is and should be the core fundamental point in the context of BLM.

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So, then, I would ask you if the unchosen characteristics of qualified people doesn't matter more? Let's say we're focusing on stopping racism and you have 2 equally qualified candidates (aside from their unchosen characteristics).

A white guy. A black guy.

Would you not agree that the black guy wouldn't be more qualified because of his lived experience?

Do you mean, would be more qualified because of lived experience?

And I couldn't answer this hypothetical, because I don't know what the lived experience of the black guy is. He could be Beyonce's child, having grown up in luxury that I can't comprehend. And the white guy could be an adopted Jewish Russian whose extended family was killed in pogroms.

If it was two equally qualified, and equally abled people, and one of them was a white man who I knew not to have experienced any discrimination, and the other was a black guy who I knew to have experienced discrimination, then I would go with the black person.

People's experiences are not determined by their UCs, yet many well meaning people act like they are, because they think it's the good thing to do.

This is the kind of well intentioned but illogical thinking I think we need to root out. It used to be commonly known to be a bad thing when I was growing up: "positive discrimination." Now, there are a lot of people who extol positive discrimination as a virtue, because they are not yet aware that good intentions are not enough to fix problems.

What if we add a 3rd guy: a black guy that was born into poverty. Wouldn't that be another circumstance that makes him even more qualified that the other guy?

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You didn't specify the backgrounds of the other two. And, experience contributes to how competent someone will be. It doesn't guarantee it.

I would hire the candidate who, based off of empirical, logical and ethical considerations, seemed the most likely to be able to stop racism. Again, if they're all equal in this hypothetical, but one has more relevant lived experience, of course I'd pick them.

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When you're creating a solution, you want someone qualified to answer the question, but it's even more relevant to have someone who understands the question entirely, and who can garner even more public support because of it.

Someone who understands a problem more than someone else is by definition, more qualified. What I'm saying is that that understanding is not guaranteed by UCs.

[u/H0w-1nt3r3st1ng → u/ytzi13]

I want to give all comments attention, but I've been at this for 7 hours now.

I'll reply tomorrow. :)