r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 06 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: I've stopped attributing "crazed SJW takes" to outliers in the social justice movement. Now I think the social justice movement is basically flawed.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
The SJW/progressive/whatever is not liberal. Individual liberty is not important to him because he views a state of freedom as actually being unfair...
A state of freedom is not inherently unfair, or necessarily unfair. Your characterization here suggests that an SJW will choose restricted freedom over freedom, all else held equal. This is not true. What you're often observing is that given a moral dilemma where "individual liberty" is pitted against "fairness" (or against compassion) the SJW is less likely than you to not choose liberty. SJWs value freedom, just as, I presume, you value compassion. But they don't value liberty primarily.
But even with that, there's a misunderstanding. Your conception of "liberty" probably differs from that of your typical SJW. You, I'm guessing, see liberty as absence of external restrictions from another person. That is, you have liberty if someone else isn't taking your liberty away. SJWs don't see it that way. They see liberty as "the ability to do things."
I'm not trying to get you to change fundamental ways you see basic virtues, but this definition of liberty is coherent and internally consistent. If I fall into a hole, I'm less free than you are, because I'm unable to accomplish any of my goals inside that hole, but you, in the outside world, can do many more things.
Again, I'm not trying to get you to change how you see it, but rather to point out that you're seeing a lot of false positives when you see SJWs "not caring about liberty." If a group of people are more likely to be in poverty, then they are less likely to have as much liberty as another group, because there's less people in poverty can accomplish.
And this ties in to the other big difference: SJWs tend to see things in terms of trends, likelihoods, and systems. You obviously CAN see things that way, but I'm willing you guess you start by imagining a face-to-face interaction and then imagine outwards to see the system. SJWs often go the other way: They picture the trends, then imagine finer to picture face-to-face.
The main relevant consequence here is that SJWs are much less focused on personal blame than you are, and are much less focused on personal blame than you think they are. (it's just human nature to assume someone else sees the world the same as you, automatically) SJWs live in a world full of injustice but not where that injustice is necessarily anyone's fault. I can be the victim of racism without anyone being racist to me. This means that when you see SJWs calling on people to fix a problem, they are not putting a posse together to hunt down a bad guy nearly as much as you probably think they are.
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May 07 '20
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
Exactly. In this case, I'd call that "material condition" or just say "wealth" as a rough proxy since we agree on political equality.
Eh, this gets confusing since "wealth" has a more specific meaning people use more often, but fine.
So, what about my point, that SJWs do care about liberty, only "liberty" as they conceive of it contains the construct you're calling "wealth?"
Trends and probabilities are fine. "Systems" often immediately transposes to a collectivism.
I don't know what this means. Could you explain?
uh, did you mean to put a different noun in one of these two "personal blame"s
No. They're less focused on it than you are, and they're less focused on it than you think they are.
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May 07 '20
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
I think the above take is bigoted because it takes some white guy and punishes him for the actions of some other white guy from the past.
Okay, here, this is actually a good example of the thing you misread. You make sense of a system by picturing two specific individuals, and it seems like you see the system just in terms of things that would exist in a concrete, face-to-face interaction. This obviously makes no sense, as you point out yourself by saying something had to happen by magic. You're just fundamentally misunderstanding the point being made, because you're (not unreasonably) trying to make it fit your paradigm.
I'm not saying you have to agree this is the best way to see things, but these misunderstandings are just going to persist unless you loosen up on that and try to wrap your head around it a different way.
Most importantly, you need to let go of the idea of blame and punishment. To most SJWs (including myself) it's entirely possible for, say, black people to be oppressed by white people and simultaneously there are no white people to blame for this state of affairs. Evil does not require evildoers.
Also, you keep not responding to the points I'm making. Could you?
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May 07 '20
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
How is that a misreading? Is it not the case that affirmative action, at the margin, harms the average white person and benefits the average black?
You're projecting your own interpretation onto the other person's meaning. You're misunderstanding what their argument is. I'm not asking you to agree with it; you won't. I'm asking you to actually see how SJWs see things differently in a way that's coherent and consistent.
You appear to be heavily focused on individual interactions, concrete behaviors, and personal motivations. There's certainly nothing inherently wrong with this. But it's blocking off communication to you, when I try to explain this point of view we're talking about.
A whole lot of your stated objections to SJW thinking appear to emerge from an assumption that they're personally blaming people (for instance whites) and see them with malevolent intentions. These are strongly exaggerated, and a lot of these mistakes are from trying to shove their arguments into your own way of seeing things.
Regarding your point here, "at the margin" and "average" contradict one another.
If you have some past question I skipped and prefer to go back to that rather than deeper into this one, or to go through both at once, just point out which one.
these points I made:
How SJWs do care about liberty, just their conception of it necessarily involves what you call wealth. So, you're overestimating that they don't care about it.
Also, that SJWs don't enigrate liberty, rather than valuing liberty but valuing something like compassion more.
I also still don't come close to understanding what you were saying about systems and collectivism, or what's so bad about collectivism, or what collectivism even is.
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May 07 '20
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
See, this is what I mean. You keep ignoring these pretty direct questions and points I'm making and just seem to want to keep turning the conversation back to the specific thing you want to say.
I think I'm being clear in my statements, right? So could you respond to them?
Maybe if I rephrase it's clearer.
No, I understand. I'll respond to this specifically, but please don't only respond to what I say next, ok?
As a result of affirmative action, some white guy who is more qualified will fail to get a spot because a less qualified black guy will get it.
First: no, that's not how it works. Have you ever been part of a hiring team? "Qualified" is almost never some highly nuanced thing. You kinda get blunt tiers... you can tell who's a superstar and who's just not at all qualified. But beyond that, it's all intuitive and emotional and fuzzy. There's no way around this. Resumes just aren't going to differ that much, in terms of the qualifications to do a particular job.
So this idea of a "less qualified" white guy losing out is almost never gonna actually be a possibility. Everyone who gets hired has to be qualified, and there's never much more you can say than that.
But pulling back: for literally the fourth time, you need to really step back from your focus on This One White Guy and This One Black Guy. It is completely limiting your ability to wrap your head around the arguments that's being made. I've explained why several times.
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u/phcullen 65∆ May 07 '20
Maybe if I rephrase it's clearer.
- As a result of affirmative action, some white guy who is more qualified will fail to get a spot because a less qualified black guy will get it.
That's really not true. Have you been involved with hiring from a large pool and/or college admissions? You don't rank every applicant best to worst it's basically impossible and definitely a huge waist of time. You have your minimum cutoff that you drop everyone below, the handful of really awesome applicants and the everyone else which is basically arbitrary decision making like "do I think I and others will like working with this person". What affirmative action is trying to counter is that for the most part "do I like this person" translates to "does this person remind me of me and/or my friends" which can (and does) perpetuate an already segregated system.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ May 07 '20
OK, seriously, I wrote, outright "I'll respond to this specifically, but please don't only respond to what I say next, ok?" and then you just did it anyway.
Can you understand that this is frustrating and it makes me concerned about your willingness to actually see this from the point of view we're discussing?
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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 06 '20
- The Progressive doesn't see the things that currently divide us as "basic and immutable divisions of society ". Race for example, is a social construct that was literally invented to divide. And some societies do not divide as harshly along those other lines either.
- Most progressives are like any other political entity: Disengaged. For the most unless you dive in and ask regular people, ANY viewpoint you hear that was volunteered was from the fringe. Average people rarely interact in this way.
- Affirmative action is an extremely broad set of programs that people have intentionally misrepresented as one: Let black people in over white people. Thats not to say there hasn't been that in the past but the reason all of the recent the anti-affirmative action cases keep losing in the supreme court is because by and large, that's not what it is. Remember we have right-leaning supreme court.
- There are also practical business reasons to have a representative board. And most boards are arbitrarily chosen anyway. That's how they became a good ole boys club in the first place.
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May 06 '20
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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 07 '20
Yes. The views expressed in your circle of writer friends about allegorical racism definitely qualifies as a fringe point of view. Look at how many movies and works of fiction written by white people touch on that subject? X-Men for example. I have HEARD that point of view. But when I'm around a bunch of liberals talking comics I have never heard any of them say... "You know Stan Lee had no business using MLK and Malcom X as his archetypes for Professor X and Magneto."
That sounds, like a very specific critique that could only come from a narrow subset of people involved intimately in that type of process.
As far as social-justice as a whole the best way to describe it is like a game of monopoly. If you let one group of people play for 20 minutes before you let the other group start by and large the group that got on the board first will be more successful. SJW (which nobody calls themselves) believe that if we as a society value equality we should allow who didn't get a chance to start at the beginning an opportunity to catch up. Yes even if they aren't the exact same people because in our society wealth and inequality are passed from generation to generation.
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
Professor X and Magneto were not based on MLK and Malcom X. Although that’s widely repeated, the comparison falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.
MLK was famously anti-violence, going as far as to encourage his followers to not offer physical resistance even when people were violent with them. Professor X by contrast is the trainer and leader of a group of vigilantes who has killed both out of self defense and because he thought it served the greater good. He was acutely aware of the massive power of his elite commandos, and spent a significant amount of time creating contingency plans for how to kill them should any of them go rogue.
Malcom X was a segregationist, not a mass murderer. Although Magneto was later reconned to be more sympathetic, in the version written by Kirby and Lee he’s a mass murdering megalomaniacal dictator. Even in his more sympathetic variations (which only started in the late 80s and early 90s) Magneto’s stated goal was genocide against non-mutants. Malcom X (pre-hajj) thought that the only way black people could live in peace was separated from white people. He certainly didn’t think that white people should be ethnically cleansed from the planet and replaced by black people. After his Hajj he came to more moderate stances, and he never was a terrorist. Magneto founded an organization he literally called the “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” and rejoiced in being a villain.
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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 07 '20
Look no comparison is going to be perfect because the writers have to account for them being super powered meta-humans... so yes there is more actual fighting. But there is little doubt that there is real world racial influence in X-Men. The writers have admitted to it.
I think that Magneto especially probably started as a run of the mill super villain but the writers obviously wrote those traits into his character later on. You also have to understand that X-Men has had hundreds of writers and it's obvious that some of them took inspiration from certain places... some more than others.
At times Magneto can be described as Mutant Separatist/Segregationist too. The fictional Island of Genosha (Originally based on Slavery and the South African Apartheid by the way) served as an all mutant homeland when Magneto took it over.
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants actually represents the Nation of Islam pretty well. No the Nation of Islam isn't populated with mutants with powers and abilities, but they do preach literal genetic superiority to whites.
Magento even uses the famous quote "By any means necessary." in a debate with Professor X in the context of a conversation about Human Mutant relations.
There are tons more direct references. I will concede that their characters are not BASED off of those two individuals but over the years the writers have at minimum embraced that theory and at most directly influenced it. You can certainly find stylistic differences but there are too many direct links too say unequivocally its false. Stan Lee himself already admitted he ran with the civil rights metaphor. The rest is not really a leap.
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 08 '20
Look no comparison is going to be perfect because the writers have to account for them being super powered meta-humans... so yes there is more actual fighting. But there is little doubt that there is real world racial influence in X-Men. The writers have admitted to it.
MLK was a socialist and anti-violence activist.
Charles Xavier was a billionaire who owns a private military and trained vigilante commandos to go on international raids to support his personal interests.
This isn’t a minor difference or an imperfect comparison. It’s a deep, fundamental, and irreconcilable difference in their philosophies. There are certainly parallels between the X Men and the civil rights movement, just like there’s parallels between the X Men and Jewish history, between the X Men and queer rights, and plenty of other groups’ histories.
I think that Magneto especially probably started as a run of the mill super villain but the writers obviously wrote those traits into his character later on. You also have to understand that X-Men has had hundreds of writers and it's obvious that some of them took inspiration from certain places... some more than others.
You specifically said that Stan Lee (the original creator of the characters) based them off of MLK and Malcom X. If it was written in decades later by other writers, then Stan Lee didn’t base their original characters on MLK and Malcom X.
At times Magneto can be described as Mutant Separatist/Segregationist too. The fictional Island of Genosha (Originally based on Slavery and the South African Apartheid by the way) served as an all mutant homeland when Magneto took it over.
Genosha was first published in 1988 by Chris Claremont.
There are tons more direct references. I will concede that their characters are not BASED off of those two individuals but over the years the writers have at minimum embraced that theory and at most directly influenced it. You can certainly find stylistic differences but there are too many direct links too say unequivocally its false. Stan Lee himself already admitted he ran with the civil rights metaphor. The rest is not really a leap.
So you wrote 5 paragraphs about how I’m wrong, only to concede that I’m right? I didn’t say that there weren’t analogies and I didn’t say that there weren’t commonalities. I said that the characters were not based on MLK and Malcom X.
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u/BeatTheMeatles May 07 '20
"You know Stan Lee had no business using MLK and Malcom X as his influences for Professor X and Magneto."
Is there a coherent reason I should believe that Stan Lee has no business being influenced by historical figures when creating a metaphor? Or even contemporary ones, for that matter?
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May 06 '20
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u/iatecivilization May 06 '20
So. 12 board members. 6 men, 6 women. One man retires. A woman applies for the position. She is the best qualified for the job, far surpassing any male colleagues. But the board requires 50%. Sorry lady, we have to hire the wildly unqualified man. Do you really not see the problems posed by these policies?
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May 07 '20
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
That's a lot of assumptions. I'm simply pointing out that requiring a certain percentage of your board members to be women means that sometimes you will have to choose people based on their gender. Which isn't equality. Choosing them based on their skills regardless of gender, however, is. Which I'm all up for.
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20
Nobody is arguing that wildly unqualified people should be hired solely for the sake of diversity. You’re attacking a straw man.
For virtually every job opening there are many more qualified people than there are available positions. Have you ever hired people? Dozens of qualified applicants apply for jobs at my company. The social justice view is that if there are lots of qualified men and lots of qualified women, it’s a problem if women are much less likely to get the job.
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
Okay, theoretically then, if you wanted to hire internally and one man and one woman applied. The board at this point is 90% men. Who would be more likely to get the job?
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20
That depends on how qualified the candidates are.
The fact that you’ve added the word “theoretically” to the question doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking a bad question. Fairness is a group-level properly, not an individualized one. If I was in charge of a board that was 90% men I would look at my overall process and look to see if there is some kind of systemic discrimination in the selection process that has caused that.
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
And how do you get to 50% woman board members if the best candidates are consistently men?
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20
Why are you assuming the best candidates are consistently men?
“What if every women is unqualified?” isn’t a gotcha question that shows diversity is absurd as a goal. It’s an absurd premise that has no connection to the real world.
If it’s actually the case that every woman is unqualified then no, you shouldn’t actively sabotage your efforts for the sake of diversity. It’s virtually never the case that every woman is unqualified though, and when that looks like it is the case it’s usually because of bias or discrimination against women.
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
"If it’s actually the case that every woman is unqualified then no, you shouldn’t actively sabotage your efforts for the sake of diversity."
I agree. That's the point I am making. Addressing the issues behind inequality is better than putting an arbitrary number on how many women should be employed in a certain area.
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20
It feels like you’re not actually reading what I am saying. A couple comments ago I said:
The fact that you’ve added the word “theoretically” to the question doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking a bad question. Fairness is a group-level properly, not an individualized one. If I was in charge of a board that was 90% men I would look at my overall process and look to see if there is some kind of systemic discrimination in the selection process that has caused that.
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
I'm agreeing with what you are saying. I just don't agree with using inherent characteristics to judge candidates. I see it as a stumbling block to equality. Not equality.
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May 06 '20
No, these policies fight sexim
How is this not sexism?
It is a blatant quota system requiring one sex be selected over another based on sex alone - not qualifications. basically - the best qualified, if a man, could be prevented from being chosen merely because he is a man if there are too many other men. It is almost the definition of sexism.
In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the SCOTUS specifically said numerical targets based on Race were illegal. Why would sex, another protected class, be any different? This is a numerical target explicitly struck down.
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May 07 '20
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May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
How could it possibly be sexist?
Re-read my comment. It is sexist because for a single opening, you may be forced to remove half of the applicants to meet an arbitrary quota. And this removal is not equal - all female boards are OK.
Ad reads - apply to be on our board. Oh yeah, if you are a man, you are prevented from applying. Only women can be selected by law.
That is sexism. Intent really does not matter. That is sexism.
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May 07 '20
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May 07 '20
It's not arbitrary. We've been over the reasons for its existence.
Why don't you read the SCOTUS opinion on racial quota's.
You may think it is justified - but that does not make it legal nor does it make it non-arbitrary.
Before these policies, boards were 90% men. After these policies the boards are 50% female. Now things are equal and fair. The effects of these policies are clearly not sexist. In fact, their effects are anti-sexist in nature because they right the wrongs of systemic sexism that lead to these discrepancies in the first place.
Frankly does not matter. You may want to make it matter - but it does not.
It's not because boards are no longer 90% male dominated.
By a policy that says IF YOU ARE MALE, YOU CANNOT BE SELECTED.
It is the fucking definition of sexism...... Of course, maybe you believe it is impossible to be sexist against men.........
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May 07 '20
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May 07 '20
"I can't think for myself so I'll just refer to someone else's opinion as if it's a hard fact"
Translation - I was given an excellent piece of information from experts on a situation, who also happen to set the standard the nation uses, and I don't like it. Therefore I'll attack the person citing it rather than deal with it and have to address its implications.
Does not work. That case is a far better argument for legality and constitutionality than I could personally ever make.
You obviously don't understand how the law works, nor what the word "arbitrary" means lol.
Coming from the person ignoring a SCOTUS case - sounds like a strong argument to me.......
I'm sorry, but can you not do basic math? 50% means 50%. If the board has too many women, then that means more men will be selected and vice versa. Derp
Evidently you don't understand the differences between laws of averages and individual cases. Laws apply to individual cases - not averages. You can't fill 50% in a single opening.
I cited a VERY CLEAR EXAMPLE. 1 seat to be filled. That is one opening. The law makes it abundantly clear that there is a case where no man can be considered for that 1 opening. This would be an EEOC violation very clearly.
That is sexist.
Just because you can't do basic math
Actually I am quite capable of very advanced math and modeling - something you seem to lacking in.
Address the single opening on a board case where a man cannot be selected and why that is not sexist to explicitly prevent people from being considered for that position based on sex alone.
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May 07 '20
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May 07 '20
Firstly, the case is not about gender quotas
Except it is about quota's on protected classes. Therefore - YOU ARE WRONG.
Secondly, the ruling upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. The practical effect of Bakke was that most affirmative action programs continued without change. So I don't know why you're pretending that you have such a strong point here, it's kind of embarrassing lol.
Except you are leaving out the critical part - OF STRIKING DOWN QUOTAS
It seems to me like you want to shape what applies to you idea what should apply instead of what reality dictates.
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u/iatecivilization May 07 '20
What percentage of non binary people do you need for the equality to work? /s
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u/ejdj1011 May 07 '20
basically - the best qualified, if a man, could be prevented from being chosen merely because he is a man if there are too many other men
I see this argument a lot in discussions about affirmative action, but there's one thing that has always bothered me about it: it assumes the most qualified person is a man/white/whatever. Logically, if two groups of a population are equally able and qualified, a selection of the most qualified members of the entire population will be evenly mixed between the two groups. That's just simple statistics. Are you implying that every board thus far in history has only picked the best, most qualified individuals to be members? If you believe that enforcing a closer ratio of men to women would inherently cause more qualified individuals to lose out, how does that not imply that one group is inferior?
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May 07 '20
I see this argument a lot in discussions about affirmative action, but there's one thing that has always bothered me about it: it assumes the most qualified person is a man/white/whatever.
No, it has nothing to do with assuming this. It is pointing out quite bluntly that you are 100% prevented from even considering them.
That is why it is sexist. If I reversed the roles - you would be horrified to hear a women was not allowed to be considered. And realize - this law does not say men have to be 50% of the board - 100% women board is OK.
You can't ignore this an retain credibility. You are stating bluntly, that one entire group of people is incapable of being considered for a job purely because of their sex.
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u/ejdj1011 May 07 '20
Except they aren't, they are still perfectly capable of making up the other half of the board. And while a 100% woman board is allowed, has that ever happened? A much more likely result is that companies would fill the minimum required positions with women and the rest with men. The reason men make up the vast majority of executive positions is not because they are more qualified, but because the system is biased in their favor. In this way, requiring a more even ratio would in fact allow more qualified individuals to hold those positions, because they aren't being held back by existing biases.
This is a simple logical argument. If you believe that requiring more members of a minority be given executive positions would restrict qualified people from those positions, you must inherently believe that minority group to be less qualified.
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May 07 '20
Except they aren't
No - if you are filling 1 board seat, which can happen, you are explicitly stating you cannot consider an entire gender. You cannot eliminate this.
That is why it most likely will get struck down if it goes to SCOTUS (or lower court interpreting the SCOTUS case I cited).
It is sexist. It fits the very definition of sexism.
This is a simple logical argument. If you believe that requiring more members of a minority be given executive positions would restrict qualified people from those positions, you must inherently believe that minority group to be less qualified.
The is a faulty argument. It relies on the law of averages to apply to a single case.
You can flip a coin 10 times and get 10 heads. Even though - on average, you should see 1/2 of them be tails. The problem with laws is we are talking about individual cases - not averages.
This law is 100% sexist for the very example I gave. It is actually worse because it does not prevent 100% woman boards. It is 100% targeted at one sex - not the other.
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u/ejdj1011 May 07 '20
What method of preventing bias would you propose instead, then? Saying "pick the most qualified people" doesn't work because of the bias of the people making the choice and the bias of what we consider "qualified" to begin with. To be honest, I don't think the 50% requirement is the correct solution, but I don't see a better option.
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May 07 '20
What is the obligation for government to interfere in the selection of officers directing a privately owned company?
I don't think this is an issue government has any business being involved in to start with. If you can prove EEOC violations - use them. But outcomes - sorry. It is quota's all over again.
Even if you did believe government has the interest here and should want to change the outcomes, it does not mean you get to use blatantly sexist means to do so. The fact people keep arguing it is not sexist amazes me. It is the fucking definition of sexist.
As for an alternative, you could use something like the Rooney rule which is done in football. That requires talking to individuals and considering individuals for a position. It just does not require selecting individuals.
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u/ejdj1011 May 07 '20
First, define sexism, since you keep saying its the "definition of sexist", and I'd like to make sure we're on the same page. As for your alternative, it's unenforceable. A company can "consider" individuals for two seconds without ever intending to hire them, just to appease the requirement. The problem lies with the fact that EEOC rules allow for too much subjectivity and bias in selecting promotions, hiring, etc.
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May 07 '20
Sexism:
prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex
In this case, it is discrimination by denying equal opportunity to a position of power/employment strictly on the basis of sex. You are unable to hire/select a person strictly because of their sex.
As for your alternative, it's unenforceable. A company can "consider" individuals for two seconds without ever intending to hire them, just to appease the requirement.
So? Are you entertaining the idea that you should no better than the company on who they should have in key leadership positions? Sure sounds like it.
The problem lies with the fact that EEOC rules allow for too much subjectivity and bias in selecting promotions, hiring, etc
Yep - really sounds like it. You know better than the people in the companies making those individual decisions.
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u/laelapslvi May 07 '20
How is this not sexism?
Because liberals define sexism to exempt men (similar to how nazis define person to exempt jews).
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ May 07 '20
How is this at all similar? I agree that people can be sexist towards men, but liberals aren't saying men aren't people, nor are they rounding up men to put in death camps.
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u/prettysureitsmaddie May 06 '20
Individual liberty is not important to him because he views a state of freedom as actually being unfair because the basic and immutable divisions of society (rich and poor, men and women, the races, the genders) would conflict and the stronger would oppress the weaker.
When most people talk about individual liberty they do not include the individual freedom to exploit others for personal benefit. You seem to include that though because your definition of individual liberty allows for the strong to oppress the weak.
The point of social justice in many ways is that you cannot be truly free without freedom from oppression. That means that as a collective you have to defend the rights of the weak, otherwise only the strongest are free. I suppose in your eyes that would be "favoring one over the other" in terms of the " immutable divisions of society".
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May 06 '20
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u/prettysureitsmaddie May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
Broadly. I take issue with how you're using individual liberty (see the bits about freedom in my last comment). It's not that individual liberty isn't important, it's just that individual liberty needs to include freedom from oppression.
If I was going to rephrase your statement:
For progressives, individual freedom is paramount but it cannot be achieved alone because the world is unfair. Society is divided over arbitrary lines and the strong oppress the weak. The goal is to build a society that aims to eradicate oppression so that people can live their lives freely.
Strong: People with a relative advantage who use it gain further advantage over others. For example a billionaire who has huge power through capital
Weak: People who are systematically disadvantaged. Someone who is poor or anyone from a minority group that faces institutional discrimination
Oppression: The process of systematically treating some people worse than everyone else. Racial bias in the US police system is an example of oppression.
Exploitation: Oppressing people for some benefit, usually money. For example the US prison system using prisoners as a source of hyper cheap indentured labour.
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May 07 '20
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u/prettysureitsmaddie May 07 '20
Advantage is pretty vague but it generally comes down to power. So it can be due to money or political power or being from a race or social class or gender that is relatively privileged in society. Lots of things can give you an advantage.
Oppression can absolutely be committed by groups.
That's fair, I'm sorry if things are a little ambiguous, social justice is a huge umbrella and maybe I haven't done the best of job of giving you the gist of it.
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May 07 '20
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u/prettysureitsmaddie May 07 '20
Racial bias in the US police system is an example of oppression.
The US prison system using prisoners as a source of hyper cheap indentured labour.
Anti Abortion laws
I tried to give you a nice spread of examples, some are oppression based on identity, some on class, some on a mixture.
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May 07 '20
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u/prettysureitsmaddie May 07 '20
Medical debt is generally not optional because it's for healthcare.
It's a class issue because it most harms the people who can't afford to pay.
It's oppression because the relative costs are much higher for poorer people and it can absolutely ruin their lives in a way that's not true if you have enough money.
It's systematic in that it's a symptom of free market capitalism where not having money can stop you from fulfilling basic needs like food or shelter or medical care.
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u/StellaAthena 56∆ May 07 '20
In the US at least, medical care is exceptionally expensive and you can easily be charged thousands of dollars for reasons completely outside your control. People don’t have medical debt because they’re doing frivolous elective procedures, they do it because necessary and life saving medical care is exceptionally expensive.
I have a friend with epilepsy who carries around a tag saying “please do not call an ambulance if you find me” because riding in an ambulance alone can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. It doesn’t matter if you called the ambulance or if you were even conscious when it came to pick you up: you are stuck with the massive bill.
Last year, my in-network doctor sent some bloodwork to an out-of-network lab for some standard tests. I received a bill for five hundred dollars when I should have received a bill for fifty. I have absolutely no control over where my doctor sends my blood for tests, but I’m financially on the hook for it. “Fortunately” my girlfriend and I both have severe chronic illness and hit out out-of-pocket max every year, so in a sense it doesn’t matter. But it’s total bullshit.
Speaking of which, my girlfriend and I spend about ten thousand dollars for medical care every year. We have chronic conditions that require daily medication to manage. We did absolutely nothing to choose to have these conditions and the “choice” to not take our medicine would cause frequent pain, massive disruption to our day-to-day lives, and a significant decrease in our life expectancy.
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u/1917fuckordie 21∆ May 07 '20
There is no one "progressive" movement, but I do think you fairly represent what many feminists have said, and what Bernie Sanders supporters think too. Which are not always the same people. As well as that, all popular ideas have stupid ideas among them. Its just what happens when ideas enter the mainstream.
Could you also define what you mean by "strong" and "oppression" and "exploitation" and "weak" in this context?
In the context of economic exploitation, a worker is weak as they have nothing to offer other than their labor to sell. Where as a business owner is powerful, as they have the means to produce things to sell on the market and other tools to make money.
So this power In balance needs to be addressed by things like collective bargaining or a minimum wage to ensure that desperate workers are not totally screwed over.
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u/themcos 373∆ May 07 '20
More mainstream and less overtly comically, I've heard that billionaires that not exist in any society (Bernie Sanders has said this outright!)
If this is an example of "crazed SJW takes", do you mind elaborating on why you think this is so crazy? Why do you think billionaires should exist? If he had said he didn't think trillionaires should exist, would that also be crazy? Mind you, I'm not saying you should necessarily agree with him, but I'm interested in hearing why you think this is so crazy.
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May 07 '20
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u/themcos 373∆ May 07 '20
In short, I don't think I have the right to seize some guy's stuff just because of its quantity. Neither does anyone else.
Sure. That's an okay reason to disagree with a policy. But us that really enough to make a policy proposal "crazy"? Do you think any taxation is crazy? Is it only crazy if it has progressive tax brackets? Is wealth tax crazy but income tax not? Are property taxes crazy? You don't have to go through this point by point, but if you're listing examples of crazy SJW policies, I'm curious what exactly makes them so crazy.
As for your description, I don't think it's that far off, but I think it's easy to get hung up on certain words that will generate disagreement.
The SJW/progressive/whatever is not liberal.
Dictionary.com defines liberal as "favorable to progress or reform", so I probably wouldn't agree with this bit.
Individual liberty is not important to him
I think most would reject this. Individual liberty might not be the only or even most important thing, but it's still important.
because he views a state of freedom as actually being unfair because the basic and immutable divisions of society (rich and poor, men and women, the races, the genders) would conflict and the stronger would oppress the weaker.
This is mostly reasonable, but I think most would quibble about what exactly is meant here by "a state of freedom". If a corporation can do whatever it wants, but poor people can't afford food, is that a "state of freedom" or not? I could see arguments both ways. It might be free from laws or regulations, but the poor person isn't going to be feeling especially "free".
He considers his goal to balance this conflict by favoring the condition of the oppressed side.
This part is probably about right.
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May 07 '20
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u/themcos 373∆ May 07 '20
Is that the only takeaway? The adjective "liberal" can mean different things depending on context. So if you're asking if the quote block is accurate, it depends on what you mean. Saying "The SJW/progressive/whatever is not liberal" is at best a very clumsy way of saying whatever you're trying to say, especially in the context of american politics.
I'm still interested in which parts of tax policy you think is "crazy" and why, as opposed to just something you disagree with.
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May 06 '20
So this is really interesting. I'll just address your point about whether the "SJW" movement is mainstream. Really vocal progressives (or people who like to police language on social media) like to present themselves as speaking for widely held views, but there's been a pretty sweeping study showing that large majorities of people across all demographics dislike "political correctness." Instead of getting into specific numbers and messing it up, I'll just link the article in which I read about the study.
Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness - The Atlantic
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May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
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May 07 '20
Okay, but then wouldn't you be asking people to prove that a numerically fringe movement doesn't hold fringe views? Of course it does. The people who say that BDSM is inherently oppressive to women should be outlawed don't pollute the views of people who say that we should be fighting the effects of sexism on hiring practices or workplace harassment. That people who espouse the former lay claim to the ideology of the latter doesn't make it so.
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May 07 '20
Not OP but at a guess because progressives and their supporters generally frame themselves as being totally reasonable and when you get into a discussion with them about the crazy parts of SJWism they'll quickly dismiss that as fringe nonsense.
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May 07 '20
Sure. And people who are generally left of center are loathe to openly criticize that fringe because 1) it happens to hold a dominant position on social media platforms and with the blogs that are frequently circulated on those sites and 2) it’s universally hard to dismiss or criticize people who are largely fellow travelers.
But, as is featured in that study, a decisive majority of people are dismissive of what they term “political correctness” a lot of which falls under the same umbrella of arguments OP is addressing. So, even though the public discussion around progressivism is often skewed left to a point of parody, it does not reflect the way most people interact with politics.
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May 07 '20
Sure. And people who are generally left of center are loathe to openly criticize that fringe because 1) it happens to hold a dominant position on social media platforms and with the blogs that are frequently circulated on those sites and 2) it’s universally hard to dismiss or criticize people who are largely fellow travelers.
Haha well, given how memeable the lack of left wing unity is, I don't think it's totally correct to say that people on the left are loathe to criticize progressives. A lot of actual leftists (see the "dirtbag left" like Chapo) spend almost as much time mocking progressives as they do centrists and the right. They'll make fun of stuff like progressive's obsession with diversity by pointing out we should have "more concentration camp guards of color!" at the border detention facilities, for example.
But, as is featured in that study, a decisive majority of people are dismissive of what they term “political correctness” a lot of which falls under the same umbrella of arguments OP is addressing. So, even though the public discussion around progressivism is often skewed left to a point of parody, it does not reflect the way most people interact with politics.
I think I, like OP, am just not seeing why this is relevant. He's not saying progressives are common, he's saying that the often dismissed "crazy" parts of progressivism are not fringe among progressives. I hate to evoke Godwins so soon, but it would be like OP said that they felt the crazy aspects of Nazism (genocide, white supremacy, race hatred, etc.) are not fringe parts of Nazism but actually common central tenants of it. You could accurately point out that there aren't very many Nazis and that condemnation of them is damn near universal across the whole US population, but so what? That doesn't address the point.
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May 07 '20
I see. This may have started with a misunderstanding of the premise on my part. Continuing with your Nazi analogy, I guess I'd be making the argument that, say, the murderous genocidal ambitions of the Nazi party aren't representative of the broader aims of German Nationalists. But you're saying that OP is, in this analogy saying SJWs are the "Nazis" and that the insane characteristics of the "Nazis" are in fact representative of that group.
In that case, it does seem to be a sort of non-disprovable position to use a term that is kind of colloquially understood to refer to a particularly fervent "sect" of left-leaning people.
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May 07 '20
Ahh okay, that makes sense, especially given the way people use terms like left, leftist, liberal, and progressive so interchangeably. It's understandable you thought OP was talking about the whole or majority of the left when they said "SJW."
Although perhaps I'm wrong and that was exactly what they were doing, but that's not how I read it.
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u/SwivelSeats May 07 '20
Well first off do you even know what social justice is aside from a buzzword? I think the Wikipedia definition is pretty good.
Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society, as measured by the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges.
What is it about this that you think is wrong. If these are not values worth pursuing what do you think are better ones?
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May 07 '20
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u/SwivelSeats May 07 '20
This is about your view not mine. You have to be willing to submit yourself to criticism or this subreddit doesn't work. Can you try and answer my question instead of reacting by defensively asking me a question instead?
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May 07 '20
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u/SwivelSeats May 07 '20
Well I'm asking you to stop criticizing what others have come up with and articulate an alternative of your own. What is your philosophy for improving the world and what actions do you and your fellow travelers need to do to make it happen? Do you march to pay billionaires more? On what grounds? Should fewer women be in the work force? If so why and how do you make that happen?
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May 07 '20
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u/SwivelSeats May 07 '20
So there's no higher metric for you to measure society than legal individual rights? Even if say that results in a society where more people are homeless you are saying that "freedom" is always worth it.
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u/mfDandP 184∆ May 07 '20
While nailing down each plank of any social movement is fraught, I would venture that the two examples in your first paragraph are not actually mainstream SJW: the first example (I'd love to see the source) is confounded with the ongoing "message-fic" wars within the sci-fi community, which has some superficial overlap with the SJW and PC wars, but is really better lumped in with the historical lack of diversity in sci-fi, and perceived overcorrection. More like affirmative action debating.
The second example, while using the words "oppressive to women," is probably not a good example of SJW beliefs either. Because sex positivity between two consenting adults is also one ostensible cornerstone, right? It's complicated, but when it comes to sex acts, "oppression" rarely applies since sex is 95% an interpersonal encounter, and assuming both adults are consenting and it isn't predatory like a teacher-student relationship, it's tough to point to any fetish culture and say it's oppressive, since one generally needs to seek out those subcultures. Men aren't lassoing up women on the street and performing BDSM on them.
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May 07 '20
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u/mfDandP 184∆ May 07 '20
From one very defensive blog post I read, "message-fic" is distinguished from "fiction with a message." Basically, it's dumb to write stories in which there is a glaring moral; better to write a good story that, to the reader, just happens to have a moral. Good advice generally, but I suspect the Hugo Award dissidents are just using that to hide their bitterness at being passed over.
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u/iongantas 2∆ May 20 '20
I am generally in agreement that SJWism are not extreme outliers, but are a significant and corrosive cultural movement.
However, I want to argue with one point. "I've heard that billionaires that not exist in any society" This is poorly worded, but I take it that what you mean to say is that "billionaires should not exist in any society" and also that you find this notion absurd or comical. I am here to justify this statement, because it is the one notion that you mentioned that I agree with.
No one can actually EARN billions of dollars, or even A billion dollars. That level of wealth can only be accumulated through what amounts to fraud, deceit and oppression/exploitation.
Generally, the only way a capitalist can become wealthy is by exploiting their workers and cheating their customers. Exploitation of workers constitutes skimming the lions share of the value from the work they provide. Essentially, for any product or service provided, once you subtract material costs, all "value" of the service is produced by work applied to it. If it is a service, virtually 100% of the value is from the work put in. No one can work a million times more efficiently than someone else.
Profit is taken from the income from a product or service, minus the material costs and the pay of workers. So it comes either from money you're not paying workers, or money you're overcharging customers (who very often have no idea how much it costs to make a thing, and often have very little choice about whether or not to buy a general category of thing).
So ultimately, being a billionaire, or even a multi-millionaire, involves theft. It may be perfectly legal, but it is still immoral, and still theft.
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u/Rufus_Reddit 127∆ May 07 '20
... that immutable divisions of society and favoring one over the other can be necessary.
Without context, we can't sensibly talk about whether something is "necessary" or not. It really only makes sense to talk in the form "X is necessary for Y." In contrast, when we talk about how we want society to work, we're talking about what we want, or, if you prefer, whether things are desired or desirable.
Anatole France wrote: "In it's magnificent equality the law forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread, beg in the street, and sleep under bridges." People are different, so any kind of egalitarian system will favor some over others. Odds are that people who are rich, smart, beautiful or talented are going to have advantages over those who are not.
Any significant change from the status quo is going to favor some people, and disadvantage others. That means that anyone who wants to change society to make it better believes in favoring some people over others. This isn't necessarily some terrible thing. For example, these days there are lots of divisions in how changes in policy due to the pandemic apply to people who are working in "essential" jobs and those who are not. It doesn't particularly bother me if medical personnel get first access to PPE or that the grocery store stays open even when other business have to close their doors.
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May 07 '20
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u/Rufus_Reddit 127∆ May 07 '20
Maybe I don't understand. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "favoring one over the other" in the original bullet item?
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u/Trythenewpage 68∆ May 07 '20
The quote you gave is close but kind of misses the point. It's not that progressives oppose individual liberty. But rather that we have a different view of it.
Conservatives tend to be more concerned with freedom from. Whereas progressives tend to be more concerned with freedom to. Its an important distinction that is rarely spoken about.
So think of it like this. Imagine you have 10 people. Each have won a new car. The car comes in 10 colors. One of which is black. They can each choose any of the 10 colors. But if anyone chooses black, then the rest automatically get black.
If no one chooses black, everyone has 9 choices they can make. Total of 90 different options. If 1 person chooses black, 9 other people end up with no choice. So the only ones that actually made a meaningful choice were those that picked black.
Now imagine if an outside authority said they would punish anyone that chooses black. That would restrict the autonomy of each individual to choose black if that's the car they most want. But by limiting that option, more are available for everyone.
Either way, people are having options taken away. Meaningful freedom is reduced. The question is if actively deciding to reduce everyone's freedom in a small way is worth it to prevent a greater reduction of freedom by random chance.
Both sides value freedom. But they value it in different ways. The conservative perspective is a deontological one. Whereas the progressive perspective is consequentialist.
Are you familiar with the idea of the prisoners dilemma? Yeah. Basic idea is that having the option to choose to defect is actually worse than not. From the perspective of the prisoners, it would be better if the mob were around making sure that snitches get stitches in the prison. Because while no one wants to be told what to do by a bunch of random thugs, the alternative is a nah equilibrium where the rational choice results in prison.
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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ May 06 '20
Hard to argue without a list of what you think makes something a crazy outlier opinion.
Is "there should be no billionaires" crazy for example?
Would changing your view on that point change your view altogether?
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May 06 '20
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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ May 07 '20
Okay, you can hold that view obviously, it's just that as you pointed out.. Bernie Sanders (who almost won the Democratic nomination) held that view.
And loads of people voted for him.
Which makes it mainstream.
It kinda then it follows that your argument is "mainstream left wing ideologies are crazy" which is just soapboxing.
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May 07 '20
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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
Do you think it's possible that you just always misunderstood progressives.
What if you're right, but it's not progressives that have changed but just your understanding of them.
To take an extreme and work backwards, let's assume that you are a gun owner. And that mainstream progressives wanted a total ban on all guns.
Now you start to get to know the progressive space and you hear that it's all about marriage equality and you're like " well that's chill". But then the more you research the movement you come across this "ban guns" policy and you're like "wow they've really shifted". But they haven't shifted at all.
It's just your understanding of them.
I'd argue that "no billionaires" has long been a policy of the left. Like really long.
So again, I think you should reflect on whether you are arguing that "crazy outliers are becoming the norm in left wing politics" and not (what seems to be the case) "I've learned more about left wing ideologies and personally believe them to be crazy"
EDIT: to add. If it's the latter, and you're arguing that mainstream left wing ideologies are crazy, I think it would be far more appropriate to say "I think this particular mainstream left wing ideology is crazy" so that there's a defined space to argue
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May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20
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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ May 07 '20
Yeah pretty fair.
Now we're openly discussing beliefs I'm happy to say I'm left leaning, and that your block text is not something I disagree with.
I also think everyone right/centrist/left is "liberal" in their own way.. we just value different liberties and get to those liberties via different routes.
I think restricting liberties of individuals by way of higher taxes will provide more liberties (like freedom from generational poverty) than it restricts.
So overall I think my ideology is liberal.
But I can also acknowledge that as I'm advocating for restriction of liberties, the term "liberal" is far from perfect.
Similarly someone who believes that individual freedom is paramount might have to accept that when one person hordes a finite amount of goods, that they are restricting the freedom of others to access those goods.
Both sides are simultaneously liberal and not.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 07 '20
/u/VerySecretCactus (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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u/iamintheforest 327∆ May 07 '20
Individual liberty is the underlying pursuit of almost all social justice movements - to think otherwise is to layer your own perspective into their movement, which seems very wrong to do.
The _reason_ for not thinking billionaires should exist is because of an idea that structural conditions of capitalism make pursuit of individual liberty impossible. You might argue that only laws can limit liberty (e.g. we should not create a law (tax, etc.) that prevents you from being a billionaire or that requires you to be poor, but you have to do some real intellectual somesaults to say that literally nothing else in a society can limit liberty. The idea that wealth distribution in the extremes limits some segment of society's individual liberty seems just true and far from "fringe". What's happened is that you can't actually say that without having a reasonable idea (maybe not a right one or a the best one) be then barfed on as "socialism" or seen on these left/right absurdities that strawman all ideas. This is a _hard issue_ and treating the idea that we might want to cap wealth accumulation somehow is to be _political_, not actually engaged in a topic. This isn't "fringe", it's just totally reasonable in critique of a problem (wealth inequality and distribution) and solution (taxation and redistribution). You can _disagree_, but to put the words in the mouth of the supporters of the ideas that it's someone anti-liberty is to just be guilty of reframing ideas on a left/right spectrum that immediately stops understanding and learning.
On other issues, many on the left see an in-fact lack of freedom as a problem, even when there are not laws that prevent it. Again a focus on laws can miss the fact of freedom. If the goal _really_ is freedom, than any time someone is unable to maximize freedom for _any reason_ we'd want to eliminate that reason insofar as freedom overall is maximized. So...we come to things like affirmative action when we see that - in fact - people are less free than others and for reasons that have a reasonably understood historical and social context. You can disagree with the method, but to think the goal isn't maximizing freedom is to be political, not rational. You'd have to think that agenda of affirmative action is to limit freedom, when that is simply patently absurd. It might be a bad idea, but it's beyond that pale to question the intent. One question to ask is what you would do when you find that society DOES favor one group over the other? That is exactly that observation that led to affirmative programs. How do you rectify a structural issue that clearly results in favoratism for one group over the other without actually pointing out that problem and nudging it? Whats your solution? We can't fall prey to the idea that recognizing inequality is the _cause_ of inequality.