Continuing the conversation

Cross-posted in the comments at DconstructingD; responds to D's comment on this post of mine:

Hmm. We seem to be partly talking past each other. The idea that kids are more civic-minded -- or "a generation of polite, smart, civic-minded Kevin Arnolds", is completely besides the point of my argument. The main problem I have is with people justifying their complaints with "it wasn't like this when I was younger" or some such. Your preferences as a consumer, citizen, etc. are perfectly reasonable and I have no particular issue with the things you named. They may not be my preferences in all cases, or my concerns, but I have zero issue with you having them in itself -- it's the idea that in a past age things were simpler or better or more civil that I take issue with. And not even the simple idea that they may have been -- but rather that arguments that things were better are near-uniformly backed up with, not evidence, but anecdotes, assertions and personal memories. I also find the idea that family life was "simpler" rather than full of different problems to be uncompelling; there are a number of added complexities in today's life, but every generation pretty much has faced more complexity than the previous in certain terms; I don't think we can assert a secular progression in the complexity of family life without defining a lot a lot of terms. The proliferation of information and media don't mean life or relationships were less complicated--for example, there are assuredly certain things in life made more simple by not, for example, owning indentured servants or worrying about slave revolts or attacks by the indigenous peoples. We have a complex war on terror, but don't see armies advancing throughout Europe; we have nuclear proliferation, but the risk of nuclear annhilation seems to have decreased from Cold War brinkmanship. We have venereal diseases, but AIDS is no longer a death sentence.

As far as the civic-mindedness of kids these days, I'm not arguing just from personal experience. There actually are several articles (popular and, I think, scholarly, though I don't feel like searching) that have made this argument; indeed, they made it before I believed it. I was equally skeptical. But my students today are quite different than my students 7 years ago, and much much different than my fellow students when I was in school. I vividly remember in the 90s how completely uncool it was to care about anything. This was clearly different than how the 60s and 70s were portrayed, and certainly, the amount of overt political activity on U of M at least decreased dramatically from the 60s to the 90s. I would argue the 90s were more apathetic than usual; some, and FAR from just me (other faculty, as well as several journalists) have argued the pendulum is swinging the other way. As far as I see it, the jury's out, but this isn't my assertion only, it's a number of people's. And it's certainly plausible -- I think the most likely mechanism is that only a minority of people (or kids) are usually politically active at any juncture in history; in the 60s this minority may have swelled to be more significant; during the 90s I would near guarantee that it decreased; there are signs, far from concrete, that it's back on the rise.

It seems like you and I have been talking past each other in our discussions for months now, I don't know why -- your focus wasn't so much on "kids these days" and insofar as it was it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek; my focus wasn't on how kids were objectively better, and I *certainly* never claimed they were uniformly a group of nice Kevin Arnolds (and I firmly remember Dennis the Menace in several incarnations, thank you! :) My larger point is that if one wants to complain about an issue at hand, that's fine and even often laudable/important/necessary; but the assertion that things were better before is both unnecessary and, I think, largely a product of age and not fact. If one wishes to seriously assert that things are qualitatively or quantitatively different, it should require evidence.

My point was that Language Log and other posts have shown that these concerns are perennial, and as they point out in the comments, if it were indeed true that each generation was losing something over the previous generation, then since the complaints heard of insufficient reading and respect to elders in Sumeria, Rome, and Egypt means that, even at some small objective decline of, say, 5% or less per generation, we would now be at approximately 0.01% of the civility or what have you of Rome. The details of whether or not kids or people are more or less civil would require lengthy debate, but I certainly wouldn't argue it's because they're inherently more beneficient--your point that less-racist kids would be a product of their parents' upbringing is, to my mind, clearly a big part of the truth. But the source doesn't affect the existence (or non-existence) of this quality. Kids have mocked each other with racial, sexual, etc. slurs for time immemorial. I don't know that they do it more or less, though perhaps more openly.

Anyway. I don't know why this is the second or third or fourth time we've had a version of a debate where we seem to not be getting each other's points, but I rather enjoyed it more when we were amplifying each other's ideas rather than deconstructing them. It's important to do both, to be sure, but I still prefer the former :) I don't disagree with a number of the things you find bothersome or disturbing, I do on others. As far as this generation, I'm not the first to have thought things are changing among them, nor the only one, and I think the data would back up a change in attitudes, though perhaps not action. I can't make a strong case of this, but as it's based on more than just my own experience, it takes a faint stab at what I'm asking for. I would say that if I wanted to be taken seriously, I need more evidence--just like if I wanted to seriously argue that they are worse. After all, things *do* change, I just think it occasionally behooves us to define what we think is changing and back it up.

Occasionally, but not always, and especially not if the point we're (or you're) making is really something else :)

More evidence for a pet theory of "Kids Today"

Language Log has a nice bit on the "kids today"/"decline of civilization" trope that consistently gets my goat. (Similar J posts can be found here and, less directly parallel, here.

J-fave & friend D has been on this trope recently, to my mild peevitude.

I'm not sure why this trope annoys me so much, other than perhaps because it seems like a so relativism-laden "my perspective is the objectively correct one" type of attitude. While it can be a source of commiseration, it's also sometimes sallied forth like a prophetic warning. And it is not, of course, that things can't get worse or perhaps haven't gotten worse, but I think it's intellectually incomplete to simply say "Things/Kids/Civilization Is Going To Hell"; Jon Stewart said one of the wisest things I've heard in popular discourse years ago, pointing out to (either Bernard Goldberg or Rick Santorum) that for all the "negative" directions in culture -- violence on TV, swearing, etc. etc. -- it is simply *not OK* to be a racist. You cannot be openly, blatantly racist and a major mainstream public figure--there are certain things that are not OK to say, that were 20, 40, 60 years ago (to say nothing of the sainted times of our blessed and perfect in every way Mary Poppins-like Founding Fathers); there is no de jure, legal segregation, Jim Crow, while still with us in legacy, is not with us in poll taxes or the nearly 5,000 lynchings and racially-motivated murders between 1865 and 1965. As I said on D's page,

"The fact that they used *different* words to curse at people 100 years ago doesn't mean they were more *polite* words. And certainly no one has been caned on the floor of the Senate in a while. Nor has their been a fucking duel between congressmen. Nor are racial epithets, many of which used to be fine in every day speech, acceptable any longer, a huge step FORWARD in my mind. We are, if anything, more civil -- no one has called me "boy" because I was black in my life. I'd say that's plus 1,000,000 points; I'll deduct 100 for inappropriate [placement of the word] "shit" [in an ad that D saw].

The theory I posed years ago, and feel like is increasingly vindicated, is that when people complain of the conditions of youth, civilization, etc. today, they aren't comparing civilization today vs. civilization before, they're comparing their adult perception of civilization vs. their childhood perception of civilization. Of COURSE things were simpler when you were a kid -- to you! Because -- YOU. WERE. A. KID. Don't confuse this with the world actually being materially simpler or different. For example, I believe (though am not going to look for the stats to show) that the "Roaring 20s" had the highest murder rate in US history; there has certainly always been sex out of wedlock, VDs, war, incivility, swearing, porn, violence, etc. This is not to say the rates of all these things have been constant--they clearly haven't--but nor have they been linearly increasing. Some things, like swearing, one has to look at the language used and what was considered indecent when, but you can see people being chided for salty language in Shakespeare's plays and no doubt before that; we didn't invent naughty words nor their overuse, just because *different* words are naughty now. Kids have always, always been seen as not respectful enough to their parents it seems, so to establish this as a fact and not a cranky complaint takes far more effort than any person who's ever said "Kids these days" in my earshot. And like I mentioned, open racism has simply become verboten--surely a nearly unalloyed improvement, if one that is vastly insufficient compared to actually coming to an end of racism (especially its institutional manifestation). Long story short, some things may be worse, others better, but 99.9999 times out of 100, I'll bet you it's because the world SEEMED simpler when you were a kid because you were a freaking kid; you hadn't been exposed to (if you were lucky) the worst that humankind can muster, or the full wages of every day disdain, incivility, and a lack of an regular, caring space (i.e. parents/family). Whether you were poor and lived simply or had a life of quiet elegance in Greenwich, you hadn't seen very much of the world, had you? So let's be careful about comparing how the world seemed to you then and how it seems now; making any grand pronouncements thereof in reality should be a grand research undertaking (UNLESS, you just want to be cranky -- which is completely fine, I like to be sometimes myself, but don't confuse it with having an accurate bead on the world).

Anyway, the Language Log entry as well as the customarily excellent LL comment area is well worth reading on the topic of Kids Today.

J Signs on to Captain Plaid's Manifesto

J-fave Captain Plaid has briefly returned from his hiatus to lay out why he is (and what is) a "propservralist".

I pretty much sign on to his points without comment; I'm sure I could find things to disagree with, with world enough and time, but his points, on the whole, I find near divine. So why bother? I spend enough of my time disagreeing with things as it is.

He's threatened to take it down, so barring a cease and desist from the ornery Scot himself, here is the pertinent post:

So here’s my first post in what seems like forever. I'd like to think I can do decent work as evidenced by other posts but this one is long, scattered about, likely full of spelling and grammar errors, hardly clear, etc. Still, for the time being, it will have to suffice. I might remove, or even amend, so grab it if you want to keep it and of course please do feel free to offer comments here or via facebook/johngunn or twitter/juntogunto or email at johnralphgunn@gmail.com or …

I've used "propservralist" at times to describe how I’m politically geared. Although it is a work on progress, which should be very much refined, I offer the following as a stream of consciousness summary:

I'm proudly PRogressive and find the idea of taking on problems via legislation and regulation a most rational response.

o I like the idea of letting technocrats and experts nail down ideas yet for the average voter this policy wonk gearing isn't very attractive. Frankly, the US has a very anti-intellectual tradition and some have learned to use this to their advantage. Public policy, the common good, planning, regulation … has been demonized all too much in this last four or so decades. I believe information must be made available to the populace and yet also can accept that “leaders” may at times be required to make decisions the masses may resent.

o I favor a Progressive tax system where taxes are minimal on the least among us and shift gradually upward so that percentage paid increases on the margins above a certain level. I don’t want to go back to 90% marginal rates yet I don’t see that much difference between say 33% to upwards of 40 or even 50%. If you don’t understand what “marginal” means in the above please do a little digging or ask someone to explain.

o I also don’t see why we should allow many multi-nationals and the most affluent to often avoid taxes via offshoring, accounting gimmicks, and the like. I highly recommend David Cay Johnston’s “Free Lunch” and “Perfectly Legal” to see how some game our systems. We can use tax policy to accomplish goals, reward, incentivize … but let’s demand accountability for results and use a “claw back” if and when goals aren’t met.

o Sunshine, open meetings, transparency … are must haves. I can distrust big gov’t as much as Big Biz. The worst of any arrangement is Crony Capitalism.

o I want whistleblowers protected and even rewarded.

o I believe information must be made available to the populace and yet also can see when the grownups must make the decisions for the masses.

o I expect some apathy comes from inadequate education, perceived powerlessness, unsatisfactory alternatives to getting involved, insufficient information, the costs of gaining more knowledge (I’m a big fan of Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy” ideas), and simply an unjust status quo.

o I’m very much in favor of government subsidies to be provided to journalists doing public service, fourth-estate, type work. Without a well-informed citizenry that a vigorous press provides democracy won’t work. The current model is folding and the consequences can’t be denied. Watchdogs must be fed. In fact, the care and feeding of young folks and even the more seasoned doing work that can’t be measured by the bottom line of business is something we could do a much better job at as a society.

o Government exists to provide individuals and their families and communities with a chance to live their own lives in dignity. It can also allow them to form relationships with others free from the hand of powerful public and private forces.

I am pOPulist in that I can't help but think bottom up.

o I believe the common man must always confront the powerful interests which often do in fact hold him down.

o You don’t ask for power but rather you take it.

o I worry that the “tea party” types are stealing our mojo here. Some groups tap into fear and frustration easily but the Left left that approach decades ago. The Conservatives (“Cons” hereafter) have learned to reach our lizard brains where the ancient limbic parts respond to threats, emotions, etc. all too well.

o The recent months have seen a revival of “producerism” that worries me however. While some poor are sorry and hardly do their part, I’d argue most do. Working with the poor can be incredibly frustrating yet we’ve hardly invested enough in social work and related fields since the so called “War on Poverty” back during the 60s. We couldn’t have “guns and butter” LBJ. I’ve read persuasive pieces that it was a false war and a drop in the bucket to transform generational poverty.

o I am convinced being a scrapper is necessary in politics, perhaps especially in the South. I like the label “economic elite” as frankly many have obtained the point where they can buy media, PR, marketing, and the like.

o "Fascism, nativism, anti-intellectualism, persecution of unpopular minorities, exaltation of the mediocre and romantic exaggeration of the wisdom and virtue of the masses" are all possible outcomes of populism. Suspicion of elites has a long history here.

o The idea of broader economic growth doesn’t I’d argue make me a Communist.

o A focus on individual civil liberties, private property, popular sovereignty and democratic republican government is what nearly every populism effort has been built off of.

o Labor can work with biz. Free enterprise on steroids, namely neo-liberalism, however is often just a race to the bottom.

o Today's laissez faire is not as Adam Smith envisioned. I’ve been reading some Smith lately and he’d howl at how many of his ideas have been bastardized.

o Popular culture and popular will have a role to play in this process, but only after sufficient education and only after their more passionate elements have been diverted and diffused. Popular anger and uneducated public sentiments are more likely to lead to hasty and irrational judgments. The conflict of elitism in Progressivism and the popular will in Populism is certain.

o I believe it’s generally a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. The way the modern Cons have privatized pretty much everything, the opportunity to profit from making war is hardly just for those selling weaponry. When Eisenhower left office, he warned us of a Military-Industrial Complex but many don’t know an earlier draft also had Intelligence as part of the mix.

I am conSERVative in the sense that I tend to be cautious and greatly respect traditions. Please note some of the following is placed here simply because many of the Cons have managed to make people think these are “Conservative” ideas.

o I can be a bit of an Agrarian at times. Jeffersonian ideas remain rather attractive to me and simplicity from being near the land is likely how I’d like to wind up my days. Hope springs eternal at least.

o I personally find caring for our environment very much a conservative trait.

o Many of the Conservatives I knew long ago wouldn’t recognize today's movement conservatism types. Many of them were more Libertarian geared and I just don’t think they’d fall for the likes of those occupying positions of power in today’s GOP. Then again, the powers that be in the Democratic Party would be run out of town on a rail by many silenced or ignored hippies like yours truly.

o And while I am attracted to Libertarianism personally, I don’t think it will work that well for such an interdependent world. If you want to go Galt, truly it’s possible. Go right ahead. I bet most would make it less than a year in the Gulch. Just don’t take the balance of the world with you involuntarily as you go off into Randian fantasy land please.

o Neighbors, small businesses, local focus and control, …, if they are Conservative valued ideas, which I’m not certain they are, are certainly fine by me.

o As late as the Nixon administration, the provision of public goods by government was considered perfectly compatible with a market economy. Since then, free-market fundamentalists have largely changed and mastered the debate.

I am libeRAL as I believe humanity can advance.

o Our civil liberties must be protected. No exceptions!

o I believe in the power of law. She’s not perfect and I’ve seen injustices, often related to power and poverty frankly. I’m very concerned with the burrowed in Federalist Society sorts on benches across this land. Our Alabama Supreme Court is largely bought and paid for by the Business Council of Alabama and other Big Mules like Alfa. The Court of Criminal Appeals used to be rather hostile to defense lawyers and I know for a fact they dodged a serious question I once raised in a brief.

o Lockean libertarians who recognize the need for social insurance and regulation were once celebrated yet are now having rocks thrown at them.

o I favor same-sex marriages or at least civil unions. Discrimination can hardly be tolerated as to a person’s sexual orientation.

o I had a person once tell me liberals believe people are inherently good. I'm not sure I buy that yet I do think many are. On some of the laggards, ignorant, … I occasionally think of how I used to work with critters by making it easy for them to do the right thing. Policies to prod, channel, and the like are OK for me but then again just help and a hug work on the face to face work I try to do. I know for a fact I helped some kids I taught or have known and likely could have done more if carrying a fair work load and able to really teach and represent.

o Education is an investment. We ought to be proud to spend money for our future generations.

o Clinton’s welfare “reform” sounded perhaps good on paper and was a winner politically yet only a booming economy avoided a train wreck. The costs of having those babies being taken from their mothers so she could do some type of “make work” is hard to measure but I bet there were and are costs.

I'm a pragmatIST in just getting stuff done.

o I can accept the projection of military power can be persuasive and useful in many, many areas yet hardly think we need the footprint we currently have. We can’t afford it. It’s not our job alone. Finally, our national interests do not justify invading or even threatening a sovereign country absent some rather certain and serious threats. Hegemony sends the wrong signals to many in the world.

o Weapons manufacturers and profiteers love war so we’ve a duty to be cautious with our treasure but certainly blood.

o I certainly think alliances, cooperation, treaties, diplomacy, intelligence, etc. aren’t incompatible with national security.

o The religious right annoys the hell out of me. Their abstinence only sex education” is just one disaster. Kids can have their parents opt them out but let’s let the average kid hear the whole story please.

o For someone to impose their morality into another’s personal life is just wrong.

o I have a healthy skepticism of government and authority.

o I worry about climate change and think the science sound. Even if not, what do “we” really have to lose to shift away from a carbon based economy sooner rather than later?

o I think reflexively anti-government libertarianism yield a lack of investment in badly-needed public capital (schools, infrastructure, etc.) and vulnerable to Big Biz. We can’t run a country, state, city “on the cheap” but can certainly demand smart spending with limited waste.

I also like stirring stuff up, bitching, confronting conventional wisdom, challenging authority, reading, studying, pondering, etc. I am perfectly prepared to change my mind. I hope I am not an ideologue. My ideal politicians are those like Russ Feingold and Chuck Hagel. I like Anthony Weiner, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, etc. I do not support term limits. More to follow but I’m done for now. Except for this quote:

“When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.” - Abraham Kuyper

Peace, John

I found a "copy and paste" portion that I can't track down now. I blended some old stuff and apparently let something slip by. I'll tweak as I have time.

--Captain Plaid: Progressivism meets an Ornery Scot

Bill Maher (6/19/09): "We have a Center-Right Party and a Crazy Party... Democrats are the new Republicans"

One of my favorite rants from Maher since "Bush should just carry around an actual straw man with him to argue with. 'I believe in doing whatever it takes to keep America safe -- Straw Man here, nothing!'" (On the same show, Gloria Steinem I believe made the pithy comment "There are two kinds of people in the world: those that divide people into two groups, and those that don't.")

Anyway: Maher rants about the need for a "first party" and critiques Democrats and the lack of coverage of liberals/progressives in the MSM. And when he says "These aren't radical ideas. A majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended," it's not a liberal fantasy. See for example, part of my discussion with J-fave Becky here and the linked report I discuss in it on actual American public priorities here. (See also this post.)

Maher:

Last week in this space, I criticized President Obama for not fighting corporate influence enough, and it made some Liberals very angry. My phone rang off the hook.
...
As far as you folks on the Right that think that we're somehow in league --- we're not in league! I was criticizing Obama for not being hard enough on the corporate douche bags you live to defend. I don't wanna be on your team. Pick another kid.

So I stand by my words. But there is another side to the story. And that is, that every time Obama tries to take on a Progressive cause, there's a major political party standing in his way --- the Democrats.
...
We don't need a third party, we need a first party. You go to the polls and your choices are the guy who voted for the first Wall Street bailout, or the guy who voted for the next ten.

We don't have a Left and a Right party in this country anymore. We have a center-Right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the Right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital.

So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby --- that's the Democrats.

And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers, and Civil War re-enacters...who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans. And who actually worry that Obama is a Socialist. Socialist? He's not even a Liberal. I know he's not, because he's on TV. And while I see Democrats on television, I don't see actual Liberals. And if occassionally you do get to hear Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky or Dennis Kucinich, they're treated like buffoons.
...

Shouldn't there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military party? A party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the right, universal healthcare, legalizing pot and steep direct taxing of polluters?

These aren't radical ideas. A majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended. And what we need is an actual Progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren't being served by the Democrats. Because, bottom line, Democrats are the new Republicans.

h/t to BradBlog.

Race in America: Part the Next, A Partial Response to D

Continuing this conversation: Race in America: D responding to J responding to D

Wherein D owns what she says, smooths D-Fave J's ruffled feathers, and elaborates, possibly inciting deeper discussion or perhaps further division.

Sayings: owned. Feathers: unsmoothed. Further discussion: imminent. Further division: unknown.

(from my previous post): "Wow. I'm kind of surprised to read this from you at this point, D."

Ok, I'm just gonna say this. This sort sounds like I'm your pet project and I backslid or something. Am I supposed to be sorry for my comments? You should know by now that there is almost always deeper thinking behind my ideas. Rather than shame or disappoint one another, let's get right to them... [some time later] My culture is not the caricature that Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock present to great comedic effect. White America is not Buffy and Chip upset because their tee-time was pushed back half an hour because Obama's motorcade was going through town. Sure, the comedy is in the way white people are ignorant to their incredible privilege and have wackaloon ideas about what it means to be put out, but when this is the pole that I have to swing from, how can I be allowed to have a real voice in the race discussion? It has been my experience (and here I mean ME as an individual) that I am not allowed, outside of our conversations, to be taken seriously in any meaningful public discussion about race. Unless, of course, I concede to the default POC position. And in some ways, J, isn't that what your response to me tried to get me to do?

Horsehockey. This point is one that's repeatedly had my blood pressure rising. You have every right to your voice, to your process, to your indignation at caricature. And in no way was my response an attempt to get you to concede the "default" POC position (which would be questionable anyway because such a default is as contested as anything else one may care to name, and any given person of color you may talk to may have a different default). I wasn't present at these other conversations, so I can't characterize what happened there. But my response was critical and disappointed because I freaking WAS critical and disappointed. Does my mere reaction (or expression of it) deprive you of your voice? Does my disappointment in our difference in point of view mean I'm engaged in a ploy to "shame you" into line? I do see your point here, or think I do: you don't want your perspective to be sidelined or undermined by emotional valences attempting to get you to give up your point of view out of guilt, rather than engaging you on the points and convincing you, or failing to, on the logic. All well and good. But you hardly shy from expressing your emotions, clearly and strongly, on your own blog, and even when I feel somewhat besieged by a disagreement between us, I don't presume you're trying to undermine me with an end-run around logic. I felt disappointed in your perspective; maybe I'm wrong to, but I thought I understood you and you me better than this at this point, and I was surprised to read these viewpoints from you, that I've heard many times from others before and that I find disappointing. I may have been wrong every time up to and including now to be disappointed, but I don't think expressing it is an attempt to make you fall in line. It's just expressing what I feel. Whether or not you should be sorry begs the question entirely; I wasn't thinking about you, to be honest, when I said that, but about me: it was how I felt. Surprised. Because "at this point" I thought I understood where you were coming from better than I apparently do, and I didn't think we'd be having a conversation in this way on these points because, like I say, I've heard variations of what you say for years. And usually such a conversation takes place before the types of conversations you and I have had have been, um, had.

I can see how that might sound condescending, or shaming, but it's also true. And except that we have a personal relationship (that doesn't extend to having met in person =} and I don't think you have one of the same kind with the Field Negro) I don't see how my comments are different, and certainly aren't worse in emotional valence, than when you say of him "I have learned a great deal from the field and respect him immensely, I think this idea (if indeed he actually believes it) is preposterously naive." You do hedge it because you don't think he believes his own theory, or rather, that if he does perhaps it is more in the service of rabble-rousing than serious inquiry, but you surely know as well that HE "almost always deeper thinking behind [his] ideas." This applies even if his theory is serious rather than simply provocative. (I do wonder if you've taken this point up with him on his blog, I'd be eager to learn how he responds.) To briefly light on the relevant point from Field, as you summarize it, "That the black power elite are neither powerful nor elite because the real white power elite can jack-slap them back out to the fields the first time they forget their place. He usually suggests this idea after a powerful black person has fucked up royally... He violates common rules of logic when he applies his pet theory not to the broader community of high-achieving black professionals, but only to those who have fallen from grace." Insofar as I agree with this point, which is at least somewhat far, I would say it's true if stated differently. "The black power elite are neither [as] powerful nor [as] elite [because the risks, penalties to them when they do fuck up are much higher, at higher stakes than the white power elite]." This may or may not be true, but I hardly think it naive, and it doesn't violate rules of logic. If you command equal power to other elite, but only in a restricted set of circumstances -- that is, your power is equal in amplitude but much more tenuous and less stable and reliable -- than in a real way, you are less powerful. Now, one can argue many elements of that formulation, but I happen to think it's largely true. Whether or not this is the specific case of Tiger is rather like arguing whether or not Hurricane Katrina was specifically caused by Global Warming -- a direct correlation with the individual event may not be possible or valid, but it can be seen to fit into the pattern one would expect from the actions of the larger phenomenon.

Anyway. There is more to say, but I feel like we already have much to talk about. This is really a better conversation had over drinks I think--maybe we can do so some time and tape it for re-distribution on the respective blogs. There are too many nagging points, clarifications to be made, reconsidered, and remade to be an easy conversation taking place through large passages of writing, where seemingly the suite of points to be analyzed just grows continuously anyway.

(This is part of the reason I've been reluctant to return; it seems like one of those conversations like getting tangled in parachute silk, it just gets the more tangled the more you move. For example, when I try to deal with this: "I would suggest that white people are forbidden from giving explicit thought to race--at least since the 1960s. Sure, as a group, white America has a lot to make up for after 150 years of cross-burnings, lynchings, fire bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, water hosing of freedom marchers, George Wallace attempting to prevent the integration of the U of Alabama, and promotion testing that favors white applicants. I am the first to admit that white America showed its ass. But that doesn't mean we should have to give up our voice entirely. If anyone, anywhere tries to stand up and say something about the white race these days, they are labeled a Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist as a matter of course." Is so far from comporting with my experience as to be hard to rationally address. I'm surrounded by white people who give explicit thought to race; you can read white people giving explicit thought to race in any of our nation's major publications; you can see it happening in classrooms I myself have taught and attended. Talking about "the white race" may be fraught, but I have never personally been present where a black person tries to shut someone down for saying it. It's a squeamish topic, it's one someone may be attacked for, but being attacked for your point of view in no way counts as not having a voice. Attempts to shut someone down by guilting them, criticizing them, even defaming them may make people dread to speak, but is emphatically not denying them a voice. The first and latter are, of course, not cricket, but to imply that these tactics are limited to use against those who speak of a "white race" is simply incorrect. And I would further maintain that it's not the concept of a white race which is viewed as sketchy, but rather the phrase "the white race," because of its associations with, say, neo-Nazism. Well, unfortunate connotations also don't constitute an unfair tactic by themselves.

To try to get back to big picture, what I'm trying to say is that I don't doubt you've had experiences where people have tried to guilt, shame, restrict, and condescend to you rather than addressing your actual points. However, in comparison, my experience has been that such worries have almost always been exclusively internal in conversations I've been present for. That is, white people worry about being seen in a negative light, or guilted, shamed, or unreasonably dealt with for expressing honest opinions, but never have I seen a black person in a conversation such as this try to do any of these things. There is simply an uncomfortableness and lack of easy ability to communicate; having a voice doesn't mean having a voice that doesn't require being uncomfortable. I can believe your experiences are different; that doesn't make them more, or less, representative than mine.

Race in America: J's Manties in a Bunch, responding to D

This post responds to a post by J-Fave Daktari here.

Wherein I kind of lose it a little bit, and hope that it's still clear that I hold D in the utmost regard, it's just an issue that got my goat, and then got my goat's panties in a bunch. --J

Wow. I'm kind of surprised to read this from you at this point, D. Sooooo many things. I agree with you that Carmen VK's racial identification is imprecise, but racial identification is by nature (as you point out) imprecise. Many, many countries have considered themselves to be races unto themselves, and they can't be said to be wrong any more than they're right.

"There have been times when I have thought that these shifting ideas about what to call POC was merely a way to prevent white Americans from having any sort of voice in the race discussion. As long as you can shout down the majority group by making them feel prejudiced for daring to open their mouths, you own the direction and tenor of the discussion. Bad form, I say."

My jaw HIT the floor here. Let us say, at best, I think you over-estimate the extent to which "People of Color" think/care about what the majority does. That is, while "proper" identity terms have been at times used quite certainly to make others feel prejudiced, I would basically scream out loud that that is not why they were developed. They were developed, in my educated amateur-ish opinion, because after black Americans finally got a fucking VOTE in what we would be called by majority culture, which was only 40+ years ago, we had and have trouble figuring out what it should be. It shifts constantly as we try to find our identity constantly, and debate what we want to emphasize, own, spurn, celebrate, face up to in terms of the willy-nilly thing that is "black culture" in the US. Race, and culture, are impossible to precisely define, but I would definitely say there is a "pole" around which the African-American/black culture centers, and a "pole" for majoritarian culture, primarily the culture of those who don't necessarily have to give explicit thought to race. (There are of course many other poles, especially for the other large racial minorities, but let's confine ourselves for the moment.) That is to say, and I'm trying not to be shrill here, but honey, the terms black, Negro, Colored, African American, Afro-American, Black-American and others are not about you. We're not shifting around to annoy you (the bulk you--majoritarian culture), we're shifting around because we want a term that will do the impossible.

Let me give you a brief parallel: so, I work on food. I recently listened to a talk by the fantastic manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council, Wayne Roberts. He pointed out that the term "food security" lacked an immediacy and confused people, especially post-9/11. The accepted definition of food security is something like "access by all people at all times to enough and appropriate food for a healthy and active lifestyle", but post-9/11 people think more in terms of "secure from attack." Hunger and malnutrition are neither sufficient because they don't inherently entail the issue of access (the prevalent, by far, cause of hunger/malnutrition/food insecurity); food sovereignty is a growing term but lacks common currency in the Global North, over-emphasizes an ideal of the nation-state, isn't clear as to what group is the appropriate unit of "sovereignty", etc. Similar problems evolve from "food democracy." All this is to say, there is no one term that can encompass what we need to encompass within food justice circles. We can't all agree, and the terms in favor shift all the time. We're not doing this, certainly, to keep people from understanding or speaking about food. We're doing it because it's impossible to have the "one right term." The same is true, if not more so, for terms for racial groups.

Then you go into the "we're all human" and "we're all mixed race" and "we're all out of Africa." Well, those things are all true, but the years of research debunking a deep biological meaning for race simply mean that its primary importance and meaning comes from the social. And just because something is socially defined doesn't mean it's not real, it's just different in kind than a strict biophysical property. "Race" is a social construct; but then so are the identities "Christian", "Hindu", "Atheist" "Agnostic" "Democrat" "Republican" "Anarchist" "Bat-shit Crazy Follower of Ayn Rand's Fucked Up Ideas." Yet we'd never argue that "there's no such thing as Christians", or "look, all religious beliefs and lack thereof originate from humanity's inability to know and understand everything; I'm going to say we're ALL agnostic because all faith or conviction against faith hinges on the problem of 'a-gnostia' (the word I think I just made up meaning "a state of not-knowing")".

I mean, yes, of course it's important for us to emphasize, identify with, realize and cherish our shared humanity. And race is not all-defining and should not be; even under slavery, race was not *all* that a human being was, master or slave (though it did determine, if you were a slave, nearly all of how you would be seen by others one could argue). The fact that we share a common ancestor is relatively immaterial to all this, because as you imply the biology of it all is a red herring.

By debunking the red herring, you haven't really said much about the actual import of the situation I'm afraid. Tiger's deal is a complicated one, and the race aspect originates in a combination of internalization/indoctrination and earlier solidarity. That is, the rules under slavery were "one drop of black blood makes you black". Impossible to enforce in real life, of course, but certainly true in terms of if a black ancestor could be reasonably identified for you, you were automatically not white. If you were fair-skinned and, say, had some kind of social status, and it wasn't your father or mother but perhaps grand or great-grand that was black, you might hold onto not being a slave or total second-class citizen. But first class was closed to you.

Well, a couple hundred years of that attitude, and African Americans/black (which I use interchangeably for blacks within the US) internalized a lot of it. Self-policing means that if you have, let us say, "some drops", and (primarily these days) some subset of typically black phenotypes, you are considered "black." There is/has been a lot of push-back from mixed race people, but let us remember that openly mixed-race kids has only stopped being of some significant degree of social note in your own lifetime, I'd think.[Addition: Outside of this internalization, "claiming" mixed race individuals as black was in part solidarity and strategy, I think, as also until relatively recently, being identifiably mixed race was almost as much of a problem/stigma as being black. So mixed race children were forced to live the social experience of their black parents to some extent, both while they were raised and to an extent as adults I would think; identifying as black was a statement of solidarity, and a strategy in coalition-building to fight all racial prejudice. Beyond that, claiming mixed race people as "black" allowed blacks to point to many successful African Americans as role models and counter-examples for our supposed inferiority. But many, many of the early successful African Americans were mixed -- their success came in part from either "passing" as white, or from advantages gained from, say, a white father who supported his mixed-race kids with one of his slaves. But once they had achieved great things, through either mechanism, it was useful and quite sensical to say, both for the sake of our own role models and to "prove" something to majority culture -- "See! You see! Black people CAN do that; we ARE as smart, as capable! Your own standards say one drop of black blood makes you black; well look at him/her! Black, powerful and proud!" The rhetorical usefulness of this quite drops if you start talking about mixed race explicitly, beyond which, since race *is* more social than biological, it makes perfect sense in that atmosphere to claim mixed-race people, who would've been equally discriminated against where they could be identified, as black. Since it's socially constructed, they were black, because they were treated as such.-end Addition]

As far as "I read a recent blog post on Feministing wherein people say that if a minority calls me an epithet, it's just being rude, but if I call a minority an epithet, it's a hate crime, I wonder how f*#@'d up our ideas about race have really become", I thought we'd already had this conversation. But in any case, something well reflecting of my opinion of this is here and I address it directly here. I'm heavily indebted to this essay by Stanley Fish. I disagree with much in the article, but not with the overall point here: "The hostility of the other group is the result of [racist] actions, and whereas hostility and racial anger are unhappy facts wherever they are found, a distinction must surely be made between the ideological hostility of the oppressors and the experience-based hostility of those who have been oppressed." The details of this formulation may be more arguable in a world where oppression is more subtle, but its substantial truth, I think, remains.

It seems to me your panties got rightly in a knot over some of the foolishness around Tiger. That foolishness, however, doesn't invalidate all race, just as the East Anglia data set debacle doesn't invalidate Global Climate Change. We may be much closer to a world where "Money and fame make everyone colorblind", but we are not there. Money and fame makes a lot appear colorblind, and we are perhaps closer to that than the world of the joke

Ques: "What do you call a black, Harvard-educated bank president?"
Ans: "A nigger";

but we are no more wholly in the wealth & fame colorblind world than we are wholly in the one of the joke.

Response to D: Limits to Know(th)

(This responds to the post from J-fav D here responding to my previous blog post.)

Wow D, you are way too certain of your own premises for my comfort =o

For one thing, despite your pessimism on people and the ability to control ourselves without top-down (or other external environmental) regulation, the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, Elinor Ostrom, has made her career of showing examples of precisely this. There is also a not-insignificant number environmental historians who believe that there are examples of this in the past. There are certainly examples of both groups that have exercise sustainable management of common pool resources, and of groups that have exercise population control (i.e. with the use of various plants that could be used to terminate pregnancies). One can definitely argue that the tendency of other human groups, perhaps the majority, to expand often or inevitably wipe out smaller pockets of sustainable living, but now one is arguing something rather different. That is, if sub-groups of the human population have managed to live sustainably over long periods (and I would maintain the evidence strongly supports that some groups have), then they are indeed examples of biological populations not controlled by “natural limits” but rather self-imposed social limts. To then say that this is wholly disproved by other groups that don’t live by limits is to essentially say that one (albeit significant) set of groups of the human population represents the one “true” nature of the entire human population.

Further, the whole argument that it’s not going to happen pains me almost physically, because it reminds me so vividly and precisely of the arguments that, for example, slavery (especially its “peculiarly American institution”) would never end, or that women would never achieve a more equal place in society, or contribute to science. Go back 75, 100 years, and you could find no doubt thousands of people, perhaps millions, people as smart as you, who would say “Not. Gunna. Happen.” Slavery is here to stay; women are biological incapable of becoming plant ecologists; blacks cannot handle freedom. We know this for a fact.

And they were wrong as the day is long. As wrong as we may be to say that humans can’t/won’t be sustainable; as wrong as we may be to say that humans can/will be sustainable.

The point to me is that I don’t know. Immanuel Wallerstein has pointed out that we’re in a unique juncture in history (though someone since pointed out to me that you could say that about almost all important junctures of history). Be that as it may, I think it’s only scientifically honest of me to say I don’t know. Oh, sure, we can extrapolate from other biological populations, from human history, from so-called first principles, from whatever you like, but since we all admit that both ecological and social systems are more complicated than their underlying phyisco-chemical constituents, it seems nonsensical to me to then essentialize the larger system down to anecdotes of dumb people we’ve seen, met, and heard of and known and believe exist, the biological destiny of unsustainability, and wrap it up and call it a day. It is, to me, an amazing amount of hubris that I’m not willing to take on, nor think it is productive or useful to do so. To me, saying the we can’t/won’t be sustainable is equally preposterous and hubristic as saying we absolutely will be. Who the fuck knows? Besides which, I think most people agree that the complete extinction of the human race in the near-to-medium term is unlikely, almost no matter what we do to the world. To maintain that we will simply rinse & repeat our mistakes ad nauseum is to ignore the possibility of culture and biological evolution shaping us otherwise. It would take an incredible holocaust to wipe out all the humans on earth; barring that, assuming we achieve something like the average species lifespan (what is it, a couple million years?—ah, wikipedia says for mammals it’s one million) it seems hopelessly facile to me to presume that humans 500,000 years from now will be essentially the same as humans today (and to argue that we will, with certainty, find a way to destroy ourselves before then is equally empirically weak). Any given projection of what humans will be like in the (evolutionary) long term is incredibly flawed, given that predicting this for even the simplest of organisms is wildly dicey, to say the least. Doing this for the most socio-ecologically complex organism on earth is lunacy.

Now, most people respond implicitly or explicitly to this by clarifying that they mean the short-term: they're not concerned with the long-term of the human race in terms of millions of years, but rather, can we avoid disaster in the next 50-200. Who the fuck knows? I certainly hope so. I certainly think study of environmental history gives us reason to think it's possible, as much as it gives us reason to be pessimistic that it's likely. I certainly hope we do not have massive depopulation events and tragedy. But I take solace in the idea that it seems almost inevitable that we will change towards a more sustainable way of being. (One can view this as being of a cloth with what my mom calls my abnormal comfort in rationality, inspired by a trip to Ireland 2 months after 9/11. She was worried about my safety, to which I responded "Well, there are something like 37,000 flights per day in the US, so even if I was flying ON 9/11, the chance that I would've been hurt is overwhelmingly unlikely." There was a pause before she told me I was not like normal people and I should just reassure her that I would be careful and call her when I landed.) And if it is possible to reach in the long term, I think it is only sensical to believe in it and try for it in the short.

The point of my post on the Continuum was that if one believes it is physically possible that we will stave off disaster, it makes no sense to go around emphasizing only that it is unlikely or near impossible. If it is physically possible, it is so in some large part because of our will and ability to learn and organize. Or ability and will to do so is negatively affected by emphasizing its implausibility. So if one cares about pulling it off, one needn't be Pollyannish about it, but why persist with dwelling in negative examples and unlikelihoods?

In my work, I've already seen countries and people accomplish things I never thought possible; feeding a city of 2.5 million people, switching a country as a whole to urban and peri-urban and organic agriculture. If humans found a way to fly when it was said it couldn't be done, if we could get to the moon, split the atom against all odds--why not believe and invest in our ability to break the "scientific" laws of human unsustainability?

"Oh, that's different" people say. Possibly, I say. But equally: Bullshit. We knew women were inferior (though I suspect a number of women all along knew they weren't). We knew slavery was forever. We knew that humans flying was ridiculous. We knew that the sun would never set on the British Empire, that agriculture could never be improved to produce more food, that Rome would never fall, that Monarchies were ordained by God--as Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black, imagine what we'll know tomorrow. In all of those cases, there were all the reasons in the world, and all the dumb/racist/misogynist/scientifically informed people you could want to say it wasn't possible. I'd rather be one of the ones saying it is and turn out to wrong, but I hardly think I'm in bad company to assert that another world truly is possible.

My mentor's mentor, biologist Dick Levins, has said that we know from history that the vast majority of today's "scientific fact" will turn out to have been wrong in the future. The challenge is not, therefore, in simply finding science today that is wrong. It is in finding science that will stand the test of time. I think the same applies to this situation; so many of us know it can't or won't be done. I find this attitude to be a fine way of combining hubris, cynicism, and counter-productiveness. I'm not smart enough to say we can't do it. So I spend my time trying to figure out how we can--what facts will allow us to stand the test of time. To me, to do otherwise is self-indulgence almost equal to that of avoiding vaccinations. It may seem fine for an individual to indulge in, but really, we can't afford it.

J's Reasons Why Maybe... We Can Do this: An abbreviated list

Prugh, Costanza & Daly's "The Local Politics of Global Sustainability" (ISBN 978-1559637442)

Elinor Ostrom's "Governing the Commons" (ISBN 978-0521405997)

The City that Ended Hunger (aka Belo Horizonte)

None of these mean or guarantee that we can do this, but I'll tell you what. If in any case I believe in the slogan "Yes We Can!" it is in this arena. No, We Might Not. Yes, It'll Be Hard. No, It Won't Happen Tomorrow. No, It's Not Wildly Likely, A Fait Accompli, or Inevitable. But: Yes, We Can.

Brilliance: "Obama Administration Statements On The Public Option or A Nervous Boyfriend Trying To Talk His Girlfriend Into Anal Sex"

From J-Fave Fire Mickey Kaus:

Which is it?
Obama Administration Statements On The Public Option

or

A Nervous Boyfriend Trying To Talk His Girlfriend Into Anal Sex

"I’d be happy [if we didn't] do it ... and if there was a way of doing it that [was okay with you], I’m happy to do it that way, as well."

"I'm just kinda talkin' about how it might be okay to do. If you're into that sort of thing."

"No-one is being forced to [do] it."

"I see nothing wrong with having [it] as a choice."

"Whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the [issue]."

"It's certainly not a deal-breaker."

"Only if you're cool with it."

"These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can be overcome."

“I just want to figure out what works.”

"No, I'm just kidding! Unless you were serious ..."

I can't top or add anything to that, except to say that these all seem to be Obama, except the last and fourth-to-last. And the second... ok, so it looks like there are 3 examples that are, as far as I can tell, "Nervous Boyfriend Trying To Talk His Girlfriend Into Anal Sex", and 7 "Obama Administration Statements On The Public Option (That Could Feasibly Double As 'Nervous [and Overly Officious] Boyfriend Trying To Talk His Girlfriend Into Anal Sex')".

Once again, Ruth Bader Ginsberg proves to be the Voice of the J Continuum

God love her. Though I still can't see how RBG and Scalia are supposedly personal friends; I guess they don't let politics get in the way, which in a way is admirable, and another way, kind of... blergh. I guess it's mostly admirable, but it's weird to me: "You have a fundamentally different view of justice, rights, appropriate behavior, and the roll of state than I do, to the point that where I see oppression, you see correctness, where I see sound reasoning you see soft-headedness, and where you see correctness, I see incorrect or wistful interpretation, and continuing of an oppressive system." I guess it's good -- and much needed -- to have friendship across political lines, but when it's someone like Scalia... It'd just be weird hanging with someone who not only differs with you on, say, whether or not the state should put people to death and what constitutes torture, but has and has used his position (quite correctly) to advance his views. (Like I say, it's of course correct for Scalia to do so, it just adds a creepy element to political disagreements, when you each have the power to make your stance part of the "correct" interpretation of the laws of the land.)

Anyway, Emily Bazelon returns to my good graces with this in her recent post on the recent Ricci decision:

Why all the competitive storytelling? The Supreme Court's ruling today will apply whenever cities try to base promotions (or, by extension, hirings) on a procedure that turns out to eliminate most or all of the minority candidates. This is called disparate impact, and Congress wrote it into Title VII in 1991. New Haven's test for promoting firefighters had such a disparate impact—that's one thing all the justices do agree on. The question is, What happens next? Can the city say, hey, we think there's another better way to make these promotions that won't leave us with a fire department led only or mostly by white people; now let us go figure that out? Until today, the answer seemed to be yes. Now the answer is clearly no. If a city in this position sees a disparate impact problem coming toward it like a right, it can only step out of the way if it has, as Linda explains, a "strong basis in evidence" for thinking that the test can't be defended—in other words, that the test it used is more job-related, and a better measure of performances, than the other measures of assessment it didn't use.

The city can't throw out its test even though the results allow for the promotions of no black firefighters because it would be making such a decision based on race or, as Kennedy writes, because "the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white." He is treating the decision to throw out the test and start over as an absolute racial preference. Here is where the bad facts come in: Frank Ricci and the other white (and one Hispanic) firefighters who sued did what they were supposed to do. They studied for the test the city offered, and they scored the highest. But they didn't get the promotions they felt entitled to because no black firefighters scored as well. Justice Ginsburg points out that Ricci and his fellow plaintiffs "had no vested right to promotion." She's right. But to the majority, that doesn't really matter, because the majority focuses only on this test and this round of promotions in New Haven. And when you frame the case that way, Frank Ricci and his dashed hopes take up the whole screen. At which point, you think about justice for them and only them.

Ginsburg widens the lens. She goes back to the early 1970s, when African-Americans and Hispanics made up 30 percent of New Haven's population and only 3.6 of the city's 502 firefighters. This is when the black firefighters in New Haven started suing. Their efforts yielded much better representation among the rank-and-file in the department. But as Ginsburg says, not among the fire department's leadership: "The senior officer ranks (captain and higher) are nine percent African-American and nine percent Hispanic. Only one of the Departments' 21 fire captains is African American." (More from me about the history of New Haven's fire department here.) New Haven threw out the test results because it was trying to rectify that imbalance. To Ginsburg, this should surely be permissible—a city trying voluntarily to comply with Congress' 1991 mandate to address disparate impact.

And then, Ginsburg points out, the majority raises the bar for what New Haven must show to justify throwing out these test results. Kennedy dismisses as "stray facts" in the record the doubts raised about how the test was weighted—60 percent written, 40 percent oral—and the city's proposal to replace the test with an assessment center, which are designed to evaluate the particular skills needed for a job. But Ginsburg sees that the 60-40 weighting simply reflects the demands of the union—the same union that filed its own suit against the city in support of Frank Ricci. And she sees the merit of the assessment centers as an alternative measure. "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least," she writes. "Successful fire officers, the City's description of the position makes clear, must have the '[a]bility to lead personnel effectively, maintain discipline, promote harmony, exercise sound judgment, and cooperate with other officials.' These qualities are not well measured by written tests." No wonder, in Ginsburg's view, a 1996 study found that two-thirds of the cities surveyed were using assessment centers in making promotion decisions.

They make a good point that I've been (inadvertently) dancing around with my fellow discussants in other fora: the (reasonable) sympathy evinced for Ricci and his fellow white (and one hispanic) firefighters in this case is in conflict with the institutional history and less acute but nonetheless real plight of black firefighters in New Haven. And I would differ with my friend EssEee (Sean) who sees institutional racism as less of a problem than institutional discrimination against poverty; I guess part of my counterexample would be the various problems women have with equality of management positions, salary, and promotion (see i.e. Lilly Ledbetter), where the problems of disparity and inequality for women is, if not completely distinct from poverty, relatively so.