The anti-racists are simply postmoderist racists. They are the new racists... the same disgusting actor from the past with the same impulse to punch down others based on their group identity so that they, the puncher, would benefit in someway gaining or retaining socioeconomic status. We should be figuratively ripping the heads off of these people. They are immoral and terrible.
It is so effing stupid in the globalist society we live in today with hyper population diversity, mixed race marriages and blended families.
It is also stupid to join in this agreement that "we all see race". No, we all see people as being different. We are all simply human. WTF cares what skin tone you own? Mine changes by the seasons.
It terms of bias, it isn't race today. It isn't gender. It may be a bit of sexual orientation but that is different as it is bias over lifestyle and behavior, not innate biological appearance. The primary bias we are dealing with today is class bias. It is the growing dangerous disdain we have for people outside of our socioeconomic class, and they for us. This is the primary bias issue with cops... they tend to be paid well and live an upper middle class life, but their jobs generally require them to deal with people that live a low class life. This is the primary bias issue with politics in general.
Murray covered this is his work describing how the lower, middle and upper-middle classes uses to live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same churches, shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, drive the same cars, go on the same vacations. These three strata of classes were different than the wealthy elite, who were always a minority with a separate culture and existence.
However, today the upper-middle professional class has expanded due to the astounding success of US free market capitalism and industrialism. And it has become fabulously well educated and well off. It is filled with people that live a wealthy life (I have eaten at the French Laundry five times).
But the professional class has enjoyed much of their rocketing economic benefits at the expense of the middle and lower classes that have seen their economic opportunities stripped.
The postmodernist woke crap we are inundated with is essentially the work of the professional class to strategically satiate their guilt, and to prevent correction, over the damage done to the poor and working class. It is a great mechanism of deflection. You see, the black man isn't harmed by Wall Street driven globalism to fatten the investment portfolios, and unchecked immigration to provide cleaning services, for the professional class... it is systemic racism. It is racist cops. It is the white male patriarchy. Look there, not at the elites that continue to see their real estate and big business holdings appreciate while the poor and working class sink further into socioeconomic disaster.
I am professional class and I am disgusted with people of my class. They suck. This woke racism junk is maybe their biggest suck. They need to work on sucking a lot less. Hopefully these next couple of elections will get that ball rolling.
I don't disagree with your analysis. I too tend toward the view that 'woke' is a clever way for the beneficiaries of globalization to deflect class resentment (which might otherwise arise). The problem with this theory is that the ‘woke’ don’t agree. Indeed, they vehemently disagree. Try convincing Hannah Jones that she is an agent of the economic elite.
I would offer that following analysis
Cultural Marxism goes back to at least the 1920s. Of course, CM has (vastly) proliferated of late. At least four reasons come to mind.
1. The rise of Cultural Marxism is too some degree, a consequence of the fall of conventional Marxism. Conventional Marxism was (slowly) dying by the 1950s. The Soviet invasion of Hungary and later Czechoslovakia alienated (or worse) a vast number of people who might have otherwise supported the Communist system. The economic failure of Eastern Europe combined with the great success of the “Little China’s” (Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) and South Korea was a great blow to the credibility of conventional Marxism. The Cambodian genocide must be mentioned in this context as well. Of course, the fall of the USSR and China’s switch to Capitalism (and subsequent success) were the final nails in the coffin.
My sense of it is that failure of the Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was a bigger deal than China’s switch to capitalism. The numbers make the converse case. However, I still think the failure of Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was/is more important. I don’t agree, but that doesn’t matter.
Of course, these were monumental blows to the traditional Left. However, the Left wasn’t about to fold its tent and disappear. For better or worse, a huge section of society will never embrace bourgeois values and will be (highly) motivated to reject them. Since conventional Marxism was “the god that failed”, the Left embraced Cultural Marxism as a substitute. Of course, Cultural Marxism is just as crazy as conventional Marxism (perhaps considerably crazier). However, we don’t have easy country comparisons to show how nuts it is (i.e. no North Korea vs. South Korea).
Blank Slate ideology is arguably nuttier than old-style Marxism. However, we don’t (yet) have a Stalin or Mao to attack as the leader of it (Cultural Marxism).
2. As long at the Left was committed to traditional Socialism/Marxism, the right would move heaven and earth to oppose it. Big corporations, rich people, religious people, some union people, etc. all had powerful incentives to oppose traditional Socialism/Marxism. That meant that anti-communist movements, ideas, intellectuals, etc. were assuredly substantial support as long the enemy was “Real Socialism”.
By contrast, CM provokes no comparable opposition (from big corporations, rich people, religious people, etc.). Actually the reverse is true. Party-line adherence to CM is notoriously profitable for some companies. For example, most Tech firms (Apple is a bad example) would be crucified by Democrats/Liberals/Leftists/etc. for their exploitation of the tax system. In real life, the level of criticism is near nil. By declaring their commitment to CM, they gain de facto immunity from criticism from the Left (the Right wouldn’t criticize them anyway).
At least the indulgences sold by church cost real money. Now you just need to pay lip service to CM.
3. There is also (predictably) a class element to this. Old-style Marxism was inherently (too some degree) a blue-collar worldview. Of course, that was never entirely true. Marx was an intellectual. The cliché that “Marxism is the Opiate of the Intellectuals” existed for a reason. However, conventional Marxism was never going to appeal to white, upper-middle class (UMC), liberals for all sorts of reasons, of which class was definitely an issue.
However, Cultural Marxism has no such problem. White, UMC, liberals can espouse and advocate Cultural Marxism without any contradictions (as they see them) and without restraint. Indeed, they do. Studies (Yascha Mounk) have shown that “woke” progressives are one of the least diverse (in many senses of the word) groups out there. Cultural Marxism gives UMC liberals free reign to denounce “deplorables” to their hearts content. Conventional Marxism would have been much more circumspect. Of course, upscale folks have always wanted to attack (rhetorically and otherwise) the working class. However, conventional Marxism constrained the left (but not the right) from doing so.
Cultural Marxism imposes no such limitations.
4. In my opinion, the failure of liberalism was/is a substantial factor in the rise of CM. In the 1960s (and earlier decades and later decades) it was widely believed that liberalism would work. In other words, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would produce a (much) better American where poverty and race would not be intertwined and poverty itself would more or less disappear. That didn’t happen of course. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was roughly as successful as his war in Vietnam.
At this point it is obvious that liberalism has failed (in attaining the goals of the 1960s). Some folks have responded to this failure by basically giving up. However, the most motivated have moved to the left (far left). Note that we here far more about “systematic racism” now (when it doesn’t exist) than we did when Jim Crow was a daily reality.
Yes, Critical Theory in academia seemed to evolve from this desperation to find another wedge to keep the collectivist dream alive as the evidence clearly tagged it as a complete and utter failed ideology. Liberals too have seen decades of liberal ideas not only fail to fix any big problems, but to make them worse.
What do you do when you think you are the smartest and most entitled people in the room but your ideas stink? You don't admit that your ideas stink, you use all that brain power to pivot in defense and offense to destroy the system as is, and to gain the power needed to fail once again.
The only feasible way to promote colorblindness is through color-conscious policies to force integration. Without the aggressive enforcement of equal opportunity and affirmative action policies schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces remain segregated. And segregation perpetuates color-consciousness.
The rhetoric of ‘diversity’ was adopted for pragmatic reasons apropos of the Bakke decision to provide justification for affirmative action. The idea that diversity as such was a good thing was a 'noble lie' that people came to believe--unfortunately because the very idea that diversity is inherently good is fundamentally racist because it assumes that race isn’t just skin deep, that people of different races have different important characteristics.
Diversity does not benefit the majority by exposing them to members of other races—there is no benefit to that exposure since members of different races don’t have anything different to offer. Race is trivial and superficial. ‘Diversity’ programs benefit minorities who would otherwise have been excluded from desirable schools, neighborhoods and workplaces. Still, if the racist lie concerning the benefits of diversity gets minorities entre and promotes integration they I suppose we have to keep lying because nothing else has worked.
Currently schools in northern cities are more segregated than they were during the Jim Crow era and the only way to fix that is forced busing. Neighborhoods are segregated because minorities have a harder time getting mortgages and also are steered to minority neighborhoods. There is data, extensive robust data, showing the extent of discrimination (largely unintentional) in employment, access to credit, funding, and even such things as negotiating the price of a used car.
Discriminatory practices are self-perpetuating precisely because they are for the most part unintentional and innocent. E.g. employers, committed to hiring on the basis of merit see that there are very few members of group X employed in a given job. They infer that since they have (they believe) been hiring strictly on the basis of merit, there are proportionately few X’s who qualify. So in subsequent hires they assess Xs less favorably than comparably qualified non-Xs—and so statistical discrimination perpetuates itself.
There are few jobs where hiring can be done strictly on the numbers or where, as in hiring for symphony orchestra positions, blind review is feasible. There is always a significant subjective component—in interviewing candidates, in assessing letters of recommendation, in making all those judgement calls that go into hiring decisions, in job assignments, employee evaluations, and promotion, and also in decisions about lending, selling a home or renting out an apartment—or setting the price of a used car.
Racial discrimination by individuals, usually unintentional and invisible, is pervasive. That is a fact of life. And the only way to fix it is by government intervention, through the strict enforcement of passive non-discrimination policies and affirmative action. And, I repeat, the aim of these color-conscious policies is to promote integration and, ultimately, assimilation and colorblindness.
"Make society more and more like a blind audition in order to take racial bias out of the equation"
Not a bad idea. Actually, not an idea at all. It's actually been tried (blind auditions for aspiring musicians). The number of women and Asians rose dramatically (obvious questions of causality). However, the number of blacks and Hispanics did not. These days, the New York Times opposes blind auditions "To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions" is an actual title of an article.
I fell into reading this via real clear politics and sooo glad they linked it. A very honest analysis of today. In my reading…color blindness comes down to people just being honest and trying to accomplish just that. He’s right, we’re human, we’ll see race no matter what. It’s the fact we try to not, that’s what the race baiters today hate. What money is to be made if we just realize, there are some twats on both sides that can’t give up their hate, but if the majority of us strive to be colorblind…the world/America would be better.
You can’t legislate this crap…it’s gotta start at home and go on. The damage to our inner cities will take more than any twat politician will do. When was the last time a used car sales man gave you a great deal??? Politicians to a tee…
The anti-racists are simply postmoderist racists. They are the new racists... the same disgusting actor from the past with the same impulse to punch down others based on their group identity so that they, the puncher, would benefit in someway gaining or retaining socioeconomic status. We should be figuratively ripping the heads off of these people. They are immoral and terrible.
It is so effing stupid in the globalist society we live in today with hyper population diversity, mixed race marriages and blended families.
It is also stupid to join in this agreement that "we all see race". No, we all see people as being different. We are all simply human. WTF cares what skin tone you own? Mine changes by the seasons.
It terms of bias, it isn't race today. It isn't gender. It may be a bit of sexual orientation but that is different as it is bias over lifestyle and behavior, not innate biological appearance. The primary bias we are dealing with today is class bias. It is the growing dangerous disdain we have for people outside of our socioeconomic class, and they for us. This is the primary bias issue with cops... they tend to be paid well and live an upper middle class life, but their jobs generally require them to deal with people that live a low class life. This is the primary bias issue with politics in general.
Murray covered this is his work describing how the lower, middle and upper-middle classes uses to live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same churches, shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, drive the same cars, go on the same vacations. These three strata of classes were different than the wealthy elite, who were always a minority with a separate culture and existence.
However, today the upper-middle professional class has expanded due to the astounding success of US free market capitalism and industrialism. And it has become fabulously well educated and well off. It is filled with people that live a wealthy life (I have eaten at the French Laundry five times).
But the professional class has enjoyed much of their rocketing economic benefits at the expense of the middle and lower classes that have seen their economic opportunities stripped.
The postmodernist woke crap we are inundated with is essentially the work of the professional class to strategically satiate their guilt, and to prevent correction, over the damage done to the poor and working class. It is a great mechanism of deflection. You see, the black man isn't harmed by Wall Street driven globalism to fatten the investment portfolios, and unchecked immigration to provide cleaning services, for the professional class... it is systemic racism. It is racist cops. It is the white male patriarchy. Look there, not at the elites that continue to see their real estate and big business holdings appreciate while the poor and working class sink further into socioeconomic disaster.
I am professional class and I am disgusted with people of my class. They suck. This woke racism junk is maybe their biggest suck. They need to work on sucking a lot less. Hopefully these next couple of elections will get that ball rolling.
I don't disagree with your analysis. I too tend toward the view that 'woke' is a clever way for the beneficiaries of globalization to deflect class resentment (which might otherwise arise). The problem with this theory is that the ‘woke’ don’t agree. Indeed, they vehemently disagree. Try convincing Hannah Jones that she is an agent of the economic elite.
I would offer that following analysis
Cultural Marxism goes back to at least the 1920s. Of course, CM has (vastly) proliferated of late. At least four reasons come to mind.
1. The rise of Cultural Marxism is too some degree, a consequence of the fall of conventional Marxism. Conventional Marxism was (slowly) dying by the 1950s. The Soviet invasion of Hungary and later Czechoslovakia alienated (or worse) a vast number of people who might have otherwise supported the Communist system. The economic failure of Eastern Europe combined with the great success of the “Little China’s” (Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) and South Korea was a great blow to the credibility of conventional Marxism. The Cambodian genocide must be mentioned in this context as well. Of course, the fall of the USSR and China’s switch to Capitalism (and subsequent success) were the final nails in the coffin.
My sense of it is that failure of the Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was a bigger deal than China’s switch to capitalism. The numbers make the converse case. However, I still think the failure of Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was/is more important. I don’t agree, but that doesn’t matter.
Of course, these were monumental blows to the traditional Left. However, the Left wasn’t about to fold its tent and disappear. For better or worse, a huge section of society will never embrace bourgeois values and will be (highly) motivated to reject them. Since conventional Marxism was “the god that failed”, the Left embraced Cultural Marxism as a substitute. Of course, Cultural Marxism is just as crazy as conventional Marxism (perhaps considerably crazier). However, we don’t have easy country comparisons to show how nuts it is (i.e. no North Korea vs. South Korea).
Blank Slate ideology is arguably nuttier than old-style Marxism. However, we don’t (yet) have a Stalin or Mao to attack as the leader of it (Cultural Marxism).
2. As long at the Left was committed to traditional Socialism/Marxism, the right would move heaven and earth to oppose it. Big corporations, rich people, religious people, some union people, etc. all had powerful incentives to oppose traditional Socialism/Marxism. That meant that anti-communist movements, ideas, intellectuals, etc. were assuredly substantial support as long the enemy was “Real Socialism”.
By contrast, CM provokes no comparable opposition (from big corporations, rich people, religious people, etc.). Actually the reverse is true. Party-line adherence to CM is notoriously profitable for some companies. For example, most Tech firms (Apple is a bad example) would be crucified by Democrats/Liberals/Leftists/etc. for their exploitation of the tax system. In real life, the level of criticism is near nil. By declaring their commitment to CM, they gain de facto immunity from criticism from the Left (the Right wouldn’t criticize them anyway).
At least the indulgences sold by church cost real money. Now you just need to pay lip service to CM.
3. There is also (predictably) a class element to this. Old-style Marxism was inherently (too some degree) a blue-collar worldview. Of course, that was never entirely true. Marx was an intellectual. The cliché that “Marxism is the Opiate of the Intellectuals” existed for a reason. However, conventional Marxism was never going to appeal to white, upper-middle class (UMC), liberals for all sorts of reasons, of which class was definitely an issue.
However, Cultural Marxism has no such problem. White, UMC, liberals can espouse and advocate Cultural Marxism without any contradictions (as they see them) and without restraint. Indeed, they do. Studies (Yascha Mounk) have shown that “woke” progressives are one of the least diverse (in many senses of the word) groups out there. Cultural Marxism gives UMC liberals free reign to denounce “deplorables” to their hearts content. Conventional Marxism would have been much more circumspect. Of course, upscale folks have always wanted to attack (rhetorically and otherwise) the working class. However, conventional Marxism constrained the left (but not the right) from doing so.
Cultural Marxism imposes no such limitations.
4. In my opinion, the failure of liberalism was/is a substantial factor in the rise of CM. In the 1960s (and earlier decades and later decades) it was widely believed that liberalism would work. In other words, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would produce a (much) better American where poverty and race would not be intertwined and poverty itself would more or less disappear. That didn’t happen of course. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was roughly as successful as his war in Vietnam.
At this point it is obvious that liberalism has failed (in attaining the goals of the 1960s). Some folks have responded to this failure by basically giving up. However, the most motivated have moved to the left (far left). Note that we here far more about “systematic racism” now (when it doesn’t exist) than we did when Jim Crow was a daily reality.
Yes, Critical Theory in academia seemed to evolve from this desperation to find another wedge to keep the collectivist dream alive as the evidence clearly tagged it as a complete and utter failed ideology. Liberals too have seen decades of liberal ideas not only fail to fix any big problems, but to make them worse.
What do you do when you think you are the smartest and most entitled people in the room but your ideas stink? You don't admit that your ideas stink, you use all that brain power to pivot in defense and offense to destroy the system as is, and to gain the power needed to fail once again.
The only feasible way to promote colorblindness is through color-conscious policies to force integration. Without the aggressive enforcement of equal opportunity and affirmative action policies schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces remain segregated. And segregation perpetuates color-consciousness.
The rhetoric of ‘diversity’ was adopted for pragmatic reasons apropos of the Bakke decision to provide justification for affirmative action. The idea that diversity as such was a good thing was a 'noble lie' that people came to believe--unfortunately because the very idea that diversity is inherently good is fundamentally racist because it assumes that race isn’t just skin deep, that people of different races have different important characteristics.
Diversity does not benefit the majority by exposing them to members of other races—there is no benefit to that exposure since members of different races don’t have anything different to offer. Race is trivial and superficial. ‘Diversity’ programs benefit minorities who would otherwise have been excluded from desirable schools, neighborhoods and workplaces. Still, if the racist lie concerning the benefits of diversity gets minorities entre and promotes integration they I suppose we have to keep lying because nothing else has worked.
Currently schools in northern cities are more segregated than they were during the Jim Crow era and the only way to fix that is forced busing. Neighborhoods are segregated because minorities have a harder time getting mortgages and also are steered to minority neighborhoods. There is data, extensive robust data, showing the extent of discrimination (largely unintentional) in employment, access to credit, funding, and even such things as negotiating the price of a used car.
Discriminatory practices are self-perpetuating precisely because they are for the most part unintentional and innocent. E.g. employers, committed to hiring on the basis of merit see that there are very few members of group X employed in a given job. They infer that since they have (they believe) been hiring strictly on the basis of merit, there are proportionately few X’s who qualify. So in subsequent hires they assess Xs less favorably than comparably qualified non-Xs—and so statistical discrimination perpetuates itself.
There are few jobs where hiring can be done strictly on the numbers or where, as in hiring for symphony orchestra positions, blind review is feasible. There is always a significant subjective component—in interviewing candidates, in assessing letters of recommendation, in making all those judgement calls that go into hiring decisions, in job assignments, employee evaluations, and promotion, and also in decisions about lending, selling a home or renting out an apartment—or setting the price of a used car.
Racial discrimination by individuals, usually unintentional and invisible, is pervasive. That is a fact of life. And the only way to fix it is by government intervention, through the strict enforcement of passive non-discrimination policies and affirmative action. And, I repeat, the aim of these color-conscious policies is to promote integration and, ultimately, assimilation and colorblindness.
Gravity is colorblind. Colorblind is racist. Gravity is racist. Smash racism. Smash gravity.
"Make society more and more like a blind audition in order to take racial bias out of the equation"
Not a bad idea. Actually, not an idea at all. It's actually been tried (blind auditions for aspiring musicians). The number of women and Asians rose dramatically (obvious questions of causality). However, the number of blacks and Hispanics did not. These days, the New York Times opposes blind auditions "To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions" is an actual title of an article.
I fell into reading this via real clear politics and sooo glad they linked it. A very honest analysis of today. In my reading…color blindness comes down to people just being honest and trying to accomplish just that. He’s right, we’re human, we’ll see race no matter what. It’s the fact we try to not, that’s what the race baiters today hate. What money is to be made if we just realize, there are some twats on both sides that can’t give up their hate, but if the majority of us strive to be colorblind…the world/America would be better.
You can’t legislate this crap…it’s gotta start at home and go on. The damage to our inner cities will take more than any twat politician will do. When was the last time a used car sales man gave you a great deal??? Politicians to a tee…