|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On December 11 2017 09:42 a_flayer wrote:
The notion that "the West" is somehow the inherently superior culture because of its advancements in the past three centuries relies on the same flawed approach regarding the notion that rich people are somehow inherently better people. In both cases, the circumstances in which we find ourselves contribute as much to our advancement in life as our personal attributes (intellect, perseverance, etc). The circumstances - which I don't care to define at the moment - differ when talking about an entire nation or culture versus an individual, but I believe the premise remains the same.
Can you imagine considering yourself an inferior human being because you were born elsewhere? It's ridiculous. The Chinese recognize they failed in the time period previously, but they are stepping up their game now. The fact that they're capable of digging themselves out of that hole should dispel any notion of inherit inferiority of the east - and thus superiority of the west.
Which is more or less why I don’t stake my arguments on past performance.
|
XDaunt's arguments centered around culture sound like the writings of early European and American anthropologists.
|
So in what way is Western Culture superior now? Because don't say "'freedom" when we fucking enslave African and Asian people and destabilize Southern America to have corrupt governments. I love how ignorantly hypocritical your statements are.
|
On December 11 2017 10:05 Slaughter wrote:
XDaunt's arguments centered around culture sound like the writings of early European and American anthropologists.
The days when phrenology was still an advanced, unheard of science.
|
On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols.
Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too.
|
On December 11 2017 10:20 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too.
To what extent do you think that there is overlap between “whiteness” and “white culture,” and even white race?
|
On December 11 2017 11:06 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 10:20 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too. To what extent do you think that there is overlap between “whiteness” and “white culture,” and even white race?
I don't know. To what extent do you think there is overlap between a negative signifier of non-race with the concept of a "white race?"
|
On December 11 2017 12:52 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 11:06 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 10:20 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:
[quote]
I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to.
Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you.
I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too. To what extent do you think that there is overlap between “whiteness” and “white culture,” and even white race? I don't know. To what extent do you think there is overlap between a negative signifier of non-race with the concept of a "white race?"
Well, let me put it this way. While I can see in an academic sense that each of those terms has a discrete definition, I do not see the differentiation being maintained in practice by my race-baiting friends. In other words, I think it’s all pretext for shitting on white people.
|
On December 11 2017 13:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 12:52 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 11:06 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 10:20 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:
[quote]
I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too. To what extent do you think that there is overlap between “whiteness” and “white culture,” and even white race? I don't know. To what extent do you think there is overlap between a negative signifier of non-race with the concept of a "white race?" Well, let me put it this way. While I can see in an academic sense that each of those terms has a discrete definition, I do not see the differentiation being maintained in practice by my race-baiting friends. In other words, I think it’s all pretext for shitting on white people.
Are you thinking of a specific example?
|
On December 11 2017 13:03 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 13:01 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 12:52 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 11:06 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 10:20 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:
[quote]
That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment.
The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places.
Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war.
ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because I pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. Jesus fucking christ. I'd ask you to point out where in the essay he defines whiteness as "a series of symbols" but I'm pretty sure you'd misinterpret that question too. To what extent do you think that there is overlap between “whiteness” and “white culture,” and even white race? I don't know. To what extent do you think there is overlap between a negative signifier of non-race with the concept of a "white race?" Well, let me put it this way. While I can see in an academic sense that each of those terms has a discrete definition, I do not see the differentiation being maintained in practice by my race-baiting friends. In other words, I think it’s all pretext for shitting on white people. Are you thinking of a specific example?
Sure, shitting on the American founding immediately comes to mind.
|
On December 11 2017 06:03 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:19 Doodsmack wrote:On December 11 2017 00:43 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 00:30 xDaunt wrote:Here is the article that everyone who complains about Trump’s attacks on the media needs to read. One highly relevant excerpt: Third, this type of recklessness and falsity is now a clear and highly disturbing trend – one could say a constant – when it comes to reporting on Trump, Russia and WikiLeaks. I have spent a good part of the last year documenting the extraordinarily numerous, consequential and reckless stories that have been published – and then corrected, rescinded and retracted – by major media outlets when it comes to this story.
All media outlets, of course, will make mistakes. The Intercept certainly has made our share, as have all outlets. And it’s particularly natural, inevitable, for mistakes to be made on a highly complicated, opaque story like the question of the relationship between Trump and the Russians, and questions relating to how WikiLeaks obtained DNC and Podesta emails. That is all to be expected.
But what one should expect with journalistic “mistakes” is that they sometimes go in one direction, and other times go in the other direction. That’s exactly what has not happened here. Virtually every false story published goes only in one direction: to be as inflammatory and damaging as possible on the Trump/Russia story and about Russia particularly. At some point, once “mistakes” all start going in the same direction, toward advancing the same agenda, they cease looking like mistakes. To be honest, I don't know why people care about Trump's Russia connection. Every politician is bought and paid for, every politician does opposition research, every politician is corrupt. A lot of liberals act like Hillary Clinton being lavishly funded by the Saudi state, and having personal relationships with Egyptian dictators, is perfectly acceptable. But Trump being okay with Russian support for his election is somehow treasonous, even if Trump doesn't actually do anything meaningful to help Russia. This whole scandal is based on a fixation with Russia. Trump can have a paid Turkish agent on his staff, who was literally plotting to kidnap a person under US protection for his Turkish masters, and no one cares because it is not Russia. Trump can make blatant overtures to Saudi-Arabia and Israel and all these #resistance neo-cons like Bill Kristol couldn't care less, but if he even considers not provoking war with Russia by enacting punitive sanctions as retaliation for trivial stuff like Facebook ads or hacking the DNC, then he must be a traitor. Not to mention that the USA constantly meddles in elections (including Russia's), far more than Russia has ever been accused of. Consider that the Trump administration wanted to lift sanctions on Russia, and that Flynn allegedly told close associates that he had a private business venture that was going to profit. And consider whether election assistance from a foreign adversary, in exchange for lifting sanctions, would be an unprecedented act of corruption ( if it were to be proven true). That is why people care. As far as I know it has not been proven true, which makes this currently just a theory. I think it's bad when opposition to the heinous Trump administration is predicated on 1. a probably false accusation that he made a deal with the Russians, which (in the minds of liberals) is not falsifiable and behaves like a conspiracy theory 2. waiting for intelligence agencies to undermine or arrest Trump. It's just as bad as when people opposed Bush for staging 9/11, it diverted energy away from his multitude of actual crimes.
The difference between truthers and Trump Russia is that there's an FBI investigation. That is why people are legitimately concerned with the issue. The investigation is not rooted in partisanship. Bob Mueller, by the way, was FBI Director at the time of 9/11. He was instrumental in the detention of Arab males who had overstayed their visas after 9/11. So he's not necessarily a liberal guy. Fox News, for example, fellated his record of service prior to the Trump Russia investigation.
|
On December 11 2017 09:51 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 09:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:36 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 09:31 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? So is whiteness a social construct? What does whiteness in this context mean to you? White culture (this doesn't exist)? youll have to tell me what your last question is supposed to mean. are you saying there is nothing that we could call "white culture?" whiteness kind of functions as a negative signifier. the absence of non-whiteness, hence the simple human being. a tabula rasa. the undifferentiated exemplar. did you even read the 5 page essay that i linked and that weve spent so much time going back and forth on? Yes I read it and I critiqued it but you keep insisting that I didn't read it or that I don't understand it because it pointed out its obvious flaws. What I'm saying, and I'll try and keep this extremely simple so as to avoid any more accusations that I haven't read or don't understand the article, is that there isn't a 'white culture' or a series of symbols that is associated with 'whiteness'. This is because whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs. There is a 'white american culture' which you could reasonably define. There is a 'white English culture' which actually shares a fair amount with some white European cultures. To try and define 'whiteness' as a series of symbols is as stupid as trying to define 'non whiteness' as a series of symbols. The reason why he has trouble with the notion that you read the article isn't because your argument is so flawless, it's because it has little connexion with what was said in the article.
That's likely because the essay doesn't provide a link between social construction and the social political positions of the left in 2017 (i.e. everything is about race/gender/sexual orientation)--which is what he clearly seems to be looking for. It provides no justification for why, for example, affirmative action or the elimination of microaggressions are going to improve the standing of disadvantaged groups. Or any other position really.
|
On December 11 2017 07:03 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +The entire Middle East, from Palestine to Yemen, appears set to burst into flames after this week. The region was already teetering on the edge, but recent events have only made things worse. And while the mayhem should be apparent to any casual observer, what’s less obvious is Jared Kushner’s role in the chaos.
Kushner is, of course, the US president’s senior advisor and son-in-law. The 36-year-old is a Harvard graduate who seems to have a hard time filling in forms correctly.
He repeatedly failed to mention his meetings with foreign officials on his security clearance and neglected to report to US government officials that he was co-director of a foundation that raised money for Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. (He is also said to have told Michael Flynn last December to call UN security council members to get a resolution condemning Israeli settlements quashed. Flynn called Russia.)
In his role as the president’s special advisor, Kushner seems to have decided he can remake the entire Middle East, and he is wreaking his havoc with his new best friend, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old who burst on to the international scene by jailing many members of his country’s ruling elite, including from his own family, on corruption charges.
Days before Salman’s unprecedented move, Kushner was with the crown prince in Riyadh on an unannounced trip. The men are reported to have stayed up late, planning strategy while swapping stories. We don’t know what exactly the two were plotting, but Donald Trump later tweeted his “great confidence” in Salman.
But the Kushner-Salman alliance moves far beyond Riyadh. The Saudis and Americans are now privately pushing a new “peace” deal to various Palestinian and Arab leaders that is more lop-sided toward Israel than ever before.
Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian parliamentarian in the Israeli Knesset, explained the basic contours of the deal to the New York Times: no full statehood for Palestinians, only “moral sovereignty.” Control over disconnected segments of the occupied territories only. No capital in East Jerusalem. No right of return for Palestinian refugees.
This is, of course, not a deal at all. It’s an insult to the Palestinian people. Another Arab official cited in the Times story explained that the proposal came from someone lacking experience but attempting to flatter the family of the American president. In other words, it’s as if Mohammed bin Salman is trying to gift Palestine to Jared Kushner, Palestinians be damned.
Next came Donald Trump throwing both caution and international law to the wind by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
But it’s not just Israel, either. Yemen is on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster largely because the country is being blockaded by Saudi Arabia. Trump finally spoke out against the Saudi measure this week, but both the state department and the Pentagon are said to have been privately urging Saudi Arabia and the UAE to ease their campaign against Yemen (and Lebanon and Qatar) for some time and to little impact. Why? Because Saudi and Emirati officials believe they “have tacit approval from the White House for their hardline actions, in particular from Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner,” journalist Laura Rozen reported.
The Kushner-Salman alliance has particularly irked secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Kushner reportedly leaves the state department completely out of his Middle Eastern plans. Of special concern to Tillerson, according to Bloomberg News, is Kushner’s talks with Salman regarding military action by Saudi Arabia against Qatar. The state department is worried of all the unforeseen consequences such a radical course of action would bring, including heightened conflict with Turkey and Russia and perhaps even a military response from Iran or an attack on Israel by Hezbollah.
Here’s where state department diplomacy should kick in. The US ambassador to Qatar could relay messages between the feuding parties to find a solution to the stand-off. So what does the ambassador to Qatar have to say about the Kushner-Salman alliance? Nothing, since there still is no confirmed ambassador to Qatar.
What about the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia? That seat’s also vacant. And the US ambassador to Jordan, Morocco, Egypt? Vacant, vacant, and vacant. What about assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, a chief strategic post to establish US policy in the region? No one’s been nominated. Deputy assistant secretary for press and public diplomacy? Vacant.
It’s partly this vacuum of leadership by Tillerson that has enabled Kushner to forge his powerful alliance with Salman, much to the detriment of the region. And in their zeal to isolate Iran, Kushner and Salman are leaving a wake of destruction around them.
The war in Yemen is only intensifying. Qatar is closer to Iran than ever. A final status deal between Israel and the Palestinians seems all but impossible now. The Lebanese prime minister went back on his resignation. And the Saudi state must be paying the Ritz-Carlton a small fortune to jail key members of the ruling family over allegations of corruption.
There’s a long history of American politicians deciding they know what’s best for the Middle East while buttressing their autocratic allies and at the expense of the region’s ordinary people. (The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has traditionally provided the rationale for America and its allies in the region, and his recent sycophantic portrayal of Salman certainly didn’t disappoint!)
But the Kushner-Salman alliance also represents something else. Both the US and Saudi Arabia are concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands. And with fewer people in the room, who will be around to tell these men that their ideas are so damaging? Who will dare explain to them how they already have failed? Source
The Kushners Companies have a debt load approaching $1 billion, and the Trump Organization has a debt load of at least $400 million. Kushner sought funding from a Qatari prince as recently as after the election. Kushner and Trump are both ready to fellate Salman. Anyone who trusts these two men to have this responsibility doesn't have their head on right.
|
|
|
On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? @danglars obviously race is not the ONLY encoded "imagery" which is embedded in people's presentation to others. thats absurd. its only "arbitrary" in the sense that it is what we are talking about right now. its reality as a subjective (in the sense of "subject," you might prefer some other term) force field intersecting culture is not arbitrary, in the sense that its felt effects are real and significant. im sorry to inform both of you that this world we all share is actually pretty complicated.
It’s also absurd to only mention it as a possible source of shaping and influencing culture when the real question is how that’s evidenced today (or enduring deleterious effects present today) and if current “whiteness” (or “blackness”) are cohesive and powerful forces today. It’s a very different thing than tracing how racial imagery might have a cultural influence that could have a visible manifestation in modern society.
|
On December 11 2017 15:30 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? @danglars obviously race is not the ONLY encoded "imagery" which is embedded in people's presentation to others. thats absurd. its only "arbitrary" in the sense that it is what we are talking about right now. its reality as a subjective (in the sense of "subject," you might prefer some other term) force field intersecting culture is not arbitrary, in the sense that its felt effects are real and significant. im sorry to inform both of you that this world we all share is actually pretty complicated. It’s also absurd to only mention it as a possible source of shaping and influencing culture when the real question is how that’s evidenced today (or enduring deleterious effects present today) and if current “whiteness” (or “blackness”) are cohesive and powerful forces today. It’s a very different thing than tracing how racial imagery might have a cultural influence that could have a visible manifestation in modern society.
So is it your contention that racial imagery does not have any cultural influence today?
|
A brass band played, fighter jets streaked the clear blue sky and a red carpet adorned the airport tarmac on the day in May 2016 when Vladimir Putin came to Athens for a visit.
“Mr. President, welcome to Greece,” the Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said in Russian as he smiled broadly and greeted a stone-faced Putin at the base of the stairs from the plane.
Kammenos, a pro-Russian Greek nationalist who bragged often of his insider Moscow connections, would receive a second key visitor that day, but with considerably less fanfare.
Not yet 30 years old, George Papadopoulos had been unknown in Greece — and everywhere else — only two months before.
But suddenly, just as Putin arrived, he was in Athens, quietly holding meetings across town and confiding in hushed tones that he was there on a sensitive mission on behalf of his boss, Donald Trump.
This October, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his extensive efforts to connect Trump’s presidential campaign with senior Russian officials. Trump has since dismissed Papadopoulos as a “low level volunteer.”
But in his ancestral homeland, the man whom Trump had named in March 2016 as one of five top foreign policy advisers...
...
Although Papadopoulos’s plea deal focused on his contacts with an obscure and mysterious Maltese professor who claimed Russian ties, Greek politicians and analysts say his best and most obvious path to Moscow would have run through Athens.
...
[Kammenos] also pushed for an end to sanctions imposed on Russia, championed a plan for Russia and Greece to jointly manufacture Kalashnikov assault rifles and befriended a number of influential Moscow players...
...
“Papadopoulos was totally unknown. But then Kammenos took him by the hand and promoted him everywhere,” Georgiadis said.
In short order, Papadopoulos had soon had meetings not only with the defense minister, but also with Greece’s foreign minister, its president and a former prime minister — a remarkable level of access for such a young aide.
All are considered relatively pro-Russian. At the time of the meetings, internal Trump campaign documents show that Papadopoulos was working aggressively to connect with senior Russian officials and was hoping to broker a meeting between Putin and Trump.
...
He would have wanted to show Papadopoulos that he had good ties with the Russians and he would have wanted to show the Russians that he had good contacts with the Americans,” Georgiadis said.
...
Others who met with Papadopoulos around that time described him as acting as though he were on a secret mission, refusing to confirm the location of meetings until half an hour before they began.
www.washingtonpost.com
|
On December 11 2017 15:52 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 15:30 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2017 09:21 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2017 05:49 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now. That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment. The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places. Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war. ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all. come on dude this is such egregious misapprehension its hard to even take you seriously. academics do not reduce race to skin color. the two are inextricably entwined. how do you even dare to talk about "the language" of the arguments when your own language is so riven by internal contradiction and confusion itself? who is the one really making "huge incorrect generalizations" here? @danglars obviously race is not the ONLY encoded "imagery" which is embedded in people's presentation to others. thats absurd. its only "arbitrary" in the sense that it is what we are talking about right now. its reality as a subjective (in the sense of "subject," you might prefer some other term) force field intersecting culture is not arbitrary, in the sense that its felt effects are real and significant. im sorry to inform both of you that this world we all share is actually pretty complicated. It’s also absurd to only mention it as a possible source of shaping and influencing culture when the real question is how that’s evidenced today (or enduring deleterious effects present today) and if current “whiteness” (or “blackness”) are cohesive and powerful forces today. It’s a very different thing than tracing how racial imagery might have a cultural influence that could have a visible manifestation in modern society. So is it your contention that racial imagery does not have any cultural influence today?
The main contentions were "racial imagery is the single most important factor in all decisions where race is a factor," and "all members of one group have a shared identity which they use to wage some kind of power war." Those are some pretty stiff hurdles. I've seen zero convincing arguments that it's some dominant factor in claims. I've seen a similar lack of evidence that shared constructs between whites are collected enough as an entity to be worth calling attention to. I won't be arguing the no cultural influence straw man, but you probably already knew that. My previous post made clear that some seek to give it undue influence ... aka the parts you chose not to bold.
Jockmcplop put my second half better in his post. "Whiteness in itself is expressed in hundreds of completely different and contradictory cultural outputs."
|
1. that's not the main contention. the opening paragraph does not say "single most important factor in all decisions." it just doesn't say that no matter how many times you repeat it. in fact the opening paragraph of the essay explicitly says "race is not the only factor"
2. the second quote is even more outrageous and stupid
3. whiteness functions as a negative signifier. it is in some sense unrepresented, the lack of a racial signifier: "so a bloke was walking down the road and ran into a black geezer." that's precisely why "whiteness" does not present itself as homogeneous: the white person is non-racial, with varied attributes, tastes, opinions, and predilections. so in arguing that it's expressed in "hundreds of completely different and contradictory" ways is not only to entirely miss the point, but to parrot back precisely the problem that the essay meant to draw attention to. there are hundreds of archetypical non-racial characters in pop cultural representations, but, at least up until recently, and certainly back in the 90s when the essay was written, characters of color were automatically laden with sedimented racial imagery. how many times have conservatives in this thread said that they dont think black people are inherently inferior, but that they have a problem with "black culture?"
this stuff really isn't that hard. there are far better arguments to be made here but to make them you have to indicate first that you understand what we are even talking about. clamoring for "evidence of shared constructs between whites" that "are collected enough as an entity to be worth calling attention to" only indicates that you have no idea
|
On December 11 2017 16:40 IgnE wrote:
1. that's not the main contention. the opening paragraph does not say "single most important factor in all decisions." it just doesn't say that no matter how many times you repeat it. in fact the opening paragraph of the essay explicitly says "race is not the only factor"
2. the second quote is even more outrageous and stupid
Those two quotes are from Jockmcplop. They are from his observations of how "whiteness" as a construct is used (the 'misapplied' aspect, not the 'science at its root level is totally flawed' aspect), and I agree with him that both opinions are reasonably gathered from rhetoric on the left side of the aisle, and from a diversity of speakers.
I'd appreciate a better attempt from you at understanding and showing you can contextualize what I said in the previous post. I point out what I think the real issue is, Jockmcplop said it originally, and I'm left wondering if you're in this camp that thinks it has great influence on American society.
3. whiteness functions as a negative signifier. it is in some sense unrepresented, the lack of a racial signifier: "so a bloke was walking down the road and ran into a black geezer." that's precisely why "whiteness" does not present itself as homogeneous: the white person is non-racial, with varied attributes, tastes, opinions, and predilections. so in arguing that it's expressed in "hundreds of completely different and contradictory" ways is not only to entirely miss the point, but to parrot back precisely the problem that the essay meant to draw attention to. there are hundreds of archetypical non-racial characters in pop cultural representations, but, at least up until recently, and certainly back in the 90s when the essay was written, characters of color were automatically laden with sedimented racial imagery. how many times have conservatives in this thread said that they dont think black people are inherently inferior, but that they have a problem with "black culture?"
You're still missing the point and operating within a framework that doesn't admit to how the term is routinely used. Speakers bring it up to denigrate white speakers and their approach to issues. You suffer a little from the same malady here, by including the "sedimented racial imagery" and connecting with "black culture." You insinuate that identifying problems with black culture that hurts social and economic advance in urban poor black communities comes from having unconsciously absorbed subtle racial imagery demeaning to blacks. Others go much, much further. It's used as a bludgeon against certain political opinions on poverty, social mobility, crime that are observed statistically in predominantly black urban populations. The allegation is that you're too privileged to understand the issues (your opinions flow from your socially constructed whiteness and not sociopolitical analysis) and too blind otherwise (you can't see and separate your own whiteness because it's invisible to you.)
this stuff really isn't that hard. there are far better arguments to be made here but to make them you have to indicate first that you understand what we are even talking about. clamoring for "evidence of shared constructs between whites" that "are collected enough as an entity to be worth calling attention to" only indicates that you have no idea
I hold the same opinion of you. Your use of whiteness as a social construct has application in an academic environment, but you fail to grasp its misapplication/failed emphasis and political use (the more cynical explanation is that most academics in this area intend to paint the implications broadly). I know that ascribing political opinions to historical negative racial imagery competes with arguing political opinions are logically well-founded or flawed, based on evidence or lack evidence, and a host of others. Maybe whiteness in social constructivism is similar in your mind to "Communism has never been tried?" I really have no clue, but I did try.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
