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Post by oh oooh on Jul 13, 2020 13:29:41 GMT
It's idealism of any kind that tends to be abandoned once people have enough life experience - not specifically Marxism.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 13:30:28 GMT
What he's doing is characterising socially progressive views and programmes for change in such a way as to make them sound naive and misjudged in order to discredit them. As he usually does. I see it as him just stating fact no matter how depressing it sounds. Each to their own i guess. You need to think about his choice of words more carefully then. Let me ask you this. Would you agree with this statement. "Wealth and social status discrepancies between whites and blacks in modern society are entirely natural". Yes or no?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 13:42:59 GMT
I don't see the connection between your question and what he said but...No it's not natural in the sense it was created through a number of things, ranging from place in society, to time to establish themselves among other factors.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 13:49:56 GMT
I don't see the connection between your question and what he said but...No it's not natural in the sense it was created through a number of things, ranging from place in society, to time to establish themselves among other factors. Right. So why is he using differences in people's looks as a comparison? That is something that is natural and which we can't do anything about. By using this comparison he is inferring that other inequalities, such as ones between blacks and whites, are also natural and as seemingly unchangeable.There would be no other point to his example.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 13:59:14 GMT
I don't see the connection between your question and what he said but...No it's not natural in the sense it was created through a number of things, ranging from place in society, to time to establish themselves among other factors. Right. So why is he using differences in people's looks as a comparison? That is something that is natural and which we can't do anything about. By using this comparison he is inferring that other inequalities, such as ones between blacks and whites, are also natural and as seemingly unchangeable.There would be no other point to his example. Ok we're going off point here. He said "Full Equality will never be a reality" You said "Oh so we should just give up" I said "Nah, i don't think that's what he means" That'll all i'm agreeing with him about, that there will never be 100% full equality however that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. Anything else is between you and him.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 14:06:19 GMT
He was saying a bit more than that as I've explained, but yeah, fair enough, it's not your responsibility to explain his statements. I don't see equality of opportunity as unattainable at all, but I would agree it would need the kind of major political change that is very difficult to imagine currently.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 14:13:48 GMT
"The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of facial aesthetics conflict." -- er, Marx, probably.
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Post by sloopjohnc on Jul 13, 2020 14:13:52 GMT
It's idealism of any kind that tends to be abandoned once people have enough life experience - not specifically Marxism. It's interesting seeing my 24 year-old, who's a political science major and wants to focus on social protest. She thinks everything can be changed and social and political upheaval are ripe for the picking. I give her the ol' line about American politics being the art and science of compromise and she just doesn't want to believe it. I say, "Good for her." Sometimes youth isn't wasted on the young. She's got the energy for idealism. Let time wear her down, later.
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Post by oh oooh on Jul 13, 2020 14:18:39 GMT
Yes - agree completely.
My sister's son is nearly 19 and he's a great kid but apparently 'every mealtime is ruined' because he wants to talk politics! He finds evil right-wing conspiracies in everything, he gets energised when people talk politics, and thinks most other topics are a waste of time. As an uncle - at a distance - I think that's great. He's thinking, he's learning. He's engaged with the world.
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Post by oh oooh on Jul 13, 2020 14:20:01 GMT
We were walking around Whitehaven a few days ago and he decided the name of the town is probably derived from the slave trade. I doubt he's right, but I indulged him.
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Jul 13, 2020 14:32:32 GMT
Your Whitehaven privilege is showing.
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Post by sloopjohnc on Jul 13, 2020 15:19:48 GMT
A year or so ago, I did myself a favor and subscribed to the NY Times Sunday edition. The main section, book review and magazine are all consistently great reads, but it's the Sunday Review section that's my favorite. All the best Times columnists and guest writers go to town and they had a really interesting story on how progressives are remaking the Democratic party: www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/opinion/sunday/defund-police-cancel-rent.html
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Post by sloopjohnc on Jul 13, 2020 15:22:09 GMT
Yes - agree completely. My sister's son is nearly 19 and he's a great kid but apparently 'every mealtime is ruined' because he wants to talk politics! He finds evil right-wing conspiracies in everything, he gets energised when people talk politics, and thinks most other topics are a waste of time. As an uncle - at a distance - I think that's great. He's thinking, he's learning. He's engaged with the world. When I was his age, I was sorta the same way. My dad would counter my statements and arguments and leave me so fucking mad, I'd stomp off from the dinner table. I didn't realize until years later that he was simply making me defend my positions against counter beliefs. I don't think he really cared one way or the other. It was a good lesson.
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Post by sloopjohnc on Jul 13, 2020 15:24:38 GMT
We were walking around Whitehaven a few days ago and he decided the name of the town is probably derived from the slave trade. I doubt he's right, but I indulged him. And I didn't even have to open up my Google search to a website: "In nearly all the Histories of Cumberland, the name of Whitehaven has been attributed to the whiteness of the rocks at the east side of the harbour, or to the cognomen of an old fisherman name Whyte, who resided here about the year 1586." This is also something my daughter does. She tends to read only left-wing politics and not any centrist media. I also think that's a lot of the trouble today - the echo chambers - not like that's a revelation on my part.
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Post by daveythefatboy on Jul 13, 2020 16:05:46 GMT
In the US, in the south you had segregation of everything, separate and unequal: schools, public works, hotels, etc., In the South there were Jim Crow laws that made it difficult for blacks to vote by requiring various kinds of identification, payments and testing. They also forbid intermarriage of races. Throughout the US there was 'red-lining' which Identified whole swaths of cities, towns, neighborhoods that could not be sold to blacks and designated areas that could. During the 60s lots of urban renewal projects in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Phila, DC, etc., (highways, hospitals, parks, etc.,) were built right through, or in place of traditional black neighborhoods because they did not have the political/legal clout to resist. For those that could afford a house, banks and mortgage companies traditionally charged them higher processing fees and 2-5% higher on loan interest. Universal school testing that is specific to the predominant white culture that you have not been allowed to successfully participate in. Inner city schools are traditionally black and brown and are not as well funded as white suburban schools. Because of the Tuskegee experiment and forced sterilization from '20s-'50s there is a mistrust of the traditional white (male) medical establishment. The doctor who pioneered chemo therapy essentially did unsanctioned experiments and testing on the Puerto Rican population because he considered them "subhuman". This deep mistrust is apparent in black specific conspiracy theories about doctors, hospitals, medicine, mental health diagnosis, even Coca Cola. Just looking at Total graduate completions. 1996 White students 69.5% 2016 51.8% ( = - 25.5%)
1996 Black students 5.9% 2016 9.8% ( = + 66.1% )
In 2016, the US population consisted of 248.5 million White and 43 million Black people. Black people amounted to 17.3% of White people. In 2016, black student numbers were 18.9% of that of white students. if there were barriers this has led to an over representation of Black students vs White students against what the population mix would have suggested. www.acenet.edu/Research-Insights/Pages/Race-and-Ethnicity-in-Higher-Education.aspxThis seems like a pretty cherrypicked stat. Why not place it next to stats about the wealth gap, income, incarceration rates, home ownership, high school dropout rates, infant mortality or really... almost any metric one can think of. But fine. You found one stat that shows some progress. Progress is good. But are you really seriously putting this one cherrypicked stat forth to argue that Black people in America face no substantial societal barriers? Am I really seeing this? I’d discuss this further, but I really don’t think I should dignify this whole line of “debate.” Regardless - here’s a link that specifically contextualizes the college completion rates above. There’s a whole section part-way down the page about barriers that Black students face: www.aacu.org/aacu-news/newsletter/2019/march/facts-figures
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