Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 2:21 am
The author... ignores that the problems created in society begin first by the
positive stereoptypes. The negative forms of discrimination are due to missing the point that the miscategorical problems of stereotying begin when some propose solutions ABOUT what some negative statistical relationship is caused by of those who are derogatorily affected.
Excellent point. Very perceptive.
If I propose a law that favors a class of people using enforced "positive stereotyping" as a means to overthrow the negative, the actual negative stereotypes become justified where those left out of the favoritism are penalized for presuming they 'own' the membership of the class they belong to when they do not. Today's increasing 'cultural laws' that are predominating in the West are contributing to this problem. When countries favor laws regarding the genetic "Aboriginal" (labeled sometimes as, "Indigenous" to prevent others from declaring their associative aboriginal claims to their present birthplaces), these governments are utilizing powers TO discriminate by permitting the prior 'victim-class' to define what and who is at fault of EACH member of their counter-ememy class.
There's also a very insidious bad effect for the "favoured" Aboriginals: the "noble savage" myth, which in some forms could also called the "pet native" myth.
In this myth, it is prejudicially assumed that the Aboriginals are automatically "closer to nature," or "more authentic," or "original land owners," or otherwise morally above their modern counterparts or "oppressor class," but also that they are unadaptable and incapable of adjusting to modern, civilized patterns of life -- though every other culture on earth does this routinely. Because they are uniquely fragile and historically disadvantaged, they must be preserved indefinitely in some antique ideal form. This becomes patronizing and partakes of a prejudice-by-low assumption. The mythologizers, in this case, believe that Aboriginals simply "cannot cope" with being modern people, and so must be "culturally protected" through the patronage of those more modern than they, who would like to keep their charges in a state of permanent infantile dependency, so long as it feeds the myth to do so.
Moreover, the restitution the progressivist "liberator group" proposes to impose upon everybody else in modern society is of unspecified duration and quantity. There is no specified limit to how long historical guilt is to be perpetuated, and no spending limit on how much restitution is to be paid; but at the same time, neither is there a point at which the mythologizers ever aim to integrate their "pet" population into the general population as full citizens. Nor will these limits ever be specified, since that would destroy the myth and end the special treatment the mythologizers are delighted to impose on society, and there is no point at which the mythologizers foresee wanting to allow Aboriginals to heal, to reconcile with those they have harmed and those they have been harmed by, and to grow into their own power. The advocacy group will also never give up their own custody of what they enjoy having as their Aboriginal "charges."
Progressives tend to see themselves as entirely lily white in this situation. They're "advocating for the historically oppressed," they insist. But really, what they are doing is signalling their own virtue at the expense of perpetuating a harmful myth and actually forestalling the day when native populations are really able to take their rightful place in the modern world, standing on their own feet.
There's something deeply unethical about an "advocacy" that condemns its "oppressed group" to permanent, infantilized, dependent, non-integrated status relative to the modern world. It looks very much like a new form of oppression, even when it swans around in the robes of compassion.
Yet today, many are demanding that one's genetic physiological natures are intrinsically tied to their ancestral artificial behaviors (their contemporary 'culture').
This is the point. And it's why modern Progressives and Social Justice Warriors are the real racists -- only they, plus the very few left on the eugenics Right -- are interested in perpetuating the practice of categorizing people by race, and stereotyping by genetics. The rest of us just want to get on with our lives, and with being decent to folks.
Thus, we are not able to address the real issues.
Absolutely. Plain speech has gone out the window, in favour of PC speech.
We need to therefore address the 'positive' stereotypes that are presumed non-harmful just as much as the overt forms of directly violent forms. We need to prevent governmnents from having laws that embrace religious and/or other cultural beliefs.
It's going to be more complicated than that, I'm afraid. After all, it's not like there's any religiously / culturally / ideologically neutral beliefs around which governance can organize itself. Any society needs clear values, based on suppositions it can believe are true, which can provide appropriate direction to society's projects in the economic, social, educational, medical, and other spheres. But which set of values will we select? For any one we choose, there are objectors -- but it's now absolutely clear that we cannot please everyone. Sociologists refer to this as "the fact of incommensurable pluralism."
It doesn't help that the present paradigm of the U.N. defines those who don't respect 'culture' as a right of lawmaking as "inhumane".
The UN is, itself, the most egregious example of the impossibility of reconciling pluralism. Conceived as a way of bringing diverse nations into common projects and maximizing peace, it's actually turned out to be an endlessly troubled body, often dominated by its worst factions, and continually paralyzed by it's own impotence.
The UN isn't a
solution to the problem of incommensurable pluralism -- it's a
showcase of that disease.