A politically incorrect analysis of racism and of the hard problem of cultural variety that's ignored by progressives and that should disturb white supremacists.
I agree that the charge of racism can be a way of strawmaning a legitimate critique of a culture or particular practice within a culture. Anyone who engages in it is either being dishonest or exposing their own racism by equating culture with race -- as if a person's phenotype actually predisposed them to certain behaviors.
Having said that, I think racists often set themselves up for that sort of manoeuvre. When they use Muslim & immigrant interchangeably, they clearly seem to be implying that the two are equivalent in their minds. Maybe they are so used to Wokist's own equivocation in on this subject that they see no point in distinguishing between the two, but it surely doesn't help their case in the eyes of any rational person. I bet lots of Brits are privately very worried about their country becoming a Muslim theocracy in the distant future, but as long as racists dominate any discussion over Islam in Britain, there will never be any movement to nip it in the bud.
Yeah, I'm not defending any particular overgeneralization. In the article I'm just pointing out that overgeneralizations are normal. All concepts overgeneralize (relative to certain purposes). We simplify the facts to understand them. Some simplifications are useful, others are harmful and fantastic.
White supremacists likely have grossly deficient concepts of foreigners. They do themselves an extra disservice by focusing on alleged cognitive inequalities between races. But there clearly are differences between cultures that align roughly with types of people that look different too. By castigating racists for their baseless physiological concept of race, we're shirking our duty to evaluate cultures, perhaps even to condemn rich White culture.
I agree that the charge of racism can be a way of strawmaning a legitimate critique of a culture or particular practice within a culture. Anyone who engages in it is either being dishonest or exposing their own racism by equating culture with race -- as if a person's phenotype actually predisposed them to certain behaviors.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I think racists often set themselves up for that sort of manoeuvre. When they use Muslim & immigrant interchangeably, they clearly seem to be implying that the two are equivalent in their minds. Maybe they are so used to Wokist's own equivocation in on this subject that they see no point in distinguishing between the two, but it surely doesn't help their case in the eyes of any rational person. I bet lots of Brits are privately very worried about their country becoming a Muslim theocracy in the distant future, but as long as racists dominate any discussion over Islam in Britain, there will never be any movement to nip it in the bud.
Yeah, I'm not defending any particular overgeneralization. In the article I'm just pointing out that overgeneralizations are normal. All concepts overgeneralize (relative to certain purposes). We simplify the facts to understand them. Some simplifications are useful, others are harmful and fantastic.
DeleteWhite supremacists likely have grossly deficient concepts of foreigners. They do themselves an extra disservice by focusing on alleged cognitive inequalities between races. But there clearly are differences between cultures that align roughly with types of people that look different too. By castigating racists for their baseless physiological concept of race, we're shirking our duty to evaluate cultures, perhaps even to condemn rich White culture.