Are Jews people? Find out after the break on CNN

[zathras]

@anon50609448

Yes, I say that style of reasoning is systematically racist because I think people care about avoiding systemic racism. I say that people are prioritizing the reputation of a known racist anti-semite because I think they don’t want to be doing that.

Got it. No one is insulting anyone.

@anon50609448

You want to ask if we are technically misrepresenting his words (I don’t think we are, but that’s not really what I want to argue about).

I did not really want to ask if we were technically misrepresenting his words - someone else pointed it out, it seemed obviously true to me, but I did not really want to argue that point, either.
I was, however, something between slightly surprised and slightly annoyed at the people who immediately read that as a defense of antisemitism.

@anon50609448

I want to ask if we are genuinely misrepresenting his views. I’m not going post-facts, I just have a different view of what facts should be of interest to us.

That is a tough question. It probably depends on how many circles of hell you believe in. If there’s one circle of hell, then evil is evil, and pointing out differences in degree of evil sounds like making excuses for the lesser evil.
If there are many circles of hell, then failing to make distinctions between different degrees of evil disrespects the victims of the greater evil.
But I really don’t want to suffer through a list of Spencer’s public statements to find out where exactly he stands.

There have been some arguments about why we should be interested in the alleged fact that Spencer was misquoted.
Now you’re probably facing the problem that it’s difficult in general to convince someone that something should not be discussed without actually discussing it after all.

@anon50609448

But my far more important point was that the actual BoingBoing article does not misquote Spencer. It doesn’t mention the “soulless golem” quote, but rather discusses the way CNN treated the question of whether Jews were people as if it were a legitimate question. The issue of misquoting him was injected into the discussion by someone who was defending Spencer, not by someone attacking him (one person did make a self-deprecating reference to themselves as a soulless golem before that, but that’s a personal reaction to the words, not a fact-based argument). The defense of Spencer was proactive. This was never about correcting our friends to avoid a post-fact world, it was about reflexive deference to white men rationalized as an obligation to the truth.

People tend to read a BoingBoing article, think about the situation that prompted it, and voice an opinion about the issue. They tend not to stick strictly to the aspect that the BoingBoing article focused on. In @swankgd’s first post on the subject, I see no evidence for your claim that “this was never about correcting our friends” but about “reflexive deference to white men”. That post contains a factual correction, the statement that Spencer’s actual words are still unacceptable, and the observation that this doesn’t do their point any favors. Unless you are willing to assume that swankgd was lying about their intentions, that is exactly about “correcting our friends”.

@anon50609448

I don’t want to live in a post-fact world, but I do want to live in a world where we consider whether which facts we are interested in is systemically racist.
[…]
I’m saying that if you don’t want to support racism you might have to give up something important to you, and your epistemology might be on the list.

You know, this doesn’t really sit well with me. It feels to close to “consciously allowing my ethics/ideology/beliefs guide my thinking about facts”.

There might be systemic biases in what facts I notice, and I will of course try to eliminate those biases. But that can only go in one direction. I can ask myself, “what have I missed due to systemic racism”, but I won’t consciously ignore something or consider it unimportant because it does not fit my ideology. If my racism made me notice something, un-noticing it would just make the results of my thoughts even less reliable.

As for giving up my epistemology, that is not up for discussion. I feel the moral imperative to figure out reality to the best of my abilities, in order to be able to make informed decisions compatible with my values. If I were to consciously “give up my epistemology” or let it be guided by my values, that would distort my perception of reality (in addition to the biases that might already be there), thus leading to decisions that are actually less compatible with my values.

I consider myself a humanist; I hold the irrational belief that humans should cooperate at rationally figuring out ways to live together well. Everything else follows from that. So I consider “intellectual honesty” a virtue that will be useful long after our present-day concerns about racism have disappeared or changed beyond recognition.
Thus, I will sometimes refrain from endorsing an argument for a good thing and criticize the argument because it’s a bad argument for a good thing. I will attack reasoning patterns that I see as immunizing strategies, even if I subscribe to the belief system that they defend. And I will tend to defend people who point out flaws in “our own” argument from accusations that they are dishonest/racist or even just inadvertently supporting racism.

This may lead us to further disagreements in the future, but I believe we can live with them

@anon50609448

I think this forum has a sizeable trying-our-best-to-be-better-about-racism plurality, and I hope that critiques like mine are some value in sustaining that.

They sure are.
Case in point: despite my disagreement, our discussion has still reinforced my resolve to stay watchful and eradicate any racist bias from my thinking whenever I find it.

[anon50609448]

@zathras

As for giving up my epistemology, that is not up for discussion. I feel the moral imperative to figure out reality to the best of my abilities, in order to be able to make informed decisions compatible with my values.

I suspected as much (otherwise I hardly would have presented it as a hard thing to give up). I get that we are all trying to sort out what is bias and what is real, and reevaluting epistemology based on moral judgments would feel like allowing biases to conflict with the truth. But you can’t escape that, your current way of thinking about what is true and what is false is already an emotional system based on value judgments. That’s the only kind of thinking that human beings are capable of doing. It seems to me that it is about as likely that we know what “true” means as it is that heat really is a liquid and phlogiston theory was right all along.

Single iteration prisoner’s dilemma - you get the most points by defecting right? If you take ten logical game theoretic beings and program them with a game theory that states that defecting gives the most points then they all get 1 point per round. If you program them with a game theory that states that cooperating gives the most points then they all get 3 points per round. Game theorists would say, “But in the second example one could unilaterally change their play and get more points, therefore they should do it.” I’d point out that the axiom (because it’s an assumption, not a fact) that you should unilaterally move to increase your score if you can returns is to the state where everyone gets 1 point. So no, if we add that assumption then we don’t get more points, we get fewer. What game theory does is says, “We can’t have that kind of meta-discussion.” But we are human beings, we can have that kind of meta-discussion.

So we have to ask ourselves, is adhering to an inherited epistemology really the most important value to us? What evidence do we have that the epistemology we are using does a better job of getting us at the truth of underlying reality than alternative epistemologies. How would we even know?

“We can’t really know what is in his heart” is a worldview that is anti-science. Science would say, “we can make a very good prediction about what is ‘in his heart’ by examining his words and actions.” I think saying, “We don’t really know that Spencer was saying Jews were non-human there,” is pretty close to “Dinosaur bones were put in the Earth by Satan to fool us.” (Not really, alternative explanations that he is a manipulative psychopath who doesn’t give a shit whether Jews are people but just wants people to do what he says; or that he is a con man who doesn’t give a shit whether Jews are people but just wants to sell T-shirts are both in the plausible range; though in any event the message that Jews are not people is what he was trying to convey to the people in the room). I can’t prove it’s not true in a was that would satisfy Plato, but Plato says you literally can’t prove anything.

If you ask me, if you find yourself in a forum making an argument that could have just as easily been made by someone whose intent was the distract and prevent meaningful discussion, that’s a good moment to think about how your actions are bringing about the world you want to bring about. And if misrepresenting people seems like a very, very bad thing to you, then you should stop and think about what your emotional reaction to misrepresenting people is. If you consider yourself as a random human who reacts badly to misrepresentation (instead of as “you”) it’s a lot more likely that’s because something about it pushes emotional buttons than because it’s a sin against the best way of getting at the truth, which that person happens to have divined.

And now off to get the “Anti-racism Trumps Epistemology” shirts printed. I imagine they will sell like hotcakes.

[enso]

@RickMycroft

Hail Hydra!

[bencw]

Logic is part of The Jewish Conspiracy.

[anon62122146]

In very simple terms, I’ve never felt any inclination to get a gun for self-defense before. Seeing stuff like this, now I do.

Deciding not to prepare for the worst is not going to keep it from happening.

If the Bosnians in Yugoslavia had been armed, or even been able to get arms, rather than being embargoed, they might well not have been so effectively subjected to genocide. Not that the resulting civil war couldn’t still have been horrible, but it wouldn’t have been so one-sided.

[Phrenological]

I’m pretty (I guess not very) conflicted, I would like some manner of self defense in the home but the gun is much more likely to be used against me by myself or another than it is to save my life. My wife having been stalked by a man with a gun she dated in the past and a recent family member committing suicide by gun doesn’t push me towards them at all.

Guns will most certainly not protect me from the state.

[zathras]

@anon50609448

[…] reevaluting epistemology based on moral judgments would feel like allowing biases to conflict with the truth. But you can’t escape that, your current way of thinking about what is true and what is false is already an emotional system based on value judgments. That’s the only kind of thinking that human beings are capable of doing.

Humans are capable of rational thinking. Just not all the time, and not without making mistakes. Anyway, what you seem to be suggesting is “we can’t achieve perfect knowledge about reality, so let’s just stop trying”.

@anon50609448

“We can’t really know what is in his heart” is a worldview that is anti-science. Science would say, “we can make a very good prediction about what is ‘in his heart’ by examining his words and actions.” I think saying, “We don’t really know that Spencer was saying Jews were non-human there,” is pretty close to “Dinosaur bones were put in the Earth by Satan to fool us.”

You’re making a statement about the meaning of Spencer’s words after having stated that arguing about the meaning of Spencer’s words is something that only racists and people who have unexamined racist biases in their thinking would do.
Which makes it quite impossible for me to address this point rationally.

Now that doesn’t really matter, because while I happen to think that your (and CNN’s) characterization of that particular statement by Spencer is factually wrong, that doesn’t change my impression that he’s a nazi. And not even one of the nicer nazis. He might make even worse statements at any time. So I can just accept that we’ve got different opinions on a completely irrelevant detail - we might as well discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

The problem is, one irrational immunizing strategy seldom comes alone. So someone else did come along in this forum and pointed out a factual inaccuracy. They were immediately suspected of being motivated by racist bias.
At this point, I butted in and supplied four possible non-racist motivations for pointing that fact out.
Your response was that I should shed the obvious racist bias in my thinking.

That’s a perfect “epistemic defense mechanism”; everyone who doubts the existence of a specific racist bias in thinking is obviously just falling victim to a racist bias in thinking. No need to consider the arguments, as you have already explained the motive behind even mentioning the arguments. There is no way to disprove that statement.

Now, you might ask, why do I care? Is not an epistemic defense mechanism in service of a good cause a good thing? I don’t think so.

First, epistemic defense mechanisms are used to defend the worst of causes. The disgusting Spencer quote is itself an example of this - critics are dismissed as being soulless golems - presumably in the service of the alleged worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Their motives are explained, no need to listen to them any more.
I believe good causes can stand on their own, without resorting to such tricks.

Second, you end up not only defending your cause using such an immunizing strategy. You’re defending your own ideas about how to fight for that cause. You will no longer be picking the best method to fight for your cause, you will be defending the method you already decided on using those same immunizing strategies. Whoever points out flaws in the methods will be suspected of consciously or unconsciously working against the cause.

@anon50609448

f you ask me, if you find yourself in a forum making an argument that could have just as easily been made by someone whose intent was the distract and prevent meaningful discussion, that’s a good moment to think about how your actions are bringing about the world you want to bring about.

But in this forum, there was no discussion to derail, so derailing is not the problem.
“This is not what we’re discussing here” is a valid defense against attempts at derailing. “I disagree, but I have no time/inclination to repeat my arguments for you” is another. Even “That’s true, but beside the point” can be appropriate.
But a blanket dismissal of valid arguments because an Enemy acting in bad faith might pretend to make the same arguments in order to derail a discussion? That feels like an immunization strategy.

If you ask me, when you find yourself in a forum dismissing an argument because you have a theory about their motives, when it could have just as easily been a good-faith critique of sloppy thinking on your own side, that’s a good moment to think about whether you are still thinking rationally, or whether you’re in danger of being caught up in a self-reinforcing belief system that is immune to criticism.

Of course, I might be wrong in accusing anyone of immunizing their beliefs.
But trust me that I’m not wrong because of my racist biases. I have been objecting to immunization strategies and caring about rationality a lot longer than I had any exposure to the complicated mess of American race relations. So if I’m wrong, I’m wrong because I care too much about rationality in general, not because some racist bias intervenes.

---

@anon62122146

If the Bosnians in Yugoslavia had been armed, or even been able to get arms, rather than being embargoed, they might well not have been so effectively subjected to genocide. Not that the resulting civil war couldn’t still have been horrible, but it wouldn’t have been so one-sided.

Not quite sure we’re remembering the same war here. The Bosnian war was not an insurgency against a genocidal state, it had governments - some of them newly formed - fighting each other for territory, and committing atrocities in the process.
The weapons embargo led to a problem getting heavy armaments for the Bosnian army, while the Croatians and the Serbs were supplied by Croatia and Serbia from the start. The fact that two sides hat a neighboring country backing them and the third side did not was what made the conflict asymmetric at first, not the level of private gun ownership.
So, this is an argument for keeping the National Guard and police forces in blue states properly armed (militarized!), not an argument for individual weapons ownership. (ETA: Not that I want to make this argument myself)

[anon50609448]

Well, I’m sure we’ve talked past each other enough that anyone else who is still reading gets the gist of our positions. But I will a few (ha!) final words:

I said:

@anon50609448

If you ask me, if you find yourself in a forum making an argument that could have just as easily been made by someone whose intent was the distract and prevent meaningful discussion, that’s a good moment to think about how your actions are bringing about the world you want to bring about.

And you said:

@zathras

If you ask me, when you find yourself in a forum dismissing an argument because you have a theory about their motives, when it could have just as easily been a good-faith critique of sloppy thinking on your own side, that’s a good moment to think about whether you are still thinking rationally, or whether you’re in danger of being caught up in a self-reinforcing belief system that is immune to criticism.

What I was saying was that you should hold the motives of the argument as completely irrelevant. If the argument has the effect of defending racism then the argument is defending racism. If you could imagine another person whose intent was to defend racism making the same argument for the purpose of defending racism then there is a decent chance that your argument is defending racism, based on an assumption that the person who intended to defend racism is employing a strategy with some chance of succeeding in doing so.

I think that any fixed system of rational thought is akin to a computer security system - once it is fixed in place hackers can figure out the holes. Contemporary racism exploits the kind of rationality that powers educated/expert discourse and leaves it running racist malware.

Which leaves me to say that when you say:

@zathras

But trust me that I’m not wrong because of my racist biases.

First, I said earlier this is all about having racist effects to me, not about people being racist in their hearts.

Second, and more importantly, saying that you do not have racist biases is one of those immunizing strategies you hate. We don’t know what our biases are. Any rational person would say, “If I keep making arguments that support racists, then I have a racist bias.” I’m not saying you do “keep making arguments that support racists”, I’m saying that we should realize we can only guess at our own biases by examining our behaviour, that we have almost no special insight into them by virtue of the insider view we get.

[zathras]

@anon50609448

Well, I’m sure we’ve talked past each other enough that anyone else who is still reading gets the gist of our positions. But I will a few (ha!) final words:

Yes, we have, haven’t we?

I guess we’ve both been guilty of repeatedly neglecting to make some fine distinctions that are necessary for the other person’s narrative, but not for our own.

Your last answer improved my understanding of your position and of our disagreement yet again, but it’d take me a few days to come up with a coherent response that even has a chance of moving our discussion forwards (i.e. towards greater mutual understanding, though probably not towards perfect agreement).

By then, this thread will have closed, so whenever you feel like a little civilized philosophical discourse, just PM me. (I assume that can’t have the accidental effect of supporting racism, when no one else is listening?)

So for now, I can only say, thank you for the enlightening discussion.

[jerwin]

@d_r

he meant to take the name Formosus II (“handsome”),

Foromsus I, of course, was the subject of the Cadaver Synod. What a namesake!