You speak no lies. And I’m going to step away now.
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Part of what’s being discussed here is that the sort of privilege that gives rise to assumptions about “objective defaults” can also degrade one’s compassion and humility.
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No need for that in my mind.
Thank you for your responses, and for taking mine seriously.
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I’m enjoying the linked article.
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Milliefink,
I fear you are universalizing ALL white males (categorically)
So, even your less-biased assumptions are assumed to be universal (in the class of ALL white males)
The map is not the territory.
‘Tree’ is not Tree1, nor is it Tree2, nor is it Tree(n).
And, yes, THAT is a universal truth.
I fear there’s a couple parts of the phrase “common white male tendency” that you’re not understanding.
Or else just, for some reason, ignoring.
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That moment when:
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(I’m trying to restrain myself…)
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Hm, there is a flip-side to this.
The whypeepo of Trumpistan feel that they’re being oppressed.
Is there really no way to objectively call it for the crock of shit that it is? (Besides statistics, facts, stuff like that.)
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A few days ago, I suggested a movie might be created to deprogram them. However, there would have to be some way to force those folks to watch it - like the Harmony Hut in Addams Family Values.
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Yeah, at best an education makes you realize that your experience isn’t “the objective one.”
The Barr thing is amazing because in describing “the left,” he actually described, to a T, the current Republican party. Moreover, he not only recognized his own beliefs and approach and projected it as a presumed universality (despite it not making sense when applied to his characterization of “the left”), but then implicitly used it as a justification for… doing/being the very thing he had decried. My brain still hurts.
That’s what (cis het) white males have already done in the culture. (Cis het) white maleness is the presumed cultural/existential universal default. We’ve all internalized it, to one degree or another, as it’s a core part of the culture, though it’s far more easily internalized when one’s “otherness” isn’t constantly being thrown in one’s face. Which is to say: regular white dudes suffer from the default delusion a lot more than anyone else, and take it to heart in a way no one else does, making it that much harder to recognize (much less shake off).
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The corollary to this is
“If you want to remain objective, don’t study history.”
it’s pretty easy to find bias in everyone. We all have it. I think the danger here is that by saying everyone has bias, that there is no object reality, or maybe that no point of view is more valid than another - and that justifies terrible points of view. Obviously I’m referring to all the idiots on the political right demanding that their terrible views be given equality in the press and educational system.
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Reading through all three layers of this feels like i just took a Masters Class in Irony. sighs
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Was that the objective?
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it wasn’t the pain i wanted, but probably the pain i deserve.
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I’m a white dude I don’t think that fact had ever made me believe I’m more objective than anyone else. That’s a weird thought process. I’m an individual everything I’ve learned or experienced is comes through the lens of me. It’s impossible for me to be objective. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand others perspectives but even that it subjective.
Maybe not “believe,” and more like “unconsciously assume”?
It’s great that you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand others’ perspectives. But, if you really are a white dude who’s been able to resist an entire culture’s messaging that says those of your status are the objective ones – while women, POC, LGBTQ+ and so on are usually seen as the subjective, special-pleading ones, who speak from and influenced by their identity-based positions – well sir, you would be an entirely unicorn-ish white dude.
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Admitting that individual people are subjective doesn’t mean saying that all their viewpoints are identical, or of identical value in outcome, or impact on the material world.
I know a pilot is subjective, and their subjectivity is “Watch out for things that might cause the plane problems, from my point-of-view.” I highly value that subjectivity, and trust it profoundly more than a random subjectivity that’s not trying to preserve the plane.
I also value the subjectivities of many other kinds of people that they are also trying to keep their metaphorical “planes” aloft. If people want a chance of having a wide range of people later, it means expanding the subjectivities they trust beyond some idealized rich white male POV (which is the kind of subjectivity that very commonly gets presented as neutral value objective) for a “plane” that is arguably in lesser overall danger currently.
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Have a carrot. (I like carrots.) No, it likely won’t help here… but hey! It’s a carrot. 
PS: Turn up the sound.
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