A racist statement is usually one that, if accepted by the listener, will tend to lower the status of the targeted race. Same for other -ists. I’m not seeing how it doesn’t fit with the status theory.
Person A of race X takes offense when person B of race X makes an unduly strongly positive comment about race X. Assume no other friends of A know B, and there are no other people are around. Perhaps they’re the only two people at a bar.
There are two explanations that have been screened off; A can’t be worried about what other people will think, because there aren’t any. Similarly, A can’t be thinking that admonishing B will raise people’s perception of his social status, since only B is there to hear, and it won’t endear him to B. He could admittedly tell people a story about how he admonished B loudly after he said such an offensive statement, but such a prospect need not touch his mind for him to take offense.
So it boils down to Person A getting offended by a comment that raises person A’s status. This appears contradictory to your model. I would love to hear how it fails to be, especially if its a simple, intuitive explanation that seems to resemble how people actually think, and not a complex justification.
Your model would predict that people of race X would be supportive of such statements (even if they implicitly denigrate other races). This is, unfortunately, sometimes the case, but it is not generally the case (nor should it be) so status does not appear to be the primary operator here. If people can be offended by comments that raise their status or by comments that lower it, “ingroup status lowering / outgroup status raising” do not strike me as being accurate causes.
“Threatens social norms” explains all of these instances. It explains why some people get offended by comments about other races/genders/what-have-yous and why others don’t—they place different values on maintaining that specific part of the social order. It explains why such comments between friends are acceptable—they know they don’t mean it, so social norms aren’t threatened. I don’t think “status” covers the variety of reactions as well, and it does not seem as close to how it actually feels.
I’m not going to delve into specific examples for obvious reasons, but take a very offensive statement you can think of that goes “Race/gender X has quality M.” Then try applying M to a race/gender Z that M does not get stereotypically applied to. The statement will probably not be anywhere near as offensive. This seems confusing under the status model. It makes perfect sense under the social norms model. If M is not stereotypical of Z, no norm exists against the statement; you just sound weird or confused.
“Threatens social standards” seems to carve reality at the joints much more cleanly than “status” does, though if I’m wrong, I’d love to see counterexamples.
I think agree with you that status doesn’t quite seem to cover everything. But “threatens social standards” seems like too much of a black box to me to be a very satisfying explanation in itself. I guess if it suggests anything, it’s that offense, like social standards, have too many distinct, and not always sensible causes to be traced back to a single root.
Person A of race X takes offense when person B of race X makes an unduly strongly positive comment about race X. Assume no other friends of A know B, and there are no other people are around. Perhaps they’re the only two people at a bar.
There are two explanations that have been screened off; A can’t be worried about what other people will think, because there aren’t any. Similarly, A can’t be thinking that admonishing B will raise people’s perception of his social status, since only B is there to hear, and it won’t endear him to B. He could admittedly tell people a story about how he admonished B loudly after he said such an offensive statement, but such a prospect need not touch his mind for him to take offense.
So it boils down to Person A getting offended by a comment that raises person A’s status. This appears contradictory to your model. I would love to hear how it fails to be, especially if its a simple, intuitive explanation that seems to resemble how people actually think, and not a complex justification.
Your model would predict that people of race X would be supportive of such statements (even if they implicitly denigrate other races). This is, unfortunately, sometimes the case, but it is not generally the case (nor should it be) so status does not appear to be the primary operator here. If people can be offended by comments that raise their status or by comments that lower it, “ingroup status lowering / outgroup status raising” do not strike me as being accurate causes.
“Threatens social norms” explains all of these instances. It explains why some people get offended by comments about other races/genders/what-have-yous and why others don’t—they place different values on maintaining that specific part of the social order. It explains why such comments between friends are acceptable—they know they don’t mean it, so social norms aren’t threatened. I don’t think “status” covers the variety of reactions as well, and it does not seem as close to how it actually feels.
I’m not going to delve into specific examples for obvious reasons, but take a very offensive statement you can think of that goes “Race/gender X has quality M.” Then try applying M to a race/gender Z that M does not get stereotypically applied to. The statement will probably not be anywhere near as offensive. This seems confusing under the status model. It makes perfect sense under the social norms model. If M is not stereotypical of Z, no norm exists against the statement; you just sound weird or confused.
“Threatens social standards” seems to carve reality at the joints much more cleanly than “status” does, though if I’m wrong, I’d love to see counterexamples.
I think agree with you that status doesn’t quite seem to cover everything. But “threatens social standards” seems like too much of a black box to me to be a very satisfying explanation in itself. I guess if it suggests anything, it’s that offense, like social standards, have too many distinct, and not always sensible causes to be traced back to a single root.