In an ideal world, this would be a reasonable comment. In the real world, with the history of male oppression of women that comes with it, there is an asymmetry that means these things are not equivalent.
Shouldn’t we be trying to move our “real world” in the direction of an “ideal world”?
I sometimes get the impression that contemporary sex/race-oppression consciousness is analogous to the Jewish Yom Kippur ritual as Eliezer described it, in which the point is confessing sins, not trying to avoid them and keeping track of how well one has done. Just as it would be a violation for a participant in the ceremony to say e.g. “Actually, I’m happy to report that I didn’t steal anything this year, so I’m going to leave that part out, thank you”, so too is it something of a faux pas for a member of contemporary Western polite society to fail to treat the historical oppression of women and minorities as if it were a currently potent social force in his/her own culture.
I agree with your point that it’s much more useful to work towards the ideal than it is to merely confess that we haven’t yet attained it. However, this is just silly:
so too is it something of a faux pas for a member of contemporary Western polite society to fail to treat the historical oppression of women and minorities as if it were a currently potent social force in his/her own culture.
Modern culture did not spring fully-formed from Zeus’s head when the current generation was born; it grew organically from the culture which existed before it, and that it therefore retains historical memes seems almost too obvious to mention. When historical oppression stops being a potent social force, we can stop talking about it like a potent social force. In the meantime, those of us who strive to cull those harmful memes from our culture will not do so by ignoring them.
While obviously the legacy of history always remains a social force to some extent, it’s open to question exactly how potent that force is. Clearly it’s less potent than it used to be—but acknowledging this is frowned upon in some circles because it sounds like a concession to the enemy.
(By the way, as this comment demonstrates, it is possible to access accounts automatically created from the importation of Overcoming Bias posts into Less Wrong. One simply uses the password reset function, checks the appropriate e-mail address, and follows the instructions in the message that is automatically sent there. A duplicate account such as “komponisto2” apparently results from a different email address being used to create the LW account “komponisto” from that associated with the OB comments from “komponisto”. Had the same e-mail address been used, old comments such as the grandparent would have been added to the new LW account when the importation took place. Let this be noted by anyone who commented on OB and has not yet created an account on LW.)
In the meantime, those of us who strive to cull those harmful memes from our culture will not do so by ignoring them.
Surely at some point the memes become so weak this it becomes a misspent effort. Even when they are just reduced from heavy to moderate, but still important, they may carry heavy opportunity cost in utilitarian terms. There is a lot to optimize in our universe.
This is not going to be popular comment, but honestly, looking at a cultural group like the ethnic Swedes, fighting perceived anti-woman memes among them seems like a waste of time.
In an ideal world, this would be a reasonable comment. In the real world, with the history of male oppression of women that comes with it, there is an asymmetry that means these things are not equivalent.
Shouldn’t we be trying to move our “real world” in the direction of an “ideal world”?
I sometimes get the impression that contemporary sex/race-oppression consciousness is analogous to the Jewish Yom Kippur ritual as Eliezer described it, in which the point is confessing sins, not trying to avoid them and keeping track of how well one has done. Just as it would be a violation for a participant in the ceremony to say e.g. “Actually, I’m happy to report that I didn’t steal anything this year, so I’m going to leave that part out, thank you”, so too is it something of a faux pas for a member of contemporary Western polite society to fail to treat the historical oppression of women and minorities as if it were a currently potent social force in his/her own culture.
I agree with your point that it’s much more useful to work towards the ideal than it is to merely confess that we haven’t yet attained it. However, this is just silly:
Modern culture did not spring fully-formed from Zeus’s head when the current generation was born; it grew organically from the culture which existed before it, and that it therefore retains historical memes seems almost too obvious to mention. When historical oppression stops being a potent social force, we can stop talking about it like a potent social force. In the meantime, those of us who strive to cull those harmful memes from our culture will not do so by ignoring them.
While obviously the legacy of history always remains a social force to some extent, it’s open to question exactly how potent that force is. Clearly it’s less potent than it used to be—but acknowledging this is frowned upon in some circles because it sounds like a concession to the enemy.
(By the way, as this comment demonstrates, it is possible to access accounts automatically created from the importation of Overcoming Bias posts into Less Wrong. One simply uses the password reset function, checks the appropriate e-mail address, and follows the instructions in the message that is automatically sent there. A duplicate account such as “komponisto2” apparently results from a different email address being used to create the LW account “komponisto” from that associated with the OB comments from “komponisto”. Had the same e-mail address been used, old comments such as the grandparent would have been added to the new LW account when the importation took place. Let this be noted by anyone who commented on OB and has not yet created an account on LW.)
Surely at some point the memes become so weak this it becomes a misspent effort. Even when they are just reduced from heavy to moderate, but still important, they may carry heavy opportunity cost in utilitarian terms. There is a lot to optimize in our universe.
This is not going to be popular comment, but honestly, looking at a cultural group like the ethnic Swedes, fighting perceived anti-woman memes among them seems like a waste of time.