If I understood the story correctly, Scott Aaronson was attacked mostly for paying too little attention to the feminist (well, not only theirs) concept of “privilege”.
I will try to paraphrase the concept of “privilege” (if I understand it correctly) using the terms of statistics in a way that, I imagine, might lead someone to accept the concept. This way, hopefully, I will be able to clearer express myself.
Suppose you can quantify suffering (let’s use the word “suffering” even though in everyday language it is quite strong word, whereas I’ll use it to describe even very small annoyances). And suppose you are trying to create a statistical model, that could predict total suffering of an individual without actually measuring his/her suffering without paying attention to a particular situation (just some kind of “total average suffering”), using explanatory variables that are easy to measure. Suppose you decide that you will use belonging to a specific social group of people as your explanatory variables. As you can see, nothing in these terms guarantees that this model will actually be good (i.e. if the error terms are symmetric, etc.), because, for example, it is not clear whether explanatory variables denoting whether a person belongs to a certain group are actually enough to make a model good, etc.
If you try, for example, linear regression, you will obtain something like this:
S = a + b_1*x_1 + … b_n*x_n + e.
In addition to that, you can have additional variables of the form x_i*x_j or x_i*(1-x_j) to model interaction between different variables.
Here S is total suffering, a is an intercept term, x_i is an expanatory Boolean variable denoting whether a person belongs to an i-th social group (some groups are mutually exclusive, some aren’t, for example, let’s say that we assign 1 to blue eyed people and 0 to others), and if b_1 is negative, then b_1 could be said to measure “privilege” of people who belong to i-th group. If I understand correctly, people who employ this concept use it this way. Let’s denote Ŝ= a + b_1*x_1 + … b_n*x_n and call it “predicted suffering”.
As you can see, claims that privilege is very important and thus everyone must pay a lot of attention to it depend on many assumptions. The model itself might be unsatisfactory if does not account for many important explanatory variables that are as important (or even more important) than those already in a model. Few people are interested in “testing” the model and justifying the variables, most people simply choose several variables and use them.
Modeling total average suffering without paying attention to a specific situation may be misleading if the values of b_i varies a lot depending on a situation.
Another thing is that it is not clear whether error terms e are actually small. If your model of total suffering fails to account for many sources of suffering, then error terms probably dwarfs predicted suffering. It is my impression that, when people see a linear model, their default thinking is that error terms as smaller (perhaps much smaller) than the conditional mean, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Therefore saying that a model has predictive power without saying that it has huge error terms might mislead a lot of people about what the model says.
Some people might claim that they, for some reason, are only interested in specific types of suffering, i.e. suffering from prejudice, biased institutions, politics, laws, conventions of public life or something like that. That doesn’t mean that individual variation and error terms are small. If they aren’t, then you cannot neglect their importance.
The values of coefficients b_i may be hard to determine.
But the problem I want to talk about the most is this. If you can observe the value of response variable S (total average suffering of an individual or total average suffering of an individual which is caused by a specific sets of reasons) then focusing on predicted value Ŝ is a mistake, since observation of response variable S screens off the the whole point of making a prediction Ŝ. For example, you can use university degrees to predict the qualifications of a job applicant, but if you can already observe their qualifications, you do not need to make predictions based on those degrees. It is my impression that most people, who talk about privilege, sometimes pay little attention to actual suffering S, but, due to mental habits obtained, perhaps, by reading the literature about the topic, pay a lot of attention to predicted suffering Ŝ. For example, Scott Aaronson describes his individual S in his comment here and gets a response here. The author says she empathizes with Scott Aaronson’s story (S), then starts blaming Scott for not talking about Ŝ, and proceeds to talk about average (Ŝ) female and male nerds. Ŝ is not what any individual feels, but it seems to be the only thing some people are able to talk about. If the size of Ŝ does not dwarf model error terms e, then by talking about Ŝ and not talking about S they are throwing away the reality.
In addition to that, there is, If I understand correctly, another source of confusion, and it is ambiguity of the vague concepts “institutional” and “structural”. If we are talking, e.g. about suffering from biased institutions, prejudices, structures in society etc. (if for some reason we are paying more attention to only this specific type of suffering), then S (and not Ŝ) is what actually measures it. However, it is my impression that some people use these words to refer to Ŝ only, without error terms e. In this case, they should remember, that S is what actually exists in the world and, if error terms are huge, then there might be very few situations where neglecting them talking about Ŝ instead actually illuminates anything. It is my impression that some people who are interested in things like “privilege” tend to overestimate the size of Ŝ and underestimate the size of e, perhaps due to availability heuristic.
Many people, who argue against feminists, tend to claim that the latter estimate Ŝ incorrectly. This may or may not be true, but I don’t think that it is a good way to convince them to pay attention to problems that are different from what they are used to dealing with. Instead, I think that there might be a chance to convince them by emphasizing that S, and not Ŝ is what exists in the real world, emphasizing that error terms e may be huge, and not allowing them to change the topic from S to Ŝ. If you make them concede that a problem X, which their model does not use as a explanatory variable, exists and person_1, person_2, … person_n suffer from problem X. Perhaps then they will not be hostile to the idea of noticing the pattern. To sum up, it seems to me that feminism tends to explain all things in top-down fashion and model their enemies as being top-down as well. My guess is that making them to think in “bottom-up” style terms may make their thinking somewhat less rigid.
Of course, all this is an attempt to guess how a specific part of a solution (stopping feminists from trying to complicate any kind of solution) might look like
“Privilege” is not really a well-defined concept, but in its most cogent and consistent version, it doesn’t really have much to do with suffering at all. It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
It’s similar to the argument that truthful Bayesian debaters “can’t agree to disagree”, except that in the real world, humans don’t generally have a clean separation between “different priors” and “different experiences”. So, if your priors seem to be somehow different from others’, this should make you suspect that something is amiss, because we don’t really know of a good reason to reject common priors, if only as an abstract goal.
From this point of view, Scott Aaronson’s claim that “privilege” doesn’t apply to him is not very meaningful. If anything, a better argument would be that the SJWish folks who have pattern-matched his comment to “Self-proclaimed nice guy(TM) complains about ‘feminists’, reveals his boorish, entitled attitudes” are showing privilege wrt. nerdy, socially awkward straight males who are expected to navigate the not-altogether-trivial problem of how to interact with women both socially and romantically in a way that’s respectful of everyone’s autonomy.
It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
That’s not quite correct; I think it’s best to start with the concept of systematic oppression. Suppose for the sake of argument that some group of people is systematically oppressed, that is, on account of their group identity, the system in which they find themselves denies them access to markets, or subjects them to market power or physical violence, or vilifies them in the public sphere—you can provide your own examples. The privileged group is just the set complement of the oppressed group. An analogy: systematic oppression is the subject and privilege (in the SJ jargon sense) is the negative space.
The “biased point-of-view” thing follows as a near-corollary because it’s human nature to notice one’s oppression and to take one’s absence-of-oppression for granted as a kind of natural status quo, a background assumption.
Next question: in what way did Aaronson’s so-called wealthy white male privilege actually benefit him? To answer this, all we need to do is imagine, say, a similarly terrified poor black trans nerd learning to come out of their shell. Because I’ve chosen an extreme contrast, it’s pretty clear who would have the easier time of it and why. Once you can see it in high contrast, it’s pretty easy to relax the contrast and keep track of the relative benefits that privilege conveys.
“Privilege” is [...] a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”.
It’s more than that. It refers to unearned advantages that prevent you from empathizing with other people’s experiences.
For example, you don’t usually think how special it is that you can read and have internet access, but compared to the rest of the world, it’s a privilege; acknowledging your class privilege means not forgetting about the lots of people who through no fault of their own don’t have those luxuries.
If you’re cisgendered, you have the privilege of not being constantly asked to explain your appearance and behavior to others; acknowledging your cis privilege means not forgetting that other people have it harder than you.
If you live in any part of the Americas, you benefit from the systematic displacement and extermination of Native cultures. Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
No more than your existence depending on some paternal ancestor raping some maternal ancestor, which stochastically also happened. Being neither a believer in kin liability*, and skeptical at best about collective guilt (for past events, no less), why should I—or you, or anyone—feel responsible?
(As an aside, just for the hypothetical: The Natives that were displaced could well be those tribes who previously themselves successfully displaced/replaced other tribes, no? Back the guilt ball rolls, to the first microbe. At least it can’t be triggered, not having a brain and all. Then again, that’s no protection for Tumblristas either.)
* Excluding otherkin liability, because otherkin are the epitome of what’s wrong with the world. When anything wrong happens somewhere in the world, the closest otherkin should be put on a public show-trial, incarcerated and/or have his/her rotary blades removed.
True, collective guilt is a wrong idea. Acknowledging privilege is not about apologizing; it’s rather about not taking your good life for granted. You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
What does this being mindful look like, in concrete terms?
Here is a short list of things I do and some things I have heard suggested:
Consume media created by members of disadvantaged groups
Notice when members of disadvantaged groups are absent from a particular setting. Ask yourself or others why this might be the case, and whether this serves the desired objectives, or if there’s even clarity on what the desired objectives are. (Example: holding a meeting on a college campus that lacks public parking.)
If you attend professional conferences, ask organizers what they are doing to ensure all presentation proposals get fair consideration. (If you’re so inclined, ask what they are doing to support diversity among presenters.)
Update towards the belief that, regardless of your good intentions, members of disadvantaged groups may interpret certain things you say uncharitably. Avoid saying such things, or take pains to avoid offloading your discomfort onto them. For examples of things to watch out for, you may find it helpful to read Derailing for Dummies.
Some addenda:
If you have experiences that you feel make you better able to empathize with members of a disadvantaged group, great! When you are with members of the disadvantaged group, do not bring up these experiences unless you are specifically asked.
Do not claim to share an identity with members of the disadvantaged group unless explicitly and enthusiastically invited to do so. Even so, this dispensation is good only when you’re among the people who extended it to you. (Example: a campus LGBTQA group whose members are persistently and vocally excited about the “and allies!” bit.)
If you feel someone is stereotyping you unfairly, consider whether you are the target audience for this piece of media. Do not reply, with a possible exception being for when you are being named specifically (and not referred to by group identity.)
Carefully consider the relative magnitude of a wrong you have suffered before airing righteous indignation, even as a group bonding activity.
I’m not sure that the case for being mindful only to those who suffer because of an ancient crime from which you benefit and not towards those who suffer for other reasons is strong.
I rather focus on the people who suffer and how to alleviate suffering than go to much into the historical background of why they might suffer.
The subthread had arrived at a discussion on the definition of privilege, and that’s the context where I made those comments. That context required a focus on a specific subset of injustices. I didn’t mean or expect it to be understood as a dismissal of all other types of injustices.
Determining suffering and determining injustice are two different strategies.
I can emphatize with a person who’s suffering without going into an intellectual analysis of whether his suffering is just or injust.
If you think in terms of injustice you need to presume that you understand the plight of the other person well enough to be able to tell whether they are suffering justly.
That means you won’t emphatize with people who suffer for reasons you don’t understand.
I can see a person suffering without understanding why they are suffering. I don’t need to judge the suffering as right or wrong in oder to emphatize.
Knowing about the fact that native Americans get slaughtered hundreds of years ago doesn’t allow me to determine whether a native American I’m meeting is suffering. It’s quite irrelevant to the question of whether the specific person is suffering.
I do much better by actually engaging in empathic listening. Instead of judging a person based on what happened in the past I can interact with them in the present.
One root pattern in the set of issues (race, gender, religion) is of between-group variance attracting more attention than within-group variance.
I suspect this pattern has deeper roots than a simple neglect of variance: At least some participants seem to fully accept that a model of suffering based only on group membership may involve too much noise to apply to individuals, but still feel very concerned about the predicted group differences, and don’t feel a pressing need to develop better models of individual suffering.
(BTW, this is the heart of my critique of Jonathon Haidt’s claim that left-leaning people think predominately along the care/harm axis.)
In any case, we probably care more about group differences for political reasons, and because our group definitions may correspond to “levers” that are easier to pull. Another theory is that group inequality really is a leading cause of suffering, because we’ve evolved to feel the stigma of belonging to less well-off group as much more painful than the raw difference in non-group-related suffering would predict. Or perhaps we fear that group differences can diverge much more rapidly, and so must be monitored very closely (there is some historical evidence for this).
Finally, we might feel that group membership (in something like race or gender) is not morally assignable to a single member, while the error terms (what I’d call the contributing factors to within-group variance) are morally assignable to individuals. But this is just a restatement of the idea that “fairness” concerns are involved.
This perspective also frames another perennial puzzle of these debates, which is the appearance of both of a critique of stereotypical thinking (which is typically a neglect of within-group variance), and an approach that focuses so heavily on group differences!
If I understood the story correctly, Scott Aaronson was attacked mostly for paying too little attention for the feminist (well, not only theirs) concept of “privilege”.
Not, the question is who happens to be privileged:
But I suspect the thought that being a nerdy male might not make me “privileged”—that it might even have put me into one of society’s least privileged classes—is completely alien to your way of seeing things
[...]
Because of my fears—my fears of being “outed” as a nerdy heterosexual male, and therefore as a potential creep or sex criminal—I had constant suicidal thoughts. As Bertrand Russell wrote of his own adolescence: “I was put off from suicide only by the desire to learn more mathematics.”
[...]
The same girls who I was terrified would pepper-spray me and call the police if I looked in their direction, often responded to the crudest advances of the most Neanderthal of men by accepting those advances. Yet it was I, the nerd, and not the Neanderthals, who needed to check his privilege and examine his hidden entitlement!
If I understood the story correctly, Scott Aaronson was attacked mostly for paying too little attention to the feminist (well, not only theirs) concept of “privilege”. I will try to paraphrase the concept of “privilege” (if I understand it correctly) using the terms of statistics in a way that, I imagine, might lead someone to accept the concept. This way, hopefully, I will be able to clearer express myself.
Suppose you can quantify suffering (let’s use the word “suffering” even though in everyday language it is quite strong word, whereas I’ll use it to describe even very small annoyances). And suppose you are trying to create a statistical model, that could predict total suffering of an individual without actually measuring his/her suffering without paying attention to a particular situation (just some kind of “total average suffering”), using explanatory variables that are easy to measure. Suppose you decide that you will use belonging to a specific social group of people as your explanatory variables. As you can see, nothing in these terms guarantees that this model will actually be good (i.e. if the error terms are symmetric, etc.), because, for example, it is not clear whether explanatory variables denoting whether a person belongs to a certain group are actually enough to make a model good, etc.
If you try, for example, linear regression, you will obtain something like this: S = a + b_1*x_1 + … b_n*x_n + e. In addition to that, you can have additional variables of the form x_i*x_j or x_i*(1-x_j) to model interaction between different variables. Here S is total suffering, a is an intercept term, x_i is an expanatory Boolean variable denoting whether a person belongs to an i-th social group (some groups are mutually exclusive, some aren’t, for example, let’s say that we assign 1 to blue eyed people and 0 to others), and if b_1 is negative, then b_1 could be said to measure “privilege” of people who belong to i-th group. If I understand correctly, people who employ this concept use it this way. Let’s denote Ŝ= a + b_1*x_1 + … b_n*x_n and call it “predicted suffering”.
As you can see, claims that privilege is very important and thus everyone must pay a lot of attention to it depend on many assumptions.
The model itself might be unsatisfactory if does not account for many important explanatory variables that are as important (or even more important) than those already in a model. Few people are interested in “testing” the model and justifying the variables, most people simply choose several variables and use them.
Modeling total average suffering without paying attention to a specific situation may be misleading if the values of b_i varies a lot depending on a situation.
Another thing is that it is not clear whether error terms e are actually small. If your model of total suffering fails to account for many sources of suffering, then error terms probably dwarfs predicted suffering. It is my impression that, when people see a linear model, their default thinking is that error terms as smaller (perhaps much smaller) than the conditional mean, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Therefore saying that a model has predictive power without saying that it has huge error terms might mislead a lot of people about what the model says.
Some people might claim that they, for some reason, are only interested in specific types of suffering, i.e. suffering from prejudice, biased institutions, politics, laws, conventions of public life or something like that. That doesn’t mean that individual variation and error terms are small. If they aren’t, then you cannot neglect their importance.
The values of coefficients b_i may be hard to determine.
But the problem I want to talk about the most is this. If you can observe the value of response variable S (total average suffering of an individual or total average suffering of an individual which is caused by a specific sets of reasons) then focusing on predicted value Ŝ is a mistake, since observation of response variable S screens off the the whole point of making a prediction Ŝ. For example, you can use university degrees to predict the qualifications of a job applicant, but if you can already observe their qualifications, you do not need to make predictions based on those degrees. It is my impression that most people, who talk about privilege, sometimes pay little attention to actual suffering S, but, due to mental habits obtained, perhaps, by reading the literature about the topic, pay a lot of attention to predicted suffering Ŝ. For example, Scott Aaronson describes his individual S in his comment here and gets a response here. The author says she empathizes with Scott Aaronson’s story (S), then starts blaming Scott for not talking about Ŝ, and proceeds to talk about average (Ŝ) female and male nerds. Ŝ is not what any individual feels, but it seems to be the only thing some people are able to talk about. If the size of Ŝ does not dwarf model error terms e, then by talking about Ŝ and not talking about S they are throwing away the reality.
In addition to that, there is, If I understand correctly, another source of confusion, and it is ambiguity of the vague concepts “institutional” and “structural”. If we are talking, e.g. about suffering from biased institutions, prejudices, structures in society etc. (if for some reason we are paying more attention to only this specific type of suffering), then S (and not Ŝ) is what actually measures it. However, it is my impression that some people use these words to refer to Ŝ only, without error terms e. In this case, they should remember, that S is what actually exists in the world and, if error terms are huge, then there might be very few situations where neglecting them talking about Ŝ instead actually illuminates anything. It is my impression that some people who are interested in things like “privilege” tend to overestimate the size of Ŝ and underestimate the size of e, perhaps due to availability heuristic.
Many people, who argue against feminists, tend to claim that the latter estimate Ŝ incorrectly. This may or may not be true, but I don’t think that it is a good way to convince them to pay attention to problems that are different from what they are used to dealing with. Instead, I think that there might be a chance to convince them by emphasizing that S, and not Ŝ is what exists in the real world, emphasizing that error terms e may be huge, and not allowing them to change the topic from S to Ŝ. If you make them concede that a problem X, which their model does not use as a explanatory variable, exists and person_1, person_2, … person_n suffer from problem X. Perhaps then they will not be hostile to the idea of noticing the pattern. To sum up, it seems to me that feminism tends to explain all things in top-down fashion and model their enemies as being top-down as well. My guess is that making them to think in “bottom-up” style terms may make their thinking somewhat less rigid.
Of course, all this is an attempt to guess how a specific part of a solution (stopping feminists from trying to complicate any kind of solution) might look like
“Privilege” is not really a well-defined concept, but in its most cogent and consistent version, it doesn’t really have much to do with suffering at all. It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
It’s similar to the argument that truthful Bayesian debaters “can’t agree to disagree”, except that in the real world, humans don’t generally have a clean separation between “different priors” and “different experiences”. So, if your priors seem to be somehow different from others’, this should make you suspect that something is amiss, because we don’t really know of a good reason to reject common priors, if only as an abstract goal.
From this point of view, Scott Aaronson’s claim that “privilege” doesn’t apply to him is not very meaningful. If anything, a better argument would be that the SJWish folks who have pattern-matched his comment to “Self-proclaimed nice guy(TM) complains about ‘feminists’, reveals his boorish, entitled attitudes” are showing privilege wrt. nerdy, socially awkward straight males who are expected to navigate the not-altogether-trivial problem of how to interact with women both socially and romantically in a way that’s respectful of everyone’s autonomy.
That’s not quite correct; I think it’s best to start with the concept of systematic oppression. Suppose for the sake of argument that some group of people is systematically oppressed, that is, on account of their group identity, the system in which they find themselves denies them access to markets, or subjects them to market power or physical violence, or vilifies them in the public sphere—you can provide your own examples. The privileged group is just the set complement of the oppressed group. An analogy: systematic oppression is the subject and privilege (in the SJ jargon sense) is the negative space.
The “biased point-of-view” thing follows as a near-corollary because it’s human nature to notice one’s oppression and to take one’s absence-of-oppression for granted as a kind of natural status quo, a background assumption.
Next question: in what way did Aaronson’s so-called wealthy white male privilege actually benefit him? To answer this, all we need to do is imagine, say, a similarly terrified poor black trans nerd learning to come out of their shell. Because I’ve chosen an extreme contrast, it’s pretty clear who would have the easier time of it and why. Once you can see it in high contrast, it’s pretty easy to relax the contrast and keep track of the relative benefits that privilege conveys.
It’s more than that. It refers to unearned advantages that prevent you from empathizing with other people’s experiences.
For example, you don’t usually think how special it is that you can read and have internet access, but compared to the rest of the world, it’s a privilege; acknowledging your class privilege means not forgetting about the lots of people who through no fault of their own don’t have those luxuries.
If you’re cisgendered, you have the privilege of not being constantly asked to explain your appearance and behavior to others; acknowledging your cis privilege means not forgetting that other people have it harder than you.
If you live in any part of the Americas, you benefit from the systematic displacement and extermination of Native cultures. Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
No more than your existence depending on some paternal ancestor raping some maternal ancestor, which stochastically also happened. Being neither a believer in kin liability*, and skeptical at best about collective guilt (for past events, no less), why should I—or you, or anyone—feel responsible?
(As an aside, just for the hypothetical: The Natives that were displaced could well be those tribes who previously themselves successfully displaced/replaced other tribes, no? Back the guilt ball rolls, to the first microbe. At least it can’t be triggered, not having a brain and all. Then again, that’s no protection for Tumblristas either.)
* Excluding otherkin liability, because otherkin are the epitome of what’s wrong with the world. When anything wrong happens somewhere in the world, the closest otherkin should be put on a public show-trial, incarcerated and/or have his/her rotary blades removed.
True, collective guilt is a wrong idea. Acknowledging privilege is not about apologizing; it’s rather about not taking your good life for granted. You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
What does this being mindful look like, in concrete terms?
Here is a short list of things I do and some things I have heard suggested:
Consume media created by members of disadvantaged groups
Notice when members of disadvantaged groups are absent from a particular setting. Ask yourself or others why this might be the case, and whether this serves the desired objectives, or if there’s even clarity on what the desired objectives are. (Example: holding a meeting on a college campus that lacks public parking.)
If you attend professional conferences, ask organizers what they are doing to ensure all presentation proposals get fair consideration. (If you’re so inclined, ask what they are doing to support diversity among presenters.)
Update towards the belief that, regardless of your good intentions, members of disadvantaged groups may interpret certain things you say uncharitably. Avoid saying such things, or take pains to avoid offloading your discomfort onto them. For examples of things to watch out for, you may find it helpful to read Derailing for Dummies.
Some addenda:
If you have experiences that you feel make you better able to empathize with members of a disadvantaged group, great! When you are with members of the disadvantaged group, do not bring up these experiences unless you are specifically asked.
Do not claim to share an identity with members of the disadvantaged group unless explicitly and enthusiastically invited to do so. Even so, this dispensation is good only when you’re among the people who extended it to you. (Example: a campus LGBTQA group whose members are persistently and vocally excited about the “and allies!” bit.)
If you feel someone is stereotyping you unfairly, consider whether you are the target audience for this piece of media. Do not reply, with a possible exception being for when you are being named specifically (and not referred to by group identity.)
Carefully consider the relative magnitude of a wrong you have suffered before airing righteous indignation, even as a group bonding activity.
I’m not sure that the case for being mindful only to those who suffer because of an ancient crime from which you benefit and not towards those who suffer for other reasons is strong.
I rather focus on the people who suffer and how to alleviate suffering than go to much into the historical background of why they might suffer.
I didn’t say or imply that.
If you would advocate to be empathic towards everyone then why speak about those ancient crimes?
The subthread had arrived at a discussion on the definition of privilege, and that’s the context where I made those comments. That context required a focus on a specific subset of injustices. I didn’t mean or expect it to be understood as a dismissal of all other types of injustices.
Determining suffering and determining injustice are two different strategies.
I can emphatize with a person who’s suffering without going into an intellectual analysis of whether his suffering is just or injust. If you think in terms of injustice you need to presume that you understand the plight of the other person well enough to be able to tell whether they are suffering justly.
That means you won’t emphatize with people who suffer for reasons you don’t understand.
That’s part of the point I was trying to make. Privilege blinds you to the suffering of people who you may not even know are suffering.
I can see a person suffering without understanding why they are suffering. I don’t need to judge the suffering as right or wrong in oder to emphatize.
Knowing about the fact that native Americans get slaughtered hundreds of years ago doesn’t allow me to determine whether a native American I’m meeting is suffering. It’s quite irrelevant to the question of whether the specific person is suffering.
I do much better by actually engaging in empathic listening. Instead of judging a person based on what happened in the past I can interact with them in the present.
Expected by whom?
By the standards of basic decency.
One root pattern in the set of issues (race, gender, religion) is of between-group variance attracting more attention than within-group variance.
I suspect this pattern has deeper roots than a simple neglect of variance: At least some participants seem to fully accept that a model of suffering based only on group membership may involve too much noise to apply to individuals, but still feel very concerned about the predicted group differences, and don’t feel a pressing need to develop better models of individual suffering.
(BTW, this is the heart of my critique of Jonathon Haidt’s claim that left-leaning people think predominately along the care/harm axis.)
In any case, we probably care more about group differences for political reasons, and because our group definitions may correspond to “levers” that are easier to pull. Another theory is that group inequality really is a leading cause of suffering, because we’ve evolved to feel the stigma of belonging to less well-off group as much more painful than the raw difference in non-group-related suffering would predict. Or perhaps we fear that group differences can diverge much more rapidly, and so must be monitored very closely (there is some historical evidence for this).
Finally, we might feel that group membership (in something like race or gender) is not morally assignable to a single member, while the error terms (what I’d call the contributing factors to within-group variance) are morally assignable to individuals. But this is just a restatement of the idea that “fairness” concerns are involved.
This perspective also frames another perennial puzzle of these debates, which is the appearance of both of a critique of stereotypical thinking (which is typically a neglect of within-group variance), and an approach that focuses so heavily on group differences!
Not, the question is who happens to be privileged: