To make your point more stark, if one were to modify the quote to say
When you find out you’ve been doing something that is neither epistemically nor instrumentally rational, the best response is to say “of course I was; I’m glad I finally found out about it so I can change.”
then it would presumably be better received on LW, even though both are expressing a similar point: if you realize you’ve been mistaking a mistake, the most effective course of action is not to spend time beating yourself up, but to say “oops”, update, and be happy that you noticed in the first place.
From the OP it doesn’t seem to me like the author is saying that. It’s not all there in that quote, but put it in the context of this part:
when DiAngelo sees white people at such meetings clamming up, or talking in meandering ways, with “long pauses” and “self-corrections”, she just chalks this up as white people deploying their favorite strategies for perpetuating white privilege.
I suspect the rule here being taught is: do not reflect, do not think, do not qualify. These are all ways that you are politically opposing us. As before, “the best response is to say “of course I was; I’m glad I finally found out about it so I can change.””
Naturally, it’s not v LW to tell people not to think in conversations or correct previous inaccurate statements, and to tell them instead what to say and that the most acceptable outcome is to just agree on the object level.
In rationalist circles, you might find out that you’re being instrumentally or epistemically irrational in the course of a debate—the norms of such a debate encourage you to rebut your opponent’s points if you think they are being unfair. In contrast, the central thesis of this book is that white people disputing their racism is a mechanism for protecting white supremacy and needs to be unlearned, along with other cornerstones of collective epistemology such as the notion of objective knowledge. So under the epistemic conditions promoted by this book, I expect “found about being racist” to roughly translate to “was told you were racist”.
This analogy assumes that the person already agrees that X is irrational.
If someone told you “Kaj, your lack of faith in Jesus is epistemically and instrumentally irrational” without any evidence, would you agree and be happy that you can finally fix this mistake? Or would you say “I don’t think so”?
Similarly, if someone says “Viliam, you are a racist, because you were born with a racist color of skin”, my response would be “I don’t think you really understand what that word means”.
The problem is this combines with DiAngelo’s other constant assertion that the best way for white people to understand their racism is to listen to black people who are preternaturally gifted at understanding racism. The end result being even worse than what Ben said originally: when a black person tells you you’re racist your best response is “of course I was...”
If you’re dealing with a blindspot that’s distributed across a group of people, then yes, it’s more effective to talk with people outside that group who don’t share the blindspot, because they’re less likely to collaborate with you to keep the spot blind. Obviously it’s not helpful, or even very possible, to just believe whatever other people tell you (it’s not possible to meaningfully believe something you don’t understand). Does DiAngelo actually say to do that? My impression is no, what she says is about what to do if you’re in a group blindspot.
To make your point more stark, if one were to modify the quote to say
then it would presumably be better received on LW, even though both are expressing a similar point: if you realize you’ve been mistaking a mistake, the most effective course of action is not to spend time beating yourself up, but to say “oops”, update, and be happy that you noticed in the first place.
From the OP it doesn’t seem to me like the author is saying that. It’s not all there in that quote, but put it in the context of this part:
I suspect the rule here being taught is: do not reflect, do not think, do not qualify. These are all ways that you are politically opposing us. As before, “the best response is to say “of course I was; I’m glad I finally found out about it so I can change.””
Naturally, it’s not v LW to tell people not to think in conversations or correct previous inaccurate statements, and to tell them instead what to say and that the most acceptable outcome is to just agree on the object level.
In rationalist circles, you might find out that you’re being instrumentally or epistemically irrational in the course of a debate—the norms of such a debate encourage you to rebut your opponent’s points if you think they are being unfair. In contrast, the central thesis of this book is that white people disputing their racism is a mechanism for protecting white supremacy and needs to be unlearned, along with other cornerstones of collective epistemology such as the notion of objective knowledge. So under the epistemic conditions promoted by this book, I expect “found about being racist” to roughly translate to “was told you were racist”.
This analogy assumes that the person already agrees that X is irrational.
If someone told you “Kaj, your lack of faith in Jesus is epistemically and instrumentally irrational” without any evidence, would you agree and be happy that you can finally fix this mistake? Or would you say “I don’t think so”?
Similarly, if someone says “Viliam, you are a racist, because you were born with a racist color of skin”, my response would be “I don’t think you really understand what that word means”.
The problem is this combines with DiAngelo’s other constant assertion that the best way for white people to understand their racism is to listen to black people who are preternaturally gifted at understanding racism. The end result being even worse than what Ben said originally: when a black person tells you you’re racist your best response is “of course I was...”
If you’re dealing with a blindspot that’s distributed across a group of people, then yes, it’s more effective to talk with people outside that group who don’t share the blindspot, because they’re less likely to collaborate with you to keep the spot blind. Obviously it’s not helpful, or even very possible, to just believe whatever other people tell you (it’s not possible to meaningfully believe something you don’t understand). Does DiAngelo actually say to do that? My impression is no, what she says is about what to do if you’re in a group blindspot.