It’s true that such claims can be used in insidious ways, but at the same time some such claims are also going to be true. If you automatically assume that all such claims are to just to get the readers to signal obeisance and discard them just because of that, then you are also going to discard quite a few claims that you shouldn’t have.
The claims? No. The truth of those claims, their intended implications, whatever motte-and-baileying there may be around them, and so on — the things that actually matter, that is? Look and decide. There’s outside view, and there’s refusal to look at the inside.
If you automatically assume
That is an accusation of bad faith. I have not read the book but I have read the article and have said what I see.
This is a very shrewd point. Where I see the distinction here is there is a conflation with ideas/beliefs /culture and (I hate to use the term) immutable characteristics.
If I have a bad idea, or set of ideas, I can change them.
If I have a bad immutable characteristic, X, I can try to be “less X...” according to Robin. Which just doesn’t make sense to me in terms of race, and barely in terms of culture. Suppose “white culture” is codified and exists, I should try to be less that? Is it not possible that if white culture exists it’s a mix of good and bad traits that we should evaluate independently?
We’re also dealing with poorly defined (or perhaps undefinable) concepts. Are Jews white? Is Jewish culture white? What about Irish? What about Italians? They weren’t always considered as such by everyone.
There are probably people who could lecture me on their operational definitions of ‘white’ and ‘whiteness.’ But at that point it sounds like you’re just redefining “right” and “wrong” to whatever you define as “non-white” and “white” respectively.
Any idea or belief is on the table and open to debate. Me being automatically bad by the nature of my ancestry just sounds like a caste system.
Are claims like “you have been socialised into racism” all that different from claims such as “you are running on corrupted hardware”, though?
It’s true that such claims can be used in insidious ways, but at the same time some such claims are also going to be true. If you automatically assume that all such claims are to just to get the readers to signal obeisance and discard them just because of that, then you are also going to discard quite a few claims that you shouldn’t have.
The claims? No. The truth of those claims, their intended implications, whatever motte-and-baileying there may be around them, and so on — the things that actually matter, that is? Look and decide. There’s outside view, and there’s refusal to look at the inside.
That is an accusation of bad faith. I have not read the book but I have read the article and have said what I see.
This is a very shrewd point. Where I see the distinction here is there is a conflation with ideas/beliefs /culture and (I hate to use the term) immutable characteristics.
If I have a bad idea, or set of ideas, I can change them.
If I have a bad immutable characteristic, X, I can try to be “less X...” according to Robin. Which just doesn’t make sense to me in terms of race, and barely in terms of culture. Suppose “white culture” is codified and exists, I should try to be less that? Is it not possible that if white culture exists it’s a mix of good and bad traits that we should evaluate independently?
We’re also dealing with poorly defined (or perhaps undefinable) concepts. Are Jews white? Is Jewish culture white? What about Irish? What about Italians? They weren’t always considered as such by everyone.
There are probably people who could lecture me on their operational definitions of ‘white’ and ‘whiteness.’ But at that point it sounds like you’re just redefining “right” and “wrong” to whatever you define as “non-white” and “white” respectively.
Any idea or belief is on the table and open to debate. Me being automatically bad by the nature of my ancestry just sounds like a caste system.
Ultimately, I think the way to interpret White Fragility is “conflict theory” and we’re treating it like “mistake theory” and making a mistake in doing so.
EDITS: Links