Some people might object to calling racism-1 racism, and instead will decide to call it “human biodiversity” or “race realism”. I think this is bullshit. Just fucking call it what it is.
“What it fucking is” is a straw man. ie. “and that certain races have more or less desirable characteristics than others” is not what the people you are disparaging are likely to say, for all that it is vaguely related.
Own up to your beliefs.
Seeing this exhortation used to try to shame people into accepting your caricature as their own position fills me with the same sort of disgust and contempt that you have for racism. Failure to “own up” and profess their actual beliefs is approximately the opposite of the failure mode they are engaging in (that of not keeping their mouth shut when socially expedient). In much the same way suicide bombers are not cowards.
According to Wikipedia, “racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior.”
This definition appears to exactly match the beliefs of the people I am talking about. I guess it’s all in how you define superior, inferior, more desirable, etc. But most of the discourse revolves around intelligence which is a pretty important trait and I don’t think these people believe that black people, for example, have traits that make up for their supposed lack of intelligence, or that Asians have flaws that make up for their supposed above-average intelligence (and no, dick size doesn’t count). In particular, these people seem to believe that an innate lack of intelligence is to blame for the fact that so many African countries are in total chaos and unless you believe in a soul or something, it’s hard to imagine that a race physically incapable of sustaining civilization is not in some meaningful way “inferior”.
If you hold a belief that is described with a name that has negative connotations, you have two options. You can either hide behind some sort of euphemism, or you can just come out and say “yes I do believe that, and I am proud of it”. I think the second choice is much more noble, and if I were to adopt these beliefs, I would just go ahead and describe myself as a racist. It’s not really a major issue though and I probably shouldn’t have used the word “fucking” in my previous post.
But anyway, since the term is completely accurate, the only reason I can think of to not call the people I’m describing racists is because it might offend them, which is deeply ironic.
If you hold a belief that is described with a name that has negative connotations, you have two options. You can either hide behind some sort of euphemism, or you can just come out and say “yes I do believe that, and I am proud of it”.
There is also a third option: Keep your identity small and pick your battles. Just because the society happens to disagree with you in one specific topic, that is no reason to make that one topic central to your life, and to let all other people define you by that one topic regardless of what other traits or abilities you have—which will probably happen if you are open about that disagreement.
Imagine that you live in a society where people believe that 2+2=5, and they also believe that anyone who says 2+2=4 is an evil person and must be killed. (There seems to be a good reason for that. Hundred years ago there was an evil robot who destroyed half of the planet, and it is know that the robot believed that 2+2=4. Because this is the most known fact about the robot, people concluded that beliving that 2+2=4 must be the source of all evil, and needs to be eradicated from the society. We don’t want any more planetary destruction, do we?) What are your choices? You could say that 2+2=4 and get killed. Or you could say that 2+2=4.999, avoid being killed, only get a few suspicious looks and be rejected at a few job interviews; and hope that if people keep doing that long enough, at one moment it will become acceptable to say that 2+2=4.9, or even 4.5, and perhaps one day no one will be killed for saying that it equals 4.
The third option is to enjoy food and wine, and refuse to comment publicly on how much 2+2 is. Perhaps have a few trusted friends you can discuss maths with.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system. I definitely agree with you that racists should not go around talking publicly about their beliefs! You seem to have inferred something from my post that I didn’t mean, sorry about that.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system.
Interesting. I’m fond of using a negative-connotation framing of myself and my beliefs, but I wouldn’t call it “honest”.
In general, socially admitted “beliefs” are actually actions. I see no reason to optimize them for anything other than effectiveness.
(LW is different. There is enough openness here and epistemic rationality norms that it’s actually a good idea to share your beliefs and get criticism.)
Of course, what I usually do is saying “2+2>3” when I want to sound politically correct and “2+2<6” when I want to sound meta-contrarian. (Translating back from the metaphor, those would be “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nurture” and “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nature” respectively.)
According to Wikipedia, “racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior.”
I think that “group as a whole” is the key word. Men are taller than women in average, and being tall is usually considered desirable; is pointing that out sexist? I’d say that until you treat that fact as a reason to consider a gender “as a whole” more desirable than another, it isn’t.
Doesn’t contradict what I said, because I never claimed that most people aren’t sexist. (And BTW, I’m not sure whether what you mean by “desirable” is what was meant in WP’s definition of racism. I’m not usually sexually attracted to males or Asians, but I consider this a fact about me, not about males or Asians, and I don’t consider myself sexist or racist for that.)
(EDIT: to be more pedantic, one could say that the fact that I’m normally only attracted to people with characteristics X, Y, and Z is a fact about me and that the fact that males/Asians seldom have characteristics X, Y and Z is a fact about them, though.)
the only reason I can think of to not call the people I’m describing racists is because it might offend them
If they believed you, consistency bias might make them lean more toward racist-2 and racist-3. Or it might shame them into lowering their belief in the entire reactionary memeplex, which would be epistemically sub-optimal. It might lower their status, or even their earning ability if justified accusations of racism became associated with their offline identities. There’s many ways leveraging emotionally loaded terms can have negative effects.
“What it fucking is” is a straw man. ie. “and that certain races have more or less desirable characteristics than others” is not what the people you are disparaging are likely to say, for all that it is vaguely related.
Seeing this exhortation used to try to shame people into accepting your caricature as their own position fills me with the same sort of disgust and contempt that you have for racism. Failure to “own up” and profess their actual beliefs is approximately the opposite of the failure mode they are engaging in (that of not keeping their mouth shut when socially expedient). In much the same way suicide bombers are not cowards.
According to Wikipedia, “racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior.”
This definition appears to exactly match the beliefs of the people I am talking about. I guess it’s all in how you define superior, inferior, more desirable, etc. But most of the discourse revolves around intelligence which is a pretty important trait and I don’t think these people believe that black people, for example, have traits that make up for their supposed lack of intelligence, or that Asians have flaws that make up for their supposed above-average intelligence (and no, dick size doesn’t count). In particular, these people seem to believe that an innate lack of intelligence is to blame for the fact that so many African countries are in total chaos and unless you believe in a soul or something, it’s hard to imagine that a race physically incapable of sustaining civilization is not in some meaningful way “inferior”.
If you hold a belief that is described with a name that has negative connotations, you have two options. You can either hide behind some sort of euphemism, or you can just come out and say “yes I do believe that, and I am proud of it”. I think the second choice is much more noble, and if I were to adopt these beliefs, I would just go ahead and describe myself as a racist. It’s not really a major issue though and I probably shouldn’t have used the word “fucking” in my previous post.
But anyway, since the term is completely accurate, the only reason I can think of to not call the people I’m describing racists is because it might offend them, which is deeply ironic.
There is also a third option: Keep your identity small and pick your battles. Just because the society happens to disagree with you in one specific topic, that is no reason to make that one topic central to your life, and to let all other people define you by that one topic regardless of what other traits or abilities you have—which will probably happen if you are open about that disagreement.
Imagine that you live in a society where people believe that 2+2=5, and they also believe that anyone who says 2+2=4 is an evil person and must be killed. (There seems to be a good reason for that. Hundred years ago there was an evil robot who destroyed half of the planet, and it is know that the robot believed that 2+2=4. Because this is the most known fact about the robot, people concluded that beliving that 2+2=4 must be the source of all evil, and needs to be eradicated from the society. We don’t want any more planetary destruction, do we?) What are your choices? You could say that 2+2=4 and get killed. Or you could say that 2+2=4.999, avoid being killed, only get a few suspicious looks and be rejected at a few job interviews; and hope that if people keep doing that long enough, at one moment it will become acceptable to say that 2+2=4.9, or even 4.5, and perhaps one day no one will be killed for saying that it equals 4.
The third option is to enjoy food and wine, and refuse to comment publicly on how much 2+2 is. Perhaps have a few trusted friends you can discuss maths with.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system. I definitely agree with you that racists should not go around talking publicly about their beliefs! You seem to have inferred something from my post that I didn’t mean, sorry about that.
Interesting. I’m fond of using a negative-connotation framing of myself and my beliefs, but I wouldn’t call it “honest”.
In general, socially admitted “beliefs” are actually actions. I see no reason to optimize them for anything other than effectiveness.
(LW is different. There is enough openness here and epistemic rationality norms that it’s actually a good idea to share your beliefs and get criticism.)
Of course, what I usually do is saying “2+2>3” when I want to sound politically correct and “2+2<6” when I want to sound meta-contrarian. (Translating back from the metaphor, those would be “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nurture” and “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nature” respectively.)
I think that “group as a whole” is the key word. Men are taller than women in average, and being tall is usually considered desirable; is pointing that out sexist? I’d say that until you treat that fact as a reason to consider a gender “as a whole” more desirable than another, it isn’t.
Most people do consider a gender as a whole more desirable than another … (and can also supply some “facts” on which that preference is based).
Possibly related: Overcoming Bias : Mate Racism.
Doesn’t contradict what I said, because I never claimed that most people aren’t sexist. (And BTW, I’m not sure whether what you mean by “desirable” is what was meant in WP’s definition of racism. I’m not usually sexually attracted to males or Asians, but I consider this a fact about me, not about males or Asians, and I don’t consider myself sexist or racist for that.)
(EDIT: to be more pedantic, one could say that the fact that I’m normally only attracted to people with characteristics X, Y, and Z is a fact about me and that the fact that males/Asians seldom have characteristics X, Y and Z is a fact about them, though.)
If they believed you, consistency bias might make them lean more toward racist-2 and racist-3. Or it might shame them into lowering their belief in the entire reactionary memeplex, which would be epistemically sub-optimal. It might lower their status, or even their earning ability if justified accusations of racism became associated with their offline identities. There’s many ways leveraging emotionally loaded terms can have negative effects.
I LOL’ed at that.