For more good examples of many of your points, see Hitchens e.g. 4:30. If you feel like reading something taboo today, I would recommend the old apologetics for American slavery. Some of them are really good: will black people be better off as somebody’s valuable property or as a competing source of poor labor? Who here really likes black people? How do you think they’ll do when they are “free”? We can give a half-shrug to the paternalistic crap, but we can’t shrug away what happened after Reconstruction ended.
All that said, David Friedman is disastrously wrong.
Should we never hire a slavery apologist for a professor? No, we should still require ourselves to think. Should it be counted against an applicant? Yes, and heavily. I promise to explain, but first, “diversity”.
If you can’t recognize the distinction between “let’s not fill the room with old white dudes” and “any diversity is good for its own sake”, I can’t help you. (If you really need me to, I will argue why the examples of diversity in the first paragraph here matter.) Not all representation is good. We all know it isn’t good to have “both sides” present. It’s perfectly reasonable to marginalize viewpoints that are really, really stupid or really, really abhorrent. Yes, we have all sorts of biases that make such assessments risky, but that doesn’t make such assessments worthless.
Sometimes going far out of one’s way to really understand the opposition makes you much better than never trying the exercise. Since we typically do too little of this, we should emphasize it. But it is almost always a complete waste of time. I would be better if I could articulate the arguments for 911 truth as well as any truther could. I would be better if I had memorized James Randi’s library of quacks and cranks. But not much.
Modern diversity efforts do lead to unwarranted censorship. Duh. But if anyone here thinks that academia is less open and diverse now than it was 50 years ago, please recommend a source.
Saying terrible and false things should count against you. I don’t like racism. Racism is bad. Marginalization in media, social life, and institutions is effective against it.
It’s perfectly reasonable to marginalize viewpoints that are really, really stupid or really, really abhorrent.
Like there’s no God, and mankind wasn’t a special creation of the Lord, but shares common ancestry with chimps, rodents, and slime mold. How abhorrent!
Hitchens had it right in his comments that you point to, and you’d do better to attempt to refute them than ignore them. Hitchens in other venues has defended David Irving as “probably one of the 3 or 4 necessary historians of the Third Reich”. People who question your fundamental premises are extremely useful for helping to clarify why you believe what you do.
Having the state disqualify people for employment based on the moral repugnance of their ideas is the mark of theocracy. Out with the blasphemers!
Hitchens had it right in his comments that you point to, and you’d do better to attempt to refute them than ignore them.
And you’d do better to pay attention. You’ll notice I never argued against Hitchens. Step back, breathe, and come back to me with some thoughts. Trust me, I’ve read more of his work than you have.
An exercise for the reader: how did you get from “really bad/stupid views—our judgment of which being flawed—are a negative that should count against a potential faculty member” to theocracy?
Breathing just fine. You may have read more of Hitchens than I have. I’ve likely watched more than you. I guess we could play whose got the biggest swinging Hitchens phallus, but I don’t see the point.
An exercise for the reader: how did you get from “really bad/stupid views—our judgment of which being flawed—are a negative that should count against a potential faculty member” to theocracy?
I note that you left out the relevant part of what you originally wrote:
or really, really abhorrent.
Yes, those with ideas you “abhor” shouldn’t be hired. In what way do you find this materially different from shunning blasphemers?
Yes, those with ideas you “abhor” shouldn’t be hired. In what way do you find this materially different from shunning blasphemers?
Well you notice that I put the two different things side by side in the same sentence to make it really really easy for you. Let’s do it again with “theocracy” and “shunning blasphemers.” You’re shifting.
Here’s a hint: at no point have I said that faculty who come out with horrible views should be fired. I also haven’t said that people with horrible views should be fined, imprisoned, or banned from publishing. I just don’t think they should have an easy time finding a major publisher to air their horrible views or a major newspaper willing to run a holocaust-denying opinion column, a state of affairs which it is left to the owners and editors of such outlets to induce—not the state.
I think being nasty and stupid should cost you. I think we should minimize the nastiness and stupidity and time wasted by such people.
Rather, the commitment to not hiring slavery apologists isn’t absolute. It should be treated like a real decision with costs and benefits, with the slavery apologetics considered a serious cost. If you could hire Bob or Steve, where Bob is politically “usual” and Steve is holocaust denialist, you should hire Steve only if he is a considerably better choice than Bob on “usual” grounds.
Edit: I would also add that hiring a slavery apologist when you already have one is a heavier cost still. These are not vacuum decisions. Similarly, if every one of your faculty has political views acceptable to either liberals or conservatives, you should reduce the “nasty cost” of hiring a fascist or a Stalinist.
“dominated by X” is not the same as “willing to hire X”
Most universities in my country would be perfectly OK to hire a Stalinist, as long as the person does not spend their whole day speaking about it. (Your country may be different.)
I certainly encountered at least one Stalin apologist in my college years, but that’s hardly evidence of an institutional permissiveness, particularly towards Stalinist, which would be somebody who supports Stalin’s tactics.
Anybody have any ideas on how to test the theory? Google seems utterly useless; all it comes up with is somebody named Grover Furr. Which may be proof that is can happen, but since AFAICT he was tenured -before- he caused controversy (in 2012), it’s at best weak evidence that universities would in fact -hire- a Stalinist. Additionally, I’m not sure his claim qualifies as Stalinism, per se, as it is, in effect, denying that -Stalin- was a Stalinist, but rather a Neo-Stalinist.
Who was almost universally recognized as a great historian and exactly the sort of person I would encourage universities to hire, despite his apologetics for Soviet communism.
I don’t think that his Sovietism damaged him proportionately to its awfulness, in case you’re wondering. The explanation for that comes from him being a humanities professor in England from the Orwellian era.
The question I have is, do you have any nominees for fascist or Jim Crow-defending historians on par with Hobsbawn?
But since you asked, I think you’ll find that historians are pretty diverse in their politics. I don’t think you get anything more than a group-local bump for being a Marxist, and I don’t think that being a Marxist would help you get hired or advanced at many universities. (In England, this wasn’t always true.)
Edit: I floated the idea of Solzhenitsyn and a few others that have been well-loved here, particularly since he’s a counterexample to the idea that Sovietism is at fault for Hobsbawm’s eulogies. But Solzhenitsyn wasn’t an English or American professor, and while he was a religious and ethnic bigot, he wasn’t a fascist either.
This would be a good question for somebody who is well-read enough to confidently give political labels to dozens or hundreds of prominent historians off the cuff. I am not that somebody. I happen to suspect that the answer is yes, since it’s pretty easy to find nasty views amongst lionized figures from all over our intellectual history. It’s not hard to find well-praised sexists, racists, and etc. in academic history. But we need more recent history, and what I can’t do is name a fascist historian on par with Hobsbawn off the top of my head.
How do you know the thing is false if you systematically censor any arguments for it?
How do you know the thing is true if you would have promoted anybody that would say it?
Do you know all the arguments for marginalized positions with which you disagree? If not, would you say you do not know that some of them are really false?
Internet people are weird. I read Mill and Orwell all day and have no idea where they get their ideas of liberty from. They might talk like liberals when it comes to beating up gay kids. Ok, obviously good stuff is obvious. But then they start saying they same things about kids who beat up gay kids...
They’ll talk like liberals when it comes to Klansmen and fascists and other nasty folk, and they’ll talk like conservatives when it comes to black people and women. That makes sense: the principle is inexpensive when we’re talking about the genuinely, completely marginal. But “other” groups that have a real shot at having a decent share of power...
How do you know the thing is false if you systematically censor any arguments for it?
How do you know the thing is true if you would have promoted anybody that would say it?
I don’t think anyone is calling for promoting anyone merely for being willing to say controversial things.
Internet people are weird. I read Mill and Orwell all day and have no idea where they get their ideas of liberty from.
Here’s an idea: try looking at the logic of their argument and not simply whether the conclusion feels repugnant to you for not.
You may want to start by figuring out what you mean by “racism”, here are some questions (from one of my comments in another thread) to help guide the process:
is it racist/sexist to point out the differences in average IQ between the people of different races/genders? Does it become racist/sexist if one attempts to speculate on the cause of these differences?
I can repeat myself all day, but I’ll do it just this once: I want administrators and faculty to think. I want them to think of Mr. Tilbert’s white-robed weekends as a real cost before they make him Dr. Tilbert. Mr. Tilbert could be a perfectly decent economist. Don’t hire him. Or he could be really good. Then hire him.
We could talk about what’s been important here all along. Or I can restart by carefully explaining what I mean by “racism”. But then, I’m not your pet monkey.
What do you think is important here? Shunning people whose opinions you abhour or aquiring true beliefs.
I thought sticking to the original topic would be important, and I don’t shun people whose opinions I abhor. I live in the South, and that would be a lonely life. With relevance in mind, we move onto
People tend to mean different things by “racism”. I what to know what you mean by it.
I’m not a university administrator or faculty member or newspaper editor. We’re talking about those people. On this topic, those people are the ones responsible for recognizing false and nasty beliefs, e.g. racism. It’s important to know how they evaluate it. And they will evaluate it, even if you want them to pretend that they aren’t doing it. They’ll notice what David Irving has done even if you very politely ask them to not do so. (I’ll put this out there: I would hire Irving, assuming he was only to teach advanced students, were it not for his history of suing critics.)
As for what I mean by “racism”, I suppose I wasn’t clear before, so here it is: you’re not Socrates, and I am not your pet monkey.
Addendum: If you want people to answer your questions, I suggest answering theirs.
On this topic, those people are the ones responsible for recognizing false and nasty beliefs, e.g. racism.
So you won’t say what you mean by “racism” but insist that it’s false and nasty. I’ve heard different definitions of “racism”, a number of those definitions wind up including making certain statements that are in fact true, or at least likely to be true.
If you want people to answer your questions, I suggest answering theirs.
Which question in particular were you refering to?
Ok, I can do give and take. First, an inadequately answered question:
How do you know the thing is true if you would have promoted anybody that would say it?
To which you said
I don’t think anyone is calling for promoting anyone merely for being willing to say controversial things.
Where the opening paragraph of the article in this thread states a defender of Apartheid should given diversity have an increased likelihood of being hired by that virtue. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I somehow believe that telling our prestigious institutions to select for cranks will make it even harder for laymen to sort out the truth than it is already and undermine trust in those same institutions. It will also skew scientific consensus even when that consensus is deserved.
Second, a far more important and entirely unanswered question:
Do you know all the arguments for marginalized positions with which you disagree? If not, would you say you do not know that some of them are really false?
Give these items a good effort, and I will return in kind.
I’m looking forward to the give and take, so out of impatience I’m going to add another question. In return I’ll give a rough idea of where I am concerning racism. From a different area of the comments:
But if anyone here thinks that academia is less open and diverse now than it was 50 years ago, please recommend a source.
You can change the “and” to an “or”, if you like. I’m interested if you would say something like, “no, but significantly less open than it would have been were it not for X.” We might agree.
Racism: I’d make some boilerplate noises about inherent tribalism and group psychology as general background. Then I’d make some more boilerplate noises about the particulars of racial history in America. For the conceptual work, I would avoid any bother with necessary and sufficient conditions and go straight to fuzzy categories and representatives, along with some type distinctions. As a Less Wrong resident, you should know why I’d prefer this approach to what non-nerds typically do when asked what they mean by something: try to give a precise definition. If you try to do that, you’ll probably include some true things that should be believed and doesn’t make you a racist in any significant sense. For example, “judging people by the color of their skin.” That’s a terrible definition, but I bet it’s a common answer. I can very accurately infer quite a lot about a person using skin color. When I meet a Korean or American-Korean, I’ve met something locally rare: somebody who knows what I mean when I say I watch professional Starcraft.
I think Derbyshire is partly right, partly silly, and would have a lot less reason to be nervous around black people if he learned “how to act”, as those scary strange black folks say. If you want my opinion on any of his itemized points, feel free to ask, but responding to them all would be a novel—and I didn’t disagree with them all. And I think his question is weak-to-moderate evidence for false-and-nasty racism.
But Derbyshire doesn’t really work as a general signal flag for racism. Racial essentialism is one obvious answer: the idea that races are essential categories like species. Racism is also correlated with predictable, relatively negative across-the-board outcomes based on race. Racism is realtors directing black people to poor black neighborhoods and white people to relatively affluent neighborhoods. Racism is calling for the prohibition of any attention to racial disparities while pretending that you and everybody else can pretend to be “colorblind.”
Some of these are stronger indicators than others, and there are a lot more I could list. The “colorblind” folks aren’t always nasty—see e.g. Morgan Freeman before he saw some of the reactions to Obama’s election—but they are wrong.
I think Derbyshire is partly right, partly silly, and would have a lot less reason to be nervous around black people if he learned “how to act”, as those scary strange black folks say.
What do you mean by “how to act”? If you mean it’s necessary to adopt a different set of behaviors when around blacks, this is precisely Derbyshire’s point.
But Derbyshire doesn’t really work as a general signal flag for racism. Racial essentialism is one obvious answer: the idea that races are essential categories like species.
What do you mean by “essentialism”? After all the distinction between species isn’t always clear either.
The “colorblind” folks aren’t always nasty (..) but they are wrong.
What specific statements of theirs do you believe to be wrong.
If you mean it’s necessary to adopt a different set of behaviors when around blacks, this is precisely Derbyshire’s point.
There’s a difference between “change of behavior” and “RUN!” A party full of black people will tend to have a different atmosphere than a party full of white people, just like parties with different mixes of age groups and genders will have a different atmosphere. Normal, healthy people can pick up on social cues. Black people are used to white people being scared of them. They have a good chance of noticing, and yes, they’ll respond to that. Probably negatively. If you get nervous around large groups of black strangers and you can’t help it, I would advise avoidance. There are situations where anybody—comfortable or not—should be “sketched out” and make their exit, but the indicator isn’t “oh gee lots of black dudes here.” A better one would be, “oh gee that’s a lot of neck tattoos.”
After all the distinction between species isn’t always clear either.
If you’re a good Darwinian, sure. But if you think that black people are an intermediate between humans and chimpanzees, or you believe that black people are the cursed “sons of Ham”, or...
What specific statements of theirs do you believe to be wrong.
Here’s Morgan Freeman before and Morgan Freeman after. He’s dumb in both videos, but suddenly he sees this racist “underline.” It’s pretty hard to miss a racist “underline” in lots of policies and statements past and present, from “states’ rights” to disparity in crack-cocaine sentencing to criminalization of loitering to the war on drugs to...
Recognizing race and making associations based on race is System 1. It doesn’t go away. White people will still notice that black people are black, and black people will still notice that white people are white.
There’s a difference between “change of behavior” and “RUN!”
So, what specific behaviors did you have in mind?
It’s pretty hard to miss a racist “underline” in lots of policies and statements past and present, from “states’ rights” to disparity in crack-cocaine sentencing to criminalization of loitering to the war on drugs to...
Yes, if you insist of seeing X in everything, it’s not hard to miss the X “underline” in everything, whether X is racism, Illuminati influence, or the hand of Satan.
Recognizing race and making associations based on race is System 1.
In particular recognizing difference in behavior between people of different races (even if one isn’t willing to consciously admit the difference for fear of being “racist”) is system 1.
It doesn’t go away. White people will still notice that black people are black, and black people will still notice that white people are white.
I thought you would be able to interpret that as “all of it” and be able to find the obvious reasons why, but ok.
So, what specific behaviors did you have in mind?
I behave differently around groups of young men like myself, at company meetings, when visiting a synagogue, at family gatherings, with friends, at dinner with a family of asian immigrants, at bars, with strangers...
I will behave differently around feminists and strict conservatives. I will behave differently with a group of black strangers. I use background knowledge and empathy to make my adjustments, usually automatically—the automatic process only being sufficiently reliable in relatively familiar situations. An example: if at any point you become tempted to defend “race realism” or talk about how not racist you are, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you are at any point accused of racism, you’re probably doing something wrong, but even if you weren’t, don’t argue. Black people don’t usually like white strangers appointing themselves the local expert on white-on-black racism. If you get as nervous as Derbyshire, it might be best to follow his advice and avoid such situations. If you’re new to it, be prepared to make mistakes however well-intentioned you are. The key is owning up to them when you make them. Most of all, remember that the point of your being there is to share in some common activity with your fellow human beings.
A note from personal experience: like most groups of young men, young black men like ribbing each other. If you can’t keep your cool, you’re in for a hard time. 99% of the soured situations I’ve seen have run as follows: me and other white dude and some black guys are hanging out, having a good time, trading jokes, and killing brain cells. Black guy makes a joke at other white dude’s expense, and the other white dude can’t keep chill. I swear you can see the bullseye appearing on his forehead as soon as he starts. Everybody notices instantly, and it’s all downhill from there.
My advice is almost entirely commonsensical, and your experience may vary.
Yes, if you insist of seeing X in everything, it’s not hard to miss the X “underline” in everything, whether X is racism, Illuminati influence, or the hand of Satan.
Yeah, seeing racism in US politics is like seeing Illuminati. I don’t think I can improve this one for you.
In particular recognizing difference in behavior between people of different races (even if one isn’t willing to consciously admit the difference for fear of being “racist”) is system 1.
It is system 1. There are behavioral differences. I don’t think we’re as panic-stricken as you think we are.
Somehow this effect didn’t seem to stop Asians.
Because the stereotypical Asian is a subhuman, primitive brute incapable of self-control, especially around white women. Also, descendant of slaves.
Here’s a fun exercise. Try going to your nearest black underclass neighborhood, preferably at night. See how well this advice serves you.
My advice implied this where… I wonder… Hate to have to say it, but I wouldn’t advise doing that. I wonder if in some alternate universe where I, a black man, was explaining to a black Eugine Nier about adjustments in behavior he should consider around groups of unfamiliar white people, whether that black Eugine Nier would suggest I try it out in rural West Virginia.
This seems like a total non sequitur.
From your previous comment and others you’ve made in this thread, you seem to think that talking about any racial distinctions is taboo and verboten, especially in academic circles. That just isn’t true.
A century ago this was much closer to the standard stereotype.
We could talk about that, just like we tend to have to talk about new topics whenever you tire of the original ones. I could pick a new thing to talk about too, like problems with “model minority” stereotypes. Or I can get closer to the original, and ask for what relevant similarities you see between Asian people and black people—apart from their being minorities—that makes you seriously wonder “why black people haven’t done it.”
My advice implied this where… I wonder… Hate to have to say it, but I wouldn’t advise doing that. I wonder if in some alternate universe where I, a black man, was explaining to a black Eugine Nier about adjustments in behavior he should consider around groups of unfamiliar white people, whether that black Eugine Nier would suggest I try it out in rural West Virginia.
Notice how precisely you had to specify the place and location (and even then I’m not convinced the situation would be as dangerous), whereas I merely pointed you to the neighborhoods where a majority of blacks live.
We could talk about that, just like we tend to have to talk about new topics whenever you tire of the original ones. I could pick a new thing to talk about too, like problems with “model minority” stereotypes. Or I can get closer to the original, and ask for what relevant similarities you see between Asian people and black people—apart from their being minorities—that makes you seriously wonder “why black people haven’t done it.”
The fact that they faced discrimination and were considered subhuman, i.e., the thing I mentioned in the parent and you called a “new topic”.
Yeah, we’ve been at this for a few days now. I think I’ve humored you enough at this point.
If you want to get past raw assertions and have a more serious discussion about academic bias and race, try finding the relevant studies and reading the relevant history instead of giving us more of your armchair impressions. Also, lay off the right wing press. It obviously isn’t helping you. Also, don’t reflexively downvote comments from people you’re arguing with. Also, don’t ignore their questions and responses. Also, stop shifting topics instead of acknowledging a fair point.
Do you know all the arguments for marginalized positions with which you disagree? If not, would you say you do not know that some of them are really false?
I use several heuristics to decide which ones are worth my time. Most of them are the ones mentioned by Paul Graham in his essay What you can’t say.
Ok, now use those heuristics to establish the following proposition as a university administrator: we should hire Graham instead of Robert, because Graham is a Stalinist.
If you like, you can pick something other than Stalinism. I only said that one because it was something you obviously dislike. Think of some other rare left-wing idea, if you like.
If you’d be so kind, I’d also appreciate some presentation of what you think the political atmosphere in American Universities is like, preferably with citations. I think you and I are coming from entirely different places on this.
Your comment could be read two ways: it could mean that it is now taboo to actually practice racism, or it could mean that it is now taboo to accuse someone of doing so.
For more good examples of many of your points, see Hitchens e.g. 4:30. If you feel like reading something taboo today, I would recommend the old apologetics for American slavery. Some of them are really good: will black people be better off as somebody’s valuable property or as a competing source of poor labor? Who here really likes black people? How do you think they’ll do when they are “free”? We can give a half-shrug to the paternalistic crap, but we can’t shrug away what happened after Reconstruction ended.
All that said, David Friedman is disastrously wrong.
Should we never hire a slavery apologist for a professor? No, we should still require ourselves to think. Should it be counted against an applicant? Yes, and heavily. I promise to explain, but first, “diversity”.
If you can’t recognize the distinction between “let’s not fill the room with old white dudes” and “any diversity is good for its own sake”, I can’t help you. (If you really need me to, I will argue why the examples of diversity in the first paragraph here matter.) Not all representation is good. We all know it isn’t good to have “both sides” present. It’s perfectly reasonable to marginalize viewpoints that are really, really stupid or really, really abhorrent. Yes, we have all sorts of biases that make such assessments risky, but that doesn’t make such assessments worthless.
Sometimes going far out of one’s way to really understand the opposition makes you much better than never trying the exercise. Since we typically do too little of this, we should emphasize it. But it is almost always a complete waste of time. I would be better if I could articulate the arguments for 911 truth as well as any truther could. I would be better if I had memorized James Randi’s library of quacks and cranks. But not much.
Modern diversity efforts do lead to unwarranted censorship. Duh. But if anyone here thinks that academia is less open and diverse now than it was 50 years ago, please recommend a source.
Saying terrible and false things should count against you. I don’t like racism. Racism is bad. Marginalization in media, social life, and institutions is effective against it.
Like there’s no God, and mankind wasn’t a special creation of the Lord, but shares common ancestry with chimps, rodents, and slime mold. How abhorrent!
Hitchens had it right in his comments that you point to, and you’d do better to attempt to refute them than ignore them. Hitchens in other venues has defended David Irving as “probably one of the 3 or 4 necessary historians of the Third Reich”. People who question your fundamental premises are extremely useful for helping to clarify why you believe what you do.
Having the state disqualify people for employment based on the moral repugnance of their ideas is the mark of theocracy. Out with the blasphemers!
And you’d do better to pay attention. You’ll notice I never argued against Hitchens. Step back, breathe, and come back to me with some thoughts. Trust me, I’ve read more of his work than you have.
An exercise for the reader: how did you get from “really bad/stupid views—our judgment of which being flawed—are a negative that should count against a potential faculty member” to theocracy?
Some people will say anything.
Breathing just fine. You may have read more of Hitchens than I have. I’ve likely watched more than you. I guess we could play whose got the biggest swinging Hitchens phallus, but I don’t see the point.
I note that you left out the relevant part of what you originally wrote:
Yes, those with ideas you “abhor” shouldn’t be hired. In what way do you find this materially different from shunning blasphemers?
Well you notice that I put the two different things side by side in the same sentence to make it really really easy for you. Let’s do it again with “theocracy” and “shunning blasphemers.” You’re shifting.
Here’s a hint: at no point have I said that faculty who come out with horrible views should be fired. I also haven’t said that people with horrible views should be fined, imprisoned, or banned from publishing. I just don’t think they should have an easy time finding a major publisher to air their horrible views or a major newspaper willing to run a holocaust-denying opinion column, a state of affairs which it is left to the owners and editors of such outlets to induce—not the state.
I think being nasty and stupid should cost you. I think we should minimize the nastiness and stupidity and time wasted by such people.
I think what you are saying here is “We should not precommit to not hiring slavery apologists.” Is that right?
Rather, the commitment to not hiring slavery apologists isn’t absolute. It should be treated like a real decision with costs and benefits, with the slavery apologetics considered a serious cost. If you could hire Bob or Steve, where Bob is politically “usual” and Steve is holocaust denialist, you should hire Steve only if he is a considerably better choice than Bob on “usual” grounds.
Edit: I would also add that hiring a slavery apologist when you already have one is a heavier cost still. These are not vacuum decisions. Similarly, if every one of your faculty has political views acceptable to either liberals or conservatives, you should reduce the “nasty cost” of hiring a fascist or a Stalinist.
The thing is current universities are perfectly willing to hire Stalinists.
Yeah, current universities are dominated by Stalinism. Obviously.
“dominated by X” is not the same as “willing to hire X”
Most universities in my country would be perfectly OK to hire a Stalinist, as long as the person does not spend their whole day speaking about it. (Your country may be different.)
I know, Viliam. I was responding to the obvious implication. I’ve been seeing a lot of signs of the sketchy Right in here.
What is your evidence for this?
I certainly encountered at least one Stalin apologist in my college years, but that’s hardly evidence of an institutional permissiveness, particularly towards Stalinist, which would be somebody who supports Stalin’s tactics.
Anybody have any ideas on how to test the theory? Google seems utterly useless; all it comes up with is somebody named Grover Furr. Which may be proof that is can happen, but since AFAICT he was tenured -before- he caused controversy (in 2012), it’s at best weak evidence that universities would in fact -hire- a Stalinist. Additionally, I’m not sure his claim qualifies as Stalinism, per se, as it is, in effect, denying that -Stalin- was a Stalinist, but rather a Neo-Stalinist.
Well, not quite a Stalinist, but look at all the eulogies for Soviet apologeticist Eric Hobsbawm by “mainstream” papers and accademics.
Who was almost universally recognized as a great historian and exactly the sort of person I would encourage universities to hire, despite his apologetics for Soviet communism.
So do you think if he had instead been an apologist for facism or apartide or Jim Crow he would have gotten the same recognition?
I don’t think that his Sovietism damaged him proportionately to its awfulness, in case you’re wondering. The explanation for that comes from him being a humanities professor in England from the Orwellian era.
The question I have is, do you have any nominees for fascist or Jim Crow-defending historians on par with Hobsbawn?
But since you asked, I think you’ll find that historians are pretty diverse in their politics. I don’t think you get anything more than a group-local bump for being a Marxist, and I don’t think that being a Marxist would help you get hired or advanced at many universities. (In England, this wasn’t always true.)
Edit: I floated the idea of Solzhenitsyn and a few others that have been well-loved here, particularly since he’s a counterexample to the idea that Sovietism is at fault for Hobsbawm’s eulogies. But Solzhenitsyn wasn’t an English or American professor, and while he was a religious and ethnic bigot, he wasn’t a fascist either.
This would be a good question for somebody who is well-read enough to confidently give political labels to dozens or hundreds of prominent historians off the cuff. I am not that somebody. I happen to suspect that the answer is yes, since it’s pretty easy to find nasty views amongst lionized figures from all over our intellectual history. It’s not hard to find well-praised sexists, racists, and etc. in academic history. But we need more recent history, and what I can’t do is name a fascist historian on par with Hobsbawn off the top of my head.
How do you know the thing is false if you systematically censor any arguments for it?
Taboo “racism”.
How do you know the thing is true if you would have promoted anybody that would say it?
Do you know all the arguments for marginalized positions with which you disagree? If not, would you say you do not know that some of them are really false?
Internet people are weird. I read Mill and Orwell all day and have no idea where they get their ideas of liberty from. They might talk like liberals when it comes to beating up gay kids. Ok, obviously good stuff is obvious. But then they start saying they same things about kids who beat up gay kids...
They’ll talk like liberals when it comes to Klansmen and fascists and other nasty folk, and they’ll talk like conservatives when it comes to black people and women. That makes sense: the principle is inexpensive when we’re talking about the genuinely, completely marginal. But “other” groups that have a real shot at having a decent share of power...
I don’t think anyone is calling for promoting anyone merely for being willing to say controversial things.
Here’s an idea: try looking at the logic of their argument and not simply whether the conclusion feels repugnant to you for not.
You may want to start by figuring out what you mean by “racism”, here are some questions (from one of my comments in another thread) to help guide the process:
I can repeat myself all day, but I’ll do it just this once: I want administrators and faculty to think. I want them to think of Mr. Tilbert’s white-robed weekends as a real cost before they make him Dr. Tilbert. Mr. Tilbert could be a perfectly decent economist. Don’t hire him. Or he could be really good. Then hire him.
We could talk about what’s been important here all along. Or I can restart by carefully explaining what I mean by “racism”. But then, I’m not your pet monkey.
What do you think is important here? Shunning people whose opinions you abhour or aquiring true beliefs.
People tend to mean different things by “racism”. I what to know what you mean by it.
I thought sticking to the original topic would be important, and I don’t shun people whose opinions I abhor. I live in the South, and that would be a lonely life. With relevance in mind, we move onto
I’m not a university administrator or faculty member or newspaper editor. We’re talking about those people. On this topic, those people are the ones responsible for recognizing false and nasty beliefs, e.g. racism. It’s important to know how they evaluate it. And they will evaluate it, even if you want them to pretend that they aren’t doing it. They’ll notice what David Irving has done even if you very politely ask them to not do so. (I’ll put this out there: I would hire Irving, assuming he was only to teach advanced students, were it not for his history of suing critics.)
As for what I mean by “racism”, I suppose I wasn’t clear before, so here it is: you’re not Socrates, and I am not your pet monkey.
Addendum: If you want people to answer your questions, I suggest answering theirs.
So you won’t say what you mean by “racism” but insist that it’s false and nasty. I’ve heard different definitions of “racism”, a number of those definitions wind up including making certain statements that are in fact true, or at least likely to be true.
Which question in particular were you refering to?
Ok, I can do give and take. First, an inadequately answered question:
To which you said
Where the opening paragraph of the article in this thread states a defender of Apartheid should given diversity have an increased likelihood of being hired by that virtue. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I somehow believe that telling our prestigious institutions to select for cranks will make it even harder for laymen to sort out the truth than it is already and undermine trust in those same institutions. It will also skew scientific consensus even when that consensus is deserved.
Second, a far more important and entirely unanswered question:
Give these items a good effort, and I will return in kind.
I’m looking forward to the give and take, so out of impatience I’m going to add another question. In return I’ll give a rough idea of where I am concerning racism. From a different area of the comments:
You can change the “and” to an “or”, if you like. I’m interested if you would say something like, “no, but significantly less open than it would have been were it not for X.” We might agree.
Racism: I’d make some boilerplate noises about inherent tribalism and group psychology as general background. Then I’d make some more boilerplate noises about the particulars of racial history in America. For the conceptual work, I would avoid any bother with necessary and sufficient conditions and go straight to fuzzy categories and representatives, along with some type distinctions. As a Less Wrong resident, you should know why I’d prefer this approach to what non-nerds typically do when asked what they mean by something: try to give a precise definition. If you try to do that, you’ll probably include some true things that should be believed and doesn’t make you a racist in any significant sense. For example, “judging people by the color of their skin.” That’s a terrible definition, but I bet it’s a common answer. I can very accurately infer quite a lot about a person using skin color. When I meet a Korean or American-Korean, I’ve met something locally rare: somebody who knows what I mean when I say I watch professional Starcraft.
So which elements of this fuzzy category do you consider “false and nasty”. For example, what do you think of John Derbyshire?
I think Derbyshire is partly right, partly silly, and would have a lot less reason to be nervous around black people if he learned “how to act”, as those scary strange black folks say. If you want my opinion on any of his itemized points, feel free to ask, but responding to them all would be a novel—and I didn’t disagree with them all. And I think his question is weak-to-moderate evidence for false-and-nasty racism.
But Derbyshire doesn’t really work as a general signal flag for racism. Racial essentialism is one obvious answer: the idea that races are essential categories like species. Racism is also correlated with predictable, relatively negative across-the-board outcomes based on race. Racism is realtors directing black people to poor black neighborhoods and white people to relatively affluent neighborhoods. Racism is calling for the prohibition of any attention to racial disparities while pretending that you and everybody else can pretend to be “colorblind.”
Some of these are stronger indicators than others, and there are a lot more I could list. The “colorblind” folks aren’t always nasty—see e.g. Morgan Freeman before he saw some of the reactions to Obama’s election—but they are wrong.
What do you mean by “how to act”? If you mean it’s necessary to adopt a different set of behaviors when around blacks, this is precisely Derbyshire’s point.
What do you mean by “essentialism”? After all the distinction between species isn’t always clear either.
What specific statements of theirs do you believe to be wrong.
There’s a difference between “change of behavior” and “RUN!” A party full of black people will tend to have a different atmosphere than a party full of white people, just like parties with different mixes of age groups and genders will have a different atmosphere. Normal, healthy people can pick up on social cues. Black people are used to white people being scared of them. They have a good chance of noticing, and yes, they’ll respond to that. Probably negatively. If you get nervous around large groups of black strangers and you can’t help it, I would advise avoidance. There are situations where anybody—comfortable or not—should be “sketched out” and make their exit, but the indicator isn’t “oh gee lots of black dudes here.” A better one would be, “oh gee that’s a lot of neck tattoos.”
If you’re a good Darwinian, sure. But if you think that black people are an intermediate between humans and chimpanzees, or you believe that black people are the cursed “sons of Ham”, or...
Here’s Morgan Freeman before and Morgan Freeman after. He’s dumb in both videos, but suddenly he sees this racist “underline.” It’s pretty hard to miss a racist “underline” in lots of policies and statements past and present, from “states’ rights” to disparity in crack-cocaine sentencing to criminalization of loitering to the war on drugs to...
Recognizing race and making associations based on race is System 1. It doesn’t go away. White people will still notice that black people are black, and black people will still notice that white people are white.
I take the fundamental premise to be impossible.
So, what specific behaviors did you have in mind?
Yes, if you insist of seeing X in everything, it’s not hard to miss the X “underline” in everything, whether X is racism, Illuminati influence, or the hand of Satan.
In particular recognizing difference in behavior between people of different races (even if one isn’t willing to consciously admit the difference for fear of being “racist”) is system 1.
Somehow this effect didn’t seem to stop Asians.
I’m going to wait for you to try again on this one.
It would help if you said what you didn’t like about the parent.
I thought you would be able to interpret that as “all of it” and be able to find the obvious reasons why, but ok.
I behave differently around groups of young men like myself, at company meetings, when visiting a synagogue, at family gatherings, with friends, at dinner with a family of asian immigrants, at bars, with strangers...
I will behave differently around feminists and strict conservatives. I will behave differently with a group of black strangers. I use background knowledge and empathy to make my adjustments, usually automatically—the automatic process only being sufficiently reliable in relatively familiar situations. An example: if at any point you become tempted to defend “race realism” or talk about how not racist you are, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you are at any point accused of racism, you’re probably doing something wrong, but even if you weren’t, don’t argue. Black people don’t usually like white strangers appointing themselves the local expert on white-on-black racism. If you get as nervous as Derbyshire, it might be best to follow his advice and avoid such situations. If you’re new to it, be prepared to make mistakes however well-intentioned you are. The key is owning up to them when you make them. Most of all, remember that the point of your being there is to share in some common activity with your fellow human beings.
A note from personal experience: like most groups of young men, young black men like ribbing each other. If you can’t keep your cool, you’re in for a hard time. 99% of the soured situations I’ve seen have run as follows: me and other white dude and some black guys are hanging out, having a good time, trading jokes, and killing brain cells. Black guy makes a joke at other white dude’s expense, and the other white dude can’t keep chill. I swear you can see the bullseye appearing on his forehead as soon as he starts. Everybody notices instantly, and it’s all downhill from there.
My advice is almost entirely commonsensical, and your experience may vary.
Yeah, seeing racism in US politics is like seeing Illuminati. I don’t think I can improve this one for you.
It is system 1. There are behavioral differences. I don’t think we’re as panic-stricken as you think we are.
Because the stereotypical Asian is a subhuman, primitive brute incapable of self-control, especially around white women. Also, descendant of slaves.
Here’s a fun exercise. Try going to your nearest black underclass neighborhood, preferably at night. See how well this advice serves you.
This seems like a total non sequitur.
A century ago this was much closer to the standard stereotype.
My advice implied this where… I wonder… Hate to have to say it, but I wouldn’t advise doing that. I wonder if in some alternate universe where I, a black man, was explaining to a black Eugine Nier about adjustments in behavior he should consider around groups of unfamiliar white people, whether that black Eugine Nier would suggest I try it out in rural West Virginia.
From your previous comment and others you’ve made in this thread, you seem to think that talking about any racial distinctions is taboo and verboten, especially in academic circles. That just isn’t true.
We could talk about that, just like we tend to have to talk about new topics whenever you tire of the original ones. I could pick a new thing to talk about too, like problems with “model minority” stereotypes. Or I can get closer to the original, and ask for what relevant similarities you see between Asian people and black people—apart from their being minorities—that makes you seriously wonder “why black people haven’t done it.”
Notice how precisely you had to specify the place and location (and even then I’m not convinced the situation would be as dangerous), whereas I merely pointed you to the neighborhoods where a majority of blacks live.
The fact that they faced discrimination and were considered subhuman, i.e., the thing I mentioned in the parent and you called a “new topic”.
Yeah, we’ve been at this for a few days now. I think I’ve humored you enough at this point.
If you want to get past raw assertions and have a more serious discussion about academic bias and race, try finding the relevant studies and reading the relevant history instead of giving us more of your armchair impressions. Also, lay off the right wing press. It obviously isn’t helping you. Also, don’t reflexively downvote comments from people you’re arguing with. Also, don’t ignore their questions and responses. Also, stop shifting topics instead of acknowledging a fair point.
I use several heuristics to decide which ones are worth my time. Most of them are the ones mentioned by Paul Graham in his essay What you can’t say.
Ok, now use those heuristics to establish the following proposition as a university administrator: we should hire Graham instead of Robert, because Graham is a Stalinist.
Probably not since the far left is already over-represented on campuses.
Ok, so to state the obvious, all this has nothing to do with intellectual diversity, but hatred of the left?
Huh? How does hiring even more members of an already overrepresented fringe group promote intellectual diversity?
If you like, you can pick something other than Stalinism. I only said that one because it was something you obviously dislike. Think of some other rare left-wing idea, if you like.
If you’d be so kind, I’d also appreciate some presentation of what you think the political atmosphere in American Universities is like, preferably with citations. I think you and I are coming from entirely different places on this.
Where are all these Stalinists, again? I used an example from the original link, btw.
Mission accomplished!
Your comment could be read two ways: it could mean that it is now taboo to actually practice racism, or it could mean that it is now taboo to accuse someone of doing so.