
Against Murderism - douche
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/
======
ThrustVectoring
"Racism" as a tool for social change has outlived its usefulness, IMO. Back in
the day, branding people as Evil for supporting racist policies was worth the
side effects. Jim Crowe laws, "separate but equal", and the other issues
rampant in 1950s America were terrible. If we didn't hand out anti-racist good
guy points and pro-racist bad guy points, we'd never have cared about
expending effort on fighting the terrible injustices of the time.

The problem is that the anti-racist strategy has slowly morphed over time to
fight things that are less and less terrible. Theres a ton of pointless
Culture War bullshit that really isn't important enough to have super high
stakes in terms of being a Good Person. Whether or not you participate in a
campus Day of Absence. Whether or not you like Marvel making a black Captain
America. Whether or not a video game has enough racial diversity. The concerns
are often just so completely petty that I just want to opt out of the whole
system, commit myself to simply treating people fairly and being a good
person, and get on with my life.

------
jeffdavis
A lot of white people my age and younger in America don't really understand
racism well. And how would we? We were trained from a young age to just repeat
the right answers and not ask questions.

Without asking questions, there's no way to learn the topic well enough to
apply it to real situations.

But there's no safe place to ask questions. If you ask an academic, they will
give you incredibly confusing and vague answers that you aren't meant to
understand without studying for a PhD in sociology. If you ask anyone else,
they just brand you as a racist and move on.

It doesn't have to be this way. Even other sensitive topics like religion
allow for ways to ask interesting, challenging, or practical questions. A
priest will give a sincere answer to a sincere question.

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erikpukinskis
I have been a longtime advocate of the "I am racist, and you are racist, and
we are all racist and that's very bad, like as bad as murder, but it's also OK
because that's how the universe is and we can get better at being less
murder-y, but let's still keep calling this thing I'm talking about racism"
camp.

But this essay makes a compelling argument that racism as used colloquially
refers to bad intentions.

I'm willing to concede. I'll stop using racist except in a situation where
there is an indication of conscious intent for racial subjugation, thus
relegating the word to essentially disappear from modern parlance, but...

What word am I supposed to use instead? I guess I just have to use complete
sentences. But that's hard.

~~~
djtriptych
I'm not sure we're doing the world a favor by ignoring unconscious racism.

~~~
labster
If you actually read the essay, Scott says that we should seek to find the
underlying causes of unconscious racism, and treat those. Most racism without
intent means that, presented with a better option, people would choose to
discriminate less.

What he didn't mention in this essay is institutional racism, which in his
terms _must_ be racism by consequence, because institutions don't have beliefs
or motives. At least not in this context. Institutional racism is something
that needs addressing, but it's not the same racism by motive, nor should we
expect the same solutions to work.

~~~
queirozfcom
Institutions do have motives. Institutions want to keep being relevant.
Institutions want to see the influence grow. Institutions want to continue
existing.

~~~
njarboe
Those that survive anyway. Most institutions should die earlier than they do.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy and all that.

------
bitwize
I think that racism is one of those words that have multiple meanings we are
_intended_ to confuse. My favorite example of this is "AAA" in gaming. Does it
mean:

a. a high quality game

b. a popular game

c. a game that cost a lot of money to produce and, especially, market

The correct answer is c, but game-industry marketroids believe, and want you
to believe, that all three are coterminous with each other.

Now back to racism. Does it mean:

a. evil intent towards another race

b. belief in racial superiority/inferiority

c. a tendency to produce effects that disadvantage people of one race

The answer is a, but people want you to believe that all three categories are
coterminous. Meaning if you hold b. beliefs or take actions that fit c., you
are also in category a.

The reasons for this are complex and have to do with backlash. Once we decide
that X is horrible, we overcompensate in taking great care not to do anything
that could be construed as X because we are afraid of how we might be judged.
After World War II, the allied world (except for the USA) decided that
nationalism is bad because it leads to Hitler, so you have cosmopolitan
Europeans and Canadians falling all over themselves trying not to exhibit any
sort of national pride and in fact telling people they have no attachment to
their accidentally assigned nationality. Except when a soccer match is on or
something.

~~~
majewsky
> After World War II, the allied world (except for the USA) decided that
> nationalism is bad because it leads to Hitler, so you have cosmopolitan
> Europeans and Canadians falling all over themselves trying not to exhibit
> any sort of national pride

It's good that you added the word "cosmopolitan" here, because large chunks of
the population in most European countries don't try to hide their nationalism
in any way.

> and in fact telling people they have no attachment to their accidentally
> assigned nationality

This phrasing is insidious because you're implicitly denying that this
position could be hold earnestly. In fact, I'm German, and I will tell you
exactly that. I'm grateful for being born into a situation of relative wealth,
freedom and stability. But to me, a state is not much more than a provider of
legal and physical infrastructure. How can you peek into my head to verify
whether that is just a claim or the truth?

> Except when a soccer match is on or something.

Yeah, that one puzzles me, too.

~~~
bitwize
> How can you peek into my head to verify whether that is just a claim or the
> truth?

That's just the thing. I can't. But I think more Germans would openly express
pride in being German if pride in being German weren't associated with
goosestepping and gas chambers.

Whatever the case, the only thing I have is the extensional evidence -- their
claims. So that's all I'll cop to.

------
BugsJustFindMe
It seems to me that the obvious answer here is to spread awareness of the fact
that there is a difference between (1) being something and (2) doing something
and (3) doing something that someone in the being something category would do.

(1) "You are a racist." vs (2) "You have done something that is racist." vs
(3) "You have done the same thing that a racist would do."

Some percentage of the time, greater than 0.5 and less than 1, (2) equates to
(3), since clearly doing a racist thing is the same as what a racist would do,
but something that isn't racist might also be the thing that a racist would
do.

Alice is not a racist AND has not done a racist thing BUT has done the same
thing that a racist would do.

Dan might be a racist BUT has successfully avoided doing something racist.

Eric is not a racist BUT has done a racist thing.

And so on...

Different people consider different proportions of (1), (2), and (3) when
deciding whether someone or something is good/bad within their personal value
framework. I guess the essay is saying that it's a shame that often everything
gets collapsed into (1), but that's not a special problem. Surely it's always
harmful in _some_ way to mis-categorize anything.

~~~
throwanem
Some people I've known and grown up among would make a precisely parallel
distinction between sinning and being a sinner. I'm not seeing how, except in
a purely reflexive sense, this is any more useful - I never saw it help
anything for one person to call another a sinner, either. Perhaps your
experience differs from mine.

------
throwawaycopy
Scott's problem is that his forum for discussion is social media.

No one can speak meaningfully and reasonably about anything on social media,
let alone the politics of racism.

The medium makes the message almost completely devoid of meaning.

Seriously, there is no problem with the operating definition of racism outside
of social media.

Every idiot screaming about the alt-right (or their phantasmagorical counter-
part, the social justice warrior) is just someone who spends too much time on
Twitter.

Might as well be complaining about what policies the Orc players in WoW use to
justify who they vote for.

~~~
hollerith
I'm confused!

The OP is a post (by Scott) on his own blog on his own domain. If that
constitutes social media in your mind, then what parts of the web do you
consider not social media? If the answer is, none of it, then why didn't your
comment talk (or complain) about "the web" instead of about "social media"?

~~~
throwawaycopy
He is active on a variety of social media and uses discussions on Twitter as
evidence in the article in question.

His views on contemporary American political discourse are mainly shaped by
these interactions on social media.

Unfortunately, the rest of the media is also on social media, so you can't
really find a journalist or blogger who is in touch with reality.

Just to clarify, Twitter is as close to reality as World of Warcraft. At least
with an MMORPG the players realize it is a game. Funny enough, more people are
dying from playing video games like WoW than from alt-right/SJW altercations.

~~~
hollerith
>uses discussions on Twitter as evidence in the article in question

Ah, this resolves my confusion. Thanks.

------
LyndsySimon
Unexpectedly awesome essay :)

~~~
xyzzyz
Try reading other stuff on that blog. I recommend Meditations on Moloch, for
starters.

For long time readers of Slate Star Codex, expecting to find brilliance there
is like expecting grass to be green. Scott is a great thinker, and an amazing
writer too.

~~~
twoquestions
He's far from perfect, but the sheer _length_ of his writing makes the flaws
in his thinking easy to see, which I suspect is by design. He's generally
right, and makes it easy to see when he's wrong.

Death to Moloch!

------
rm_-rf_slash
Interesting essay, but it seems to miss the Jupiter-sized problem at the core
of this global turbulence:

Power is power.

Power doesn't care who has it or how they got it. Power creates winners and
losers. Power kills people while the survivors divvy up the former
possessions.

Power doesn't play by the rules. Power _is_ the rule.

Liberalism only works if enough people and power agree to let it work.
Authoritarians of today want to smash this liberalism precisely because a
world without rules on power benefits their style of acquiring and using
power.

Only power beats power. Power cares little for meaningless terms like good and
evil, if it even cares at all.

------
jeffdavis
I didn't see analysis about the separatist/immigration issues.

That might be more relevant to Trump/Brexit, but does not seem to fit very
well into any of the 3 categories the author sets up.

~~~
jeffdavis
Can someone explain how those issues fit into his categorization? I got
multiple downvotes in seconds, and I honestly don't understand why.

------
queirozfcom
Very good analysis right there.

------
chodeLoad
Bob, Carol, Eric and Fiona are racists. Alice and Dan are not.

Alice is avoiding the self harm of discomfort and lonliness. A refusal to
assimilate, sure, but as much as refusing to go square dancing and wear cowboy
boots. Dan is being charitable and productive in his actions without
inflicting actual injury or damages. Advocacy for those less fortunate
requires operating within the constraints of a role, and he is targeting the
path of least harm. Advocacy means choosing sides, although Dan gets a hall
pass, since his actions are ethically defensible. These are minor
transgressions in each case.

Bob, Carol and Eric are willfully causing harm for personal gain, and favoring
paths of least resistance, without exploring (perhaps as a conceit of these
framed parables) alternatives.

Fiona, meanwhile, is openly racist. It says so in the text, so no mystery
there. Her racism serves as a form of ethical de-escalation of circumstances
that Alice and Dan might unwittingly bring about (and the others actively
strive for), as "normal" ambient social behavior.

While unsavory in sentiment, Fiona's actions might serve as a means to prevent
open violence with a curious form of social lubrication, by bearing the burden
of being socially despicable, while refereeing the outcomes of unpolicable
realities, with her racist counterparts on the other side of the prison yard
(if you will), in a somewhat organized manner.

~~~
majewsky
> Bob, Carol, Eric and Fiona are racists. Alice and Dan are not.

By which definition of "racist"?

~~~
chodeLoad
The one that comes after your cited sentence, where I wrote all the words.

