The difference is education, not class

[Samson]

The labels that are used to differentiate race by racists are frequently genetic, as that is very useful for the racist. They are not always, religion and culture also work well in different situations.

 

[Lexicus]

That's like saying that eyes as being different organs from (say) legs is 100% cultural and has no relationship to genetics. Sure, without a language and an observer, eyes might as well be in oneness with everything else (including legs). If you just mean to say that "genetics" doesn't care about race; just not caring doesn't mean it's not related to it in various ways (such as the aforementioned capacity as ultimate enabler of distinctions to rise).

Besides, I am sure the issue here isn't with what is down to genetics (when even color of your hair is down to genetics, it's pretty bizarre to argue color of your skin isn't), but with racist views about whether such traits actually connote something positive and negative. The former should not be confused with the later.

This conversation is incredibly frustrating because we've had it a thousand times and the racists all use the same idiot motte-and-bailey and think people won't notice. The claim that race is social/cultural does not mean genetics doesn't affect physical appearance.

Where the problem arises is the supposition that race is necessarily "based on" physical traits in any consistent (to use a word TMIT is so fond of) way. It is trivial to show that race has no consistent relationship with any physical traits. For example, two individuals with the exact same skin color considered part of two different racial groups. The complexity of relationships between actual genes and their expression as physical traits means that extrapolating any kind of necessary or consistent connection between race and genes is even more problematic and impossible.

Racists want to pretend, desperately, that "genes affect physical appearance" and "race is genetic" are the same statement.

 

[Kyriakos]

This conversation is incredibly frustrating because we've had it a thousand times and the racists all use the same idiot motte-and-bailey and think people won't notice. The claim that race is social/cultural does not mean genetics doesn't affect physical appearance.

Where the problem arises is the supposition that race is necessarily "based on" physical traits in any consistent (to use a word TMIT is so fond of) way. It is trivial to show that race has no consistent relationship with any physical traits. For example, two individuals with the exact same skin color considered part of two different racial groups. The complexity of relationships between actual genes and their expression as physical traits means that extrapolating any kind of necessary or consistent connection between race and genes is even more problematic and impossible.

Racists want to pretend, desperately, that "genes affect physical appearance" and "race is genetic" are the same statement.

Well, shouldn't it be evident that genetics couldn't inherently come up with specific categories for race (or anything else, mind; including my example about eyes juxtaposed to legs), yet provides the ability to form such categories? What I mean here is that I am not sure if what you do isn't overkill, in that the ability (or even will) to identify something as a category (in this case a "race") is there to begin with, and is itself a genetically created ability. If it wasn't, no degree of cultural input would create it.
I think the problem here is with levels of interaction between a given ability (to come up with categories) and the will to do so. I don't think anyone is arguing that (say) to divide the world to the three german-theory races is anything scientific.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But not cultural constructs like race though.

Even cultural constructs need coherent definitions for their terms. If everything can be racist, being racist is no longer a meaningful property.

It must imply a specific type of discrimination to have meaning. When the same, singular action counts as both "religious persecution" and "racism", you no longer have a distinction between "religious persecution" and "racism".

That distinction is still important, because people do, in fact, face discrimination for physical characteristics (and other similarly arbitrary properties) independently from country/religion. Racism and religious persecution are different things, and our model of the world should predict at least some different behaviors between the two, unless we *actually* believe they're the same thing despite evidence otherwise.

~

I will again point out that this whole nonsense started simply because I said genetics was one factor among many in why people lean a certain way. This was (inaccurately, for reasons I've already covered) inferred as a racial thing.

 

[Senethro]

Even cultural constructs need coherent definitions for their terms. If everything can be racist, being racist is no longer a meaningful property.

It must imply a specific type of discrimination to have meaning. When the same, singular action counts as both "religious persecution" and "racism", you no longer have a distinction between "religious persecution" and "racism".

That distinction is still important, because people do, in fact, face discrimination for physical characteristics (and other similarly arbitrary properties) independently from country/religion. Racism and religious persecution are different things, and our model of the world should predict at least some different behaviors between the two, unless we *actually* believe they're the same thing despite evidence otherwise.

~

I will again point out that this whole nonsense started simply because I said genetics was one factor among many in why people lean a certain way. This was (inaccurately, for reasons I've already covered) inferred as a racial thing.

1. Tell it to the Jewish people. It can be both at once.

2. Racists will shift modes when it suits them. They will move between physical traits, to ethnicity, to culture, to religion, whatever they think they can use. The inconsistency is on their part, and is deliberate. Perhaps you should ask them to consolidate and clarify their methods and the terminology.

 

[Kyriakos]

1. Tell it to the Jewish people. It can be both at once.

2. Racists will shift modes when it suits them. They will move between physical traits, to ethnicity, to culture, to religion, whatever they think they can use. The inconsistency is on their part, and is deliberate. Perhaps you should ask them to consolidate and clarify their methods and the terminology.

Is inconsistency a real barrier to this kind of racial theory? It's pretty easy to just go (if you want to) with "people of relatively more x skin tone are a race". That'd be consistent enough.
It's why what matters should be whether someone reads relative superiority/inferiority to such groups, and not whether they may identify groups or not (anyone is able to group something when there is an obvious trait to serve as the link).

 

[Lexicus]

Is inconsistency a real barrier to this kind of racial theory?

Obviously not, because racists pretty much by definition are not concerned with things like intellectual honesty.

 

[Kyriakos]

Obviously not, because racists pretty much by definition are not concerned with things like intellectual honesty.

I am just trying to have a worthwhile discussion. The gist of what I posted is that there are many more layers to the phenomenon of coming up with a category and promoting it, than what you picked up. This leads to misunderstanding as to what is happening as well as why. You (seem to) only see a fabled racist that will use difference in a trait like skin color, to promote a theory of superiority/inferiority as part of a cultural and varying set of hyperstructures, while the phenomenon of splitting stuff according to common and antithetical traits rests on an unvarying and singular substructure and doesn't tie to culture in any meaningful way.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I will again point out that this whole nonsense started simply because I said genetics was one factor among many in why people lean a certain way. This was (inaccurately, for reasons I've already covered) inferred as a racial thing.

And I will again point out that "this whole nonsense" started simply because you didn't get and/or couldn't take a joke. (re: CinemaSins / "Everything Wrong With" X Movie)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. Tell it to the Jewish people. It can be both at once.

2. Racists will shift modes when it suits them. They will move between physical traits, to ethnicity, to culture, to religion, whatever they think they can use. The inconsistency is on their part, and is deliberate. Perhaps you should ask them to consolidate and clarify their methods and the terminology.

Or we could just penalize discriminating on factors people can't control generally and protect freedom of speech/association (which includes religion/culture) otherwise, and affix whatever label we want to discrimination, if it lets people know what actions we're talking about...

 

[Sofista]

I publicly described myself as half Numidian, half Gaetulian in a discourse delivered in the presence of that most distinguished citizen Lollianus Avitus. I do not see that I have any more reason to be ashamed of that than had the elder Cyrus for being of mixed descent, half Mede, half Persian. A man's birthplace is of no importance, it is his character that matters. We must consider not in what part of the world, but with what purpose he set out to live his life.

Apuleius, Apology (158 a.C., ch. 24).

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, but Gaetulians . . . amirite?

 

[Kyriakos]

Apuleius, Apology (158 a.C., ch. 24).

The lesser of the two Lucians ^_^

 

[Drakle]

To get back more on track.

Education is a proxy. Another proxy is reading.

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1455153983170007042

In the Pew NPORS study, reading was very strongly correlated with Democratic support among white voters without a degree--especially under age 45. I think it merits research as a possible weighting parameter

Among white voters without a degree under age 45:
read a book in last year: Dem 49, GOP 40
no book in last year: Dem 25, GOP 67

With that kind of split, you have to wonder about whether surveys represent non-readers in general. But it seems especially important to consider for online surveys--which literally require reading

It's a fairly easy explanation for why election polling errors have been more biased to Republicans when Trump is on the ballot. Surveys capture an accurate percentage of noncollege whites for polling ... but end up catching far more readers. When they need to be finding those stupified by the TV.

Plenty of people don't go to college, but still, have a learners mindset, and keep a critical mindset. While the natural conservative base is those who let the TV rot their brain.

It's easy to see based on sources of information. Much of conservatives is radio or TV, and even the written word sources, are very simplistic, without serious examination of issues. And this is a piece written, by a conservative, with his built-in biases, and can't help throw in some of the usual screeds. (Its actually an interesting article in its own right, due to how rare a deeply conservative intellectual actually is at the moment, and seeing a thought process that while reasonable on the broad point, is still consumed by the same bugbears, grievance politics, and ambient racism as the typical conservative.

But even he, can't help but note that Conservatives are literate shy, and driven by personalities and culture war. Liberalism is a natural evolution of ideology, while conservatism can be buffeted and switch from neo-cons to the tea party, to isolation belligerence, to anti-vaxxers. Conservatism being so empty of policy (with Trump outsourcing his policymaking to Paul Ryan in his early Presidency, to Mitch McConnell, then to Nancy Pelosi during the covid era where she and her people largely wrote the big COVID relief bills) isn't a Trump thing, it is just what they are becoming. The GOP had a ton of trouble just writing a tax cut bill, a basic idea they all agreed with, because much of the caucus were Tea Party Loons. Let alone repealing the ACA effort.

Being devoid of policy and of basic ideology, however, makes them very easy to whip up to authoritarian ends. They don't have a principled ideal of freedom, they do what Trump or Hannity, or Tucker scream at them to do, and call that freedom. The perfect base for pure demagoguery.

So if you want to know, why the GOP is warring against education on all levels, banning books in Texas, spurring hatred against universities, removing history from high schools, cutting education funding, etc. It's because they know who their base is, and who their base isn't.

 

[Lexicus]

Strongly suspect union membership is more predictive of Democratic voting among non-college-degree whites than reading is.

 

[Drakle]

Strongly suspect union membership is more predictive of Democratic voting among non-college-degree whites than reading is.

Did I claim that reading was the only proxy? Of course, Unions are more Pro Left, which is why the GOP is also warring on them (barring Police Unions of course).

But while I don't have the data, I strongly suspect that Union Membership and Higher Reading levels are also interlinked to a degree. Just from personal experience.

 

[Lexicus]

But while I don't have the data, I strongly suspect that Union Membership and Higher Reading levels are also interlinked to a degree. Just from personal experience.

Probably also true.

Of course, Unions are more Pro Left, which is why the GOP is also warring on them (barring Police Unions of course).

Problem is, too often the Democrats have seen unions as just another special interest. This is suicidal.

 

[Drakle]

Problem is, too often the Democrats have seen unions as just another special interest. This is suicidal.

Absolutely agree. The biggest thing that flipped say Wisconsin, is this graph, not any of the tactical decisions of 2016.



Obama not going to war with Scott Walker, did more to cost Clinton (and nearly Biden) Wisconsin, than anything either of those did campaigning

Democrats never work strongly to partisan advantage in shaping the battlefield. Republicans went after Trial lawyers, just because they were a niche donor base for Democrats. Unions, education, everything.

At least the Pro Act is still in the reconciliation bill (for now). Might help Unions bounce back marginally from their nadir.

If Democrats wanted to build partisan advantage, and do some good, destroying Multiple Level Marketing would probably be a union scale hammering of a leg of the Republican Party, and do some general societal good. Just listened to some stuff about Amway, and they got up to a lot for the GOP.