Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Don't necessarily agree with everything but I thought this was well done (in a student-esque sort of way)

 

[Dak]

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/why-are-american-schools-still-segregated/281126/

Fiel's study found that one factor that's led to the decline of white students in minority-heavy schools is the fact that white people make up a smaller proportion of the overall student population:

Damn white people are being racist by becoming a minority!!!! This is what I'm talking about: Never stop being offended.

It's starting to reach peak absurdity.

 

[Einherjar86]

a) Why do you think white children are becoming a minority?

b) How has the author been "offended"?

c) How is the article absurd?

EDIT:

I've been going back over some of my Lacan, and there is some fascinating material. I recently stumbled upon this quote by Lacanian psychoanalyst literary critic Joan Copjec, and have been trying to wrap my head around it:

As so many, including Foucault, have noted, laws are made to be broken, prohibitions to be transgressed, but through its very violability the law simply binds us closer to it. The law has an irrefutably positive force to which every transgression, which defines itself in terms of the law while dreaming itself beyond it, attests. It is wrong to assume, however, as so many, including Foucault, have, that the fundamentally negative character of the law is in this way refuted. For the transgression of the law's interdiction of specific, named acts in no way violates the law's other, more basic interdiction - of the real. This interdiction, unlike the first type, is never named by the law, but is inscribed in it nevertheless: in the law's very inability to authorize itself. The Foucauldians have simplified the Freudian thesis about negation by rendering it as "that which is negated must be named" and by failing to realize that that which is impossible must be negated without being named.

Damn.

 

[Dak]

Re the law: Seems similar to the cladistic discussion on Outside in.

a) Why do you think white children are becoming a minority?

b) How has the author been "offended"?

I don't see how A really has anything to do with the point one way or the other so I'm going to skip it.

B: Obviously Fiel has a problem with the existence of schools lacking in whites/having a primarily minority makeup.

"Segregation there was the most extreme I’ve ever seen," said Fiel. "There were literally less than five white kids in an entire public school."

Fiel recently published a study in the American Sociological Review that suggests the factors driving segregation have increased in scale in the past several decades—and that fixing the problem will require a new set of strategies.

This is a clear example of the regular goalpost moving by Progressivism (as if "progressive" wasn't a tipoff of behavior). This goalpost moving is facilitated or intertwined with constant offense taken at situations, constantly interpreting new phenomena under outdated negative rubrics.

Segregation (and thusly racism! - the exclamation point is obligatory) is the example here. Segregation as initially defined and fought against as the legal separation of whites and minorities - I could be a black kid next door to School A yet because it was a "white" school I must be diverted to School G elsewhere that was a "black" or "minority" school. This actual problem was more or less corrected (albeit in poor fashion) decades ago. But crusaders must find new Jerusalems, Progressive jihadists need new infidels, etc.

Segregation is now any situation where people aren't completely, equally, racially, mixed. Regardless of reasons. There are a variety of problems with this - which obviously Fiel and those like him are oblivious to as they indignantly gasp at the "horrors" encountered at every turn in life.

The borders are arbitrary as is segregation, if we must insist on moving goalposts. What Fiel is asserting is that the mere act of living in one location rather than another is to be condemned and fixed via violence - of course he arbitrarily limits this to people within an arbitrary radius (10 miles? 20 miles?). But why stop there? If we need white people to bless minorities with their mere presence to improve the unfortunate lot of all these minorities (the implicit suggestion in the article), why stop with US Whites? Why aren't all the European, South African, Australian, and other scattered global white populations forced to disperse equally amongst all their lesser human brethren so that all may benefit equally from their presence? Let's start shipping whites in from Australia to balance out Mississippi schools. Let's transplant 90% of Britain, France, and Germany (the white populations there) and disperse them in Africa and Asia. Then take Canadians and disperse them into Central and South America.

But of course the damn racist white people are selfishly reproducing at below replacement levels - obeying the separate dictates of Progressivist Malthusians and their population hysterics. You just can't win if you're white. Which is how it should be. Unless you're a Fiel.

c) How is the article absurd?

Let's start with the title: "Why are American Schools still segregated".

They aren't.

 

[Dak]

On a similar note: We are wrapping up my Ethics class by covering a book by a guy named Sterba - "Three Challenges to Ethics: Environmentalism, Feminism, and Multiculturalism.

Despite acknowledging that traditional Western ethics doesn't take women or other cultures into much account, this guy is already demonstrating little of the rigor (imo obviously) attributed to him by my professor.

In the introduction, he takes great pains to point out that no good argument begs the question (or obviously any fallacy...duh), and that we must take all sides into account prima facie. Then he proceeds to leave sides out in each case I've seen so far.

He takes the normal tack which seems apparent to me in most cases of theorizing, which is pre-emptively raising the objections one's argument is custom tailored against - not at all seeing/addressing the weaknesses. This is not rigor.

He very quickly makes errors in discussion of Altruism (not addressing arguments there is no such thing), and then later when arguing for a more robust understanding of a morality that treats all living things as equal, he includes defense of property within a definition of moral self defense by humans against both humans and non-humans. The gross error here is in neon lights and yet obviously neither he nor whatever peer review prior to the book publication caught this. My professor didn't either for that matter. So, what rigor? Equality between humans and nonhumans is an absurd concept, and only gets more absurd the more it gets pushed - which I am immediately ready to do when one starts down that path with rose tinted Progressive blinders.

 

[Einherjar86]

Re the law: Seems similar to the cladistic discussion on Outside in.

Cool. I should look into that.

I don't see how A really has anything to do with the point one way or the other so I'm going to skip it.

I'm saying that minorities reproduce at a higher rate than whites, and that this can be traced to economic conditions. It has nothing to do with whites being racist, and everything to due with conditions leading to an increased rate of reproduction among minorities.

B: Obviously Fiel has a problem with the existence of schools lacking in whites/having a primarily minority makeup.

Fair enough, probably.

This is a clear example of the regular goalpost moving by Progressivism (as if "progressive" wasn't a tipoff of behavior). This goalpost moving is facilitated or intertwined with constant offense taken at situations, constantly interpreting new phenomena under outdated negative rubrics.

Segregation (and thusly racism! - the exclamation point is obligatory) is the example here. Segregation as initially defined and fought against as the legal separation of whites and minorities - I could be a black kid next door to School A yet because it was a "white" school I must be diverted to School G elsewhere that was a "black" or "minority" school. This actual problem was more or less corrected (albeit in poor fashion) decades ago. But crusaders must find new Jerusalems, Progressive jihadists need new infidels, etc.

Segregation is now any situation where people aren't completely, equally, racially, mixed. Regardless of reasons. There are a variety of problems with this - which obviously Fiel and those like him are oblivious to as they indignantly gasp at the "horrors" encountered at every turn in life.

The borders are arbitrary as is segregation, if we must insist on moving goalposts. What Fiel is asserting is that the mere act of living in one location rather than another is to be condemned and fixed via violence - of course he arbitrarily limits this to people within an arbitrary radius (10 miles? 20 miles?). But why stop there? If we need white people to bless minorities with their mere presence to improve the unfortunate lot of all these minorities (the implicit suggestion in the article), why stop with US Whites? Why aren't all the European, South African, Australian, and other scattered global white populations forced to disperse equally amongst all their lesser human brethren so that all may benefit equally from their presence? Let's start shipping whites in from Australia to balance out Mississippi schools. Let's transplant 90% of Britain, France, and Germany (the white populations there) and disperse them in Africa and Asia. Then take Canadians and disperse them into Central and South America.

But of course the damn racist white people are selfishly reproducing at below replacement levels - obeying the separate dictates of Progressivist Malthusians and their population hysterics. You just can't win if you're white. Which is how it should be. Unless you're a Fiel.

You sound offended.

Let's start with the title: "Why are American Schools still segregated".

They aren't.

It isn't segregation if you restrict segregation to the direct effects of Jim Crow laws; since those laws are no longer in existence, then clearly there's no more segregation.

I don't think that racism is reducible to law; if racism is inherent in the system I'm speaking of, that means it runs through the veins of global capital itself. Economic accumulation is bound, through historical dynamics of power relations, to a politics of race. The wild differentiation of races throughout our regions, counties, and schools, still must count as segregation; beyond that, the demographics of race (particularly African Americans) are clearly and indubitably connected to Jim Crow. They are the direct effects of legalized racial segregation that lasted well into the twentieth century.

To deny that's segregation looks like a denial of reality.

 

[Dak]

Cool. I should look into that.

We are Catholic Calvinist Protestant X (Athiest, Baptist, Agnostic, etc) .

I'm saying that minorities reproduce at a higher rate than whites, and that this can be traced to economic conditions. It has nothing to do with whites being racist, and everything to due with conditions leading to an increased rate of reproduction among minorities.

Increased compared to what? Historically speaking, American minorities reproduce at an overall decreased rate - just not as decreased as whites. Why use current whites as a baseline?

The wild differentiation of races throughout our regions, counties, and schools, still must count as segregation; beyond that, the demographics of race (particularly African Americans) are clearly and indubitably connected to Jim Crow. They are the direct effects of legalized racial segregation that lasted well into the twentieth century.

To deny that's segregation looks like a denial of reality.

There was no Jim Crow in New York, or most of the rest of the country. Some areas are overwhelmingly black regardless of Jim Crow (but not regardless of the slave trade obviously) like Mississippi, or Memphis. To call it segregation is problematic because the term has a different connotation, and I don't see a problem (or at least not a problem as construed) with the current situation as framed.

Here's something that might provide a laugh:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/13/prosecutor-asks-that-she-not-be-called-t

Last month a Tennessee judge overseeing a burglary case rejected a pretrial motion in which the prosecution requested that it not be referred to as "the Government" because that term is "derogatory." In the May 22 motion, Assistant District Attorney General Tammy J. Rettig noted with alarm that "it has become commonplace during trials for attorneys for defendants, and especially Mr. [Drew] Justice [the defendant's lawyer], to refer to State's attorneys as 'the Government' repeatedly during trial." Rettig worried that "such a reference is used in a derogatory way and is meant to make the State's attorneys seem oppressive and to inflame the jury." She added that "attempts to make the jury dislike the State's attorney have no place in the courtroom." She therefore urged Williamson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Binkley to bar Justice from using the g-word during the trial and instead refer to her as "General Rettig, the Assistant District Attorney General, Mrs. Rettig, or simply the State of Tennessee."

In his response, Justice argued that such an order would violate the First Amendment. Should Judge Binkley nevertheless see fit to comply with Rettig's request, Justice said, he also should consider a few other speech limits in the interest of avoiding prejudicial terminology:

"First, the Defendant no longer wants to be called "the Defendant." This rather archaic term of art, obviously has a fairly negative connotation. It unfairly demeans, and dehumanizes Mr. Donald Powell. The word "defendant" should be banned. At trial, Mr. Powell hereby demands be addressed only by his full name, preceded by the title "Mister." Alternatively, he may be called simply "the Citizen Accused." This latter title sounds more respectable than the criminal "Defendant." The designation "That innocent man" would also be acceptable.

Moreover, defense counsel does not wish to be referred to as a "lawyer," or a "defense attorney." Those terms are substantially more prejudicial than probative....Rather, counsel for the Citizen Accused should be referred to primarily as the "Defender of the Innocent." This title seems particularly appropriate, because every Citizen Accused is presumed innocent. Alternatively, counsel would also accept the designation "Guardian of the Realm." Further, the Citizen Accused humbly requests an appropriate military title for his own representative, to match that of the opposing counsel. Whenever addressed by name, the name "Captain Justice" will be appropriate. While less impressive than "General," still, the more humble term seems suitable. After all, the Captain represents only a Citizen Accused, whereas the General represents an entire State.

Along these same lines, even the term "defense" does not sound very likeable. The whole idea of being defensive, comes across to most people as suspicious. So to prevent the jury from being unfairly misled by this ancient English terminology, the opposition to the Plaintiff hereby names itself "the Resistance." Obviously, this terminology need only extend throughout the duration of the trial—not to any pre-trial motions. During its heroic struggle against the State, the Resistance goes on the attack, not just the defense."

The good news is not only that Justice triumphed but that even the Government concedes "the Government" has a negative connotation.

 

[Einherjar86]

Increased compared to what? Historically speaking, American minorities reproduce at an overall decreased rate - just not as decreased as whites. Why use current whites as a baseline?

We can use whites at any time as a baseline. Upon their introduction to the American continent, blacks have always suffered the institution known as racism. There has been no historical moment in American when racism was not institutionally functioning.

There was no Jim Crow in New York, or most of the rest of the country. Some areas are overwhelmingly black regardless of Jim Crow (but not regardless of the slave trade obviously) like Mississippi, or Memphis. To call it segregation is problematic because the term has a different connotation, and I don't see a problem (or at least not a problem as construed) with the current situation as framed.

No matter. Jim Crow laws had measurable effects beyond the states in which they were implemented. Furthermore, northern states that did not implement them still identified with a "southern" mentality that saw blacks as inferior. This was the overriding popular racial dynamic in America throughout the nineteenth century; in several states it was supported by Jim Crow, and in others it was supported by an ideology of white American superiority.

This is all shorthand, but it has to be a lens through which we understand American racial history.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Slavoj Zizek on the dialectics of interracial eroticism

 

[-CC-]

^

 

[Einherjar86]

YES. I love Žižek's jokes.

This might explain why Dak privileges economics and psychology.

When Reich denounces the way in which psychoanalysis with social repression, he still doesn't go far enough, because he doesn't see the tie linking psychoanalysis with capitalism is not merely ideological, that it is infinitely close, infinitely tighter; and that psychoanalysis depends directly on an economic mechanism (whence its relations with money) through which the decoded flows of desire, as taken up in the axiomatic of capitalism, must necessarily be reduced to a familial field where the application of this axiomatic is carried out: Oedipus as the last word of capitalist consumption...

The point about Oedipus is obviously dated at this point, but the relation of psychoanalysis/psychology to an economic component seems very spot on.

And also this from Nick Land, whom I do not agree with politically but just can't get enough of. And I still can't figure out how his ideas inform his politics (EDIT: bonus points if you can identify every neologism in this passage):

Suborganizational pattern is where things really happen. When you strip-out all the sedimented redundancy from the side of the investigation itself - the assumption of intentionality, subjectivity, interpretability, structure, etc. - what remains are assemblies of functionally interconnected microstimulus, or tic systems: coincidental information deposits, seismocryptions, suborganic quasireplicators (bacterial circuitries, polypoid diagonalizations, interphase R-Virus, Echo-DNA, ionizing nanopopulations), plus the macromachineries of their suppression, or depotentiation. Prevailing signaletics and information-science are both insufficiently abstract and over-theoretical in this regard. They cannot see the machine for the apparatus, or the singularity for the model. So tic-systems require an approach that is cosmic-abstract - hypermaterialist - and also participative, methods that do not interpret assemblies as concretizations of prior theories, and immanent models that transmute themselves at the level of the signals they process. Tic-systems are entirely intractable to subject/object segregation, or to rigid disciplinary typologies. There is no order of nature, no epistemology or scientific metaposition, and no unique level of intelligence. To advance in this area, which is the cosmos, requires new culture or - what amounts to the same - new machines.

 

[Dak]

We can use whites at any time as a baseline. Upon their introduction to the American continent, blacks have always suffered the institution known as racism. There has been no historical moment in American when racism was not institutionally functioning.

That's not what I meant. Why indicate the number of children born to nonwhites vs whites [now]? Increases and decreases in fertility are a function relative to time. So one cannot be increasing or increased in the present tense.

Across the board in developed nations, fertility rates are going down, and the longer immigrants are here (1st,2nd,3rd generation etc), the more they decrease. However, minority birthrates are decreasing at a slower rate than whites, and the US is/has been seeing an influx of anything-but-white immigrants.

No matter. Jim Crow laws had measurable effects beyond the states in which they were implemented. Furthermore, northern states that did not implement them still identified with a "southern" mentality that saw blacks as inferior. This was the overriding popular racial dynamic in America throughout the nineteenth century; in several states it was supported by Jim Crow, and in others it was supported by an ideology of white American superiority.

This is all shorthand, but it has to be a lens through which we understand American racial history.

Measurable effects that did not include school segregation.

This might explain why Dak privileges economics and psychology.

The point about Oedipus is obviously dated at this point, but the relation of psychoanalysis/psychology to an economic component seems very spot on.

Freud might have his points, but the Oedipus complex is not even remotely universal.

Regarding Psychology/Economics: Why shouldn't I privilege them? Nothing is more human, more unseveringly tied to what makes us what we are. Our thoughts direct our (directed) action, and all action is economic (not to be confused as stating that "all action is "in the market"). All action has a consumptive and/or productive component. There is no stasis. So understanding what we do and why we do it seems to me of the most importance. Tie in philosophy to give a more robust field to play in for theorizing.

And also this from Nick Land, whom I do not agree with politically but just can't get enough of. And I still can't figure out how his ideas inform his politics (EDIT: bonus points if you can identify every neologism in this passage):

Wish I had the time to cross-reference ever $10 word. As far as making the tie from his philosophy to his politics, I am still and more convinced the answer lies in the East, as his most recent OI blogging makes the case:

http://www.xenosystems.net/nemesis/

Neoreaction, at its core, is a critical analysis of the Cathedral. It should surprise nobody, therefore, to see it hurtled into public consciousness, as the sole cultural agency able to name the self-evident configuration of contemporary sovereignty.

As the Cathedral becomes a self-confident public performance, its only remotely-articulate analyst is drawn into prominence, in its wake. In this regard, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Even had the Obama administration consciously decided to select the Cathedral as a branding device, it could not have been epitomized any more perfectly. Sacralized progressivism, ivory tower ‘brahminism’, academic-media fusion as the exclusive source of recognizable authority, and the absolute identification of governance with public relations have reached a zenith that tilts into self-parody. Soft fascist self-transcending hyper-Calvinism has been lucidly distilled into blitz-promoted political iconography. Everyone with a television set now knows that the Cathedral is in power, and merely await the terminological confirmation of their perceptions. Enthusiasts and dissidents are seeing more-or-less the same thing, characterized in approximately the same words. The only serious matter of controversy is the quantity of spiritual devotion such a regime, faith, and symbolic order reasonably commands.

Politics-as-religious-experience has been seen in America before. Arguably, it is even typical. What has not been seen since William Jennings Bryan at the dawn of the progressive movement, and never at all before then, is democracy pitched to such rapturous extremities of soteriological expectation — and Bryan was stopped. By identifying himself deliberately with a promise of comprehensive socio-spiritual redemption, Obama has more fully exemplified hubris than any leader in the history of the United States. The appropriate frame of political explanation, therefore, is tragic.

Tragedy is the fundamental teaching of Classical Occidental Antiquity, nucleated upon the insight that hubris escalates to nemesis. It finds its most lucid philosophical articulation in the fragment of Anaximander:

Whence things originate,
Thence they return to destruction,
According to necessity;
For they reciprocate justice and pay recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

This conception strongly resonates with neoreactionary fatalism (anti-politics), and with the formation of ideas around wu wei (laissez faire) in the Chinese cultural context. Nemesis, the agency of cosmic justice (Δίκ&#951 eventuates automatically, as a retarded consequence that is nevertheless inalienably bound to the hubris of political action. The fatal stroke is delivered — at the right time — from the intersection of power and fate, rather than by any kind of considered remedy or political dialectic. Tragic rectification completes itself.

If there is a ‘strategic’ lesson from tragedy, it is not opposition, but non-participation. To become entangled in hubris is to invite nemesis. To the greatest extent possible, hubristic power should be left to its fate. The less interrupted its acceleration into concentrated nemesis, the more spectacularly cosmic justice is displayed, and the more effectively the audience is educated.

If you’re sitting comfortably, you can pass around the popcorn now, because the American tragedy is a real doozy. We already know that Obama is playing the part of the tragic hero with exceptional genius, as the very personification of immoderate political ambition and narcissistic blindness. Far more unexpectedly, his GOP opposition has somehow reached beyond its corrupt dementia to discover the fatal stance of non-participation, unanimously rejecting the President’s key-stone domestic initiative, and also distancing itself from his foreign policy agenda in overwhelming numbers. Unilateral Cathedralism reigns, uncompromised. This is the secret to the unprecedented delights of the current epoch.

Jonah Goldberg describes the spectacle well:

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

The catharsis is so harsh and pure that even the invertebrate Buckleyites at The National Review are beginning to get it, for a short, exquisite moment, at least. As Konkvistador warns (in this thread), a far less radically degraded group of people will nevertheless “forget all about these insights [as] the next election cycle warms up, indeed elections with their promise of power for conservatives and pseudo-conservatives [have] historically served as their mindwipe. Election cycles are when conservative obsolete Progressivism is updated to a slightly less obsolete version.” The sojourn of conservatism on the Outer Right, where tragic non-participation holds, cannot be expected to last. Yet even as a brief intermission from vile ambition, it allows nemesis the space to express itself in its full, planet-shuddering splendor.

Whatever the disagreements and divergences among the strands of neoreaction, there is one message that has to remain unwaveringly consistent: The Cathedral owns this (totally). Less than a quarter of the way into Obama’s second term, full-spectrum catastrophe is already written across the heavens in letters of incandescent sulfur. Obamacare is wrecked before it has even rolled out, Yellen has all-but promised to dedicate the Fed to full-throttle bubble-mania, metropolitan bankruptcy is burning through the nation’s cities like a zombie virus, crime is angling sharply upwards, American foreign policy lies in smoking ruins … there is simply no way this disintegrating jalopy holds together for another three years.

Let in burn — in the Cathedral’s hands.

ADDED: Advice from Michael Walsh to the GOP: “Don’t do something, just stand there. You didn’t vote for it, not once, not a single time, ever. [...] Obama threw a spanner into his own Rube Goldberg machine yesterday and the best thing you can do is to sit down, shut up, get out of the way, and enjoy the show.”

ADDED: For Democrats, Obamacare Unfolding Like a Greek Tragedy

Destruction has it's own flow, and must not be obstructed either. So he's a political agorist until it's time to rebuild.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's not what I meant. Why indicate the number of children born to nonwhites vs whites [now]? Increases and decreases in fertility are a function relative to time. So one cannot be increasing or increased in the present tense.

Across the board in developed nations, fertility rates are going down, and the longer immigrants are here (1st,2nd,3rd generation etc), the more they decrease. However, minority birthrates are decreasing at a slower rate than whites, and the US is/has been seeing an influx of anything-but-white immigrants.

I still don't understand. Due to the history of slavery, blacks in America have suffered adverse economic conditions that whites haven't. Birthrates are inextricable from such conditions.

Measurable effects that did not include school segregation.

I disagree; segregation has always been the case, even in non-Jim Crow states. It just hasn't been enforced legally. Economically, segregation has always been detectable on a wide scale. This is what the article is exploring. You're reducing segregation purely to conscious legal institutionalization. But segregation can be economic too, Dak; and this is an effect of a racist socioeconomic system.

Regarding Psychology/Economics: Why shouldn't I privilege them? Nothing is more human, more unseveringly tied to what makes us what we are. Our thoughts direct our (directed) action, and all action is economic (not to be confused as stating that "all action is "in the market"). All action has a consumptive and/or productive component. There is no stasis. So understanding what we do and why we do it seems to me of the most importance. Tie in philosophy to give a more robust field to play in for theorizing.

All too positivistic for my tastes. "Nothing is more human, more unseveringly tied to what makes us what we are": ugh, makes me want to gag.

Thought are not logically tied to action, and not all action is economic. Everywhere we turn, there are exceptions to your rules. Production and consumption do not rely on human subjects; they occur without us, and it is not the human subject that produces or consumes anything.

 

[Dak]

I still don't understand. Due to the history of slavery, blacks in America have suffered adverse economic conditions that whites haven't. Birthrates are inextricable from such conditions.

We are talking about increasing and decreasing and baselines of measurement. Not causation, or correlation for that matter.

I disagree; segregation has always been the case, even in non-Jim Crow states. It just hasn't been enforced legally. Economically, segregation has always been detectable on a wide scale. This is what the article is exploring. You're reducing segregation purely to conscious legal institutionalization. But segregation can be economic too, Dak; and this is an effect of a racist socioeconomic system.

Segregation was only a legalistic concern for the Civil Rights Act or Jim Crow by definition, and legal segregation is my only concern. We segregate in various ways all the time. You are segregated at your computer screen to some degree, potentially to the point of isolation. Ultimate Metal is a segregation. What's the problem?

If I don't want to live next to people who piss in their front lawn accompanied by the 4 broken down cars and other assorted trash, why is that a bad thing? If I'd rather live in Queens than Harlem, am I a bad person? If I want to talk on a forum about Metal and Philosophy rather than Lady Gaga and the Kardashians, this isn't unethical. It is segregation.

All too positivistic for my tastes. "Nothing is more human, more unseveringly tied to what makes us what we are": ugh, makes me want to gag.

Thought are not logically tied to action, and not all action is economic. Everywhere we turn, there are exceptions to your rules. Production and consumption do not rely on human subjects; they occur without us,

I don't see anything positivistic about (potentially?) factual declarations. Of course pursing positive outcomes through that understanding/approach is necessarily positivistic.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology

I never said production and consumption in general rely on humans. Plants produce fruit and consume nutrients/carbon/etc. But this isn't conscious action (as we conceive), and certainly not human (my concern).

and it is not the human subject that produces or consumes anything.

This is, at this point, tautologically false. Even if the subject is an illusion, it is real. You admitted as much yourself. We perceive our subjective illusion as producing or consuming X, and so we do.

 

[Einherjar86]

We are talking about increasing and decreasing and baselines of measurement. Not causation, or correlation for that matter.

I don't know what you're talking about. It isn't making much sense to me.

Segregation was only a legalistic concern for the Civil Rights Act or Jim Crow by definition, and legal segregation is my only concern. We segregate in various ways all the time. You are segregated at your computer screen to some degree, potentially to the point of isolation. Ultimate Metal is a segregation. What's the problem?

If I don't want to live next to people who piss in their front lawn accompanied by the 4 broken down cars and other assorted trash, why is that a bad thing? If I'd rather live in Queens than Harlem, am I a bad person? If I want to talk on a forum about Metal and Philosophy rather than Lady Gaga and the Kardashians, this isn't unethical. It is segregation.

I'm not saying the act of moving itself is racist. You should be able to move if you want to.

But you have to admit that if we observe the results of gentrification, it points us to certain realizations about our culture that are undeniably racist (when white suburbia first began to emerge, blacks were discouraged from moving into such neighborhoods because whites associated them with certain types of behavior; that this prevented blacks from participating in suburbia points to a) that blacks were stereotyped according to certain behavioral traits, and that b) the presence of these traits points to deeper socioeconomic factors). I think you might be misunderstanding where the racism is. It has nothing to do with blaming the people who move for being racist. You should stop taking it personally.

I don't see anything positivistic about (potentially?) factual declarations. Of course pursing positive outcomes through that understanding/approach is necessarily positivistic.

That's just it, Dak. They're factual statements derived from a priori assumptions on what the human is. Ultimately, all you can do is rely on circular reasoning that says: well, our consciousness and productivity (etc. etc.) are what make us human; but at the same time, it is only from this essentially human aspect that we can thus be conscious and productive. You enter into an entirely illogical and ideological mythology of the human. You can call it inductive reasoning, or belief; but you can't call it logic.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology

I never said production and consumption in general rely on humans. Plants produce fruit and consume nutrients/carbon/etc. But this isn't conscious action (as we conceive), and certainly not human (my concern).

No, but I'm saying that subjectivity and consciousness actually never makes anything except itself.

This is, at this point, tautologically false. Even if the subject is an illusion, it is real. You admitted as much yourself. We perceive our subjective illusion as producing or consuming X, and so we do.

This is a mistaken understanding of what I meant by fantasy. Fantasies are real, but they produce nothing but themselves. Write a poem and give it to me. Then prove to me that you made it, that you produced it. All I'm saying is that the connection between subjectivity and production is entirely tendentious; you cannot prove that your conscious mind made anything. All your conscious mind can do is observe something being made.

It does not make a single shred of difference whether Shakespeare actually wrote his plays or not, and this is where any conspiracy theories really fall apart. It doesn't even matter who put pen to paper.

 

[Dak]

I don't know what you're talking about. It isn't making much sense to me.

You made the statement that minority birthrates are increasing. They aren't. They are higher than whites, but they are decreasing as well.

I'm not saying the act of moving itself is racist. You should be able to move if you want to.

But you have to admit that if we observe the results of gentrification, it points us to certain realizations about our culture that are undeniably racist (when white suburbia first began to emerge, blacks were discouraged from moving into such neighborhoods because whites associated them with certain types of behavior; that this prevented blacks from participating in suburbia points to a) that blacks were stereotyped according to certain behavioral traits, and that b) the presence of these traits points to deeper socioeconomic factors). I think you might be misunderstanding where the racism is. It has nothing to do with blaming the people who move for being racist. You should stop taking it personally.

Well I'm certainly not taking it personally. I use myself for convenience. Seeing these developments as racist is racism. To begin with, the article previously linked on "Segregation" and "poor outcomes" etc is racist and heavily laden with all the values that Progressives supposedly disdain - materialism, anti-multicultural, etc.

If people want to live like shit, have shitty schools, neighborhoods, etc it is completely against the overall ethos of Progressivism to correct them (without being hypocritical), as this is merely their Culture. I am, of course, being unpolitically correctly hyperjudgmental in suggesting that white and black and mexican and Etc trash (just like the author!) are in fact trash. This isn't because of an annual income, the annual income is because of their trashiness. Or maybe it's synchronistic. Since it's already been proven you can't hand money to trash to fix them (hello trash recidivism rates for lottery winners), they have to determine to fix themselves - no matter whether there is some sort of generational curse working against them. Life isn't fair. This means embracing Human Action as the cure for their Human Ills. Which are economic and material - the number one concern for all those supposedly antimaterialists and disbelievers in economics.

That's just it, Dak. They're factual statements derived from a priori assumptions on what the human is. Ultimately, all you can do is rely on circular reasoning that says: well, our consciousness and productivity (etc. etc.) are what make us human; but at the same time, it is only from this essentially human aspect that we can thus be conscious and productive. You enter into an entirely illogical and ideological mythology of the human. You can call it inductive reasoning, or belief; but you can't call it logic.

I didn't say makes us human, I said inextricably tied to. Certainly we would still be "human" if we lost our consciousness/rationality/purposeful thought etc. But we wouldn't know to care or distinguish. We would be human but not Human. A priori conclusions can be drawn from the empirical, and the empirical is necessarily understood consciously.

No, but I'm saying that subjectivity and consciousness actually never makes anything except itself.

If to direct is not to make, then sure.

This is a mistaken understanding of what I meant by fantasy. Fantasies are real, but they produce nothing but themselves. Write a poem and give it to me. Then prove to me that you made it, that you produced it. All I'm saying is that the connection between subjectivity and production is entirely tendentious; you cannot prove that your conscious mind made anything. All your conscious mind can do is observe something being made.

Of course there is no empirical proof that "consciousness" creates anything, just as their is no empirical proof of gravity itself. We can only prove effects. And no it doesn't matter whether we call it gravity or consciousness or ziggitypop. We have labeled our estimation of the force behind the effect.

It does not make a single shred of difference whether Shakespeare actually wrote his plays or not, and this is where any conspiracy theories really fall apart. It doesn't even matter who put pen to paper.

Your actions betray you. You don't actually believe this.

 

[Einherjar86]

You made the statement that minority birthrates are increasing. They aren't. They are higher than whites, but they are decreasing as well.

Correct.

Well I'm certainly not taking it personally. I use myself for convenience. Seeing these developments as racist is racism. To begin with, the article previously linked on "Segregation" and "poor outcomes" etc is racist and heavily laden with all the values that Progressives supposedly disdain - materialism, anti-multicultural, etc.

If people want to live like shit, have shitty schools, neighborhoods, etc it is completely against the overall ethos of Progressivism to correct them (without being hypocritical), as this is merely their Culture. I am, of course, being unpolitically correctly hyperjudgmental in suggesting that white and black and mexican and Etc trash (just like the author!) are in fact trash. This isn't because of an annual income, the annual income is because of their trashiness. Or maybe it's synchronistic. Since it's already been proven you can't hand money to trash to fix them (hello trash recidivism rates for lottery winners), they have to determine to fix themselves - no matter whether there is some sort of generational curse working against them. Life isn't fair. This means embracing Human Action as the cure for their Human Ills. Which are economic and material - the number one concern for all those supposedly antimaterialists and disbelievers in economics.

The developments aren't racist. They're indicative of a racist system. Racism isn't always intentional.

I didn't say makes us human, I said inextricably tied to. Certainly we would still be "human" if we lost our consciousness/rationality/purposeful thought etc. But we wouldn't know to care or distinguish. We would be human but not Human. A priori conclusions can be drawn from the empirical, and the empirical is necessarily understood consciously.

The empirical is also not what exists in reality. The empirical is only what the senses produce. That which is seen is a product of things that see, because sight is not a universal sense.

Of course there is no empirical proof that "consciousness" creates anything, just as their is no empirical proof of gravity itself. We can only prove effects. And no it doesn't matter whether we call it gravity or consciousness or ziggitypop. We have labeled our estimation of the force behind the effect.

And if you can only prove effects, then nothing is inextricably tied to what makes us "human." You've constructed the human out of observed phenomena, too which there exist countless exceptions. You've made an ideal out of matter, a universal out of contingent particulars.

Your actions betray you. You don't actually believe this.

My actions betray the ideology I'm beholden to. I don't deny that; I expect to be paid for the books I publish because the culture I'm part of necessitates it. But I don't claim that the words in those pages, or the thoughts they stir in your brain, are mine. I have no claim to intention, or statement of purpose, or right to those words.

The entire system of economics that you propose and support tricks itself into thinking these things come before it, and that it merely acts in service of such realities. The truth, however, is that the economics you espouse create the need in people to stamp their names on things. It discovers nothing about our nature or our behavior. It actively creates and reinforces that behavior; pure and simple.

 

[Dak]

The developments aren't racist. They're indicative of a racist system. Racism isn't always intentional.

The empirical is also not what exists in reality. The empirical is only what the senses produce. That which is seen is a product of things that see, because sight is not a universal sense.

We have to work with the tools we are given. I have already stated it appears impossible to sneak up on consciousness, since we would have to use consciousness to do so. Reality is always already empirical for us (and I don't mean just limited to sensory input via sight), whether we like it, or don't like it, etc.

And if you can only prove effects, then nothing is inextricably tied to what makes us "human." You've constructed the human out of observed phenomena, too which there exist countless exceptions. You've made an ideal out of matter, a universal out of contingent particulars.

I'm curious as to the universal and contingent particulars you have in mind.

My actions betray the ideology I'm beholden to. I don't deny that; I expect to be paid for the books I publish because the culture I'm part of necessitates it. But I don't claim that the words in those pages, or the thoughts they stir in your brain, are mine. I have no claim to intention, or statement of purpose, or right to those words.

So economic necessity aside, you have no issue with plagiarism?

The entire system of economics that you propose and support tricks itself into thinking these things come before it, and that it merely acts in service of such realities. The truth, however, is that the economics you espouse create the need in people to stamp their names on things. It discovers nothing about our nature or our behavior. It actively creates and reinforces that behavior; pure and simple.

Well I wouldn't deny it reinforces it synchronistically where known, but the theory came after the behavior, and given that the Austrian approach is relatively new and most marginalized, it's not like Austrianism itself is having some sort of global reinforcing effect - such as the rapid growth of System D etc.

It appears to me you are still really pushing the "blank slate" understanding of people, and this has been disproven long ago.

 

[Einherjar86]

You make good points, they're just the same ones you've made before, and I'll only end up regurgitating what I've said before. I'm not trying to shove them to the side, but ultimately we both have to agree to disagree.

Just to clarify though:

I'm curious as to the contingent particulars you have in mind.

Breathing, seeing, eating, undying love for Obama. The usual.

So economic necessity aside, you have no issue with plagiarism?

Of course I have a problem with it; but that's relating it back to me again. Just because I have a problem with it doesn't make it mine...

 

[Dak]

Breathing, seeing, eating, undying love for Obama. The usual.

I don't follow....

Of course I have a problem with it; but that's relating it back to me again. Just because I have a problem with it doesn't make it mine...

Why have a problem with plagiarism? From the perspective "nothing belongs to anyone", plagiarism simply doesn't exist. When Student X uses something without crediting Writer Y (there is no economic impact to be concerned with for Writer Y), I hope you don't negatively grade or report this. This would be something akin to "jury nullification" of bad laws.