Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

Well, I don't use the term "patriarchy" because it's abused. But I'm using generic language to describe particular phenomena within corporate culture--for instance, initiation rituals involving saying something demeaning to a female coworker, or expecting women to go on dates with their superiors, or thinking it's okay to interrupt women but not men, etc. etc.

You can have initiation rituals that aren't exclusive to men, or gender relations that don't expect women to cater to men. Generally speaking, all those institutions will end up excluding someone--but we can only do so much, so it seems pertinent, to me, to at least acknowledge the pervasive mistreatment of women in the corporate workplace (and beyond).

"Pervasive". I see no support for this adjective. The Marine Corps has been the most "traditional" in terms of gender norms, and is heavy on initiation rituals. There were no "say demeaning things to women" even in this atmosphere. In fact, most evidence is to the contrary. People might argue against this by pointing at sexual assault figures in the military, but they don't see the endless death by powerpoint presentations warning against sexual assault, etc. There's also plenty of question marks around the figures, as well as how the military compares to colleges and their figures.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/10/is-sexual-assault-really-an-epidemic/

Here’s what it adds up to: All in all, the rate of sexual assault in the military doesn’t appear significantly higher than the rate in the broader civilian population — and when you look at college campuses, which, like the military, are full of 17- to 24-year-olds, the military’s sexual assault rates start looking low in comparison.

Traditional values put women on a pedestal or "glass case" if anything, which while holding them back from certain things, also protects them from certain things (sort of inherent in "protectionism").

Europe can be an economic mess and still be admirable in other respects. It doesn't all come down to money, Pewterschmidt.

Not if the reason for the economic mess is its "admirable qualities", because eventually economic messes eliminate those "admirable qualities". Is Venezuela in your newsfeeds?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...alternative-to-neo-liberalism-is-8522329.html

Six million children receive free meals a day; near-universal free health care has been established; and education spending has doubled as a proportion of GDP. A housing programme launched in 2011 built over 350,000 homes, bringing hundreds of thousands of families out of sub-standard housing in thebarrios. Some of his smug foreign critics suggest Chavez effectively bought the votes of the poor – as though winning elections by delivering social justice is somehow bribery.

Yes, handing money to people who put you in office is bribery. But look at all the good! So many more bellies full, free healthcare, warm houses. Oops......
https://qz.com/712177/almost-the-entire-nation-of-venezuela-is-too-broke-to-eat/

Nearly 90% of the population can’t afford to buy enough food, according to a living-standards assessment by Simón Bolivar University. Even those with money can’t find basic products amid empty supermarket shelves.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14/venezuela-a-failing-state

Public health in Venezuela is, in fact, getting rapidly worse. In 1961, Venezuela was the first country declared free of malaria. Now its robust malaria-prevention program has collapsed, and there are more than a hundred thousand cases of malaria yearly. Other diseases and ailments long vanquished have also returned—malnutrition, diphtheria, plague. The government releases few statistics, but it is estimated that one out of every three patients admitted to a public hospital today dies there. State mental hospitals, lacking both food and medications, have been reduced to putting emaciated, untreated patients out on the streets.

Then why are we talking about transcendence? Are we just entertaining the illusion for the sake of argument?

The illusion must be maintained to a degree for material success. That's been my point this whole time.

 

[Einherjar86]

"Pervasive". I see no support for this adjective. The Marine Corps has been the most "traditional" in terms of gender norms, and is heavy on initiation rituals. There were no "say demeaning things to women" even in this atmosphere. In fact, most evidence is to the contrary. People might argue against this by pointing at sexual assault figures in the military, but they don't see the endless death by powerpoint presentations warning against sexual assault, etc. There's also plenty of question marks around the figures, as well as how the military compares to colleges and their figures.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/10/is-sexual-assault-really-an-epidemic/

Traditional values put women on a pedestal or "glass case" if anything, which while holding them back from certain things, also protects them from certain things (sort of inherent in "protectionism").

I don't think that sexual assault is an epidemic. I think that attitudes that rationalize it are, and I don't think there's an argument for the alternative (i.e. that such attitudes aren't pervasive).

Not if the reason for the economic mess is its "admirable qualities", because eventually economic messes eliminate those "admirable qualities".

That's not sound reasoning. Even if social measures lead to an economic downturn, that's not a reason to dismiss those measures or find them unappealing. You're reducing admirability to functionality, so you'll have to prove why something needs to be functional in order to be admirable.

Is Venezuela in your newsfeeds?

Venezuela isn't in Europe.

Oh snap! Okay, I know that doesn't matter, don't bother responding. Venezuela is the right-leaning libertarians favorite go-to example when it comes to economic disparity and disorganization. It's a whole different conversation, and is also not a convincing example (since no country that tries to implement a communistic structure is going to do well when it has to compete with capitalist powerhouses--I appeal to Deleuze and Guattari on this).

The illusion must be maintained to a degree for material success. That's been my point this whole time.

And I said there's no reason to assume why transcendence isn't still maintained, to a degree, in the world today. You then said it was "faux transcendence," not real because it didn't correspond to material success. Transcendence is "beyond" the material, and people need continued material success in order to believe in transcendence. To which I go back to my original point: people still do find transcendence in the world today, regardless of whether we can measure continued success as somehow less than it used to be, or whatever.

It doesn't matter if it's "faux transcendence" or not, transcendence never actually arrives. It's still "transcendence," or transcendentalism, or whatever you want to call it. This categorization of "faux" and "real" transcendence is pointless and distracting. People still find transcendence in their work/behavior/beliefs today, and I don't think you can measure its power or influence as any less than it used to be. It's just directed differently.

 

[Dak]

I don't think that sexual assault is an epidemic. I think that attitudes that rationalize it are, and I don't think there's an argument for the alternative (i.e. that such attitudes aren't pervasive).

What attitudes? Traditionalism generally puts women on a pedestal. Must not be that.

That's not sound reasoning. Even if social measures lead to an economic downturn, that's not a reason to dismiss those measures or find them unappealing. You're reducing admirability to functionality, so you'll have to prove why something needs to be functional in order to be admirable.

I'm sure you like going to the store and buying lots of broken things, or maybe cabinets where the doors don't open or simply fall off, etc. Functional is an awkward word here though. I could argue Venezuela is functioning as expected. The output just isn't what most people would find good. A well-tuned shit machine.

Venezuela is the right-leaning libertarians favorite go-to example when it comes to economic disparity and disorganization. It's a whole different conversation, and is also not a convincing example (since no country that tries to implement a communistic structure is going to do well when it has to compete with capitalist powerhouses--I appeal to Deleuze and Guattari on this).

But if socialism, communism, whatever is superior, wouldn't it just become the powerhouse? Venezuela has abundant natural resources, which because of the inherent mismanagement of their system, they can't even get to market:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/26/venezuela-is-so-broke-it-cant-even-export-oil/

(yeah, it's locked content :/ )

But Venezuela is merely the current salient example. As I noted with one link, previously it was socialist's favorite go to. Now it's Sweden, a nation in a slow privatization process (regardless of how the various byproduct outcomes are perceived - healthcare, education, etc., income/expense ratios trump).

And I said there's no reason to assume why transcendence isn't still maintained, to a degree, in the world today. You then said it was "faux transcendence," not real because it didn't correspond to material success. Transcendence is "beyond" the material, and people need continued material success in order to believe in transcendence. To which I go back to my original point: people still do find transcendence in the world today, regardless of whether we can measure continued success as somehow less than it used to be, or whatever.

It doesn't matter if it's "faux transcendence" or not, transcendence never actually arrives. It's still "transcendence," or transcendentalism, or whatever you want to call it. This categorization of "faux" and "real" transcendence is pointless and distracting. People still find transcendence in their work/behavior/beliefs today, and I don't think you can measure its power or influence as any less than it used to be. It's just directed differently.

It is maintained. Islam is booming (amazing pun opportunity! Like a 3 for 1).

I think differentiating between real and faux is the difference between materially based and spiritually. I material success might support certain approaches, but it isn't necessary (see various ascetic orders).

 

[Einherjar86]

What attitudes? Traditionalism generally puts women on a pedestal. Must not be that.

And that's that.

I'll have to call it quits, too many tangents and semantics.

 

[rms]

Maybe this is only in academia, I don't really know. But I wouldn't say, based on what I've seen, that most people consider black men to be better off than black women.

Seems like a really effective argument, might dig into that book one day.

Also wouldn't agree that on the 'gender and racial hierarchy' of that US that black men > black women

 

[Einherjar86]

It's in her book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Definitely worth looking at, as far as AfAm studies go.

 

[CiG]

From what I've seen among those that make a hobby out of this stuff, there is such a thing as black male privilege which apparently when contrasted with black female oppression, places black men above black women, regardless of prison statistics etc.

This link is especially extensive in the logic used by some to come to this conclusion:

http://projecthumanities.asu.edu/black-male-privileges-checklist

There are many more sources besides this one.

Bell Hooks iirc mostly focused on the slave era and Jim Crowe era and as much as modern social justice activists claim to base most of their views in those two eras of civil rights travesty, I think they actually just like Bell Hooks as a symbol, when really they haven't read what she has written. In fact if they knew that she says black women have it better than black men, she'd probably be no-platformed or at least some in-fighting would break out.

 

[Dak]

Black men exist in a paradox. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. They have the availability of many legal and social benefits, but many of them also lack access to/appreciation of those same social and legal benefits.

Quick history lesson: The line for mental retardation used to be -1 standard deviation (-1SD) on IQ tests (85 IQ). After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and AA's were included/ schools were desegregated/ IQ tests were widely implemented, it was realized that this would mean that the majority of AA's would fall under that standard and this would require either extra funds/special attention and/or the requirement of labeling large portions of a recently "protected" race as mentally retarded. So the standard was relaxed to -2SDs (70 IQ). So on the one hand, we don't have to provide services to those in need. On the other, we don't have to classify many AA's mentally retarded (or in the modern parlance "cognitively disabled" or "intellectually inhibited" or any other euphemism). In other words, you can perceive the change as being sensitive to historical oppression or as racist withholding of resources. What doesn't change are the the scores.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Yea I'd venture a guess that the scores are misleading

 

[zabu of nΩd]

What attitudes? Traditionalism generally puts women on a pedestal. Must not be that.

And that's that.

 

[Einherjar86]

From what I've seen among those that make a hobby out of this stuff, there is such a thing as black male privilege which apparently when contrasted with black female oppression, places black men above black women, regardless of prison statistics etc.

This link is especially extensive in the logic used by some to come to this conclusion:

http://projecthumanities.asu.edu/black-male-privileges-checklist

There are many more sources besides this one.

Huh, interesting. That's an academic website too, although I can't look at it right now because apparently it's encountering an error. I'll try again later.

Bell Hooks iirc mostly focused on the slave era and Jim Crowe era and as much as modern social justice activists claim to base most of their views in those two eras of civil rights travesty, I think they actually just like Bell Hooks as a symbol, when really they haven't read what she has written. In fact if they knew that she says black women have it better than black men, she'd probably be no-platformed or at least some in-fighting would break out.

That's correct, "Plantation Patriarchy" is about the early- to mid-twentieth century. But a lot of what she says has ramifications for AfAm demographics today.

Also, I wouldn't say that she thinks black men have it worse than women. I was mainly trying to suggest that I'm not sure there's a general feeling one way or another, at least within academic circles, that either black men or women have it worse. Again, I'll have to look at that website when it's working. For the most part, scholars I know don't see much value in arguing over who has it worse. The values lies in determining how cultural dynamics have led to certain circumstances. That's all hooks did, and her research suggests that black men may have suffered more with regard to financial stability.

Black men exist in a paradox. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. They have the availability of many legal and social benefits, but many of them also lack access to/appreciation of those same social and legal benefits.

Quick history lesson: The line for mental retardation used to be -1 standard deviation (-1SD) on IQ tests (85 IQ). After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and AA's were included/ schools were desegregated/ IQ tests were widely implemented, it was realized that this would mean that the majority of AA's would fall under that standard and this would require either extra funds/special attention and/or the requirement of labeling large portions of a recently "protected" race as mentally retarded. So the standard was relaxed to -2SDs (70 IQ). So on the one hand, we don't have to provide services to those in need. On the other, we don't have to classify many AA's mentally retarded (or in the modern parlance "cognitively disabled" or "intellectually inhibited" or any other euphemism). In other words, you can perceive the change as being sensitive to historical oppression or as racist withholding of resources. What doesn't change are the the scores.

It can be sensitive and racist. In other words, the requirements could be changed in order to compensate for people who had been educationally disenfranchised; but if nothing's done to elevate those individuals to the same intellectual level as others, then it's not really solving the problem.

Until the Civil Rights bill blacks developed an entirely different kind of educational support system and intellectual aptitude. When your main concerns are getting food on the table and not being lynched by white folks, you don't have time for calculus, biology, or Dickens. Now, once black children are allowed into white schools, they have access to this information--but the cultural perceptions and stigmas that surround blacks don't suddenly disappear. It's as though we expect them to adapt and "catch up" to these new environmental standards despite the fact mainstream white attitudes toward blacks don't change all that much from 1960 to 1970. Or from 1970 to 1990, for that matter.

 

[Dak]

It can be sensitive and racist. In other words, the requirements could be changed in order to compensate for people who had been educationally disenfranchised; but if nothing's done to elevate those individuals to the same intellectual level as others, then it's not really solving the problem.

Well you could change standards depending on race (which is, in a different way, what Affirmative Action did), but that is fraught with enormous problems (beginning with "how black is black", etc).

Until the Civil Rights bill blacks developed an entirely different kind of educational support system and intellectual aptitude. When your main concerns are getting food on the table and not being lynched by white folks, you don't have time for calculus, biology, or Dickens. Now, once black children are allowed into white schools, they have access to this information--but the cultural perceptions and stigmas that surround blacks don't suddenly disappear. It's as though we expect them to adapt and "catch up" to these new environmental standards despite the fact mainstream white attitudes toward blacks don't change all that much from 1960 to 1970. Or from 1970 to 1990, for that matter.

But calculus isn't present on an IQ test, and biology and literature details are represented on iirc generally less than 5 items out of over a possible couple hundred (I say possible because there are discontinue rules on tests if performance is poor. Difficulty goes from low-high, so if the person misses items 5/6/7, you don't embarrass them with forcing them all the way through the next increasingly difficult 10+ items). Generally there is one Arithmetic subtest, and one "Information" subtest, and two vocabulary driven tests. The other 60ish% of tests do not test things you can per se "study" for (video games may help with pattern recognition tasks). Additionally, court pressure going back to the 70s has forced IQ test companies to heavily audit their tests for cultural bias. I'm sympathetic to the problems of the poor, but problems of finance and culture aren't strictly racial problems.Giving someone a mental disability label provides access to potentially needed services (unless, of course, the system is overburdened by demand - which is its own problem), but then also sort of puts them in a hole of low expectations. I don't know what the answer is, but one can see a problem both with racially based low expectations as well as expecting too much.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm sympathetic to the problems of the poor, but problems of finance and culture aren't strictly racial problems.Giving someone a mental disability label provides access to potentially needed services (unless, of course, the system is overburdened by demand - which is its own problem), but then also sort of puts them in a hole of low expectations. I don't know what the answer is, but one can see a problem both with racially based low expectations as well as expecting too much.

I have no problem with this. There needs to be a distinction between acknowledging the reasons for poor performance and using those reasons to rationalize poor performance as "good enough."

 

[Einherjar86]

At this point I've developed a heuristic of suspicion regarding people who are suspicious of heuristics. Heuristics are an important cognitive tool.

Ha, took me a while for this.

I think you're talking about intuition and common sense at a, for lack of a better phrase, simplistic folk level. In other words, heuristics that have been honed over long periods of time for small-scale actions at the individual level will likely continue to be successful, and have some practicable value.

When we look at physics, mathematics, etc., traditional heuristics begin to lose their effectiveness. The theory of relativity, Schrödinger's thought experiment, Gödel's incompleteness theorems... these discoveries emerged from challenges to traditional heuristic instincts.

 

[Dak]

http://www.vox.com/conversations/20...cts-psychology-donald-trump-knowledge-science

I really do believe that our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground. We are not great reasoners. Most people don't like to think at all, or like to think as little as possible. And by most, I mean roughly 70 percent of the population. Even the rest seem to devote a lot of their resources to justifying beliefs that they want to hold, as opposed to forming credible beliefs based only on fact.

Think about if you were to utter a fact that contradicted the opinions of the majority of those in your social group. You pay a price for that. If I said I voted for Trump, most of my academic colleagues would think I'm crazy. They wouldn't want to talk to me. That's how social pressure influences our epistemological commitments, and it often does it in imperceptible ways.

I don't know if he just pulled the "70%" number out of his ass, but it matches up pretty closely to just under +1SD on the bell curve.

I think the latter emboldened portion is extremely underrated, and no one would want to acknowledge it.

 

[rms]

I always say about ~80%

 

[Einherjar86]

http://www.vox.com/conversations/20...cts-psychology-donald-trump-knowledge-science

I don't know if he just pulled the "70%" number out of his ass, but it matches up pretty closely to just under +1SD on the bell curve.

I think the latter emboldened portion is extremely underrated, and no one would want to acknowledge it.

I think this is pretty on point, and I feel like I've shared sources on this before. In fact, Scott Bakker writes about this all the time. This is from one of his posts in 2010:

Of course, I believe in critical thinking.

In fact, I believe in it so much that I think individuals and institutions who misrepresent it are pernicious through and through. The most disastrous obstacle to critical thinking is the blithe assumption that you are, by dint of training or disposition, a critical thinker. Our psychology insures that no human has been or ever will be a ‘critical thinker.’ The best we can hope for are moments of critical lucidity–like the one I had before bailing from my philosophy program. And the most we can hope from our institutions is that they maximize the frequency of those moments.

And the humanities, I fear, do nothing of the sort.

Human beings are rationalization machines. Some researchers even think we have a module in our brain dedicated to the production of self-serving reasons–confabulations that justify what we do and believe. In other words, we suffer matching compulsions: to judge others, on the one hand, and to justify ourselves on the other. And we all live, to varying degrees, in dream worlds as a result.

Of course, it doesn’t feel this way. As bent as it is, your inner yardstick is the only one you have, the very definition of straight and true–for you. This is why all those conservative Americans think that Fox News really is ‘fair and balanced.’ We’re literally hardwired to confuse agreement for intelligence. And this is why literature and philosophy departments are anything but the shining beacons of critical rationality they purport to be: human beings, no matter how polysyllabic their vocabularies, tend to use their intelligence to better leverage their stupidity.

I actually agree with most of this. Communities tend to reinforce common attitudes, and academia is no different. The primary I would identify, and this is anecdotal, is that most academics are riddled with self-doubt about their own ideas/arguments. I am as well. I think the healthiest critical perspective to have is, paradoxically, a skeptical one.

Also, Bakker's comments above are very much in line with his critique of heuristic thinking. Heuristics don't foster self-criticism or skepticism, but in fact allow us to bypass self-criticism. That's how they operate. Again, in some cases this is probably a good thing; but when it comes to topics on a complex scale, heuristics tend to lead us down errant paths.

 

[Dak]

I actually agree with most of this. Communities tend to reinforce common attitudes, and academia is no different. The primary I would identify, and this is anecdotal, is that most academics are riddled with self-doubt about their own ideas/arguments. I am as well. I think the healthiest critical perspective to have is, paradoxically, a skeptical one.

I think there's a difference between self-doubt in your area (where you assumably have to be on the edge of evidence), and assuming you've got all that basic ethical and cultural stuff figured out because of your social milieu and liberal arts/humanities classes/the liberal press. This also leads into the next point:

Also, Bakker's comments above are very much in line with his critique of heuristic thinking. Heuristics don't foster self-criticism or skepticism, but in fact allow us to bypass self-criticism. That's how they operate. Again, in some cases this is probably a good thing; but when it comes to topics on a complex scale, heuristics tend to lead us down errant paths.

This is true, but I think that misses the point where the rub with heuristics lies currently. I hear progressives talk about the horrors of segregation and group judging on one hand, and then talk about moving so their kids can get into the "good schools" which coincidentally are *not* on the "bad side of town" where you need to "lock you car doors and never stop". Plus home value and stuff. Ethics seems to be a case where heuristics and social milieu are leaned on heavily because otherwise things start getting too uncomfortably grey or maybe starkly black and white for most people.

 

[Einherjar86]

I definitely don't think I have ethics figured out, and my ethical positions are largely heuristic in nature. I don't think I've ever denied that.

Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that ethics are transcendental. By this, Wittgenstein means something different than you do in your own comments on transcendence. He doesn't mean that ethics provide a set of absolute or unconditional directions for behavior, but rather that the very concept of an absolute ethics lies beyond the purview of language. We actually cannot talk about a transcendental ethics. It makes no sense within the structure of language. Like aesthetics and religion, ethics (if they exist) occupies a space beyond formally organized systems.

My take on Wittgenstein is that I think ethical conversations can be had, and ethical policies can be arrived at; but I don't think they'll ever be consistent or absolute. Ethics should always be up for debate.

 

[Dak]

My take on Wittgenstein is that I think ethical conversations can be had, and ethical policies can be arrived at; but I don't think they'll ever be consistent or absolute. Ethics should always be up for debate.

hitlermeme.jpg j/k

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/17/learning-to-love-scientific-consensus/

Quite a few links to genetic/sex based psychological/cognitive differences included, but linking the final closing point:

I would rather have a world of people debating who agrees with scientific consensus or not, than a world of people debating whether scientific consensus is even valuable.

There is one caveat to the above: I think it’s dangerous to promote a normal of agreeing with scientific consensus, insofar as that helps encourage exactly the mistakes about the nature of consensus that I discussed above. When poorly-informed diet industry gurus support the Bad Old Paradigm, their rallying cry is usually “You’re a stupid crackpot, bow to the scientific consensus which agrees with me”. I gave three examples above of cases where I would have gotten the scientific consensus 100% wrong if I didn’t have access to a formal survey of scientific experts. In a world where these surveys had never been done – or some existing field without these surveys – or some field where these surveys have been done inaccurately or in a biased manner – people will often believe the consensus to be the opposite of what it really is. In those cases, demands that people respect consensus can be used to shut down people who are actually right – the field-wide equivalent of calling true facts you don’t like debunked and well-refuted. I see this happening all the time and I worry that waxing too poetically about the unreasonable effectiveness of scientific consensus will only serve to empower these people. Goodhart’s Law says that a measure which becomes a target ceases to be a useful measure, so we should be reluctant to target scientific consensus too strongly.