If Mort Divine ruled the world

[The Ozzman]

I disagree, I fully support the Democrats paying reparations to the descendants of slaves.

I was going to reply to this with a semi serious statement and then I re-read it. Nicely done.

 

[CiG]

"CNN SUCKS"

 

[Dak]

I find Coates's writing to be provocative and brilliant, and his interpretations compelling. I also find McWhorter to be measured, perceptive, and an enviable intellectual. I think the difference between us is that I don't see these two things as mutually exclusive.

I see being an intellectual and not being an intellectual as being mutually exclusive, and Coates isn't even remotely approaching intellectual status. Coates is certainly "provocative", but there's no special talent required for provocation (in fact, a lack of talent is often necessary). McWhorter has been called an Uncle Tom for years; Coates is in no danger of such a label. These two are about as mutually exclusive outside of their race and sex as they could be.

 

[Einherjar86]

I see being an intellectual and not being an intellectual as being mutually exclusive, and Coates isn't even remotely approaching intellectual status.

I don't personally agree, but I also don't read Coates as an argument source, as we say in composition. In other words, I wouldn't appeal to him in the way I would to McWhorter, or Henry Louis Gates, or Louis Chude-Sokei, or bell hooks, etc. I would appeal to Coates the same way I would to Frederick Douglass, or Harriet Jacobs, or Olaudah Equiano, or James Baldwin, or Ralph Ellison--that is, as an exhibit source. His writing exhibits something about black experience, whether we take that experience to be local or national, and he expresses it in a particularly thoughtful way.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

the school district in San Francisco used to teach the difference between gay people and straight people as part of the curriculum for kindergarten

i'm not sure if i agree or disagree with this being right or wrong
just pointing it out as a thing that was happening

 

[Dak]

I would appeal to Coates ....... as an exhibit source. His writing exhibits something about black experience, whether we take that experience to be local or national, and he expresses it in a particularly thoughtful way.

Well he's necessarily an exhibit source. But while he has the right to presenting his slant and perspective on his experiences, he also opens himself up to scrutiny on those perspectives and slant. I won't argue whether he is or isn't thoughtful, but he is incredibly wrong-headed, and even many black liberals agreed on this, to say nothing about men like Thomas Sowell.

 

[Einherjar86]

he also opens himself up to scrutiny on those perspectives and slant.

Was this ever in question?

To respond to your original comment about our respective alliances, I don't own any of Coates's books. I do own a copy of The Language Hoax, though. I think you misinterpret my fondness or interest in certain writings as support for the content of those writings. I'm interested in Philip Roth, but I don't think one should live one's life according to Portnoy's Complaint. Literary studies don't unconditionally or uncompromisingly champion their texts of choice. It's more complicated than right or wrong.

 

[Dak]

Was this ever in question?

To respond to your original comment about our respective alliances, I don't own any of Coates's books. I do own a copy of The Language Hoax, though. I think you misinterpret my fondness or interest in certain writings as support for the content of those writings. I'm interested in Philip Roth, but I don't think one should live one's life according to Portnoy's Complaint. Literary studies don't unconditionally or uncompromisingly champion their texts of choice. It's more complicated than right or wrong.

Well I can distinguish between an intellectual curiosity in some component of a thing, and endorsing a political/social/psychological/philosophical position. But at the same time Coates is typically not read or recommended in that way, and his opinion is not alone and it is damaging real lives in its pathological paranoid externalizing (even while Coates does quite well for himself). While Coates is gladhanded and lives life on easy street, I deal with black demented (clinically) schizophrenics (who were IVCd by their own family) who refuse to take their medicines because somehow they are in an inpatient psych ward because racism (one particular current patient is in mind). That's one extreme individual anecdote, but the worse ones are the neighborhoods upon neighborhoods in places like Baltimore. How are the adherents of Coatsian rhetoric doing:

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1141670149424123910

America's worst run cities vs how many years since they had a Republican mayor:
D.C.—109
Detroit—57
NYC—12
San Francisco—55
Oakland—58
Flint, MI—44
Cleveland—30
Hartford, CT—48
Chicago—88
Los Angeles—18
Atlanta—140
St. Louis—70
Philadelphia—67 See a correlation?

Also Baltimore: 57 years. Also NYC is not technically accurate - Bloomberg wasn't listed as a Democrat even though he should be.

 

[Dak]

https://twitter.com/Nicole61836638/status/1141174495576653824

But my car is why the earth is polluted......

 

[Einherjar86]

Well I can distinguish between an intellectual curiosity in some component of a thing, and endorsing a political/social/psychological/philosophical position. But at the same time Coates is typically not read or recommended in that way, and his opinion is not alone and it is damaging real lives in its pathological paranoid externalizing (even while Coates does quite well for himself). While Coates is gladhanded and lives life on easy street, I deal with black demented (clinically) schizophrenics (who were IVCd by their own family) who refuse to take their medicines because somehow they are in an inpatient psych ward because racism (one particular current patient is in mind). That's one extreme individual anecdote, but the worse ones are the neighborhoods upon neighborhoods in places like Baltimore. How are the adherents of Coatsian rhetoric doing:

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1141670149424123910

Also Baltimore: 57 years. Also NYC is not technically accurate - Bloomberg wasn't listed as a Democrat even though he should be.

What the fuck is the metric for "worst run cities"? Such a loaded tweet.

Anyway, on to other matters: thank you Donna Haraway.

Our view was never that truth is just a question of which perspective you see it from.

Bruno [Latour] and I were at a conference together in Brazil once. (Which reminds me: if people want to criticize us, it ought to be for the amount of jet fuel involved in making and spreading these ideas! Not for leading the way to post-truth.)

Anyhow. We were at this conference. It was a bunch of primate field biologists, plus me and Bruno. And Stephen Glickman, a really cool biologist, took us apart privately. He said: “Now, I don’t want to embarrass you. But do you believe in reality?”

We were both kind of shocked by the question. First, we were shocked that it was a question of belief, which is a Protestant question. A confessional question. The idea that reality is a question of belief is a barely secularized legacy of the religious wars. In fact, reality is a matter of worlding and inhabiting. It is a matter of testing the holdingness of things. Do things hold or not?

Take evolution. The notion that you would or would not “believe” in evolution already gives away the game. If you say, “Of course I believe in evolution,” you have lost, because you have entered the semiotics of representationalism – and post-truth, frankly. You have entered an arena where these are all just matters of internal conviction and have nothing to do with the world. You have left the domain of worlding.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-LcUz2DuAo2cC-I9a7JuXZrjgyAVsCrdHmoPujHSb7F4Q

I'm reminded of a comment by a biologist I know who once said that when non-scientists hear the word "theory," they think to themselves "Oh, I can choose to not believe this, it's just a theory"; but when scientists hear the word "theory," there's no question of personal belief.

https://twitter.com/Nicole61836638/status/1141174495576653824

But my car is why the earth is polluted......

Your car is why the earth is polluted. Why do you always insist on false choices?

 

[Dak]

What the fuck is the metric for "worst run cities"? Such a loaded tweet.

Anyway, onto other matters: thank you Donna Haraway.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-LcUz2DuAo2cC-I9a7JuXZrjgyAVsCrdHmoPujHSb7F4Q

I'm reminded of a comment by a biologist I know who once said that when non-scientists hear the word "theory," they think to themselves "Oh, I can choose to not believe this, it's just a theory"; but when scientists hear the word "theory," there's no question of personal belief.

Poorly run: Crumbling infrastructure, high crime, high corruption. It's not complicated.

I'm not sure what the point was with the Guardian article.

Your car is why the earth is polluted. Why do you always insist on false choices?

This is like the "one drop" rule. Lots of things "pollute".....and? I will refer back to the eminent Thomas Sowell and his "Three Questions":

I’ve often said there are three questions that would destroy most of the arguments on the left.

The first is: ‘Compared to what?’

The second is: ‘At what cost?’

And the third is: ‘What hard evidence do you have?’

Now there are very few ideas on the left that can pass all of those…”

The first question usually takes care of most objections.

Back of the Napkin math says via my vehicle I produce the equivalent CO2 in one year of one commercial airplane in around a week of flying, and CO2 isn't even pollution; I can't find solid numbers of actual pollution (toxic compounds). Compare this to dumping straight trash in the water, which SE Asia does by the tonnage, and apparently the situation isn't all that much better in many other places.

 

[Einherjar86]

Poorly run: Crumbling infrastructure, high crime, high corruption. It's not complicated.

You don't think small towns with republican mayors across the country suffer from all three of those same issues?

Back of the Napkin math says via my vehicle I produce the equivalent CO2 in one year of one commercial airplane in around a week of flying, and CO2 isn't even pollution; I can't find solid numbers of actual pollution (toxic compounds). Compare this to dumping straight trash in the water, which SE Asia does by the tonnage, and apparently the situation isn't all that much better in many other places.

Your car is part of a massive industry. Its exhaust alone doesn't make sense without factoring in all the exhaust from all the other cars being driven across the planet.

I'm positive that other countries pollute horribly. China is the number one carbon emitter. Saying that your car contributes to pollution doesn't somehow absolve other countries of their role in global pollution--so why are you acting like me saying your car contributes to pollution is a personal attack on you? It's not that complicated.

The point of the Guardian article was me sharing something different. Why are you being such a shithead?

 

[CiG]

Are small towns really comparable to cities?

 

[Einherjar86]

I think if we're talking about management, then it's fine to compare cities to towns. Someone more informed than me could probably make a list of small towns with republican mayors that are "poorly run." Hell, that list might be longer than the city list. There are a lot more towns in American than cities.

 

[Dak]

Saying that your car contributes to pollution doesn't somehow absolve other countries of their role in global pollution--so why are you acting like me saying your car contributes to pollution is a personal attack on you? It's not that complicated.

I don't care that someone thinks I'm polluting. I do. So does every other sentient being. My point is relative to what.

The point of the Guardian article was me sharing something different. Why are you being such a shithead?

I'm not being a shithead, I was asking for context. I don't know what the point is. Plus you posted it in the Mort thread, so presumably it had some SJW import.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't care that someone thinks I'm polluting. I do. So does every other sentient being. My point is relative to what.

It's funny to see you pulling the relativist card.

Carbon emissions aren't relative. We have a fairly accurate picture of how much carbon gets emitted, and how much of it we cause. Petroleum-based transportation accounts for about one third of total anthropogenic emissions. You can't consider your automobile absent this context, because it's this very context that's given rise to your car in the first place. It wouldn't make any practical sense to say "If my car were the only car on the planet, it would have no discernible impact on the climate." That's certainly true; but it's also nonsensical. There's no plausible historical scenario in which we can think of cars' individual emissions. They're the result of mass industrialization, and it only makes sense to talk about them that way.

I'm not being a shithead, I was asking for context. I don't know what the point is. Plus you posted it in the Mort thread, so presumably it had some SJW import.

You've kinda been a shithead for a few posts now.

I've always viewed this thread as being about more than SJW discussion. It's about matters relevant to the immediate political climate. Haraway is commenting explicitly on the post-truth era. It made sense to post it here.

 

[Dak]

I think if we're talking about management, then it's fine to compare cities to towns. Someone more informed than me could probably make a list of small towns with republican mayors that are "poorly run." Hell, that list might be longer than the city list. There are a lot more towns in American than cities.

Sorry I missed responding to this, but the difference is the number of state/fed dollars under disposal. We can also nix the crime issue, because we already know the 13/50 stat.

Edit: This is related to Question Number 1: Compared to what? So what if the list is longer? How many towns equal the rot in the cities? On the crime and infrastructure question, would probably take thousands. We already know you could eliminate several cities like Baltimore and Chicago and cut the national crime rate nearly in half.

 

[Einherjar86]

But how are you not committing a grievous error by insinuating more than the correlation between "poorly run" cities and democratic leadership? How is that tweet not implying that democratic leadership causes or is incapable of fixing the issues, when in fact they could be caused by any number of things and it's unlikely the republican leadership would fix anything either? The tweet uses the word "correlation," but it's saying more than that.

I'm not frustrated by your attacks on democratic leadership, but in the insinuation (in that tweet, at least) that republican leadership is superior.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The handful of large cities with Republican histories that I can think of (San Diego and Colorado Springs as two examples) are certainly far ahead the national average where low crime and high income are concerned. fwiw I don't think it's a clear-cut Dem vs Rep thing though, it's more a problem of civil rights legacies, all Democratic, squatting on a cache of political capital last earned in the 1960s and 70s. These are leaders that strongly promote black identitarianism and do nothing for their local communities beyond stirring up rage and getting wealthy for it. The neoliberal, relatively-pro-cop younger generation is better on this front, e.g. Cory Booker who (from what I can tell) legitimately improved Newark as mayor after decades of rule by a corrupt black supremacist. But Dems are still at least partially complicit in that they won't ever criticize black corruption from their own party, knowing that they risk offending their most loyal voting bloc.

 

[CiG]