If Mort Divine ruled the world
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Dak
mentat
Are you being serious?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_dynamics
I don't see "failing to participate" or "actively working against the group" listed. Also notice "a group size that is not too large". I think nations with participatory smaller units have found a sort of workaround, but it's certainly imperfect. Absolutely an argument for greater decentralization ie "state's rights".
I'll bite. What's the most ideologically neutral news and/or commentary website/outlet you can think of?
Einherjar86
Active Member
I am being serious.
Why can't a system or group whose functionality is exceptionally organized, well-supported, and historically foundational tolerate a few resistant strains?
It's a rhetorical question--the answer is that they can. The U.S. isn't in danger of not functioning because of immigration, illegal or otherwise. And pro-immigration protesters aren't throwing a wrench in the gears either. Which is why the article you posted is exceptionalist fear-mongering of an unpalatable variety.
I don't see the point of this question. I thought we already established that media is going to be biased to some degree. I just appreciate media that doesn't poorly mask its "news" in pathetic appeals to American exceptionalism.
But since you asked, probably the Onion.
Dak
mentat
No, it's not currently in danger from illegal or legal immigration, because illegal immigration has been subsiding since the incentives have been slowly and then more quickly withdrawn. However, were the borders kept as or thrown more open with concurrent incentives (which is what goodthinkful people want), there would certainly be problems.
The US is facing many serious, critical problems over the next 20-30 years that I do not believe you nor many mainly metropolitan/hyper-urbanized people grasp. The transcontinental infrastructure needs an overhaul, a demographic cliff is approaching, new international powers are emerging, and the economic paradigm which powered the entire Boomer population and global system is reaching its probable endpoint. But what we need is more dildo and vagina hats and a proverbial tower of babel of languages in response, and in response unicorns will issue forth to sprinkle fairy dust on all the problems.
Well that piece wasn't news, it was opinion. But news from outlets as diverse as CNN to the esteemed NYT present news as op-ed opportunities. I would have said Reuters, but even there there is a smack of progressivism. The "correct perspective" is always cosmopolitan in nature - a perspective someone who gobbles the Economist and NYT would readily endorse. Hell, even that piece I linked from FA endorsed the orientation - they just qualified it with the realization that only a relative few can actually be cosmopolitan. It is that very insight which is quite noticeably lacking.
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
Einherjar86
Active Member
This "goodthinkful" element is both antithetical to functionality and a part of functionality. Resistance to systemic functionality can actually serve as a corrective to gross entrenchment.
All of those issues need to be addressed, I just take issue with the attitudes with which many people address them, especially conservatives; and yes, attitudes do have an impact on how we're perceived and on how people who hold those attitudes arrive at their conclusions.
Also, you can have "more dildo and vagina hats" and still address these concerns. So stop with the false choices.
Damn, that's funny. I should have said Breitbart.
Dak
mentat
There's a difference between providing viable alternatives and actively working against the betterment of the group. Diversity is a relatively meaningless term until we delineate what kind of diversity.
Sure, attitudes generate attitudes in reaction. But the gulf in values is so large at this point there doesn't appear to be common ground to find no matter how civil the discourse.
To be perfectly clear, every choice means the foregoing of all other possible choices. One course of action takes resources (time, attention, money, whatever) from other courses of action. You can have both, but at a probable detriment to both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
Einherjar86
Active Member
I doesn't have to do with alternatives. Correctives aren't alternatives.
You're not being perfectly clear. You're equivocating and evading. It's perfectly--perfectly--obvious that we can have progressivist marches and have regulations on immigration. They don't cancel each other out. Stop pretending they do.
There is so much more to functionality than you're admitting. Social gatherings and protests have a broader purpose than fulfilling their ostensible demands or desires. You're equivocating what protests claim to want with the complete and total fulfillment of those desires. It's not that simple.
Dak
mentat
So, if I show up at BU and start practicing the drums in your classroom during your assigned classtime, I hope you'd merely consider that a corrective action, rather than impeding the progress of learning in your classes.
Of course we can have both marches and regulations. But one (at least some types of marches) is attempting to cancel out the other.
Efforts are inherently exclusionary. Doing one thing means not doing all other things with the resources used in that effort. Protest efforts use up resources in an attempt to gain access to more resources to use up. Claiming I'm unduly equivocating because desires aren't totally fulfilled is like protesting that I can't claim that Japan wanted to take over all of Asia because they failed. Sure, there was more to the imperial aspirations of Japan, at the individual level, than acquisition of a larger resource base, but it's not an undue equivocation.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Ugh, this is tiring, and becoming an exercise in pointless semantics.
All I have to say is that your example about playing the drums in my classroom is stupid if you don't see how that's different from what protesters are doing. I realize you're being hyperbolic, but do you not comprehend that there's a correspondence between protests and the topics they take issue with? You've simply taken one environment (a classroom) and inserted into it an entirely unrelated action (beating a drum). If you think that's a good example, then I doubt your critical thinking skills.
All I have to say is that your example about playing the drums in my classroom is stupid if you don't see how that's different from what protesters are doing. I realize you're being hyperbolic, but do you not comprehend that there's a correspondence between protests and the topics they take issue with? You've simply taken one environment (a classroom) and inserted into it an entirely unrelated action (beating a drum). If you think that's a good example, then I doubt your critical thinking skills.
Dak
mentat
It's not hyperbole, it's difference in scale. Groups exist for the fulfillment of common purposes, and the size of the group does or should correspond to a necessity for said size. That is, what cannot be done with X number can be done with Y number. When persons exist in the group or within group-related physical spaces, yet seek to hinder the purposes of the group or end the existence, these people are a problem for the group, and members of the group that value the group are rightly reactive to that. Whether that is someone playing the drums in a classroom (a class being a group with a purpose of learning some thing), or sanctuary cities in a state or country (a group pooling resources to meet commonly held economic and safety goals), these are all anti-group behaviors on different scales.
Einherjar86
Active Member
It's not a difference of scale, it's a difference in kind. A difference of scale would be comparing immigration protests to, say, breaking down a wall, or proposing an immigration bill to congress, or creating a sanctuary city. Those are all differences in scale.
With the classroom example, you've simply constructed a nonsensical straw man.
With the classroom example, you've simply constructed a nonsensical straw man.
Dak
mentat
It's interference in group processes by non-group members. Alternatively, I could engage in the same behavior as a member of the class. There's no difference in kind; ironically, you're thinking too concretely here. It's obstructionist, deleterious behavior on a small scale.
Einherjar86
Active Member
You're ignoring countless elements that differentiate between a protest and the kind of act you're describing, and you're equivocating the two by appealing to the vague "interference."
But following this logic--even if I admitted that the two were the same, I could still say that I would kick your ass out of my classroom and not be a hypocrite. Fine, the two are examples of "interference of group processes"; but my classroom happens to be a system in which that interference isn't tolerated, while the immigration system can tolerate anti-immigration protests. In fact, maybe anti-immigration protests actually force the immigration system to adapt in ways productive in the long run.
But that's getting too abstract. I still fall back on my critique of your antithetical construction between social systems and resistance to them.
But following this logic--even if I admitted that the two were the same, I could still say that I would kick your ass out of my classroom and not be a hypocrite. Fine, the two are examples of "interference of group processes"; but my classroom happens to be a system in which that interference isn't tolerated, while the immigration system can tolerate anti-immigration protests. In fact, maybe anti-immigration protests actually force the immigration system to adapt in ways productive in the long run.
But that's getting too abstract. I still fall back on my critique of your antithetical construction between social systems and resistance to them.
Dak
mentat
I understand your point of contention: playing the drums is direct interference while protesting does not stop processes. But that's simply an access or power problem. I actuallty can't actually keep playing the drums or even bring the drums into the classroom because of access (eg power) problems. But protest is the method chosen by people lacking the power to directly impair processes. So, the direct link would be if I march around outside of your classroom shouting about the problematic nature of not being able to drum in your classroom/outside of it (which I probably still couldn't do because of access/power, so I'd be limited to the nearest public sidewalk outside of BU).
I assume you would say the analogy falls apart because drumming in your class provides zero aid to your lecture content while immigrants aid the economy. I would disagree here because rhythm is incredibly intertwined with human communication and action, and could potentially be assimilated into your syllabus on a somewhat limited basis (like, if I valued the group [the class'] goals). However, illegal immigration/non-assimilation is completely at odds with any goals with of the group. Similarly, I just use your group's (class') space to practice drumming towards my own ends.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Well, we in the humanities are really just a bunch of hippies, so you're probably right.
But my main point of contention is that immigration protests happen and don't directly affect the efficacy of illegal immigration. In fact, if our administration is to be believed, there's a been a crackdown on illegal immigration.
But my main point of contention is that immigration protests happen and don't directly affect the efficacy of illegal immigration. In fact, if our administration is to be believed, there's a been a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Dak
mentat
But they want to - and therein lies the problem. I can't find numbers to support an actual crackdown, rather the crackdown has been unnecessary because the instances have been dramatically reduced because of a lack of institutional support. Although not a lack of marching support. What I would love is if illegal immigrant protesters had to register, so that the parched husks of desert-killed or smuggling-killed illegals could be cemented on their doorsteps. Trump, in his ignorant banter, has actually saved many lives. Not bettered maybe, but at least saved. Near complete detachment from any application (reality) has a price - and it's usually paid by some portion of the proletariat rather than the elite.
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
Einherjar86
Active Member
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