Thoughts on social justice. (New attempt at failed Pit thread, minus the well poison.)

First, preamble. No need to click the spoiler unless you’re familiar with my recent trainwreck of a Pit thread, which was about what the historical outpour of social justice energy ought to focus on as first and second (etc.) priorities. If you haven’t read that thread, please don’t, because I royally screwed the pooch and it is not worth your time. But, if you did, and you quite reasonably concluded I was an ass, I’m hopeful that this bit below might change your mind at least enough to read this new thread on the same topic, and give me the benefit of the doubt.

Actual content to follow. :slight_smile:

Firstly, the reason that thread was posted in the Pit in the first place was because sometimes people have been mocked in the past, when posting controversial stuff, for NOT posting it in the Pit where people could tell them what they really thought. I wanted to avoid that. I also threw some snarky asides in there, because it has been said that snark is the coin of the realm in the Pit. (Miss you, Jodi.)

BUT, what it accomplished instead was, as was pointed out to me via PM, that A) it created an assumption that the OP considered the subjects of the thread worthy of contempt, which is NOT a good idea especially coming from my demographic about that topic and at this particular time; and B) the snark came aross as – no, not came across as; WAS provably – well poison. Both of those points are true. If the main point of the thread was supposed to be acknowledgement of reality and an invitation to reasonable discussion of different opinions, I have to acknowledge the reality that I really, really shit the bed. And I also need to apologize as an attempt at reconciliation.

So, I’m trying again in Great Debates, because I feel that the actual point – which, again, didn’t come across, because all of the initial assumptions about how things would come across were super-obviously wrong – is important. I also feel that everyone involved are genuinely good people, and that I can learn a lot from each of their experiences and knowledge, and that that’s what I was trying to do, but it got lost in the fact that I posted the thread in the “FUCK YOU” forum and also threw a bit of completely unnecessary “FUCK YOU” in there to make sure shit went south. It’s not you, it’s me, except the sincere version of that. I apologize.

Now, time to stop the tiresome meta stuff and get to the point. I’ve gotta start with an analogy, because it might be the only way to get across the point I epically failed to make. The comedian I mentioned in that other thread, Steve Hofstetter, has a joke that kind of illustrates it, though it differs in a way I’ll explain in a sec. (When I told him via PM that I dropped his name there – felt I owed it to him – I also mentioned I’d clarify that I was in no way implying he’d necessarily agree with me, so here is that.)

The joke’s about parenting, and you can watch it here (shameless plug for Steve; watch him!), but to summarize, he says that while he can in no way understand the full experience of what it’s like to fly a helicopter, if he looks up and sees one in a tree, he can point at it and say, “pilot fucked up.” The abstract point is that experience is necessary to understand certain aspects of things, but others can be understood by any thinking person who considers the physical evidence at hand.

Where that Pit thread went south is that it came across as if the implication was that statue-pullers (and football-player-yellers-at, and university name change advocates, et cetera) were the equivalent of that tree’d pilot. Wasn’t the intention, though again, have the most honest mea culpa I can provide for the fact that people concluded it was.

The point was supposed to be that, to extend the analogy, those people were, in my non-pilot opinion but as a guy who’s at least ridden in a helicopter, that the helo seemed to be flying at a 20-degree list and in my best assessment, everyone might be more comfortable if the pilot altered his flight style a little bit. I’m sure the pilot is a good person who has both the safety and comfort of his passengers in mind, and that’s why I’m even bringing it up.

But, if the pilot took the time to explain that per his knowledge that I lacked, he was flying at that 20-degree list FOR safety because of something to do with wind conditions, then I’d listen, because one ought to accept knowledge and experience from those who have it. But there’s also the possibility that, as that good person, he might say “oh, hell, I’ve spent so much time in helos that I don’t really care what angle I’m at, and if it helps y’all out, I can fly a bit more level.” That’s why reasonable people talk about things. Like on this board, in this forum. (Not the Pit. Point still received.)

In that other thread, a person who’s about the best source of knowledge on institutional racism that I’ve ever personally encountered opined that perhaps I ought to consider that the statues were doing more harm than the things I was advocating for focusing on, because symbols of evil hurt people in ways and to depths that I had not considered because I hadn’t been there. I was actually excited about that, because if there existed an argument that would convince me – and I really am listening, especially to him – that statues did more harm than some of the other stuff I thought was hurting more people and therefore worthy of more focus, then I would and will change my stance in a friggin’ heartbeat and will quite literally get togther a group to go yank the fucking things down. I’ll get arrested for it too; wouldn’t be the first time.

He reasonably concluded that I’d already indicated that I was an ass, and told me he couldn’t give me any peer-reviewed research on the subject and I could piss off with the request.

That stung, although in retrospect it makes sense why it happened, because I despise the idea that academic research evidence is the only evidence that matters. For example, I fully believe based on anecdotal evidence and basic reasoning that police have something practially equivalent to quotas for ticket-writing. The anecdotal evidence I have is from current and former cops, who tell me that not every department does have them, but they’re common enough, and where they exist they’re called something like “performance incentives.” And they aren’t documented because hmm, I wonder why. That’s good enough evidence for me, and that sort of thing was all that was being requested; obviously suicide reasoning is not the sort of thing you’re gonna get a clean number on. But whatever evidence DOES exist, it should be presented so reasonable people can be convinced that it should be acted upon.

Now, what I won’t mea culpa for is the idea that reality is real, and it is worth the time for intelligent and caring people to get together and try to figure out how we can best do what we can with what we have. Everyone doesn’t have to focus on MY priority one, or YOUR priority one, or anyone else’s. As yet another poster pointed out, there exist enough good people to attack more than one cause at once, and in so doing, do even more good. I don’t pretend I personally have thought of even a double-digit percentage of all the amazing things we could accomplish, because I don’t know the half (or fourth or tenth or thirtieth) of it due to my privileged position.

What I disagree with is the idea that there are enough people to attack EVERY cause, or that all causes are equally important. I also think that the saying that the first sentence of this paragraph is equivalent to saying that the less important causes are bad, is deliberately disingenuous. But, I understand why people didn’t get that based on my own bad behavior, and am not calling them disingenuous for it.

All I am saying, is give peace a chance. Oh, wait, wrong point, although that too. All I am saying is “come, let us reason together.” I sure as hell ain’t Jesus, but I am a rando who’s trying to do some good, and the combined force of a bunch of randos trying to do some good is providing hope for humanity’s future to a lot of people who could really really use it right now. I and we owe it to those people, who do not include me, to give it to them as effectively as we can. I can, for example, make a pretty good fact-and-reason based argument that yelling at football players for not yelling at other football players is a lot less effective thing to do than a thousand other things I could point to that are currently happening, and I can do that without implying that only ONE of those thousand things is worth doing.

Hell, yelling at football players is “worth doing” too, in that it advances the side of Good. But the side point, and one reason I even care about this, was that attacking certain lower-priority issues – even if accomplishing them is still a net boon to the world – gives dishonest people who ARE the enemy fodder to make us look silly to fence-sitters, and that DOES hurt us, even if it is objectively wrong. If moderates look at people spray-painting statues, and decide, even if wrongly, that that’s kinda dumb…and when they point out that “hey, tell me if I’m wrong, but it sure seems like spray painting statues is kinda dumb,” and they get their head kicked in for it…then we’re creating Trump voters. We don’t need to be doing that.

To sum up, if I’m wrong about any of this, I want to know, because I want to help. I get why it didn’t look that way in my last thread. Hopefully I’ve done better here, because the team is currently kicking copious ass and for the love of humanity let’s keep on doing it. As best we can. Thanks.

I think in most cases the underlying cause of such backlash is that people tend to think in fairly binary terms: If there is Team A and Team B, and you criticize Team A’s actions, that immediately makes them think you favor Team B, even though you may actually be on Team A’s side all along.

To go with your spray-painting statues example: If you point out that spray-painting statues of racist people is backfiring and angering the public, then the spray-painters tend to assume you must be on the side of the racists, even though you’re anti-racist and in fact you are trying to help out the anti-racist cause by honing its tactics. That also leads to accusations of “concern trolling.”

TL;DR: People like to deal out friendly fire and hit comrades because it often feels instinctive to view them as enemies.

You’re pretty much the king of getting called the enemy for unfair reasons. I admit that there was a long time where I couldn’t tell what the hell was up with you, because people trying to paint you as talking out of both sides of your mouth were doing a pretty good job of said painting. (We’ve got some pretty smart folks here, and some pretty decent practitioners of debate martial arts.) I’ve since concluded, though, that you’re one of the last of the real conservatives who actually aren’t Trumpers but would like to advocate for small government. I don’t agree with everything you think, but although I couldn’t tell at first, you’re intellectually honest. At any rate I appreciate the support. I’d buy you a beer if you’re into beers. (I’m not, so I’d have a gin and tonic, but I’d buy you the beer anyway because to each their own.)

The statue pullers are either ignorant or stupid because what they are doing is legitimizing political violence. Their stated motives, true or not, or irrelevant. Obviously, and as predicted many years ago, this isn’t about the Confederate flag or a statue of N.B. Forrest. It’s not a slippery slope it’s a cliff and every time a complicit and weak politician bends the knee or a cowed public stands silent the radical mob is emboldened further. You honestly think a statue tossed in the river is the endgame? Nope.

The endgame is a just, fair, and decent society. Getting rid of monuments to white supremacism is just a small part of that, but it’s still a real part of it.

Okay, that’s just kind of a bizarre thing to say, and is bordering on strawman tactics. Even the people most strongly chewing my ass in that Pit thread weren’t saying that statues were the endgame. People saying things like what you’re saying here are exactly why the Coalition of the Sane is oversensitive to criticism. I’m not going to call you a troll, because that’s not productive, but pretending that anyone is coming from the standpoint of “statues are the endgame” is just not anything that’s been said by anyone here.

It’s NOT a cliff, it’s a spectrum. It’s both possible and worthwhile, so sez I, for reasonable people to try to form the closest thing to a concensus that humans can possibly produce – placing more weight in said concensus on the opinions of the people who are getting currently treated as subhuman, because, you know, duh – but we very much need to not try demonizing people who are fighting for the good in any capacity whatsoever. Giving the impression that THAT was a good idea was where I fucked up in that last thread.

The statues are bad and if they all (or even one of them) got chucked in a river today, we should all sing Hallelujah and fire off some fireworks because America. It’s just that the statues may not be (but may be; let’s discuss!) among the top x-thousand bad things when we’ve still only got enough people for x-thousand things to get done. Which in and of itself is still frickin’ amazing.

Attacking people who are trying to do good is stupid and bad, no matter WHICH direction it comes from. Stop doing it. But don’t be afraid to say what you think on the matter, because honest discussion is our only hope for winning.

You’re right about there being a spectrum of guilt among historical figures, and about modern society’s views towards those historical figures, but you’re wrong about the cliff-edge of mob action. You mentioned Nathaniel Bedford Forrest. He’s about an iconic racist historical figure as you can find, and I would oppose any current day memorial to him being built, and would support petitions for removal of existing memorials by the institutes who own those memorials. But here’s the thing. The spectrum of guilt is something like: Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t want to misstate your position, but you seem to be saying a coalition of people can be justified in judging the historical evil of Forrest and demolishing memorials to him. How much of a coalition is required? Because I guarantee you that once that coalition/mob is enabled to go after the Forrest memorials, the next seven are going to topple like dominoes.

Side question 'cause I’m curious, and it’s just about the new functionality of the board. (No politics! Yay!) You seem to be talking to octopus here, and when I hit “Reply” on someone’s post, I can see a thingy at the top that tells me who I’m responding to once it’s posted. So, I thought maybe you don’t need to quote somebody unless you think it’s necessary, because other people can tell who you’re answering.

But, I don’t see that same thing there, so I can’t be 100% sure you’re responding to octopus, although I can be about 99.9999999999% sure because only one person in this thread has mentioned Forrest and you don’t seem like the type to pull that out of your rear.

So, question is, did you press the Reply button on his post and I just can’t see the same thing you see, or did you post a general reply with the notion that it was bloody well obvious who you were responding to (which it was)? Just trying to learn how stuff works now. :slight_smile:

Not everyone who is quick to wag their finger at people with certain viewpoints are so ready to make their own viewpoints known. It can run the spectrum from having very well known viewpoints that you don’t think need bear repeating; to not-so-well known viewpoints that you didn’t even think of mentioning in the thread; to a shallow indifference to what people know about your viewpoints except when they make assumptions about them, bordering on a “gotcha ya” game; to borderline concern trolling where you deliberately obfuscate your viewpoints in order to draw focus on other people. Who is to blame for this depends on where on the spectrum the person with unknown views lies.

You say not to read the pit thread (and I haven’t), but you have not actually put forward any thesis for discussion here. Can you explain in this thread what you want to talk about, instead of analogies of what you want to talk about?

Sorry. Octopus mentioned Forrest and you responded to his post. I was replying to your entire post, but should have specified that point more accurately.

Sure. What I want to talk about is what people think are the best uses of effort – and yeah, there can and should be multiple – for the positive energy vibe we’ve got going on, because you can do a lot of things at once, but not everything; and everything isn’t going to do an equal amount of good even if it’s all good in the long run. Also, the side point that acknowledging the existance of those priorities is not evil, and attacking people who come at you with intellectual honesty to try to figure out what they don’t understand is creating enemies where they wouldn’t otherwise exist.

That’s about as concise as I can be with it. If you have questions, please by all means feel free to ask.

Edit: And, to provide something more specific, people seemed to want to discuss the idea of pulling down statues. That does not seem, to me, like one of the best options right now. I was really, really happy when MrDibble presented a theory as to why I was wrong, because if I am wrong, I really wanna know. But I had already ruined the chance of him explaining it any further, and did a bad job of asking him for evidence (that cop analogy), so this is the second effort.

Best use of the positive energy? Vote all the Republican rascals out.

Well fuckin’ A, but we knew that. What else ya got? :wink:

Peacefully protest…

But we already new that almost all are. Speaking about voting, help people to vote and volunteer for the vote effort and to prevent the expected shenanigans of the Republicans.

I really don’t know what this thread history is about, I’ve only read your comments (without clicking on the spoilers).

I disagree fundamentally with your expectation that someone (like a trained pilot or anyone) should need to explain to you why they do what they do so you shouldn’t second guess them, especially when that someone has better and more intimate knowledge of the subject that you do.

Regarding your “comedian”: to see a crashed helicopter and draw a conclusion on why it crashed is quite funny. I assume the joke is that he’s portraying how ignorant people draw conclusions based on zero expertise and are so ignorant they feel they know better than experts.

As far as extending this analogy to the state of US race relations: speaking for myself: as a +50 year old white guy from Canada, I don’t have nearly the hubris that would allow me for a even a second to think I can possibly comprehend what it’s like to be a American black person in 2020.

I also don’t need them to tell me what’s it’s like either; I have enough empathy that i can imagine what it’s like to walk through my hometown everyday and see statues that glorify and memorialize people whose core belief was that my ancestors (and my) only value in life was as a piece of property that could be bought, sold, beaten or worked to death as they saw fit and who did so regularly.

But even though I know I can’t possibly comprehend what’s it’s truly like, I do comprehend that it must be sickening. I certainly don’t have the insane hubris to doubt their feelings or tell them (from my 50 y/o white perspective) their feelings are bullshit.

If you think that that’s what I’m doing here, then you are either making a disingenuous point or severely misunderstanding what I wrote. Many of the points you made in this post are quite literally things I already said, such as the ability of thinking humans to understand certain portions of things without having experienced them, and the fault in disgregarding the opinions of others when the opinions of others are important. I didn’t say the pilot would owe me anything. My actual phrasing was that if he would grant me the grace of taking the time to explain it to me, I would be glad for the privilege of learning from his experience and knowledge. Quoting things that someone said back to them as if they were arguing against them is a really weird form of strawmanning that I don’t even know how to label. If you actually think that your response was responsive to anything I’d said, then I really don’t know how to help you.

Messaging, messaging, messaging.

First, we need to be explicit about our general ideals. Compassion, service, justice, etc. These are our guiding lights. Then, we need to be explicit about our specific goals. More opportunities for specific groups that are missing out, better outcomes for specific people who have suffered injustices, etc. Then our actions will follow the messaging and will be much more effective.

Know your audience. When I talk with other Christians, I talk about compassion for and service to others. When I talk to other patriots, I talk about the ideals of and justice for our nation. And always listen.

The problem I see with too many people is they place people in groups and then apply stereotypes, assumptions, and stigmatizations. This is a form of othering and is counterproductive. The “right” does this all the time with their tribalism, but the “left” is guilty as well (look, I’m doing it now!). I’d like to see more intersectionality, where the left recognizes that individuals are more than the groups they’re members of.

Instead of focusing on group membership, we need to focus on issues. That is, don’t care what groups someone is a part of, care about what issues they support. Talk about the general ideal: justice. Talk about the specific goal: stop honoring to traitors. Talk about the action: remove statues of traitors. Talking about how progressive or not something is falling into the right’s tribal view. Don’t do it.

I think your underlying model that we must prioritize because there is some fixed finite amount of energy available to expend on social change is bizarre. That just isn’t the way human nature works. If one thing catches people’s imagination, it’s likely to energize them and increase the likelihood that they will support other aspects of social change.

Pulling down statutes (and changing the names of major sports teams) is quite literally iconic, it’s powerful imagery that’s makes great news stories. It’s violent and dramatic, but does not harm people. I think it has been an important part of focusing the public debate on the issue of ingrained societal racism.

I think perhaps it’s because your “fixed amount of effort available to expend” model is so obviously not in accord with human nature that you’re being misunderstood, and that people are tending to assume that you’re in the category of people who identify as liberal, but not liberal enough to be comfortable with the transgressive pulling down of statues. (Obviously a commonly expressed sentiment has been “concern trolling” about alienating potential allies with such transgressive acts.)

But you’re still assuming that they’re separable.

I don’t know whether you missed, or just didn’t feel like addressing, my post in the other thread that the statues are an inseparable part of the whole problem.

And I don’t think anybody’s said that discussing priorities is evil; only that telling other people what their priorities ought to be is likely to be poorly received.