Black Lives Matter get police float kicked out of Pride Parade

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This bugged me, but I wanted to respectfully explain my issue.

I think it's absolutely an instance of hypocrisy to state that "homo sapien" is the only identity that matters, while all others do not, and follow that by defending the existence and importance of an identity you just said did not matter:

Okay, so here is the thing.

What they are saying is correct. None of these identifiers should be above "homo sapien." They should not be the basis for being hated or hating. They should not be the basis of fear or being feared. We are all people. But when it comes to identity politics, we tend to use them to draw lines and put people above or below based on their "identity". Be that colour, orientation, religion, politics or what ever it may be. It's wrong because we are all people. It's bad because it reinforces these barriers that are put up between these identities that should be meaningless at the end of the day.

Now this is there part where I think you misunderstand that quote that you placed. No one is putting the police, or at least the people that see it as part of their identity, above anyone else and demanding they get special treatment. The reason this is an issue is because, as happens in identity politics, a certain set of people has decided that the police are below them. They deserve to be on the outside looking in. They are a problematic group of people that need to be ostracized as a result.

It's not good. Instead of using the image of uniformed police showing solidarity with the Pride movement, they get forced out to show what? They used to not? It's backwards. It doesn't help.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Is "pride in your work" and "identity" the same thing? Not to me. But this was the response to me saying that "police officer" wasn't an identity (and I didn't mention having pride in your work at all) so I'd bet they think they're linked. It really didn't take dishonestly or mental gymnastics, sorry it made you go off.

The issue was not that you did not think that people could identify with your job. The issue was you took them saying one thing and made it out to be a completely different thing.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

"I'm gay/a woman/black" - "No identities matter, only identify as human!"
"I'm a police officer!" - "That's an important identity! I identify as my job too!"

And you still don't get it. They didn't say this. They took you to task for trying to say who can have what identity as a person. You then took them to task for saying police were more important people than others. You're still doing it. They didn't say this though. They didn't even imply this. I think you should stop saying that this was the message they were trying to convey.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

What they are saying is correct. None of these identifiers should be above "homo sapien." They should not be the basis for being hated or hating. They should not be the basis of fear or being feared. We are all people. But when it comes to identity politics, we tend to use them to draw lines and put people above or below based on their "identity". Be that colour, orientation, religion, politics or what ever it may be. It's wrong because we are all people. It's bad because it reinforces these barriers that are put up between these identities that should be meaningless at the end of the day.

This. We made tremendous social progress over the last century by de-emphasising group identity and moving towards the ideal of treating all people as individuals with the same rights.

It obviously hasn't led to a perfect world. But it's better than the alternative of putting people in boxes and engaging in a social power struggle between those groups. That always leads to conflict. And when things get bad enough, the conflict becomes violent. There are states where democracy essentially doesn't work because people regard their ethnic or religious identity as their primary identity, and politics becomes a brutal and unrelenting power struggle between those groups.

Look at religion in Canada. There was a time when Protestants and Catholics led fundamentally lives. When religion shaped your social circles, your schooling, your politics, your job identity, your marriage - everything. There was a ceiling on how far Catholics could progress in many companies. They were denied participation in clubs and associations close the centres of power. Within living memory, parents would be deeply dismayed at the prospects of their child marrying across that religious divide, and outright forbid it if able.

Did we get past this divide by emphasising religion, by valourizing underdog Catholics and shaming Protestants? By institutionally re-balancing the status of Catholics vs Protestants? Nope. We got past it by de-emphasizing the importance of religion to public life. By making religious identity a private concern, we made it so that religion had no bearing on job opportunities, political ambitions, or marriage.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

They didn't say this. They took you to task for trying to say who can have what identity as a person. You then took them to task for saying police were more important people than others. You're still doing it. They didn't say this though. They didn't even imply this. I think you should stop saying that this was the message they were trying to convey.

No, I get it. And I think your interpretation is no more valid than mine, considering neither of us is the one who said it.

When you defend the right for an identity to exist and say "society should value their identification with that job" while on the other hand, spending time making it very clear that certain identities don't matter, you are making a declaration of importance. Why would society care if police identified with their job, if it didn't matter?

I think you should stop telling me that your interpretation is more-valid and that I should stop talking about mine. It's great you didn't see a problem. I do. And I'm not going to keep defending my right to vocalise that interpretation. We're coming at this from diffferent angles, I'm bringing hundreds of posts worth of conversations as context, and you're bringing your own context (which may just be the need to interject and call me ridiculous or something, you're making a habit out of it). That's all fine.

Linking it back to the Pride parade in an awkward way, it's part of the issue. People come into things with their own context, which makes understanding some of these decisions so divisive. Life experiences differ, so some people are saying "The police and gay community have a great relationship!" but it's important to remember that it's not true for all of the community, which is why it's important to stand together.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

"I'm gay/a woman/black" - "No identities matter, only identify as human!"
"I'm a police officer!" - "That's an important identity! I identify as my job too!"

Your confusion is evident.

If someone is gay, that defines a part of who they are as a person, though unlike your career, or your hobbies, or what you're interested in, they didn't choose it. How big of a part varies with the individual (it's probably better that one characteristic not be absolutely everything you define yourself by). But if someone decides that being gay, having that identity, is synonymous with a bad characteristic - traditionally some sort of lack of morality or similar nonsense - it's perfectly understandable that gay people will take that as an affront to them as people. It is an affront to them.

I'm not decrying the existence of identities, per se, or even suggesting that they're inherently bad things. Without a gay identity there would never have been a gay community. Without a black identity there would never have been black culture. The issue with identity politics is that it sees people primarily as members of those groups with group characteristics, rather than individuals with various individual characteristics. Then, entire groups are treated differently from one another - principles aren't applied consistently across groups. Some people are given a relaxed or enhanced application of a particular principle owing to their skin colour or gender or religion or whatever. Your perspective on police violence against blacks is very important if you're black, but if you're white, it's less so because it's the product of privilege. Equal rights for women are vitally important in the developed world to the point where people march in the streets for birth control funding, but we'll demonstrate no such outrage in respect of the Middle East prosecuting rape victims for fear of cultural insensitivity or Islamophobia. Treating identity as the most important variable seems to lead people down this path almost inexorably.

I'm not ascribing either of those positions to you, by the way - just trying to give you examples of the particular misuse of identity that we're complaining about. Before the inevitable "what's wrong with marching in the streets for birth control" post, I'm also not saying there is anything wrong with that. My issue is the moral confusion evident in peoples' differential application of basic, fundamental principles. On this view, if I'm for X and you're against it, the first thing I need to check in evaluating your view isn't what your rationale is, it's what group you belong to. That has the benefit of being much easier than engaging disagreement on its merits.

This comes, at least in part, from peoples' principles basically being dead dogmas at this point - if you don't understand the fundamental goals that led us to support gay marriage and civil rights and so forth because you never have to rationally defend them to anyone (and no, accusing opponents of misogyny or the like doesn't count as "defense"), you can't apply them consistently either, because you're not taking them seriously enough. Hence me having to take three ####ing pages to explain why the pro-choice position on abortion rights isn't somehow inherently tied to women's gender identity. Which entire discussion was then dismissed by the usual suspects as unimportant "distraction" and "semantics". No wonder the train's off the rails.

So, yeah, it was a huge straw man and an obvious false equivalence on your part. Given how much this ground has seen on here it's sort of baffling that you still aren't crystal clear on what the problem we're complaining about is. It's hard not to wonder if you're deliberately avoiding it, which just goes back to motivated reasoning. I guess this is how people get to the assumption that the people they're arguing with must be just dishonest, because it seems the most likely explanation after you've explained something in several thousand words and they still completely miss the point. I think that in fact you're honest, that this was honest confusion on your part and you seem like a good guy, but it's really obnoxious to have someone completely distort your views and then call you a hypocrite. Especially when it seems like clarifying those views for the tenth time is just going to fall on deaf ears.

[rubecube]

Jesus, dude, what's the word count on that post?

[Blaster86]

698.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I guess this is how people get to the assumption that the people they're arguing with must be just dishonest, because it seems the most likely explanation after you've explained something in several thousand words and they still completely miss the point. I think that in fact you're honest, that this was honest confusion on your part and you seem like a good guy, but it's really obnoxious to have someone completely distort your views and then call you a hypocrite. Especially when it seems like clarifying those views for the tenth time is just going to fall on deaf ears.

I think, at this point, you can say that I'll never really understand your position. Whether it's because I'm just not smart enough, or your position doesn't actually make as much sense as you think it makes, is probably down to life experience.

At a certain point, a view is not going to become "clear", nor is it fair to say it's being distorted by one side or the other. That suggests there is an interpretation that is correct, when nobody can really decide how another's life experience colours their view of things.

It's the same reason why some empathise with BLM and others absolutely hate them. It's not that one is right and one is wrong, it's that lacking life experience on the "other" side makes empathy extremely difficult.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

...me having to take three ####ing pages to explain why the pro-choice position on abortion rights isn't somehow inherently tied to women's gender identity. Which entire discussion was then dismissed by the usual suspects as unimportant "distraction" and "semantics".

Your condescending arrogance is getting really tiresome.

A lot of the stuff you say is just irrelevant to the conversation, coming from a clear position of ignorance or just flat out stupid and wrong. Or possibly just matters of opinion.

Those are much more likely reasons for people to disagree with you than them not somehow understanding your superduper smart explanations.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I think, at this point, you can say that I'll never really understand your position. Whether it's because I'm just not smart enough, or your position doesn't actually make as much sense as you think it makes, is probably down to life experience.

At a certain point, a view is not going to become "clear", nor is it fair to say it's being distorted by one side or the other. That suggests there is an interpretation that is correct, when nobody can really decide how another's life experience colours their view of things.

It's the same reason why some empathise with BLM and others absolutely hate them. It's not that one is right and one is wrong, it's that lacking life experience on the "other" side makes empathy extremely difficult.

Your basically saying that your worldview will have an effect on your opinions. This is true. There's a whole branch of Christian and Islamic apologetic that depends on this. However, your incorrect to say the view isn't being distorted by one side or another. The very nature of your worldview is that it distorts how you see things, in particular how things relate to each other. However, if your opponent is saying your distorting how they see things, you should believe them. The distortion you are talking about due to worldviews, and the distortion Corsi is talking about are two different things. Corsi's is saying he feels like you are not arguing in good conscience because you are not first trying to understand before disputing. Your basically just saying there are different opinions due to differences in perspectives, as though that's somehow a response.

When I run into such an impasse with people in real life, the first thing I try to do is summarize my opponents position. Then I look for places where I, or my opponent might be conflating multiple definitions of the same term. After this I clarify what I think their position is. I simply keep wondering what it is that I don't understand and keep asking questions until I either see what I'm missing, or I see what the other person is missing. At this point, its straightforward to resolve the impasse and actually have a discussion about the merits of the two different view points.

And FWIW, I both empathise with BLM, and think they are misguided and counter productive. These things are not mutually exclusive.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by Itse

Your condescending arrogance is getting really tiresome.

A lot of the stuff you say is just irrelevant to the conversation, coming from a clear position of ignorance or just flat out stupid and wrong. Or possibly just matters of opinion.

Those are much more likely reasons for people to disagree with you than them not somehow understanding your superduper smart explanations.

Strange how both sides seem to think of each other that way. That's what happens when people overstate their case.

Edit:
It matters not at all why Corsi hold's the position he does. Having an opinion based based in nothing at all, imagined while tripping on drugs, and written down by the stupidest person capable of writing it down, does not excuse misrepresenting that persons position. If you consistently misrepresent what he's saying, your not only arguing in bad faith, but hurting your own position. Saying that doing so is excusable because from your perspective they are "coming from a clear position of ignorance or just flat out stupid and wrong" is bucket loads more arrogant and condescending than anything Corsi's written in the last few pages.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

and fwiw, i both empathise with blm, and think they are misguided and counter productive. These things are not mutually exclusive.

+1

[jammies]

In theory, I like the idea that everyone is equal before the law, and we should treat people as individuals worthy of respect regardless of what group they self-identify with, are perceived as belong to, or both. Classic liberalism is good.

However, it's inaccurate and just plain myopic to think we owe all progress on human rights to this idea. Identity politics is necessary in many cases because people like generalizations and are mostly incapable of looking beyond group identity when thinking about themselves and others. You can't evolve society based on how people SHOULD think if they were completely rational beings, because they just aren't fully rational.

It's a useful simplification to say "a woman's right to choose" is a women's issue, or that "black lives matter". Creating narratives around a disadvantaged group or members who share the same struggle makes those struggles comprehensible and visceral; narratives built around abstract ideas of universal justice make for near-universal yawns and incomprehension.

Yes, identity politics can lead to injustice and oppression, to the quelling of unpopular opinions and to backlash against a perceived revolutionary transfer of power. It's an imperfect tool for an imperfect world. That flawed tool, though, is preferable to a perfect tool for a perfect world, for we don't live in some Platonic plane of ideas inhabited by philosopher kings - we live on a ball of sh*t and mud surrounded by tribally evolved barely sentient animals. The appeal to logic only works, alas, with the logical.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I think, at this point, you can say that I'll never really understand your position. Whether it's because I'm just not smart enough, or your position doesn't actually make as much sense as you think it makes, is probably down to life experience.

I definitely don't think it's because you're not smart enough. I think if you really wanted to, you could at least take my views on board, even if you still thought they were wrong after accurate summary and careful consideration of them. That's usually my position with Rubecube, and you on some issues where I'm picking up what you're putting down. That being said, it's possible that something's just not coming across in text because I'm doing a bad job of explaining it, or it's not the right medium for communicating the idea. This is one of those things where I wish I could have the conversation in person (though that might sound like a nightmare from where you sit).

At a certain point, a view is not going to become "clear", nor is it fair to say it's being distorted by one side or the other. That suggests there is an interpretation that is correct, when nobody can really decide how another's life experience colours their view of things.

But there is an interpretation that's correct - you're either accurately representing what I think, or you aren't. In this case you weren't. As I said I think that was an honest error, but the lack of clarity for you doesn't mean that your representation was any less a distortion. I believe what I believe, there are no shades of gray involved unless I decide there are.

Originally Posted by Itse

Your condescending arrogance is getting really tiresome.

Thanks for your useful contribution to the discussion, wherein literally no one else was acting like an a-hole or calling people names. Hope that made you feel better about yourself. I gather you're projecting something here, but next time keep the insults to yourself.

Originally Posted by jammies

Yes, identity politics can lead to injustice and oppression, to the quelling of unpopular opinions and to backlash against a perceived revolutionary transfer of power. It's an imperfect tool for an imperfect world. That flawed tool, though, is preferable to a perfect tool for a perfect world, for we don't live in some Platonic plane of ideas inhabited by philosopher kings - we live on a ball of sh*t and mud surrounded by tribally evolved barely sentient animals. The appeal to logic only works, alas, with the logical.

Yeah, this is a fair rejoinder to the whole position from a pragmatic perspective... but people are in theory at least capable of logic and reason, and an honest effort at divorcing these things from bias. We can't discard our intuitions or ingrained biases, but we're also not helpless prisoners of them. I think people need to try as hard as they can to move beyond the limitations imposed on them by out simian imperfections and incomplete evolution.

There's a bit of cognitive dissonance going on here for me because I'm basically a moral skeptic at this point, having more or less lost my faith as an objectivist, and my entire theory here is based on group level pragmatism. So there's a decent chance that you're entirely right and I'm just way too idealistic and naive about human capacity for reason at the macro level. Which is depressing but not really implausible. Or maybe this is just how I feel after drinking for the past five hours... seriously, seven goals?

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by jammies

In theory, I like the idea that everyone is equal before the law, and we should treat people as individuals worthy of respect regardless of what group they self-identify with, are perceived as belong to, or both. Classic liberalism is good.

However, it's inaccurate and just plain myopic to think we owe all progress on human rights to this idea. Identity politics is necessary in many cases because people like generalizations and are mostly incapable of looking beyond group identity when thinking about themselves and others. You can't evolve society based on how people SHOULD think if they were completely rational beings, because they just aren't fully rational.

It's a useful simplification to say "a woman's right to choose" is a women's issue, or that "black lives matter". Creating narratives around a disadvantaged group or members who share the same struggle makes those struggles comprehensible and visceral; narratives built around abstract ideas of universal justice make for near-universal yawns and incomprehension.

Yes, identity politics can lead to injustice and oppression, to the quelling of unpopular opinions and to backlash against a perceived revolutionary transfer of power. It's an imperfect tool for an imperfect world. That flawed tool, though, is preferable to a perfect tool for a perfect world, for we don't live in some Platonic plane of ideas inhabited by philosopher kings - we live on a ball of sh*t and mud surrounded by tribally evolved barely sentient animals. The appeal to logic only works, alas, with the logical.

While I agree that identities are useful for creating narratives to explain the perspective of disadvantaged (and advantaged for that matter) people, and that the use of these narratives to sway public opinion is by definition identity politics, this use of identity is not the divisive kind.

Identity politics becomes a problem when it leads to differential treatment for different groups based on identity, with the disadvantaged benefiting the most, causing everyone to rush in and try to find an identity based disadvantage they can use to get ahead in life. This is what is leading to the Oppression Olympics we see today.

I've often argued that identity is very useful descriptively, as it can be used to create the narratives you describe. However, I think it's terrible when applied prescriptively, as in the case of some forms of affirmative action. The egalitarian solution is to identify what the primary factors contributing to the disadvantages of the various groups, and use a form of affirmative action that doesn't use identity, but those other factors to determine eligibility. This both avoids the oppression Olympics based on identity, and ensure that people outside the main group who are otherwise overlooked, can also take advantage.

[Nage Waza]

Police not being allowed a float at a parade is stupid.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

+1

pretty much my stance too.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by jammies

However, it's inaccurate and just plain myopic to think we owe all progress on human rights to this idea. Identity politics is necessary in many cases because people like generalizations and are mostly incapable of looking beyond group identity when thinking about themselves and others. You can't evolve society based on how people SHOULD think if they were completely rational beings, because they just aren't fully rational.

It's a useful simplification to say "a woman's right to choose" is a women's issue, or that "black lives matter". Creating narratives around a disadvantaged group or members who share the same struggle makes those struggles comprehensible and visceral; narratives built around abstract ideas of universal justice make for near-universal yawns and incomprehension.

Yes, people prefer emotionally-satisfying narratives to rational and utilitarian approaches to problems. The problem is that emotionally-satisfying narratives have villains. And once citizens in a democracy start turning everyone who disagrees with them or is outside their group into villains, then you lose the universal civic virtues that make democracies work. And when those narratives of heroes and villains are associated with identifiable racial, gender, or religious groups, you're pouring gasoline on the fire.

The transformation of the Republicans into a racial identity party is a catastrophe for American democracy. But it's a catastrophe people who know their history had been warning about for years. It's the entirely predictable - and inevitable - consequence of other kinds of identity politics.

Originally Posted by jammies

Yes, identity politics can lead to injustice and oppression, to the quelling of unpopular opinions and to backlash against a perceived revolutionary transfer of power. It's an imperfect tool for an imperfect world. That flawed tool, though, is preferable to a perfect tool for a perfect world, for we don't live in some Platonic plane of ideas inhabited by philosopher kings - we live on a ball of sh*t and mud surrounded by tribally evolved barely sentient animals. The appeal to logic only works, alas, with the logical.

We're also violent animals. But we're far less violent animals than we were 200 or 1000 years ago. Civilisation is largely a matter of overcoming our natural instincts. We'll never completely overcome our in-groups vs out-group tribal instincts. But we can recognize how toxic they are to pluralistic democracies, and moderate them. Maybe divert them into more benign identities based on sports or entertainment franchises.