U of Manitoba Education faculty - 45% students slots for five "diversity categories"

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I have no frame of reference to judge one way or another, never having spent any significant time in one for obvious reasons... but is this really what reserves are like in your view?

Yes. I have - in my academic and professional life - spent significant time (over 4 weeks) in about 70 of them. None of them had anything that we could consider even a bare civil society - beyond reserve politics, of course. It is incredibly difficult to be human in these circumstances. I would predict that this is what it is like in US inner-city ghettos or the suburbs of the white lower-classes.

Yes, according to Putnam, a book club or community hockey team are both good examples of social institutions where people know each other, form social bonds, and in essence, act like citizens.

You would probably be familiar with some of the more relevant evolutionary reasons why this might be the case.

And according to the latest research, you are mainly seeing the eradication of said small-platoons at the lower end of the scale - say bottom 30%. In the USA, the trend is most pronounced among whites.

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by peter12

Very, very crude.

Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" would be a good place to start. Overall, globalization, increased technologization of many lower-level delivery of services, etc... have wiped away many of the pillars of a blue-collar community.

From the Burkean perspective, these are termed "the little platoons of society." Myriad, interlocking pieces that form some sort of safety net that extraneous to the state, and yes, a church would be one of those platoons, but not necessarily the Church. It doesn't help that even the most minimal of state entitlements are being rolled back.

I feel like a moron for getting sucked in, even if it means I'm a sucker I hope for your sake that you are intentionally concocting this drivel for your own entertainment. My guess is that you are marginally intelligent and over educated and you are probably using some kind of random text generator to produce these run-on sentences for your own amusement.

Worst case is that you actually think you are writing something profound or ground breaking. If you have deluded yourself into thinking wearing pretentious over-priced clothes and having occasional brushes with senior management is worth anything or proof of your genius then you are sorely mistaken.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

His post was vague, and he explained his meaning further, and then it wasn't vague anymore. I am still not sure I agree with him, mind you. I am not convinced of either the the existence of the supposed cause or its alleged causal link to the outcome he's blamed it for. But at least I understand his perspective, and it's a substantive perspective.

Yours is just a bunch of ostensibly unprovoked substanceless vitriol. If anything is drivel, it's that. As I've just told you that I'm not convinced of his point, could you possibly provide a reasoned explanation for why he is wrong?

[peter12]

Sorry, but what do you really think, Clarkey?

[peter12]

Yeah, I apologize for the initial vagueness. Trying to introduce a new perspective, which I admit, I don't totally believe myself yet does require a bit of dancing around.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And let's not forget that it's the oppressing classes who generally construct and define groups for subjugation in the first place.

That's right. When someone believes that the most important thing about people is their group identity, you can be sure they are either a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, or a modern leftist. What they're not is a liberal.

Originally Posted by Makarov

Rejecting group identity would seem to ignore tens of thousands of years of human history.

Humans clearly do have a strong disposition to want to belong to groups and put everyone else into groups, the better to establish the psychological clarity and comfort of We and the Other. But the liberal project of the last two hundred years has been to defy and overcome that disposition. And we made tremendous progress. Until about 20 years ago, when Marxists gave up on a revolution based on economic identities, and turned to fostering one based on race, gender, and pretty much every other way they could categorize the non-Western/Patriarchal/Hegemonic world.

So liberalism is getting it in the neck from both the right and left today. And it's time for liberals to shake off enervating politeness and conformity, and rediscover their confidence, their rigour, and their 360 degree skepticism. The first steps are recognizing the enormous progress we've made in the last 200 years, and how we made that progress (something modern progressives cannot bring themselves to do).

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Not trying to misrepresent but that seems to be where the disagreement lies, and it's a fundamental one, philosophically. It is likely heading to a point where it's going to cause a major identity crisis on the political left. We've already started down that road.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Do you believe that the merits or moral persuasiveness of an argument stems from the identity of who is making the argument? Yes or no? If you believe yes, you are not a liberal. It's an unquestionably stark difference of philosophy, and one that a lot of people today are ignoring out of some kind of partisan allegiance against a perceived greater threat (conservatism), or, in many cases, simply out of woolly-minded politeness.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That's right. When someone believes that the most important thing about people is their group identity, you can be sure they are either a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, or a modern leftist. What they're not is a liberal.

'Reparationist' seems like an appropriate term.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Do you believe that the merits or moral persuasiveness of an argument stems from the identity of who is making the argument? Yes or no? If you believe yes, you are not a liberal. It's an unquestionably stark difference of philosophy, and one that a lot of people today are ignoring out of some kind of partisan allegiance against a perceived greater threat (conservatism), or, in many cases, simply out of woolly-minded politeness.

I think that's very true. There is the almost un-liberal uprising on the left that is grotesque in nature. For any "true" liberal who might now be termed a "moderate" liberal, it's concerning and a conflict of interest at best. Do you want to align with a movement which carries many of your own values and has similar goals while accepting the oddly restrictive anti-liberal's "need" to exist under the same label?

It's almost as if the spectrum isn't left and right but a circle, with "moderate" at one side, and both right and left directions meeting at fascism.

Literally ZERO to do with U of M diversity categories but it popped into my head. Still curious what you think on my previous questions though.

Originally Posted by peter12

Sorry, but what do you really think, Clarkey?

That was... ridiculous to read. I think there is a vast casm between our world views but you've been polite to me in our 2-3 disagreements since I joined. Definitely didn't deserve that post Peter!

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Do you believe that the merits or moral persuasiveness of an argument stems from the identity of who is making the argument? Yes or no? If you believe yes, you are not a liberal. It's an unquestionably stark difference of philosophy, and one that a lot of people today are ignoring out of some kind of partisan allegiance against a perceived greater threat (conservatism), or, in many cases, simply out of woolly-minded politeness.

It's going to be an extremely important bit of civil war, I think, though one that will become boring depressingly quickly. My main concern is that the people you would describe as "liberal" (or who Ali Rizvi calls the "new center" in this very good article) don't start to behave in precisely the same tribal fashion as the people you're criticizing. Even Rubin is already screwing this up: https://twitter.com/RubinReport/stat...31681906147328

What you've called the modern left is now being labelled the regressive left generally and when you start getting into labelling people you're on a quick downhill slope to tribal behaviour. The regressive left is basically just a moral community - as discussed by James Lindsay here - and it's short hop to just creating a new one. And at that point, it doesn't really matter whose views win.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

Yes. I have - in my academic and professional life - spent significant time (over 4 weeks) in about 70 of them. None of them had anything that we could consider even a bare civil society - beyond reserve politics, of course. It is incredibly difficult to be human in these circumstances. I would predict that this is what it is like in US inner-city ghettos or the suburbs of the white lower-classes.

Yes, according to Putnam, a book club or community hockey team are both good examples of social institutions where people know each other, form social bonds, and in essence, act like citizens.

You would probably be familiar with some of the more relevant evolutionary reasons why this might be the case.

And according to the latest research, you are mainly seeing the eradication of said small-platoons at the lower end of the scale - say bottom 30%. In the USA, the trend is most pronounced among whites.

I actually agree with you in a sense. The problem is however, that due to however many years of prejudice, racism, etc., many segments of society weren't allowed into these small-platoons and thus had to form larger ones based on shared identity and experiences, and we're now seeing the fruits of that.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I actually agree with you in a sense. The problem is however, that due to however many years of prejudice, racism, etc., many segments of society weren't allowed into these small-platoons and thus had to form larger ones based on shared identity and experiences, and we're now seeing the fruits of that.

Counter-example: why have some groups been able to do it successfully, even after sustained discrimination (see Chinese Canadians), and others haven't (see indigenous people)?

When you look at socio-economic outcomes within so-called groups, it gets even more interesting. I would be interested how the much-touted LGBQT community breaks down. I am guessing there is very little internal coherence.

Thomas Sowell, the great UChicago economist, wrote some very interesting essays on this subject - perhaps a decade ago. One of the things he found was that urban blacks raised in the South had markedly different socio-economics than blacks that immigrated from the Caribbean. For Sowell, the issue was culture - Caribbean blacks had been raised in the British grammar school, which emphasized merit-based entrance exams. Sowell is black and comes from a very poor background, for the record.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by peter12

Sowell is black and comes from a very poor background, for the record.

Oh, the irony of even feeling the need to point this out.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Oh, the irony of even feeling the need to point this out.

Yeah, I thought ahead.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

Counter-example: why have some groups been able to do it successfully, even after sustained discrimination (see Chinese Canadians), and others haven't (see indigenous people)?

When you look at socio-economic outcomes within so-called groups, it gets even more interesting. I would be interested how the much-touted LGBQT community breaks down. I am guessing there is very little internal coherence.

Thomas Sowell, the great UChicago economist, wrote some very interesting essays on this subject - perhaps a decade ago. One of the things he found was that urban blacks raised in the South had markedly different socio-economics than blacks that immigrated from the Caribbean. For Sowell, the issue was culture - Caribbean blacks had been raised in the British grammar school, which emphasized merit-based entrance exams. Sowell is black and comes from a very poor background, for the record.

Yeah, I don't think I'm personally qualified to answer any of those questions. I have theories, but they wouldn't really be backed by anything of substance, so I won't lay them out here.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

Counter-example: why have some groups been able to do it successfully, even after sustained discrimination (see Chinese Canadians), and others haven't (see indigenous people)?

When you look at socio-economic outcomes within so-called groups, it gets even more interesting. I would be interested how the much-touted LGBQT community breaks down. I am guessing there is very little internal coherence.

Thomas Sowell, the great UChicago economist, wrote some very interesting essays on this subject - perhaps a decade ago. One of the things he found was that urban blacks raised in the South had markedly different socio-economics than blacks that immigrated from the Caribbean. For Sowell, the issue was culture - Caribbean blacks had been raised in the British grammar school, which emphasized merit-based entrance exams. Sowell is black and comes from a very poor background, for the record.

You cannot compare an immigrant group where, by self selection, only the most intelligent or driven to succeed leave their homes at great expense, for the express purpose of making something of themselves in the new country.
They are, by definition, the cream of their society.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Frustrating, isn't it? There seems to be something innate in the human mind that makes people respond to one type of excessive dogma that pits one group against another by fostering another excessive dogma that pits one group against another.

The universe will bring balance to the Force.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Do you believe that the merits or moral persuasiveness of an argument stems from the identity of who is making the argument? Yes or no? If you believe yes, you are not a liberal. It's an unquestionably stark difference of philosophy, and one that a lot of people today are ignoring out of some kind of partisan allegiance against a perceived greater threat (conservatism), or, in many cases, simply out of woolly-minded politeness.

That's not really the argument at all actually and also has barely any relevance to the current topic.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

You cannot compare an immigrant group where, by self selection, only the most intelligent or driven to succeed leave their homes at great expense, for the express purpose of making something of themselves in the new country.
They are, by definition, the cream of their society.

That seems needlessly harsh and ethnocentric, no? Only those individuals who want to move to our society are the cream of their society? Their society is so dreary and poor, that the best by definition feel the need to leave it?

Couldn't it just as clearly be that only those people who couldn't make it in their own society, the rejects and outcasts with nothing to lose, come here?

Both end points of this argument sound harsh and judgmental. Perhaps, some people just feel the need to move, and others don't. I'm sure that most immigrant communities are filled with individuals that fit both stereotypes, to the point where neither stereotype actually informs you of how you should judge that individual - if you should at all.

[peter12]

Afc actually made a good point that is backed up by evidence.