The impossible de-escalation of culture wars
I've been feeling SO HAPPY this Monday, so I'm hoping y'all will be able to ease my light existential dread. That dread is based on cultural conflicts in the US and elsewhere, where people seem to want to have things their way or the highway and no resolution is in sight.
"Culture war" is a term that assumes at least two sides fighting out their differences in an effectively zero-sum atmosphere; one side wins, one side loses. It would apply tons of different questions, a couple which we've discussed here in ~talk already. I see a "Culture War" as any conflict of opinion focused on cultural values, rights, mores, etc., in which the participants feel there must be a clear winner and a clear loser to the conflict. Abortion, discrimination/affirmative action (of any kind to any group), and gun control/rights are the three big culture-war issues that I think currently divide Americans.
Escalating an issue to culture war status means that issue will likely not be resolved for decades. While other issues ebb and flow, the culture war issues persist largely unchanged. I think the main reason for the doggedness of these issues is there is no possible way to deescalate them. The participants want too badly to be right to hear many reasons for seeing things differently, and almost any act to persuade has "complete capitulation" in mind as the primary goal of the rhetorician. The result is that no one hears or respects the people who disagree with them.
I have very little reason to be optimistic about any of these issues being resolved in my lifetime. Too many people use these cultural issues to identify themselves. Too many people use these issues to identify "others," or people who don't belong in their group. The room for open discussion on any of these issues is nil unless the discussion is held at the horns by a determined and skilled moderator.
My challenge to you, if you choose to accept it: find me a realistic path toward deescalating a culture war once it has begun. Historical examples would be much appreciated, if possible.
Edit: Someone told me privately that I went too academic, so I've adjusted the wording to be easier on the mind. Mondays all around, y'all.
I don't have a plan, really, but I think that the only way to deescalate such a situation is by distracting enough people with something more pressing. I have wondered if election reform could play a unifying role; regardless of political persuasion, everyone seems to be unsatisfied with the functioning of our democracy. I think that this unusual moment in American politics may be an opportunity for a new party devoted to institutional reform to make headway on amending the constitution. Theoretically, this can be approached in a way that doesn't address the "Culture War" issues and thus avoids becoming a matter of identity.
I don't know if you followed Laurence Lessig's presidential race in 2016 - he ran on one issue - getting money out of politics. I don't know how effective he was at even bringing the issue to consciousness but it seems like he tried something close to what you are thinking.
There were huge issues with the platform Lessig presented and the means he had for "turning over power" once he'd implemented his one issue platform.
The whole thing just seemed like a joke and so it was written off entirely and didn't get a lot of press after he gave the basic details of what he was actually suggesting.
Like a spoiler in a first-past the post system, Lessig even being a candidate dilutes the "political reform" vote and ensures candidates get less representation.
That's part of the paradox of the current system that many want to get rid of in the first place.
One side of the culture war believes the constitution was written by Jesus himself so I don't think that is going to be very popular.
One thing I hoped to make clear is that "culture war" is issue-specific and context-specific. The culture war issues of the United Kingdom are distinct from the culture war issues of Germany, which are distinct still from the United States' culture war issues.
So in essence, what I'm saying is there is not broad culture war that always has people on one side or the other, but that each issue draws potentially different fractures between members of the whole that are engaging in the debate.
Since you're talking to US-specific culture war, how strongly do you think this (specifically, linking culture and religion to political affiliation) has to do with the set-up of the US electoral system? i.e. do you think it's enough to reform within the current FPTP/two-party system, or do you think there'd need to be more drastic changes?
These issues aren't solved by means of the memetically trotted out "reasoned debate". Your admiration for the idea of two privileged blokes politely discussing whether to treat people unlike them as equal and full human beings is naive at best and disgusting at worst.
Conflict is not resolved by debating the merits of whether or not women have agency over their own bodies or whether non-whites are really people or whether our nation's history of white supremacy actually happened. Conflict is resolved when one side achieves social hegemony and crushes the other into social stigmatization, and from there goeth the course of progress throughout history.
I will not and should not respect or tolerate someone who doesn't see or treat women and nonwhites as full human beings worthy of equality and dignity. To tolerate and "respectfully disagree" with sexism and racism is tacit approval of these things, and to accept and tolerate the moral repugnance and aberration of bigotry is to abrogate any responsibility one has towards being a good and moral person.
The fact that you think this is what's going on demonstrates your perspective. You have discarded non-violent hopes of resolving any of these issues, and I wish you the best of luck in your revolution.
Now if I have misinterpreted you, that would be one thing, but you seem to make very plain that you see any attempt to discuss with anyone else who might have a different perspective as a matter for only the privileged. You don't seem to see any space for people from marginalized communities to share their voices and be heard. You don't seem to see any space for people from majority communities in some senses and disadvantaged communities in other senses to share their experiences meaningfully.
You seem to see no middle ground between "I will not tolerate someone who doesn't believe X" and "I will tacitly approve people's racism and sexism just by talking with them and treating them like people with feelings and experiences and a perspective of their own." What about the stance: "I will always bring up how X people should be treated equally, and share experiences I have heard from people in marginalized groups with people who otherwise might not have heard." Would that have you so inflamed that you would call my position disgusting at worst?
My main worry here is that you are more concerned about being right than you are about moving the needle on the issues that are important to you. Your very tactics risk undermining your objective. This is extremely frustrating to me because that's actually my objective too. So for you to say that my behavior is potentially disgusting to you is puzzling, because you're really looking like you want to alienate someone who is trying to move the needle on these issues in the direction that you personally value.
lol.
This is so historically ignorant. Holy cow.
Care to expand on that?
I'm barging in, but I think the reason is because historically marginalized communities didn't have any non-violent options of getting rights. Civil war in the US, the french revolution, the whole haymarket shebang and worker's rights across the world, how most countries (or colonies) got independence, it never really happened non-violently. People from marginalized communities aren't heard, they can try but if you're talking towards the powerful, the privileged, the people who literally have nothing to gain by listening, why would they? And historically, nine times out of ten, they haven't. It's only when (ruler-class) lives are put in danger that they start to listen & change things.
Oh for sure, I'm not saying that the path to get to where we are today has been bloodless by any stretch. And frankly, if it comes to revolution, I side with the vulnerable and I'm not one to sit on the sidelines.
However, strategically if you're going to see violence and revolution as the only approach for resolving these issues, then you better make damn sure your coalition is large enough to win. At minimum, you need to not actively alienate the people who would fight with you. Otherwise, it's a lost cause just to be "right." I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to both live and improve the lives of vulnerable people around me.
I think things are actually improving, though it isn't easy to see if you aren't looking for the signs. For example, I'm much happier that our political conflict these days is people bickering over twitter over where people are eating at restaurants than all out street battles.
One major hurdle is people with power and money actively promoting conflict via propaganda. Both left and right have their boogeymen in this regard, and both probably have some truth to them.
An interesting development I've been noticing is that Black Lives Matter is being more productive and refined as it has grown. Hawk Newsome for example is really working hard, and he's actually trying to work with people on the right to improve the lives of black people in America, and the President has extended a request to the protesting NFL players for names of people wrongfully arrested to consider pardons/commuted sentences - it's amazing how working together to create and build actually gets more accomplished than #resist does.
I think that the people on the right have the greater responsibility of initiating more of these sorts of de-escalating things, because the folks on the left are too embroiled in negative emotion right now overall. The media influencing folks on the right is "Your hero, Donald Trump, is the greatest deal-maker on the planet. Making deals with ostensible enemies makes everyone prosper." The media on the left says "things are horrible, and they're getting worse all the time, and the only way out is to 'fight in the streets.'"
In my opinion, the issues you mention are possible to solve, and not intractable.
edit: this was written with the intent of being as positive as i can muster while at the same time feeling that it is more physically dangerous to be a trump supporter/republican today than it ever has been. Take it with a grain of salt, but I still think we should look for those trying to engage the other side and try to support them.
I think so far, your comment has done the best job at lightening my concern here. I'm especially eased by your observations of how the President sought out the views of NFL players on how to proceed on criminal justice reform issues after much of the NFL protest furor died down. That's a good counterexample to the sort of dread I've been feeling lately.
Of course the core of any of these issues has a point at which a reasonable way forward that addresses many people's concerns is possible. I tend to hope for a couple myself.
I'm of course sad to hear that you feel physically threatened for admitting to being a Trump supporter. I can speak from the other side there that many of my volunteers felt similarly threatened for admitting to being a Hillary supporter. There is definitely a level of intolerance for people who supported the person the other side believed to be heinous and representative of all the evils they believed were embodied by the other party. Trump with intolerance via perceived coded white nationalism, Hillary with elitism and feminism (a corrupt SJW as a president?!), them both with corruption that the other side loathed, Hillary for being an establishment party figure, Trump for being a business leader who refused to release tax returns to demonstrate how corrupt he was (See also: the left's view of corporations=>corruption if that statement makes no sense).
The number of people who would report having their yard signs stolen was ridiculous, and they all said they never saw anything like it and never felt like they needed to get yard cams to catch the perps until this last election cycle. Beyond simply not having more yard signs to hand out (because, in part, the national campaign hadn't realized that sign stealing would be so prominent a thing), it was deeply upsetting to me to hear that Trump supporters were feeling similarly targeted. That shit ain't cool. And I feel like people were justifying actual vandalism because of their hatred for a particular candidate.
So I agree at the end of this dreadful Monday that the reasonable folk should just try the best they can to tune out the unreasonable folk and to look for other open minds, but shit's hard yo.
oh man, yeah the lawn sign thing - we had one guy down the road from here who had lots of trump signs - one day they all disappeared, and a few days later he had even bigger ones saying the sign thief could kiss his "grass" or something to that effect. xD
I was inspired by something Scott Adams talked about today in a video i watched after i posted here earlier, and I have an idea for something that may help with this whole thing. I want to flesh it out a little bit before sharing too much, and I think it would be something you would like.
After sleeping some of that dread returned, so I hope you'll permit me to press you a bit on these admittedly good examples of one culture warrior looking past his own particular war to try to address the concerns of his direct opponents.
And the reason I'm phrasing things this way should probably signal where I'm going with this: when it comes to this NFL protest thing, the reason it elevated to national attention is because of the focus that Trump himself put on the protestors. That protest had been going on for over a year with largely no one giving a shit. People rolled their eyes, and a couple others joined in kneeling, but it was largely ignored. Trump made that issue a culture-war issue by stoking the old "should flag burners be imprisoned" debate of the 1990s. And people reacted like he was stoking the old flag burning debate, on both sides. There was no pretense of caring about the core reason for the protest (which was overtly criminal justice reform). There was the simple statement that this was an unacceptable means of protest that needlessly politicized a sport that should be about ENTERTAINMENT not the rights of the people playing the game!
If Trump didn't highlight this protest, it's hard to see how it would have even become a national issue. Kaepernick wasn't a particularly great player. If Trump hadn't tweeted at the moment he tweeted, it's much less likely that Kaepernick would have as good of a case against the NFL for collusion to exclude him from the league (even as it is, it's arguable). It certainly wouldn't have become an issue that NFL players themselves would have felt required them to show solidarity with a fellow player. He elevated this protest, and no one else did.
So yay that he's finally looking into the core reasons for the protest, but also, dude. How did we get here? And isn't this kind of Trump's MO anyway? He stokes a culture war issue to punch his opponents in the face and outrage them, and then they react with predictable outrage, and his base loves it. This pattern repeats over and over, and it's hard to see how it's a good thing. Sure, media jump on that like a vulture on a corpse, but something killed the corpse in the first place.
I would love to solve a lot of these issues, but if the main guy in control of the levers of the executive branch seems more interested in stoking culture-war issues than in solving them, it's hard to see who I'm supposed to negotiate with. Does that make sense?
The following is the way I'm seeing reality. It might not be objectively accurate, but I think it's a lens that it is directionally accurate in terms of functionality. I invite you to dip into it, temporarily.
I can definitely understand the feeling. Not knowing exactly where stable ground is. I don't particularly like the framing of the issues we have as a culture war, because if there's a war that means that there are opposing sides and generally speaking only one winner. It seems like a framing that carries with it that sense of impossible resolution/de-escalation you've described. I think framing is important, since all of this is psychology anyway, isn't it? If we separated out the emotions, then our issues really are not quite as big as they otherwise seem. So a framing that puts things in a more productive orientation seems appropriate - like maybe we're on a ship and we have a crew that is arguing over which way to sail, with both twisting and turning the wheel. Probably not the best illustration, but it's a different framing and it changes things ever so slightly. We're all part of the same crew, all on the same ship, all going in the same direction wherever our collective actions take us (disjointed and conflicted as they may be). Or viewing our situation as a human super-entity, communicating with itself through distributed processing units, trying to sort out its fragmented thoughts into a unified, coherent direction. Basically almost any framing is better than that of a war. I mean, how do you resolve a war without one side winning and the other side losing?
Well, we did see this happen just recently in Singapore.
You might be thinking, "Donald Trump was stoking the fires of war with Kim! 'Fire and Fury', remember that? How did he end a war? We're still at war with nk!"
Trump has a method to his apparent madness. Right now, neither America nor North Korea have got a reason to be pointing nukes at each other anymore after this process. That's the biggest thing - there's no reason for conflict. I mean, kim and trump could easily take back the things they've done - the nuclear facilities could be re-opened, the war-games with Seoul could start back up, etc., but there's no reason to. Chairman Kim and President Moon are both looking forward to reunification someday, so there's no reason for Korea to nuke itself. Kim is looking at how terrible it would be to be an enemy of the USA with the current administration, and how great it would be to be a friend. They could be the next Switzerland, or Singapore - or they could be a crater.
When Trump made his inflammatory comments to Kim Jong Un was talking about having a big red button, regularly spouting off about how he was going to destroy America. Today, he's taken down all anti-america propaganda, and has cancelled a regular anti-america rally.
My point is not to stretch the comparison too far, but to express that things are not always straightforward and simple to understand. The NFL protests were set in a milieu of anti-trump hysteria, even anti-american sentiment. Trump, i would say, psychologically paced that emotion - and has led it to a more productive level where the ball is in the protester's court to work together to get what they want done. This is also not something very recent either - it happened weeks ago. Same with Trump's posthumous pardon of Jack Johnson - a symbolic gesture, and he could have done it on day 1 since it's been an issue for years and years with no other presidents doing it at all... but it's done, and he's said "give me a list of names".
I don't think Donald Trump is the only player in this game either - other elements mentioned earlier are doing all they can to promote strife and upset. Is the man a perfect demigod? No. Is he extending an invitation to work together? Yes. Could we, the non-presidents and non-NFL players have learned how to do that years and years ago? Probably. Do we still have the opportunity to do that today though? Yes, of course.
It only takes 2% (if that) to guide the course of a collective. When you give in to despair and lose your morale, you help to create the situation you fear - but a positive, energized outlook will flip the polarity of your situation, helping you to create that which you prefer.
And here, if you want something tangible in terms of a possible direction to pursue to help your morale, I'll share some teasers for my plan: right now, we've got filter bubbles and echo chambers, polarized groups which don't communicate. When they do, it is filled with emotions and bias and loose on facts, or it's stuffy and academic and boring, so doesn't really accomplish much in terms of peace or informed decision making. It's not a pleasant situation for anybody.
However, it's possible to create a hole in that reality through force of will and a little creativity. What is something that could be made, especially by a collaboration between people on opposing sides, that would dramatically transform the equation? What sort of thing could be a portal into a new way (or a new form of an existing way) for humanity to engage with itself on important issues? If we created a system to help eliminate (or reduce) bias in political decision making, where today those decisions are largely made by the demos, the public, what shape might it take?
I don't really buy the comparison to North Korea. As I think I've mentioned before, I see Trump's behavior with North Korea as not mad at all, but quite in keeping with historic trends of both US and North Korean confrontation and deescalation, just in a tonally distinct way and communicated through different media. I don't see it as part of the domestic policy games being played, as foreign policy has long been a place for wonks and diplomats. I also don't see it as a serious divergence from normal. The fact that he met the North Korean leader in person is weird, and we'll see what comes from that I guess, but not much else.
And I should say that I never seriously believed the media hype about increased tensions leading inexorably to war. The only path forward for that would happen is NK miscalculation about what sort of provocation they can get away with. Trump is "unpredictable" in a way so there is more of an open question about how he'll react to certain provocations, but I doubt even he would launch nukes without nukes being launched at us or our allies first. The US relationship with Iran (and the related nuclear deal) has always had bigger implications for international stability, and even that only relates to US "soft power" and credibility. As far as hard power is concerned, nothing is changed and no one can handle us on equal footing because we're funded to take on multiple rivals at once.
And I also don't see the run up rhetoric to the summit with North Korea as having produced any meaningful commitments or shifts from Kim Jong Un, though of course there is still time on this point. Nor has the summit currently provided any new commitments (with the final details yet to be worked out). I'm still patiently playing the wait-and-see approach as to how effective Trump's policy toward NK has been, and unfortunately I'm still in the role of the skeptic. I'll believe the great agreement has been reached when I see it being implemented.
That said.
It is totally fair to point out that Donald Trump is not the only person playing this stoke-the-fires-of-conflict game when it comes to these domestic cultural issues. I think it's also worth noting that none of those other people are the president of this country, supposed to represent the entirety of this country, but it's fair to say not only Trump. I think you're also right to point out that it's only when you stop trying to make reasonable progress that you are totally unable to move the needle on these issues.
I think you want to find common ground and move forward in a reasonable manner. I don't doubt your good faith and genuine intentions. However, Trump on the other hand has made it pretty clear that he sees most interactions as at minimum transactional and often zero-sum, where there are separate winners and losers, and he is determined not to be a loser. This has underscored some of his most notable divergence from political norms, especially when it comes to trade (which, believe me, is something he could find me sympathetic about if he weren't constantly harping on about misunderstandings of basic macroeconomics like "trade deficits" with Canada--they don't exist when you look overall, and that's our largest trading partner you're fucking with; I'm not uncritically a fan of free trade, I'm wholly familiar with the major pain points in NAFTA--i.e., manufacturing being incentivized to move near the resource and labor rich, easy-to-ship-to-China Mexican border and away from the resource rich, easy-to-ship-to-Europe Midwest--, and I think China has been a pretty clear currency manipulator at minimum for some time).
So in that sense, I do see Trump as a culture warrior, in the exact sense we're both using the term: with discrete winners and losers. I see him as willfully wading into debates and using the bully pulpit to elevate them to a position where the people who hate him foam at the mouth as they usually do, and he gets to squeal like a giddy child at having made the arrogant elites lose their shit again. I don't see him moving the needle very far on many issues, frankly. I see him muddying issues and getting them stuck, largely. There is nothing I would dread more than for an issue I care about to be stuck in the cultural quagmire exacerbated by a Trump tweet.
Some of it isn't his fault, absolutely. There are going to be some people that no matter what Trump does, they oppose it. Just as there were tons of people that no matter what compromise position Obama tried to offer, they'd oppose it. There are partisan roots here that are hard to work through (and I find that obnoxious). But even despite those challenges, it often feels like Trump is leaning into those struggles and making them harder to work through, rather than trying to ameliorate tensions in almost any circumstance unless he faces a large enough backlash from Republicans.
Edit, forgot to react to the crux of what you were getting to:
/r/dankmemes called, they want their idea for a perfect society back.
But seriously, what you're describing (a community that can be both fair to ideologically mixed populations and entertaining) sounds basically like it has to be a meme squad. I'd better start brushing up on my photoshop skills I guess.
Memes are a good guess, not quite what I'm going for - though a meme squad for the purpose of diffusing conflict would be really fucking cool.
https://youtu.be/8WZG0yJJ_XU?t=470
Check out that timestamped clip - at least until he's done with the whiteboard.
I like his idea, but i was thinking it might be refined further through the power of the internet and the tools available to us. It isn't a perfect solution to the issue you describe in your OP, it doesn't solve the emotions of the people on the extreme poles (though it may provide some emotional placation if they feel their position is sufficiently represented and is 'waging intellectual war' fairly in the public sphere). But it may be sufficient to get the general public to feel that we're collectively steering our ship in a good direction.
There have been debate shows/programs in the past, but nothing quite like what I'm picturing. I still need to get all of my ideas and features sorted into a coherent actionable plan before discussing much publicly. If you're interested, you'll get the boilerplate first once it's ready.
It's been two weeks and I've been letting my debate idea stew for a bit, and after that time it still seems like a good idea. It still is evolving, and I think it is at a point in my imagination where an actionable plan can be formed. I intend on making a proper post on Tildes introducing the idea with more details, and first I'm sharing it here with you - both because I promised that I would and because I would value your input.
Here's the basic outline for the idea:
A high quality debate series for the biggest issues facing our society, showcasing the best and most persuasive arguments from either side of each issue.
The debaters are primarily a regular team of volunteers (passionate proponents may participate sometimes)
the debates themselves are competitive (not combative) and entertaining
The target audience is the people in the undecided middle.
The medium is text-based, though that may evolve in the future.
Highlights get extracted and compiled for easier public consumption.
Audience is able to participate through the power of the internet.
fact-checking is ubiquitous
debates can continue or be updated when more or better arguments arise.
The purpose is to inform people who aren't on the extreme poles of any issue on what arguments and facts are out there in a relatively unbiased way, to test the best arguments in a competitive arena, and to serve as a symbol of collaboration and aspiration toward betterment by peoples of diverse political backgrounds.
What do you think?
Just about anything that gets us actually comparing the views of people who meaningfully disagree about these debates would be an improvement to me. It can be hard to distinguish between the truly undecided middle and the midwestern middle (those who fear it is impolite to say what they think), but I don't see that mattering too much unless you plan on having people join an actual audience based on their position as an undecided person.
The biggest problem with any of these ideas, the barrier that keeps them down, is that with how fractured and consumer-choice focused the current climate is, there is no guarantee that this institution would take hold. We would have to compete with the memes, the 'diversions', and the video games of the day to get people's attention long enough to listen to a debate between people who are passionate about what they believe and willing to discuss those beliefs with someone else. It's very easy for something like this to fall victim to the same sorts of attention-getting tricks that dated Crossfire, or to fall into relatively unknown obscurity like the debates at IQ2.
How would these debates permeate into the general consciousness? It's one thing to make the content, but quite another to get people to engage it.
That's a really great point, and something I hadn't devoted a ton of attention to beyond "let's make a quality product and figure out the marketing as we go" or something like that.
I'm not sure at this time what is best for competing for attention while still maintaining intellectual rigor and functioning as a system for reducing bias in political decision-making, rather than living just to maintain attention. I'd lilke to pour a lot of energy into making it high quality and convenient to consume initially, and once that solid base is developed slowly work on the marketing question, course-correcting periodically. That is probably a naive approach, and the solution is probably to whynotboth.gif, to build a marketing plan into its structure that has a good chance of working while keeping true to the original vision, then running with that and incrementally improving when possible.
I really appreciate your response. I knew you'd have an insightful perspective. Thank you. I think what I'll do is take a closer look at those two shows, maybe a few other debate shows, and try to figure out what their pitfalls might be and how they can be learned from and improved upon. :)
If there's anything that irks me more than the brash fundamentalist, it's the contrarian do-gooder that thinks that they're doing good by taking his signs and making him look bad. You're just stoking the coals of discontent, teenage activist.
Why should there be a "deescalation" of the culture war? The whole idea is that these are issues people really care about, usually very passionately so. Why should we not fight for what we believe in?
The problem with culture wars isn’t that people with genuine beliefs disagree and can’t find a way to agree, it’s that people stop trying to hear people who disagree. It’s that disinterest in other points of view that leads to blindspots (“how can anyone support THAT PERSON?!”) and prevents any reasonable compromises that might address each sides’ core concerns.
I completely agree with BuckeyeSundae. Many who would invite a culture war don't understand that just making their own voices louder when they face opposition will and has always ended up in battles that are more deeply entrenched, last longer and are harder to end.
Compassion, understanding and debate should always take the place of folded arms and smug retorts, and that even means with your grumpy gramps who won't give an inch. You just need to look for an opportune moment to approach the subject.
This all sounds nice, but Obama basically tried to govern on compromise for 8 years and he was torn down mercilessly. I'm not even a fan of Obama whatsoever. I think we should've realized that this isn't a good faith debate. This is a battle for power.
You're right -- I think that his commitment to bridge gaps with the other side left him with a stalled legislature on almost all big issues.
Also, if you look at historical periods of upheaval, revolution and general distrust of power, it's when there is mass disparity and wealth inequality between certain groups of people.
I think that the non-violent #MeToo, BLM and Occupy movements demonstrate that we're at a critical juncture on a number of topics, and with momentum, topics of racial injustice, sexual assault and wealth inequality will see progress. If not at a federal level, you may at a state and municipal level.
I'm a Canadian, but I read the Atlantic regularly and enjoyed its perspective on why 'America is not going to hell in a handbasket' like CNN and Fox would have you believe.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/reinventing-america/556856/
On the point of affirmative action, my opinion is that it should be a temporary fix to allieve inequity. If enough people believe in its importance, then this subset will eventually be able to overcome the inequity. The more people onboard, the faster a more equitable society will be achieved. I think importantly, many schools are big proponents of affirmative action, and that eventually we'll be able to overcome these problems.
This ... kind of proves the point I was getting at. Your position demands capitulation from those who disagree with you (those, in this case, who might see affirmative action as an affront to a form of meritocracy).
It's hard for me to see this as a realistic path forward to deescalation unless you get enough demographic weight behind you to institute this sort of program over the cold, dead bodies of the people who disagree.
I don't think it requires buy-in from those who disagree. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. My main point is that affirmative action has a set "endpoint." If all people achieve equal opportunity to educate or pursue certain lines of work, then we won't need affirmative action anymore.
If enough people in schools and work places recruit diversely, then eventually we'll end the vicious cycle of lack of access to education and resources for underrepresented minorities. Fortunately, many schools are in favor of affirmative action, so there is increasing opportunity for underrepresented minorities in education. And also, we're seeing increased diverse hiring practices due to research from organizations like MacKenzie. Even if not everyone is on board, the hope is that eventually those who are will be able to effect enough change that affirmative action is no longer necessary.
I think what your view comes up against, and the reason this topic ends up being rather fraught even despite its relative 'endtable' based on actual equal opportunity (and how do you measure that?), is that there is reasonable disagreement about what the bigger cause of unequal access to education is these days. Is it a feature more of poverty or of race? The left seems strangely to have bought in almost entirely to the idea that it is an issue of race, yet I'm honestly not so sure on this point. At my further left, I'd see it as a mixture of causes, with poverty (as well as the much maligned 'culture of poverty') and race being strong contributing factors.
What's worse, I think trying to address unequal access to education at the university level is very troubling, even if I can fully get behind measures that would target people earlier in their lives (such as pre-K education being state funded, which has been shown at least in Michigan to be fantastically successful at providing children the skills to succeed in school, even from disadvantaged backgrounds--both in terms of race and wealth). Edit: The reason it's troubling is that at the university level, the student needs to have certain skills to be successful, and if we're rewarding students for their backgrounds, ignoring to some extent those skills in other applicants, that will alienate people who aren't given those advantages in their applications (to put it mildly). The more you alienate people, the worse the backlash against your programs will be. Even as it stands now, Asian (and Indian, who for some reason get classified as "Asian") students risk being penalized with their applications to certain schools because so many of their peers have prepared well and its extremely competitive within their minority community to get into good colleges. You risk alienating not only white students, but also Asian students with this sort of approach at the university level. Catch them earlier in their lives? Not as likely to notice, really.
So while you see a "resolution" down the line of "whenever it is measured that race no longer has a significant impact on access to education" when it comes to affirmative action in schools (and we haven't even gotten started on hiring practices, and what a hornets nest that becomes), it seems reasonable to question how much contribution race even has now to unequal access to education, compared to other potentially less alienating approaches that might address the core concern but in a way that doesn't exacerbate racial tensions.
I agree with a lot of what you said, and I like the way you said it. Affirmative action is more reasonable the earlier in the system one intervenes.
I think the education system could use a lot of help.
Wealthy and middle class students tend to have an advantage early in school because they tend to have more highly educated parents and are more likely to engage in enriching summer activities. I think greater access to early education like Pre-K and increased summer school opportunities would help level the playing field early on.
Students tend to perform better when they have access to a teacher who looks like them. I think a small pool of federal grant money should be set aside for underrepresented minority teachers to get assistance with college.
Trade schools classes should be more accessible to high school students to provide fruitful alternatives to a four-year degree.
I think you make a fair point about alienating white and Asian students through affirmative action. I think the typical counter argument here is that white students benefit from systemic privilege that gives them an unfair advantage, so affirmative action is simply removing that advantage. However, I don't want to use that argument because it isn't very compelling to about half of America.
Here is how I think university admissions could be more equitable. I think college counselors (both at high schools and their counterparts at universities) need to be better trained to serve many types of students. Intelligent underrepresented minorities are less likely to apply to college--often times they don't know how or can't find the money to pay for applications. While programs may exist to help them, many don't know of their existence. More resources for underrepresented minority students and better outreach by high schools and colleges could help increase the number of underrepresented applicants to universities. If universities simply increase the pool of underrepresented applicants, they will be able to admit a more representative class without having to choose "less qualified" students.
On a related point, I think standardized tests like the SAT/ACT should be eliminated from the application. It has been shown that SAT scores do not correlate well with success in college and these tests are designed in such a way that minority student perform worse even when you control for intelligence. Essentially, these tests are testing your ability to take the test--which wealthy people can afford to buy test prep books and take classes.
Like I said previously, I think affirmative action plans should center more around socioeconomic status and first generation college student status. These categories of students are more likely to be underrepresented minorities, so by pursuing them, you'll still be making a more representative student body. However, you'll be able to do it in a way that does not marginalize a race, which I believe is important for popular support.
I'm not sure you can deal with this issue without dealing with the wealth inequality issue at the same time - it's hard for members of the majority race to believe they are getting undue advantage when 40% of them are poor and low income. If it was approached as a singular issue, like the New Deal "chicken in every pot" approach- to give everyone equal opportunity.
Unfortunately, I feel like the ultra rich have pushed an individualist narrative for many years and as a result you have all these pseudo-libertarians walking around thinking they really are "an island unto themselves"
I think affirmative action in universities should be further extended to address lack of representation of first generation college students and low socioeconomic class students. This would keep affirmative action from being as subject to racial in groups and out groups.
More like the cold, old bodies of the people who disagree. Many of the current set of topics in the culture war are divided along political lines, but they're also strongly correlated with age. As the baby boomers die and/or retire from politics and political action the set of things to debate will shift.
Better hope the youths agree with you. History has a way of echoing old ideas regularly.
It's not about whether the youths agree with me in particular, but that the Culture War with its current set of debates is fairly young. Some of the topics will continue to be debated, but there will be different ideas generated by the next generation for the Gen X'ers (though they're a small generation to actually control things) or the Millenials to rail against.
This is the issue I worry about the most, and for exactly the reaon you say: people stop talking to each other. I also see the black and white thinking as very dangerous. It's been mostly playing out across the ocean, and it's been pretty crazy to see progress and devolve into where we are now. I've been on reddit for a few years and used to participate in the bigger news subreddits, while they've never been good, it's quite something else now. It's so so toxic that I don't feel like any normal discussion outside of the hivemind is possible.
It's strange watching this from across the pond. A few weeks ago I read an article about some developer that contributed to an open source project, but had to stop, because it's parent organisation started working with an internship program that actively discriminated. As you might understand this means he's a complete nazi, right? At least, that's what a lot of commentors said. Nobody cared he's a member of the BC Green Party. Meanwhile I can't voice my opinion without being attacked, or not even considered if I don't preface it with a long list of where I stand on their societal ladder. I have such a brave stance, being against discrimination. Did I mention that program would be illegal where I live?
Anyway, all I have is a rant. I don't know either. But it really bothers me a lot.