Has the Western World Lost Moderate/Centrist Politics?

[JM_]

38 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

He's a "centrist"

... and Shaka Zepp shall lead us back to the sensible middle. 

[Rob_Zepp]

We are all individuals - treating people according to racial, gender, sex and religious categories has never worked out well.  

 

THIS - this explains difference between someone who embraces individuality/centrist opinions and those who want to actually practice racism or social engineer reverse racism.   Both of those are dangerous.    

 

 

When diversity and inclusion result in reverse racism

History is replete with people being treated according to their category: Muslims enslaved and executed infidels; the Holy Inquisition tortured and executed Jews and Conversos; England suppressed and executed Catholics, while Protestants were suppressed and executed in France; the Ottoman Empire slaughtered the Armenians to the point of genocide; the Nazi regime devoted itself to the genocide of Jews; South Africa segregated blacks; Hutus engaged in genocide against Tutsi; Turkey has marginalized and suppressed the Kurds, as did Saddam Hussein in Iraq with the aid of poison gas.

Then there are the people held to be subordinate, often abused and even murdered: women through much of history, untouchables in South Asia, natives in conquered lands, blacks in some countries with multiple races, and many others.

 

Treating people as members of categories is a common way of avoiding approaching people as individual, complex beings with multiple dimensions, with hopes and fears, with intentions and goals. Reducing people to categories of gender, race, religion, caste, nationality, sexual preference, among others, simplifies their treatment as members of preferred or despised categories. That facilitates the ascendency of members of preferred categories and the degradation of members of despised categories.

 

This reductionism violates the liberal spirit, which grants dignity to individuals. It’s also a violation of human rights, which are vested in individuals rather than categories.

 

We’ve returned to that deceptively easy and efficient way of looking at our fellow humans. We’ve decided a person’s race, gender, sexual preference and religion are of paramount importance and we sort people accordingly.

 

In North America, discrimination due to race, religion and nationality was once common and approved.

 

In the 20th century, affirmative action was introduced to guarantee that people were treated without regard to race, creed, colour, or national origin when it came to hiring practices.

 

Then affirmative action evolved to the point that reverse discrimination in favour of some categories of peoples has been accepted and institutionalized as desirable. The intent is to compensate for past disadvantages or to promote absolute demographic equality. ‘Affirmative action’ now refers to programs for purposeful discrimination on the basis of race, origin, creed, and sex. This is justified by the ideology of social justice, in which minorities categorized as oppressed must be given special benefits to compensate for past oppression and provide them with equal circumstances and status.

 

These measures depend upon a particular understanding of equality. Equality is imposed for categories of people, rather than individuals. The idea of equality of opportunity is replaced by equality of result, so that any discrepancy in income, representation, membership, income between categories of people must be ameliorated by social engineering.

 

Discrimination by category is also supported by the overriding concept of diversity. Diversity has become the primary value toward which policies must aim, and the criterion by which university, business and government organizations are judged. For example, Science and Innovation Canada will measure applicants for the Canada Research Chairs Program at universities according to diversity criteria. If the applications aren’t sufficiently diverse, funding will be blocked.

 

Don’t imagine, however, that diversity in education means diversity of opinion, which traditionally has been thought to be a critical ingredient for higher education. Diversity for governments and universities means diversity of gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion and nationality. Both at the governmental and university level, diversity of opinion is, in fact, rejected. Notwithstanding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the ill-named human rights commissions and tribunals have actively suppressed unpopular opinions. Parliament has passed a motion to suppress criticism of Islam. The only acceptable goal in Canada is people of many races, languages and cultures all saying the same politically-correct things.

 

Programs of admission, hiring and appointment are aimed at bringing in the under-represented demographic. Other criteria – merit, achievement, excellence, capability, character – are dismissed.

 

School administrators state that “Equity and inclusiveness are among McGill University’s core principles, and McGill is committed to the view that striving for diverse representation within our Canada Research Chair appointments, as well as our broader academic and research communities, is a matter of fairness that furthers excellence and the advancement of our academic mission.” The claim that “diversity” in fact “furthers excellence and … our academic mission” is often made by administrators, without evidence. One McGill committee even argued that diversity is excellence.

 

Increasingly, academic criteria are overridden by social justice criteria.

 

For McGill and other universities, these policies must be put into action and must show results. McGill aims to correct a perceived unbalance with “immediate and medium term commitments for the priority hiring of Indigenous tenure tract and tenured faculty.”

McGill’s Department of Anthropology, of which I’m a member, appears determined to hire Indigenous individuals on a racial basis, as its graduate student association lobbied for. Post-colonialist academics see admitting and hiring members of First Nations as “decolonialization.” Universities become a tool of this political project. Gone are the days when the primary goals of universities were excellence in research and education.

 

McGill’s policies are typical of Canadian universities.

 

Canadian universities by no means limit their special priorities to First Nations. Dalhousie University is advertising for a vice-provost for student affairs, an important administrative position. Dalhousie will consider only candidates who fall into the categories of “racially visible persons and Aboriginal peoples.” The assistant vice-president of human resources says “this is the way for us to develop the most meritorious faculty and staff population.”

 

Apparently they believe that merit comes with skin colour and racial origin.   Martin Luther King obviously disagreed.

 

Given the great variation among individuals in motivation, talent, intelligence and creativity, a social system producing equality of results would require massive government intervention and intrusive social engineering throughout society. We know how this works because during the 20th century a number of societies were built on the goal of equality of result: the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge, and Cuba. These experiments left more 100 million people murdered in totalitarian societies that created widespread poverty and misery.

Surprisingly, social justice warriors want to try this experiment again.

Diversity and inclusion are appealing ideals. But when you make diversity and inclusion the primary objective of an institution, there are opportunity costs. If you make diversity and inclusion the main objective of a sports team, rather than talent, skill and conditioning, the result will be a poorer level of play and an inability to beat opponents who make winning their primary goal. The same will be true of armies. Companies that focus on diversity and inclusion rather than on production and profit will lose out in the competitive marketplace. Universities that make diversity and inclusion their main objective will sacrifice intelligence, diligence, scholarship, creativity and merit.

It’s disingenuous to say that diversity will increase merit when there is no competition to demonstrate relative merit. Universities stop being scholarly and educational institutions and become political organizations engaged in social engineering.

However, the greatest objection to the current program of social justice diversity and inclusion is that it discriminates in favour of individuals in preferred victim categories, and discriminates against individuals in despised privileged or oppressor categories. Justice for some is, in fact, injustice for others.

Most people would like to be treated fairly. Traditionally, in the West, fairness was adherence to universalistic standards: If you could run faster and hit farther, you got on the team. If your grades were higher, you were admitted to university. If you were more skillful, more motivated and better prepared, you got the job.

By no means did we always live up to fairness. But we knew what fairness meant and we were moving, if slowly, toward the effective application of universal criteria.

But the notion of social justice rejects such criteria in favour of race and gender category favouritism. Those of disfavoured categories – males, whites, well-to-do, Christians and Jews – would have to take their lumps. Some social justice enthusiasts believe that members of those categories, in fact, deserve their lumps.

No clearer example could be found of the unfairness of affirmative action racial discrimination than the treatment by universities of people of Asian ancestry. Ironically, Asians have always been victims of prejudice and discrimination in North America, and should be among the favoured categories for social justice advocates. But in recent decades, Asians made the great mistake, through talent and diligence, of becoming very successful academically and in business and professions. They are no longer worthy victim clients of social justice. So they too apparently must be discriminated against.

 

However social justice advocates spin it, reverse racism is still racism.  

 

Treating people according to racial, gender, sex and religious categories has never worked out well. The moral way to treat people is as individuals.

 

Philip Carl Salzman is a professor of anthropology at McGill University, senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, and fellow of the Middle East Forum.

[Down by the River]

2 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

 

Oh, I am hardly confused.   Just remember some wise words - "don't take criticism seriously if it comes from someone who you would not go to for advice".   In terms of that particular issue, the ability for some to take such and make it divisive isn't really something that is "fun".....I find it quite sad and pathetic.

 

I see some people was seriously confused and insecure in their political shells - and are surprisingly racist when it comes down to it (promoting inequality by race etc.).    I think when logic and science enter the room they tend to go for the identify political defense as it is all that is left.   

And then there are people that think they are using "logic" and "science" but simply don't have the dedication/training to understand either and so they end up claiming that there is no such thing as global warming when really the paper was about whether there was a measurable financial impact of global warming... and the paper was mostly an opinion.

[Rob_Zepp]

4 minutes ago, Down by the River said:

And then there are people that think they are using "logic" and "science" but simply don't have the dedication/training to understand either and so they end up claiming that there is no such thing as global warming when really the paper was about whether there was a measurable financial impact of global warming... and the paper was mostly an opinion.

I don't see credible scientists disputing climate change.   That would be very hard to do as all evidence indicates the earth's climate has done nothing but change throughout its history.    That is the thing about real data - it doesn't care about opinion.   It is like the crap in Canada with the "climate emergency".   The world just had its 7400th warmest year in the last 11,000 years or so (both figures rounded) and that constitutes an emergency to justify a tax will do nothing on the inelastic supplied commodity it is applied against (at the levels it is at and those are capped) and from a country that has no real contribution either way.

 

The world needs a collective head shake.   

[HerrDrFunk]

We've now gotten to "reverse racism".

 

lol

[Down by the River]

6 minutes ago, Rob_Zepp said:

I don't see credible scientists disputing climate change.   That would be very hard to do as all evidence indicates the earth's climate has done nothing but change throughout its history.    That is the thing about real data - it doesn't care about opinion.   It is like the crap in Canada with the "climate emergency".   The world just had its 7400th warmest year in the last 11,000 years or so (both figures rounded) and that constitutes an emergency to justify a tax will do nothing on the inelastic supplied commodity it is applied against (at the levels it is at and those are capped) and from a country that has no real contribution either way.

 

The world needs a collective head shake.   

This is showing naivety about the process of data collection. The operationalization of even great data is still influenced by opinion. Sometimes this opinion is driven by subjectivity. Sometimes it is driven by an interpretation of a concept that is different from someone else's. This is not a bad thing, nor does it mean that opinion is always "bad", but it does mean that really smart people might disagree on how to measure data and this can impact results. 

[Toews]

1 hour ago, Warhippy said:

He's a "centrist"

Correction: He is the lone centrist in a sea of extremism. He alone possess the ability to see "both sides". 

4 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

I do find it interesting how those from the two end extremes (and CDC seems to have them) automatically label someone as the other extreme if they get triggered by an issue....

Agreed, they are employing a tactic that you have clearly patented on CDC. Should definitely consult you first before copying your playbook. 

Edited July 23, 2019 by Toews

[JM_]

11 minutes ago, HerrDrFunk said:

We've now gotten to "reverse racism".

 

lol

wouldn't reverse racism be equality? Shaka is confusing me now. 

[Rob_Zepp]

5 minutes ago, Down by the River said:

This is showing naivety about the process of data collection. The operationalization of even great data is still influenced by opinion. Sometimes this opinion is driven by subjectivity. Sometimes it is driven by an interpretation of a concept that is different from someone else's. This is not a bad thing, nor does it mean that opinion is always "bad", but it does mean that really smart people might disagree on how to measure data and this can impact results. 

When data, such as that showing how the climate has changed over the last 11,000 years, is given a different opinion (e.g. that the climate has not changed), hard to call that "not a bad thing".    Further, it is not naive to look at a data set and make observations that are irrefutable.    Now how to extrapolate trends etc. can be opinions but to your earlier note, any scientist who says there is not changing of earth's climate with time is simply not a scientist of credibility.

 

In terms of the topic at hand, centrality, your point about interpretation would be valid if not driven by extreme agendas.   Alas, those on the right and left only do that - drive agendas.   Having a mature and logical talk about issues like immigration, social nets, climate, energy etc. seem near impossible even on a hockey chat site 

[canuckistani]

7 hours ago, HerrDrFunk said:

We've now gotten to "reverse racism".

 

lol

It’s definitely a thing and it’s sad that a Colored person like me have to point it out to the loony left.

[canuckistani]

7 hours ago, Down by the River said:

This is showing naivety about the process of data collection. The operationalization of even great data is still influenced by opinion. Sometimes this opinion is driven by subjectivity. Sometimes it is driven by an interpretation of a concept that is different from someone else's. This is not a bad thing, nor does it mean that opinion is always "bad", but it does mean that really smart people might disagree on how to measure data and this can impact results. 

Lol. This almost never happens in empiric data collection fields. Differences arise in studies not because of bias of data collection, but due to different set of instruments used for phenomenal observations. Until 20 years ago we did not have the tech to gather data from ice core samples. Until 3 years ago we did not have the means to gather radar data on space based satellites for ground or sea level changes. In empiric fields, we almost never disagree on what data should be measured. We simply evolve with the instruments at our disposal. The so called difference we have, is agenda driven controls difference, which takes scientific people to discern and often if the controls and the premise are consistent to each other, the study is deemed a success even if it’s overall incomplete or misquoted in media. 

[HerrDrFunk]

16 minutes ago, canuckistani said:

It’s definitely a thing and it’s sad that a Colored person like me have to point it out to the loony left.

But it’s definitely a thing from you since you’re above standing up for yourself in the face of racism, right? 

[canuckistani]

3 minutes ago, HerrDrFunk said:

But it’s definitely a thing from you since you’re above standing up for yourself in the face of racism, right? 

Standing up for myself does not involve snatching rights from others. Authoritarianism in social ideology is not what I condone but that’s par for the course for most leftists or rightists. 

[HerrDrFunk]

13 minutes ago, canuckistani said:

Standing up for myself does not involve snatching rights from others. Authoritarianism in social ideology is not what I condone but that’s par for the course for most leftists or rightists. 

Oh lighten up, I said that with the troll face.

[canuckistani]

11 minutes ago, HerrDrFunk said:

Oh lighten up, I said that with the troll face.

Sorry my sarcasm meter is very broken lately.

[Down by the River]

2 hours ago, canuckistani said:

Lol. This almost never happens in empiric data collection fields. Differences arise in studies not because of bias of data collection, but due to different set of instruments used for phenomenal observations. Until 20 years ago we did not have the tech to gather data from ice core samples. Until 3 years ago we did not have the means to gather radar data on space based satellites for ground or sea level changes. In empiric fields, we almost never disagree on what data should be measured. We simply evolve with the instruments at our disposal. The so called difference we have, is agenda driven controls difference, which takes scientific people to discern and often if the controls and the premise are consistent to each other, the study is deemed a success even if it’s overall incomplete or misquoted in media. 

Except this is what I said... as instruments improve our understanding of phenomenon changes, and then we can create more precise measures of the concepts we are interested in (AKA operationalization; i.e., what I said in my original post). 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Down by the River

[canuckistani]

1 hour ago, Down by the River said:

Except this is what I said... as instruments improve our understanding of phenomenon changes, and then we can create more precise measures of the concepts we are interested in (AKA operationalization; i.e., what I said in my original post). 

Ok. I thought you meant that scientists have opinions on what data matters and what does not. Which is clearly not Th case

[Ronaldoescobar]

Once the JT/Soros/Hillary/Bill/Mueller cabal is gone will the world have peace?

[Boeserker]

I don't know where else to put this and I sure as heel am not going to start a topic on it!

 

When you are banning bastions of free thought and public learning from your events, you just might have become the person you claim to despise most.

 

This group has banned both UBC and the Public Library from their "Inclusivity Event". Has the Left gone so far up their ass that they have met with the right on the other side? It starting to trend that way.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-pride-bans-library-from-parade-over-event-featuring-transphobic-activist-1.5221943

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Boeserker

[Lancaster]

2 hours ago, Boeserker said:

I don't know where else to put this and I sure as heel am not going to start a topic on it!

 

When you are banning bastions of free thought and public learning from your events, you just might have become the person you claim to despise most.

 

This group has banned both UBC and the Public Library from their "Inclusivity Event". Has the Left gone so far up their ass that they have met with the right on the other side? It starting to trend that way.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-pride-bans-library-from-parade-over-event-featuring-transphobic-activist-1.5221943

 

I believe the speaker in question is an argent feminist too....

At least they didn't tell her to stay in the kitchen and to make sandwiches, amirite?