Stephen Pinker makes a similar point in The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011).
Research suggests that as frequency declines, perceptions change but not in the way that might be expected. As frequency declines, the boundaries of concepts expand relatively rather than registering the absolute decline, as a measuring instrument would do. So it can appear relatively that the phenomenon is reaming the same or even increasing, when it is actually decreasing.
While racism, sexism, and violence are actually moderating — there are no longer any lynchings in the US, for example — it appears to many that things are getting worse.
This is not to diminish these on-going social problems that still plague many individuals, but some progress is being made socially and that cultural change has been reflect in law.
"You've come a long way, baby." But there is still a long slot to go, especially globally, especially where progress has been very uneven or non-existent.
Liberalism has had an effect.
Marginal Revolution
Why Sexism and Racism Never Diminish–Even When Everyone Becomes Less Sexist and Racist
Alex Tabarrok | Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and a research fellow with the Mercatus Center
Marginal Revolution
Why Sexism and Racism Never Diminish–Even When Everyone Becomes Less Sexist and Racist
Alex Tabarrok | Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and a research fellow with the Mercatus Center
Sorry ... The world does not revolve around identity politics.... there are other important material matters out there too...
ReplyDelete“While racism, sexism, and violence are actually moderating — there are no longer any lynchings in the US, for example — it appears to many that things are getting worse.”
ReplyDeleteWhen a social movement is based on selfishness, greed, and hate (e.g. militant feminism, “trans rights” fanaticism, Jewish supremacism, etc.) no amount of societal concessions can ever be enough. Indeed, the more that society bows to social justice warriors, the louder they scream that they are “victims.”
For militant feminists and #MeToo c*nts, all men are sexists because they are men. For “gay rights” militants, all heterosexuals are “homophobes.” For Jews, all non-Jews are “anti-Semites.” It goes on and on.
The points is that it doesn’t matter how much racism, sexism, and violence there actually is in society. Social justice warriors will always scream that these items are out of control.
Such is the nature of identity politics.
The world does not revolve around identity politics.... there are other important material matters out there too...
ReplyDeleteIt does much more than you think, Matt. But that is not your field so you can't be expected to realize that.
It's built right into evolutionary biology, and it is foundational to social and political theory, and anthropology and sociology.
Liberalism ignores it, but liberalism — which is really bourgeois liberalism — grew out of it. Bourgeois liberalism is based on maintaining class-divides, especially the distinction between those who are propertied and and entitled and those that are propertyless and "the little people that are expendable as exploited workers and cannon fodder for wars.
Since life is based on predation and anti-predation ( the former to meet energy needs for survival and the latter helping you avoid being some other organism's energy supply) why wouldn't "identity politics" be a strong feature of life to help balance things up?
ReplyDeleteSince life is based on predation and anti-predation ( the former to meet energy needs for survival and the latter helping you avoid being some other organism's energy supply) why wouldn't "identity politics" be a strong feature of life to help balance things up?
ReplyDeleteExactly. Selection works on kinship and difference. All that is happening in nature is proliferation of genetic material. Systems get selected to promote that. The most efficient and resilient survive as species and mutate ("evolve") through adaptation by natural selection. It's all about environmental fitness and ecology.
Humans are part of that process. Some (materialists) conclude that this is all there is to it. Others (traditionalists) hold that there is more to it than appears on the level of the gross.