I've often thought that a frank racial quota system would be far better than the present arrangement. More honest, certainly. Probably more fair, in that those filling the quotas would be the best from their respective pools, thereby preserving meritocracy.
A return to freedom of association would be welcome, too. Let those who prefer to live among their own do so. Why should blacks compete with white businesses?
As to the decay of black communities, I could be wrong, but was under the impression this was largely after Civil Rights, driven mostly by the welfare state destroying the black family. The same lumpenproletarianization is rampant within the white rural poor.
"That's racist" reminds me a bit of "So you don't love me anymore". Some people will engage in emotional manipulation where they take any criticism as a personal attack. Often just calling them out on their emotional manipulation will make them walk it back
Wokal Distance is correct. The purpose of the system is (or was) to hire qualified candidates. Hiring more Whites than Blacks is a side effect of that.
It would be quite nice in 2024 if there could be a further development on an alternative view on how to solve the problem of competency crisis in lieu of deeply-ingrained group differences. As far as I see it, I am only able to come up with five options:
1. Chad Yes! and hope for the best. (unrealistic and not the greatest)
2. Go along with the Woke. (not doing that)
3. Liberal solutions like the civil rights act and welfare state are in fact what prevents success. Repeal them and restore freedom of association. (not easily believable.)
4. A form of stoic racial complementarianism wherein particular non-critical institutions are put under a form of racial protectionism, while critical institutions are made meritorious. (requires a lot of decisive action that I am not sure we are getting anytime soon.)
5. Racial separation. (basically the same as Chad Yes!)
I feel that dealing with this situation is extremely tough because it is so deeply connected to other phenomenon and values. Any usage of power to generally solve this problem or move into a better place feels like it requires us to carefully thread the needle.
I think the DR should focus on your numbers 2 and 3 -- deep cultural trends and behaviors. I dont think the dysfunction of black communities is fundamentally a result of slavery, but of Marcuse (his student angela davis), and teaching colleges “proletarianizing” the ghetto populations through education, media, politics etc in the 60s and beyond.
We should be frank about our moral standards. Just like the woke move heaven and earth to get violent carjackers out of jail, so should the right to help people who stay married and don’t do drugs. Paternalistic moralism is in vogue right now, so we shouldn’t be ashamed to preach traditional Christian morality up to and including abstinence till marriage.
Tangentially, all this focus on black communities in the DR is misplaced IMO. White communities are in the process of being “proletarianized” in much the same way black ones were in the 60s. No group can weather the storm of broken families and drug use that has ravaged black America for decades, and it is already on a steep incline in white areas -- just fentanyl instead of heroin and crack.
Very interesting essay. Very insightful observations.
I would, however, like to focus on this statement:
“No one is asking earnestly, “What does this all accomplish?”
I’ve been asking this question for years, increasingly fervently in the last decade. My question involves a more macro perspective though. My postulation involves “our democracy”; the one Biden’s handlers have instructed him to promise to save.
It goes like this.
Every 4 years, we undergo a national crisis, which culminates in approximately 1/3 of the country rejoicing, another 1/3 tearing their hair and promising to move to Canada, and the final 1/3 perpetually too baked or drunk or just plain stupid to care what’s going on.
Additionally, the victorious 1/3 immediately embarks on programs specifically crafted to make the vanquished 1/3 as miserable as possible. Attacking and abolishing everything they hold sacred, replacing it with everything they find profane.
That is 21st century Democracy as practiced in the USA. It doesn’t matter what we wanted it to be, or what we hoped it would be; it is what it is and it’s not going to get better; only worse.
My question then, is, Why would any sane population sign up for that?
This whole thing conversation was very timely. Had my brother-in-law over this weekend who is a classical liberal. Putting aside our two other major points of disagreement (1-things aren’t as bad as everyone thinks, 2-there’s going to be a spontaneous return to sanity), this was why we were talking past each other.
Amazing read, for too many the "civil rights" is religion that should never be question.
The problem with centrist bros is that they are unable to address the grand paradox of the post-civil-rights, the very paradox that had given rise to woke. That if all men are truly equal, why under the same laws and opportunities there are still disparities.
All parts of the world have ethnic conflicts and they can always go one of two ways:
1. Either these groups intermarry and their cultures fusion into something new. Some examples would be the mix between the Magyar and the Cumans that created Hungary or the mix between Spanish and Indian that can be seen in Latin America.
2. The groups develop friction between them that escalates into hatred and violence. Almost all countries have a local example, but some remarkable ones have come out of Yugoslavia. The real challenge is to name countries where two ethnic groups have remained separate and do not hate each other. Maybe Switzerland?
So, I think that in the US racial tensions will not go away until there is some good old mestizaje (unlikely) or until each ethnic group gets their own ethnostate (very messy and potentially violent).
Under colorblindness, very few blacks would graduate from the top league of American universities, but the number of blacks graduating from any of the lower leagues would actually increase. Black professionals would not disappear.
Wonderfully expounded upon and considerately written essay. This is a profound subject that needs more attention. In the US we have our heritage as well. Although a nation created for equality through individual independence. Contemporary immigrant values must take this in to consideration. America isn't just a country where you can just set-up shop, creat your own town and defend your birthcountry's heritage by claiming racism for behaving that way in America. Everyone has their roots. But when in Rome...
Anyone with kids or employees can attest that "The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" is deeply untrue. The system is socks go into the sock basket, get washed, go into another basket to be put away, and are put away. Reality is the sock, one sock not two, is inside-out lying under some leaves in the backyard. The purpose of the system isn't to put socks under the leaves. Why is the sock there?The system isn't doing what I want it to do.
Any system run by flawed people will sometimes produced bad results.
At least, it's deeply untrue if you try to universally apply it. Applied to politics though, it might have some merit. Applied to Civil Rights Law, it certainly has merit.
Is nature a system? The economy? Unless a system is defined and bounded, all we're doing here is saying bad outcomes are a product of "the system." That's not actionable, it's punching in the dark, like blaming systemic racism for disparate outcomes among racial demographic group. The analogy is useful, but the utility of POSIWID to deliver any meaningful insight decreases the broader and more amorphous the system.
Why should we deescalate anything if justice is not done and the condition is to give up claims to that which is rightly ours, to that which has been stolen from us, not even by these groups but by interlopers enabling them? I can not in good conscience stand by anything that would justify the tactics that have been used against us by allowing them any amount of 'success'.
I am more than sympathetic to these groups and am willing to do much to help them live elsewhere, but no amount of integration inspired by this program of cultural poison should be tolerated. It must be rendered a complete historic failure else we put the future at risk of thinking anything good of these methods or motives, and making the same mistakes again.
To whatever degree we do compromise on the practical level, the requirement of totally discrediting our enemies and their entire edifice of belief and the consequences thereof should be non-negotiable.
I've often thought that a frank racial quota system would be far better than the present arrangement. More honest, certainly. Probably more fair, in that those filling the quotas would be the best from their respective pools, thereby preserving meritocracy.
A return to freedom of association would be welcome, too. Let those who prefer to live among their own do so. Why should blacks compete with white businesses?
As to the decay of black communities, I could be wrong, but was under the impression this was largely after Civil Rights, driven mostly by the welfare state destroying the black family. The same lumpenproletarianization is rampant within the white rural poor.
"That's racist" reminds me a bit of "So you don't love me anymore". Some people will engage in emotional manipulation where they take any criticism as a personal attack. Often just calling them out on their emotional manipulation will make them walk it back
The Purpose of a system is what it does. What this system does is victimize Westernkind. It implements the immoral "antiwhite moral imperative".
Wokal Distance is correct. The purpose of the system is (or was) to hire qualified candidates. Hiring more Whites than Blacks is a side effect of that.
It would be quite nice in 2024 if there could be a further development on an alternative view on how to solve the problem of competency crisis in lieu of deeply-ingrained group differences. As far as I see it, I am only able to come up with five options:
1. Chad Yes! and hope for the best. (unrealistic and not the greatest)
2. Go along with the Woke. (not doing that)
3. Liberal solutions like the civil rights act and welfare state are in fact what prevents success. Repeal them and restore freedom of association. (not easily believable.)
4. A form of stoic racial complementarianism wherein particular non-critical institutions are put under a form of racial protectionism, while critical institutions are made meritorious. (requires a lot of decisive action that I am not sure we are getting anytime soon.)
5. Racial separation. (basically the same as Chad Yes!)
I feel that dealing with this situation is extremely tough because it is so deeply connected to other phenomenon and values. Any usage of power to generally solve this problem or move into a better place feels like it requires us to carefully thread the needle.
I think the DR should focus on your numbers 2 and 3 -- deep cultural trends and behaviors. I dont think the dysfunction of black communities is fundamentally a result of slavery, but of Marcuse (his student angela davis), and teaching colleges “proletarianizing” the ghetto populations through education, media, politics etc in the 60s and beyond.
We should be frank about our moral standards. Just like the woke move heaven and earth to get violent carjackers out of jail, so should the right to help people who stay married and don’t do drugs. Paternalistic moralism is in vogue right now, so we shouldn’t be ashamed to preach traditional Christian morality up to and including abstinence till marriage.
Tangentially, all this focus on black communities in the DR is misplaced IMO. White communities are in the process of being “proletarianized” in much the same way black ones were in the 60s. No group can weather the storm of broken families and drug use that has ravaged black America for decades, and it is already on a steep incline in white areas -- just fentanyl instead of heroin and crack.
Very interesting essay. Very insightful observations.
I would, however, like to focus on this statement:
“No one is asking earnestly, “What does this all accomplish?”
I’ve been asking this question for years, increasingly fervently in the last decade. My question involves a more macro perspective though. My postulation involves “our democracy”; the one Biden’s handlers have instructed him to promise to save.
It goes like this.
Every 4 years, we undergo a national crisis, which culminates in approximately 1/3 of the country rejoicing, another 1/3 tearing their hair and promising to move to Canada, and the final 1/3 perpetually too baked or drunk or just plain stupid to care what’s going on.
Additionally, the victorious 1/3 immediately embarks on programs specifically crafted to make the vanquished 1/3 as miserable as possible. Attacking and abolishing everything they hold sacred, replacing it with everything they find profane.
That is 21st century Democracy as practiced in the USA. It doesn’t matter what we wanted it to be, or what we hoped it would be; it is what it is and it’s not going to get better; only worse.
My question then, is, Why would any sane population sign up for that?
This whole thing conversation was very timely. Had my brother-in-law over this weekend who is a classical liberal. Putting aside our two other major points of disagreement (1-things aren’t as bad as everyone thinks, 2-there’s going to be a spontaneous return to sanity), this was why we were talking past each other.
Amazing read, for too many the "civil rights" is religion that should never be question.
The problem with centrist bros is that they are unable to address the grand paradox of the post-civil-rights, the very paradox that had given rise to woke. That if all men are truly equal, why under the same laws and opportunities there are still disparities.
The purpose of politics is to hide what it does.
All parts of the world have ethnic conflicts and they can always go one of two ways:
1. Either these groups intermarry and their cultures fusion into something new. Some examples would be the mix between the Magyar and the Cumans that created Hungary or the mix between Spanish and Indian that can be seen in Latin America.
2. The groups develop friction between them that escalates into hatred and violence. Almost all countries have a local example, but some remarkable ones have come out of Yugoslavia. The real challenge is to name countries where two ethnic groups have remained separate and do not hate each other. Maybe Switzerland?
So, I think that in the US racial tensions will not go away until there is some good old mestizaje (unlikely) or until each ethnic group gets their own ethnostate (very messy and potentially violent).
Under colorblindness, very few blacks would graduate from the top league of American universities, but the number of blacks graduating from any of the lower leagues would actually increase. Black professionals would not disappear.
Wonderfully expounded upon and considerately written essay. This is a profound subject that needs more attention. In the US we have our heritage as well. Although a nation created for equality through individual independence. Contemporary immigrant values must take this in to consideration. America isn't just a country where you can just set-up shop, creat your own town and defend your birthcountry's heritage by claiming racism for behaving that way in America. Everyone has their roots. But when in Rome...
Anyone with kids or employees can attest that "The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" is deeply untrue. The system is socks go into the sock basket, get washed, go into another basket to be put away, and are put away. Reality is the sock, one sock not two, is inside-out lying under some leaves in the backyard. The purpose of the system isn't to put socks under the leaves. Why is the sock there?The system isn't doing what I want it to do.
Any system run by flawed people will sometimes produced bad results.
At least, it's deeply untrue if you try to universally apply it. Applied to politics though, it might have some merit. Applied to Civil Rights Law, it certainly has merit.
Is nature a system? The economy? Unless a system is defined and bounded, all we're doing here is saying bad outcomes are a product of "the system." That's not actionable, it's punching in the dark, like blaming systemic racism for disparate outcomes among racial demographic group. The analogy is useful, but the utility of POSIWID to deliver any meaningful insight decreases the broader and more amorphous the system.
Why should we deescalate anything if justice is not done and the condition is to give up claims to that which is rightly ours, to that which has been stolen from us, not even by these groups but by interlopers enabling them? I can not in good conscience stand by anything that would justify the tactics that have been used against us by allowing them any amount of 'success'.
I am more than sympathetic to these groups and am willing to do much to help them live elsewhere, but no amount of integration inspired by this program of cultural poison should be tolerated. It must be rendered a complete historic failure else we put the future at risk of thinking anything good of these methods or motives, and making the same mistakes again.
To whatever degree we do compromise on the practical level, the requirement of totally discrediting our enemies and their entire edifice of belief and the consequences thereof should be non-negotiable.