Haidt’s Analysis of Contemporary Democratic Dynamics

[Ave]

I personally don't buy the "they'll steel our jobs!" thing as what it's really about. I'm not saying this isn't a real fear that is within a lot of people. But it's just kind of amusing when I imagine a white blue collar worker, out of work after the factory shut down, in a majority white town, channeling this fear of "they'll take our jobs!" and that being the real root of it. I mean, it doesn't really make sense.

*rambles on looking for the "true fear"*

For people not doing very well as is, there is more tendency to try to cling to the only thing they have. Survival is relevant in trying to cling to the lower rungs of the ladder for fear of falling off and being cast into the dump reserved for society's least valued people. It is in a way acknowledging what is wrong, but out of feeling too disempowered to do anything about it, just clinging to the pathetic social status one does have. It's more about this social status than jobs--if it was about jobs, electing The Donald for instance doesn't make much sense to me. The Donald seems to want to bring back an old way of life that cannot sustain/perpetuate itself into the future (something that every time you create it, it will only dissipate and disappear).

Since it is more about social status than jobs, that's why racism is central to the explanation, as racism in academic definition is about a system that keeps people down based on race, such as how the US govt used the "war on drugs" to destroy black communities.

Racism is not primarily defined as having an alarming bigotry towards people of other races (though of course there are still those people)--it's defined as implicit biases as well as explicit biases held by the dominant "race" in a society that is arranged to advantage that race over everyone else. Therefore people trying to maintain that status is automatically defined as racist and so are fears of "brown people stealing our jobs!"

Anyway, I think the real fear is becoming the next "people of the abyss" and perhaps knowing (for some) that the system itself is designed to devalue and put down a certain percentage of the population, and for the sake of the system itself, it doesn't matter who. It will favor its majority, once enough power is gained by that majority.

What would reassure and calm this is to assure that there will be no more people of the abyss in the future (but that's not conservative thinking) and it's not something that civilizations with large populations have seemingly ever devised. All of them seem to have had social hierarchies and those on the bottom suffer.

AFAICT as soon as humans start building civilizations, they stick to the primate-pyramid style. Yes sometimes it's a flatter pyramid with more room at the top, but it's still the same basic structure.

I actually don't agree with this "academic" definition of racism. Seems like its the basis for the current SJW/PC atmosphere of "white men can't ever be victims of discrimination because they currently have more resources as a "group" (which equates to a statistcial mean of all individuals composing the supposed group) , therefore all individual white men are open to be discriminated against", which is basically only looking at people as groups and not as individuals. I'm not saying you're advocating this, but it is an ineviatble consequnce of this definition of racism you employ. It doesn't make sense, especially when used by people who tend to deny that race even exists or that categories of "races" are arbitrary and wrong (which I could agree with), and that gender even exists and is a social construct, why would we then blame white men? If race and gender don't exist, white men don't exist as such, only individuality exists, which is kinda what I'm saying. The theory is kind of self-negating. Again, I'm not saying this is your position.

Therefore, I disagree it's about status beyond the perception of it being us (the in group) vs them (out groups). Rather it is about jobs to a degree, whether "the Donald" is able to bring them back is another question, but the fact is people think he can bring jobs back.

So I do think it's about jobs, not about maintaining power, real or imagined, for many rural folk that power would have to be imagined as they don't have much of it.

I do agree with your last statement.

[marooned]

I actually don't agree with this "academic" definition of racism. Seems like its the basis for the current SJW/PC atmosphere of "white men can't ever be victims of discrimination because they currently have more resources as a "group" (which equates to a statistcial mean of all individuals composing the supposed group) , therefore all individual white men are open to be discriminated against", which is basically only looking at people as groups and not as individuals.

Well, in a way, it is. It's saying that white people cannot be victims of racism in a system that favors white people. They can be victims of racial discrimination however (or is prejudice the correct term?) like everyone else. Anyway that "racism" is going by these different definitions kind of causes a lot of arguments online, because it's acting as though this newer definition that's been catching wind was the colloquial one all along. haha

I'm not saying you're advocating this, but it is an ineviatble consequnce of this definition of racism you employ. It doesn't make sense, especially when used by people who tend to deny that race even exists or that categories of "races" are arbitrary and wrong (which I could agree with), and that gender even exists and is a social construct, why would we then blame white men? If race and gender don't exist, white men don't exist as such, only individuality exists, which is kinda what I'm saying. The theory is kind of self-negating. Again, I'm not saying this is your position.

It's the social construct of race that perpetuates racism, is the idea. Biologically, it has no basis (there is no "race"). It's a way of people judging one another based on their morphological characteristics and also for entire social systems to organize the social hierarchy by these characteristics as well (by and large). So even though there is no "race" one can sure feel like there is (for instance, when one is treated in certain ways because of their "race") and believe that there is (for instance, when someone forms some ideology about race and thinks their "race" is superior). And it's made very real in the overall system, which favors certain groups over others based on race, and those who are disadvantaged by this system experience it on a personal level and in every aspect of their lives. Not to mention, these "racial" differences are cultural differences.

So I do think it's about jobs, not about maintaining power, real or imagined, for many rural folk that power would have to be imagined as they don't have much of it.

Yes, but they could always have even LESS of it. And the US has a long history of what it does to those at the very bottom (civilizations in general are never kind to those on the bottom and they always define that group as fundamentally deserving of their treatment in some way). I think that jobs/power are connected, so perhaps you have a point about jobs, but to say it has nothing to do with power is strange to me.

Anyway, regarding my position, I can't form one on this topic. I would rather default back to seeing people as individuals, but the hang-up is that this doesn't cover implicit bias. Lots of whites have tried to see people as individuals while being blind to how they don't treat or perceive all the individuals equally.