In which I fail to follow my own advice
I can't count the number of times I've advised Solomon not to get in arguments with conservatives online. (Okay, I could count, but that would mean combing through the archives. I think it's about three or four.) Well, today I followed a trackback link to this page and engaged in a bit of debate with its author. We were mainly pleasant to each other, but I think I'll waste that now. It was dumb of me to begin with.
Here's the crux of it: mkfreeberg seems to think there's something controversial in saying that we've made enormous progress in racial equality since the 1960s, yet racial tensions remain. He writes about it here at length. Now, I grant him that in some ways it's a platitude. But it is nevertheless true on its face. Races are more equal now than they were fifty years ago. Yet all is not healed and perfect. Instead, mkfreeberg says:
False choice in the first sentence: either we heal all racial divisions or we haven't made any progress. The implication is that we must ignore all messy, real-world problems that don't have neat solutions.
As to the second sentence, I don't know how to communicate with someone who argues that racial divisions in this country have not lessened since the 1960s. Not any progress? What?
PS: After I turned off the computer last night I finally identified why this argument bothers me quite so much. Its natural conclusion is for government at all levels to stop trying doing anything to address any inequalities (since they are simultaneously unimportant and intractible). Based on what I can confirm cursorily, mkfreeberg is definitely male, not Jewish or black. I'm about 95% sure he's a white guy (I'm pretty sure only a white person would so blithely identify race as a problem for other people to fix). In other words, while it's very sad, all the unfairness and ugliness and all, we can't ever make any progress toward fixing it, we just have to leave things as they are--which only happens to leave him on top.
Here's the crux of it: mkfreeberg seems to think there's something controversial in saying that we've made enormous progress in racial equality since the 1960s, yet racial tensions remain. He writes about it here at length. Now, I grant him that in some ways it's a platitude. But it is nevertheless true on its face. Races are more equal now than they were fifty years ago. Yet all is not healed and perfect. Instead, mkfreeberg says:
I'll believe racial division is healed when whites let blacks represent them, and vice-versa. It does not appear to me that those who direct the course of these movements, even have a plan for such a thing, let alone can point to any progress toward it.
False choice in the first sentence: either we heal all racial divisions or we haven't made any progress. The implication is that we must ignore all messy, real-world problems that don't have neat solutions.
As to the second sentence, I don't know how to communicate with someone who argues that racial divisions in this country have not lessened since the 1960s. Not any progress? What?
PS: After I turned off the computer last night I finally identified why this argument bothers me quite so much. Its natural conclusion is for government at all levels to stop trying doing anything to address any inequalities (since they are simultaneously unimportant and intractible). Based on what I can confirm cursorily, mkfreeberg is definitely male, not Jewish or black. I'm about 95% sure he's a white guy (I'm pretty sure only a white person would so blithely identify race as a problem for other people to fix). In other words, while it's very sad, all the unfairness and ugliness and all, we can't ever make any progress toward fixing it, we just have to leave things as they are--which only happens to leave him on top.
posted by Antid Oto @ 6:59 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:55 PM,
Solomon Grundy said…
You know, you whacko liberals are always trying to stir the pot. What's the point? The world isn't fair, and the sooner you get used to it, the better off I'll be.
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