Arguing with race-obsessives is like walking into a room full of Hitler Youth or Red Guard and expecting to have a rational discussion. Stop wasting your time with such people.
– Perry de Havilland
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Samizdata quote of the dayFebruary 6th, 2021 |
 45 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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True.
For example, Florida shows that people of different skin tones (if this is what is meant by “race”) can be united by pro freedom ideas.
Just recently Mr Shepard Smith of NBC (Comcast – the same people who own Sky News) was denouncing Florida in a “shock report” for not ordering people to wear marks in shops, there was film of (shock! horror!) people in stores not wearing masks – against the orders of the (unelected) CDC in Washington D.C. (the bureaucrats who have been wrong about just about everything).
Mr Smith and his Corporate State (Fascist) masters, fail to understand that the reason that people (of all races) go to Florida is to have a bit more freedom.
Mr Smith is white and male – Candice Owens is black and female.
The former is an enemy of liberty, the latter is a friend of liberty.
I submit that the key concept here is that it is easier to defecate bullshit than to shovel it away. (not my original idea, but I cannot remember whom I should credit for it.)
Given this basic fact, it becomes pointless to argue with bullshitters.
The term âCovidiotsâ was first used to describe those Floridians who chose to enjoy a trip to the beach last summer.
I do not believe the fatality rate in Florida, a state with a disproportionally high percentage of elderly and therefore vulnerable residents, backs up this typically hysterical bien pensant term.
For Shep Smith and so many others facts take second place to the narrative.
To Hitler Youth, Red Guards should be added those with Trump Derangement Syndrome over whom a red haze falls at the mere sight or sound of the T word, even now.
And climate change alarmists.
@Snorri Godhi – You could be thinking of the Gish Gallop. It’s a favoured tactic of the “anti-racist” mob.
The difficulty here being, that you would be wasting your time speaking to such people, but they fully intend to spend their time taking you down.
If we add up these groups, what fraction of the citizenry are we talking about? In the US? In the UK?
What fraction of folks on the left can we expect to have a rational discussion with anymore?
40 years ago it was probably 80 or 90%. 20 years ago, probably still well over 50%. Now?
Maybe another, better way to ask this is ‘who on the Left can we still have a rational discussion with?’ “Who” might be generic groups or it might be specific people–I’m interested in both answers.
I ask because I value the opinions and reasoning I find at Samizdata…and I’m looking for as many reasons as I can find to be optimistic! Your assistance in this is greatly appreciated.
Your chance of having a rational discussion in a room full of Hitler Youth, Red Guards or PCers, who all know that cancel culture is snitch culture, is (for that reason alone, though there are also several others) pretty well zero. However you may yet find yourself in that situation, so it is wise to give some thought to what you will say – guided, of course, by your awareness that you are not talking to rational, fair or fear-free people.
You may also find yourself talking one-on-one to a relative, to a stranger sitting opposite you on a train (when we’re allowed to use them again), etc. That’s why I wrote Why they fear their lying eyes. Jordan Peterson’s interview with Cathy Newman is one technique – to remain rational and calm – but he gets some respect precisely because not all can manage it.
I think this is wrong.
When you are discussing with race obsessives Marxists you are not really discussing with them but exposing your ideas to those that aren’t yet.
The problem with some Libertarian attitudes is that it lets a void being filled by who is there to fill it. Sometimes you win or deny the enemy a win by just showing up.
No, lucklucky, then it is not just a room full of race-obsessive. The trick is not to utterly waste your time & burn yourself out by arguing with arseholes when there is no one there who hasn’t already made their mind up.
John Lewis.
Correct – out in the open air, getting some sun and moderate exercise. These “Covididiots” did exactly the correct thing.
Meanwhile people who stayed home in States such as New York and New Jersey, died in terrible numbers.
However, the left are still attacking Governor De Santis – “Twitter” has one use, finding out what the “mainstream” left (the people who control Puppet Biden and co) are really like, under their fake Twitter names they show what they truly are. Make no mistake – these people are evil, bad-to-the-bone they are the “educated”.
“No Paul – that is an extreme sample, the mainstream of the Corporations and the government bureaucracy are not really like that”.
YES THEY ARE.
Candise Owens has announced she is thinking of running for President.
The lady would not win (lack of money) – but I hope Candice Owens does run.
It would educational (in the true sense) to watch white people from wealthy backgrounds, scream their Marxist hatred at a black women who worked her way out of poverty.
Perry, I would agree with you, that not arguing with race-obsessives is a good idea, were it not for the fact that, while you can avoid them, they will come looking for you. Here in the US, an increasingly hostile anti-white racism seems to be taking hold, often backed by government and corporations, and predicated on the idea that white people are somehow privileged. .
Your observation is true, insofar as it goes. The problem is they can no longer be dealt with by avoidance like the Hare Krishnas of old public annoyace. They will push until they are stopped, and sadly perhaps aggressively. But they will not have it any other way. They will dictate when/if you travel, what and if you eat, what is acceptable to read and obviously, say aloud, they’ve been working on that for years. No, the time for observation is past; that really IS a Mongol horde forming up over there and they mean business. We need practical, ready solutions, and time’s a wasting for western civilization.
Cesare: +1 as they say on social media.
Blindlo:thank you for the feedback, but the Gish Gallop is not what gave me the idea, since I distinctly remember that the word ‘bullshit’ was explicitly mentioned.
But it is very interesting that somebody came up with the same concept with different words.
“You may also find yourself talking one-on-one to a relative”
You need to be very careful about what you say. If you mention (for example) the “mostly peaceful” protests of last summer – (including the scare quotes) you get cancelled and the cousin might refuse to speak to you. They’ll call you a racist. (try arguing about it!). Facts don’t matter. Same thing if you mention “stolen election”. In the best of cases, if they really care about you, they’ll recommend therapy.
(Happened to me).
Jacob – I am sorry that happened to you.
Yes Marxist Black Lives Matter is based upon a LIE (the lie of “institutional racism”), and, yes, the Presidential Election was rigged – massively so.
Even far left “Time” magazine has, in a backhanded way, admitted that the election was rigged. Indeed they have BOASTED of it – “Shadow Campaign”.
“You need to be very careful about what you say. If you mention (for example) the âmostly peacefulâ protests of last summer â (including the scare quotes) you get cancelled and the cousin might refuse to speak to you.”
So it be.
If they come looking for you, it is pointless to try and argue with them, you have to fight them however the situation dictates. Simply put, they they are shooting at you, figuratively or literally, find some way to shoot back in kind.
I saw the writing on the wall back in October in my home of uber-progressive Minnesota. Friends, relatives, acquaintances – all conversations during the time of the election and the changeover were risky. People cannot NOT talk about politics. Long-time relationships were in stupid danger and not worth jeopardizing.
So I decided it was a great time to take a leave of absence and become a snowbird in the southwest desert for the winter. Haven’t had a political talk with anyone other than fellow Trumpies since I got here. Soooo relaxing . . . When things have cooled down, I’ll go back and we can have normal non-political discussions then.
(It also doesn’t hurt that it’s currently -10F at home.)
Not how i read what you wrote. I read it as arguing with race obsessive regardless of the place and company they were with, it is the same as trying to convince a a room full of Hitler Youth or the Red Guard.
Jacob: it helps to be born arrogant… as I was đ
Then you don’t need to worry if people disagree with you.
It also helps me that my intellectual and emotional functionality (for want of a better term) greatly improved by improving my diet. Now I can tell myself that other people (for instance, the rest of the world) would see things the way I do, if only they were eating right.
@Perry
Fixed it for you.
In particular it is pointless arguing with those who obsess over the subject of race and iq: it doesn’t matter how absurd their beliefs, the mere fact that said beliefs are ‘politically incorrect’ or offend some broad liberal consensus is apparently ipso facto proof of their truth.
Mila – you some kind of science denier?
I think I’m marginally on luckylady’s side here, and I certainly don’t agree with the idea that putting your arguments through their paces is going to burn yourself out.
Obviously if you’re arguing / discussing with programmed groupthink types, you’re not going to be arguing them round. But you’re certainly getting good practice for the day when you’re arguing / discussing with a crowd of people of mixed opinions. You’ll have heard a number of the groupthink soundbites before, so that if they are regurgitated in a mixed forum, you’ll have had the opportunity to think of a counter soundbite. You’ll have discovered which of your arguments make too easy a target. Maybe you can think of a better way to put your point which is harder to attack.
What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
Like most of Nietzsche’s aphorisms, it can be right or wrong according to circumstances. I would certainly agree with Perry if you’re planning to argue with a crowd of lunatics eager to beat the crap out of you.
Quite so Mila
I was suddenly reminded of Tim Minchin’s poem ‘Storm’ for some reason.
“Storm to her credit, despite my derision, starts firing off cliches with startling precision, like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition.
Be polite and counter their invective with facts: confuses them and with luck and their limited intellect they’ll leave you alone.
“Race-obsessives”.
It just occurs to me that you’re not speaking of BLM sorts. I think you mean the white supremacist people.
All 14 of them.
Actually I am speaking of BLM sorts, but also all the others, all 14 of them.
Okay, good. I worry, because I find myself frequently arguing that, no, American police don’t have bad interactions with blacks simply because they hate blacks – that there are some aspects of urban black culture that cause far more problems for blacks than any actual racial animus of the police – and so of course I’m then labeled a racist.
Perhaps I’m not a race-obsessive, but a culture-obsessive.
“I worry, because I find myself frequently arguing that, no, American police donât have bad interactions with blacks simply because they hate blacks”
They don’t studies that show on average, the police are more likely to kill a white person than a black person in the same circumstances.
But facts have no place with demagogues.
This also includes the “equality” brigade, including you Mila.
Oh I am very much with Mila on that one, I find the ‘race realists’ as absurd as their counterparts on the Identitarian Left
Well since I am against race based quotas I assume that the ‘equality brigade’ is anyone who does not buy into your absurd and scientifically illiterate racial essentialism.
“absurd and scientifically illiterate”
Oh really? Care to refute the mountain of scientific literature on this? Or just throw labels around?
bobby b – have fun in Arizona (or where ever you are) and stay well clear of political fanatics – of the left, or the right. People like ME (for, yes, I know what I am) just get people killed in our Crusades – that is fine for me (I have no close family or other such – the world would not miss me, and I would not miss the world), but not fine if I get other people killed.
To take the words of Mr Spock (and I mean them) – “Live Long and Prosper”.
Flubber the same I.Q. tests that claim to show that, on average, black people are intellectually inferior to white (pinkish grey) people, also show that white people are inferior to East Asians.
Of course, no one ever has to deal with Mr or Mrs “Average” – only with an actual INDIVIDUAL person.
I do not really care if one racial group is “on average” superior or inferior intellectually to mine – what I care about is the intellectual ability (and even more – the moral character) of the individual person I am dealing with – regardless of the group.
I think you take, in practice, exactly the same position that I do – you judge each person as an individual – you do not (for example) assume a Chinese person will be intellectually superior to a white person, and therefore hire the former over the latter.
Full Disclosure…..
According to my own genetic test (I had the test done a couple of years ago) I am not English by race anyway – I am “mostly” an East European Jew.
That’s not the issue here. The Reds are saying that they group differences in outcomes between whites and blacks are due to racism exclusively. I would posit that the IQ differences are a major factor. We can all wish it wasn’t, but there you go.
And this has the same effect on average earnings as observed in the US.
Just for the record, of the several hundred people I have kick/banned from Samizdata, 95% of them are because they are ‘race realists‘ who fail to understand the difference between correlation and causation, and the difference between race & culture, & express their misconceptions with an obsessive dogged determination and zeal.
It should in theory be possible to discuss race & IQ on the internet rationally, but if 20 years of running a blog has shown me anything, that is simply not true in reality, just as in theory it should be possible to be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, and yet the Pearson coefficient between anti-Zionists & anti-Semites is extremely close to 1.
In short, change the subject or fuck off.
I had this argument with a lawyer friend (both of us in the UK and British) and she was arguing the BLM definition of racism. You know the one that says its not racist if you’re oppressed. One of the US dictionaries (Miriam-Webster I think) was altering their definition of racism to include that. Very pernicious. I just looked on their site and it’s all very woke with ‘microaggressions’ and oppression.
“Very pernicious”
Positively Orwellian.
The alleged abundance of ‘race science’ literature is not proof of its validity as you seem to think. The vast majority of scientists abandoned the scientific validity of race a long time ago and very few geneticists study questions specifically to do with race. You can be pretty much certain that anyone with a fixation on the relationship between race and intelligence simply wants to give a patina of scientific credibility to their own pre-existing prejudices.
the study of genetics and human variation is extremely complex, but it is far easier to fixate on a particular phenotype such as skin colour and a metric such as IQ and then to hang all your prejudices on them.
Ok, I think we’re done đ