I find already labelling someone who holds an empirical proposition (which is true or false) as “racist” (which is a highly derogatory term, not a value neutral label) is defamatory. The vague hinting about alleged “rumours” here also seems to just serve to make him appear in a bad light.
Huh, I noticed that I have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to “defamatory” which I conjecture is similar to a knee-jerk reaction some others here have about “racist”—something like “while this term has an explicit definition that refers to some stuff I mostly agree is bad, in practice it is so often used as a way to forcibly shut down speech (including some that I agree with) that I do not wish to grant the concept itself legitimacy”.
(I think I have this reaction to “defamatory” bc I encounter it mostly as a legal concept, where speech that has been ruled defamatory is to be suppressed (and of course I don’t always agree with such rulings). Even though, like, I agree you shouldn’t say false bad things about people.)
I think this maybe makes me a little more sympathetic to this kind of knee-jerk reaction about “racist”? I do already think we should often taboo this word in this kind of situation, but also I do think that at least some things best described as “racist” are in fact bad and ought to be avoided.
(Ironically I kind of wish the people with this knee-jerk reaction would do more decoupling and notice when accusations of racism are more like “this person believes something that is quite possibly true but that a social justice person would think is racist, so they should be shunned” and when they are more like “this person is an epistemically sloppy asshole about race, so I wish we wouldn’t hold them up as an ideal of how to be”. To be fair it can take some work to determine which is true even if you’re specifically trying to.)
Common explicit definitions of “racism” tend to include people who believe in racial differences (especially in socially valued traits, especially if they believe the racial differences are innate), and such beliefs are typical treated as some of the most central evidence of racism conceivable. Objecting to the designation purely on the basis that it is highly derogatory seems intellectually dishonest to me; it would be more honest to object to the derogatory element, for instance by asserting that non-racists are inattentive/delusional/lying.
My vague hinting about rumors is supposed to just serve to make him appear in a bad light, because my defense would make him appear in a good light, and I have heard rumors, so I don’t want to one-sidedly endorse him. At the same time, calling it “rumors” shows that I don’t have it first-hand and that there’s a need for a more accurate account than I can give.
I think the following resembles a motte-and-bailey pattern: Bailey: “He is a racist, people may want to explain why racism is terrible.” Motte: “Oh I just meant he argued for the empirical proposition that there are heritable statistical group differences in IQ.” Accusing someone of racism is a massively different matter from saying that he believes there are heritable group differences in IQ. You can check whether a term is value neutral by whether the accused people apply it to themselves, in this case they clearly do not. The term “racist” usually carries the implication or implicature of an attitude that is merely based on an irrational prejudice, not an empirical hypothesis with reference to a significant amount of statistical and other evidence.
The term “racist” usually carries the implication or implicature of an attitude that is merely based on an irrational prejudice, not an empirical hypothesis with reference to a significant amount of statistical and other evidence.
It is also possible that Bob is racist in the sense of successfully working to cause unjust ethnic conflict of some kind, but also Bob only says true things. Bob could selectively emphasize some true propositions and deemphasize others. The richer the area, the more you can pick and choose, and paint a more and more outrage-inducing, one-sided story (cf. Israel/Palestine conflict). If I had to guess, in practice racists do systematically say false things; but a lot of the effect comes from selective emphasis.
Things can get even more muddied if people are unepistemically pushing against arguments that X; then someone might be justified in selectively arguing for X, in order to “balance the scales”. That could be an appropriate thing to do if the only problem was that some group was unepistemically pushing against X—you correct the shared knowledge pool by bringing back in specifically the data that isn’t explained by the unepistemic consensus. But if X is furthermore some natural part of a [selective-emphasis memeplex aimed at generating political will towards some unjust adversariality], then you look a lot like you’re intentionally constructing that memeplex.
(Not implying anything about Cremieux, I’m barely familiar with his work.)
It is also possible that Bob is racist in the sense of successfully working to cause unjust ethnic conflict of some kind, but also Bob only says true things. Bob could selectively emphasize some true propositions and deemphasize others.
Sure, though this is equally possible for the opposite: When Alice is shunning or shaming or cancelling people for expressing or defending a taboo hypothesis, without her explicitly arguing that the hypothesis is false or disfavored by the evidence. In fact, this is usually much easier to do than the former, since defending a taboo hypothesis is attached to a large amount of social and career risk, while attacking a taboo hypothesis is virtually risk-free. Moreover, attacking a taboo hypothesis will likely cause you to get points from virtue signalling.
It would be a compromise between two factions: people who are hit by the incomplete narrative (whether they are bad actors or not) and centrists who want to maintain authority without getting involved in controversial stuff.
Certainly it would be better if the racists weren’t selective, and there’s a case to be made that centrist authorities should put more work into getting the entire account of what’s going on, but that’s best achieved by highlighting the need for the opposing side of the story, not by attacking the racists for moving towards a more complete picture.
I mean, I’m not familiar with the whole variety of different ways and reasons that people attack other people as “racist”. I’m just saying that only saying true statements is not conclusive evidence that you’re not a racist, or that you’re not having the effect of supporting racist coalitions. I guess this furthermore implies that it can be justified to attack Bob even if Bob only says true statements, assuming it’s sometimes justified to attack people for racist action-stances, apart from any propositional statements they make—but yeah, in that case you’d have to attack Bob for something other than “Bob says false statements”, e.g. “Bob implicitly argues for false statements via emphasis” or “Bob has bad action-stances”.
I can buy that often people are specifically opposed to racist bigots, i.e. people who are unreasonably attached to the idea of racial group differences. The essence of being unreasonable is to not be able to be reasoned with, and being reasoned with often involves presenting specific cruxes for discussion. It seems to me that Cremieux tends to do so, and so he is not a racist bigot.
I think part of what can get him persecuted for being a racist bigot is that a lot of rationalists follow him and more-or-less endorse (or at least defend) racist stuff without being willing to present cruxes, i.e. his fans are racist bigots. It’s hard for people to distinguish a writer from their fans, and I suspect this might be best addressed by writers being more internally oriented towards their fans rather than outwards oriented.
I find already labelling someone who holds an empirical proposition (which is true or false) as “racist” (which is a highly derogatory term, not a value neutral label) is defamatory. The vague hinting about alleged “rumours” here also seems to just serve to make him appear in a bad light.
Huh, I noticed that I have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to “defamatory” which I conjecture is similar to a knee-jerk reaction some others here have about “racist”—something like “while this term has an explicit definition that refers to some stuff I mostly agree is bad, in practice it is so often used as a way to forcibly shut down speech (including some that I agree with) that I do not wish to grant the concept itself legitimacy”.
(I think I have this reaction to “defamatory” bc I encounter it mostly as a legal concept, where speech that has been ruled defamatory is to be suppressed (and of course I don’t always agree with such rulings). Even though, like, I agree you shouldn’t say false bad things about people.)
I think this maybe makes me a little more sympathetic to this kind of knee-jerk reaction about “racist”? I do already think we should often taboo this word in this kind of situation, but also I do think that at least some things best described as “racist” are in fact bad and ought to be avoided.
(Ironically I kind of wish the people with this knee-jerk reaction would do more decoupling and notice when accusations of racism are more like “this person believes something that is quite possibly true but that a social justice person would think is racist, so they should be shunned” and when they are more like “this person is an epistemically sloppy asshole about race, so I wish we wouldn’t hold them up as an ideal of how to be”. To be fair it can take some work to determine which is true even if you’re specifically trying to.)
Common explicit definitions of “racism” tend to include people who believe in racial differences (especially in socially valued traits, especially if they believe the racial differences are innate), and such beliefs are typical treated as some of the most central evidence of racism conceivable. Objecting to the designation purely on the basis that it is highly derogatory seems intellectually dishonest to me; it would be more honest to object to the derogatory element, for instance by asserting that non-racists are inattentive/delusional/lying.
My vague hinting about rumors is supposed to just serve to make him appear in a bad light, because my defense would make him appear in a good light, and I have heard rumors, so I don’t want to one-sidedly endorse him. At the same time, calling it “rumors” shows that I don’t have it first-hand and that there’s a need for a more accurate account than I can give.
I think the following resembles a motte-and-bailey pattern: Bailey: “He is a racist, people may want to explain why racism is terrible.” Motte: “Oh I just meant he argued for the empirical proposition that there are heritable statistical group differences in IQ.” Accusing someone of racism is a massively different matter from saying that he believes there are heritable group differences in IQ. You can check whether a term is value neutral by whether the accused people apply it to themselves, in this case they clearly do not. The term “racist” usually carries the implication or implicature of an attitude that is merely based on an irrational prejudice, not an empirical hypothesis with reference to a significant amount of statistical and other evidence.
It is also possible that Bob is racist in the sense of successfully working to cause unjust ethnic conflict of some kind, but also Bob only says true things. Bob could selectively emphasize some true propositions and deemphasize others. The richer the area, the more you can pick and choose, and paint a more and more outrage-inducing, one-sided story (cf. Israel/Palestine conflict). If I had to guess, in practice racists do systematically say false things; but a lot of the effect comes from selective emphasis.
Things can get even more muddied if people are unepistemically pushing against arguments that X; then someone might be justified in selectively arguing for X, in order to “balance the scales”. That could be an appropriate thing to do if the only problem was that some group was unepistemically pushing against X—you correct the shared knowledge pool by bringing back in specifically the data that isn’t explained by the unepistemic consensus. But if X is furthermore some natural part of a [selective-emphasis memeplex aimed at generating political will towards some unjust adversariality], then you look a lot like you’re intentionally constructing that memeplex.
(Not implying anything about Cremieux, I’m barely familiar with his work.)
Sure, though this is equally possible for the opposite: When Alice is shunning or shaming or cancelling people for expressing or defending a taboo hypothesis, without her explicitly arguing that the hypothesis is false or disfavored by the evidence. In fact, this is usually much easier to do than the former, since defending a taboo hypothesis is attached to a large amount of social and career risk, while attacking a taboo hypothesis is virtually risk-free. Moreover, attacking a taboo hypothesis will likely cause you to get points from virtue signalling.
This seems like a cope because others could go fill in the missing narrative, so selectively saying stuff shouldn’t be a huge issue in general...?
Huh? No? Filling in the missing narrative can take a bunch of work, like days or months of study. (What is it even a cope for?)
It would be a compromise between two factions: people who are hit by the incomplete narrative (whether they are bad actors or not) and centrists who want to maintain authority without getting involved in controversial stuff.
Certainly it would be better if the racists weren’t selective, and there’s a case to be made that centrist authorities should put more work into getting the entire account of what’s going on, but that’s best achieved by highlighting the need for the opposing side of the story, not by attacking the racists for moving towards a more complete picture.
I mean, I’m not familiar with the whole variety of different ways and reasons that people attack other people as “racist”. I’m just saying that only saying true statements is not conclusive evidence that you’re not a racist, or that you’re not having the effect of supporting racist coalitions. I guess this furthermore implies that it can be justified to attack Bob even if Bob only says true statements, assuming it’s sometimes justified to attack people for racist action-stances, apart from any propositional statements they make—but yeah, in that case you’d have to attack Bob for something other than “Bob says false statements”, e.g. “Bob implicitly argues for false statements via emphasis” or “Bob has bad action-stances”.
I can buy that often people are specifically opposed to racist bigots, i.e. people who are unreasonably attached to the idea of racial group differences. The essence of being unreasonable is to not be able to be reasoned with, and being reasoned with often involves presenting specific cruxes for discussion. It seems to me that Cremieux tends to do so, and so he is not a racist bigot.
I think part of what can get him persecuted for being a racist bigot is that a lot of rationalists follow him and more-or-less endorse (or at least defend) racist stuff without being willing to present cruxes, i.e. his fans are racist bigots. It’s hard for people to distinguish a writer from their fans, and I suspect this might be best addressed by writers being more internally oriented towards their fans rather than outwards oriented.