There are tradeoffs between making a place pleasant for various people and the ability to talk about various subjects.
For instance: Making it pleasant for fundamentalist Christians makes it hard to talk about biology, because in order to make fundamentalist Christians comfortable you have to lie about biology. Making it pleasant for white-supremacists probably implies not having any informed conversations about the experiences of nonwhite people, since the nonwhite people are not likely to stick around to defend their very existence against the white-supremacists. Making it pleasant for misogynists pretty much implies not having any conversations with much input from women, at least on topics where sex is relevant; making it pleasant for homophobes means not talking about homosexuality in anything but condemning terms; and so on.
It seems safe to conclude that we already know quite a lot about what various supremacist and hate groups have to say, thanks to those views’ significance in history — and that today, we would prefer the input of the much larger and more interesting fraction of humanity that those groups would choose to exclude.
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society.
I’m not sure you saw my point here. Yes VDARE is a politically oriented site, its goal being immigration restriction thus duh some people with racist attitudes are probably writing for it. Selectively applying such standards for the discussion of some policy issues seems like a bad idea. I can see your point if I was citing someone with a very poor reputation who happens to be right, but I don’t at all agree citing someone who is ok when it comes to data and its interpretation, who happens to have written for a magazine that sometimes isn’t ok.
Here is a statement of editorial policy from VDARE:
We’ve said repeatedly that VDARE.COM is not a White Nationalist webzine—but that we do publish White Nationalists because we regard their focus on white interests as at least as legitimate as Black Nationalism, Hispanic Nationalism, Zionism, etc…and as an inevitable development in the Brave New America created by mass immigration.
Based on this, I don’t know if I’d classify VDARE as a hate group, but I would classify it as racist.
The disclaimer I’ve quoted comes before a piece written by Jared Taylor. VDARE goes on to describe him as “perhaps the most brilliant and accomplished figure among White Nationalists”. This is a man who has written elsewhere: “Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.” It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
In that case I recommend you make it possible for people to discuss said denotations without automatically being lumped with said connotations. See Eric Raymound’s post on not ceding the truth to racists.
Your approach of “we should/shouldn’t say X in order to include/exclude certain groups” seems to miss something. Specifically there frequently is a fact of the matter regarding X and that should also be a very important consideration.
My approach is not “we should/shouldn’t say X” at all. It is, rather, “if we want to learn about people of category Q, we should listen to (and welcome) those people themselves, in preference to people of category P who make conjectures about people of category Q. And people of category Q often don’t have much patience for being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.”
For instance, if you want to acquire information about the experiences, psyches, and motives of women, you’re better off listening to women rather than listening to misogynistic pick-up artists. If you want to learn about black people, you’re better off listening to black people rather than listening to white raci(ali)sts. And so on.
(This is, by the way, part of why I think we shouldn’t use religion as a cheap example of irrationality. Religion is a lot more complicated than many skeptics’ models of it would suggest.)
being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.
Really, could you direct me to where and when this debunking happened? When I look around I see a lot of evidence for these conjectures and a lot of incoherent arguments against them backed up by claims that it’s evil to even consider the possibility that the conjectures are correct.
For instance: Making it pleasant for fundamentalist Christians makes it hard to talk about biology, because in order to make fundamentalist Christians comfortable you have to lie about biology. Making it pleasant for white-supremacists probably implies not having any informed conversations about the experiences of nonwhite people, since the nonwhite people are not likely to stick around to defend their very existence against the white-supremacists. Making it pleasant for misogynists pretty much implies not having any conversations with much input from women, at least on topics where sex is relevant; making it pleasant for homophobes means not talking about homosexuality in anything but condemning terms; and so on.
It seems safe to conclude that we already know quite a lot about what various supremacist and hate groups have to say, thanks to those views’ significance in history — and that today, we would prefer the input of the much larger and more interesting fraction of humanity that those groups would choose to exclude.
I don’t think VDARE is a hate group.
What is a hate group?
Wikipedia definition:
Yes. VDARE is not a hate group. It is politicaly incorrect. This is not racist.
My opinion on the site:
Here is a statement of editorial policy from VDARE:
Based on this, I don’t know if I’d classify VDARE as a hate group, but I would classify it as racist.
The disclaimer I’ve quoted comes before a piece written by Jared Taylor. VDARE goes on to describe him as “perhaps the most brilliant and accomplished figure among White Nationalists”. This is a man who has written elsewhere: “Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.” It might be denotationally accurate that he is one of the most brilliant and accomplished White Nationalists, but I don’t like the connotations.
In that case I recommend you make it possible for people to discuss said denotations without automatically being lumped with said connotations. See Eric Raymound’s post on not ceding the truth to racists.
I agree. It is not honest intellectually to stop discussion.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell.
Your approach of “we should/shouldn’t say X in order to include/exclude certain groups” seems to miss something. Specifically there frequently is a fact of the matter regarding X and that should also be a very important consideration.
My approach is not “we should/shouldn’t say X” at all. It is, rather, “if we want to learn about people of category Q, we should listen to (and welcome) those people themselves, in preference to people of category P who make conjectures about people of category Q. And people of category Q often don’t have much patience for being conjectured about in ways that are not only unflattering, but have long ago been debunked.”
For instance, if you want to acquire information about the experiences, psyches, and motives of women, you’re better off listening to women rather than listening to misogynistic pick-up artists. If you want to learn about black people, you’re better off listening to black people rather than listening to white raci(ali)sts. And so on.
(This is, by the way, part of why I think we shouldn’t use religion as a cheap example of irrationality. Religion is a lot more complicated than many skeptics’ models of it would suggest.)
Really, could you direct me to where and when this debunking happened? When I look around I see a lot of evidence for these conjectures and a lot of incoherent arguments against them backed up by claims that it’s evil to even consider the possibility that the conjectures are correct.