The illogic of affirmative action
The Sotomayor debate has brought the controversy about what is known as “reverse racism” to the fore. I don’t much like that term—I’m of the opinion that racism is racism is racism. But the term “reverse racism” does acknowledge the fact that racism in the name of redressing previous discrimination practiced towards a minority by a dominant majority does have a different flavor and purpose than the original. That doesn’t make it right, however.
This piece by Victor Davis Hanson is an excellent exploration of how muddled and illogical “reverse racism” and its proponents have become. I have a few things to add, as well:
Reverse racism is not about fairness to the individual. It’s about the perception of fairness to categories of people in order to even out statistics that indicate differences of outcome between groups.
It’s about collective guilt and collective innocence, and the hope that, by doing penance for the former, advocates can finally claim the latter.
It’s about taking individuals off the hook for their own achievements or lack thereof.
It’s about blaming all differences between groups on the effects of prejudice. The underlying belief is that if there are any disparities between the achievements of races/ethnic groups, this cannot possibly reflect real differences (not even ones that are culturally perpetuated within such groups).
The criteria for inclusion in the favored racial or ethnic group are quite irrational and simplistic, sometimes allowing those with only a tangential connection to the group to claim the coveted status. And in a terrible irony, these criteria reduce people’s complexity to a simple matter of race in exactly the same manner that discriminatory racism does. And it almost goes without saying (although I’ll say it again) that the rules penalize other probably deserving categories of people—impoverished whites from Appalachia, for example—because of their race, and their race alone.
The policies are open-ended in time. There is no consideration of what criteria could be used to decide some day that it is time to end the policy.
Groups that have been discriminated against in the past but who have transcended it through their own achievements, without any special help (East Indians, Chinese, and Jews, to name a few) are exempt from being assisted now, despite the discrimination from which they have suffered in the past. Their subsequent achievements are considered to remove the need for affirmative action, and of course they do; I’m not arguing that favored status should be extended to such groups. But, what achievements by black people (or for that matter, native Americans or Hispanics or other favored groups) would be enough to finally end affirmative action? For example, is Obama’s election as president sufficient to remove the need for affirmative action for African Americans? And if not, whatever would be? Do the outcome statistics (jobs, income, admission to schools) have to be exactly equal between groups before affirmative action can be ended? And would even that be enough?
Hanson’s essay is so good that I’ll conclude by quoting the last section of it at length:
Indeed, creating, recreating, and emphasizing racial identity, especially among elites, currently involves so many contortions that it has descended from the absurd to the outright pernicious-and is becoming a sort of racism itself. One gets the uncomfortable feeling that the perpetuators of the present system—mostly elite whites—find some sort of psychological absolution in such a system that allows them to alleviate guilt without living among poorer people of color, or sending their own children to the “diverse” public schools—two concrete steps that might quickly indeed ensure better neighborhoods and better education for the “other.”…
Unfortunately, unlike a Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, or Alberto Gonzales, President Obama has embraced identity politics in unprecedented fashion-and we are reaping what he has sown…
But then only in these race-conscious times could a Barack Obama have entered the racial labyrinth as a well-educated youth of mixed and foreign ancestry, and middle-class prep school lineage, and exited as a representative totem of the African-American underclass.
By virtue of that metamorphosis it matters not at all that he once subsidized the racial hatred of Rev. Wright’s Church, carelessly tossed out the epithet ”˜typical white person’, stereotyped the white working class as ”˜clingers,’ had his privileged Attorney General call Americans “cowards” on matters of race, and nominated a candidate for the Supreme Court who, despite all the tortured exegeses of exculpation, declared that white males could not possess the judicial wisdom and temperament of someone of her own race and gender.
You see, in matters of racial politics, we deal now only in fantasies rather than reality.
Disclaimer – I am a white male, my father was a truck driver, my brothers all ended up working in blue-collar jobs; I am the only one to have gone to college.
Back in the 1980s when I took the Foreign Service Officer exam (joining the foreign service was something that I really dreamed about for many years) I scored high enough on my “raw” score to be invited to an interview except that the State Department that year had been ordered by a judge to “revise” the scores to take into account a test-taker’s race and gender. This “revision” of scores put me one-point below the required score. So, I was bumped out of the interview phase.
Would I have gotten into the Foreign Service if I made it to an interview? Would I have had a successful Foreign Service Officer career? I don’t really know; but I would have liked to have had an “equal opportunity.”
So, my selfish question is this – where’s the “affirmative action” for ME?!”
The most powerful book on this subject is by Ward Connerly. The book’s title is “Creating Equal”.
My two daughters who are going to the same public school as all of the races in their school are should not be granted preferential treatment to or be discriminated against based on their race which is mixed.
for some of the best writing on this go here.
http://www.discriminations.us
in the first thread i have a comment comming up that points an interesting mathematical thing in it.
the blog is divoted to discrimination…
The identity politics that produced “affirmative action” might be called the American version of tribalism. What has tribalism ever done for Africa, the Arabs, maybe even Europeans in various historical periods?
AA is now a business. Too many make their living hustling this product in one capacity or another.
Having worked in Africa and other “developing countries”, you see very explicit bias to the ruling tribe/clan or ethic group. This is strong incentive to emigrate to the non-favored tribe members.
The US (and to a lesser extent Western europe) is perceived as not having excessive bias in hiring opportunites. To squander this benefit of freedom is foolish
I’ve never understood why much of the affirmative action stuff is done – much of it is more racists than anything a KKK member could do.
For example, above me charles tells of a common thing – minorities scores being pushed up or majorities scores being pushed down in order to “compete”. I can not for the life of me fathom how this emphatically states any thing other than the only way a black person can score well on any test is if we spot them 20 points. That is precisely 100% what a racists believes – that by race alone one is inferior to the other.
Now, either it is the case that they are inferior and in order to be in consideration for a job we have to drastically lower standard or they are equal and need to apply themselves to the same level others have to in order to get the job. That is, if they are actually scoring 20 points (or whatever – IIRC some of the civil service exams here give many minorities a 20 point “bump”) less on average are they unable to close that gap (physically inferior) or are they too non-motivated to do so (lazy)? My guess is, right now, lazy – I know I would be if I automatically got a 20% bonus for doing nothing other than be there.
This also reminds me of the teachers who say schools suck because they aren’t payed enough (note this is different than simply saying they aren’t payed enough – of which I mostly agree). So that admits that they suck and are teaching them the wrong answers. That leaves one of two reasons – incompetence and most need fired and new staff brought in or intentionally teaching them the wrong things due to spite of not being payed enough. Yea, lets keep going along with that argument.
The womens movement in the past got it right, not use quota’s but demand equal pay for equal work and fight/sue when you are passed up over gender. Sadly the womens movement of today is all about quota’s and getting thier piece of the minority pie.
When you say you have to lower standards for you to compete that is an inherent admission that you are not as skilled, when you say that for your race that is inherently saying your race is inferior with respect to what is being discussed.
I don’t know if AA actually exists. Is there, anywhere, a person who will claim he got to where he was due to AA?
I mean, a whole government program, endless corporations and government entities all doing this stuff for years and NOBODY BENEFITS.
Time to shut it down, I say.
So, my selfish question is this – where’s the “affirmative action” for ME?!”
there isnt any since you are a member of an oppressor class (twice over. white and male).
just go to the SBA (small business administration) and you will see that discrimination against white males specifically is legal.
in fact, all the free stuff women and minorities get. i cant get loans, or build a business unless i am connected in some way to some money
they get guarnateed loans, so i cant get a loan. tax discounts on payroll, energy discounts, free office supplies. mentor ship. etc. an extra database they are only in for bids. grants!!! (how can i compete with free money?) Mentor-Protégé Program
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/
ah… the ONLY place you find out who this if for is in the applications. the language is all neutral!!! but once you fidn out you cant participate the neutrality become quite nasty.
training.sba.gov:8000/assessment
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/application/index.html
the site and such leads you to belive that they are there to help you.
but if your a white male, you enter and such. you have to discover through the courses and thelectures and the bankers not wanting to talk to you. that its not for you…
that is they hide it with literature that dont match waht they do. they cant tell you your white, get out. so they let yuo discover that you cant participate or get anything from them since the program gives such big advantage that you cant compete, so they wont invest.
The SBA’s 8(a) BD Program, named for a section of the Small Business Act, is a business development program created to help small disadvantaged businesses compete in the American economy and access the federal procurement market.
sounds good… no?
Mission
To be responsive to the needs of small businesses seeking business development assistance.
no inkling of it, is there?
want to know why women and minority owned businesses are the fastest growing sector?
well you get moer help and freebies and they cut white men out. so the report is not a celebration of equality, its a report of the fix without telling you they fixed the fight!!!
http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/women-owned-businesses/334053-1.html
meanwhile, you can read reports of how women are performing better than men… but they dont report this stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Minority- and women-owned businesses have become an influential force in the U.S. with more than 12 million such firms accounting for over $4 trillion in annual gross sales, according to research from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). These businesses represent the fastest growing areas of the U.S. economy, and they are responsible for the strongest job creation among all U.S. businesses. Their growth is expected to increase well into the next century based on several forecasted market trends: increasing minority and female population demographics, corporate downsizing, a preference for business ownership and technological progress allowing easier entry into established markets.
http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/women-owned-businesses/334053-1.html
read those reasons for growth!!!
why dont they tell you about their 8a program that trashes one gender and one race combination over all others and establishes taht fact OUTSIDE those points they just listed.
Q. What are the basic requirements an 8(a) applicant firm must meet?
The applicant firm
must be a small business,
must be unconditionally owned and controlled by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who are of good character and citizens of the United States, and
must demonstrate potential for success.
that means that everyone but white heterosexual males (tehre is a section on how to get certified if you are a white male who has sex with other men – jokes aside as to the certifications).
Who are socially disadvantaged individuals?
Socially disadvantaged individuals are those who have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias because of their identity as members of a group. Social disadvantage must stem from circumstances beyond their control. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, individuals who are members of the following designated groups are presumed to be socially disadvantaged:
Black Americans
Hispanic Americans
Native Americans (American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians)
Asian Pacific Americans (persons with origins from Japan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, Samoa, Guam, U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands [Republic of Palau], Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Laos, Cambodia [Kampuchea], Taiwan; Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Macao, Hong Kong, Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu, or Nauru; Subcontinent Asian Americans (persons with origins from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, the Maldives Islands or Nepal), and
Members of other groups designated by the SBA.
by the way… how many billions of asians in the world make up that minority?
by contrast there are less than 2-4 million latvians in the world. about 200k of them in the US..
notice how they can define the groups as they please?
What evidence must an individual who is not a designated group member provide to show social disadvantage?
At least one objective distinguishing feature that has contributed to social disadvantage, such as race, ethnic origin, gender, physical handicap, long-term residence in an environment isolated from the mainstream of American society, or other similar causes not common to individuals who are not socially disadvantaged
note that one cant use the disadvantage that 8a discrimination puts you in as evidence of “social disadvantage” this despite how they define it! Economically disadvantaged individuals are socially disadvantaged individuals whose ability to compete in the free enterprise system has been impaired due to diminished capital and credit opportunities.
basically their program economically disadvantaged me!
and why so many husbands put the company into their wives name…
What percentage of ownership in the applicant firm must be owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals?
SBA requires that at least 51% of the applicant firm is directly and unconditionally owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
=======
We offer a wide variety of products aimed at meeting the needs of small businesses to increase exports, access to short-term and cyclical working capital, and specialized loans for small businesses engaged in energy conservation or pollution control. SBA loan guarantees can be used to cover loans starting from $25,000 — up to $750,000, or more.
white males loans are not guaranteed. this is the 8a faq. and the white males loans are capped. so no bank wants to loan to them, their loans are not guaranteed by the state
Participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $3 million for goods and services and $5 million for manufacturing. While SBA helps 8(a) firms build their competitive and institutional know-how, the agency also encourages them to participate in competitive acquisitions.
here is the link for their surplus property program
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/surplusproperty/index.html
that is you can get your office equipment and supplies free…
1. What is Surplus Property?
If a federal agency no longer has a need for personal property, it declares the
property excess property, and the property is then made available to all other
federal agencies. If no federal agency claims the excess property within a certain
amount of time, it is declared surplus property.
2. Are 8(a) Participants Eligible to Receive Surplus Property?
The Small Business Act provides that eligible 8(a) Program participants are
qualified to receive federal surplus property on a priority basis. 15 U.S.C. §
636(j)(13)(F).
so if your a white male, you cant build your company from tax dollars… even though you pay taxes!
here is the link for the special mentorship program
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/mentorprogram/index.html
this is where they get advice and such to help run the company and not make msitakes.
Under SBA’s Mentor-Protégé program, protégés can gain the following benefits:
Technical and management assistance: The mentor’s expertise, resources, and capabilities are made available to the protégé.
Prime contracting: Mentors can enter into joint-venture arrangements with protégés to compete for government contracts.
Financial assistance in the form of equity or loans: Mentors can own equity interest of up to 40% in a protégé firm to help it raise capital.
Qualification for other SBA programs: A protégé can obtain other forms of SBA assistance as the result of its good standing in the Mentor-Protégé program.
and there are special programs for women… that helps them get out of the house and not have children!!
There are almost 70 women’s business centers in 40 states; all the centers offer financial management, marketing, and technical assistance to current and potential women business owners and each center tailors its style and offering to the particular needs of its community. Some sites target Native-American, African-American, Hispanic- or Asian-American populations. Other centers address particular issues specific to displaced corporate workers or rural home-based entrepreneurs.
Federal Resources for Business Management and Technical Assistance
Federal resources include two general categories of BusinessLINC activity:
(1) business technical assistance offered directly or through funding to private entities; and
(2) in certain federal agencies, procurement incentives for bidders on certain projects that have pre-approved mentor-protégé relationships in place at the time of the bid. (The programs vary across agencies, and not every agency has such a program in place. Please check with the particular agency’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.)
lots of programs too from the FCC, DOD, and more!!!
I have to agree with that statement based on my own obseervation. I often wonder why so many of these so called elites feel so guilty.
Then when I watch these so called liberal types racially slander a conservative black or Latino, I begin to understand.
In acutality, they are very racist and bigoted in their own lives, just not overtly. By embracing quotas, ect. they relieve themselves of the necessity of having to actually be that way on a personal level, except in the most superficial ways.
Out here in California the University of California regents have performed all sorts of contortions to keep the many UC campuses from becoming ‘Little Asia’. They’ve basically changed the rules (test scores de-emphsized) to get others in.
Nice way to preserve excellence in education, eh?
Increasingly this nation is drifting farther away from the meritocratic ideals at its founding. I have never agreed with Affirmative Action. Not when I was in the Army, not when I was in college and then grad school, and not now. I have seen, since my adolescence, “minority” people rise on their own merits and be recognized for it. In fact, I even think using the description “minority group” in our country an insidious machination to undermine excellence and our founding principles. There are only Americans. Stop using terms which designate hyphenated Americans. Race baiters and race enablers are getting in the way of progress. Real progress has been happening, but now we are in the process of choking it off.
The other thing to keep in mind is the fact that the Marxists have been using “race” as a way to undermine our fundamental unity. They are attempting to invest power into groups and then to set those groups against the larger society, with the purpose of fragmenting it and destroying it. They do in the name of “social justice” in order to right exaggerated impressions of a current situation that now have only the thinnest connection the the egregious injustices of the past.
The progress that has been made in overcoming retrograde attitudes of the past is on exhibit by the advances and achievements of people in the present. Affirmative action is a dehumanizing patronization of racial and ethnic groups. We need to stop it. It is unworthy of our humanity.
The amusing illogicalities in how Leftists try to rationalize AA stem from the utter stupidity they cannot rise above. It is a flailing about, and just one more example of why I took leave of the Left back in 1987: I had enough of the intellectual dishonesty, the fantasy worlds, and the blatant immorality and ethics of expediency of these people.
Baklava,
you realize that Ward is a hard core true believer?
ever note who he gives lectures to?
like BAMN (by any means necessary)
Speaking of Affirmative Action, Connerly says he supports Affirmative Action (ie reverse discrimination)
personally, if someone was really fighting for equality… they wouldnt focus on one group!!!
thats not how you get equality.
if yo took the money in the US black community in 2005… you would realize that if they were a country, they would be number 16 from the top!!!
If Affirmative Action means giving some sort of thumb on the scale to a low-income person or to a person who has never had a parent go to college, I support those kinds of Affirmative Actions. So language is critical here.”
oh thats nice.. that means that Ward would fight for me to get affirmative action!!!
right?
that is i come from a poor refugee family. we lived in the projects of the bronx in a very bad area of the bronx. we were 4 in a two bedroom apartment. both parents worked to barely pay the rent… my mom and dad never went to college until they were adults, and then my mom did it to get a GED. I worked very hard from the time i was a tiny child to achieve my dream. i entered bronx science…
so would ward help me get my career back on tract and be a research scientist? would he help a 45 year old white male who comes from that background achieve his dreams?
nope…
he is a shill. a cover… and you can tell if you carefully examine his points. he appears one way at first blush, but dig deep and he is another way.
Tim P,
They prefer the categories of “collective guilt” because it enables them to avoid looking hard within themselves at their own individual sins. They don’t believe in Christianity, and they don’t believe that there is such a thing as an individual who sins and is closed to grace and forgiveness. Their own lives are contradictions too, as you pointed out. And most are heavily under the influence of cultural Marxism and do not even know it. It is so embedded in the everyday world they inhabit that they cannot objectify it and understand how it is destroying them and destroying our society and civilization.
I am not denying that there is such a thing as collective guilt. At the same time, collective guilt without the reality of individuals who sin is just absurd. It is illogical.
Should more Mexican/Americans, Asians, and whites be forced on the National Basketball Association because something like 90% of professional players are black? Imagine the indignant cries if such a thing were attempted.
Whatever happened to the concept of meritocracy?
Going the way of capitalism…without a whimper?
I have no “collective guilt” about anything. I have my own sins to atone for, and that is quite enough thank you.
Twice within the last two years I have seen advertised in our local paper special “Hispanic Buisness Loans”. So this means whites, blacks, asians, etc need not apply. Then on a fairly regular basis, there is some “hispanic ” this or that beng pushed in the paper . ” Hispanic family day” at the local “Discovery center” ( a science place for kids). “Hispanic Family Day” at the local YMCA- where officials from the Mexican consulate will be on hand to help with “identification cards” (Matricular Consular Cards- so illegals can open U.S. bank accounts, phone accounts, etc.)
One of the regular customers that the shop I work for has is a white guy married to a Latina. They have a “minority owned buisness” because of her, and are able to get preferential treatment from government programs for his product.
You think afirmative action is bad when you are being discriminated against because you are white and maybe what, less than 20% of the population is minority black? just wait till the open borders makes you only 40% of the population and you are still considered “majority” in these matters and the Mexican government continues to lobby on behalf of its citizens here in the states. . We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Well I see Hanson has a book out now on the Peloponnesian War. I might have to check that out. Donald Kagan’s book about that war was very interesting. Might have to read Hanson’s for compariison.
Whatever happened to the concept of meritocracy?
under the doctrine of tabular rasa (the blank slate) there is no such thing as merit, since we are all the same.
thefore any differences have to come from the advantages we got with better childhood and education (which is assumed).
so blacks dont perform less well because of genetic differences, they peform less well because of oppression.
jews dont perform at the top cause they are genetically smarter at the things society values more (now), they are successful cause they are devious oppressors.
chinese are not at the top because they are smart, they are at the top cause they are genetically at that level, they are there because of…
the point is that out of the doctrinaire assumption of tabula rasa, which like global warming, gender science, lysenkoism, and lots of other things, is a completely false premise and argument with no basis.
in fact, it would have to invoke God to achieve that end under darwinian genetic development.
in the end all these false doctrines serve many purposes, but most of all to the rads, and the power people it provides a way to tell who is on which side and how they can link up without needing a central head to do it.
and if you pay attention, what you guys describe as “how can a moron who believes that and says that get to where they are?” because you dont know the game. in fact most deny the game.
but if you were a fellow traveler, and you wanted solid creds and help, you uphold the ridiculous false reality that everyone, including you knows is false, and suddenly you have told all the others of like mind and knowlege to help you.
supporting the inane reality is the leftist version of hey rube!!!! (a carny amusment park way of calling for help… since rides and things cause people to scream as if they are in trouble)
so they hammer at those points to hammer to the knowing that they should have help. that help then comes as they cross support each other.
in this way, you can overthrow a state and not actully have any planning meetings. just termites all trying to nibble away where they are, and helping each other blindly cuase they can show they speak the code…
if their points were real, then someone may get support that shouldnt get it by taking that other real side of an issue.
if the side is not a real side, then either they are too stupid to know, and so are to be used and manipulated, or they know and are to be assisted and connected.
in this way, a small group with help, can start a ball rolling, and hive off and roll, hive off and roll. and outside help from commnists make this effective. and as soon as people do well, can have a career, and make a living doing it, like any other job they come and become zealots of support for it.
right now, obama is showing people that if you join he will reward you and smote enemies. just look at how they actually decided to close gm dealers.
of course, everyone sits there and in one breath says, a conspiracy and such is toolarge to be coordinated and no one knows, and in another breath complain about a normalized thing that stems from such a thing.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Great post! I may have to steal that line “racism is racism is racism”….
oh, and tabula rasa also says that mankind can never get smarter than they are!!!
why? because under that, they can only get smarter if everyone steps forward at the same time.
that is, the brain is immune to darwin, and so cant go forward, cant go back, and there are no differnces between them.
all intelligence is the same, and so a gnat is an einstein who just didnt get their chance at a similar life (now you know why so many lefties try to raise chimps as humans with sad deadly results)
sigh
Artfldgr,
You are incorrect about Ward.
I’ve read his book.
I’ve heard him interviewed for whole hours by Tom Sullivan on 1530 AM in Sacramento, CA.
He has put to bed those smears – you have to go to the source when you attribute something to somebody.
Please affirm that you understand. Out of everyone hear – I’d think you would.
You have it wrong on Ward.
out of everyone here I meant.
Jonbaker,
you said, “Wait until you are only 40% of the population…we ain’t seen nothing yet”.
If you are going to start reading Victor Davis Hanson you must then start with his, “Mexifornia”, for a chilling discription of the future of California and the U.S.
Artfldger,
Affirmative action seems like part and parcel of the same struggle we face with statism/collectivism/tribalism, where the individual is sacrificed for the good of the tribe. Where incentives and rewards for self-interested achievment, (i.e., capitalism), become the spoils of the group.
Atlas Shrugged anyone?
(Baklava is correct that Ward Connerly is one of the leading voices arguing against affirmative action.)
How the tabula rasa notion — so critical to Marxist thought — can survive 30 seconds’ acquaintance with a golden retriever surpasseth all understanding. So many of their traits (their sweet gentle natures, their intelligence, their love of water, and of course, retrieving) are all obviously innate, so that clearly heredity can have an enormous influence — even on behavior.
Feminists used to maintain that boys’ and girls’ natures differed because of the toys they were given. They’d obviously never tried to interest a child in a toy in which he’s not interested, but it would have been fun to watch they try.
So sorry, Karl, try again. Human nature does not result from upbringing in a capitalist society, but rather the converse.
Occam’s Beard: A lot of women of my generation lost the idea of tabula rasa when they became mothers and observed their children.
Neo asked,”What achievments by black people, (or for that matter Native Americans, Hispanics or other favored groups) would be enough to end affirmative action”?
Looking back at your topic of a couple of days ago, how about the happiness factor of a group?
I liked Chief Justice Robert’s quote on this subject. “The way to end discrimination is to end discrimination”. Now theres some throwback common sense that takes 30 years of AA debate right to its core.
neo, I’m not surprised. I’d long since given up on the tabula rasa on intellectual grounds when our first son was born. Within a week a neighbor had a daughter. Comparing and contrasting the two of them in their first few years only reinforced the conclusion that the tabula rasa is utter nonsense.
As soon as our son could walk (sort of) he pushed his stroller around saying, “Trucks! Big trucks!” and making vrooming noises. (I couldn’t care less about any automobile, so he didn’t learn this from me.) Meanwhile, the neighbors’ daughter was enraptured by dolls, which had approximately the same interest for our son as a table of Laplace transforms.
My wife and I used to laugh at how anyone could possibly think that any child’s interests were shaped by adults. Any shaping going on has the oppposite polarity.
I happened to catch a live tv program the last time one of the rovers landed on Mars. Apparently the mission control room at NASA is deemed so important as to be exempt from AA. Probably 25 whites and a couple Asians was all to be seen.
I found it curious because every manned mission seems to put on a multicultural face as if that somehow obscures the reality of who actually makes these missions possible.
Adagny: I dont think I could take reading it. I just dont think I could. So many things coming so fast. The push for regional currency. The deception in the media. The rising debt. What I fear is about to happen in the middle east. My suspicion, that the US is about to be taken out- as in destroyed, or at least severely weakened to make way for European dominated west, or rather, a Eurabian dominated west……..
SteveH, I for one strongly support the idea of feathering NASA. They jumped the shark at the time of the Challenger disaster, when they had a schoolteacher – of all things – in the crew, so she could teach her class from space. How did that work out, NASA?
That tore it for me. When an agency is screwing around with obvious PR stunts to get more money, and gets people killed unnecessarily, they lose me.
Adagny, not to mention how the voter rolls are being fraudently stocked by Acorn, how the charges were dropped against the black panthers who tried to intimidate voters on election day, ….
As far as the Tabula Rasa stuff goes – it is still hard to say for sure. It may very well be that such things are so strongly identified in our culture that there is nothing we can do about it without a total restructuring of our society. It is obvious non-sense that simply changing the toys one plays with will work (and many still like to cling to that notion), but it is unclear how much of *our* development is nurture vs nature.
That being said – try and stop a herding dog from herding, a pointer from pointing, a dachshund from digging, a parrot from flying, or any other obviously innate things animals do. Also stop them from attempting to mate – *really* hard to do (indeed, I would rather spend my life trying to prove p=np – that is a problem that if I solved then I would be put above Einstein in the scientific world as that would revolutionize nearly *everything* – in other words good luck on proving that – the other just forget it).
The only real absolving factor here is that as we move up the chain in complexity and ability of our brains then nurture becomes more important. Since our core society is based strongly on our past it isn’t clear where that comes from. As much as we like to say things about our sons going “vroom” it hasn’t been done (nor should it intentionally) in a setting where the core society is different – he has been exposed to TV, magazines, and just people in general for his formative years and it is unclear how much of that influences behavior.
More interesting on this front are on severely neglected kids. There are a handful that are *truly* raised by dogs and other non-human animals, especially in second and third world countries. It is interesting because language is still something that is innate to us, sexuality is (but in a very different and more animal like aggressive quality), yet they do strange things that are obviously learned yet should really not be (such as barking noises, growling, “walking” on hands and knees, etc), then again in many of those instances they are able to somewhat learn even at an older age. “Vroom” and “dolls” are such a foreign concept there that no nurture could be involved – then again those concepts are so far from their minds that they do not seem able to grasp the idea for the most part.
Sadly there is no way to do real tests without it being real humans. Were it otherwise I would have most likely done this for a living – as is I find even what we do know somewhat repugnant and am happy I chose computer science – where I can play with the system however I want.
Ref Tabula Rasa.
We have boy-girl twins. It shouldn’t take that to cure you of TR, but if you were so thick that you still believed, boy-girl twins would fix it.
Very few parents can maintain the tabula rasa delusion. No matter how I tried to encourage my toddler daughter to play with her brothers’ toy trucks, she would use them only to give “rides to the party” to her Barbie dolls. My son, in turn, was perfectly willing to play with his sister’s Barbies, but his idea of “playing” with them was to use them for the toy guns that, in my idealistic youth, I wouldn’t buy him — clutched head-down in his fist, plastic hair dangling, bent at the hips, rear in the air, sharp little toes pointed at the target. (After that I went out and bought him a toy gun. Too much for me!)
No way did their parents teach them any of this. Kids come as they are. Parents can do little more than polish them up a bit around the edges.
The other problem with “reverse racism” is that it was used as a cover to nurture everyday racism. The lefty establishment will tolerate almost any nonsense coming from approved groups… and even offer support and cover… even if it is clearly racist. Reverend Wrights, La Raza, et cetera…
A controlled experiment. I love it.
Yes, Montessori kindergarten was always amusing in the 80’s, watching all these yuppie parents, who had recently been assured that personality and play differences between the sexes were environmental.
There has always been variation within the sexes – tomboyish girls and gentler boys – and this was always recognised, even in the benighted eras that were supposedly forced into rigid stereotypes.
As for the various types of affirmative action, the next few years are going to be brutal. Genetic science is moving forward at a great pace, and the differences between the five continental racial groups (Amerind, Aborigine, African, West Asian, East Asian) are becoming embarrassingly well-documented. Yet the need to believe otherwise for political and social reasons will not go away, and it is the belief of the currently dominant world group. This is a collision of beliefs whose outcome cannot be foreseen. The dominant liberal whites of Europe and North America need to see themselves as the believers in Science (as opposed to those ignorant Christianists, doncha know), but Science will tell them the opposite of what they need to hear. Could be messy.
One of the groups with demonstrably higher IQ’s than European whites, a subset of West Asians known as Ashkenazi Jews, has been dealt with because they are relatively few in number, and themselves have been among the leading proponents of the idea that they got there because of cultural values.
The next group with demonstrably higher IQ’s (though less dramatically than the Ashkenazis) are the East Asians, who will have no need to perpetuate our current TR myths. As they greatly outnumber the west, we had better hope that they absorb many of our values during their ascent to dominance.
http://www.physorg.com/print163184096.html
Universities like women in sciences; women aren’t so sure
once again, we find the system bending over backwards over a false situation that is caused by the whiners.
this is the reason i am not a researher with degrees.. they fell over backwards and had to push me out (i can show you the policy papers and show the dates).
Women with advanced degrees in math, science and engineering are more likely than men to be chosen for faculty positions and promotions — when they apply.
The study found that women made up 17 percent of applicants to positions in science and engineering fields in 2004 and 2005 but were a quarter of those interviewed and 30 percent of those hired.
17% of applicatns, but a quarter of interviewed, and 30% of those hired.
its why the halls here at the research hospital are full of women and to hear them in the elevators is to make one cringe..
Alicia Carriquiry, a professor of statistics at Iowa State University and the primary data analyst, said that finding out why women don’t pursue academic positions would take a separate study.
maybe they are not interested in sitting around alone all day working and not commisserating and socializing?
that is… while they make their own choices based on their own biology… the femnits mobilize our state to make control inroads and disenfranchise men and blame them for the women not being there.
but if you look at all the freebies and benifits that historically men NEVER EVER EVER had, one has to suppress the dissonance of equal ability and equal productive outcomes.
She speculated, however, that biological clocks might be a factor for women.
“The timing is exactly wrong,” she said. “By the time they get tenure, they’re in their 40s. Women are going through their best reproductive years while they’re supposed to be working their tails off.”
and so they must not want to reproduce!!!! not that we cant have a society if they do this!!! if they dont have kids, we dont have a society.
BIOLOGY is REALITY
Analysts found that several factors helped encourage women to apply. When women chaired search committees or made up a large part of their membership, for example, more women applied. Having a mentor, male or female, also increased a woman’s chances.
translate to.. THEY DONT TAKE RISKS… so they dont apply when they dont know they will win.
affirmative action gets them to act beacuse they get a sure bet. but a sure bet is not fair. and so this ends up separating our productive biological teams
the elite get two workers, and reduction in population.
thats better than the way hitler and stalin did it… no? the tricked are more productive than the forced… and if you trick them to becoming infertile, your 5 billion year unbroken line of survival instincts and competition has an advantage over their dysgenic position.
they become the most boring mass of darwin award winners ever to be seen.
we dont live that long, and we are not fertile and we didnt make the world.
pushing all women of one class to do this exterminates that class.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Strcpy, I don’t think so. First, as you point out, looking at other species belies the argument. Our retriever has been enchanted with tennis balls and swimming since first encountering each. Our terrier views water as the Devil’s Brew, and ignores a bouncing tennis ball that causes pandemonium to erupt when the retriever is around.
But with respect to kids, consider the counterfactual case: if “vrooming” and affinity for dolls were learned behavior, then it should be possible to reverse the boy/girl models. Good luck with that. That’s very much swimming upstream.
Mrs Whatsit is absolutely right; parents can do little more than polish a bit around the edges, and civilize them enough not to hit each other or simply take anything they want. That is a learned behavior, but consider how much time, effort, and repetition it takes to impart it. Given that, tabula rasa proponents want us to believe that a passing mention by parents or passive indoctrination from a TV show seared some behavior into a kid’s soul? No sale. They’re indulging in wishful thinking, how they wish the world worked, not how it actually does.
Baklava,
i did go to the source, but a lot of what i quoted from him was edited…
he is just a more subtle player, and why he is burning the thing on the other side. he has to appear to be opposite of what he is.
but if you read him and understand the principals and understand the actual game from the outside as the orchestrators do, then you will see it.
he just promotes some of the same things, but in a much more moderate way.
and we miss that in reletivism, grey can appear white next to dark grey…
but in absolute terms, the points making the white light grey are still soiling the situtiaon.
ward connerly is not against affirmative action..
he is against RACE based affirmative action…
The American Civil Rights Institute advocates socioeconomic affirmative action in lieu of race and sex preferences. Rather than interpreting economic disadvantages to be racial in nature, admissions committees can achieve colorblind policies by taking into account that students of all races are faced with economic disadvantages. Helping people isn’t the problem. Discriminating against people based on the color of their skin is the problem.
Read what Ward Connerly has to say about socioeconomic affirmative action.
http://www.acri.org/blog/2008/11/10/racial-imbalances-and-preferences/
and so i go to read the words of the chairman himself, ward connerly.
baklava: He has put to bed those smears – you have to go to the source when you attribute something to somebody.
i thought thats what i ALWAYS do? 🙂
http://www.acri.org/chairman.html
notice my source?
The opponents of race preferences tend to believe in academic meritocracy – and I am among them. Where we must compromise, however, is in how we view “merit.” We must also understand the national imperative of providing access to low income students and to those who are confronted with disadvantages that impede their ability to lead productive lives and to demonstrate their potential value to American society. It is not in our national interest to have hordes of people standing on the sidelines seething with anger because they cannot obtain a ticket to gain access to a better life in America. That ticket for most of us is higher education. Thus, those of us who believe in academic meritocracy must broaden how we view “merit.” That largely means empowering admissions officers to search for talent from among all students and not just the “A” average, high SAT students. In short, socioeconomic “affirmative action,” in a colorblind admissions process, can be that compromise. – Ward Connerly
he is pushing being a little bit pregnant as the alternative to being a lot pregnant.
how is this better.
i explained that the fundemental difference between charity, and taxes as charity is when you take your cut.
real charity is given after all the expenses i light of your life, goals, and personal responsibilites have been met and is unique for each person.
but state taxes as charity takes that fee first. before you work out whether its extra. its assumed that if you make X youhave extra. why? beause your not allowed to have bigger goals with bigger resources?
well affirmative action for ANY reason takes money away from people before they get to do an accounting of their actual needs.
whether you steal money away to give to peopel for race, or you steal money from people to give away because they are less rich, does not change the fact that your justifying stealing money at the threat of death if you dont comply.
if i dont choose to donate to my church on sunday beause i ahve too many expenses what happens?
if i dont choose to pay the taxes that pay to affirmative action for race what happens?
if i dont choose to pay the taxes that pay to affirmative action for economic reasons what happens?
in the first case, nothing.. they dont have as much and dont do as well, but they dont say i have to hurt myself for their cause. i have choice, which means i have freedom.
the other two result in my destruction and death.
so how is the alternative any different?
oh.. cause you imagine they are using thoughts which areent real… you get suckered into the game of lets see what makes the undewear stick to the wall, when the REAL GAME is not having to throw underwear at the wall at all!!
they moved the argument and tricked you into accepting the same end under a different auspice..
its not that i dont understand your viewpoint, i do. but i also understand the game.
the game is seductio vs rape
if they take the money for race reasons its rape
if they take it by saying something you agree with, then its seduction
either way you get screwed…
i dont want to be screwed.. i want to decide who i have intercourse with (intentional pun).
i dont want to be killed because i didnt want to have intercourse on their terms. (seduction or rape iether way your going to get screwed). i want it on my terms, charity, where i can walk away and choose when its right for me
the nurture nature argument is a false argument.
its basically arguing that the spreadsheet on your desk is a spreadsheet because of the data put in it.
but no machine or any MATERIAL thing can exceed its physical potential.
a spread sheet has lots of potential… and putting information into it and learning does change how it behaves.
but none of that behavior is outside the basic truth that ALL of its behavior is defined, delimited, and established in reality in material ways and therefore cant exceed its own selfs structural limits.
the amazing things the computer in front of you is doing is because of a very simple structure.
so nature nurture is a false argument
its pretending to measure and predict emergence qualities and degrees.
logic reveals this..
in a conditional, there are two options, and a result based on a test.
so lets say animal one does X and decides Y and gets A as an outcome
animal X then decided Z and gets B as an outcome
once it learns that B is a crap sandwhich outcome it never chooses that option again.
waht they want you to think is that this later state somehow defined the potentials.
but in truth, learning just defines which potential out of all potentials are to be selected in a conditional
you CAN teach them that B is better despite it being worse (socialism), but that doestn mean that your machine is moldable and blank.
the reasno is your taking for granted the machinery that allows one to have all the options to select from.
instinct would not allow the second bad selection and have no consideration for it or even know it!!!
our reasoning allows us to project ahead in time farther than the amount needed to sync us with delay in thinking and transmissions to the now.
this allows us to take a longer more considered view of waht constituts a benificient outcome.
its why we have short term and long term goals, and can do that.
that creates the illusion of tabula rasa… instinct has to settle on an optimum singular answer (simplfing here)… intelligence with forward thinking ability allows one to conceive of benifits in the abstract that can be tuned to the situatio in context.
that is, instinct is without consideration of time
when you add time, your now having to abstrat through permuatations… so like the spread sheet you have ALL the structural potential at your fingertips since you can now select outcomes with more nuanced view of information.
and that leads to a huge amount of complexity, and these dingbats cant handle complexity!!!!!
they love to declare it too complex to understand and voila insert complexity.
however, their whole theory falls apart for the same reason behaviorisms core is invalid.
what set of beahviors would cause the behavior of inventing bheaviorism?
their tick tock blank slate method cant explain how you get socialism as a ideology from a blank slate which cant exceed wahts poured into it by other people.
their choices lead back to a god more often than religions do!
and once again, someone has to invoke a outer mentality in order to get sometnhnig new since a blank slate cant build on the past.
just because you can input bad numbers into a spread sheet so that the machine works poorly doesnt mean that the machine is programable and blank in all areas.
if i remove the sum from a spreadsheet, then no matter what i write to it it will not sum.
the outcome of feeding the information cant be achieved.
and THIS is the core that invalidates tabula rasa.
its also undone by illusions.. if its a blank slate then we can have no illusions.
got to go… neo is going to hunt me down and shoot me for length… i owe her too much in editing fees, and i hope she is at least payed by the fact that i am not boring. long… but not boring. 🙂
ever notice that the women doing this research are the lesbian or others who put off marraige and take up feminism and so do all their work BEFORE they had their kids? (though even after many refuse to abandon women by being truthful)
North America need to see themselves as the believers in Science (as opposed to those ignorant Christianists, doncha know)
you would NEVER have had science you know today if it was not for christianity. a certain body of pure sicentific knowlege is critical for the emergence of the principals of how the world works. islam says we cant know… budda dont care cause the world is an illusion, the pantheons were a mess having nothing to do with principals.
only christianity said… if god made the world, and the universe, then i can get clsoer to god by finding out his truth through his work.
that is, christianity invented impiricisms as a means of aligning their religion with the creation that they believed.
all others either didnt care, or thought it was blaspehmous to do so.
I heard a public service message today brought to me in part by the Ad Council seeking contributions to the United Negro College Fund.
Well, needless to say, I …….
the result of the procrustean method of socialist equality… .where we are all equal in poverty and misery is well along the way.
the attempt to get women to perform at the same level as the top men by disenfranchising them, and get both to be level with groups that perform lower has resulted in this.
Dumbest Generation Getting Dumber.
townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/06/03/dumbest_generation_getting_dumber
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problem-solving ability. In 2006, U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science.
the womens collective sold their children in exchange for their current selfish lifestyle.
rather than opening up the door to the success of their female girls, they have relegated all of us to living as the least capable western society!!!
that is, they have almost singlehandedly with vawa, title ix, and other changes, insured that their own children and our children are too stupid to to perform.
and how did they do that? well in order to accomplish this goal, they had to hate posterity, they had to saw upon the branch they and we were sitting on.
they had to be willing to pretend to be doing the best for their kids, when they were doing the absolute worst for them!!!!!
now, they are going to leave us in a society where they and we have absolutely no choices… and we cant cahnge it becaue they made all our kids stupid so that they can pretend to be like men and get all the stuff men get.
early death, cancer, heart desease, no time to be wiht those you love, loneliness, depression, servitude in exchange for your families freedoms, and more.
and what did we get in excahnge for that? a better society? no… they blamed the men for the WORSE society than the one they changed from!!! the men didnt make these changes or want them. the women did.
here is what we got in exchange for it. we got high rates of desease, low rates of fertility, purposefully stupified and mentally crippled children, loss of our freedoms, high crime, higher poverty, lower pay, gangs, rampant female pediphilism, nanny state, and a whole lot more
i guess this is womens utopia..
personally… for a utopia… it sucks.
the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.” That’s a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get.
and remember, women took over the schools… there is nary a male teacher compered to yesteryear (many too afraid of being accused of something so they quit and do something else).
and the results of leveling men and women? and of leveling races?
While the academic performance of white students is grossly inferior, that of black and Latino students is a national disgrace. The McKinsey report says, “On average, black and Latino students are roughly two to three years of learning behind white students of the same age. This racial gap exists regardless of how it is measured, including both achievement (e.g., test score) and attainment (e.g., graduation rate) measures. Taking the average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading across the fourth and eighth grades, for example, 48 percent of blacks and 43 percent of Latinos are ‘below basic,’ while only 17 percent of whites are, and this gap exists in every state.
want to read the articles that came out this week saying that this disparity had been erased by these programs? want to read how the gap between women and men in math has closed
it certainly has. since i know 5 guys like me whith very high iqs, and a good potential future who were pushed out… that way, their performance isnt even in the accounting!!!! (that is, dump the highest iqs, and women and minority gaps seem to disappear. but when you look at it from another angle, you find out that we are so far behind that we now resemble the soviet union schools)
The teaching establishment and politicians have hoodwinked taxpayers into believing that more money is needed to improve education. The Washington, D.C., school budget is about the nation’s costliest, spending about $15,000 per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation’s average. Yet student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation.
===========
Centralization has been massive. In 1930, there were 119,000 school districts across the U.S; today, there are less than 15,000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district, to the state, and to the federal government. Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldn’t be surprised by the results.
now again.. i dont care what people choose to do with their lives…
but, i wonder if this is what all those women back then knew that this was what they were fighting for and creating?
no… not at all, because they didnt BELIEVE the truth, but wanted to be told little lies.
tell me lies tell me sweet little lies. as the song goes.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing. burke