WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
Cancer deaths, quotations: Long ago and far away, we advanced a major pronouncement:
It's all anthropology now!
By that, we basically meant that the die has been cast. It's all over but the shouting. That's pretty much what we meant,
We meant that it's much too late to expect a good outcome to our ongoing national nightmare. The best we can do is review the hard-wired human shortcomings which have us in this mess.
Like love, anthropology hurts! That's even true on the level of high-end mainstream journalism. Consider two current examples:
The rise in worldwide cancer deaths:
This first example comes from this post by Kevin Drum. Drum cites a report in The Guardian which state that worldwide cancer deaths among adults who are under 50 have risen by 27% since 1990.
That sounds like a piece of terrible news, and that's how The Guardian plays it.
Sighing audibly, Drum notes that the report in question fails to note an essential fact—the world's population has grown by roughly 50% over that same stretch of time. "That puts a wee bit different spin on this," Drum drily notes.
Death rates are down, but so what—deaths are up! So works the rational animal.
The text of the Stop WOKE Act:
This second example comes from this report in The Atlantic. Adam Serwer offers this account of Florida's Stop WOKE Act:
SERWER (9/5/23): ...[Governor Ron] DeSantis has spent much of his time in office cracking down on “wokeness,” to the delight of his conservative fans. The state has passed laws censoring classroom instruction that might lead students to conclude that racial discrimination, against Black Americans in particular, persists into the present, even as it engages in such discrimination in broad daylight.
One of those laws is the Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits any instruction that, as the Miami Herald reported, “could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin.”...
What does the Stop WOKE Act say or do? Instead of quoting the actual text of the actual law, Serwer quotes the Miami Herald's account of what the law says and does—an account which may perhaps seem to be inaccurate.
On its face, this is peculiar journalism. Serwer offers a link to a Miami Herald report, but he never offers a link to the actual text of the Stop WOKE Act itself.
In fairness to Serwer, the authors of that Herald report didn't link to the text of the law either. They offered their own account of what the law said and they let it go at that.
We now ask the obvious question:
Is it true? Does the infamous Stop WOKE Act actually prohibit any instruction which “could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin?"
For reasons we've discussed in the past, it's a little bit hard to say. We've never been able to find a clean, proofread version of the famous law's actual text in our lengthy online searches.
That said, clicking through additional links from that Herald report, we ended up at this version of the law. And no, that version of the law doesn't seem to say what the Herald, and now Serwer, have said that it says.
The Stop WOKE Act doesn't prohibit any instruction which “could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin?" You can check that out for yourself, but we've learned one thing in the past quarter century:
It's pointless to offer explanations about a matter like this. At any particular point in time, we rational animals want to believe certain things, and we simply won't be shown that we might be wrong.
Once we've said it, it's true forever! It's just how we animals act.
What does the Stop WOKE Act actually say? Due to the way we rational animals work, major journalists have never complained about the apparent lack of a finished online text. We prefer to work from our own accounts of whatever it is that we want to say that the infamous law must have said.
Also, cancer deaths have gone up! So has the size of our daft human race, but why should we bother with that?
Base rate fallacy rears its head again.
ReplyDeleteExactly, covered this the other day.
DeleteSomerby thinks love hurts and that anthropology means the die has been cast.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what can you say about someone this ignorant and incoherent.
Nurse, at this point just up the morphine.
For the trolls confused about why we defend Ukraine, this covers the issue well:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/017WGzJ5fHA?si=WrCYGtcRkCMWS_05
DeSantis should publish his laws.
ReplyDeleteI’m uncomfortable about many historical events.
ReplyDeleteAs you should be.
DeleteHey, we’re having a serious discussion here.
DeleteFirst link brought up in a Google search:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/148/BillText/Filed/HTML
Here is the problematic section:
Delete(3) The Legislature acknowledges the fundamental truth that
280 all individuals are equal before the law and have inalienable
281 rights. Accordingly, instruction on the topics enumerated in
282 this section and supporting materials must be consistent with
283 the following principles of individual freedom:
284 (a) No individual is inherently racist, sexist, or
285 oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by
286 virtue of his or her race or sex.
287 (b) No race is inherently superior to another race.
288 (c) No individual should be discriminated against or
289 receive adverse treatment solely or partly on the basis of race,
290 color, national origin, religion, disability, or sex.
291 (d) Meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are not
292 racist but fundamental to the right to pursue happiness and be
293 rewarded for industry.
294 (e) An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex,
295 does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past
296 by other members of the same race or sex.
297 (f) An individual should not be made to feel discomfort,
298 guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on
299 account of his or her race.
Right there in subsection (f): an individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.
DeleteYou can't make it any clearer than that! Not only should black people and other minorities not be made to feel uncomfortable; no, white people are also "individuals " who should not be made to feel uncomfortable under this law!
Thanks very much @5:19. Are there any of these provisions that @4:10 or anyone else here would dare object to?
DeleteI feel a kinship with Adam Serwer, because in High School I was in a singing group with his uncle Drew Days, a former Solicitor General. My sister is a close friend with Adam's parents Danny Serwer and Jackie Days. Nevertheless, Adam Serwer blew it by failing to check the actual law.
And right above that, in subsection (e): an individual...does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past! So white Southerners should bear no responsibility for slavery or Jim Crow or any of the discrimination that continues to occur to this very day; that's all in the past! Bygones! (Also, Seminoles, your land was stolen and your people and culture murdered in the past! Sorry, but that was then and this is now!)
DeleteHow about subsection (d): meritocracy and a "hard work ethic" are not racist but "fundamental to the right to pursue happiness and be rewarded for industry." Left unspoken is how that "meritocracy" is defined, and what constitutes a "hard work ethic" and more importantly a lack thereof. Because it is widely understood that black people are lazy, shiftless, prone to criminality, in ways that white people due to their Protestant work ethic and meritocracy mindset simply are not. It isn't racist, it's just a known fact! Every white Southerner knows this , has it repeatedly drummed into them from birth!
DeleteWoke is smoke.
DeleteSo yes, there are a number of provisions in this law that I would take issue with, and the summary by the Herald appears to accurately portray the provisions of this law. It is a typical bait and switch, a sham, an attempt to erase (whitewash, if you will) history by making it illegal to teach anything politically controversial that might make any individual, black or white, feel uncomfortable about their position in life.
DeleteYou're so important and smart. More so than most.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:40pm, what it means is that those principles aren’t biased, prejudiced, or “white” simply because they have been revered (or merely given lip service) by the majority ethnic group.
DeleteThese principles may need to be broadened as to their representations, they should not be redefined or held in contempt.
Cecilia, what I mean is that concepts such as "meritocracy" and a "hard work ethic" are clubs used to beat down minorities and excuse discrimination. "Meritocracy" as a concept is fine, who could object to conditioning advancement on merit, in the abstract? But that's the thing, "merit" depends on many factors, and those factors are often opaque, obscure. Who determines what constitutes "merit," what are their criteria? And are the criteria actually what they say they are? Or are there other, unspoken "criteria" that black people, say, just happen to fall short of?
DeleteWe can only guess!
David, why are Zionists, some of whose ancestors may have been driven out of Palestine many centuries ago, allowed to dispossess the Palestinians of today?
DeleteAnonymouse 6:10pm, the definition of merit is not obscure. People are nuanced enough to know the difference between boot-strap advancement and advancement prefaced upon work accomplished under favorable conditions.
DeleteThe problem lies with the extent that we can address or remedy such factors without turning this basic principle on its head
Cecilia, your definition of merit may not be obscure to you. I assure you that other people's definitions will often disagree with yours, and application of those definitions is often arbitrary and capricious. The devil is in the details.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:43pm, the devil is always and obviously in the details and in the uncommon circumstances.
DeleteThat’s reason enough to approach changes with optimism and with caution.
When you start a race with a headstart, as all White people do, all relatively well-off people do, etc., meritocracy becomes a toxic notion.
DeleteEven Somerby gets this when he talks about how Black kids start school with a major deficit relative to White kids.
This isn’t something new, it’s been studied, researched, and in the discourse for decades; it’s a simple and straightforward concept but when dominance is supreme in your values, you don’t have the tools to properly and appropriately have a reasonable, rational conceptual understanding of it.
Oh, no, I could never fathom being poor, handicapped, destitute, hated, persecuted, disadvantaged, and abandoned.
DeleteNo one who varies with you could.
Your incoherency aside, think of the phrase “all things being equal”. Duh.
DeleteFurthermore, all the metrics demonstrate that, what I’m guessing your notion is, is false.
The notions I’m expressing are evidenced based, there’s no need to get angry about it, just read and learn more stuff.
“This isn’t something new, it’s been studied, researched, and in the discourse for decades; it’s a simple and straightforward concept but when dominance is supreme in your values, you don’t have the tools to properly and appropriately have a reasonable, rational conceptual understanding of it.”
DeleteYou’re personal statements such as this aren’t formulated from reason or evidence.
They’re cant.
It's true Cissy. That quote says and means nothing. "dominance is supreme in your values" is subjective and abstruse. 7:24 please restate it a straightforward way, free of buzzwords and jargon.
DeletePrivilege gives one unearned advantages and benefits that can then blind one to the myth of meritocracy.
DeleteFurthermore, right wingers are particularly vulnerable to delusions about privilege and meritocracy due to traits related to a predisposition and preoccupation with hierarchy and dominance.
One can start reading Du Bois, and go all the way to Somerby’s favorite contemporary psychiatrist Dr Bandy Lee; the subject has been studied, researched, and in the discourse for decades.
What Cecelia calls “cant” is actually social science. This is why conservatives want to cleanse the schools — so they can go on labeling the stuff they don’t like “cant.”
DeleteCecelia most likelydoesn’t know what that word means. It doesn’t mean false.
Why doesn’t she look words up?
DeleteThat would be too much like school and she might accidentally get educated.
Delete"based on merit"
DeleteUp the Estate Tax rate to 100%, if you want a society based on merit.
Let your lazy, good-for-nothing, free-loading, deadbeat kids get a job, like I did.
Anonymouse geniuses, you are the consummate endorsers of arguments that poo-poo some institutional ethic by arguing that it doesn’t truly exist.
DeleteCarry on.
Pooh-pooh, not poo-poo. Cecelia!
DeleteCecelia, if and when you provide a coherent, reasonable and rational counter argument, I’m happy to respond (debunk); however, as you typically do, when the response is “oh yeah, well nah”, all you’ve done is expose your ignorance and made yourself irrelevant.
DeleteThis site is also interesting and relevant to the topic of Florida law:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=1000-1099/1003/Sections/1003.42.html
Subsection (2)(h) starts off with a long statement on how Florida schools should teach "The history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the history and contributions of Americans of the African diaspora to society. Students shall develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms, and examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purpose of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions." Pretty unobjectionable stuff! But later on, after this almost unreadable Gish gallop of banalities, there's this little gem:
Delete"However, classroom instruction and curriculum may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles enumerated in subsection (3) or the state academic standards." And what is subsection (3)? Why, it's none other than that section discussed above, wherein it says "An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race." So go ahead and teach the history of African Americans in the New World.. just make sure to omit anything that might make white people feel "discomfort" or "distress"!
The Florida act affects higher education as well as K-12, and is a law that mandates certain concepts and prohibits certain concepts. It is clearly a violation of academic freedom, the kind of thing an authoritarian bully and his compliant legislature would do in order to enforce an ideological agenda.
ReplyDeleteThe law was placed on hold by a judge who called it vague and dystopian.
It’s convenient that after 300 years of being made to feel guilty and subhuman, black people are finally being told that that is wrong (!), just as they are attempting to assert themselves intellectually and practically into American society and reclaim the history and the narrative that was ripped away from them by … um, “others”, who must not be made to feel uncomfortable confronting that past.
Somerby, always taking the side of the authoritarian.
Looks like an inflection point may have started.
ReplyDeleteBiden now up + 0.9, up from +0.7 in the last couple days, and a poll that typically favors Trump, now has Biden +3.
Those indictments are starting to hurt Trump, and Biden’s Bidenomics pr push is starting to yield results.
Interestingly, comes at the same time Ukraine’s counteroffensive is starting to push through Russia’s defenses, recently taking back a town and then “wiping out” (killing) the entire Russian counterattack. Oof. War is brutal, let’s hope Ukraine can end this soon.
Wishful thinking.
DeleteUnfortunately, Ukraine can not and will not end this soon.
DeletePessimism is so inspiring!
DeleteIt's being a realist. Very sad if the people to whom you turn to for your diet of information would have you believe that it's even possible.
Delete