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posted by CoolHand on Monday August 29 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-takes-all-kinds dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.

O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.

"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"

To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:07AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:07AM (#395067) Journal

    It is an economic theory, just as testable as any and all economic theories.

    Except of course, when it's not. Labor theory of value is pretty notorious for begging the question. Just about everything has some labor attached to it, so it's trivial to claim that the value of everything came purely from the labor. Nothing to test there.

    Then there's the gobbledygook such as "commodity fetishism" which is a derogatory way to describe the market interface (which among other things, separates buyers from irrelevant details like having to consider the labor value of goods they purchase via a market). Putting emotional labels on things isn't a sign of a scientific theory.

    The asymptotic march of humanity to a state of pure communism is a fantasy based on ignoring both human nature and various forces in society (which are merely asserted to wither away). This asymptotic stuff is also a great way to deliver unfalsifiable stuff. If you don't measure certain events happening (like the withering away of the state), it's merely because it hasn't happened yet.

    What part of Dialectical Materialism did you not understand?

    What does dialectical materialism have to do with Marxism? Any economic theory can be expressed in terms of the philosophy. It's just a language for describing dynamical systems. And it's a bad choice at that due to the clunky, cultish jargon, unquantifiable nature, and ignoring key principles like relativity or conservation of material invariants.

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  • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:16PM

    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:16PM (#395397)

    It's interesting, because the labor theory of value really is a very capitalist idea. After all, what claim do you have to the land your home is on? Usually it traces back through voluntary exchanges to the guy who got the land in return for investing labor in improving it. If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM (#395404) Journal

      If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?

      Because creation of such ownership rights enables better and more responsible use of land or good. It's not about having an ultimate reason (which can be blatantly ignored), but a sensible way to structure a society's economy.

      For an extreme example, Russia is on the second or third cycle of oligarch ownership of former Soviet assets. There is no way that such ownership has anything to do with valid property rights. It was stolen from a thief. But if modern Russia were to nail down the laws concerning such things, then it would greatly improve economic conditions since the oligarchs would now have a choice other than "ruthlessly exploit your asset before you lose it". Obviously, a fairer distribution of such assets would be far better, but my point is that even in the complete absence of fairness, we still have a better outcome than the present iterative theft of assets from the prior generation of thieves since things aren't truly owned and hence, the parties which control such assets have a weakened interest in improving (or at least not diminishing) the value of such assets.

      • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:14PM

        by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:14PM (#395416)

        Because creation of such ownership rights enables better and more responsible use of land or good. It's not about having an ultimate reason (which can be blatantly ignored), but a sensible way to structure a society's economy.

        So you're fine with wealth redistribution?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:54AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:54AM (#395551) Journal

          So you're fine with wealth redistribution?

          Depends on the method. Voluntary trade is just fine. Taking stuff from other people and delivering it to your cronies is not.

          • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:40PM

            by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:40PM (#395791)

            Taking stuff from other people and delivering it to your cronies is not.

            Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @07:29PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 31 2016, @07:29PM (#395816) Journal

              Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).

              Because we haven't actually agreed as demonstrated with the next "reorganization". When the balance of power shifts, who owns what gets shuffled around again. It doesn't take morality to realize that cooperative behavior which has some degree of long term planning and long term stability to it, is more effective. Ownership which survives the vagaries of political whims is one way to generate a considerable degree of long term cooperative behavior.

              • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:55PM

                by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:55PM (#395854)

                Granted. That's why I shall propose a one-time only reset, to address wealth inequality. I bet I could get a super majority to vote for it. So, would that be okay? Maybe as a constitutional amendment that says that such an action may be initiated one time?

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:14PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:14PM (#396233) Journal
                  Depends how many one-time resets it turns out to be. It started in Russia as a one-time reset of Soviet assets and went from there. Further, what's the basis of this reset and why won't these conditions repeat in a few years or months even? For example, if you're resetting because people are poor, then it won't be long before they're poor again, duplicating the conditions of the original reset.
                  • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @02:20AM

                    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Friday September 09 2016, @02:20AM (#399461)

                    Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much. Can you imagine what it would do to the pharmaceutical prices if they knew raising the price of drugs by 700x overnight would likely result in confiscation of the factory/IP?

                    You're right that chaos is bad for the economy, and it would be necessary to teach people that such power must be used super-rarely, but I see no reason why a nuclear-option like check would be horrible.

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @02:58AM

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 09 2016, @02:58AM (#399473) Journal

                      Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much.

                      Or it could encourage concentration of wealth via demagoguery which I think has already happened in Russia. Personally, I don't see the point of making a permanent failure mode because of a temporary wealth concentration. A society with economic mobility is preferable to repeated seizure of wealth without addressing the causes of the wealth inequalities that create the pretext for the seizures.

                      • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @06:06PM

                        by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Friday September 09 2016, @06:06PM (#399733)

                        ociety with economic mobility is preferable to repeated seizure of wealth without addressing the causes of the wealth inequalities that create the pretext for the seizures.

                        Hey, I think you're right. I just don't know how possible addressing the underlying causes is. Also, I don't know if mobility is terribly important. I don't really care who the richest 1% are, so much as if they control 99% of the wealth or 5% of the wealth.

                        But I tend to think that most "underlying causes" deal with more regular confiscation/taxes. The primary ways I can think of off the top of my head to prevent wealth inequalities are: higher capital gains taxes, financial transaction taxes, property taxes, estate taxes, more progressive income taxes. Oh, and regulations of various sorts.

                        That said, I think the idea of a nuclear option in the hands of the majority helps bring those changes into effect. Russia is not so much a democracy under demagoguery as under the control of a strongman. So it seems a bad choice. France or Sweden seem to be far more democratic, and able to achieve things. Or look at Iceland's recent (post-2009) government control over various economic levers.

                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @07:11PM

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 09 2016, @07:11PM (#399753) Journal
                          Incidentally, another example of confiscatory regimes is Zimbabwe. They might have improved their wealth inequality (particularly on ethnic grounds), but at the expense of making everyone still in the country vastly poorer and put into place a bunch of policies that might make them one of the last countries to achieve developed world status.