Right and Left Explained in 5 Minutes

Right: Does it do good?  Left: Does it feel good?

This seems about right, at least as far as pithy explanations go.  It's certainly true that the left tends more towards subjectivism about value.

These fundamental stances explain the outrage and cries of racism directed towards Justice Scalia for noting a fact--that a lot of blacks flunked out of school due to affirmative action policies--and that they might be better off going to a lower tier school and passing.  (Of course, as Scalia himself noted, this question only applies to those blacks (etc.) admitted with lower qualifications.)  In short, he asked whether those policies actually do good.  Simply asking that question is impermissible.  Why?  Those questions might make some people feel bad.  This is essentially the objection that a panel on NPR reached the other day.

Obama's Grammy Award Winning Lies

Obama is a demonstrable liar.  To lie is to assert something as true which one believes to be false with the intention to deceive.  Obama has no qualms about lying.  And yet what we still continue to hear is the "Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction" moral-equivalence-meme which I have never once seen an argument come close to demonstrating as true.  

Here is Obama, at it again at the Grammys:

"Nearly one in five American women are the victims of rape or attempted rape."  20% of American women have been the victims of attempted rape. That is demonstrably false (as is the claim that one in five females in college have been the victims of rape).  No one in his right mind should believe it and yet here is our President on national TV disrespecting the nation with callous falsehoods. The President is not so stupid as to believe it.  As we're reminded anytime the President brazenly violates the Constitution, "he is a Constitutional lawyer."  He lies.  His ends justify his means.

Here is a good example of why affirmative action undermines its own goals.  According to many, we need affirmative action because blacks (etc.) need role models who look like them in positions of power and authority.  So it's OK to overlook certain qualifications to get people into those positions since the end justifies the mean.  Numerous Americans (whites, blacks, etc.) overlooked Obama's qualifications and voted for him because he is black.  And now we have the role-model-in-Chief, a serial liar.

Leftist University Silliness: A Grad Student Testimonial

A grad student teaching a university writing class writes in with the following:

I'm sitting in the writing program's yearly (dis)orientation seminar (which is a waste of my time). But anyway, I'm currently sitting listening to the Title IX and disability people. They asked us to define "disability." The table of philosophers I'm sitting with basically did a collective eye roll.

So, how do the disability office people define disability?

 "We define disability as difference, not so much disadvantage. It is people who do things differently." 

Ya got that?  If you are blind you're not disabled or at a disadvantage, you're just different!  You're differently-abled.  Lose your eyesight? You can play basketball with echolocation!  In fact, the Title IX office has a team sign-up roster online for an all echolocation league!  Did you get your nose and legs cut off like the guy in Looper?  No problem!  We're all equal, just different! Here at Lefty-U., you see, we're diversity maximalists.  We take all comers, even people who are brain dead!  After all, brain dead people are people too!

Just make sure not to a bring a dictionary with you to school.  DICtionaries--as one can plainly see--are patriarchal tools for enslaving the mind into thinking that words have meanings and that some words do not have those meanings; they belie the hegemonic, Western, Colonial, cold, dualistic logic of the either-or rather than the nurturing, Eastern logic of the both-and.  So leave your dictionary at home and come hear what we think!...(that is, unless you're deaf).

Some Questions About White Privilege

The Maverick Philosopher:

There is a lot of talk these days about white privilege.  I don't believe I have discussed this topic before. 

1. White privilege is presumably a type of privilege.  What is a privilege?  This is the logically prior question. To know what white privilege is we must first know what privilege is.  Let's consider some definitions.

D1.  A privilege is a special  entitlement or immunity granted to a particular person or group of persons by the government or some other corporate entity such as a university or a church on a conditional basis.

Driving on public roads is a privilege by this definition.  It is not a right one has  just in virtue of being a human being or a citizen.  It is a privilege the state grants on condition that one satisfy and continue to satisfy certain requirements pertaining to age, eyesight, driving skill, etc.  Being a privilege, the license to drive can be revoked.  By contrast, the right to life and the right to free speech are neither conditional nor granted by the government.  They can't be revoked.  Please don't confuse a constitutionally protected right such as the right to free speech with a right granted by the government. 

Faculty members have various privileges, a franking privilege, a library privilege, along with such perquisites as an office, a carrel, secretarial help, access to an an exclusive dining facility, etc.  Immunities are also privileges, e.g., the immunity to prosecution granted  to a miscreant who agrees to inform on his cohorts.

Now if (D1) captures what we mean by 'privilege,' then it it is hard to see how there could be white privilege.    Are there certain special entitlements and immunities that all and only whites have in virtue of being white, entitlements and immunities granted on a conditional basis by the government and revocable by said government?  No.  But there is black privilege by (D1).  It is called affirmative action. 

So if we adopt (D1) we get the curious result that there is no white privilege, but there is black privilege!  Those who speak of white privilege as of something real and something to be aware of and opposed must therefore have a different definition of privilege in mind, perhaps the following:

D2. A privilege is any unearned benefit or advantage that only some people have in virtue of their identity.  It needn't be granted by any corporate entity, nor need it be conditional.  Aspects of identity that can afford privilege in this sense include race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, wealth, ability, or citizenship status.

People who speak of white privilege probably have something like (D2) in mind.  The idea is that there are certain unearned advantages that accrue to whites just in virtue of their race, advantages that do not accrue to members of other races.

One question arises right here.  What justifies the broadening of the term 'privilege' to cover any unearned benefit?  If the term is used strictly, there is no white privilege.  To speak of white privlege one has to engage in a semantic stretch.  What justifies this stretch?  Is it a legitimate stretch or a example of linguistic distortion?  And what is the agenda behind it? 

Affirmative Action and Cuban Communist Utopia

Heather Mac Donald has a nice write-up on the recent Michigan affirmative action case.  Here is an excerpt:

Justice Kennedy, writing the controlling plurality opinion (joined by Justices Roberts and Alito), noticed something in the political-process doctrine that is even more lethal to the Court’s preference jurisprudence. By requiring courts to determine whether a policy is a “racial issue,” the doctrine makes courts stereotype minorities, Kennedy wrote. The “racial issue” test presumes that all minorities share the same interests and same points of view, he said. But “it cannot be entertained as a serious proposition that all individuals of the same race think alike.”

Uh-oh. There goes the diversity rationale down the drain.
According to the Supreme Court, the only reason why schools should be allowed to discriminate against more academically qualified applicants in favor of less qualified black and Hispanic applicants is that those “underrepresented” minorities will bring otherwise missing perspectives to the classroom and cafeteria. But if each individual is in fact sui generis, then there is no reason to believe that selection by skin color will lead to a non-random introduction of additional viewpoints. The next case to challenge racial preferences should quote Kennedy’s words back to him as the death knell for the “diversity” conceit.

Also at City Journal, Michael Totten writes about his recent visit to Cuba:

Leftists often talk about “food deserts” in Western cities, where the poor supposedly lack options to buy affordable and nutritious food. If they want to see a real food desert, they should come to Havana. I went to a grocery store across the street from the exclusive Meliá Cohiba Hotel, where the lucky few with access to hard currency shop to supplement their meager state rations. The store was in what passes for a mall in Havana—a cluttered concrete box, shabby compared even with malls I’ve visited in Iraq. It carried rice, beans, frozen chicken, milk, bottled water, booze, a small bit of cheese, minuscule amounts of rancid-looking meat, some low-end cookies and chips from Brazil—and that’s it. No produce, cereal, no cans of soup, no pasta. A 7–11 has a far better selection, and this is a place for Cuba’s “rich” to shop. I heard, but cannot confirm, that potatoes would not be available anywhere in Cuba for another four months.

Michigan Civil Rights Initiative and the Supreme Court

Which amendment would you prefer regarding institutions funded by tax dollars:

1. Any public college or university, community college, or school district SHALL NOT discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

or

2. Any public college or university, community college, or school district CAN discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Hopefully you chose the first, if so, then you chose the Michigan amendment that the Supreme Court just upheld in a 6-2 vote as not violating the Constitution.  Sotomayor and Ginsburg were the only two opposed to civil rights and apparently the only two who can't read the Constitution.  Justice Breyer, in a rare fit of common sense, was able to see the light of day.

Among other things, it's a victory for black self-esteem.  At least in Michigan, when blacks graduate from college they'll know that liberals won't be able to pat themselves on the back and take the credit for it.

Affirmative Action for the Ugly

Over the weekend I listened to a Freakonomic podcast interview of Texas economist David Hamermesh on the economic downsides of being ugly:
http://freakonomics.com/2014/01/30/reasons-to-not-be-ugly-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

(At Aeon magazine Princeton philosopher Jonny Thakkar has also just written on the issue:
Are Ugly People Oppressed?)

Common sense says that the uglier you are, the less advantages you'll be afforded, and the data seems to bear that out.  According to Hamermesh, good looking NFL quarterbacks, for instance, make roughly $300,000 more simply by being better looking.  Facial symmetry, which can be measured by a computer, goes a long way in most people's minds (though the data doesn't explain everything, including why I'm not making six figures).

Hamermesh, though, when questioned about whether there should be affirmative action for the ugly said, no way.  He's for it when it comes to women, race, and the usual politically motivated suspects but not when it comes to the unprepossessing, unappealing, or downright unsightly.  But why not? He didn't have an answer, except to say that resources are limited and that he didn't think the finite resources should be expended on the ugly.

Perhaps we should conclude, then, that Hamermesh is simply a cold-hearted ugliist.   With no reason not to include the ugly in the Affirmative Action portfolio, Hamermesh might be thought himself to have an irrational bias against the ugly in favor of these other political groups--a blatant form of ugliism at its worst, though perhaps his bias is the result of hegemonic structures of ugliization in society rather than willful hatred on his part.

For (if folks like Hamermesh are right) the data is clear that there is a strong bias against the ugly in favor of the beautiful from birth onward.  The data is far stronger than, for example, discrimination against females.  Given how well girls do in school compared to boys and how many more women are getting college degrees than men, it's arguable that the reverse is now true.  YES, there is the "pay gap," (which news outlets like NPR remind us about weekly) but I've seen no compelling evidence that anything but a small fraction of that gap is the result of unjust discrimination by employers.  Two of the biggest factors I've seen mentioned are (a) taking time off for children and (b) not being aggressive enough in contract negotiations.  At any rate it seems clear that the ugly are at least as discriminated against as women (and it seems to me much more likely that they are more discriminated against).  So why not have Affirmative Action for the ugly?  There is a huge demographic--from a historically downtrodden class--out there to be politically exploited (though if the "Fox News babes" are any indication, I think I know which political contingency will do the exploiting)!

Basically all you'd need as far as practicality goes would be a photograph and the right software.  (Perhaps the smelly will feel left out, but why should we care? It's tautologous that the smelly smell).  Nobody would need to know if you beat out the competition because of your hairy moles or your eyebrows that remind everyone of Al Lewis:

And isn't it a matter of justice that we start seeing job applications with advertisements like the following:

 Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer Statement

The College of _________is an independent college of the liberal arts and sciences with a commitment to excellence in undergraduate education. The College values diversity, strives to attract qualified women, minority candidates, and the grossly deformed and encourages individuals belonging to these groups to apply. _________ seeks to ensure diversity by its policy of employing persons without regard to age, sex, color, race, overbite, snub-nose, nose hair, scars, goiters, creed, religion, national origin, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or political affiliation. (Transsexual-Ninety year old-Native American- Muslim-Democrat-Retired Coast Guard Commanders who are Endangered Dolphins with bad smiles (due to over fishing) are especially encouraged to apply).