Bad News Thread

Grace T. said:
Oh let me be clear in case I've been misunderstood. I wasn't talking about "sides". The philosophical pyramid is a pyramid of ways of looking at the world. People can be all over the place, though some, like Trump, Thatcher, Stalin, or Franco might have isms named after them if they make a large enough historical impact. I was talking about the colored glasses through which you and everyone else view the world. If you really believe in colorblindness, odds are you are a modernist. That view will dictate how you come to your conclusions or right/wrong but ultimately you are right, they are your conclusions, since outside of a handful of true believers and historical figures, no one really is just an ism.

The pyramid is centuries older than you and reflects the way western (and by that virtue, former colonial) societies have been shaped and has been evolved (Asia is a separate fascinating discussion....it has its own figure which folks have been arguing about for decades now, in part because its been tainted by the influence of western philosophies). It has its origins in the Renaissance and was given shape in the French revolution (where Jacobinism, monarchism, and liberalism definitively split into different visions of what the world should be and then even turned on each other [fighting for example over whether the otters should control the answer to the great question]). But yeah, while you are an individual and have your individual thoughts and ideas, the pyramid influences how you view your world and come to those conclusions (whether you like it or not).
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I agree that life experiences shape our thoughts and influences, be that cultures we are brought up in, or interacted with or adopted or read about etc. I'm not into philosophy, per se, or philosophers at all. So I have no context to comment on what pyramids they may have developed etc.

Generally though I see labels being thrown around constantly, driven to a large extent by the media and politicians for their own ends. So if I state an opinion, someone immediately sticks a label on me, e.g. my colorblind comment apparently means racism to some CRT proponent, which would seem to label me racist (to them) by extension ... although they may be nice and say I'm an unintentional racist. For that example, I would just think, "wtf, they've lost the plot", and carry on, bemused and not very bothered by them.
 
Grace T. said:
I'll respond the same as you did: I'm very busy right now and don't have the time to condense more than 5 centuries of western philosophical discourse into a several pages long treatise. The division is very broad and impacts things like religion, art, music and architecture as well. I posted a good summary a while back (I think from city journal) but it itself is like 40 pages long. If you a really interested, go look for it. Or, Jordan Peterson has some pretty good lectures on the stuff (I don't like it when he gets into politics, but his philosophy is pretty solid). If you were more agreeable of a person I would offer to have a long discussion on the evolution over tea some day, but frankly you are a disagreeable person who gets his jollyies over trolling, and whose breadth of thought (while it might have been formidable once) is very limited now, so no thanks. So I'll leave you with a thumbnail: various philosophies of thought which emphasize racial equity instead of equality and rooted in the belief that the world operates through systems of racial oppression having a basis in the evolution of post-modernist thought.
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I underlined the ad hominem part in case you didn't do that on purpose.

I googled the term "post modernist racial theory" and they suggested "postmodernism racial theory" for which the first resulting paragraph is

Adherents of postmodern theory argue that social catego- ries, such as gender, race, and sexuality are socially constructed and that essentialist notions of identity, which suggest that identity is static, natural, and unchanging, are theoretically wrong

Is that what you meant?
 
whatithink said:
I agree that life experiences shape our thoughts and influences, be that cultures we are brought up in, or interacted with or adopted or read about etc. I'm not into philosophy, per se, or philosophers at all. So I have no context to comment on what pyramids they may have developed etc.

Generally though I see labels being thrown around constantly, driven to a large extent by the media and politicians for their own ends. So if I state an opinion, someone immediately sticks a label on me, e.g. my colorblind comment apparently means racism to some CRT proponent, which would seem to label me racist (to them) by extension ... although they may be nice and say I'm an unintentional racist. For that example, I would just think, "wtf, they've lost the plot", and carry on, bemused and not very bothered by them.
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You used the term "CRT proponent". Who did you have in mind?
 
espola said:
I'm not sure I follow. When Tucker and his friends make an ignorant or deliberately dishonest statement about CRT, and "the left" point out the error, then "the left" is doing the same?

It's not hard to see where your sympathies lie.
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Way to crash into that barn:

1. The right seems to be making CRT (something which is a very specific philosophical difference) a general boogey man.

separately

2. The left is disingenuously saying the only thing they are trying to push is historical facts to make sure racism is talked about. That's not what's going on. Accompanying those facts is a post modernist philosophy that goes along with them. How those facts are to be interpreted

Also on a side note, this was always going to be inevitable. There are only so many hours in the classroom so the discussion of history requires making choices about what you are going to talk about: are you going to talk about western civ or are you going to devote equal time to Asian history? How much on US history v. world history? If AP Euro history why not AP Asia history? Do you talk about great people, great battles, inventions or ordinary folks (knowing if you talk about great people they are mostly rich men since these are the people who rightly or wrongly carried the most influence)? Do I devote a month to African American history (in which case, as with my son's elementary school, everyone else wants a credit too including Latino [don't even get me started on Latinx], Asian, South Asian, Persian, LGBTQ [and then every one of the sub letters], women and those with disabilities)? The philosophies themselves (traditionalism, modernism, postmodernism), representing different ways to view the world, will affect what topics we choose to focus on, how we portray them (since all stories have heroes and villains) and what philosophy we push along side of it. Given the split in the philosophies, the current clash was always inevitable. Even putting a flag on a truck on the 4th of July is now controversial: is it a hostile act in support of Trumpism and repression, is it a showing a patriotism in a nation with an imperfect history but that represents still the pinnacle of democracy, is it a proud act of support for one's country, which should come first and foremost before anything except some exceptions like God.
 
espola said:
I underlined the ad hominem part in case you didn't do that on purpose.

I googled the term "post modernist racial theory" and they suggested "postmodernism racial theory" for which the first resulting paragraph is

Adherents of postmodern theory argue that social catego- ries, such as gender, race, and sexuality are socially constructed and that essentialist notions of identity, which suggest that identity is static, natural, and unchanging, are theoretically wrong

Is that what you meant?
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I don't know where you got it from. I could only outline my understanding, which for the same reasons you stated, I decline to do today.

I wasn't engaging in an ad in an attempt to win an argument. I was merely stating a fact....this is a conversation which is better held face to face (or in the classroom), if you weren't a disagreeable person I would have loved to have pursued it with you as philosophy (as opposed to politics which I can't stand) is one of my prides and joys, but you are a disagreeable person which means I don't want to, and in any case I'm not sure you have the capacity right now to carry on such a conversation (for which despite our disagreements and name callings, you do, as a human being, have my sympathies).
 
I don't know where you got it from. I could only outline my understanding, which for the same reasons you stated, I decline to do today.

I wasn't engaging in an ad in an attempt to win an argument. I was merely stating a fact....this is a conversation which is better held face to face (or in the classroom), if you weren't a disagreeable person I would have loved to have pursued it with you as philosophy (as opposed to politics which I can't stand) is one of my prides and joys, but you are a disagreeable person which means I don't want to, and in any case I'm not sure you have the capacity right now to carry on such a conversation (for which despite our disagreements and name callings, you do, as a human being, have my sympathies).
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I only disagree with you when you are wrong. Most of my responses to your posts are simply attempts to clarify what you mean, which for some reason you feel merit an insult as a response. You can call me all the names you like when you don't have a ready answer. That says more about you than it does about me.
 
espola said:
I don't know where you got it from. I could only outline my understanding, which for the same reasons you stated, I decline to do today.

I wasn't engaging in an ad in an attempt to win an argument. I was merely stating a fact....this is a conversation which is better held face to face (or in the classroom), if you weren't a disagreeable person I would have loved to have pursued it with you as philosophy (as opposed to politics which I can't stand) is one of my prides and joys, but you are a disagreeable person which means I don't want to, and in any case I'm not sure you have the capacity right now to carry on such a conversation (for which despite our disagreements and name callings, you do, as a human being, have my sympathies).
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I only disagree with you when you are wrong. Most of my responses to your posts are simply attempts to clarify what you mean, which for some reason you feel merit an insult as a response. You can call me all the names you like when you don't have a ready answer. That says more about you than it does about me.
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The problem with your schtick is you disagree without adding anything meaningful in return or taking a position yourself. To say you are trying to clarify is laughable since what you are doing is trying to pull the conversation down tangents so you can troll. It’s why you focus on odd little branches instead of the main line of thought.

As for the names you are the one throwing around the coocoos and nonsense. You are a disagreeable person and I just throw it back at you.
 
Grace T. said:
The problem with your schtick is you disagree without adding anything meaningful in return or taking a position yourself. To say you are trying to clarify is laughable since what you are doing is trying to pull the conversation down tangents so you can troll. It’s why you focus on odd little branches instead of the main line of thought.

As for the names you are the one throwing around the coocoos and nonsense. You are a disagreeable person and I just throw it back at you.
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You are just adding evidence to my theory about the emptiness of your posts.
 
Little by little, common sense is making its return.

Singapore has announced that it will stop counting COVID "cases," and focus entirely on outcomes -- which is what we should have been doing from the start.

We're still tracking them in the U.S., though, and you may have heard that the 7-day case average increased by 25 percent between June 28 and July 11. But the 7-day average of hospitalizations is up just 6.5 percent.

Kyle Lamb provides context for these numbers: across these same dates in 2020, cases rose 41% and hospitalizations (using COVID Tracking Project state census numbers) rose 59%.

Now, instead of 41% and 59%, it's 25% and 6.5%.

In the UK we likewise see a decoupling of cases from deaths
 
Grace T. said:
I haven't seen what Tucker Carlson said about CRT. Again, its not a topic that interests me. CRT has a very defined and limited explanation. What seems to be going on though is the right is labelling every racial theory as "CRT" in an attempt to create a boogeyman, even though such racial theory may not technically be CRT. But the left is doing the same and saying "oh we aren't pushing CRT....CRT is this very specific thing...we just want to make sure history talks about racism", which is a disingenuous shell game since they aren't just pushing facts about historical racism but very specific philosophies (there's more than 1 at play here but they are all related) related to how to view the world through a post-modernist framework.
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You seem to be confusing a reaction to a agenda pushing effort to an agenda. IMHO
 
Hüsker Dü said:
You seem to be confusing a reaction to a agenda pushing effort to an agenda. IMHO
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No…the left has an agenda too. It may not be “crt” (don’t care what you label it) but there is an ideology or ism behind this effort on the left to update the curriculum. In fact I’m sure the right would say they are just reacting to the lefts efforts to push an agenda. When a perspective depends on your partisan bias it’s time to check that bias.

Only you would believe that only one side of this has an agenda and it isn’t yours.
 
Interesting paper. Being forced to work in person, or high density living situations were the key drivers of the pandemic (notwithstanding that they lay this partially on "systemic racism", presumably because people of color had to work and lived in worse housing than the white people in big housing with remote work).

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org science.sciencemag.org
 
Grace T. said:
No…the left has an agenda too. It may not be “crt” (don’t care what you label it) but there is an ideology or ism behind this effort on the left to update the curriculum. In fact I’m sure the right would say they are just reacting to the lefts efforts to push an agenda. When a perspective depends on your partisan bias it’s time to check that bias.

Only you would believe that only one side of this has an agenda and it isn’t yours.
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My exposure to this has been through news stories about organized groups attending local school board meetings demanding that CRT be removed from local schools. When the board and superintendent respond that there is no such content, nor any plans for any such content, that doesn't seem to satisfy them. Now we are hearing from more conscientious debaters like Grace that there are plans to introduce it into the curriculum real soon now, as if that justifies the original hysteria.
 
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