What, exactly, is CRT?

[Bomb#20]

To say "the bold-faced conclusion is false" amounts to an assertion that there exists a non-communist economic system that can avoid socioeconomic inertia.

No, it is an assertion that Communism will not achieve what you claim.

Oh is that what you meant? Sorry to misunderstand then. I probably should have phrased it as "No noncommunist economic system can avoid socioeconomic inertia.", and left it agnostic as to whether Communism could. The central finding of my argument is unaffected: CRT (as Jarhyn explained it) implies we have to do away with the link between what you do for others and what others do for you; and as far as I can see it's only Communism that proposes to break that link.

In any event, I made no claim about what Communism will achieve, only about what it can achieve. As far as I can see, all the sources of socioeconomic inertia go away in a society that practices "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Being able to rely on your parents giving you stuff goes away when nobody has anything because somebody gave it to him, but only because the authorities decide he needs it. Nobody gets a loan somebody else has no access to when there are no loans, no money, and nothing going to somebody because he lent it rather than because he needs it. Being better educated than others because your parents are from a culture that values education doesn't get you a better socioeconomic outcome than anyone else, because it doesn't change what you need. And so forth down the list. If you have reason to think Communism can't eliminate economic inertia, what intrinsic obstacle do you see?

That's not to say that it will eliminate it. As we've seen from the actual societies that those preaching Communism have set up, they tended to have Party commissars who used their power over resource distribution to give favorable treatment to their own children. But that sort of corruption doesn't appear to be an essential intrinsic feature of Communism per se; it's just a disease of human power relations that Communism turned out to be no better at suppressing than other systems. It could in principle be prevented in some hypothetical future Communist society, for example by requiring people to agree to undergo sterilization in order to get put in authority over deciding everyone's abilities and needs.

 

[Swammerdami]

I do not have time to follow this long discussion, but my attention was directed to the following post.

One especially pernicious component of systemic racism in the U.S. is unequal treatment by the justice system, most blatantly by police. Many black children are being raised without a father because that father is incarcerated or otherwise hindered by law enforcement due to his race. No objective observer will dispute this.

Read the following post about "reciprocity" and assume that we speak of black children who are hindered NOT because their father isn't rich but because he is incarcerated due to race-biased policing. With that image of systemic racism in mind, does the following post seem relevant?

... So apparently it is possible to remove the "systemic racism". It's possible to remove the ignorant apathetic practice that perpetuates divisions largely on boundary lines created by slavery and is a systemic barrier to the economic mobility of communities with few resources and few inlets for said resources.

And that practice is, in a word, reciprocity. What ignorant apathetic people generally do when they get on with their lives instead of making CRT's goals their top priority is they do stuff for somebody who does stuff for them in return. Parents help out their child because the family relationship lets their child provide them with emotional well-being they wouldn't get from a stranger. Bankers lend for good investments but not poor investments because the appreciation of the investment insures that the borrower will be able to pay back the loan with interest. People help their friends do stuff because it helps cement the friendship. People do jobs because employers pay them; people pay grocers because grocers feed them.

But reciprocity means the more you do for others, the more others will do for you. And that means when you have little ability to do anything for others, you won't do much for others, so others won't do much for you....

What map, then, can CRT possibly provide for breaking out of that vicious circle? What can the description of the terrain of systems within society that perpetuate divisions largely on lines created by slavery as "systemic racism" tell us about how to move from point A to point B? The question answers itself: CRT can tell us to abolish reciprocity.

So that's the out. CRT implies that to remove the "systemic racism", we have to break the link between what you do for others and what others do for you. Society must scratch out the conservative motto "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work" and inscribe on its banners "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That is what, and that is whom, CRT is not accusing of engaging in structural racism.

That leaves us with just one remaining question about CRT:

The issue here being that we have every reason to believe a benefit to overall systemic quality will happen when the systemic racism is removed and we reach populational parity.

What reason is there in the dismal history of the 20th century to believe that doing what it would take to "remove the systemic racism" would in fact result in "a benefit to overall systemic quality"?

 

[Trausti]

I do not have time to follow this long discussion, but my attention was directed to the following post.

One especially pernicious component of systemic racism in the U.S. is unequal treatment by the justice system, most blatantly by police. Many black children are being raised without a father because that father is incarcerated or otherwise hindered by law enforcement due to his race. No objective observer will dispute this.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/wil_da_beast630/status/1437554050426343429[/TWEET]

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I do not have time to follow this long discussion, but my attention was directed to the following post.

One especially pernicious component of systemic racism in the U.S. is unequal treatment by the justice system, most blatantly by police. Many black children are being raised without a father because that father is incarcerated or otherwise hindered by law enforcement due to his race. No objective observer will dispute this.

Read the following post about "reciprocity" and assume that we speak of black children who are hindered NOT because their father isn't rich but because he is incarcerated due to race-biased policing. With that image of systemic racism in mind, does the following post seem relevant?

That is not not the image of systemic racism B20 was replying to - much of Jarhyn's part of the long discussion -, so it would not need to be relevant to it. For example, one of the claims B20 was replying to was:

No, CRT identifies that causes are systemic, not that people are actively discriminating today (though again, some do). The reality is that there are systemic barriers to economic mobility and these have an outsized impact on communities with few resources and few inlets for said resources.

This was about cases in in which there is no such active discrimination (see also this post for more details).

Of course, there is a way out for a CRTist: they can just disavow Jarhyn's definitions and come up with others - or post links to others, etc. - that do not have that consequences.

 

[laughing dog]

To say "the bold-faced conclusion is false" amounts to an assertion that there exists a non-communist economic system that can avoid socioeconomic inertia.

No, it is an assertion that Communism will not achieve what you claim.

Oh is that what you meant? Sorry to misunderstand then. I probably should have phrased it as "No noncommunist economic system can avoid socioeconomic inertia.", and left it agnostic as to whether Communism could. The central finding of my argument is unaffected: CRT (as Jarhyn explained it) implies we have to do away with the link between what you do for others and what others do for you; and as far as I can see it's only Communism that proposes to break that link.

I think your central finding is untrue.

In my view, a contributing factor to "socioeconomic inertia" is human psychology, not an _____ism. Conceptually, there is nothing in capitalism or communism or socialism that necessarily generates "socioeconomic inertia".

I

 

[Politesse]

I'm curious; for those complaining that "CRT"ers believe that sytematic racism can never be extinguished, (never mind that this is not actually a part of the paradigm) do you honestly believe, even assume, that it can be? Is the idea that racism will simply go away on its own without any action being taken? That idea does not seem very well-grounded in reality, to me. Like promising that there will one day be no more disease, or no more war, I could almost imagine a world in which those goals were achieved, but not without a cohesive effort on the part of many, many people to make it happen. If you have no plan other than "hope it goes away, while viciously attacking anyone who is trying to make it go away", I do not think logic will smile on your supposed endeavors.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/wil_da_beast630/status/1437554050426343429[/TWEET]

Is he your Black friend?

 

[Elixir]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/wil_da_beast630/status/1437554050426343429[/TWEET]

Is he your Black friend?

Hail no - he gotz a white girl!

 

[TSwizzle]

I'm curious; for those complaining that "CRT"ers believe that sytematic racism can never be extinguished, (never mind that this is not actually a part of the paradigm) do you honestly believe, even assume, that it can be?

You cannot even prove that systemic racism is a thing !

CRT proponents are modern day priests delivering exorcisms.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm curious; for those complaining that "CRT"ers believe that sytematic racism can never be extinguished, (never mind that this is not actually a part of the paradigm) do you honestly believe, even assume, that it can be?

You cannot even prove that systemic racism is a thing !

CRT proponents are modern day priests delivering exorcisms.

Tell that to the black jogger's family after he was murdered and the system tried to cover it up.

 

[ZiprHead]

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/fTcSVQJ2h8g[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Emily Lake]

Tell that to the black jogger's family after he was murdered and the system tried to cover it up.

Arbery's murder wasn't the result of systemic racism. It was the result of actual individual racism. The cover-up is a result of actual idnividual racism and favoritism in a "good ol' boy network".

There isn't anything inherent in the structure of the law that resulted in the cover-up. The cover-up was illegal.

Systemic racism would be a more appropriate term for most public schools in the US. Schools are funded by local property taxes, and those taxes tend to vary with the value of the properties and the wealth of the residents. And since most low-income areas in urban areas tend to have a materially higher portion of minority residents, this results in the schools that are disproportionately attended by minorities having significantly lower resources, resulting in poorer education and fewer opportunities for those minorities.

 

[Bomb#20]

One especially pernicious component of systemic racism in the U.S. is unequal treatment by the justice system, most blatantly by police. Many black children are being raised without a father because that father is incarcerated or otherwise hindered by law enforcement due to his race. No objective observer will dispute this.

You appear to be using "systemic racism" to mean plain-English racism practiced by plain-English racists in government. That's a very different definition from the one Jarhyn said CRT uses. I think reasonable people could all agree that your definition is a lot more sensible than CRT's (assuming Jarhyn reported CRT's correctly.) You asked if my post seems relevant. Well, it's probably not relevant to your views about systemic racism; but this is a thread about CRT's views about what it labels "systemic racism". To anyone who's followed the thread it will come as no surprise that I think CRT is guilty of systemic language abuse.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think your central finding is untrue.

In my view, a contributing factor to "socioeconomic inertia" is human psychology, not an _____ism. Conceptually, there is nothing in capitalism or communism or socialism that necessarily generates "socioeconomic inertia".

I think we need to distinguish here between socioeconomic inertia in general vs. specifically intergenerational socioeconomic inertia. Private property per se is socioeconomic inertia, intrinsically -- you have exclusive access to a resource today because of the procedure that gave you exclusive access to it yesterday. A money economy likewise is socioeconomic inertia, intrinsically -- money is memory of favors not yet returned. So capitalism necessarily has socioeconomic inertia; and socialism does too if by "socialism" we mean a society with collective ownership of the means of production but retaining work for wages and retaining private ownership of personal effects.

But assuming you mean intergenerational socioeconomic inertia, what you say is true. It's human psychology and not any ism that leads people to give money and other property to their own children. And it's human psychology and not any ism that leads people to teach their cultures to their own children, including behavior patterns that tend to lead to prosperity or poverty. So yes, conceptually, there is nothing in capitalism or communism or socialism that necessarily generates intergenerational socioeconomic inertia. Attempts to create Soviet Man notwithstanding, however, human psychology isn't going away -- and it's only communism that has a plan for preventing human psychology from converting one-day-at-a-time socioeconomic inertia into intergenerational socioeconomic inertia.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm curious; for those complaining that "CRT"ers believe that sytematic racism can never be extinguished, (never mind that this is not actually a part of the paradigm) do you <rest of question snipped>

Whom are you asking? Who here complained that "CRT"ers believe that systematic racism can never be extinguished?

 

[ZiprHead]

Tell that to the black jogger's family after he was murdered and the system tried to cover it up.

Arbery's murder wasn't the result of systemic racism. It was the result of actual individual racism. The cover-up is a result of actual idnividual racism and favoritism in a "good ol' boy network".

There isn't anything inherent in the structure of the law that resulted in the cover-up. The cover-up was illegal.

The "good ol' boy" network is a sign of a systemic system.

 

[laughing dog]

I think your central finding is untrue.

In my view, a contributing factor to "socioeconomic inertia" is human psychology, not an _____ism. Conceptually, there is nothing in capitalism or communism or socialism that necessarily generates "socioeconomic inertia".

I think we need to distinguish here between socioeconomic inertia in general vs. specifically intergenerational socioeconomic inertia. Private property per se is socioeconomic inertia, intrinsically -- you have exclusive access to a resource today because of the procedure that gave you exclusive access to it yesterday. A money economy likewise is socioeconomic inertia, intrinsically -- money is memory of favors not yet returned. So capitalism necessarily has socioeconomic inertia; and socialism does too if by "socialism" we mean a society with collective ownership of the means of production but retaining work for wages and retaining private ownership of personal effects.

But assuming you mean intergenerational socioeconomic inertia, what you say is true. It's human psychology and not any ism that leads people to give money and other property to their own children. And it's human psychology and not any ism that leads people to teach their cultures to their own children, including behavior patterns that tend to lead to prosperity or poverty. So yes, conceptually, there is nothing in capitalism or communism or socialism that necessarily generates intergenerational socioeconomic inertia. Attempts to create Soviet Man notwithstanding, however, human psychology isn't going away -- and it's only communism that has a plan for preventing human psychology from converting one-day-at-a-time socioeconomic inertia into intergenerational socioeconomic inertia.

There is no plan under communism, there is the handwaved expectation that human psychology will magically morph into a more hospitable ground for communism.

 

[Gospel]

Tell that to the black jogger's family after he was murdered and the system tried to cover it up.

Arbery's murder wasn't the result of systemic racism. It was the result of actual individual racism. The cover-up is a result of actual idnividual racism and favoritism in a "good ol' boy network".

There isn't anything inherent in the structure of the law that resulted in the cover-up. The cover-up was illegal.

Systemic racism would be a more appropriate term for most public schools in the US. Schools are funded by local property taxes, and those taxes tend to vary with the value of the properties and the wealth of the residents. And since most low-income areas in urban areas tend to have a materially higher portion of minority residents, this results in the schools that are disproportionately attended by minorities having significantly lower resources, resulting in poorer education and fewer opportunities for those minorities.

The system having been used to illegally cover it up makes it a system problem.

 

[TomC]

Tell that to the black jogger's family after he was murdered and the system tried to cover it up.

Arbery's murder wasn't the result of systemic racism. It was the result of actual individual racism. The cover-up is a result of actual idnividual racism and favoritism in a "good ol' boy network".

There isn't anything inherent in the structure of the law that resulted in the cover-up. The cover-up was illegal.

Systemic racism would be a more appropriate term for most public schools in the US. Schools are funded by local property taxes, and those taxes tend to vary with the value of the properties and the wealth of the residents. And since most low-income areas in urban areas tend to have a materially higher portion of minority residents, this results in the schools that are disproportionately attended by minorities having significantly lower resources, resulting in poorer education and fewer opportunities for those minorities.

The system having been used to illegally cover it up makes it a system problem.

The system wasn't used to cover it up.

Just the opposite. Extremely illegal means, way outside the system, were used to cover it up.

Once this legal breach became generally known all hell broke loose. As it should be. A government official deliberately broached the system for personal reasons. Off with her head! But it was just the opposite of systemic, it was anti-systemic, if that's a word.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

There is no plan under communism, there is the handwaved expectation that human psychology will magically morph into a more hospitable ground for communism.

I have found that answering a thoughtful detailed post with shallow dismissal connoting nothing of value gives the strong impression that you never knew what you were talking about in the first place.