To answer your question briefly, Michael, yes, my experience has been different. I suspect this may be a generational thing.

I recently graduated from college, where I got to know a lot of lefty activists, and I am fairly good friends with some of them. I kept a certain distance myself from that milieu, I think because their approach didn't fit well with my personal, relatively more cautious and analytic, approach to the world. I have certain reservations about the contemporary young-radical-leftist project as I have come to understand it, but that is a subject for another time. I can honestly say that I largely admired and approved of most things these people were up to, and sometimes got peripherally involved myself.

This concept of diversity, as you and Steve Sailer describe it, is widely derided in these circles as an artifact of "white liberalism." They are, to be sure, concerned about things, like racial and gender oppression, that you would likely dismiss as "PC." But they recognize that the condition of "diversity" in America is tied together with group animosities, and that "celebrating" it won't do any good. Indeed, it rather implies that ethnic minorities exist for white peoples' amusement, and this notion could not survive the inclusion of actual members of those minorities within the left.

As for immigration, the lefties support it not because they think it is neat, but, as far as I can tell, out of a vague belief that the United States is morally obliged for humanitarian reasons to open its borders, or out of a quasi-anarchist hostility to the power of the nation-state. If these are your reasons for supporting immigration, then our judgments of the immigrants' values are irrelevant. They are allowed to live here, as are we, by virtue of their humanity.

I generally support more legal immigration, though I do not take it quite so far, in that I admit that there could be a necessity to regulate sheer numbers in accordance with our country's ability to sustain them. (I do find the moral reasoning compelling in the abstract; the project of evaluating people, of referring to them, as Sailer has, as "low-human capital" people, I find deeply repulsive and inhuman.) But they are totally aware that certain of their values--gender equality, gay rights, etc.--are at odds with traditional cultures. You and Sailer act as if they are oblivious. In fact these issues are discussed all the time. There are better and more nuanced answers than complete cultural relativism, or pan-cultural application of Western feminism, but you and Sailer would doubtless find the whole discussion silly. Still, it exists.

The differences between Sailer et al. and the young leftists beyond this are of course vast, and not important here. But I think it should be pointed out that Sailer's oft-repeated "insight" that the language of diversity is a way for elite liberals to congratulate themselves is not his, but the left's; you don't need to read very far into black radical literature of the 1960s, for example, to see that it has been around for a long time, too.

Now, arguably I am talking about a fringe, and the mainstream is still dominated by baby-boomer white liberal thought. I am not sure this is true; these ideas do seem to seep outward. But even if it is, certainly not even the most clueless liberal has ever argued that more racial diversity, per se, would also bring about greater gender equality. This is purely a flight of Sailer's fancy.

That's all. I know this post is badly written, but it's late and I'm too tired to edit it. I hope my point got across.

Posted by: BP on July 28, 2007 1:42 AM

BP -- That's interesting, and thanks for the bulletin. Funny to learn that the young lefties you knew mocked the fixation on diversity that so many have these days. Was this a particularly radical crowd? I ask because most of the young people I meet these days seem to buy into the diversity fantasies, in an unspoken kind of way.

So far as Sailer goes ... Well, he's clearly not describing your friends. (I doubt he'd claim that pointing out that libs often back policies mainly because it makes them feel virtuous and good is original too. I was around in the '60s and although it was a joke many people were sharing then, it seemed like it already had a considerable vintage.) And I don't think he's saying that any leftie would explicitly argue that diversity is good for feminism, for instance. He's mocking the general mindset, which includes many contradictory parts: worship of the primitive, warm-and-cuddly feelings about early 20th century immigration, fantasies about redemption-via-politics, "gender equality," etc. Few lefties would say flat-out, for instance, that 1) there is no such thing as IQ but 2) I have a higher IQ than you do. (Another of Sailer's jokes.) But many of them do act that way, and hold both beliefs -- I can't tell you how common it is to run into NYC-style lefties, for instance, who forbid all discussion of intelligence, except when it comes to their own college degrees, and the fact that their kid got into Harvard. They aren't making the argument, but they are acting it out. So many of Sailer's jibes strike me as amusingly well-aimed -- he's mocking and needling a whole gestalt, not a debating platform.

But clearly he -- and I -- ought to be introduced to your college friends. Eager to hear more about them.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on July 28, 2007 6:11 AM

BP is talking about many young leftists I also knew in college (not long ago). As in the '60s, their main enemies were establishment liberals, not conservatives. They mocked liberals' belief in diversity as an amusement; affirmative action is meant to correct historical injustices, in the young leftie's view. And they mock "White guilt," saying that instead of feeling guilty and crying, you should just go do something to help out Black people (or whoever).

As silly as the "diversity will vibrantize our community" argument is, at least it could pass out of fashion. But the "correcting historial injustices" poses the danger of never going away -- ugly history will always be there asking to be corrected. It doesn't matter that Jim Crow, WASP preferences, and so on, haven't existed for a half-century: poor-performing groups will always be "burdened by the legacy" of X.

It's a rather totalitarian argument, surely one that a warmonger would use to keep us in a perpetual state of war.

In any case, I think the young lefties will grow into the establishment libs who Sailer pokes fun at. After all, the New Left of the '60s didn't start out how they ended up, and they started out pretty similar to the new New Left. So, Sailer's right to take on the establishment liberal worldview -- they're the ones with power and influence, after all, not New Left college students.

Posted by: Agnostic on July 28, 2007 12:25 PM

Richard S. Wheeler, ">Try this.

Part of posting the solar-related warming as a question was to get people thinking and doing some research on their own.

Posted by: BIOH on July 28, 2007 4:09 PM

Well, first of all what prompted my original comment was Sailer's straw-liberal belief that more immigration would bring about greater gender equality, which is a silly straw man no matter what kind of liberals we're talking about. Maybe I should have left it at that.

But anyway...So many of Sailer's jibes strike me as amusingly well-aimed -- he's mocking and needling a whole gestalt, not a debating platform.

Kind of. First, all this mockery for mockery's sake is itself a reason not to take the guy very seriously. Also, the mockery isn't very good. It's a bit like when liberals mock religious people--sometimes they score points, but you get the sense they're mocking something they don't know first hand and don't understand.

More than that, though, you get the sense that for Sailer white liberals' hypocrisy actually proves something beyond the fact that they are hypocrites. For example, white liberals don't like their kids going to school with too many black kids. So a lefty radical might say this shows the white liberals are also racist. Sailer on the other hand would tend to say that it shows that racial solidarity and tribalism is inherent in the human condition. It really doesn't follow.

Now, of course the young lefties I'm talking about are a fringe and don't have power. Remember I brought them up in answer to your asking me whether my experience has been different, so I told you what my experience was. I never denied that the mainstream of liberalism in America is closer to what Sailer ineptly caricatures.

That said, I would take issue with this, from agnostic: In any case, I think the young lefties will grow into the establishment libs who Sailer pokes fun at. After all, the New Left of the '60s didn't start out how they ended up, and they started out pretty similar to the new New Left.

The difference is that in the 60s the student protest movement was much, much bigger and more fashionable. Now it is not, and the students who belong to it are a quite small self-selected group. They tend to go on to work in the non-profit sector, or into academia.

This is relevant because some conservatives like to talk about "the left" as a unified block that includes both the editors of the Nation, and Ivy League sociology departments, but they are examples of two opposing strains within the left. You will not find any college sociology professor talking about "diversity," ever. It's mostly corporate consultants who do that now. So I wonder where this reluctance to engage the substance of actual ideas on the left comes from, instead of treating it as a single block that can be dismissed by making fun of a few silly ideas.

Finally, though this is off-topic, I have to note that affirmative action, whatever you think of its efficacy, is intended to correct presently existing injustices, not past ones. Of course present injustices have their origins in the past--this is almost a tautology. But the mere existence of injustice in the past is not put forward as an argument for affirmative action; its persistence into the present is.

Posted by: BP on July 28, 2007 7:12 PM

BP

BS. Affirmative Action is illegal and was never meant to redress anything. It was meant to steal jobs and opportunities away from white men, period. So concerned with justice are ya? What form of justice is it to penalize someone who has done nothing wrong and award it to someone who has not been wronged? We have individual justice in this country, based on facts of individual cases, not group rights based on group differences and grievances. Your version of justice is simply institutional injustice, and you like it because you personally haven't been affected, but it makes you feel morally superior. Its an abomination and should be done away with as fast as possible.

Most of us don't like blacks. That's our perogative in a free country. The government has no business trying to force us together with them and demanding we hire them, or trying to control or redistribute our property to them. Its just a tacit admission that they aren't equal to whites. It they can't compete and do well on their own, then what the hell are they doing here?

White people will hire anybody if they think they can make money off them. Look at how people are hiring mexicans, shipping jobs to Asia, etc. Nobody wants black labor, not even other blacks! The story that blacks were discriminated against in the job market in the past is a myth. They were hired at the level that they could competently handle, and it wasn't much. Face it, blacks can't compete now, couldn't compete in the past, and will never be able to compete in the future. Those of us who have had to work with the quota blacks know the truth. I don't wish them ill, but I don't owe them one damn thing. Once AA is over, they're finished. It'll happen. As for you, be generous with your own job and money and leave the rest of us alone. Prove your own moral superiority to yourself. Nobody else cares about your moral superiority. We'll take real justice and fairness instead.

Posted by: BIOH on July 29, 2007 10:11 PM

Should 2BH be condemned or congratulated for continually allowing BIOH to express racist drivel as if it were a valid contribution to civil dialogue? Does the fact that BIOH needs only a mild retort before he shifts into personal attack mode add to or diminish the quality of 2BH discussions?

Like the loudmouth at the party who tells a crass, racist, joke the question, especially for the host, is whether to confront or ignore him. Confrontation usually sets in motion an unpleasant argument with little hope of resolution because loudmouthed racists generally believe themselves innocent victims of a hostile new world that in their minds has destroyed wholesome traditional values ... like white male (white men's?) superiority; thus it is esy to understand why confrontation is a difficult choice to make. Ignoring them may keep the party rolling along more or less normally, but in this case, questions linger that might cast a long shadow. Do all those who ignore the racist comments agree with them? Does my silence bespeak of cowardice, acquiescence or resignation? Should I leave the party now and be less likely to come back in the future?

As you might imagine, I'm the party pooper who will often pipe up to say that I didn't appreciate a comment I find demeaning, disrespectful or just plain stupidly wrong aimed at gays or blacks or women or Jews or ...

So, BIOH, I strongly urge you to find a good therapist to explore the real source of your rage and help you deal with it beyond racist scapegoating.

Posted by: Chris White on July 30, 2007 9:20 AM






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