A lot of people lost their minds about race over the past few years but I struggle to think of an article as divorced from reality and lacking in introspection as this one Reeves wrote. He approvingly cites Coates and Kendi and takes whatever they say at face value. I think things are going to improve for American men soon but it will be in spite of academics like Reeves not because of them.
In response to the Richard Reeves thing, what you're seeing is liberals realizing that blowing off men has a huge potential to be disastrous in a way that the Republicans' antifeminism doesn't. Their asymmetric weakness is that the trad model appeals to *some* women (maybe about 50%?) whereas the masculinity models the left generates for men appeal to almost *no* men (maybe about 10%, many of whom are gay), and are especially offputting to the minority men they're relying on to make up the deficit in white men they're driving away.
Of course, the Democrats still got 45% of the male vote for a variety of reasons--gender issues aren't on top for a lot of people, a lot of people were really upset by January 6, we thought he would start trade wars with Canada, etc. But with the male zoomers going right they know they've got a problem coming.
This is an interesting take. Maybe this is not optimal but I usually try to evaluate the argument rather than triangulate whether it’s left or right. I am finding a lot of allegedly right people who are basically looking for a cosmetic change so they can go back to whatever they were doing before men began dragging their feet to vote for either party…
I dislike the moderates from either side: People asking for DEI but with my particular flavor which is so much better and more humane than the other social control, tone policing, double standards you’ve dealt with your whole life that tell you you’re bad for being a guy. I would rather hear a communist say how they want me dead than listen to another DEI but my way argument.
If you ask if you would personally be allowed to set all the gender and race parameters since you’re just another person like them, they don’t know what to do.
I mean, that's what I try to do as well, but due to the realities of a two-party oligopoly I think most people pick a side and then advocate for whatever they think that will fit within the confines of their side. Reeves wants to advocate for men, but he has to do it within a left that can only accept men have valid interests if they're nonwhite or somehow serve the interests of women (which isn't never the case as many women want husbands and families).
Yeah, I'd rather just throw it out and go back to meritocracy, but the problem is that in a democracy if a significant number of people lose out they will argue for their interests and you'll get some form of DEI. (And someone always loses out; I read Amy Chua on this a while ago.) That's actually not an argument for dictatorship; you're as likely to get King Obama or Queen Hillary as King Trump.
I'd rather just put a stake through the heart of chivalry and organize men to serve our own interests; for all his interviews with Rogan and the Nelk Boys and WWF cameos, nobody remembers how Trump made alimony no longer tax-deductible to fund his tax cuts. (Didn't know? Look it up.) He's not a male ally.
Thing about commies is, like Nazis, they actually will kill you if they get power.
I think Reeves wants to do this thing with as little energy as possible (I don’t mean effort, I mean energy required) and he thinks it is an easier move to the left to being half-nice to men than he thinks it is to install people who don’t hate us. I don’t respect this. It’s not that I have a problem with coalition politics and collaboration ms of convenience. It’s that it is obvious it won’t work and the idea that you start from a position of saying men should apologize for being white and continue to let HR decide what they’re allowed to do or not do is retarded. We need to stop talking about this stuff and he wants to talk about it on his terms.
I think you're right, but I don't think he's totally wrong either. Past a certain point you have little credibility on the other side, and I don't think a guy like him would get far on the right--you really have to be able to give off a macho vibe these days, I think. He might get further on the left if they think the only alternative is Nick Fuentes 'Repeal the 19th'-style shitposting.
Ages ago my very-liberal high school English teacher talked about how the MLK-led civil rights movement got further because they were seen as an alternative to the more radical Malcolm X wing. No reason right-coded movements couldn't use the same strategy. (Or is there?)
I completely agree with your theory and am not unaware of his motives which were honestly laid bare on Chris Williams’ show. The issue is his way of courting the left is to assume we still need to continue putting a thumb on the scale. It’s incredible to see people younger than the civil rights movement, younger than communism, younger than monogamy-as-standard ,still arguing we should moderate those ideas and make another run on them.
Not sure I follow the opening paragraph, but I do think liberalism actually applied is an antidote to a lot of these issues. Applied liberalism would privelage fair treatment and anti discrimination and disfavor all forms of identity based preference.
The one corrective that practicing liberals need, though, is the concept that humans are unequal animals. Correct for societal unfairness that gets in the way of outcomes but note that without direct evidence of discrimination, one should not assume it based on outcomes. Nature is not fair in its endowments. Practicing liberals also need to understand the limits of interventions as they pertain to blowback.
In which decade did liberalism get it right? If it was balanced in the past, why is it no longer balanced? If it functions, why does it end up with programs like DEI which are clearly unpopular with a prominent amount of citizens? Why do white men feel as though they are discriminated against? Are they wrong?
I’ll just leave public opinion and national mood to decide when we were getting it right, which was probably around 2 or 3 decades ago.
For the failures of fairness and the permitting of blatant discrimination and favoritism, I don’t blame the liberal ethos, rather i blame an insufficiently robust legal system and judges that simply didn’t uphold existing law. I also blame the wealthy philanthropists who abandoned common sense for faddish displays of moral novelty and unleashed on us countless NGOs, even remaking the fucking ACLU into a book banning and anti free speech institution.
There's the old joke that the world was always perfect when the speaker was somewhere between 15 and 35, depending who you ask. Being middle-aged myself, I rather fondly remember the 90s, but of course I had all my hair and was really excited about Final Fantasy 7.
That said the 90s had a lot to recommend them--the cold war had ended (with our victory) and the war on terror not yet started, let alone the financial crisis. And it was nice when both Christian evangelicals and LGBT people had parts of the country they felt comfortable. But I'm not sure if that represents some precisely calibrated amount of liberalism or just the top of a long cycle. Maybe it contained the seeds of its own destruction. Maybe there was just one thing that went wrong. I don't know and I don't think I'll live to read the 22nd-century Chinese historians who will sort it all out.
Whatever happened, we are now in a situation where there's a MAGA coalition and a woke coalition, and you choose your favorite flavor of intolerance, based on your race/class/gender/religion and other factors. It's bad--I would rather live and let live myself--but your other options are staying in the middle and just going about your business (which is what most people do) or trying to stake out your own little ideology a la the Scott Alexander-style 'rationalists' (or other examples I'm less familiar with).
I'm somewhat partial to the rationalists myself even though I find them overidealistic, but it's largely because I'm a big nerd. And that sort of overintellectual vibe is really not a big draw outside of a small bunch of people, particularly in the USA.
Discrimination existed before DEI and will continue after because humans tend to have their biases/constructs triggered in settings with subtle to overt dysfunction, like a typical dominance-based hierarchical workplace. Staff need effective ways of responding to vertical and horizontal incivility (often called microaggressions) that overrides the normalised wokespeak Cluster B reactivity. I don’t believe DEI training in its current form is the answer because of the representation nonsense and discrimination. The reality is that there’s a skill shortage in interpersonal communication and leadership which companies should focus on developing in all staff, regardless of what they name the initiative.
Working on communication is fine. I just don't see why it would have anything to do with HR or DEI. You could just as easily have a Department of Communications. Nothing about communication stipulates that we have the same types of busybodies currently occupying HR doing the job. They think they are deep, that because they are sensitive everyone must be, that they have a right to interfere in everyone's lives.
Most people I know don't like HR or want to deal with the company. It's not that we have no proof of concept. Their numbers are expanding which means relations must be getting worse under their tenure not better. HR never seems to confront this reality.
Lastly, these communications norms always seem to bend to the weakest and most sensitive. I have never seen an HR training that said, toughen up. Don't be so sensitive. Stop focusing on your feelings. Maybe you are getting upset because the conflict reveals something negative about you or your performance etc. etc.
I don't *hate* the idea of "diversity" training if it would actually focus on respect, communication skills, listening to different perspectives, etc. But, DEI doesn't do that.
A good example is policing "microaggressions." On one hand, microaggressions exist, but in reality, they are actually someone being rude or poor social skills.
All this to say, I think the workplace issues could be helped with workshops on communication, conflict resolution, leadership etc-- all of which can, and ought, to be colorblind. (BTW, not interested in AkShUllY comments about "sensitivity training." Leadership and communications are, in fact, skills, that can be learned.)
Let me see if I understand you...although I don't think you understood Radha's article...you have a problem with her calling out the ways DEI has *failed*? And pointing out all the ways it could be improved? I mean, okay, maybe don't call it 'DEI' anymore which has become as toxic as 'woke'...but she suggested better ways to deal with clear discrimination problems in the workplace. I gather you're upset because men have been discriminated against (and they have, we agree with you it's a failed system) and.....you're against something that would rectify that?
You cannot moderate discrimination with more discrimination. Who is qualified to decide the right balance or how to implement it? This experiment is 60 years old in the US. Think we can wrap it up.
I shall respond to this in an upcoming post, and appreciate you engaging with my arguments.
A lot of people lost their minds about race over the past few years but I struggle to think of an article as divorced from reality and lacking in introspection as this one Reeves wrote. He approvingly cites Coates and Kendi and takes whatever they say at face value. I think things are going to improve for American men soon but it will be in spite of academics like Reeves not because of them.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/dwights-glasses-2/
In response to the Richard Reeves thing, what you're seeing is liberals realizing that blowing off men has a huge potential to be disastrous in a way that the Republicans' antifeminism doesn't. Their asymmetric weakness is that the trad model appeals to *some* women (maybe about 50%?) whereas the masculinity models the left generates for men appeal to almost *no* men (maybe about 10%, many of whom are gay), and are especially offputting to the minority men they're relying on to make up the deficit in white men they're driving away.
Of course, the Democrats still got 45% of the male vote for a variety of reasons--gender issues aren't on top for a lot of people, a lot of people were really upset by January 6, we thought he would start trade wars with Canada, etc. But with the male zoomers going right they know they've got a problem coming.
This is an interesting take. Maybe this is not optimal but I usually try to evaluate the argument rather than triangulate whether it’s left or right. I am finding a lot of allegedly right people who are basically looking for a cosmetic change so they can go back to whatever they were doing before men began dragging their feet to vote for either party…
I dislike the moderates from either side: People asking for DEI but with my particular flavor which is so much better and more humane than the other social control, tone policing, double standards you’ve dealt with your whole life that tell you you’re bad for being a guy. I would rather hear a communist say how they want me dead than listen to another DEI but my way argument.
If you ask if you would personally be allowed to set all the gender and race parameters since you’re just another person like them, they don’t know what to do.
I mean, that's what I try to do as well, but due to the realities of a two-party oligopoly I think most people pick a side and then advocate for whatever they think that will fit within the confines of their side. Reeves wants to advocate for men, but he has to do it within a left that can only accept men have valid interests if they're nonwhite or somehow serve the interests of women (which isn't never the case as many women want husbands and families).
Yeah, I'd rather just throw it out and go back to meritocracy, but the problem is that in a democracy if a significant number of people lose out they will argue for their interests and you'll get some form of DEI. (And someone always loses out; I read Amy Chua on this a while ago.) That's actually not an argument for dictatorship; you're as likely to get King Obama or Queen Hillary as King Trump.
I'd rather just put a stake through the heart of chivalry and organize men to serve our own interests; for all his interviews with Rogan and the Nelk Boys and WWF cameos, nobody remembers how Trump made alimony no longer tax-deductible to fund his tax cuts. (Didn't know? Look it up.) He's not a male ally.
Thing about commies is, like Nazis, they actually will kill you if they get power.
I think Reeves wants to do this thing with as little energy as possible (I don’t mean effort, I mean energy required) and he thinks it is an easier move to the left to being half-nice to men than he thinks it is to install people who don’t hate us. I don’t respect this. It’s not that I have a problem with coalition politics and collaboration ms of convenience. It’s that it is obvious it won’t work and the idea that you start from a position of saying men should apologize for being white and continue to let HR decide what they’re allowed to do or not do is retarded. We need to stop talking about this stuff and he wants to talk about it on his terms.
I think you're right, but I don't think he's totally wrong either. Past a certain point you have little credibility on the other side, and I don't think a guy like him would get far on the right--you really have to be able to give off a macho vibe these days, I think. He might get further on the left if they think the only alternative is Nick Fuentes 'Repeal the 19th'-style shitposting.
Ages ago my very-liberal high school English teacher talked about how the MLK-led civil rights movement got further because they were seen as an alternative to the more radical Malcolm X wing. No reason right-coded movements couldn't use the same strategy. (Or is there?)
I completely agree with your theory and am not unaware of his motives which were honestly laid bare on Chris Williams’ show. The issue is his way of courting the left is to assume we still need to continue putting a thumb on the scale. It’s incredible to see people younger than the civil rights movement, younger than communism, younger than monogamy-as-standard ,still arguing we should moderate those ideas and make another run on them.
Not sure I follow the opening paragraph, but I do think liberalism actually applied is an antidote to a lot of these issues. Applied liberalism would privelage fair treatment and anti discrimination and disfavor all forms of identity based preference.
The one corrective that practicing liberals need, though, is the concept that humans are unequal animals. Correct for societal unfairness that gets in the way of outcomes but note that without direct evidence of discrimination, one should not assume it based on outcomes. Nature is not fair in its endowments. Practicing liberals also need to understand the limits of interventions as they pertain to blowback.
In which decade did liberalism get it right? If it was balanced in the past, why is it no longer balanced? If it functions, why does it end up with programs like DEI which are clearly unpopular with a prominent amount of citizens? Why do white men feel as though they are discriminated against? Are they wrong?
I’ll just leave public opinion and national mood to decide when we were getting it right, which was probably around 2 or 3 decades ago.
For the failures of fairness and the permitting of blatant discrimination and favoritism, I don’t blame the liberal ethos, rather i blame an insufficiently robust legal system and judges that simply didn’t uphold existing law. I also blame the wealthy philanthropists who abandoned common sense for faddish displays of moral novelty and unleashed on us countless NGOs, even remaking the fucking ACLU into a book banning and anti free speech institution.
There's the old joke that the world was always perfect when the speaker was somewhere between 15 and 35, depending who you ask. Being middle-aged myself, I rather fondly remember the 90s, but of course I had all my hair and was really excited about Final Fantasy 7.
That said the 90s had a lot to recommend them--the cold war had ended (with our victory) and the war on terror not yet started, let alone the financial crisis. And it was nice when both Christian evangelicals and LGBT people had parts of the country they felt comfortable. But I'm not sure if that represents some precisely calibrated amount of liberalism or just the top of a long cycle. Maybe it contained the seeds of its own destruction. Maybe there was just one thing that went wrong. I don't know and I don't think I'll live to read the 22nd-century Chinese historians who will sort it all out.
Whatever happened, we are now in a situation where there's a MAGA coalition and a woke coalition, and you choose your favorite flavor of intolerance, based on your race/class/gender/religion and other factors. It's bad--I would rather live and let live myself--but your other options are staying in the middle and just going about your business (which is what most people do) or trying to stake out your own little ideology a la the Scott Alexander-style 'rationalists' (or other examples I'm less familiar with).
I'm somewhat partial to the rationalists myself even though I find them overidealistic, but it's largely because I'm a big nerd. And that sort of overintellectual vibe is really not a big draw outside of a small bunch of people, particularly in the USA.
Discrimination existed before DEI and will continue after because humans tend to have their biases/constructs triggered in settings with subtle to overt dysfunction, like a typical dominance-based hierarchical workplace. Staff need effective ways of responding to vertical and horizontal incivility (often called microaggressions) that overrides the normalised wokespeak Cluster B reactivity. I don’t believe DEI training in its current form is the answer because of the representation nonsense and discrimination. The reality is that there’s a skill shortage in interpersonal communication and leadership which companies should focus on developing in all staff, regardless of what they name the initiative.
Working on communication is fine. I just don't see why it would have anything to do with HR or DEI. You could just as easily have a Department of Communications. Nothing about communication stipulates that we have the same types of busybodies currently occupying HR doing the job. They think they are deep, that because they are sensitive everyone must be, that they have a right to interfere in everyone's lives.
Most people I know don't like HR or want to deal with the company. It's not that we have no proof of concept. Their numbers are expanding which means relations must be getting worse under their tenure not better. HR never seems to confront this reality.
Lastly, these communications norms always seem to bend to the weakest and most sensitive. I have never seen an HR training that said, toughen up. Don't be so sensitive. Stop focusing on your feelings. Maybe you are getting upset because the conflict reveals something negative about you or your performance etc. etc.
I don't *hate* the idea of "diversity" training if it would actually focus on respect, communication skills, listening to different perspectives, etc. But, DEI doesn't do that.
A good example is policing "microaggressions." On one hand, microaggressions exist, but in reality, they are actually someone being rude or poor social skills.
All this to say, I think the workplace issues could be helped with workshops on communication, conflict resolution, leadership etc-- all of which can, and ought, to be colorblind. (BTW, not interested in AkShUllY comments about "sensitivity training." Leadership and communications are, in fact, skills, that can be learned.)
Let me see if I understand you...although I don't think you understood Radha's article...you have a problem with her calling out the ways DEI has *failed*? And pointing out all the ways it could be improved? I mean, okay, maybe don't call it 'DEI' anymore which has become as toxic as 'woke'...but she suggested better ways to deal with clear discrimination problems in the workplace. I gather you're upset because men have been discriminated against (and they have, we agree with you it's a failed system) and.....you're against something that would rectify that?
You cannot moderate discrimination with more discrimination. Who is qualified to decide the right balance or how to implement it? This experiment is 60 years old in the US. Think we can wrap it up.