https://www.reddit.com/r/allvegan/comments/jvro1s/new_theories_old_lessons_resisting_racism/
created by justanediblefriend on 17/11/2020 at 11:48 UTC*
8 upvotes, 4 top-level comments (showing 4)
Science has long faced a big problem. One very popular solution to this problem helps us deal with racism in two ways. First, it gives us an attitude which we can use in identifying and fighting racism. Second, it helps us understand racism and misconceptions about racism. I will also go over another problem, involving the mind, and how one of its solutions helps us in the same way.
First, I will go over what it is we are talking about when we talk about racism. Second, I will go over the problem that science faces (and another problem). Third, I will go over one very popular solution to this problem. Fourth, I will go over the difference between belief and acceptance and why we should accept what this solution has to say about racism. Fifth, I will go over why we should believe what this solution has to say about racism. **Along with a summary at the end of the post, there will be a summary of each section.**
Generally speaking, disagreements can be divided into two types. There are
I can think of a few ways to refine these categories more accurately, but because they won't become important here, I'll choose to ignore those nuances for now.
We used to think that the entity that explained Brownian motion was indivisible. That is, physical atoms are mereological atoms. Some time later on, we realized that this is not true. Now, let's try and characterize all the disagreements going on here. First, let's describe the four types of people you can get here.
1. **Old mereologist:** Uses the word 'atom' to mean indivisible objects.
2. Would trivially^1 agree with the statement "atoms are indivisible."
3. Would non-trivially agree with the statement "atoms explain Brownian motion."
4. **Old physicist:** Uses the word 'atom' to mean that which explains Brownian motion.
5. Would non-trivially agree with the statement "atoms are indivisible."
6. Would trivially agree with the statement "atoms explain Brownian motion."
7. **New mereologist:** Uses the word 'atom' to mean indivisible objects.
8. Would trivially agree with the statement "atoms are indivisible."
9. Would non-trivially disagree with the statement "atoms explain Brownian motion," unless informed that 'atom' is used some other way in the social context they're in.
10. **New physicist:** Uses the word 'atom' to mean that which explains Brownian motion.
11. Would non-trivially disagree with the statement "atoms are indivisible," unless informed that 'atom' is used some other way in the social context they're in.
12. Would trivially agree with the statement "atoms explain Brownian motion."
Now, person 1 and 2 have **a verbal disagreement,** but entirely **substantially agree.** If you took one of their pictures of the world and compared it to the other's picture of the world, the two pictures would look the same. Ditto for 3 and 4. They completely agree with one another. The fact that one would agree with "atoms are indivisible" and the other doesn't is due to different terminology, and if they communicated and said "Oh, by 'atom' I mean this" then the other would go "Oh, then yes, that is how I see the world!"
Another way of seeing that this is a verbal disagreement is this. While both 1 and 2 agree with the same two statements, they're going to have to react differently to challenges to their position. If someone says "I think you actually *can* divide atoms," then 1 will react with dismissal, as any rational person should, because they interpreted that as "I think you actually *can* divide indivisible things," which is an obvious contradiction. But if someone says that same thing to 2, they'll simply say "I think you're wrong, but who knows," since they just interpret that as "I think you actually *can* divide the thing which explains Brownian ~~jiggling~~ motion.
On the other hand, the first half (1 and 2) and the second half (3 and 4) **substantially disagree.** Even if they agreed on what terms to use to mean what to avoid confusion, they haven't agreed on the way the world is.
The term 'racism' has quite a bit of disagreement over it, particularly in the public sphere. You've probably met some who argue, fervently, that racism doesn't involve power or institutions or anything like that at all. Instead, for these people, racism is just whenever someone treats someone differently because of their race, due to beliefs about being superior to them in virtue of the race of each of the people involved.
Clearly, these people disagree with sociologists. But perhaps less clear is whether they have a verbal disagreement--they simply disagree on what the word should communicate--or a substantive disagreement. Well, being charitable to them, it's a substantive one.
The basic meaning of 'racism' is something like this. There's a bunch of phenomena we can observe, anecdotally, scientifically, historically, etc. **Here are some examples (CW: examples of racism):**
Racial minorities being more punished by cops and the law [IMG]
!<
!<
The thing(s) that explains these phenomena is racism. Figuring out what that thing is is non-trivial. But the mere fact that racism is whatever explains these things is trivial.
In other words, the charitable way to read someone who says "racism is noticing race and acting with it in mind at all" is to read them as saying "noticing race and acting with it in mind at all is what explains the various phenomena we associate with racism." And this is something we can check, anecdotally, scientifically, historically, and so on.
But why think that this is the charitable reading? Well, the alternative interpretation of someone who says this is "I want these sounds and these symbols to *mean,* by definition, 'noticing race and acting with it in mind at all.'" This constitutes a dishonest distraction tactic on par with concern trolling--where others are discussing the experiences they face and the social reality they inhabit, this interlocutor would be distracting from that discussion by changing the topic altogether. **The bare meanings of the words we use is a non-issue.** We can simply stipulate what we mean by certain words in some context however we want, so long as it isn't confusing. The word itself doesn't matter and **has no particular practical relevance.** If you want the word used to talk about whatever explains this cluster of phenomena to be 'schmacism' then it makes no difference.
This may be a misguided response and is easily contradicted by all sorts of evidence we have at our disposal, but nonetheless, it is an appropriate response in the sense that it actually engages with the subject. What might be a completely inappropriate response?
Another inappropriate response, which I did not go over, is to simply deny that these phenomena exist.
But what more can we say than that about our best scientific theories? Are they just good at predicting what we'll see? Or are they right about what we don't see as well? For instance, the Bohmian theory also says that particles are guided by waves. We can't see these particles or these waves with our naked eye, but that's what's going on. Is this just a nice little story, and when we tell ourselves this story, it lets us predict our observations? Or is this what's really going on?
It's hard to say. After all, while science has gotten better and better at predicting observations, that doesn't mean it's gotten better and better at describing the world beyond what we can see. It might just be that the Bohmian theory is the best fiction for predicting our observations. Indeed, one reason to think it's a fiction is that all of our previous theories, which were also quite good at predicting our observations, were wrong! After all, these days, we say germs carry diseases, not bad air!
At the same time, how could we possibly be predicting things so well if our theories aren't describing things right. In general, if you describe the stuff you can't see wrong, your predictions aren't going to be very successful. If your theory is that there's a fire in your kitchen, your prediction would be that your smoke alarms would go off pretty soon. Since your theory is wrong, your predictions would be wrong. So the fact that our predictions are so *accurate* suggests that our theories are correct!
So, how did all our past theories predict things so well for as long as they did if they were wrong? How do we solve this problem?
What is pain? Baby don't love me. Can we empirically discover what pain is? Well, we can certainly empirically discover what physical arrangements tend to *come with* pain. Let's say that when we look at the brain and pain is going on, we see C-fibre stimulation (the actual story is much more complicated than this). It might be tempting to say that C-fibre stimulation and pain are identical.
But this can't be right. After all, it seems like it's possible for other physical arrangements to realize pain. For instance, octopuses probably feel pain, despite having no C-fibres to stimulate. It's also apparently possible to design an artificial intelligence, with no organic parts of their brain to speak of, which would feel pain. So what's pain? What's pleasure? What's a mind?
One popular solution to the problem that science faces is this. Our best scientific theories aren't very good at accurately describing things except in terms of how they relate to other things. That is, they describe structures much better than they describe the individuals that make up the structure. This helps us explain how it is science really has been progressively getting better at describing the world accurately after all.
Take, for instance, what we thought of light. We used to think light was particles. But the way lights interfered with one another was more like waves, so we moved onto wave theory. But then magnetic fields affected the movement of light in ways that made us move on to the electromagnetic theory of light. How can we describe this history as increasingly accurately describing the world rather than just trying on new, entirely different descriptions as they suit us?
Well, each of these theories preserved the *structure* described by the previous theory, and indeed developed it. Fresnel's wave theory described light as vibrations of the luminiferous aether all around us, where Maxwell described it as vibrations of the electromagnetic field. They certainly disagree on what substances are in the world, but they largely agree on the way things are related to each other in the world, only Maxwell's theory is more refined. There is some thing which vibrates, and those vibrations are causally related to the images we get from our eyes. The main disagreement, of course, is that Maxwell thinks that these vibrations behave a certain way around magnetic fields, whereas Fresnel had no idea about any of that.^5
One popular solution to the problem that minds face is this. Every mental state is the causal role they play. That is, whenever something is causally related to a bunch of inputs, outputs, and mental states the same way that desire is, it is desire. Let's list some of the causal relations that desire has.^6
And the list goes on! Now, the way your brain is arranged is such that when you encounter reasons to get a keyboard, some cluster of neurons activate, which cause signals to be sent to your muscles so that you browse for a keyboard and purchase it. That cluster of neurons played the causal role of a desire to own a keyboard.
But let's say you replace that cluster of neurons with a cluster of transistors, which play the same causal role. You're presented with reasons to get a keyboard, and when you see those reasons, the visual information is sent to this cluster of transistors now instead of a cluster of neurons, and this cluster of transistors causes your muscles to move in the same way, and so on. If the causal functionalist is right, then that arrangement the cluster of transistors are in is *also* the desire to own a keyboard.
Causal functionalism and structural realism are importantly different, and don't even concern the same *type* of problem. But their takeaway lessons are sufficiently similar that I will conflate them for simplicity from here on out. Namely, if these theories are correct, we should treat the relevant problem by paying attention to how things are related to one another, rather than what they're like independently of those external relations.
This, I will argue, is how we should accept and believe racism is like. First, let's go over the difference between belief and acceptance.
One important difference to notice is that while acceptances is sensitive to costs and benefits, beliefs are not. It doesn't matter how awful it would be if the ladder fell if you were to climb it--you should believe whatever is more likely. But because it would be so awful if the ladder fell with you on it, you should act on the assumption that, yes, if you climb it, you'll fall into the lava.
Here, I will be defending the position that you should ***accept*** that racism is a structure. You don't have to *believe* that that's what racism is. But you should act on the assumption that that's what racism is.
This defense is quite easy. **Let's take, as an example,** the institution of cops. I'm fairly certain that cops have terrible beliefs. There is evidence, for instance, that in-group bias causes people to fail to ascribe certain mental states to those outside of their group. They may think that those outside of their group feel pleasure and pain like they do, but they do not ascribe mental states like compassion, remorse, aesthetic appreciation, and so on. I think that cops generally do not ascribe compassion, remorse, aesthetic appreciation, and so on to people of color the way they do to white people. Furthermore, I do not think cops generally empathize with people of color the way they do with white people.
But let's say my interlocutor objects. They think that cops do ascribe those mental states, but simply *behave* as if they don't, perhaps due to their duty to the law, or something like that. So, while they play the same role as someone who fails to empathize with people of color and so brutalizes people of color, they in fact *do* empathize with people of color. And while they cause the same phenomena that someone who lacks this empathy would, they are not themselves lacking this empathy. So, this objection goes, most cops aren't racist!
The problem with this objection is that **no reasonable person would give a shit.**
It makes no practical difference whether your life is ruined by someone who empathizes with you or not. In both cases, your life is ruined. The way you would resist whatever you think racism really is, you should resist anything that has the same effects of racism. If you would respond to a violent, malicious police force with a policy that defunds them, then you should also defund the empathetic, polite police force that enforces the very same laws that the other police force uses to keep people of color at a disadvantage. If you would dismantle an insurance company charging people of color more because they think people of color should be poor, then you should dismantle an insurance company charging people of color more because they think doing so will maximize profit. If they have the same effects, you should respond the same way.
Note that in my example in section 5, my interlocutor already acknowledges that the institution and its members have all of the same effects, regardless of their character traits or anything like that. So long as they cause all of the same phenomena provided they are a part of this structure, regardless of their mental states and character traits, it is the structure of the institution, not the people in it and the beliefs they happen to hold, that explain phenomena like >!redlining!<! That is a concession to sociologists that racism is discrimination plus the power of these institutions in virtue of their structure.
This is not novel. Even dating back to Karl Marx, we find similar thinking about the social sciences:^7
To prevent possible misunderstandings, a word. I paint the capitalist and landlord in no sense coleur de rose. But here the individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests.
Everything Marx said about capitalists and landlords was not about the people who happened to inhabit those roles, but rather the very roles themselves and the sort of effects that those roles would have in virtue of being those roles.
These may be new theories by people who have nothing to do with Marx and who are not Marxists, but make no mistake, these are old lessons.
It is tempting to think that racism can be solved within the society we are in. If we just teach everyone that racism is wrong, and they agree on it, then perhaps it will go away. If we just get people in power to see people of color as people, racism will go away. If we just replace cops with nice cops, racism will go away.
It is tempting to care a great deal about the nuance of what individuals are playing the roles. People often contend that not all cops are racist--after all, their uncle is a cop, and he cares a great deal about people of color. They've even met cops who are themselves people of color, they certainly can't be racist. Cops even sometimes do very nice things for communities of people of color.
But they are cops. What is it to be a cop? They issue fines according to certain laws, and these laws just so happen to primarily target people of color. They're positioned to respond slower to danger that occurs in neighborhoods where people of color reside than danger that occurs in neighborhoods where white people reside. They force people of color to go to courts where they will be punished far, far more severely for the same crimes as their white peers. They play the same role, whoever they happen to care about and whatever nice things they do independently of their role. What role they play is what's relevant to how you should react.
Similarly, when insurance companies are guilty of >!redlining!<, they are maximizing profit. And they maximize profit more effectively the more marginalized their clients are. The more helpless and marginalized some group is, the more capable they are of marginalizing them further. It doesn't matter if the people doing this happen to be the kind who would buy you a cup of coffee out of the kindness of their hearts--they are racist because they play the causal role of racism. And that's what dictates how you should maneuver the social reality you inhabit.
Comment by justanediblefriend at 17/11/2020 at 11:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
1. Trivial agreement is agreement that says nothing about one's picture of the world. So for instance, trivially, I agree that unicorns are unicorns. That says absolutely nothing about what I think the world is like. It doesn't say whether I think unicorns exist, what properties I think unicorns have--me informing you that I think unicorns are unicorns gives you really no information at all. The physicist who nods along to the statement "atoms explain Brownian motion" tells us nothing about what she thinks the world is like.
2. One good paper to read to get an idea of what historians and anthropologists think of *GGS* is "Environmentalism and Eurocentrism" by James M. Blaut.
3. Another would be "Marketing conquest and the vanishing Indian: An Indigenous response to Jared Diamond’s *Guns, Germs, and Steel* and *Collapse*" by Michael Wilcox.
4. If you'd rather watch something than read something, check out *Guns, Germs and Steel: A Historical Critique*[1] by BadEmpanada or /u/NotArgentinian.
5. This example is pulled straight from John Worrall's revival of structural realism, "Structural Realism: Best of Both Worlds?"
But don't be fooled into thinking this is the only example. There are plenty. Famously, there's a continuity between Newton's equations of gravity and Einstein's geodesic equation, which I point out here[2]. 6. Pulled from "Desire"[3] by Tim Schroeder. 7. Marx says this in *Capital: A Critique of Political Economy,* but I pulled this from the source cited in endnote 8. 8. For more on understanding social scientific theories structurally and sans individuals, see Harold Kincaid's "Structural Realism and the Social Sciences."
1: https://youtu.be/kq6EuZj4axA
3: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/desire/#HolFunIntTheDes
Comment by keearis at 18/11/2020 at 00:56 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This is a really well thought out argument!
Comment by ExplorerOne5913 at 27/11/2020 at 07:23 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Well, good job. That is a lot of writing. Impressive work.
Comment by ExplorerOne5913 at 27/11/2020 at 07:39 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Can I use this post in other subreddits such as reddit social justice 101 or something like that?
There are many good threads here.