Liberal White Guilt: The Essence of Tyranny
“The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity”. -Jacob Burckhardt
One of the reasons the above Liberal White Guilt ad campaign, and other efforts like it, is so excruciatingly bad is that it denies the reality of the biggest group of poor people with bad educations, limited opportunity, and dependency on government benefits in the United States: poor whites, otherwise known as “white trash.” It also denies the complexity of the race issue, which anyone who’s been a white minority in a predominantly non-white neighborhood can tell you is never as simple as this. Recommended viewing on that: 8 Mile and American History X.
This thinking denies the reality that a person of color with an Ivy League education has infinitely more opportunity than “trailer trash” with a thick southern drawl who went through a lousy school system ever will–and that said person of color is probably less likely to have run-ins with the law for that matter, especially if she already lives in an upper middle class neighborhood where trailer trash don’t exist. In many parts of the country, just having the wrong accent–an accent that marks you as a “hick” or a “redneck”–will get you treated far worse than having the darkest skin in creation will. It denies the complex reality that these beautiful, wonderful little girls (who by the way have done absolutely nothing wrong) will have a much easier time in life than this little boy or this little boy ever will.
Which also, by the way, puts the lie to the claim that boys are auto-privileged over girls, another rather obscene bit of condescending Liberal bigotry.
All of this is part of why privileged white liberal John Scalzi’s recently… CONTINUE READING HERE.
(here.)
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I have to say that I disagree with this statement :
“Which also puts the lie to the claim that boys are auto-privileged over girls, another rather obscene bit of condescending Liberal bigotry.”
Any unbiased study of American workers will reveal that women will earn about 80% of men’s pay for the same work. They are underrepresented in the boardroom as well as in higher political office. Shockingly enough some of Rick Santorum’s campaign operatives pulled quotes out of the Bible to demonstrate why Michele Bachmann would not be a suitable candidate for office just because she’s a woman.
Dear All: Comments are being held in pending to go through all of them.
Here are the rules for THIS post and for ANY post by ANY of our writers;
NO highjacking of topics of post, as we saw here.
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We cannot police grown ups who cannot keep the rules. We dont have enough hours in the day.
I’ve stated for FOUR years what the rules are. I’ve stated for FOUR years here that this is a place for CIVIL debate.
You can discuss the topic all you want, passionately, with your facts and ideas, you can teach, persuade, tell stories. ABOUT THE TOPIC.
IF you want to engage someone in an uncivil blather, you’ll have to contact each other by email, by agreement from each side, and have at it, privately.
TMV does not go to the work, time or cost to keep a commenters software alive for this kind of incivility.
There are literally millions of other sites on the internet where a person can go spew their attacks on others, freely, and uncivilly.
It will NOT be here at TMV
Thanks
archangel/ dr.e
Sorry, dr. e. We can do better if we try harder.
Dean i really like the quote: “The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity”. -Jacob Burkhardt
That one surely holds medicine… Here is another quote that is similar. This one lead me to a place that could embrace all of it: ” The inability to withstand ambiguity leads to splitting.”
I grew up in rural Texas, last of eight kids. Poor by the standards of many. Could give examples of the degree of poverty and am sure there are ones that could of labeled as us as “White Trash”. This generation was the first in my Native and Irish immigrant families to dream of attaining a college education and we took that opportunity …. Within the eight there is a full range that swings from Post -Doctorate to Doctorate to Master to Bachelor to Associate degrees. I grew up in a time when a college degree was the ticket out of poverty…. Nowadays for many college students it is the ticket into poverty. I wonder how much of my opportunity as “white trash” was made possible by the cries of minorities that demanded greater opportunities for their children? I am leaning towards the strong possibility that the voices of the minority groups are the ones that allowed me the greatest chance to move out of poverty. To each of them i say; thanks….and there is no guilt, for i and my siblings earned the grades once the door was open.
Physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual poverty is a challenge to overcome for all people…. Poverty is a swampland… No one wants to be mired in poverty, no one enjoys beings put down… We are evolving people. Some get out of the bogs by pushing others down and using the slain of “other” to assert one’s way out of the swamps. These are ones that feel ‘more than’ by making other ‘less than’. Then there are some in the swamplands of poverty, they look around and see; ‘ We all have been hurt, and we have all hurt each other, we can go further down into that bog or we move to a firmer ground that honors everyone. These are the ones that make a rope of human arms and hearts and extend a hand up.
Words do hurt…. words and slanders do have the capacity to scar a child’s soul…. but we are the ones to decide if are going to live in reaction to those scars or are we going to live a creative response that affirms our life and others? We and our individual tribes and genders have all been tyrants. I really don’t think any one group can be labeled as having an inability to withstand complexity and ambiguity.
On any given day we can chose to create our the slanders through dishonor and ignorance that imprison both ourselves and others as ‘less than’ or ‘more than’…Or…. we stand back from the ritual gods of black and white programming and see deeper than the social and political maneuverings, and see we just how much alike we are with similar fears and hopes….
Dean thanks for … ” The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.”, that one is like a kaleidoscope that can be turned into a number of configurations that can appear to support or to deny support for any position taken….
Correction:
” I really don’t think any one group can be labeled as having an inability to withstand complexity and ambiguity. ”
to
I really don’t think any one group can be labeled as having a greater inability to withstand complexity and ambiguity.”
Ordinarysparrow:
I think you would really like the entire speech given by Shirley Sherrod at the NAACP that struck such a firestorm a couple of years ago. She was horribly smeared by the late Andrew Breitbart, terribly unjustly in my view. If you just read it and think about it she had so many very very good things to say.
We have often forgotten that poverty and lack of decent educational opportunity are the biggest issues. Even people as diverse and controversial as Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton say that now–if you didn’t read about their nationwide tour on it, you can read about it here.
These things should transcend partisan lines. We need to get past the old useless labels.
(The video on that second link is also worth watching.)
Thanks Dean i did come back and follow those links…
I resonated with everything Shirley Sherrod said, and it is beyond my understanding of what she said got so twisted.
She gave a living example of what we all could learn from; She spoke from her experience. She was honest with her thoughts and feelings, yet in her actions she transcended the conditioning of the past. That is a powerful example of what can occur.
I wish we could have the deeper conversation about race and poverty without it turning into more of the same. Going back to the quote; “The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity”.
Have thought about this post today, reflected on the early years of poverty and racial tension in my family. How utterly confusing all of that was as a child….none of it is tidy or easily packaged for any group when it comes to poverty and racism…
What i do know is that all to often the mere mention of words like ‘racism’, ‘poverty’, ‘abortion’, ‘feminism’, all to often are so loaded they obscure the ability to see faces and really hear what each other are saying….
Thanks Dean, i heard what you are saying; and it is complex…
“We need to get past the old useless labels.” – Dean Esmay
You mean labels like “condescending Liberal bigotry”?
NO ad hominem attacks on writer or other commenters
NO ad hominem attacks by writer on other writers or commenters
I think there needs to be a review of the difference between political stances that someone else may find “offensive” and attacking someone personally.
The former is part of free speech. There was a time when many would find comments in support of gay rights to be disgusting and offensive. But that was part of free speech. OTOH, attacking people for their views is a way of denying free speech. And example of this would be the attacks on Anita Hill’s character and motives.
On problem today is that we have lost sight of this difference. There seems to be no sense of what it means to counter ideas you don’t like and what it means to attack those who disagree with you.
There are three authors here that I never read and two others I read for a chuckle because they are so far out they are a parody of their supposed political stance.
If you don’t like the show, flip the switch. If you don’t like the author, don’t read the piece. And check your blood pressure in between. The people who run this site apparently think there is some value in all the authors who are represented here – anyone can disagree with that, and some of us do.
Your previous comments, just like this one, violate the comment policy, per your normal behavior, but this time they happened to remove them. As to the artical there really isn’t a reason to categorize it as offensive. Sure it states beliefs that you obviously disagree with but honestly for the most part even that stuff is a matter of degree. What Dean may see as widespread you think is the exception. Big deal. Honestly the main point just seems to be pointing out a possibly overlooked group than s in need. He doesn’t rank that group verses other groups in need just raises the belief that being male and white doesn’t automatically put you in a place of privilege and that there are more groupings and divisions in our society than that.
Ohio, I read them all because if for no other reason than, I like to get other opinions and viewpoints> The bonus is learning some new stuff that I never thought about and might broaden my viewpoint which is often narrow.
dd
I should probably do that, but I could almost write what they are going to say myself and really don’t find much new – at least enough to comment on – otherwise I’d read them.
I really like some other websites especially the law sites because they really do have a different way of looking at things and are knowledgeable as well, which the one’s here I don’t read are lacking in. They can get into some very big battles, especially about civil rights. It’s very enlightening.
Cool, are they simple enough for non-lawyers?
If so, can you name one/some?
Thanks
They are a combination of lawyers and lay people. I participated for a while and they treated me very nicely, but have little patience for trolls or smart alecs. You would probably do well there and like it. Here are the two I know of. There are probably more. Be prepared for egos.
http://www.volokh.com/
http://jonathanturley.org/
Thanks, Ohio.
Quick look: V not my style, JT may work. Still like the format of TMV.
dd
Try it. You’ll like it.
The wage gap between women and men is very nearly nonexistent once you factor in women’s choices (like the choice to work fewer hours to concentrate on family) and in some areas, women make more. Meanwhile, men are overrepresented in all of society’s most dangerous jobs; their work-related injury and work-related death rate is about ten times higher than women’s; men’s suicide rate is about 4 times higher than women’s; in America, women control about 80% of disposable family income meaning that even if the man of the family is making more the woman of the family usually makes most of the choices on how to to spend it (advertisers know this is which is why most advertising nowadays targets them); men are overrepresented in all of society’s most undesirable jobs, like sewer workers and garbage collection and disposal.
So no, it is unclear that boys are auto-privileged over girls. The situation is complex. Denying that complexity is part of the problem.
Volokh is a great site by the way. Not familiar with Turley.