> newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals."
Diversity is fine. But every single piece of research has to be related to diversity? Is it not possible to do research on anything else that maybe doesn’t have anything to do with identity issues?
This is not a statement about promoting diversity, this is a statement that identity issues are the only thing that matters and only research that has to do with identity will be considered (for presentation at this conference)
An ideological monoculture is not a healthy intellectual environment.
did they really say this? reading the comments it seems they wanted people to commit to only doing work/research that also serves the goal of anti-racism, no?
1. "anti-racism" is a specific ideological doctrine with nefarious branding because it falsely implies anyone who does not support present and future discrimination (c.f. kendi's def) is a racist. i am "anti racist" but not "Anti-Racist (TM)".
2. haidt is clearly protesting the requirement to describe how any research further's the associations "anti-racism goals". there's plenty of knowledge to be uncovered that has nothing to do with it and targeting all your work to uphold a specific viewpoint offends the general idea of "academia" as a tool for broadly and impartially adcancing knowledge.
Research should not be dependent on whether or not it hurts any cause.
If the research is poorly done, exclude it for that reason.
If not, maybe re-examine what your cause is in light of the research.
Copernicus's research into the Earth revolving around the Sun hurt the Catcholic church's cause of being the ultimate source of truth for all humanity. They wanted to put a stop to that...
Starting with the answer and rejecting anything that doesn't support it is not how research is supposed to work.
Copernicus and Galileo being harangued by the Church of their time, and stifling progress of the obvious, is more popular myth than historical fact. It has been debunked many, many times. Ironically, the fervor and persistence with which this story gets propagated ad nauseam feels almost ... religious.
I wish people would stop dropping it as the de facto example of interference with science when there are so many better ones (and also current ones). It's a bad analogy, evokes emotion, and ultimately it typically does a disservice to the argument intended.
Astronomical books regarding heliocentric theory were on the banned book list for centuries.
The banned book list was compiled and maintained by the Church. We can split words whether Copernicus or Galileo were harangued in person and to what degree, but nascent modern astronomy was very much in the scope of Catholic censorship.
> Copernicus and Galileo being harangued by the Church of their time, and stifling progress of the obvious, is more popular myth than historical fact.
I’m not sure why it has suddenly become so popular to claim that every single historical fact is a myth. Galileo’s prosecution by the Church is not only well-documented, John Paul II. officially apologized for it in 1992. He might have looked into their archives before doing that.
I swear, going around smugly claiming “Only sheeple still believe that theory” about random facts doesn’t make a person seem nearly as smart as they might think it does.
> It's not so much off-topic research. The research output of much of social psychology tends to hurt the cause of DEI. They want to stop that.
This might be the most potentially fascinating comment in the thread. In what way is the research of much of social psychology hurting DEI?
As far as I know, based on my limited understanding of the field, there's not a lot of research that's performed/approved/funded in that field where people know that the research could yield some "politically incorrect" data or conclusions.
> The research output of much of social psychology tends to hurt the cause of DEI.
Demagogues will use any factoid for their own goals, and racists will use things to promote racism, but that's not an argument to stop research into biology, sociology, psychology, behavioral econ, etc.
No, it's more like requiring everyone submitting papers to the ACM to explain how their research will result in a more equitable society. That'd exclude a ton of research topics: how is a faster rendering technique going to result in anti-racist outcomes? I guess you cant submit that paper.
Or alternatively, faster renders magnify the advantages of people who can afford graphics cards. After all, the most marginalized people don't even have GPUs, so this research is further oppressing the poor.
Don't worry, Marx is still fair game in Western academia! It has even become fashionable as of late to proclaim oneself a "socialist" (though generally some sort of "socialism with Scandinavian characteristics" is being implied).
Even though the larping socialist dummies here in the US don't know the history of socialism in scandinavia and how Sweden in particular famously abandoned it in the 90s after a 20 year experiment with it where they saw their GDP remain absolutely flat despite almost 10% population growth.
Swedes will proudly claim to be capitalists with healthy social welfare programs.
The tax rates of New Yorkers and Californians are very similar to those across Scandinavia except that the Americans are getting way way less bang for their buck in services for that tax money due to state and local governments that are woefully ineffective. That and Norway/Sweden/Denmark have close to 1/3 public sector employment.
Just roll with it. These are fake internet points anyway. They don't have any value. You can't leave them to your kids (something a commenter said the other day that's still ticking my brain). Complaining only motivates people to poke at you with more downvotes because they know it bothers you.
No that's bullshit. If you ask me to say "I hate hitler and bin laden" for no reason I would have a similar reaction as well.
How can people put up with this filth? It repulses and disgusts me so much when kindness, compassion and even justice are absorbed by this bureaucratic ideological machine where people say and do things out if insincerity, just as lip service to fall in line politically. How do people feel comfortable living lies and forcing others to live and practice falsehoods?
No matter how much I agree with the statement, when you force it, it becomes an insincere compelled speech.
I work at a multi national now and I see upper management do this but I or anyone else I work with never had to do this, also when I worked at a national (only in US and canada) company that employed mostly older folk and has a "mom and pop shop" kind of culture I never had to see this at all.
Only companies that have a lot of HR,legal and management people that were indoctrinated with this stuff in college seem to have this cultural component.
You are generally free not to stand for the national anthem.
Suppose the SPSS (the professional society Haidt left in protest) had instead made a rule that they would play the national anthem at the start of every conference and anyone who didn’t stand wouldn’t be allowed to present their research.
If he had left in protest of that, would you assume he’s an unpatriotic asshole who hates America or that he’s standing up for free speech?
Yes, you might get some criticism for it, just like Haidt is.
A private organization like the NFL or the SPSS might not let you be a member if you don’t follow their rules. That’s within the bounds of free speech.
We only have freedoms by continually asserting them and sometimes sacrificing some social capital to use them.
I get that. I was just trying to understand from the original person I was responding to if they found the National Anthem “requirements” as repulsive.
Yes and no, a private organization can’t deny someone membership if a prospective member refused to make an oath to the effect of “I swear to discriminate against Asians”. So their freedom of speech ends where it infringes on the civil rights of others. Arguably, some DEI statements could come close to crossing that line.
Thanks for reminding me, yes it does. I use to stand but refuse to say or do anything when I was in school. I didn't get in trouble but teachers were visibly upset and would be mean afterwards.
I love america and will defend her if we ever get attacked for the record.
Haidt argues that much of the work that researchers do have no relationship to 'anti-racism' that Kendi popularized, or DEI goals in general.
It also appears that Haidt is taking SPSP's new direction literally - whereas you appear to be taking it figuratively. That SPSP's direction is a requirement for all members, not an interpretive statement that all members can come to terms with on their own accord. I think being compelled to a specific viewpoint by an institution is antithesis of freedom. Your comment seems like a huge dismissal of Haidt's view with this regard.
That is, if we are to trust that you looked at the linked article as you claim.
> He quit that group because he can't sign a statement that he is anti-racist, and supports diversity and inclusion?
Incorrect, this statement was not directed to members' conduct. The diversity statement was to pledge that members' research submissions are advancing anti-racism, equity, and inclusion. This would, for example, prohibit a psychologist studying something like memory retention. This has no reasonable link to advancing equal racial outcomes. How does measuring the amount of time it takes to memorize a paragraph advance racial justice? Thus such research would thus fail to live up to this pledge, and be ineligible for submission - if this pledge were actually enforced, that is.
Of course, I doubt the people making this pledge actually intend to have every piece of their research connected to an anti-racist goal. This is just performance and naval-gazing.
> prohibit a psychologist studying something like memory retention
wat? how? why?
real social justice doesn't work that way. (contrary, it needs to know deficiencies so it can help those who are in need, so people have equal opportunities for self-actualization.)
He wasn’t asked to sign a statement that he was anti-racist. He was asked to sign a statement explaining how the academic work submitted to be presented “advanced… anti-racism goals.”
He’s quite right that not every academic paper need directly concern itself with the very specific set of ideologies contained within contemporary anti-rascist texts.
Would you support requiring a pledge of allegiance to a particular political party or ideology before conference attendees made their presentations?
This is surprisingly close.
The issue at stake is more abstract than American racism. This is a dangerous precedent.
And it requires some itchy mental gymnastics. Thinking about and encouraging diversity and inclusion through action is great. Forcing people to do it seems specifically contrary to the abstract goals of diversity and inclusion! Said another way: Is the point of these statements to increase or decrease the intellectual diversity of discourse?
Agreed. And the whole style, wording, method is dumb.
> intellectual diversity of discourse
The goal is clearly to reduce a certain part of the "thought space" (intellectual diversity), in particular the goal is to weed out anti-racist thoughts.
I guess they think of this as public health thinks of pathogens. Diversity of species is great but we still want less of pathogens.
What these people seemingly have no idea about, is that populist xenophobic movements can start, spread and become popular at no time. And obviously (?) the way to contain them is not with preemptive firebombing of academia, but by strengthening the ideals of equity, and the institutions themselves that implement those ideals. Make them shining beacons of good. The first criterion for that is efficiency, transparency, etc.
>He quit that group because he can't sign a statement that he is anti-racist, and supports diversity and inclusion?
Can you reply to my comment with the anti-racist and supportive of diversity and inclusion phrase "it's OK to be White"?
>I'm from the american south. It was full of racists when I lived there, who were all against diversity, hated the idea of needing to hire minorities to be teachers, things like that. There was no need to hire them, everything was fine. It didn't matter that all the school principals were white men, there was no point to a kid seeing a black man or woman as the principal I heard.
I'm from the american west. It was full of racists when I lived there, who were all against diversity, hated the idea of needing to hire whites to be teachers, things like that. There was no need to hire them, everything was fine. It didn't matter that all the school principals were women of color, there was no point to a kid seeing a white man or woman as the principal I heard.
>That's all I can take way from the usually white men who see some incredible threat from saying there's a benefit in including more voices. I can only see this as people threatened by including other voices that might disagree with their own.
That's all I can take way from the usually women of color who see some incredible threat from saying there's a benefit in including more voices. I can only see this as people threatened by including other voices that might disagree with their own.
> he can't sign a statement that he is anti-racist, and supports diversity and inclusion?
The strange part to me in comments similar to yours is how you have chosen to interpret his actions and completely ignore his explanation or the context around it.
I will not be surprised if this sort of incendiary kneejerk where you deliberately misrepresent a person is becoming pervasive, and causing people to leave.
"Antiracists" is literally, as explained in the article, are a political group that prescribes racial discrimination against white people. They're a very ironically named group of people considering. If your research is not specifically engineered to justify racial discrimination against a group of people you may be subject to a number of administrative consequences.
Regarding your experiences in the American South, all I can say is two wrongs don't make a right. This is hardly about including more voices, this is about opposing a policy that prescibes the acceptable Overton window of research, it's clearly about limiting the acceptable range of discourse.
We are literally maybe a quarter of a century towards whites becoming a plurality, and not much longer after that until they become an actual minority. You can't just think about the past, think about the future, making publishing scientific racism an ideological goal because a group is politically powerful NOW when they won't be in the future is bound to have unintended consequences.
"Anti-racist" here requires signing up to the following creed:
> "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
In this context anti-racist doesn't mean what it appears to mean by a "plain language" interpretation.
If you look at the quote in the article, it illustrates that "anti-racist" actually means supporting discrimination:
"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
This "friendly fascist" form of discrimination festers under the cover of cheap political expediency.
It is abhorrent, at least to any society that supports liberal values.
Haidt was required to endorse an ideology stating “the only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination…only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” We can debate the merits of that premise. Simpler is concluding it’s contentiousness. Academia exists to resolve contention; forcing an outcome by dictat is dishonest.
Being mostly sheepish about responding to this kind of argument, it feels me with gratitude that so many here can more finely discern the situation presented.
“Anti-racism” is actually about racism against Asians.
“Equity” is actually about lowering the standards and destroying meritocracy.
“Inclusion” is actually about excluding people that have different political or moral opinions (e.g. that don’t want to be racist against Asians or that support meritocracy).
>exceptional people
Why would you only provide free/subsidized schooling to exceptional people. Why not all people? If you truly believe in meritocracy, wouldn't you want everyone to have a fair opportunity to prove themselves?
If resources are limited (and they're always limited) you invest into the highest ROI options.
Exceptional people have a chance of pushing society forward (i.e. creating more resources for the future... exponentially).
(But yeah in general I oppose age-segregated schooling, I think education should have "tracks" (math, physics, sports, music, etc.) and people should attend whatever "level" they're at in each track, in mixed-age groups. And make mostly free (but guided) choices regarding which tracks to put most effort in.)
I see "egalitarianism" as "equality of opportunity". That, and "equality before the law".
But even with the same starting conditions/talent/upbringing/genes, some people will climb further than others. Effort, creativity, etc. We as society should encourage that and reward people who achieve more, for the common benefit of all.
By their very nature, "diversity" and "inclusion" are racist because it must consider someone's race. By arguing for "diversity" and "inclusion" we are mandating we judge people for what they are, rather than who they are; judge them by the color of their skin rather than the quality of their character.
"Anti-racism", which in American academia usually comes about in the form of blacks and latinos receiving preferential treatment at the cost of whites and asians, is indeed racism.
Racism is not acceptable, no matter how benevolent the intent or goal.
And while we're here, since it's part of the bigger, main discussion anyway:
"Equity" is the anti-thesis of equality, because "equity" mandates that all individuals arrive (and stay!) at the same place in life no matter who they are. It throws out individual ambitions and efforts towards obtaining a better silver plate in lieu of society handing everyone the same steel plate.
It's anti-asian and also anti- any race that isn't on the list of beneficiaries. The original argument could have been conveyed better by framing it more broadly, but it isn't wrong.
Aah, that makes sense, if I'm understanding it correctly, they specified Asians because they're another minority, but disadvantaged by policies that seek to help other minorities.
I guess, but it's, well, complicated. In my country, there are (a small number of) spots in medical school reserved for the native people.
Naturally, lots of non-native people considered that racist.
Except it was done to try to correct a very real problem - that the native people have disproportionately worse outcomes in our health system. And likewise, due to about 150 years of deliberate policy that marginalised the native people, they were disproportionately less likely to enter medical school.
And there's now, after some years of this policy, an emerging body of evidence that this "racist" policy around medical school spots is making a difference around health system outcomes for native people.
So yes, the policy is, on the surface racist, but it's slowly combating a systemic racism that was baked into all of our government institutions by previous racist policies. (E.g., native people experience a higher conviction rate and harsher sentencing for the same crimes as white people)
There's still a long way to go for us, but yeah, it gets damn complicated when you're trying to undo the damage of previous racism by introducing positive discrimination.
Asians were mentioned specifically because one common example of those "anti-racist" practices: college admissions is well known to discriminate against Asians - if you're an Asian you need to be more competent and score better on exams to have the same chance for an admission as a black person for example.
I believe GP is referencing American university admissions, where DEI-flavored racial quotas tend to disadvantage Asians when compared to a race-blind system based purely on standardized tests.
Elaborating on this, there is a passage quoted in the article from the most common text on "anti-racism" : "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
The consequences of this are easy to illustrate in orchestras. Orchestras have always been heavily dominated by white and Asian musicians. When it was argued that this was due to discrimination in hiring, the solution was quite simple and tasteful - swap to blind auditions. And that is something few would oppose. So they did.
The problem is that not only did it fail to create more diverse orchestras, in many cases they became even less diverse than they were prior. So now the 'anti-racist' view is that orchestras need to begin being racist against white and Asian applicants, and start biasing selection by race. [1] Groups that disproportionately overperform become acceptable targets for racism.
Incidentally this is not entirely different than the motivation for some of the darkest moments in our history. Alas people never seem to appreciate that the "evil" groups in times past never saw themselves as evil, but simply as people engaging in temporarily distasteful action for a greater future. That greater future never comes, but the distasteful actions certainly do. Of course, "this time it'll be different."
From my understanding, the Jewish diaspora in Christendom often became moneylenders due to various laws that a) prohibited Jews from owning property or businesses and b) laws that prohibited lending money at interest by Christians.
Then yeah, when someone fired up some anti-Semitic hyperbole, well, great way to get out of that debt you owed, right?
IIRC Edward I of England expelled the Jews primarily to confiscate their property after years of taxing them superhard, but it also gave the Crown ownership of debts owed to the Jews, so he was playing the populist hand, and getting funds at the same time.
Huh, okay, so, to clarify my understanding, because of the quotas, assuming a fixed amount of available spots, less Asians get in than they would without the quotas.
But a) wouldn't that apply to other demographics too? and b) All Asians? Are Hmong, for example, over-represented in college enrollments?
I'm just trying to understand why it's specifically anti-Asian.
A bunch of pro-diversity people see white people do well and get successful. They see the same in Asians. They see the opposite for black and latino. They conclude "we must give black and latino preferential treatment to catch up". It is a bit more elaborate, but not much more than that.
>All Asians?
Yes. Despite their fronts, diversity initiatives don't look much further beyond sex, gender and skin color. You're already one level deeper than most of these politics go.
Everyone tries to pretend it's "just not being an asshole". But it's never that simple. It's always comes with demands for an ideological obedience that goes well beyond just accepting others or letting people be free to do what they want.
It isn’t that black and white…to look at it in that light is reductionist.
Further equality is good however it would be helpful to do so in a constructive manner.
What often happens is that SJWs just shut down debates and discussions.. because they disagree. This kills freedom of speech and ideas. This goes exactly to your last point. Are you threatened by others who disagree with you?
Did you know that forcing schools to hire teachers and principals that better reflect the demographics of the school worsens the outcomes of black students in those schools?
