Institutional vs Cultural Privilege

When getting into discussions about things like affirmative action, feminism and general identity politics, I find that the topic of privilege comes up a lot. White men are privileged, which is why they are at the top of society or in power in various positions. They have privileges to which they are blind, and to combat this, programs like affirmative action are necessary. Suppose we take this as a given, that white men are privileged over everyone else. There are, however, no laws which explicitly privilege white men over other groups (at least as far as I know). There are no legal disputes which hinge on the color of the skin as a matter of law. The privilege that white men enjoy is not an institutional privilege. It is not codified in the rules at the legal institutions, or in any major institutions generally. Instead, privilege must be social or cultural, not institutional.

First, let me be clear: whites most definitely did benefit in the past from institutional privileges, and it would be stupid to think otherwise. Slavery and Jim Crowe laws are clear examples of this. Whites were given advantages in laws and rights. Today, there are no such laws that make this distinction between whites and blacks. Whites are no longer institutionally privileged. The privileges that white men have are therefore cultural and social. Cultural and social privilege is very hard to correct, and I'm not sure that anyone really knows a good way to go about it.

Cultural privilege is something that cannot be corrected institutionally, because it will create backlash. Affirmative action tries to combat the socio-cultural privilege of being white and male with an institutional privilege and preference for other demographic groups. This, instead of making the problem better, creates additional cultural privilege for the white men. Why? Because the white men who made it managed to do it without help from the system. Everyone else? They got help. They couldn't hack it on their own merits. This new white male privilege now exists because they are viewed as having achieved, as making it through an institution that is biased against them.

You see some of this happen in the tech industry nowadays, with articles saying that white men are privileged for being taken seriously for their achievements. The problem is that the proposed solution just makes that problem worse. Creating institutional privileges for the 'underprivileged' just give the culturally privileged additional privileges.

Affirmative Action

Talking about affirmative action in this country is an easy way to have an angry debate. Just come out against it, and a whole bunch of (usually) liberals will jump down your throat and call you a racist. The problem is that the current system of affirmative action, and certainly all the simple, easy ways of doing it, are racist.

The first problem with affirmative action is that it is usually trying to fix the problem far too late. College admissions should be based entirely on merit and what the student can bring to the campus. It is certainly possible that the traditional measures of merit are fundamentally flawed, and should be reworked. This, however, is a problem with the measures of merit being inaccurate, not necessarily discriminatory. Rather than 'fix' the problem right before college, it would make a lot more sense to fix the problems with the education system before college. This way, the students who 'need' affirmative action now will be able to get in on their own merits. 

It is also certainly possible that the admissions departments are biased, but there are other ways to get around this, rather than have a selection directly based on race. One would be to have all evaluations of the candidate take place without the name or any other identity markers (gender, for example). This can't solve discrimination at interviews, but it might help isolate the type of discrimination, and show how much is due to race and gender, and how much is due to merit. 

One of the problems that those in favor of affirmative action tend to ignore is an effect later on, that changes the perceptions regarding the group benefiting from the discrimination. If people know that an institution practices affirmative action, then the people in the group receiving the benefits will be perceived by some as marginal. The phrase of 'You only got in because of ...' is something that friends of mine have heard, and part of the problem is that institutions publicize that they practice admitting traditionally lower qualified applicants based on race or gender. This sheds doubt on every member of the group that is benefiting from the affirmative action, as any of them could be below the requirements of what it would take a candidate who did not benefit from affirmative action. This hurts both those in the group who benefited from affirmative action who could have gotten in, and those who would have gotten if they were not displaced. 

When affirmative action is done wrong, it can also have an even worse problem, by perpetuating the stereotypes that the program was supposed to oppose. If no candidates from the traditionally dominant group are admitted, and the traditional measures of merit are accurate, then what will tend to happen will be that the group that benefited from affirmative action will tend to be at the bottom of the class, rather than dispersed more evenly throughout the class. This will mean that the experiences of the students will generally be that the traditionally dominant group is better at academics than the group that benefited from affirmative action, leading to a perpetuation of racist or sexist stereotypes. 

As I said before, this requires that the traditional measures of merit are accurate, and it is certainly possible that they are not. But I think it is highly unlikely that the measures of merit are completely wrong, or have no value, otherwise schools that didn't use them would be just as good as those that didn't, and I don't know of any school with an admissions policy that doesn't use at least some of the traditional measures of merit (GPA, SAT, ACT etc.). What makes more sense than adding something like race to the admissions would be to attempt to reform the traditional measures of merit so that they can more accurately measure the attributes that they intend.

Villains of Korra

I recently marathoned the last two seasons of the Legend of Korra. While I understand that it is a kids show on Nickelodeon, I still think that some of the ideas could have been explored better. There is not enough time given to develop the ideas of the villains, or examine what makes the villains wrong, either in their methods or ideology. If you want to watch the series, this contains some spoilers, so I would recommend not reading.

I personally didn't think that much of the first two seasons. The second was so disappointing that I stopped watching, until I heard that the last two seasons were much better. Well, I think one of the reasons that I found the second season so lackluster was that the villain in it had no reasonable justification, or at least as one that I picked up.

The political side of this is that in the first, third, and fourth seasons showcase different political ideals. The first season tries to explore the idea of equality. The equality movement ends up going too far, but the political questions that they raise are not really answered satisfactorily. They end up discrediting the movement by revealing that the leader of the equalists is actually a bender, and therefore a hypocrite. This is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, the first of which, for me, is that it doesn't remove the objections that were raised by other characters.

The equalists do bring up valid points about being ruled by benders, and how benders have power over them, but they cross the line by taking away peoples bending by force. It should certainly be acceptable to resist benders who try to impose their will on non-benders. This aspect is something that I don't think is explored quite enough, since they end up spending time on rushed romance and pro-bending. One thing that was not mentioned that the benders were getting less relevant in terms of actually using bending in day to day activities. Technology was gradually replacing benders in that respect. The modern civilization also limits what benders can legally do, since it is easy for them to destroy property, which is expensive and has to be fixed.

If people are unequal because of birth, whether it is elemental bending, wealth, good genetics, or any other factors, it doesn't give other people the right to take that away, whatever that is. It is not okay for one group to impose their will through violence or threats of violence, regardless of which side of the have and have-nots they are on. If we take away the abilities that make people extraordinary, all that we are left with is a poorer world.

Skipping ahead to the third season, we have anarchists who are trying to free people from oppressive governments. I find that I can agree with them on some things, but definitely not the way that they go about it. I think that part of the problem is that when they espouse the downfall of governments, they don't make a distinction between government and law or cultural practice. This is a common mistake, but they anarchy that they propose is what is usually thought of as the Hobbesian state of nature.

The fourth season is in some sense the flip side of the anarchist argument, though it is not really portrayed that way. The villain in this season showcases what I would consider some of the dangers of Nationalism. There is some value in a united country as opposed to a fractured one, but for it not to be oppressive, it requires the consent of the governed. Unification through force is not only oppressive, but is also causes war, which is one of the worst things that people can do. Nationalists place the nation as more important than the individuals in the nation. The national interest is used as the excuse, but it is just what the leaders view as the most important.

I would have liked it more if Legend of Korra had expanded a little more on the philosophy of the villains, since for three of the seasons, the villains had philosophy that can't be dismissed out of hand, and even for a kids show, we should try to show that ideas could still be good, even if the way that the villains went about it was definitely wrong.

The Dangers of Nationalism

Something that I see a lot implicitly in the media and the culture is the value placed in the nation as an entity. It is something that I think goes unquestioned, more than most. We often take pride in our nation (though sometimes to satirical extremes, as in 'America, Fuck Yeah!'), but I think that this pride and assumption of the nation state can be dangerous to the health of the citizens.

Over the summer, Russia annexed part of Ukraine, and a big fuss was made about it, talking about how a war might break out over it. Then, there were parts of Ukraine that started fighting to leave and join Russia, though whether that is legitimately Ukrainians wanting to leave, or Russians who are seizing the area, I don't really know or care, and it doesn't matter. The problem is that people are framing the question wrong.

We generally assume that a government is made legitimate by the consent of the governed. Let us assume this to be true. This is a principle that can also be embodied by the idea of the self determination of peoples. Okay, so lets suppose that all people within their national borders are consenting to be governed by that nation, more or less. Clearly in this case, Russia has no claim to invade or annex the people in Crimea, as they have consented to be governed by Ukraine, and not Russia. But suppose those people don't care? They would consent to be governed by Russia or Ukraine? If they are indifferent to who is sovereign, why should the outside world care?

Now let us suppose that they are not indifferent, and would rather be Russian than Ukrainian. In this case, does Ukraine have any right to claim sovereignty over that area after Russia takes it? Sure, Ukraine had it before, but if the people in that region want to be Russian, not Ukrainian, then by the self determination and consent of the governed, they should be allowed to stay Russian. Similarly, if another portion of Ukraine's population wishes to leave Ukraine, what claim does Ukraine have to keep them in Ukraine? If the people derided as 'separatists' withdraw the consent to be governed, then isn't government action against them illegitimate?

Even assuming the legitimacy of all nations, I think these ideas of self determination of peoples and consent of the governed call into question the 'legitimacy' of any civil war, and any nation that engages in such a war. When any portion of a population of a nation withdraws its consent to be governed, waging war against them to keep them in the nation is wrong, by these principles. What ends up as the problem of nationalism is when the people in the rest of the nation support this kind of military action for arguments for national health or power. When we encourage pride in the nation over the consent of the governed, then we lay the ground work for needless civil war.

Why Economic Inequality Should Not Matter

I see a lot of liberal rants about the 'growing economic inequality' and the 'top 1%,' but I think that they are missing the fundamental issue. While it is a nice thought that wealth will be distributed more evenly, so that everyone can enjoy private planes and mansions, we should not be judging society by what the rich can have and the rest can't, but rather by what the normal person can afford. Perhaps it is because humans are a jealous species, but it strikes me that the rich being rich doesn't in any way hurt me.

Consider the case if we take inequality to an absurd extreme. The rich people own planets and have their own private space ships to travel between them. The poor people are stuck on Earth in the state that they are in now. The rich in this case are vastly wealthier than the rich are now, while the poor are just as poor as they are now. So why would the inequality make the difference in social good? Because the poor are more jealous of the rich for having access to more resources?

Contrast this case with a completely equal society with no wealth. There are no rich, only poor, but the income inequality is zero, since no one is making anything. This is where everyone is basically subsistence farming or hunting and gathering, working 12 hours a day to eat, and clothe themselves. This is a situation that is not unlike where humanity started. I think it should be fairly uncontroversial that we have made some progress since then, and I think it is somewhat uncontroversial to say that it is better to be living now, with the large inequality, than 10,000 years ago with less inequality.

What I think should be somewhat clear from my examples is that what is important is not the inequality between the rich and poor, but rather the condition of the poor themselves. If we are concerned primarily about poverty, then what we want is a society where the poor are getting better off the fastest. What happens to the rich should be mostly irrelevant. While the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor might sound like a way to fix the problems of inequality, in the long run, this ends up harming the poor more than it helps. In situations with attempted large scale redistribution, such as in the communist states or in other dictatorships (Zimbabwe comes to mind), the poor end up being worse off, eventually to the point where the system collapses, which hurts the poor the most.

As the saying about capitalism goes, a rising tide raises all boats. There are some objections to this from liberals who think that the system that we live in is pure free market capitalism, but there is no other system that I'm aware of that has led to a larger increase of the standard of living of the poor.

So, the election happened. And all my liberal friends are upset.

Well, as predicted in many places, the election results favored the Republicans, and gained them control of the Senate. My Facebook feed has been full of people bemoaning how terrible this is, and questioning how the country could be so apathetic/stupid. I think that there is a little bit of arrogance and a bit of cognitive dissonance in that sentiment.

First, there is an arrogance in saying that people who vote Republican are stupid. While it may be true (and I certainly don't care to argue that point), if stupid people are not allowed to vote for who they want, who are they allowed to vote for? In a democracy, the entire point is to be governed by the leaders and representatives selected by the people. Stupid people need to have representatives too. And maybe it is not just question of intelligence, maybe the other voters value different things, or have a different worldview.

I think another aspect of this liberal view is that the Republicans don't care about the poor, and are unempathetic or indifferent to the lives of other people. At the same time, these liberals are unwilling to really examine the views of Republicans and Conservatives, and show empathy for their positions. It seems to me that liberals are often too busy accusing conservatives of not caring that they don't consider that maybe they care in a different way.

Lower voter turnout also is thought to have helped the Republicans, which means that there are a bunch of people who would have voted Democrat, but they stayed away from the polls, for some reason. This is probably because people care less about local elections. Why is this? I think part of that is because we have been tending to aggregate more and more power in the federal government, so people have started to think that only the office of the President matters. And it appears that the majority of the people with this mindset are more liberal.

Additionally, we still have a Democrat as a president, so it is not like the country is in a significantly different place than last year. The Republicans don't have a veto-proof majority, so anything that they do will still need the President's signature. The only thing that might have changed would be they might send more bills to the President to sign.

I think that the next couple of years will be the Republicans sending Obama bills to sign, and him not signing them, followed by each side accusing the other of not compromising. I don't think that there will be a significant change from before.

A Contradiction in Modern Liberalism

Something that I've noticed from my outspoken liberal acquaintances (Facebook friends), is a tendency to indulge in a scary little doublethink. They rightfully oppose the actions of the police in cases like Ferguson, but then at the same time advocate for giving the state, and therefore agents of the state, additional power to regulate various enterprises. In essence, they are simultaneously advocating increasing the bullying power of the police, while trying to stop the police from bullying. The problem with this position is that giving a group more power is going to have the reverse incentive, and will encourage more bullying.

In our system, this is somewhat mitigated by having multiple government agencies which compete for various legal playgrounds. Police departments have Internal Affairs, which are supposed to bully the bullies. The courts are supposed to ensure that the police can only punish people when they follow the rules. The problem with this is that the legal system is complicated and expensive, so even the threat of legal action can be a deterrent for most people. This means that the police can threated innocent people with lengthy court proceedings, or government inspections, as a means to bully. Even if the police department cannot directly enforce the regulations introduced, they can threaten to contact the agency that does enforce the regulations.

If liberals found a way to end police aggression, and solve the problems of police brutality, then I don't think that this would be a huge problem. I have not seen a good solutions from liberals on this particular front. There is an idea that in a democracy, we can just vote some one in or out, and that will solve the problem. And this is true to some extent, but we don't vote on individual police officers. We don't vote on the policies which govern the police directly. In the current system, we have to rely on elected officials appointing people who understand these problems and institute policies which can help mitigate the systemic incentives. I'm not particularly hopeful in this regard.