Election meaningless unless we change for the better

[pmward]

No, go re-read the quote that pug made that started this whole thing. He said he didn't want "lower class" people in his neighborhood because they won't "take care of their property and contribute positively to the schools" and that they are a bunch of "hooligans, gangs and disruptive students". Not every poor person doesn't take care of their property. Not every poor person is a hooligan, gangbanger, causing problems at school. You jumped in on that discussion between me and him mid-stream and started trying to twist what I was saying into something else entirely. I'm not telling people that if they choose to live in a nice, low crime area that they are classist. I'm saying that attributing those negative stereotypical traits to all poor people is not only false, it is incredibly harmful. It's ok to judge a criminal as a criminal. It's ok to judge a vulgar, unmotivated, drug-using, violent teen as a vulgar, unmotivated, drug-using, violent teen. It's not ok to judge an entire group of people as these things.

Fair enough, I think I understand the distinction now. You're saying something like the following:

Okay: I'd rather not live in that low-class neighborhood, because many of the people who live there exhibit low-class behaviors.

Not okay: I currently live in a nice neighborhood and dislike the fact that someone who appears to be low-class just moved into this neighborhood, because although I haven't seen them exhibit low-class behavior yet, I'm assuming they're likely to.

If that's roughly what you're saying, then I'm completely on board with that.

YES!!! This is it right here.

[pmward]

Here's the thing to kind of rope it back around to where this tangent started. These generalizations become engrained in our brains. They become a part of our mind's subconscious programming. So when we start to buy in to these generalizations, they flavor our actions, the things we say, who we associate with, who we are friendly with, who we avoid, who we shun, who we support, who we resist, etc. These things themselves turn into discriminating thoughts, which turn into discriminating actions. And the whole time we may not be aware that we are doing this. Like, I don't think MangoMan was aware of what he said when he said it. Not to pick on you MangoMan, because I've caught myself doing this. In watching my own mind, I catch myself doing this. I have to stop and pause and say "wait a minute, that's not true". This is how the human mind works, we are good at trying to find patterns, and sometimes they falsely project those patterns forward, and it can unintentionally harm others. If you go way back and read Simonjester's comment from this morning on page 19, he called these people the "cognitive dissidents". People that may say they don't support discrimination, and they may not believe they are perpetuating discrimination, but they really are. An example that a friend of mine told me that helped me get the "aha" moment. He told me about a time he was traveling and went to a local church in the area. He was the only non-white person there. He said that person after person came in and sat as far away from him as they could. He said when the service started basically the only seats open in the whole place were around him. Nobody stopped to say hi or shake his hand. He felt terrible, unwanted, rejected, less than, etc. He said he doesn't think it was intentional. These people didn't think "oh I'm not going to sit by HIM", their subconscious just automatically avoided him basically on auto-pilot. But it still hurt him, and lowered his own self value, even if just briefly. When this kind of behavior becomes a regularly occurring thing... it's easy to start really believing that you really are less than.

[Mountaineer]

Here's the thing to kind of rope it back around to where this tangent started. These generalizations become engrained in our brains. They become a part of our mind's subconscious programming. So when we start to buy in to these generalizations, they flavor our actions, the things we say, who we associate with, who we are friendly with, who we avoid, who we shun, who we support, who we resist, etc. These things themselves turn into discriminating thoughts, which turn into discriminating actions. And the whole time we may not be aware that we are doing this. Like, I don't think MangoMan was aware of what he said when he said it. Not to pick on you MangoMan, because I've caught myself doing this. In watching my own mind, I catch myself doing this. I have to stop and pause and say "wait a minute, that's not true". This is how the human mind works, we are good at trying to find patterns, and sometimes they falsely project those patterns forward, and it can unintentionally harm others. If you go way back and read Simonjester's comment from this morning on page 19, he called these people the "cognitive dissidents". People that may say they don't support discrimination, and they may not believe they are perpetuating discrimination, but they really are. An example that a friend of mine told me that helped me get the "aha" moment. He told me about a time he was traveling and went to a local church in the area. He was the only non-white person there. He said that person after person came in and sat as far away from him as they could. He said when the service started basically the only seats open in the whole place were around him. Nobody stopped to say hi or shake his hand. He felt terrible, unwanted, rejected, less than, etc. He said he doesn't think it was intentional. These people didn't think "oh I'm not going to sit by HIM", their subconscious just automatically avoided him basically on auto-pilot. But it still hurt him, and lowered his own self value, even if just briefly. When this kind of behavior becomes a regularly occurring thing... it's easy to start really believing that you really are less than.

Interesting how different people react to situations. Had I been your friend in that church setting, I would have thought ’I am not going to let other people determine how I feel’. Then I would reflect that church is for sinners just like me. Then I would have approached a couple of people, introduced myself and said something positive about the sermon, trying to show them I was a fellow child of God. Regardless of how they might respond to my comments, I don’t let others control my feelings. I have always told my children that you can’t control other people’s behaviors, but you can control your own response (physical and emotional and intellectual) - the choice is yours.

[pmward]

Here's the thing to kind of rope it back around to where this tangent started. These generalizations become engrained in our brains. They become a part of our mind's subconscious programming. So when we start to buy in to these generalizations, they flavor our actions, the things we say, who we associate with, who we are friendly with, who we avoid, who we shun, who we support, who we resist, etc. These things themselves turn into discriminating thoughts, which turn into discriminating actions. And the whole time we may not be aware that we are doing this. Like, I don't think MangoMan was aware of what he said when he said it. Not to pick on you MangoMan, because I've caught myself doing this. In watching my own mind, I catch myself doing this. I have to stop and pause and say "wait a minute, that's not true". This is how the human mind works, we are good at trying to find patterns, and sometimes they falsely project those patterns forward, and it can unintentionally harm others. If you go way back and read Simonjestert's comment from this morning on page 19, he called these people the "cognitive dissidents". People that may say they don't support discrimination, and they may not believe they are perpetuating discrimination, but they really are. An example that a friend of mine told me that helped me get the "aha" moment. He told me about a time he was traveling and went to a local church in the area. He was the only non-white person there. He said that person after person came in and sat as far away from him as they could. He said when the service started basically the only seats open in the whole place were around him. Nobody stopped to say hi or shake his hand. He felt terrible, unwanted, rejected, less than, etc. He said he doesn't think it was intentional. These people didn't think "oh I'm not going to sit by HIM", their subconscious just automatically avoided him basically on auto-pilot. But it still hurt him, and lowered his own self value, even if just briefly. When this kind of behavior becomes a regularly occurring thing... it's easy to start really believing that you really are less than.

Interesting how different people react to situations. Had I been your friend in that church setting, I would have thought ’I am not going to let other people determine how I feel’. Then I would reflect that church is for sinners just like me. Then I would have approached a couple of people, introduced myself and said something positive about the sermon, trying to show them I was a fellow child of God. Regardless of how they might respond to my comments, I don’t let others control my feelings. I have always told my children that you can’t control other people’s behaviors, but you can control your own response (physical and emotional and intellectual) - the choice is yours.

You must keep in mind this is not an isolated incident. This is but one example of day to day life for some. If society told you this story over and over again from the time you were young that you were less than... well anybody would be effected by this story. It can create deep seeded traumas that can be difficult to overcome. You cannot truly say how you would react in his shoes... because you have not ever worn his shoes for a single day... much less for 40 years. If you had, and especially if you went through childhood having society transmit this story onto you, I have a feeling you would look at the world much differently today. These things are in the realm of programmed subconscious conditioning, your programming in life has been completely different than his. So you cannot just dismiss his experience for how you would feel in his shoes, because you really have no idea. So this is the thing, since you can never truly understand, you can never truly dismiss someone else's traumas. Not saying there is no choice in here, but in the realm of psychology... the choices can become limited by these false beliefs you've picked up along the way.

[Mountaineer]

Here's the thing to kind of rope it back around to where this tangent started. These generalizations become engrained in our brains. They become a part of our mind's subconscious programming. So when we start to buy in to these generalizations, they flavor our actions, the things we say, who we associate with, who we are friendly with, who we avoid, who we shun, who we support, who we resist, etc. These things themselves turn into discriminating thoughts, which turn into discriminating actions. And the whole time we may not be aware that we are doing this. Like, I don't think MangoMan was aware of what he said when he said it. Not to pick on you MangoMan, because I've caught myself doing this. In watching my own mind, I catch myself doing this. I have to stop and pause and say "wait a minute, that's not true". This is how the human mind works, we are good at trying to find patterns, and sometimes they falsely project those patterns forward, and it can unintentionally harm others. If you go way back and read Simonjester's comment from this morning on page 19, he called these people the "cognitive dissidents". People that may say they don't support discrimination, and they may not believe they are perpetuating discrimination, but they really are. An example that a friend of mine told me that helped me get the "aha" moment. He told me about a time he was traveling and went to a local church in the area. He was the only non-white person there. He said that person after person came in and sat as far away from him as they could. He said when the service started basically the only seats open in the whole place were around him. Nobody stopped to say hi or shake his hand. He felt terrible, unwanted, rejected, less than, etc. He said he doesn't think it was intentional. These people didn't think "oh I'm not going to sit by HIM", their subconscious just automatically avoided him basically on auto-pilot. But it still hurt him, and lowered his own self value, even if just briefly. When this kind of behavior becomes a regularly occurring thing... it's easy to start really believing that you really are less than.

Interesting how different people react to situations. Had I been your friend in that church setting, I would have thought ’I am not going to let other people determine how I feel’. Then I would reflect that church is for sinners just like me. Then I would have approached a couple of people, introduced myself and said something positive about the sermon, trying to show them I was a fellow child of God. Regardless of how they might respond to my comments, I don’t let others control my feelings. I have always told my children that you can’t control other people’s behaviors, but you can control your own response (physical and emotional and intellectual) - the choice is yours.

You must keep in mind this is not an isolated incident. This is but one example of day to day life for some. If society told you this story over and over again from the time you were young that you were less than... well anybody would be effected by this story. It can create deep seeded traumas that can be difficult to overcome. You cannot truly say how you would react in his shoes... because you have not ever worn his shoes for a single day... much less for 40 years. If you had, and especially if you went through childhood having society transmit this story onto you, I have a feeling you would look at the world much differently today. These things are in the realm of programmed subconscious conditioning, your programming in life has been completely different than his. So you cannot just dismiss his experience for how you would feel in his shoes, because you really have no idea. So this is the thing, since you can never truly understand, you can never truly dismiss someone else's traumas. Not saying there is no choice in here, but in the realm of psychology... the choices can become limited by these false beliefs you've picked up along the way.

How exactly is it you know I’m not a non-white who grew up on the poor side of town who maybe didn’t even have shoes to wear for much longer than 40 years? And after pondering that question, why do you think I am engaging in this conversation?

[Mark Leavy]

One of the last bastions for us racist, sexist, classist bigots is the dating scene.

My sister (who is as lefty/progressive as they come) will only date rich, tall Danish men. No one ever tells her that she is an awful person for not giving impoverished Asian lesbian midgets a shot. Why is she painting impoverished Asian lesbian midgets with a broad brush? Doesn't seem fair.

I only date women who are shorter and lighter than I am and that walk up hills and can solve the Sunday Times Crossword puzzle. Crazy religions are okay - but you have to be okay with killing animals for food.

Nobody ever told me, "Mark, you asshole, why don't you date crackheads? Do you think they are beneath you?"

When it comes to something as basic as procreation and the continuation of the species, we give a pass to everyone on who they want to live with, have sex with and have kids with.

I'm a simple man. I believe the same animal instincts that drive our mating preferences also influence who we want to hang around with in our neighborhood.

[Mark Leavy]

...
If you don’t, you support genocide.

There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures. And the Dutch.

[Kriegsspiel]

As I understand it (Tortoise and Simonjester have already mentioned it as well), the founders were talking about the government securing those rights as in, preventing people/our government/other governments from infringing on them. So to simplify, your right to life means that the government can't kill you, right to liberty means they can't imprison you, and right to happiness means they can't fuck with you doing things you enjoy. But it can do all of those things if you violate the society; the founders were ok with the government killing, imprisoning, and fucking with the life-enjoyment of criminals. They weren't saying that the government's duty was to keep you alive, or help you take advantage of every freedom you could, or make sure you were doing things that made you happy and fulfilled.

No that is not a correct translation. The founders spent a great deal of time debating the very root of my argument, which is tyranny of the majority. The concept of tyranny of the majority was well known in their time, and it was something they fought over quite a bit. Parts of our government structure and the constitution were setup specifically to try to combat this. They were not only trying to combat governmental tyranny, they were trying to combat ALL tyranny. It doesn't matter if it comes from a group of people or a government; tyranny is tyranny; oppression is oppression. To only look at what they wrote in the context of government is too limited, and was not their original intention.

I think we both said the same thing with different words, so I'm not sure which part you think was not correct. Either way, you didn't explain why you think the government's role was the latter part of what I wrote.

Tyranny of the majority itself is a tricky beast. . . For instance, even if the government does not instill a mask mandate, if society as a whole deems it unacceptable to not wear a mask and shuns everyone who does not wear a mask, that is a tyranny of the majority that has nothing to do with the government. That in itself is a form of power that has nothing to do with the government. So just like I can argue the left side that oppression of minorities is tyranny, I can also argue the right side, that societal pressures, cancel culture, etc are also a form of tyranny. Neither of which have anything to do with government, thus neither would go away if the government went away.

Yes, I agree. That's what I was saying about masks a long time ago. In Japan, everyone thinks you're a jackass if you don't wear a mask when you're sick, but there's no law saying you HAVE to. In the US, if you're sick it's expected that you stay home and recover instead of going around infecting people, but we're uncomfortable with governments forcing us to. Cancel culture is also largely outside the law as well.

[sophie]

So what exactly was the problem here? Are you saying that there is a genetic predisposition of certain races to lead irresponsible and unproductive lives, so that they must be rescued by the state? That sounds racist to me. And might one have the sneaking suspicion that government actually CAUSED this problem?

As far as I can see, you're the only person in this entire thread that has attributed "irresponsible and unproductive lives" to a persons skin color.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the chapter in my high school American history class that mentioned a race other than blacks who were enslaved in the the U.S. Could you please enlighten me?

I take it, by the way, that you can't refute a single thing I said in my post. Glad to know that even though you might not want to admit it, you agree with me that the current sorry economic and social state of a large proportion of blacks in the US cannot be attributed to the legacy of slavery.

[sophie]

Okay: I'd rather not live in that low-class neighborhood, because many of the people who live there exhibit low-class behaviors.

Not okay: I currently live in a nice neighborhood and dislike the fact that someone who appears to be low-class just moved into this neighborhood, because although I haven't seen them exhibit low-class behavior yet, I'm assuming they're likely to.

That sounds like a theoretical, armchair argument that fits in well with politically correct cancel culture, but in real life is absolutely ludicrous.

Pmward, you will convince me when you decide to pick up and move into Bedford-Stuyvesant or equivalent neighborhood, taking your entire family with you. And put your kids into the local public schools. Do that and then come back and tell us what it's like not to be an evil classist.

My cousin did something like this during his youthful, idealist days. He was temporarily living in Philadelphia and working at a bank. He decided to live in South Philly to prove he wasn't a classist. His apartment was broken into about once a month and he was mugged approximately as often. He pretended this was all just fine with him for maybe a year, then suddenly couldn't take it anymore, picked up and moved out of the city. He is now married with kids, and lives in a very nice suburban area with excellent schools. No muggings or breakins. I guess he's "evil" now for preferring his current neighborhood to his former one in Philly?

You are asking people to go against their desire to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones. If we didn't have this basic instinct, it's unlikely we would even exist as a species today. You personally are free to move into whatever trash-strewn, high crime, crappy-school neighborhood you choose to, but you have no right to claim moral superiority over the vast majority of people who don't want to do that.

[glennds]

...
If you don’t, you support genocide.

There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures. And the Dutch.

What about Illinois Nazis?
I hate Illinois Nazis.

[pmward]

Okay: I'd rather not live in that low-class neighborhood, because many of the people who live there exhibit low-class behaviors.

Not okay: I currently live in a nice neighborhood and dislike the fact that someone who appears to be low-class just moved into this neighborhood, because although I haven't seen them exhibit low-class behavior yet, I'm assuming they're likely to.

That sounds like a theoretical, armchair argument that fits in well with politically correct cancel culture, but in real life is absolutely ludicrous.

Pmward, you will convince me when you decide to pick up and move into Bedford-Stuyvesant or equivalent neighborhood, taking your entire family with you. And put your kids into the local public schools. Do that and then come back and tell us what it's like not to be an evil classist.

My cousin did something like this during his youthful, idealist days. He was temporarily living in Philadelphia and working at a bank. He decided to live in South Philly to prove he wasn't a classist. His apartment was broken into about once a month and he was mugged approximately as often. He pretended this was all just fine with him for maybe a year, then suddenly couldn't take it anymore, picked up and moved out of the city. He is now married with kids, and lives in a very nice suburban area with excellent schools. No muggings or breakins. I guess he's "evil" now for preferring his current neighborhood to his former one in Philly?

You are asking people to go against their desire to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones. If we didn't have this basic instinct, it's unlikely we would even exist as a species today. You personally are free to move into whatever trash-strewn, high crime, crappy-school neighborhood you choose to, but you have no right to claim moral superiority over the vast majority of people who don't want to do that.

You clearly did not understand a single thing I said. Please place your biases aside and go back and re-read everything I wrote. Because the argument you're making here does not go against anything I have said. Your arguments are all very short sighted and you're making a lot of assumptions and putting a lot of words in my mouth I did not say.

[Mountaineer]

Some apparently think there are only two types of people - oppressors and victims. Their propaganda that constantly repeats that myth just continues the problem. But they can’t see that it does so. Lord have mercy!

[pmward]

Here's the thing to kind of rope it back around to where this tangent started. These generalizations become engrained in our brains. They become a part of our mind's subconscious programming. So when we start to buy in to these generalizations, they flavor our actions, the things we say, who we associate with, who we are friendly with, who we avoid, who we shun, who we support, who we resist, etc. These things themselves turn into discriminating thoughts, which turn into discriminating actions. And the whole time we may not be aware that we are doing this. Like, I don't think MangoMan was aware of what he said when he said it. Not to pick on you MangoMan, because I've caught myself doing this. In watching my own mind, I catch myself doing this. I have to stop and pause and say "wait a minute, that's not true". This is how the human mind works, we are good at trying to find patterns, and sometimes they falsely project those patterns forward, and it can unintentionally harm others. If you go way back and read Simonjester's comment from this morning on page 19, he called these people the "cognitive dissidents". People that may say they don't support discrimination, and they may not believe they are perpetuating discrimination, but they really are. An example that a friend of mine told me that helped me get the "aha" moment. He told me about a time he was traveling and went to a local church in the area. He was the only non-white person there. He said that person after person came in and sat as far away from him as they could. He said when the service started basically the only seats open in the whole place were around him. Nobody stopped to say hi or shake his hand. He felt terrible, unwanted, rejected, less than, etc. He said he doesn't think it was intentional. These people didn't think "oh I'm not going to sit by HIM", their subconscious just automatically avoided him basically on auto-pilot. But it still hurt him, and lowered his own self value, even if just briefly. When this kind of behavior becomes a regularly occurring thing... it's easy to start really believing that you really are less than.

Interesting how different people react to situations. Had I been your friend in that church setting, I would have thought ’I am not going to let other people determine how I feel’. Then I would reflect that church is for sinners just like me. Then I would have approached a couple of people, introduced myself and said something positive about the sermon, trying to show them I was a fellow child of God. Regardless of how they might respond to my comments, I don’t let others control my feelings. I have always told my children that you can’t control other people’s behaviors, but you can control your own response (physical and emotional and intellectual) - the choice is yours.

You must keep in mind this is not an isolated incident. This is but one example of day to day life for some. If society told you this story over and over again from the time you were young that you were less than... well anybody would be effected by this story. It can create deep seeded traumas that can be difficult to overcome. You cannot truly say how you would react in his shoes... because you have not ever worn his shoes for a single day... much less for 40 years. If you had, and especially if you went through childhood having society transmit this story onto you, I have a feeling you would look at the world much differently today. These things are in the realm of programmed subconscious conditioning, your programming in life has been completely different than his. So you cannot just dismiss his experience for how you would feel in his shoes, because you really have no idea. So this is the thing, since you can never truly understand, you can never truly dismiss someone else's traumas. Not saying there is no choice in here, but in the realm of psychology... the choices can become limited by these false beliefs you've picked up along the way.

How exactly is it you know I’m not a non-white who grew up on the poor side of town who maybe didn’t even have shoes to wear for much longer than 40 years? And after pondering that question, why do you think I am engaging in this conversation?

In that, I was merely summarizing what I was told by someone who has met all those qualifications. I don't personally know what it's like to go through all of that. Understanding how the human mind works, and having to struggle to overcome some other childhood traumas in my own life to be able to become a successful productive and mentally healthy member of society... I can see enough similarities to at least try to understand.

[pmward]

Some apparently think there are only two types of people - oppressors and victims. Their propaganda that constantly repeats that myth just continues the problem. But they can’t see that it does so. Lord have mercy!

I sure hope you're not referring to me. Because this is not what I've said at all. I've already said we are discussing the "minority", ie both the "oppressors" (at least intentional oppressors) and the "victims" are not the majority. But they are important, and shouldn't be written off. These very extremes are the very ones that need to be considered in any philosophical, political, or government system discussion. We don't make laws to constrain the behaviors of the majority, we create laws to constrain the behaviors of the extreme few. So in a philosophical discussion, we HAVE to start with identifying the extremes, and if we solve for the extremes, we solve for the whole.

[sophie]

Except that you're saying that a large swath of the US population is guilty of "extreme" behavior, because we want to live in nice upscale neighborhoods?

My point is not so much to take pmward's arguments apart (which is like shooting fish in a barrel and not particularly interesting) but to show just how extreme the "standard" left-wing propaganda is. The left profits when it can identify groups of people as victims who should blame their plight on someone else, because they can then much more easily get their political support (i.e. votes).

Mountaineer you're right on. The victim vs. oppressor narrative is what this is all about.

[doodle]

Except that you're saying that a large swath of the US population is guilty of "extreme" behavior, because we want to live in nice upscale neighborhoods?

My point is not so much to take pmward's arguments apart (which is like shooting fish in a barrel and not particularly interesting) but to show just how extreme the "standard" left-wing propaganda is. The left profits when it can identify groups of people as victims who should blame their plight on someone else, because they can then much more easily get their political support (i.e. votes).

Mountaineer you're right on. The victim vs. oppressor narrative is what this is all about.

Both parties are hanging out on the fringes where nothing makes sense. The right needs to stop ignoring the fact that we systematically held down an entire race of people in this country for hundreds of years and continue to do so (although in far less obvious ways than 50 or 60 years ago) and the left needs to stop attributing every failure to these systemic injustices...the individual still has a role to play and personal responsibility does matter.

My Jamaican coworker I spoke about in another thread has by and large been able to lead a good life because he works hard and keeps his life clean. However, one cannot dismiss the impact that it has on a person when you get criminalized and pulled over constantly because you happen to be walking through a neighborhood a night and have the wrong skin color. That event alone breeds contempt and hatred for a society that treats you in that way and it breeds the type of antisocial behavior people here call "low class". If you treat people like another class, then they are likely to start acting out like one.

[doodle]

Oh, and it isn't going to change overnight. You don't adopt an abused animal from the pound and expect it to not have trauma from years of abuse. It's the same with humans. Epigenetics is real...these traumas are passed down through generations.

[pmward]

Except that you're saying that a large swath of the US population is guilty of "extreme" behavior, because we want to live in nice upscale neighborhoods?

No you did not read everything I said. I have specifically said in my own words that wanting to live in a nice upscale neighborhood is totally fine. You clearly did not read what I have already written, and this proves it. You also seem to have no interest in meeting me in the middle to discuss these issues, like most people in this thread have. I think we actually had some good constructive discussion here this week. I'm frustrated, because to me it feels like you have come into the discussion with your mind already made up, and an unwillingness to listen to anything else other than your pre-existing biases, and an unwillingness to actually have any real constructive discussion. Unless you're willing to place your biases to the side and actually have a discussion, I'm not sure there is any value in continuing the conversation.

I also think I've already said everything I have to say on the subject. I think the discussion at this point has mostly run it's course. If you or any one else need clarity anywhere, feel free to ask questions. But I don't want this to devolve into me just doing the broken record thing repeating the same things over and over. The argument and logic behind it are all laid out, it's on you whether or not you're willing to actually read it, set your biases aside for a moment, and try to actually understand where I was coming from.

[Tortoise]

I suspect there’s a minor disconnect here in that pmward said “classism is evil”, but he’s operating under a slightly different definition of classism than Sophie is.

If I understand pmward correctly, he doesn’t consider it classist to prefer to live in a nice, upscale neighborhood. He thinks it’s classist to assume an individual person is probably low-class (e.g., based on their skin color) before that person actually exhibits low-class behaviors.

The former does not involve a judgment about a particular person, whereas the latter does.

[Mountaineer]

So what do you all think about the Rudy G. Et al news conference today about election fraud? Only saw a couple of minutes of it after a friend called me. Seems like a really big deal.

[pmward]

Exactly. Any "ism" can only happen when somebody judges an individual person to be equal to some stereotype, usually a stereotype someone views as lower than themselves, but it can go the other way as well. You can for instance show preferential treatment to someone who looks rich. This makes their life easier by being treated better than others for no other reason than the fact that you made assumptions of them according to their stereotype. They could be bankrupt, with everything they own being all on debt... but you treated them differently based on their appearance instead of their actual character as an individual person. A criminal is always a bad thing. Not all poor people are criminals. So, to judge a poor person as a criminal, when you don't know if they actually are a criminal, is harmful, and it is a chronic issue. It is a legitimate gripe that some groups in this country have. Some people are treated better based on stereotype, and others are treated worse based on stereotype. Did you win the lottery by being born in the proper group or not? This birth lottery makes a big difference in quality of life, and that's not really fair. It's not "equality".

[Kriegsspiel]

I suspect there’s a minor disconnect here in that pmward said “classism is evil”, but he’s operating under a slightly different definition of classism than Sophie is.

If I understand pmward correctly, he doesn’t consider it classist to prefer to live in a nice, upscale neighborhood. He thinks it’s classist to assume an individual person is probably low-class (e.g., based on their skin color) before that person actually exhibits low-class behaviors.

The former does not involve a judgment about a particular person, whereas the latter does.

Where I'm from, you wouldn't use "low-class" to mean someone's ethnicity, so maybe that's why trying to follow this was so fucking bewildering. We use low-class to talk about people who, say, leave their kids toys out in the front yard, or let their kids misbehave in front of other people; some people use "trashy" to mean the same thing. Its opposite would be "classy" which every American uses the same way AFAIK.

My brother lives in a very nice, expensive neighborhood, and some low-class people moved in nearby and his street is apparently very concerned.

[pmward]

I suspect there’s a minor disconnect here in that pmward said “classism is evil”, but he’s operating under a slightly different definition of classism than Sophie is.

If I understand pmward correctly, he doesn’t consider it classist to prefer to live in a nice, upscale neighborhood. He thinks it’s classist to assume an individual person is probably low-class (e.g., based on their skin color) before that person actually exhibits low-class behaviors.

The former does not involve a judgment about a particular person, whereas the latter does.

Where I'm from, you wouldn't use "low-class" to mean someone's ethnicity, so maybe that's why trying to follow this was so fucking bewildering. We use low-class to talk about people who, say, leave their kids toys out in the front yard, or let their kids misbehave in front of other people; some people use "trashy" to mean the same thing. Its opposite would be "classy" which every American uses the same way AFAIK.

My brother lives in a very nice, expensive neighborhood, and some low-class people moved in nearby and his street is apparently very concerned.

Thought experiment: So if somebody leaves their kids toys out front, or if their kids misbehave in public... Does that mean they are poor? Does that mean they are criminals? Does that mean they are in a gang? Does that mean they are less valuable than someone who's kids pick up after themselves and behave in public?

Flip side: if someone's kids pick up after themselves and behave... does that mean those people have to be either "middle class" or "upper class"? Does that mean they are not criminals? Does that mean they are more valuable than someone who's kids don't pick up after themselves and don't behave in public?

We can judge an individual for having a messy yard, we can judge someone for having misbehaving kids, but we cannot assume that because of these things that all the other traits that fit the "low class" stereotype fit them. Moreover, we cannot look at someone that we think looks "low class" without any proof or knowledge of them as a person, and assume that all the above traits fit them.

[Kriegsspiel]

"Low class" means poor, just like "upper class" means rich and "middle class" means average income. So if somebody leaves their kids toys out front, or if their kids misbehave in public... Does that mean they are poor? Does that mean they are criminals? Does that mean they are in a gang? Does that mean they are less valuable than someone who's kids pick up after themselves and behave in public?

Flip side: if someone's kids pick up after themselves and behave... does that mean those people have to be either "middle class" or "upper class"? Does that mean they are not criminals? Does that mean they are more valuable than someone who's kids don't pick up after themselves and don't behave in public?

We can judge an individual for having a messy yard, we can judge someone for having misbehaving kids, but we cannot assume that because of these things that all the other traits that fit the "low class" stereotype fit them. Moreover, we cannot look at someone that we think looks "low class" without any proof or knowledge of them as a person, and assume that all the above traits fit them.