Dr. Feser defines "woke" out of existence, part 2

In a not-so-recent post on his blog, Dr. Feser attempted to define the term "woke".  I discussed the first part of the post earlier, so now I'll move on.  As before, I will use "woke" in quotes when talking about how right-wingers use the term, and remove the quotes when using the term as I would.

Feser goes to list characteristics of his claimed "woke" mindset that are indicative of some psychological disorders (later identified as "depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders", still later referred to as "delusional paranoia", and compared to the full-blown schizophrenia of John Nash).  He has assembled quite a list of traits.  Amusingly, he succumbs to every item he accuses the "woke" of.

• emotional reasoning, or letting our feelings determine how we interpret reality rather than letting reality determine whether our feelings are the appropriate ones; -- Feser has a strong emotional reaction to depictions of homosexual or trans people, to the degree he can't stand having children exposed to the concepts, much less studying them
• catastrophizing, or focusing obsessively on the imagined worst possible outcome rather than on what the evidence shows are more likely outcomes; -- I really don't have to look further than identifying the mindset of "woke" people as "delusional paranoia", but I can do even better, such as when he refers to protestors as "tyrants" because they resist being tear-gassed, pull down statues dedicated for countering civil rights, feel free to protest vocally, and criticize people on the internet 
• overgeneralizing, or jumping to sweeping conclusions on the basis of one or a few incidents; I didn't find an example here, but neither did Feser describe "woke" people of suffering from this.
• dichotomous thinking, or seeing things in either-or terms when a more sober analysis would reveal more possibilities; Feser, when disagreeing with the existence of microaggressions, offers an either-or explanation when the reality is the effects combine (see part 1 for slightly more detail)
• mind reading, or jumping to conclusions about what other people are thinking; Feser's entire post is an exercise in mind-reading, and he misses the mark widely
• labeling, or slapping a simplistic description on some person or phenomenon that papers over its complexity; Feser's use of the term "woke"
• negative filtering and discounting positives, or looking only for confirming evidence for some pessimistic assumption while denying or downplaying confirming evidence that things are not in fact so bad; Feser's ignoring decades of research on racism is due to negative filtering
• blaming, or focusing on others as the sources of one’s negative feelings rather than taking responsibility for them oneself.  Feser projects his own negative feelings onto the "woke"

To paraphrase Feser, looking at the world through his ideas about "woke" leads him to be blind to oppression and injustice even where they do exist, to feel strongly aggrieved at the woke who point out this oppression and injustice, and then to treat the narrative of grievance that results as if it were confirming evidence of the unreality of the very real oppression and injustice.  It distorts his reality.

In the next paragraph, he refers to the confidence of the woke (not surprising given the decades of studies), but also refers to their supposed tendency to attack critics, apparently not realizing that Feser and his ilk are doing the attacking.  When you deny the reality of the trans existence or deny the daily, lived experience of another as some sort of delusion, that is an attack on a fundamental part of someone's identity, a part that they already suffer oppression from. 

Ironically, Feser opines:  Hence it would, for example, be unjust for a government to protect the lives, liberties, and property rights of citizens of one race while not doing the same for citizens of other races.  This would be a clear case of an unjust inequity.  Again, Feser ignores decades of studies that citizens of different races do not receive equitable protection of their life, liberty, and property.

Again, Feser opines:  What I am calling hyper-egalitarian is the tendency to suspect all inequalities of being per se unjust – for example, to suppose that if 10% of the population of a country is of a certain race yet less than 10% of the stockbrokers in that country are of that race, this amounts to a “racist” inequity that cannot be given an innocent explanation and must somehow be eliminated by governmental policy.  Feser does not present an alternative explanation, for example, that Hispanic people are over 12% of the population but less than 6% of stockbrokers.  With over 43,000 stockbrokers, The probability of this being due to random chance is effectively zero.  Feser needs to offer an explanation not rooted in racism to make his point effectively. 

To paraphrase Feser again, I am not saying that Feser is as insane as the John Nash.  Nor is Feser even as shrill as commentariat.  Like other forms of delusional paranoia, denial of oppression comes in degrees.  But if you think that views like Critical Race Theory, Gender Theory, etc. are so obviously wrong that no decent and well-informed person could possibly support them, and find it at least difficult calmly and rationally to engage with anyone who thinks otherwise, you in denial.  And precisely because you find it difficult calmly and rationally to entertain the possibility that you are part of the problem, your attitude is paradigmatically irrational.
Read more!

Dr. Feser defines "woke" out of existence, part 1

In a not-so-recent post on his blog, Dr. Feser attempted to define the term "woke".  Unsurprisingly, he made several mischaracterizations, of which I will address a few.

We can begin in the very first sentence:  A common talking point among the woke is the claim that “woke” is just a term of abuse that has no clear meaning.  The correction would be:  “Woke” is just a term of abuse among right-wing commentators that has no clear meaning, but refers to any policies/facts/lesson plans about minorities that they don't like.  Feser proves the latter to be true in his attempt to defend the former.

I will use "woke" in quotes when talking about how right-wingers use the term, and remove the quotes when using the term as I would, which would be something like:  recognition that there are many ways, some not obvious, that oppression can manifest itself.  

It would be unfair to not include his definition:  "Wokeness" is a paranoid delusional hyper-egalitarian mindset that tends to see oppression and injustice where they do not exist or greatly to exaggerate them where they do exist. By this definition, no straight, while, cis, etc., male (such as me) can be "woke" because, regardless of how much we agree that society is fundamentally racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc., it favors me.  Feser would consider me pronoid instead, meaning I can't be "woke".  It's  a measure of Feser's privilege that he seems to think everyone who shares some common characteristics with him must agree with him.

Next, he gives  several examples of "wokeness", all of which are laughable. 

• Characterizing as racist “microaggressions” behaviors that in fact are either perfectly innocuous or at worst just ordinary rudeness; -- people exhibit much more "ordinary rudeness" to those they consider (perhaps subconsciously) of a lower social status, and in particular toward black people.  It's both day-to-day rudeness and racism working in tandem.
• condemning some economic outcome as a racist “inequity” despite there being no empirical evidence whatsoever that it is due to racism; -- to offer one example, racism dictates and has dictated where we live, with all the differences that creates in the ability to generate wealth through home ownership, environmental pollution, educational quality, availability of good food, etc.  where we live affects every facet of our life, hence, racism does by this facet alone.
• condemning as “transphobic” recognition of the commonsense and scientific fact that sex is binary; -- any time Feser can't justify a position, he calls it "common sense" as he does here, when the scientific fact is that there are multiple ways to specify sex, and any combination can be present in any individual; however, Feser seems confused by multi-factored analysis (as can be seen in his linear notion of causation, e.g., his hand-stick-stone argument for a first cause, when causes are more like lattices).
• condemning as “racist” the view that public policy should be color-blind and that racial discrimination is wrong whatever the race of the persons being discriminated against; -- Feser seems unaware that this claim is used by people who want to engage in de facto racism while maintaining de jure equality.
• condemning as “antigay” the view that it is not appropriate for grade schools to address matters of sexuality in the classroom without parental consent; -- matters of heterosexuality are discussed all the time in grade school classrooms, and Feser would eagerly join any protest if all depictions of heterosexual couples were banned, but he chooses not to be honest about others expecting equal treatment.

Feser does not adress address the scholarship behind these concepts.  By failing to do so, he renders his attacks on the people who know the scholaship irrelevant, and those who acknowledge the scholarly consensus are neither delusional nor paranoid.  Feser's definition of "wokeness" has no greater correspondence to reality than the definition of a jackalope; his definition of "wokeness" has no existence.

Feser nevertheless goes on to slur "wokeness" for a couple of paragraphs.  He touts two books, one his, one by two other conservatives, none of whom are trained in the study of sociology.  I guess when conservative lawyers pass for experts on evolution or climate change, this is right in line with the trust conservatives place in ignorance of the topic at hand.

I think this is a good stopping point.  In part 2, we'll see how Feser accuses the "woke" of several habits of poor thought, but succumbs to everyone one of them, a case of the pot accusing the table of being soot-stained.
Read more!

Quote of the Week, 2015-02-04

I'm not making light of what happened to Trayvon by any means, but after you read this, count how many people you personally know who has murdered or been murdered via Black on Black. If Zimmerman was black, would most of us know about this? Exactly. God have mercy on all of us.

Black on Black crimes "Cultral Bias?", 1 Husband's Advice, by C. L. Chabert



I though I would take break from looking at Kant this week. I have a grad total of 13 followers, so I am thinking about looking at one of their blogs every other week or so, alternating with Kant.

I don't know why Mr. Chabert would be following me. He follows three other blogs, all religious, and is quite religious himself. I don't recall him ever posting a comment. I'm not sure if it is a compliment or an accident.

In this case, Mr. Chabert is raising the old bugaboo of black-on-black crime. There is no mention of the comparable white-on-white crime rate; when you adjust for social status, whites victimize each other just about as frequently. Yet, you don't find people worrying about these crime rates. Is there a good reason for this discrepancy? I can only come up with plain racism.

Read more!

Quote of the Week, 2014-11-19

The world is not what it is. We should put out that silly "but it's human nature!" argument to pasture. At one point, a large percentage of the U.S. population was enslaved. Not long ago, women couldn't even vote. Even more recently, over 90% of the population thought inter-racial marriage was immoral. The world changes every day, and silencing criticism by claiming that things are the only way they can be is small minded and utterly incorrect. Women feel harassed when subjected to cat calls each time they leave their house. I would feel precisely the same. And since they are the ones getting harassed, you don't get a say in how they should feel. The behavior is unacceptable and society should stand against it.

Siro, JazzFanz post

We constantly see claims of nature used to justify inequality. This race has specific traits, that gender tends to act a certain way, the other sexuality shows deviance, etc. However, one of the real truths is that primate nature is plastic, adaptable, and responds to its cultural surroundings. Since humans are primates, this includes us.

One great, real-world example are the Forest Tribe Baboons, who had a dramatic shift in culture when the largest, most aggressive apes were killed off rapidly due to unusual circumstances. All over the world, baboons were known for their use of violence within a tribe to establish order, but within a couple of generations, this tribe turned to more pacifistic and cooperative models of organization. Culture can be changed. I don't advocate killing off our perpetrators of egregious racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., but I do advocate fighting them.

Read more!

Quote of the Week, 2014-10-29

I'm extremely opposed to a country that can run people out of town through denying them goods/services just because the owners of the business are bigoted jagoffs. On most things I'm pretty libertarian, but in this instance the Feds and state have a legitimate interest in protecting the rights of their citizens by intervening.

Nate505, JazzFanz post


I make no promises that Nate505 endorses every, or any, word of my commentary.

Does a state owe its citizens the right to be able to conduct business? Do other citizens have the right to de facto prevent citizens from conducting their business, or even inconvenience them in the conducting their business? Some people think that owners should be allowed to act upon their bigotry when serving the public, but I disagree. Being part of a community demands a certain level of respect for every other member of that community. You don't have to approve of them, or like them, but there is a reason that we refer to the minimum effort of acknowledging them and engaging with them as members of the public as being civil. It's a foundation of our civilization. It's what we owe every member of our community.

Read more!