The high stakes of culture Part 2

(Originally written back in January 2015, it's interesting to see where my thinking has changed. The writing remains rough, but clear enough.)

The general culture of the US is one input to the behavior of individuals, but local cultural norms are another, and probably stronger. I've written about middle-class culture, particularly the fear of losing all one's money and shifting to a day-by-day existence. I've also written about the clash between liberals' gun-less utopia and the gun owners sense of their rights and culture.

Other cultural quirks I've noticed: New York City has a sustained high rate of abortion--like many women there never seem to learn how to correctly use contraceptives. Middle-class girls are quite different--their rates of abortion have been dropping. Yeah-let's all learn about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Inner city kids learn to disrespect authority: issue false denials, accuse people of racism, curse, lie. This is a generalization, as all observations of culture are. (TNC - Ta-nehisi Coates-- post on behavior/culture needed in poor area. Comments were very good but aren't available any more. One frequent commenter, Pete, a blue-collar white man from Baltimore, described a pro-education poor neighborhood.)

TNC makes the argument that the society has been exploiting blacks for the entire history--but I wonder whether he can count the past 40 years. (Yes, now in 2020 I agree with exploitation continued.) He doesn't say what society should do about this, but some commenters hint--schools as good as anywhere, possibly also true for housing, job opportunities etc. This is social engineering on a grand scale--just turn all neighborhoods into clones of middle-class neighborhoods. Not only prohibitively expensive, but also many groups haven't needed to so much external help to move into the middle class (like the immigrant groups). Some white groups have gotten mired in poverty too. Must they be engineered out poverty too? 

Here's how I feel about this: it's not a strong idea to spend so much money with little evidence investment will provide the outcome desired. This isn't the only instance I've felt this way (I feel the same way about treating cancer on my own dime.) I don't think changing schools and housing will help while the culture remains.

TNC almost follows the behavior of his youth, and calls headlines it the culture of poverty. He then gets angry when others use the term. How expectations are different and new rules learned. TNC on Cosby's cultural message. Racism creates pathology.

Big TNC article on reparations. To critique it, see what he doesn't focus on. Employment, the changes in the last 50 years, the generalization of who was hurt and who would have to have to acknowledge wrong-doing. Critique by another black columnist--this view isn't productive, so let's stick with what is more likely to be. Noah Millman thoughtful response. Conor's column with a block of good comments. Douthat writes about cultural and poverty. (Note--the talk is of a culture of poverty, but the bigger problem is all the local cultures of poverty. The particular problems grow locally with gradual diffusion, but I expect major local differences.)

Religious view. Rod Dreher lots of posts about loss of religion, loss of strictures, discipline, sense of duty. Fun post--worst cultural mistake. He's against nominalism and the emphasis on empiricism and observation. What's wrong with these (which have been so helpful in science)--denial or lack of evidence of the soul, God, etc. Science is a tough competitor.

Image: youtube.com

Links (2 of 2)

I lost 1-2 of the links I planned to show. Drat. But I also found others.

Final love letter to a spacecraft. The Cassini exploratory probe finished its life and mission, which was to send us data about Saturn and its moons. The craft was remotely instructed to crash into Saturn to be sure that it wouldn't contaminate the moons where native life might be possible.

Americans and their white president. A tour-de-force essay by Ta-nehisi Coates. He writes that whites of all kinds, not just working class, gave support to a candidate who reflected bigotry. The essay shows one way to view race relations, but I don't agree with it's the whole story. It's still significant that a black president was elected twice, and with more support than Trump got. Coates does present some chilling facts, however, such as a white felon running in the presidential primary against Obama, and getting a surprising number of votes. The Obama presidency has been difficult for many blacks because they've had to endure heightened disrespect.

More about North Korea. North Koreans have been completely immersed in the propaganda that their only purpose is to serve. That complicates both war and diplomacy. A high-ranking ex-officer suggests a naval blockade to change the dynamic. The comment section is a must-read.

Did voter fraud change this Senate election? That's a good question raised here. There are known weaknesses in New Hampshire election law. The numbers of people using out-of-state IDs were high enough in this very close election. This is plausible, but not enough evidence to say it happened.

US spending. Where the federal spending goes. I'm always looking for this info, so here's a link to a handy graph.

Driverless car crash. This summary and analysis points to the technology not being able to handle complex situations. The driver, however, was lulled into depending on the system. That would happen so easily.

Susan Rice, target of conservative smears. A lot of ugly accusations swirled around her as conservatives tried to win the news cycle when lots of Russia news was coming out. Now she's been cleared, but that information is mostly buried. Blowhard conservatives won't even remember that they defamed her. Amnesia is rampant there.

Migration issues confront Canada. Perhaps for the first time, Canada is dealing with mass migration that is poorly controlled. Will it be too much for this generous, empathetic nation?

Image: bloomberg.com

Major black writer absolves the killer of Mike Brown

Ta-Nehishi Coates, perhaps the pre-eminent black columnist in the US, writes very clearly that Darren Wilson, who shot Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was innocent of a wanton crime:

"The investigation concluded that physical evidence and witness statements corroborated Wilson's claim that Michael Brown reached into the car and struck the officer... The investigation concluded that there was no evidence to contradict Wilson's claim that Brown reached for his gun... That he did not shoot Brown as he was running away. That Brown did stop and turn toward Wilson. That in those next moments 'several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson.' "

Coates doesn't shy away from declaring this as fact, which is good because honest people should deal honestly with facts. They need to draw their opinions based on fact, not on presupposition and bias. Coates seems to have no trouble accepting these facts now that they have been thoroughly investigated. I don't know how late Coates was in coming to accept these facts, which I discerned back in November, or perhaps earlier. Amid all the "Hands up" protests, there was a steady drip of evidence pointing toward the conclusion that Mike Brown had attacked the officer, and not the other way around.

I'm not going to look back at Coates' columns to see if he turned a corner and when. This isn't a game of gotcha to me. Instead, this was a heart-breaking incident where all the players had feet of clay. This police officer was innocent of willfully mistreating this young black man, but that wasn't true for a significant portion of the police force. The police were oppressive to the black citizens, and the anger that erupted was in proportion to that oppression.

I can easily understand the growing anger if I was being targeted for traffic stops, searches on flimsy grounds, and multiple fines for tiny infractions. If I thought I'd have to worry about being shot and killed, that's too much to bear. So I have sympathy for the protesters--the ones who actually lived in the area and were subject to the oppression. I hope this can and will change now.

To the hypesters, race-baiters, knee-jerk partisans, arsonists, and hooligans, I hope you have no incident to flock around for a very long time. You turn misery into your sport, which is just sickening. Please, go hide in some holes while the good people of this country work to heal and make this better.

Image: henrypayne.com

Extra. Predictably, some don't face facts.

To reparate or not to reparate

Ta-Nehisi Coates had a long article on reparations back in May. It caused a lot of buzz and consternation, but only for a short time, and mostly among liberals/progressives or whatever the correct term is now.

At first I thought that it's crazy--there is no effing way the US is going to pay reparations to our black population. We aren't exactly flush with cash right now. To raise taxes on someone or everyone to pay reparations isn't going to fly.

That's absolutely true. There won't be any reparations paid anytime in the foreseeable future, or probably ever. However, it did drum up a lot of conversation. And people didn't just talk about slavery and Jim Crow--they talked about redlining and segregated housing, two issues that are a lot closer in time than slavery or Jim Crow. It got people thinking about how poorly civil rights were protected as recently as the 60's and 70's and maybe even more recently. That's a good reminder and a good history lesson. It got people asking whether we still have too much segregation--definitely a worthwhile conversation.

So I may not want to pay reparations, but I sure know that there is much to atone for. Are we really to the point that we've done all the changing we need to? Are we in a colorblind era where people are judged only on the content of their character? Not yet.

It's good to get a reminder so that we keep moving forward and don't slip back.

Image: urbanology.org

Extras. Critique by another black columnist--this view isn't productive, so let's stick with what is more likely to be. Conor Freidersdorf's column with a block of good comments including this scathing insight:

"Coates' socialist instincts prevents him from examining the issue of legal plunder without more legal plunder."

Noah Millman's thoughtful response includes this:

"You make the case that your people has been brutalized and stolen from and raped and murdered with impunity. That case motivates the determination to rise up and prove your collective manhood by throwing the foreigner out of power. Depending on the circumstances, that might mean expelling an occupier, ... or carving one’s own state out from larger structure..." 

This is the closest to my thinking. The best reparation is creating a country that is fair and the way you want it to be--not a payoff from the government.