From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges)
Subject: Re: Skinhead speech protected, Supreme Court says (was: Re: Fuck You
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 21:22:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.190020.26055@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>
>Ed, what is this fixation you have about "right-thinking white
>guy[s]"?  I said (and you can see it right above, where you quote it)
>"anybody"; that clearly includes non-whites and non-guys.  I also said
>(ditto) "whatever"; that clearly includes non-right-thinking (whatever
>that is) statements.

I'm deconstructing the code.  Of course, the formal statement of rights
applies to "anybody."  Because of power differentials, however, these
rights (which in the code are to be applied with strict equality,
avoiding any sort of "affirmative action") are unequally enjoyed.

There is nothing mystical about this.  I can write a computer simulation
of a population and in this simulation disadvantage a certain
proportion. If I then turn on my "rights machine" and allow rights to
start flowing, even disregarding inequality of access to the new
rights, the situation is unchanged as a matter of simple arithmetic from
what obtained before.  If I add to this my "access machine" which
governs access to the new rights based on relative advantage (the
privileged white guys will in the large be "Sooners" in this regard,
gaining access to the new rights soonest), then it is quite possible
that the outgroups will be even more disadvantaged than they were at the
start of the simulation.

And the beauty part is that if I check my model against reality, I see
that indeed the relative positions of blacks and women HAVE declined by
many measures since the 1950s.  (I mean in the sense of scientific
elegance...of course, the fact is that this is a tragedy.  But I cannot
escape a certain pleasure in highjacking "science" in this way and
demonstrating how formal equality works to worsen the position of
outgroups.)

We gain the "freedom" to say many more things; this freedom is accessed
soonest by Bob Guccione to make money off of women's bodies.  Karen
Silkwood tries to exercise the same freedom and is murdered.

Women gain the freedom to enter the workforce; because they
systematically accept lower wages for comparable work than men because
of low self-esteem (itself a product of sexism), American corporations
of course prefer them for many jobs.  With the results, not totally
happy, of displaced middle aged men and single parenthood.

The freedoms in themselves are extremely valuable; it's the formal
equality of application (save in economic terms) that results in
problems.  It's simply not the case, in many if not most hiring
decisions, that a man and a woman are compared and the highest-merit
individual is hired (and it's not the case that the women is
systematically favored because of some mythologically universal
Affirmative Action.)  More and more the woman is hired because her
per-hour or per-minute unit cost is lower; she'll work harder for less
money, and she won't waste time in macho games.  Formal equality is a
principled refusal to see how this works; it just blathers on about
Affirmative Action's purported evils.

>
>Why do you keep harping on specific groups and types of thought?  I
>allow freedom of speech to everybody.  Period.

You don't have power to allow it or disallow it, and chances are you
refuse to associate with people holding uncomfortable views.

>
>>  Anne Wilson Schaef's
>>excellent book on the societal results of addiction and codependency,
>>When Society Becomes Addictive, writes that possibly 96% of all
>>Americans are either directly addicted to a substance or process, or
>>codependent on people directly addicted (and her inference has merit,
>>for it is based on a mathematical trusim known as the "birthday"
>>paradox.)
>
>What is this relevant to?

Figure it out; I am saying that what passes for speech in our society is
in reality mental illness.  Schaef is saying that we're all nuts (yeah,
me too, but some of us are trying to get better.)  And it is the mark of
the stone lunatic to speak and not to listen.



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