Assholes comes in all shapes and colors. We don't give preferential treatment to any of them.

Quoted from eldave1 We can start by stopping using woke is a pejorative. OXFORD Woke: alert to injustice in society, especially racism. Count me in. Defining woke or wokeism by it's most extreme and inane extensions is too broad a brush stroke.  It would be like me describing what religion is by showing videos of the hideous acts of the Westboro Baptist church and saying - see what religion can lead to? And - far more people on the right endorse religion than those on the left. Sometimes being woke ain't bad. Here - Jordan Peterson becomes woke. And bless him for it.

To be honest, I'm more keen on your proof Peterson believes the pay gap is largely down to "neuroticism".

Only going after you on this because I know it's false and it's good form to retract baseless claims.

And to revisit what woke is... it's an empty vessel.

It's a mindset, and its roots were adapted and coopted by theories based in postmodern thought. That's not opinion; it's a fact. If you're familiar with the literature, you know this to be fact.

So woke was initially coopted by critical theorists like bell hooks, Crenshaw, et al.

The primary one being intersectionality, and its embrace of postmodern theories of power and knowledge, where it's posited knowledge is subjective and culture specific, and that the dominant discourse was created by white men, for white men. Positionality to this power undergirds intersectionality.

The vacuum of 'woke' has since been filled by postcolonial theory, queer theory and a brand of feminism rooted in intersectionality, that expressly rejects second wave feminism and liberalism. Again, none of this is in dispute. The critical theorists coopted woke first and this is how the modern conception of it has become known. To be woke became to embrace these theories. This is simply fact. Denying this, or framing it as right or left is either not knowing the facts, or not caring.

That woke has been coopted again is irrelevant, as is the dictionary definition, which is meaningless to the debate.

As the woke themselves say, 'we have to do the work' and that means understanding what it is.

Seeing it in party politicial terms is to be incomplete in the understanding of it. It's deeply frustrating seeing people discuss wokeism in right and left terms, because it's not seeing the full picture.

We are in an ideological debate as to whether we live in liberal societies or it's replaced by criticial theories. It's really that simple.

As for the Jim Jeffries / Peterson video.

This is what is at stake.

These are very real questions provoked by the broader debate.

The question isn't really should they be served.

The question is, what is a racist / sexist / homophobe, etc, how do we measure a racist / sexist / homophobe, etc and how do then square this.

The most corrosive part of critical theories is they attempt to redefine settled areas of thought within liberal soceities:

1) Racism. For those pushing these ideas, they reject the liberal idea of what racism is: verifiable discrimination, and seek to replace it with power (derived from Focault) + prejudice, ergo they arrive at the destination it's not possible to be racist towards whites, because whites hold all the power (intersectionality + positionality).

2) Due process / lived experience. The critical theorists posit that knowledge production (again, borne of postmodern thought) is subective and race / culture specific (race essentialism), that truth is subjective, thus we arrive at my truth / my lived experience. So by this thinking, if a black man is in a run-off with a white man for a job, and he doesn't get the job, and perceives that reason to be due to racism, it's his lived experience, and thus it's racistr, because as per Kendi, there is only racist and antiracist. There's no due process for the hiring manager, only an assessment of "not in racism occured, but how racism manifested in this situation" (not my quote, obviously).

3) Objective reality. The critical theorists believe knowledge production is an instrument of power (again, as always, this is rooted in postmodernism) and thus objective truth is impossible. Why? Because we are all in a struggle for power, based on our groups, and that knowledge is created solely in this arena. It's why we see moves to decolonise science and maths, which is to unpick the teachings of our past, because the knowledge was created by white men for white men.

This is not in dispute. So arguing about whether Ben Shapiro is an asshole or not is frustrating, because it's covering 0.00007% of what the debate actually is. It's party political posturing.

Quoted from Andrew To be honest, I'm more keen on your proof Peterson believes the pay gap is largely down to "neuroticism". Only going after you on this because I know it's false and it's good form to retract baseless claims.

Andrew – color me confused.   Several times now you have closed our arguments-discussions with the “we’ll have to agree to disagree”.  i.e., I thought you took your ball and went home. So, I failed to see your re-challenge of my argument. Perhaps you could PM me to alert me when we are re-engaging.

Okay – re-engaged. First – before cleaning up my misquoting of Jordan, let’s clear up your misquoting of me. I did not say this:

Quoted Text Peterson believes the pay gap is largely down to "neuroticism".

I said this:

Quoted Text Peterson would have you believe that the gap is primarily explained by this:  women’s tendency for neuroticism – their likelihood to experience stress, depression and unpredictability – and their high level of agreeableness, to be cooperative and compassionate.

I was referencing a collection of personality traits including agreeableness (the one that was most discussed in Peterson’s interview).  HOWEVER, I believe that you are correct that I wrote that post in a manner that it would be reasonable for one to assume that I was directly quoting Peterson.  My mistake was putting it in a quote box as I was quoting an article  assessing Peterson’s theory rather than the actual transcript itself.  As you probably know, those are the traits listed in The Gender Similarities Hypothesis that are classified as heritable.  It was an error on my part including that in a quote box:

Now, back to the point at hand since whether it is five traits or one, it doesn't matter and although I believe that Peterson was referencing the heritable personality traits in general – let’s say just for the sake of argument that he was only referencing agreeableness. That one of the factors, other than sexism, that contributes to the pay gap is that women are more agreeable the men.  His thesis is still that personality differences between the genders is the cause of pay gaps. From the transcript:

Quoted Text Newman: …and on average you’re getting paid nine percent less than a man that’s not fair, is it? Peterson: It depends on why it’s happening. I can give you an example. Okay, there’s a personality trait known as agreeableness. Agreeable people are compassionate and polite. And agreeable people get paid less than disagreeable people for the same job. Women are more agreeable than men.

Later, he attributes failure to address this to market forces:

Quoted Text Peterson: I can give you an example very quickly. I worked with women who worked in high-powered law firms in Canada for about 15 years and they were as competent and put together as anybody you would ever meet. And we were trying to figure out how to further their careers. And there was a huge debate in Canadian society at that point that was basically ran along the same lines as your argument. If the law firms didn’t use these masculine criteria then perhaps women would do better. But the market sets the damn game. It’s like… Newman: And the market is dominated by men. Peterson: No, it’s not. The market is dominated by women. They make 80 percent of the consumer decisions. That’s not the case at all. 80 percent…

So, let’s start with the latter point first – Peterson’s mischaracterizing  “the market.” While it is true that women make 80 percent of the consumer decisions, that has zero to do with promotional practices within companies. Whether a woman decides to buy Pepsi or Coke, has nothing to do with whether or not either of those companies will have a gender pay gap. That is part of Peterson’s junk.  Clearly, when Newman is referring to the market, it is reference to men making the decisions on employee pay based on the traits they deem desirable (all you need to do is look at her premise statement regarding the law firms).  His statement regarding consumer purchasing decisions is a purposeful misdirect – a shell game, and he is smart enough to know so.

Yes, there are studies that demonstrate that agreeableness is a heritable trait and women are in general more agreeable than men.  There are even studies that show less agreeable people are paid more. What there isn’t are studies that show agreeableness makes one a less productive or effective employee or that the existence of that trait would justify a pay gap. The most likely answer is that:

a)     Women are more agreeable than men.
b)     Less agreeable people earn more pay.
c)     The decision to reward disagreeable employees with higher pay rather than agreeable ones is predominately made by MEN.

That is what Newman meant by “the market” and I believe Peterson knew that as well.
The other thing that I argued (which you kind of just punted on), if one believes that:
a)     The pay gap is due to differences in personality traits between men and women, and that
b)     That these traits are innate to gender.

Then how do you explain progress?

The pay gap has decreased and the percent of women in management has increased for decades and is still on an upward arc. If one believes that innate personality traits account for difference in gender pay (as opposed to the pay decision making process being dominated by males), how did things get better? Women would be just as agreeable now as they were years ago.  I mean if they are not, then you would have to argue it is not an inherent trait – that it is nurture, not nature.  One would also have to argue that the improvement is doomed to inequity. That it has to stop somewhere – that we will never achieve pay parity when all other variables are the same because women are just inherently more agreeable.

Naw – the most likely answer is that men predominately determine who gets paid what and that men do not value agreeableness to the same extent women do.  And that the reason progress will continue is not because women become less agreeable, but rather because they will become a larger part of the decision-making body.

Hope that answered your question.

Quoted from Andrew And to revisit what woke is... it's an empty vessel. It's a mindset, and its roots were adapted and coopted by theories based in postmodern thought. That's not opinion; it's a fact. If you're familiar with the literature, you know this to be fact. So woke was initially coopted by critical theorists like bell hooks, Crenshaw, et al. The primary one being intersectionality, and its embrace of postmodern theories of power and knowledge, where it's posited knowledge is subjective and culture specific, and that the dominant discourse was created by white men, for white men. Positionality to this power undergirds intersectionality. The vacuum of 'woke' has since been filled by postcolonial theory, queer theory and a brand of feminism rooted in intersectionality, that expressly rejects second wave feminism and liberalism. Again, none of this is in dispute. The critical theorists coopted woke first and this is how the modern conception of it has become known. To be woke became to embrace these theories. This is simply fact. Denying this, or framing it as right or left is either not knowing the facts, or not caring. That woke has been coopted again is irrelevant, as is the dictionary definition, which is meaningless to the debate. As the woke themselves say, 'we have to do the work' and that means understanding what it is. Seeing it in party politicial terms is to be incomplete in the understanding of it. It's deeply frustrating seeing people discuss wokeism in right and left terms, because it's not seeing the full picture. We are in an ideological debate as to whether we live in liberal societies or it's replaced by criticial theories. It's really that simple.

Quoted Text That woke has been coopted again is irrelevant, as is the dictionary definition, which is meaningless to the debate.

Naw - definitions are essential.  Otherwise, you confuse people. So, it is important to settle on the meaning of terms.

When some people hear woke they actually do think of social and racial justice in a positive, fair and sustainable manner. They don't think that the absence of equal outcomes by definition means the absence of justice or the existence of racism.  I believe that really is the root concern in all of the posts that Heritic made.

PS - going back to the NFL head coaching example where your response was:

The NFL head coach example is a good one because it locks in opportunity rather than outcome.

Yes, but only in terms of solutions. The problem was identified by analyzing outcomes. The NFL didn't document racist behavior by club owners and then conclude we have racism that needs to be fixed.  They assessed the outcomes of their hiring processes, saw that blacks were underrepresented in actual hires, postulated that there may be an unconscious racial bias in the recruitment process and then implemented a concrete repair to address that.  They did that by giving a preference to blacks. There was no mandate that an NFL club had to interview at least one white person. But there was a mandate that they had to interview at least one black person. They did that because they were being woke. They were alert to injustice in society, especially racism.. And that alertness was derived from assessing outcomes.  Now - had they concluded that by definition, since whites only make up 20% of the league, that any hire of a white coach beyond that 20% must be racist and therefore forbidden - that would be extreme wokeism - and bad.

And that is why definitions matter.

You taking umbrage at seeing it in party political terms is a little - well confusing for me.  Among your many statements.

Quoted Text This is a seriously complacent attitude extremely prevalent in left wing circles; as someone on the left, I see it constantly. It's borne of playing party politics and not wanting to give an inch to the right.

Quoted Text Broadly, my view is the left is good at diagnosing problems re: economics, but lousy at solutions., It's why the message of unfairness resonates, but the solutions are routinely rejected at elections. Because those on the economic left do not believe in moderation, they do not believe in compromise, and they believe they hold a monopoly on good intentions.

And a bunch of others - the point being, hard not to conflate the issue with politics when terms like Left and Right are used incessantly.  As an example, I am left-wing circles and from what I gathered on some of your prior posts - so are you.  Why use the term then? Why not just say what some believe is... Or what this PERSON believes is.  

Quoted from Andrew As for the Jim Jeffries / Peterson video. This is what is at stake. These are very real questions provoked by the broader debate. The question isn't really should they be served. The question is, what is a racist / sexist / homophobe, etc, how do we measure a racist / sexist / homophobe, etc and how do then square this. The most corrosive part of critical theories is they attempt to redefine settled areas of thought within liberal soceities: 1) Racism. For those pushing these ideas, they reject the liberal idea of what racism is: verifiable discrimination, and seek to replace it with power (derived from Focault) + prejudice, ergo they arrive at the destination it's not possible to be racist towards whites, because whites hold all the power (intersectionality + positionality). 2) Due process / lived experience. The critical theorists posit that knowledge production (again, borne of postmodern thought) is subective and race / culture specific (race essentialism), that truth is subjective, thus we arrive at my truth / my lived experience. So by this thinking, if a black man is in a run-off with a white man for a job, and he doesn't get the job, and perceives that reason to be due to racism, it's his lived experience, and thus it's racistr, because as per Kendi, there is only racist and antiracist. There's no due process for the hiring manager, only an assessment of "not in racism occured, but how racism manifested in this situation" (not my quote, obviously). 3) Objective reality. The critical theorists believe knowledge production is an instrument of power (again, as always, this is rooted in postmodernism) and thus objective truth is impossible. Why? Because we are all in a struggle for power, based on our groups, and that knowledge is created solely in this arena. It's why we see moves to decolonise science and maths, which is to unpick the teachings of our past, because the knowledge was created by white men for white men. This is not in dispute. So arguing about whether Ben Shapiro is an asshole or not is frustrating, because it's covering 0.00007% of what the debate actually is. It's party political posturing.

First - I'll agree to disagree.

Can't they both be questions (along with others)? Using a non-bakery example:

Question 1 - is a landowner denying housing to someone based on their skin color racist?
Question 2 - if it is racist, should we require the landowner to rent to people regardless of their skin color.
Question 3 - if we cannot determine if the landowner is racist, should we require it anyway because it makes sense from other perspectives (e.g., societal well-being, etc.).

Longwinded way of saying, ya ultimately still have to ask and answer the question on whether or not they are required to bake the cake.

We also disagree on the harmful impacts of the Ben Shapiro's of the world, Look, I think the dude is bright and well-informed on a lot of issues. But he also contributes to isolation and tribe building - (that's what makes him an asshole).

If I had a nickel for every time he quoted something inane that AOC or some other exteremist said and followed it with the obligatory - see, what the Left would have you believe.... - I'd be rich.

What he should be saying is what AOC would have you believe. Just like Maddow shouldn't quote Taylor Greene and say - what the Right would have you believe. All of these guys (left and right) make money in the tribe-building economy. They are damaging discourse and stifling rational common ground. They ground their daily diatribe not so much is what is being said as who is saying it. And they are doing it for money.  That is why they are important to point out that they are assholes. They are poison. They are dividers.  AND, in my view - they are a lot more dangerous to our society than wokeism is.

Let me ask you an unrelated question.

Let's agree that extreme wokeism is bad (I think we agree on that).

You argue that it's roots are in postmodernism thinking and intersectionality  okay.

Do you believe that any part of its emergence has to do with the failure to effectively address true racist behavior - past or present?

No matter what, there will always be racists. In a free country - you have every right to be racist. I think that's a terrible way to think, but that's their right.

Murder, rape, violence, the violation of individual liberty is far worse than mere racist thoughts or beliefs. As such, I would work *with a racist* to subdue a murderer or rapist. This then gets to the idea that those thoughts, words are the same as violence. Why? To justify their own actual violence, of course.

The point of all of this is in how they use our fear of the word or idea of racism against us. It's extraordinary how well it works. It *feels* like we'd rather be called a murderer than a racist. I can almost see a guy in jail for murder, more upset that people thought he was racist. This can't be true, but again, it just feels like it is. Because of how we've been brainwashed.

Anyway, the one-party state of the media, entertainment, big tech, and Democrats don't care about *actual* racists.

It's just a tool. They just frame their enemies (and their policies) as racist, to avoid a genuine debate of the issues. The right can do this about Israel. Shielding themselves from a genuine debate by labeling their opponents as anti-Semitic.

There are people who'll look you straight in the eye and say - "yes, I'm racist", but interestingly - we're rarely talking about them, no, we're usually talking about political enemies being labeled as racist with the intention (I believe) to stifle debate. Or worse.

Quoted from Robert Timsah The point of all of this is in how they use our fear of the word or idea of racism against us. It's extraordinary how well it works. It *feels* like we'd rather be called a murderer than a racist. I can almost see a guy in jail for murder, more upset that people thought he was racist. This can't be true, but again, it just feels like it is. Because of how we've been brainwashed.

Haha spot on. I can honestly see a situation where someone acknowledges that while they me be guilty of attempted murder, child abuse, and domestic abuse, they are categorically not racist and resent any accusations that they might be.

Funny times to live in.

Quoted from Pleb Haha spot on. I can honestly see a situation where someone acknowledges that while they me be guilty of attempted murder, child abuse, and domestic abuse, they are categorically not racist and resent any accusations that they might be. Funny times to live in.

The Log Line: A mass-murderer, angry after being called racist, breaks out of prison to prove he's not racist by murdering a white family.

Quoted from eldave1 First - I'll agree to disagree. Can't they both be questions (along with others)? Using a non-bakery example: Question 1 - is a landowner denying housing to someone based on their skin color racist? Question 2 - if it is racist, should we require the landowner to rent to people regardless of their skin color. Question 3 - if we cannot determine if the landowner is racist, should we require it anyway because it makes sense from other perspectives (e.g., societal well-being, etc.). Longwinded way of saying, ya ultimately still have to ask and answer the question on whether or not they are required to bake the cake. We also disagree on the harmful impacts of the Ben Shapiro's of the world, Look, I think the dude is bright and well-informed on a lot of issues. But he also contributes to isolation and tribe building - (that's what makes him an asshole). If I had a nickel for every time he quoted something inane that AOC or some other exteremist said and followed it with the obligatory - see, what the Left would have you believe.... - I'd be rich. What he should be saying is what AOC would have you believe. Just like Maddow shouldn't quote Taylor Greene and say - what the Right would have you believe. All of these guys (left and right) make money in the tribe-building economy. They are damaging discourse and stifling rational common ground. They ground their daily diatribe not so much is what is being said as who is saying it. And they are doing it for money.  That is why they are important to point out that they are assholes. They are poison. They are dividers.  AND, in my view - they are a lot more dangerous to our society than wokeism is. Let me ask you an unrelated question. Let's agree that extreme wokeism is bad (I think we agree on that). You argue that it's roots are in postmodernism thinking and intersectionality  okay. Do you believe that any part of its emergence has to do with the failure to effectively address true racist behavior - past or present?

Sorry Dave, I've been offline, and just picked this up.

Quoted Text Do you believe that any part of its emergence has to do with the failure to effectively address true racist behavior - past or present?

No. The current set of ideas have grown out of postmodern theories on knowledge production (Power-Knowledge) and deconstruction.

This thinking essentially posits that truth is subjective, and life is a battle between groups for power, where each group produces its own knowledge and truth. It's why we see lived experience being used as a credibnle method of evidence. This thinking rejects liberalism. Postmodernists rejected liberalism and enlightment values. It's why the thinking attacks science, because science is seen as a production of knowledge created by white men for white men. Those pushing this thinking do not accept the methods of objectivity serve anything but the power of white men.

Now as to how that pertains to intersetionality and applied postmodernism, Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, et al imbibed this thinking on power and knowledge (as posited by Focault, Derrida, etc) as the foundational structure upon which life is built. Now there is some level of truth in the idea of power as the framing and scaffolding, but the data points to this being along multiple lines, and not just race or "minorities", which is where intersectionality (and positionality) kicks in. This is where we see ideas like white privilege, white fragility and the rest of the utter bullshit that is demonstrably false.

When incidents like George Floyd happen, those pushing these ideas use it as evidence of their ideological slant, and most decent people rightly outraged by what happened are looking for answers. And these are ready made answers with crystal clear right and wrongs. It requires no thinking or nuance for someone to sign up to the ideas, and so they proliferate.

It eliminates progress made, and the day-to-day realities of culture proliferates outcomes alongside unfairness baked into the system. That unfairness is economic, not racial. There are multipliers on race, yes, but the core remains the haves and have nots.

Quoted from eldave1 Naw - definitions are essential.  Otherwise, you confuse people. So, it is important to settle on the meaning of terms. When some people hear woke they actually do think of social and racial justice in a positive, fair and sustainable manner. They don't think that the absence of equal outcomes by definition means the absence of justice or the existence of racism.  I believe that really is the root concern in all of the posts that Heritic made. PS - going back to the NFL head coaching example where your response was: The NFL head coach example is a good one because it locks in opportunity rather than outcome. Yes, but only in terms of solutions. The problem was identified by analyzing outcomes. The NFL didn't document racist behavior by club owners and then conclude we have racism that needs to be fixed.  They assessed the outcomes of their hiring processes, saw that blacks were underrepresented in actual hires, postulated that there may be an unconscious racial bias in the recruitment process and then implemented a concrete repair to address that.  They did that by giving a preference to blacks. There was no mandate that an NFL club had to interview at least one white person. But there was a mandate that they had to interview at least one black person. They did that because they were being woke. They were alert to injustice in society, especially racism.. And that alertness was derived from assessing outcomes.  Now - had they concluded that by definition, since whites only make up 20% of the league, that any hire of a white coach beyond that 20% must be racist and therefore forbidden - that would be extreme wokeism - and bad. And that is why definitions matter. You taking umbrage at seeing it in party political terms is a little - well confusing for me.  Among your many statements. And a bunch of others - the point being, hard not to conflate the issue with politics when terms like Left and Right are used incessantly.  As an example, I am left-wing circles and from what I gathered on some of your prior posts - so are you.  Why use the term then? Why not just say what some believe is... Or what this PERSON believes is.

The woke thing is directly sourced from the ideas I keep mentioning. That's not in dispute, and however we cut it, the people pushing this utter shite are on the left, but they are not the left.

It's difficult to use consistent labels, and that's just needing an editor!

It requires substantial page count to fully explore these ideas, but the best contrast is to put them alongside liberalism.

Firstly because thet reject liberalism, and liberalism (whether you're on right or left) remains the foundational bedrock for all.

As for handling racism, where liberalism advocates eliminating the race and seeing the individual, woke-ism advocates for doubling down on the race and grouping people together in power struggles.

There are so many more examples, but the only frame we need is liberalism vs. woke-ism because there's no doubt woke-ism is a rejection of liberalism. That's not my opinion, that's evident in the papers like Mapping the Margins, Kendi's work, etc.

Quoted from eldave1 Andrew – color me confused.   Several times now you have closed our arguments-discussions with the “we’ll have to agree to disagree”.  i.e., I thought you took your ball and went home. So, I failed to see your re-challenge of my argument. Perhaps you could PM me to alert me when we are re-engaging. Okay – re-engaged. First – before cleaning up my misquoting of Jordan, let’s clear up your misquoting of me. I did not say this: I said this: I was referencing a collection of personality traits including agreeableness (the one that was most discussed in Peterson’s interview).  HOWEVER, I believe that you are correct that I wrote that post in a manner that it would be reasonable for one to assume that I was directly quoting Peterson.  My mistake was putting it in a quote box as I was quoting an article  assessing Peterson’s theory rather than the actual transcript itself.  As you probably know, those are the traits listed in The Gender Similarities Hypothesis that are classified as heritable.  It was an error on my part including that in a quote box: Now, back to the point at hand since whether it is five traits or one, it doesn't matter and although I believe that Peterson was referencing the heritable personality traits in general – let’s say just for the sake of argument that he was only referencing agreeableness. That one of the factors, other than sexism, that contributes to the pay gap is that women are more agreeable the men.  His thesis is still that personality differences between the genders is the cause of pay gaps. From the transcript: Later, he attributes failure to address this to market forces: So, let’s start with the latter point first – Peterson’s mischaracterizing  “the market.” While it is true that women make 80 percent of the consumer decisions, that has zero to do with promotional practices within companies. Whether a woman decides to buy Pepsi or Coke, has nothing to do with whether or not either of those companies will have a gender pay gap. That is part of Peterson’s junk.  Clearly, when Newman is referring to the market, it is reference to men making the decisions on employee pay based on the traits they deem desirable (all you need to do is look at her premise statement regarding the law firms).  His statement regarding consumer purchasing decisions is a purposeful misdirect – a shell game, and he is smart enough to know so. Yes, there are studies that demonstrate that agreeableness is a heritable trait and women are in general more agreeable than men.  There are even studies that show less agreeable people are paid more. What there isn’t are studies that show agreeableness makes one a less productive or effective employee or that the existence of that trait would justify a pay gap. The most likely answer is that: a)     Women are more agreeable than men. b)     Less agreeable people earn more pay. c)     The decision to reward disagreeable employees with higher pay rather than agreeable ones is predominately made by MEN. That is what Newman meant by “the market” and I believe Peterson knew that as well. The other thing that I argued (which you kind of just punted on), if one believes that: a)     The pay gap is due to differences in personality traits between men and women, and that b)     That these traits are innate to gender. Then how do you explain progress? The pay gap has decreased and the percent of women in management has increased for decades and is still on an upward arc. If one believes that innate personality traits account for difference in gender pay (as opposed to the pay decision making process being dominated by males), how did things get better? Women would be just as agreeable now as they were years ago.  I mean if they are not, then you would have to argue it is not an inherent trait – that it is nurture, not nature.  One would also have to argue that the improvement is doomed to inequity. That it has to stop somewhere – that we will never achieve pay parity when all other variables are the same because women are just inherently more agreeable. Naw – the most likely answer is that men predominately determine who gets paid what and that men do not value agreeableness to the same extent women do.  And that the reason progress will continue is not because women become less agreeable, but rather because they will become a larger part of the decision-making body. Hope that answered your question.

Peterson can be not to someone's taste, which is all good, but we do need to treat his ideas honestly, and he doesn't believe what many say he does.

I'm keeping this short not in a dismissive way, but because we could go on and on about it forever, but I don't believe we are actually that far apart on the subtsance here.

Quoted from Andrew Sorry Dave, I've been offline, and just picked this up. No. The current set of ideas have grown out of postmodern theories on knowledge production (Power-Knowledge) and deconstruction.

A bit surprised by your answer here.  Postmodernism and Deconstruction are just one of dozens of philosophical movements that have developed since man crawled out of the caves.  I do think you absolutely nail what they are – but not what the catalyst is for their emergence (their growing popularity).  In my view, philosophical constructs are not mandated – they are adopted by people and/or institutions.  The critical issue remains why are they adopted? What needs are being satisfied? Certainly not Derrida’s, Quine’s or others – long dead.

Quoted Text It eliminates progress made, and the day-to-day realities of culture proliferates outcomes alongside unfairness baked into the system. That unfairness is economic, not racial. There are multipliers on race, yes, but the core remains the haves and have nots.

This is one of the areas where we have a gap between us.  We will probably not see eye to eye on this.  The best example I have is from someone who described it as a monopoly game. Three white dudes sit down to play monopoly. They are all giving the exact same amount of money, follow the exact same rules, etc. They play for four hours building up their bankrolls, buying property and hotels, etc. At hour five, they decide that they ought to let black people play. AND – to ensure no discrimination, the Black player will start out with the same bankroll and follow the exact same rules as the three white players.  Not an ounce of difference in the game rules based on race. Problem is – the white dudes have been playing for 5 hours and already have larger bankrolls and multiple properties with rents that will bankrupt the black player the minute he lands on one. So, the fact that the rules are color blind doesn’t make up for the disadvantage of the black dude not being allowed to play the first 4 hours.

Now – how does someone determine if black monopoly players are disadvantaged? Certainly, couldn’t do it by looking at the rules – they are identical. Only the outcome and the disparate results by race would tell you that there may be a problem.

And it still rears its ugly head – just very recently, the NFL got caught “race norming” concussion settlements.  In its use of race-norming, the league compares a given player's current cognitive test scores with the supposed norm for his demographic group. Under the methodology, black players are assumed to possess a lower level of cognitive function than the average white player. A pretty good article about it here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57336282

And of course, there are dozens of other examples. Job applications are a good one.  For example, studies have proven that even when credentials are identical – there is a fifty percent difference in employer call back rates for white sounding names (Emily, Greg) then there are for black sounding names (Lakisha, Jamal).  The same has been proven in mortgage rates, credit card approval – etc. etc. i.e., Institutions are still absolutely without a doubt discriminating against people solely on the color of their skin.   One’s race is still more than just a multiplier, regardless of whether the black person is a have or have not.

I don’t think we’ll ever reach agreement here – but it has been a worthwhile discussion.

Quoted from Andrew The woke thing is directly sourced from the ideas I keep mentioning. That's not in dispute, and however we cut it, the people pushing this utter shite are on the left, but they are not the left. It's difficult to use consistent labels, and that's just needing an editor! It requires substantial page count to fully explore these ideas, but the best contrast is to put them alongside liberalism. Firstly because thet reject liberalism, and liberalism (whether you're on right or left) remains the foundational bedrock for all. As for handling racism, where liberalism advocates eliminating the race and seeing the individual, woke-ism advocates for doubling down on the race and grouping people together in power struggles. There are so many more examples, but the only frame we need is liberalism vs. woke-ism because there's no doubt woke-ism is a rejection of liberalism. That's not my opinion, that's evident in the papers like Mapping the Margins, Kendi's work, etc.

Again - we are not going to reach an agreement here. I will ask you a follow-up question.

In your view/context, if one believes that:

- Systemic racism still exists at a material level, and,
- That it is important to not only assess rules and processes but also to investigate disparate outcomes to determine if racism is a factor.

Does that make you woke. Is that wokeism?