Suppose someone accuses me of being a pickpocket. I respond, “I have picked no pockets, therefore I am not a pickpocket.” My accuser could naturally retort, “Oh yes you are, I have video evidence of you picking pockets on three separate occasions.”
Imagine, though, if my accuser instead declared, “There’s a lot of pickpocketing in the world. You’ve personally done nothing to stop it. That makes you a pickpocket!”
I submit that this is an absurd and unjust position. You lead with a baseless accusation. Then instead of apologizing, you use Orwellian re-definition to label virtually the entire human race as “pickpockets.” In the end, you’ve divided humanity into a teaspoon of noble anti-pickpocketing crusaders, and an ocean of vile pickpockets. The vast majority of whom have never picked a pocket in their lives.
This is exactly how I view most modern accusations of “racism” and sexism.” Imagine the anger a typical white male would provoke these days by announcing, “I am utterly blameless for whatever racism and sexism exists in our society.” Indeed, many people would take this very sentence as “proof” of the announcer’s racism and sexism.
To so react, however, is absurd and unjust. You don’t have to crusade against pickpocketing to avoid being a pickpocket, you don’t have to crusade against racism to avoid being a racist, and you don’t have to crusade against sexism to avoid being a sexist. Just keep your own hands clean. What could be more obvious?
Doesn’t this view lead to self-satisfied complacency? As soon as you ask that question, you are in the vicinity of the Noble Lie. “Telling innocent people they’re guilty is more motivating than telling innocent people they’re innocent. So should we falsely condemn people to spur them to action.” In the words of Nietzsche, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Nietzsche aside, it’s far from clear that preaching near-universal guilt spurs people to action. Consider this alternative appeal: “Sure, you’re an innocent bystander. But wouldn’t you rather be a hero?” Maybe, just maybe, you can motivate people to do good without slandering them first.
P.S. Don’t worry, I won’t call you a slanderer for failing to join my crusade against slander.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew
Jan 4 2021 at 10:46am
The argument is that those who have benefitted even indirectly from injustice or bias are morally obligated to correct that injustice or bias.
There are several flaws in the argument, mostly who gets to define injustice or bias, or what constitutes benefiting from it. But in your analogy, maybe the pickpockets selectively target a specific group of people in a community, leaving you relatively wealthy compared to them and able to walk the streets unencumbered with fear or paranoia.
I agree that framing a bystander as an accomplice isn’t effective (compared to galvanizing them into action), but also get the frustration of the side that feels completely invisible and dismissed by those who say they’re “keeping their hands clean.”
Andjuar Cedeno
Jan 6 2021 at 12:07pm
You could add another flaw-no empirical evidence supporting the claims. Race-based, plantation slavery was the most racist institution in the last five centuries and if racism provides benefits then Brazil would be the richest nation in the Western Hemisphere having had the highest aggregate number of slaves and the highest per capita ratio. Yet the empirical evidence directly contradicts this assumption that racism provides benefits.
The nations in the Western Hemisphere with the highest ratio of slaves per capita (racism) are not the richest and the nations with the lower ratios are not the poorest, Canada.
Why not demand evidence to support an argument?
Philo
Jan 4 2021 at 10:52am
A more plausible, more realistic, charge (than that you are a pickpocket) would be that you have not done as much as you should to reduce (or eliminate!) the picking of pockets. That charge would not have much bite, because there is no general societal assumption about how much the average person should do to prevent others from picking pockets, so it is not immediately clear that you are falling short.
And perhaps you are not doing as much as you should to stop others from engaging in racist/sexist behavior. But, again, it is not clear how much you ought to be doing, or what form this activity of yours should take. By the way, do you think you are doing as much as you should to combat the racist/sexist behavior of other people?
Ricardo
Jan 4 2021 at 11:17am
Questions for which I currently have no moral framework to answer:
Suppose a pickpocket gives you a $20 bill for Christmas. You were unaware that the $20 had been stolen. You spent the $20. Later, you learn of its origin. What is your moral responsibility?
Now insert an intermediate party: the gift-giver was not a pickpocket, but had herself received the $20 from a pickpocket, which she then (innocently) passed on to you. Now insert more intermediaries. Does the answer change?
Paul from thedullchannel
Jan 4 2021 at 12:03pm
I can answer your this at least from a legal standpoint here in Germany and let us suppose that law is codified moral behavior (at least that is one of many assumption about the origin of laws). As long as you (the gift recipient) are not aware of the stolen nature of that 20$ bill (or any other stolen object) you are legally not required to reimburse the original owner. The victim though still has a claim against the thief.
Now the question is if you are morally obliged to tell the victim who stole his 20$ bill? What if the thief was your best friend? What if we are not only talking about a 20$ bill but you also learn that the thief knocked over an old lady who is now in a coma? Suppose you say and do nothing can you be accused of not doing enough against assaults and robberies? Would it be enough to personally admonish your best friend who you now know as the thief? Would you be required to tell the police. Should you even stay friends with the thief?
I think in concrete situations with known people a moral response should depend on the circumstances. Catch your friend dodging the subway fare…maybe a short sign of disapproval is enough, learning that someone might have committed a murder…I guess the case for reporting the person to the police is quite strong.
But admonishing people for not doing enough against complex societal/political or economic problems that are mostly out of their control anyway (who of us has even the opportunity to hire women for the same wage as men?) completely bypasses all these ethical questions we just touched. They replace actual and concrete moral behavior with proclamations of one’s own moral opinions.
Jens
Jan 4 2021 at 4:43pm
“””
I can answer your this at least from a legal standpoint here in Germany and let us suppose that law is codified moral behavior (at least that is one of many assumption about the origin of laws). As long as you (the gift recipient) are not aware of the stolen nature of that 20$ bill (or any other stolen object) you are legally not required to reimburse the original owner. The victim though still has a claim against the thief.
“””
That is doubly wrong. German civil law does not permit the acquisition of stolen items in good faith (§ 935 I BGB). And it makes an exception explicitly for banknotes (and public auctions) (§ 935 II BGB).
In the first case, anyone who acquires stolen goods must return them, regardless of whether they were in good or bad faith at the time of purchase, and, if applicable, demand reversal or compensation from the seller. Acquisition by gift does not change anything.
(To what extent this has something to do with the blog is another question)
nobody.really
Jan 4 2021 at 11:38am
Well, I guess someone has to say it, and today it’s my turn.
1: Yeah, there’s something to Caplan’s argument—especially if your feel disinclined to try to give a sympathetic understanding to what other people are telling you. And when people are attacking you, I guess I can’t feel surprised if you adopt a defensive, fight-or-flight posture. So I encourage a sympathetic reading of Caplan’s (series of) posts in this vein.
2: Racism and sexism endureth; oodles of data support this conclusion. Why? Perhaps these attributes have some adaptive quality, at least for society if not for individuals. Or perhaps meritocracy has structural problems. Some people explore this later hypothesis—including anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists.
3: The study of sociology includes the concept of “socialization.” People don’t consciously choose many aspects of their upbringing—for example, which language they speak. Rather, they tend to absorb what they find in their environment.
4: Human minds lack the capacity to model the world in all its complexity. Thus, they develop more simplified, stylized models. These models tend to divide people into groups based on readily-observable criteria. We have relatively few stereotypes about a person’s blood type, but more stereotypes about firey red-heads and dumb blondes. Asian cultures have fewer of these hair-color stereotypes—perhaps because they exhibit a narrower range of hair color.
5: In any event, Western people become socialized to categorize people based on readily observable categories that include race and gender. Some people shorten this observation by saying that Westerners are “racist” and “sexist.”
6: Yes, people have also used the terms “racist” and “sexist” to refer to DIFFERENT phenomena, often more akin to sadism. And yes, I find it regrettable that these terms have these two, distinct-but-related meanings. But people who study deconstruction know that we observe this pattern often in language: We might use the word “bird” in an archetypical way to refer to a robin (the archetype) or anything sufficiently similar. Or we might use it to refer to a complicated set of criteria that encompasses rather un-robin-like animals such as ostriches and penguins. People fluent in English recognize both usages of the word, even if statements such as “I saw a bird on the powerline” will trigger some cognitive dissonance when you think of an ostrich. Likewise, we might use the word “rapist” archetypically to refer to a lower-class stranger who commits a violent sexual act against a woman in an alley or park. Or we might use the term to refer to someone who fulfills all the elements of a statutory offense—even when the accused is upper-class and well-spoken, and was even a current lover of the victim. Fluent speakers of English will recognize both usages, even if flipping between the two provokes momentary cognitive dissonance.
In sum, yes, I expect Caplan was socialized in the West, and therefore internalized some stereotypes based on race and sex (among other things). And yes, some people will shorten this statement to say that Caplan is racist and sexist. People who have studied various social sciences will mind nothing remarkable in this statement—and, indeed, would find the opposite statement quite remarkable. Yet, to the extent that Caplan would deny these assertions, people might conclude that either 1) Caplan lacks some capacity for socialization (e.g.,. has severe Autism?) 2) has developed an extraordinary degree of self-discipline or counter-socialization around these topics so as to transcend his initial socialization, or 3) simply doesn’t understand socialization.
7: BEYOND ALL THAT, Upton Sinclair observed that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” I was born with a vast array of unearned advantages—and I have both the incentive and ability to perpetuate my good fortune largely through inaction. If you subscribe to Rawls’s Theory of Justice or something similar, you may recognize the injustice of my passivity. On most occasions, this tweak to my conscience provides an insufficient motivation to alter my behavior—but on the marginal occasion, it does.
Now, I suspect that positive reinforcement might work, too. The two dynamics are not mutually exclusive. MLK and Malcom X each sought to promote the welfare of black Americans, using rather different techniques. I suspect Good Cop/Bad Cop strategies persist because they work.
David Henderson
Jan 4 2021 at 12:32pm
You write:
I’ve gotten to know Bryan Caplan pretty well over 13 years and so I would definitely go with your (2).
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 12:36am
Perhaps so. And this might explain why Caplan struggles to understand familiar concepts such as racism and sexism: He has personal qualities that differ from the qualities of the other 99.9% of the population, and he generalizes from his own circumstances to other people’s. It’s a hypothesis, I guess.
Anonymous
Jan 7 2021 at 10:13am
I think you have to flip this around. Caplan understands racism and sexism quite well. But perhaps your personal qualities differ from the qualities of the other 99.9% of the population, and you generalize from your own circumstances to other people’s. And this might explain why you struggle to understand familiar concepts such as racism and sexism.
DeservingPorcupine
Jan 4 2021 at 12:44pm
I think a lot of people, me included, would push back on your claims about the oodles of data you reference in #2. On the contrary, attempts to tease out racism and sexism in “the data”, tend to yield underwhelming results for those expecting a motherlode of discrimination. For example, as best we can tell, there is absolutely no male/female wage gap when appropriate controls are applied. In this case, people often respond that even if employers are discriminating it’s the sexist societal “aether” that causes women to internalize this sexism and make choices other than the ones they “really want” prior to employment, but that runs into two issues. First, investigations into that aether also tend to show weak results. Second, note that the people who were so sure that employers were exhibiting sexism before the data came in never adjust downward their confidence in their beliefs that extreme sexism exists in other places.
DeservingPorcupine
Jan 4 2021 at 12:45pm
Meant to say “In this case, people often respond that even if employers aren’t discriminating it’s the sexist societal”
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 1:16am
Two minute Google search:
For 2019, the rape data collected by the FBI revealed male rapists outnumber female rapists by 105,030 to 6,920 (with 3,230 unspecified), while female rape victims outnumber male rape victims 104,720 to 16,263 (with 348 unspecified).
The Urban Institute reports that, as of 2014, 39.5 percent of black babies are born into households with persistent poverty, whereas 4.3 percent of white babies have the same fate.
And that’s just the easily measured stuff. It’s harder to craft statistics about the prevalence of role models–what percentage of protagonists in media are white males, etc.–but you’d have to be pretty clueless, or motivated, not to recognize the pattern.
Now, perhaps this data is skewed because it does not control for all the relevant variables. Perhaps women simply CHOOSE to be rape victims and black babies CHOOSE to be born into poverty. Alternatively, perhaps structural dynamics explain these patterns–dynamics that are not best explained via individual choice. Social scientists might categories these dynamics “sexism” and “racism.”
David S
Jan 5 2021 at 6:07am
There is a world of difference between the statements “rapists are sexist” and “all western males are sexist”.
JFA
Jan 5 2021 at 10:13am
In the US, males make up 77% of murder victims and have a homicide rate nearly 4 times greater than females (3.7 per 100,000 vs. 1 per 100,000) (those are as of 2010). Men are the majority of victims of all violent crime except rape (you’re just being selective in the crime). In the US, males are 3 to 5 times more likely to die from suicide. In the US, whites died at two times the rate of blacks from suicide.
Blacks in the US spent proportionately more of their income (controlling for level of income) than whites (which means saving less and spending less on housing and other goods). Black American children are also more likely to be born out-of-wedlock than whites: around 70 or 75 percent are now born to an unmarried mother. For reference, it was around 20 percent in the 1950s.
Whether or not you think these are outcomes of choice (males being murder victims… maybe not; males and whites choosing suicide… maybe so; blacks choosing not to save money and to bring their children into a life of poverty… you decide), there are always data that complicate anyone’s worldview.
Alexander Turok
Jan 5 2021 at 1:26pm
“black babies CHOOSE to be born into poverty”
Or perhaps their parents CHOOSE to make decisions that lead to poverty. It’s quite clear you are either unable to pass an ideological turing test arguing against your position, or are erecting strawmen intentionally.
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 4:02pm
Perhaps so–but all this data merely confirms my worldview.
To clarify, I argue that people’s lived circumstances are constrained by race and sex. Arguing that men sometimes face worse circumstances than women does not undermine this view; it bolster the view. To undermine my worldview, you would want to present data demonstrating that differences in people’s lived circumstances do NOT correlate with race and sex.
What conclusion does this data support? Maybe we’re just observing an EXTRAORDINARY run of pure chance that just happens to simulate the appearance of structural differences in society based on race and sex. (Recall when Dilbert went to the bowels of Heck and encountered a random number generator troll. The troll was saying “Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine….” Dilbert asked whether this truly seemed like a random series–to which he received the reply, “Who can say?”)
Alternatively, we could acknowledge that people honestly face different circumstances based on race and sex. And given the limited choice people exercise over their race and sex, I find it difficult to support a thesis that these differences reflect free choice.
I don’t mean to argue that people have NO choice. (We can discuss freedom and determinism elsewhere.) But if those choices correlate with existing, unchosen attributes such as race and sex, I will want to find an explanation for the correlation. After all, we might conclude that people who choose to jump off tall buildings onto pavement desire to end their own lives. And this might be a fair conclusion, even when the building is engulfed in flames and provides no means of escape. But until we understand people’s constraints, we really have a limited ability to understand their choices.
Alexander Turok
Jan 5 2021 at 7:43pm
“Maybe we’re just observing an EXTRAORDINARY run of pure chance that just happens to simulate the appearance of structural differences in society based on race and sex.”
You keep knocking down those strawmen!
“To clarify, I argue that people’s lived circumstances are constrained by race and sex. Arguing that men sometimes face worse circumstances than women does not undermine this view; it bolster the view”
Nope, you started with an argument that society is structured to favor one gender, and are falling back on this motte-and-bailey argument.
“Alternatively, we could acknowledge that people honestly face different circumstances based on race and sex. And given the limited choice people exercise over their race and sex, I find it difficult to support a thesis that these differences reflect free choice.”
You’re assuming people are a tabula rasa.
RPLong
Jan 4 2021 at 3:27pm
+1
Thomas Sowell wrote a great book on this very topic, Discrimination and Disparity.
Dylan
Jan 5 2021 at 8:04am
How about the now oft-replicated real world experimental data showing that job applicants with ethnic sounding names receive far fewer responses to their application than those that have “white-sounding” names?
KevinDC
Jan 4 2021 at 1:12pm
Well, there’s a lot here, and commenting on every point would make this reply too long, so here’s at least a couple of comments in response.
You are missing a number of other obvious options, the most obvious of which is 4) Caplan thinks that these assertions use a poor definition of racism and sexism and statements relying on those definitions are worth discounting.
It’s understating the issue to merely say people “have also” used these terms to refer to different phenomena. It’s more accurate to say that these terms were originally defined by and exclusively referred to these other phenomena, and this was true until relatively recently. Scott Alexander makes this point as well:
Maybe people concerned with rather mundane and uncontroversial issues like “socially learned categories” decided that these phenomenon are best described by using the the most morally charged and controversial words in the modern world merely because they thought it was good lexicography. But color me skeptical.
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 1:53am
Yes, people can use terms such as “sexist” and “racist” both objectively (seeking to describe a phenomenon) and subjectively (seeking to judge a phenomenon as deviating from some preferred standard). Thus, in Paragraph 1 of my post, I acknowledge that Caplan might be feeling attacked, and might be responding in a defensive manner.
I don’t mean (on this occasion) to defend the subjective usage. But I read Caplan’s post to raise questions about the objective usage. I read Caplan to argue that he did not create the prevailing culture, and feels no duty to help alter any racism or sexism that we might find in that culture.
For what it’s worth, English common law agrees: We have no general duty to aid. If you observe a child playing in the park fountain, and that child suddenly has a cramp and collapses, you can pull out your bag of potato chips and watch the kid drown for your amusement. And I agree with this policy–as a matter of public policy.
But norms differ from duties. For better or worse, people in our culture would likely judge a person harshly for failing to intervene to save a child under those circumstances–even in the absence of a legal duty. Likewise, I sense our culture is becoming more judgmental about manifestations of sexism and racism–or even indifference to racism and sexism.
I don’t have to approve of this emerging cultural norm. But, by the same token, other people don’t have to approve of me.
Philo
Jan 4 2021 at 5:45pm
“I was born with a vast array of unearned advantages . . . .” Me, too. But I was also born with a vast array of unearned disadvantages. I am not as smart as John von Neumann, not as handsome as Robert Redford, not as rich as members of the Walton family, not as athletic as Michael Jordan. And these examples are just of past and present people; it is a good bet that many, many future people will have even greater advantages, including indefinitely long life-spans.
While acknowledging the advantages, let us not overlook the disadvantages.
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 2:10am
You mean John Boy? 🙂
You correctly observe that we all live under different circumstances. And you acknowledge that we can compare ourselves to others, and recognize when people have advantages relative to others. I favor policies that build on these observations, helping out “the least of these my brothers.”
Yup, I expect that in aggregate, people in the future will tend to be richer than we are today. And this fact may justify public policies of shifting consumption from the future to the present–for example, via relaxing certain kinds of environmental regulations (and perhaps deficit spending?)
Likewise, I recognize that certain people have received prodigious natural gifts, and sometimes have been able to translate these gifts into wealth. And likewise, this fact may justify public policies shifting consumption away from these people to people who have less wealth. True, wealth is not a perfect measure of windfall benefits such as natural gifts–but it’s a workable proxy.
Alexander Turok
Jan 5 2021 at 1:48pm
“Upton Sinclair observed that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” I was born with a vast array of unearned advantages—and I have both the incentive and ability to perpetuate my good fortune largely through inaction. If you subscribe to Rawls’s Theory of Justice or something similar, you may recognize the injustice of my passivity. On most occasions, this tweak to my conscience provides an insufficient motivation to alter my behavior—but on the marginal occasion, it does.”
Yes, people have an incentive to deny guilt – this is the case whether or not the person accused is innocent or guilty. As to the “unearned advantages” part, the smuggled assumption here is that the unearned advantages one is born with must come at the expense of other people. You can imagine cases easily, Michael Corleone for example. Looking at my own life, I don’t see it. I certainly grew up with some “unearned advantages;” I didn’t experience the “persistent poverty” you linked to, but I attribute that to my parents’ good decision making. They followed (and went beyond) the success sequence. Of course if you do go back far enough, you’ll find that my ancestors were systematically favored by the government relative to other groups, but it’s also the case that we’ve seen large scale redistribution from the rich to the poor over the past 50 years, which has meant a large net transfer to those who (in theory) benefited from the advantages to those who (in theory) suffered from the lack of them.
nobody.really
Jan 5 2021 at 5:16pm
No smuggled assumption! I state the assumption clearly: “If you subscribe to Rawls’s Theory of Justice or something similar….”
What does justice look like? Libertarianism defines justice as an imaginary “state of nature,” combined with elements of the status quo, and regards people as unjust if they deviate inappropriately from that.
In contrast, social contract theory defines justice as the kind of social order people would agree to in a state of nature, and assumes that people making such decisions would be able to bind those who aren’t present (especially future generations). By comparing a hypothetical “just world” to the actual world, we can identify injustice.
The arguable weakness of conventional social contract theory is that it arbitrarily takes certain attributes (“identities”) as fixed while identifying other attributes as variable. To reduce this problem, Rawls asks, “What kind of social policy would you devise if you did not know what role you would have in the world?” Rawls hypothesizes that people would likely design policy to maximize the welfare of the least-well-off person.
Now, does the fact that I have unearned advantages come at someone else’s expense? Not exactly–but the question is, What do I DO with my advantages? Aagain, Rawls measures injustice by the difference between the idealized and the observed world. If I could make the least-well-off person’s circumstances better, and I—through action or inaction—refrain from doing so, then yes, someone else pays a price as a result of my choice. The fact that my choices do not alter the status quo does not absolve me from responsibility. In effect, Rawls imagines that we all are insurers to each other–and when we fail to aid the least-well-off, we welch on our implied insurance contract.
Or, if it is not too late to quote A Christmas Carol:
Alexander Turok
Jan 5 2021 at 8:17pm
I see this as akin to the multiple definitions of “democracy” in the west and east during the cold war. A communist could have said, entirely honestly, that he was simply using a different definition of the world from what was being in the West when he described his country as a democracy. Words are just human constructs, there is no objective rightness or wrongness to them. But there is such a thing as deceptive intent. If cornered, a communist would admit that no, there are no free, competitive, multiparty elections in the Soviet Union. But the communist knew that there were many people outside of the Soviet Union did not know how the Soviet system worked and would get a false impression of the country from the claim that the Soviet Union was a democracy. It is thus fair to describe ‘the Soviet Union is a democracy’ as a deceptive claim if made to an American audience whose definition of ‘democracy’ is fundamentally different. The same is the case with you and people like you who use a definition of ‘racism’ that would condemn 99.9% of people as ‘racists.’
If you are still not convinced, I ask you to provide your real name and identity in order for me to describe you as a racist and a sexist to your family, friends, and employer. After all, I’d just be using the definition of racism and sexism you’ve provided. Or are you one of those who suffers from severe autism?
nobody.really
Jan 6 2021 at 12:35am
1: Ha! Let me spare you the trouble: I acknowledge to my family, friends, and employer that I believe in the theory of socialization, and thus I do not expect to have transcended either the benefits or the limitations thereof. As a result, I think I have internalized the rules of the English language–as well as norms about race and sex.
Again, it would surprise me to learn that my views about socialization would prove especially controversial in most white-collar settings. Skeptics (and anyone else) can take the Harvard Implicit Association Test, described here. And plenty of firms conduct “implicit, diversity & inclusion” training based on texts such as DiAngelo’s White Fragility (almost 28,000 ratings on Amazon!).
2: On socialization. Then again, I still get surprised. This discussion prompts me to recall the strong aversion–even terror?–that some friends have expressed about acknowledging knowledge of racial stereotypes.
I suggested the possibility that Caplan has certain extraordinary qualities, and may draw inappropriate conclusions about others based on a mistaken belief that others share his qualities. Perhaps *I* have the extraordinary quality of accepting the theory of socialization, and *I* mistakenly believe that other educated people likewise embrace this view.
I recall my first day in Intro Soc., with the professor saying that sociology represented an especially controversial field because it conflicts with cherished Western beliefs about individualism. In the final moments of my life before I commit suicide, what could prove more mortifying than to stumble upon Durkheim’s 1897 study showing that my deeply personal torment falls into quite predictable categories of behavior? (Ok, I guess actually committing suicide would literally prove more mortifying; hopefully reading the research would give me some larger perspective on my circumstances….)
But if you understand socialization, you also understand the joy and pity of it: You can’t really claim credit or blame for the results. I lack both the power to choose the circumstances of my upbringing, and the responsibility for that choice. And in that powerlessness, I find liberation. Surrendering defensiveness frees up creative energy for constructive uses. Plus, it sounds bad-ass.
But perhaps your experience differs from mine.
3: On semantics. Careful readers may note that I strive to avoid calling people “racist” and “sexist.” Really careful readers may note that I also strive to avoid using the verb “to be.” This reflects part of the larger discipline of General Semantics. In short, I try to avoid labeling people in general.
So please forgive me if I don’t encourage you to call me racist or sexist–or any other label, for that matter. But if you describe my attributes–saying, perhaps, that I exhibit racism or sexism–well, I still might not like it, but I may acknowledge the point.
Paul from the dull channel
Jan 4 2021 at 11:42am
My view is that we are essentially only responsible for our own actions and not for those of others except when we in fact (partly) take over this responsibility (classic examples are children but also taking responsibility for one’s employees). Especially with immoral behavior like sexism or racism how can one be responsible for how others act? The only ethical obligation of each person is to act morally oneself and in doing so act as an example. And sometimes that can be a very brave thing already.
On the other hand admonishing others for not doing enough against X is in most cases just a psychological crutch for people who actually lack morals or are at least quite confused about it.
Erich
Jan 5 2021 at 3:37am
What if you’re a bystander witnessing a crime that you can easily prevent? Don’t you think you have a duty to intervene to right a wrong situation then?
If your answer is “yes”, then consider the argument that you also have a duty (if weaker perhaps) to right more distant wrongs, simply because you have the power to do so. The anti-racist would even argue that you are personally involved, in a way, since you have benefitted in a distant way from this “system”. This doesn’t require you to be in any way responsible for others’ actions, it only requires you to right a wrong when you are able to.
Simon Laird
Jan 4 2021 at 2:51pm
“I am utterly blameless for whatever racism and sexism exists in our society” is a good start but it’s not enough.
The problem with that assertion is that
1) it seemingly concedes that there are social problems in our society which are caused by anti-black racism and anti-woman sexism. It is the perceived existence of such problems, not your personal guilt, that is at issue when you are accused of being a “racist,” “sexist,” etc.
And more importantly:
2) if “racism” is understood to mean “non-color-blindness” then your hands are almost certainly not “clean” of “racism” because nobody can be colorblind; colorblindness is insane. A bearded arab man at an airport is a greater security concern than an asian grandmother at an airport. An influx of millions of blacks and middle easterners into a country will have different consequences from an influx of millions of east asians into a country.
As soon as you say “I have nothing to apologize for because I’m not racist” you set yourself up to notice that some of your thoughts or behaviors are, in fact, not colorblind. I think that is the impetus that leads some people to increasingly bizarre behaviors in a futile attempt to shut down their own mind’s ability to recognize patterns.
A better stance is:
“Police do not kill unarmed blacks at a disproportionate rate. Women are not paid less than men with similar qualifications. Those are baseless myths which are promoted by the lying media. Statistical differences between racial groups in IQ and other characteristics are scientifically proven facts and we should acknowledge them as we acknowledge all other facts. I have not mistreated any individual; my hands are clean.”
Alex
Jan 4 2021 at 10:34pm
The problem is that “racism” and “sexism” mean different things to different people. Some people think that racism and sexism is when you treat someone differently because of his race or gender, but others think that something is racist or sexist if the outcome disproportionately affects a particular race or gender. For example, big tech is predominantly White and Asian Male. Why? well this is the group that overwhelmingly studies computer science and engineering. But some will see this a proof of racism and demand from big tech more diversity in the workforce, regardless of the employment needs of the companies.
Jens
Jan 5 2021 at 3:59am
I agree and disagree.
It is true that there are sometimes to often exaggerations in the activist fight against certain negative cultural phenomena. This often has something to do with the fact that certain statistical, negatively connoted, imbalances are isolated or too heavily weighted or that one ignores their positive side effects.
On the other hand, Caplan is playing a black and white game, making use of metaphors inspired by criminal law. When you are charged, it is decided whether you are guilty or innocent. Sometimes there is some leeway in determining the sentence if guilty is found. But there are also criminal offenses where only one punishment is possible and apart from that innocent means innocent. There’s also no such thing as a little bit pregnant.
But that is not true when it comes to terms like racism or sexism. It’s not like either having “your hands clean” or being a crusader. There is e.g. a wide gap between whether one is a patriarch or a feminist (i don’t want to choose sides on that), and in many modern marriages this is also a broadly worked and discussed field, whereby the observation of this worked field by sons and daughters also plays an important role. You are not either guilty or innocent, you are checked every day and you keep making mistakes. Probably a Bryan Caplan too.
Billt
Jan 5 2021 at 8:54am
I’m surprised that on an economics blog no one challenged the basic premise of the argument. “Even if you are not racist, you’ve benefited from racism”. This might be true in a zero sum world, but not in ours. I’ll leave it to the professionals to do the economic argument, but consider the following.
“Mr. Armstrong, we don’t want black trumpet players recording music.” Who would benefit from that clearly racist statement?
A Country Farmer
Jan 5 2021 at 10:30am
I love a good Nietzsche aphorism, thanks!
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