A Harvard professor has claimed, without providing a single shred of evidence, that Russian intelligence agents were able to gain access to Walter Reed hospital where President Trump recovered from coronavirus over the weekend.
Juliette Kayyem, who is also a regular CNN analyst, declared that it is “very likely” that Russian spies were there to gather information about Trump’s condition.
Kayyem, a senior lecturer in international security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, tweeted out the bizarre proclamation along with “#doctorslietoo”.
It is very likely that Russian intelligence agencies — through signal and human intel sources at Walter Reed, etc — have more information about the President’s condition than we do (though I think we all know how the president is doing.) #doctorslietoo
Kayyem followed up with a double down tweet, asking “What part of this don’t you believe?” as if it was a perfectly rational claim to make.
Yep.
What part of this don’t you believe: that Trump team is lax on security and vulnerable or that Russia isn’t interested in Trumps health leading to election they are interfering in.
Keep doing what you are doing. It’s working so well for America and the hospitalized Trump. https://t.co/MFaG9tVyr1
Hi, since questioning science is ok again, do doctors lie about the virus and its dangers, or only info that benefits Republicans? Oh and #FactsFirst lol
Kayyem’s assertions on Twitter are one thing, but her sometime employer CNN has been running programming claiming that Trump’s doctors and staff are all lying and “hiding” the severity of his condition:
Boeing Cuts Long-Term Growth Projections As Company Faces “Historic Challenges” Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/06/2020 – 12:22
Boeing shares are down 3% Tuesday after the release of the aerospace giant’s latest report on annual forecasts, titled “2020 Boeing Market Outlook (BMO),” which warns “the commercial aviation and services markets will continue to face significant challenges due to the pandemic.”
Boeing Chief Strategy Officer Marc Allen wrote in the report that“this year has been unprecedented in terms of its disruption to our industry, we believe that aerospace and defense will overcome these near-term challenges, return to stability and emerge with strength.”
While the BMO projects that the total commercial and defense aerospace industry will see its market value reach $8.5 trillion over the next decade (a forecast that factors in demand for aerospace products – like planes – and services), its latest numbers are notably lower than last year’s estimate of $8.7 trillion, as Boeing factors in the virus-induced downturn has crushed global travel and tourism industry.
Boeing “projected demand for 18,350 commercial airplanes in the next decade – 11% lower than the comparable 2019 forecast – valued at about $2.9 trillion. In the longer term, with key industry drivers expected to remain stable, the commercial fleet is forecasted to return to its growth trend, generating demand for more than 43,000 new airplanes in the 20-year forecast time period.”
“Commercial aviation is facing historic challenges this year, significantly affecting near- and medium-term demand for airplanes and services,” said Darren Hulst, vice president, Commercial Marketing.
“Yet history has also proven air travel to be resilient time and again. The current disruption will inform airline fleet strategies long into the future, as airlines focus on building versatile fleets, networks, and business model innovations that deliver the most capability and greatest efficiency at the lowest risk for sustainable growth,” Hulst said.
Boeing’s commercial aviation outlook includes:
Over the next 20 years, passenger traffic growth is projected to increase by an average of 4% per year.
The global commercial fleet is expected to reach 48,400 by 2039, up from 25,900 airplanes today. During this period, Asia will continue to expand its share of the world’s fleet, accounting for nearly 40% of the fleet compared to about 30% today.
Single-aisle airplanes such as the 737 MAX will continue to be the largest market segment, with operators projected to need 32,270 new airplanes in the next 20 years. Single-aisle demand will recover sooner due to its key role in short-haul routes and domestic markets as well as passenger preference for point-to-point service.
In the widebody market, Boeing forecasts demand for 7,480 new passenger airplanes by 2039. Widebody demand will be affected by a slower recovery in long-haul markets – typical after air-travel shocks – as well as uncertainties from COVID-19’s impact on international travel.
Air cargo demand, a relative bright spot in 2020, is expected to grow 4% annually and generate further demand for 930 new widebody production freighters and 1,500 converted freighters over the forecast period.
To make matters worse for Boeing, the nationwide airline layoffs suggest that airlines will slim down routes and cut jet orders as demand for their services decreases.
Goldman Sets The Stage For Climate Change Taxes Under A Biden Administration Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/06/2020 – 12:24
Having already goalseeked a narrative how a Democratic sweep would be great news for markets (which, as we reported yesterday, consists of as much as $7 trillion in fiscal stimulus offsetting the net income losses from Biden’s proposed corporate tax rate hike from 21% to 28%), Goldman is now moving on to the really important stuff: how much the holy crusade against climate change under the Biden administration will cost.
Now that it is conventional wisdom on Wall Street that Biden will defeat Trump (similarly to how it was a virtual certainty that Hillary would defeat Trump in 2016), big bank strategists are moving on to the key policies of a Biden presidency, where few are more important (or expensive) than Biden’s targets to tackle climate change.
Here, a quick aside: while it has long been a favorite trope of Democrats to attack Republicans for destroying the earth with their evil emissions, the reality is that US CO2 emissions are near the lowest levels of the 20th century, and have been declining every year since the mid-2000s. The real culprit, as shown in light blue in the chart below, is China, whose emissions are more than double those of the US, and greater than the US and Europe combined. Which is truly hilarious, because recently President Xi Jinping announced that China is targeting carbon neutrality by 2060. We ask anyone to explain to us how China’s soaring CO2 emissions will magically collapse by over 10 million KT/year from the current record level to 0 in just 40 years.
None of that matters to Joe Biden of course, who has proposed a $2 trillion plan for a “Clean Energy Revolution” to achieve net greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. And with billions to be made from aiding this crusade again “global warming”, Goldman – which has long been in the “let’s monetize climate change business” isn’t far behind.
Which is also why in a note from Goldman’s Jan Hatzius titled “Mitigating Climate Change via Taxes and Subsidies”, the bank’s chief economist writes that “the European Union, China, and the Biden campaign have recently announced ambitious targets for net carbon neutrality around the middle of the century.” However, as the targets have grown more ambitious, Hatzius notes that it has become less clear how to achieve them, in other words: “who will pay?” To that point, Hatzius writes that “many commentators believe that a high carbon tax—the favorite climate change policy tool of many economists—would be too regressive in its distributional impact, while a low carbon tax would have little impact on emissions.”
Here the Goldman strategist disagrees, arguing that “this view is too pessimistic” and speaking the two words that will melt Democrat hearts, Hatzius says that the massive wealth redistribution resulting from the “clean energy revolution”, will actually be “highly progressive.” He explains:
First, carbon taxes do not have to be regressive. Although low and middle income households spend a relatively larger share of their income on energy, the carbon intensity of the overall consumption basket does not vary much across the income distribution. And if revenues are rebated to households through lump-sum transfers, carbon taxes can actually be highly progressive.
To justify such “highly progressive” measures which are basically forms of wealth redistribution, Hatzius frames the debate as one of emission lowering equivalency.
And here are some numbers: Goldman estimates that a carbon tax of $50 per metric ton—equivalent to 45 cents per gallon of gasoline—would lower emissions by around 25% over the next 5-10 years, broadly consistent with top-down studies in the economics literature.
But a paradox emerges: as even Goldman is forced to admit, the highest earnings – those who will be hit by the most “progressive” taxes, also have the lowest carbon footprint, to wit:
A broader look at the carbon intensity of the overall consumption basket and the ability to rebate imply that carbon taxes are not necessarily regressive. Although lower income households spend a relatively larger share of their income on energy, the carbon intensity of the overall consumption basket does not vary much with income. To show this, we estimate the carbon intensity of US consumption by income group, combining data on carbon intensity by consumption category and US consumption shares by income group (Exhibit 3, left panel). While the top 20% of earners have the lowest carbon intensity of consumption, the differences across groups are relatively small.
False equivalency aside, Goldman next makes a lay up argument for why Biden and his socialist/progressives backers will rush to implement such taxes: Hatzius explains.
carbon taxes can actually be highly progressive if revenues are rebated to households through lump-sum transfers. Economists at the US Treasury estimate that an evenly-rebated $49 carbon tax would raise after-tax income of the bottom 10% of households by nearly 10% (Exhibit 3, right panel).
“Rebates”, of course, is just another word for higher taxes on the rich. And the punchline: “Recent polling finds that around two-thirds of the US population supports carbon taxes if the revenues are rebated.” Hardly a shock that the lower classes would be in favor of redistributing the income of the wealthy.
Finally, just to appease the environmentalists in addition to the socialists, Goldman self-servingly shows a chart according to which a carbon tax of $50 would lower emissions by around $25. But why stop there: a tax of $100 would lower emission by almost 50%, while a $500 tax would lower emissions by a lovely 70% and so on thus handing progressives a “noble” cause with which to soak the rich.
But wait there’s more, because in addition to carbon taxes, Goldman also recommends “Green subsidies” which would go a long way to further “cutting emissions”:
While a 35% cut in emissions would be far from sufficient to achieve a mid-century net zero target, the combination of a $50 carbon tax with clean energy subsidies in areas such as renewables, electric cars, and batteries could be quite powerful.
In the short run, subsidies promoting, for example, solar installation or electric vehicles purchases, should reduce emissions as clean alternatives replace carbon-intensive products. Using estimates from the research literature of the effectiveness of energy subsidies at reducing emissions and assuming that this effectiveness increases over time with technological progress, we estimate a 10% decline in CO2 emissions from an increase in green energy subsidies worth 0.5% of GDP.9 For context, such an increase in green subsidies would take global subsidies as a share of GDP slightly beyond the 2017 EU level and is roughly consistent with 20% of the Biden climate plan being spent on green energy subsidies.
In the long run, emissions reductions would likely be much larger as the benefits from learning-by-doing and research subsidies build over time. Subsidies for production and consumption of clean tech can boost productive efficiency through accumulated experience, a learning-by-doing effect. The prices of wind turbines and especially solar panels have dropped sharply and at a much faster pace than projected by the International Energy Agency (Exhibit 7). Academic research documents that subsidies have stimulated demand, which has in turn pushed down prices via learning-by-doing1 The right panels, which plot prices against cumulative capacities, suggest that a doubling of cumulative solar and wind capacity is associated with a 40-45% reduction in prices.
What was left unsaid is that government subsidies is just another form of taxpayer-funded government generosity. And yes, the middle class will feel the biggest hit, because while the top 10% can easily afford any newly unveiled government taxes, it is the middle class that will suffer the most from the loss of discretionary spending, which will be repurposed to fighting… China’s emissions.
Goldman’s conclusion: there is great news, and global emissions will drop sharply… all that is needed is some aggressive combination of taxes and subsidies:
Taken together, our estimates imply that a combination of a carbon tax and green subsidies could reduce emissions by 45% over the next 15–20 years. This 45% reduction over the next 15-20 years would be a major step in the direction of net carbon neutrality over the longer 30-40 year horizon targeted by governments, at which point negative emissions technologies such as carbon capture and storage could also play a large role. In short, our analysis suggests that a combination of carbon taxes and green subsidies can help the world achieve its increasingly ambitious targets for emissions reductions.
After all that, just one open question remains: how will Goldman wiggle its way into extracting 2-3% from every “climate change” tax and subsidy transaction soon to be imposed on the middle class by the Biden administration. We expect to have the answer shortly.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2SyTB0C Tyler Durden
Having angered the blue-check-mark gods of social media by daring to recover from COVID and removing his mask while socially-distanced from everyone on the White House veranda, President Trump tweeted (and posted on Facebook) the following:
“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!“
Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!
It appears that last phrase upset The Ministry of Truth as Facebook has now removed the post and Twitter flagged it for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”
There’s just one thing. If you follow the science and the data from CDC… Trump is right…
And while the cohorts are not perfectly orthogonal, due to data sourcing issues above, Trump is right that for certain groups, seasonal flu is more deadly than COVID-19…
Of course, the caveat is that we perhaps do not have the full count of the COVID-19 cycle’s impact yet.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GM88mH Tyler Durden
Here are some things to know about Devils, The CW’s new imported drama. First, this is not McDreamy’s return to American television. Patrick Dempsey, the dream boy of an entire female generation for more than a decade on Grey’s Anatomy, is not the star of Devils, no matter many hacky bloggers reprint press releases to the contrary. His role can barely be called supporting.
Second, even if Dempsey’s character were bigger, he’s not the kind, caring, compassionate McDreamy who haunts the Hallmarkish dreams of a now-menopausal flock of female TV viewers but a cold, ruthless McSonuvabitch. “You don’t really care for anyone,” one woman accuses him. “It’s beyond your grasp.”
And third, this dreary discussion of the fate of a decade-gone-by matinee idol tells you everything you need to know about Devils, which is that it’s such a thorough-going bore that there’s nothing else about it to say.
The last scripted show to premiere in 2020’s coronavirus-blighted fall broadcast season, Devils was supposed to be quite a catch for The CW. Italian-made but shot in English, with two high-hormonal male draws (Alessandro Borghi of Netflix’s Suburra is the other), it had already been battle-tested on European TV. Supposedly, The CW had to win a bloody bidding war to come up with the American rights.
If so, it was a surely the stupidest war since Italy was wracked by a civil war over a stolen bucket 700 years ago, and believe me, the bucket was more fun to watch than Devils.
Devils is billed as a financial thriller. When American producers say that, it usually means a few cryptic lines of hedge-fund jargon, followed by a lot of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, and finally, the cops. When Europeans say it, it means endless discussion of currency fluctuations among the Euro, the yuan, and the yen. A movie about the banking rules for Monopoly would have been more scintillating, or at least more comprehensible.
Not that Devils doesn’t include a few murders and rapes and stuff among its plot points. Borghi plays Massimo Ruggero, a currency-trading shark who makes hundreds of millions of dollars for his investment bank (headed by Dominic Morgan, Dempsey’s character) by basically tying the weaker national economies of Europe to railroad tracks.
But when Ruggero doesn’t get a promotion he wants, he sets in motion a scandal that results in the suicide of a rival, then prepares to ruin his own bank through stock manipulation. And then—was that suicide really a murder? And if so, who committed it?
This sounds kind of interesting, if not exactly morally suasive. And maybe it would be, if Devils had a single character who wasn’t carved from wood, or if its dialogue consisted of more than shouts of “Short! Cover! Float!” Villainy can be fun—just remember Al Swearengen in Deadwood or Alexis Carrington in Dynasty—but it’s got to be lively.
Hard bodies and blank expressions may mix well in porn, but they don’t make for effective melodrama. With Devils, the fall season ends not with a bang but a surly grunt.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jDy9Dh
via IFTTT
Here are some things to know about Devils, The CW’s new imported drama. First, this is not McDreamy’s return to American television. Patrick Dempsey, the dream boy of an entire female generation for more than a decade on Grey’s Anatomy, is not the star of Devils, no matter many hacky bloggers reprint press releases to the contrary. His role can barely be called supporting.
Second, even if Dempsey’s character were bigger, he’s not the kind, caring, compassionate McDreamy who haunts the Hallmarkish dreams of a now-menopausal flock of female TV viewers but a cold, ruthless McSonuvabitch. “You don’t really care for anyone,” one woman accuses him. “It’s beyond your grasp.”
And third, this dreary discussion of the fate of a decade-gone-by matinee idol tells you everything you need to know about Devils, which is that it’s such a thorough-going bore that there’s nothing else about it to say.
The last scripted show to premiere in 2020’s coronavirus-blighted fall broadcast season, Devils was supposed to be quite a catch for The CW. Italian-made but shot in English, with two high-hormonal male draws (Alessandro Borghi of Netflix’s Suburra is the other), it had already been battle-tested on European TV. Supposedly, The CW had to win a bloody bidding war to come up with the American rights.
If so, it was a surely the stupidest war since Italy was wracked by a civil war over a stolen bucket 700 years ago, and believe me, the bucket was more fun to watch than Devils.
Devils is billed as a financial thriller. When American producers say that, it usually means a few cryptic lines of hedge-fund jargon, followed by a lot of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, and finally, the cops. When Europeans say it, it means endless discussion of currency fluctuations among the Euro, the yuan, and the yen. A movie about the banking rules for Monopoly would have been more scintillating, or at least more comprehensible.
Not that Devils doesn’t include a few murders and rapes and stuff among its plot points. Borghi plays Massimo Ruggero, a currency-trading shark who makes hundreds of millions of dollars for his investment bank (headed by Dominic Morgan, Dempsey’s character) by basically tying the weaker national economies of Europe to railroad tracks.
But when Ruggero doesn’t get a promotion he wants, he sets in motion a scandal that results in the suicide of a rival, then prepares to ruin his own bank through stock manipulation. And then—was that suicide really a murder? And if so, who committed it?
This sounds kind of interesting, if not exactly morally suasive. And maybe it would be, if Devils had a single character who wasn’t carved from wood, or if its dialogue consisted of more than shouts of “Short! Cover! Float!” Villainy can be fun—just remember Al Swearengen in Deadwood or Alexis Carrington in Dynasty—but it’s got to be lively.
Hard bodies and blank expressions may mix well in porn, but they don’t make for effective melodrama. With Devils, the fall season ends not with a bang but a surly grunt.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jDy9Dh
via IFTTT
Joe Biden Thanks “Black Women” For Enabling His Home-Stay “By Stocking Grocery Shelves” Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/06/2020 – 11:56
Another awkward moment that will be wished away by the Biden campaign and its MSM colleagues.
During an NBC News “Roundtable with Veterans” discussion (which streamed live on Sept. 15), the former vice president dropped yet another ‘racial’ remark, insinuating that black women are only fit for work in stocking grocery store shelves.
“…the American public, the blinders have been taken off. They’ve all of a sudden seen a helluva lot clearer… geez, the reason I was able to stay home during the pandemic is because Black women were able to keep the grocery shelves stocked.”
Watch (start at 1:19:45)…
Is that racist? Imagine if Trump or any Republican had said such a condescending thing?
Imagine @realDonaldTrump, or any Republican said what Joe Biden just said here:
“The reason I was able to stay sequestered in my home [during the pandemic] is because some black woman was able to stack the grocery shelf.”https://t.co/ri3GoxQ8sj
However, Biden’s “black woman” comment went viral fast, sparking many comments, summed up succinctly by Dinesh D’Souza:
What is it about Democrats that they automatically see minorities as low-level service workers???
“The reason I was able to stay sequestered in my home is because some black woman was able to stack the grocery shelf.” – @JoeBidenhttps://t.co/ErUJ8VnH37
Global de-dollarization resumed in the second quarter according to data recently released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While the dollar share of global reserves increased in the first quarter of 2020, it fell sharply in Q2, resuming a more than two-year trend downward.
The share of euros making up global reserves rose slightly and the share of yen dropped. The second quarter saw the largest build-up of reserves in Chinese RMB and “other currencies”
The increase in dollar reserves in Q1 was likely an anomaly triggered by increased valuation and safe-haven buying during the early stages of the COVID-19 panic.
A Bank of America report concluded, “the de-dollarization theme appears intact.” According to its data, the share of US holdings has declined to 61.3%, “slightly more than expected based on FX, bond and equity valuation changes.”
Central bank reserves globally rose significantly as they aggressively intervened in foreign exchange (FX) markets. Total FX reserves rose to over $12 trillion. According to analysis by ZeroHedge, most major countries experienced a rise in FX reserves through Q2, with the exception of Turkey. That country continues to bleed reserves in order to stabilize its currency.
There has been a decoupling between the level of dollar reserves and the Trade Weighted USD index – a measure of currency strength weighted by the country’s amount of trade.
According to ZeroHedge, “This divergence between the level of USD reserves and that of USD TWI is expected to persist, as the world is decoupling from the USD as the notional reference peg.”
According to the BoA report, no single currency stood out as having benefited from the process so far. Instead, many central banks have turned to gold.
Central bank gold purchases have slowed somewhat this year after record buying in 2018 and 2019. But, central bank gold-buying is expected to rebound in 2021, according to analysts for both Citigroup and HSBC Securities.
Central bank demand came in at 650.3 tons last year. That was the second-highest level of annual purchases for 50 years, just slightly below the 2018 net purchases of 656.2 tons. According to the WGC, 2018 marked the highest level of annual net central bank gold purchases since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971, and the second-highest annual total on record.
Some analysts believe both China and Russia will resume adding to their gold-holdings next year. Both countries have been aggressive in reducing their exposure to the dollar but recently put gold purchasing on hold.
Earlier this year, Russia announced it would halt gold purchases effective April. Meanwhile, the People’s Bank of China has not reported any gold purchases in 10 months. It’s not uncommon for China to go silent and then suddenly announce a large increase in reserves. The Chinese government has hinted that it might shed more US Treasuries from its reserve holdings. It would come as no shock if the Chinese replaced US debt with gold.
We’ve been watching this de-dollarization trend over the last several years, and have written extensively about a push to minimize dollar exposure by countries like Russia and China and their desire to undermine the ability of the US to weaponize the dollar as a foreign policy tool.
The dollar’s slowly shrinking share of reserves doesn’t yet threaten its status as the world’s reserve currency, but it could be a canary in the coal mine. It’s definitely a trend to keep a close eye on.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3njzUbj Tyler Durden
This is the second in a series of five posts we are publishing this week as the co-authors of a new book from Oxford University Press titled “Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education.” The first post from this series can be found here.
One of the key arguments we make in the book is that there is a set of three beliefs that shape much of the contemporary campus environment. We explain these beliefs as follows.
Belief #1: Anything That Aims to Undermine Traditional Frameworks is Automatically Deemed Good
The first belief is that any action to undermine or replace traditional frameworks or power structures is by definition a good thing. This belief is grounded in the view—that we share—that many of society’s problems and inequalities can be attributed to historical power structures that have favored members of the white, cisgender, heteronormative patriarchy. But that does not mean that all proposals to address historical inequities constitute good solutions.
We emphasize that our goal is not to defend traditional power structures. To state the obvious, there is nothing redeeming about historical (or present-day) discrimination, including sexism, racism, intolerance toward members of the LGBTQ community, and so on. One can rightly condemn those ills while at the same time recognizing that not all initiatives undertaken with the goals of combating them will be effective. Some will be, and some won’t be.
The fact that an initiative aims to counteract historical wrongs doesn’t mean that, on that basis alone, it should be exempt from an objective evaluation of its merits and drawbacks. A similar observation was articulated by Conor Friedersdorf, who wrote in the Atlantic that “[t]o object to a means of achieving x is not to be anti-x.” In other words, as Friedersdorf suggests, there is a distinction to be made between criticizing a proposed means to achieve an end and criticizing the goal of achieving that end.
The campus culture of providing unquestioning endorsement of anything presented as a mechanism to undermine, remake, or remove society’s real or perceived hierarchies (including the corporate and/or governmental entities and structures that are viewed as enablers of those hierarchies) has broad reach, creating considerable collateral damage. For instance, because this belief is applied to any societal feature perceived (whether correctly or not) as having its provenance in historically dominant cultural frameworks, it can lead to absurd consequences, such as assertions that math and logic are inherently racist.
Belief #2: Discrimination is the Cause of All Unequal Group Outcomes
The second belief is that, absent the hand of discriminatory actors, all group-level outcomes would be equal. However, this belief precludes fully considering the role of potential differences in preferences, priorities, and culture that might also contribute to unequal outcomes. It also doesn’t fully recognize the complex ways in which different factors (including but not limited to discrimination) might interact in shaping group outcomes, and the challenges of distinguishing correlation from causation.
To take one example, consider a culture in which music plays a particularly large and central role. Such a culture might be expected to produce a disproportionately large number of people who become accomplished musicians. Now, it might also be true that the members of this culture experience discrimination. One can then ask whether they have notably high levels of musical achievement as a consequence (among others) of discrimination. Or is this outcome independent of discrimination? Or, perhaps the role of music in this culture can be tied in part to cultural factors independent of discrimination and in part to discrimination.
Under the second belief, the unequal group outcome—in this case, a higher level of musical achievement among members of this culture—must be due to discrimination. But as the foregoing example illustrates, this assumption forecloses a more expansive inquiry that is more open to recognizing culturally driven differences without necessarily tying them to narratives of oppression.
Another factor sometimes raised in relation to group differences is biology. This is a particularly fraught topic, and understandably so given the frequency with which spurious biological explanations for group differences have been used for nefarious purposes in the past. And to be clear, we are not suggesting that there is any validity to flawed assertions regarding, for example, purported racial or gender differences in intelligence.
But the fact that claims regarding purported group differences have often been driven by some combination of racism, sexism, and bad science doesn’t mean that all attempts to explore group differences are attributable to such bias. It seems reasonable to posit, for example, that the dramatic statistical overrepresentation of men among violent criminals has at least some basis in biology.
A similar assertion regarding an underlying biological role could also be made regarding the fact—reflected in car insurance rates—that young male drivers tend to get in more accidents than do young female drivers. Yet under the second belief, these suggestions are deemed improper. Instead, it is only permissible to seek explanations based on socialization and gender norms.
Belief #3: The Primacy of Identity
The third belief is in the primacy of identity, which is commonly invoked through race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. In articulating this belief we are in no way suggesting that identity isn’t important. Rather, we are asserting that although it is completely reasonable—and in some cases absolutely necessary—to see things through the lens of identity, that does not mean that an identity-centered view is the only legitimate way of examining all issues. While adherence to the third belief has the very positive consequence of ensuring that identity-centered perspectives have a seat at the table, it is often invoked in a way that excludes non-identity-centered perspectives from discourse—despite the value that those perspectives can often add.
Today’s identity politics are an understandable reaction to historical (and continuing) patterns of discrimination through which oppressed groups have often been marginalized in the past precisely because those in power placed primacy on these axes of identity and used it in despicable ways (e.g., slavery). Part of the movement to reclaim historically marginalized identities includes elevating them. Yet, as a result of this belief, it has become increasingly unacceptable to make statements suggesting that identity should not always have primacy….
In an academic culture in which identity is given primacy, it stands to reason that efforts to advance a particular group’s interests should take priority, with less attention given to ways in which those efforts may themselves be exclusionary. And, this comes at the price of deemphasizing the opportunities for engagement among members of different identity groups, which in theory is one of most important benefits of a university education. Another consequence of the on-campus focus on identity is that racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination are often the only causal mechanisms advanced for a complex set of problems, not all of which are ascribable solely to discrimination.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jGjZS0
via IFTTT
This is the second in a series of five posts we are publishing this week as the co-authors of a new book from Oxford University Press titled “Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education.” The first post from this series can be found here.
One of the key arguments we make in the book is that there is a set of three beliefs that shape much of the contemporary campus environment. We explain these beliefs as follows.
Belief #1: Anything That Aims to Undermine Traditional Frameworks is Automatically Deemed Good
The first belief is that any action to undermine or replace traditional frameworks or power structures is by definition a good thing. This belief is grounded in the view—that we share—that many of society’s problems and inequalities can be attributed to historical power structures that have favored members of the white, cisgender, heteronormative patriarchy. But that does not mean that all proposals to address historical inequities constitute good solutions.
We emphasize that our goal is not to defend traditional power structures. To state the obvious, there is nothing redeeming about historical (or present-day) discrimination, including sexism, racism, intolerance toward members of the LGBTQ community, and so on. One can rightly condemn those ills while at the same time recognizing that not all initiatives undertaken with the goals of combating them will be effective. Some will be, and some won’t be.
The fact that an initiative aims to counteract historical wrongs doesn’t mean that, on that basis alone, it should be exempt from an objective evaluation of its merits and drawbacks. A similar observation was articulated by Conor Friedersdorf, who wrote in the Atlantic that “[t]o object to a means of achieving x is not to be anti-x.” In other words, as Friedersdorf suggests, there is a distinction to be made between criticizing a proposed means to achieve an end and criticizing the goal of achieving that end.
The campus culture of providing unquestioning endorsement of anything presented as a mechanism to undermine, remake, or remove society’s real or perceived hierarchies (including the corporate and/or governmental entities and structures that are viewed as enablers of those hierarchies) has broad reach, creating considerable collateral damage. For instance, because this belief is applied to any societal feature perceived (whether correctly or not) as having its provenance in historically dominant cultural frameworks, it can lead to absurd consequences, such as assertions that math and logic are inherently racist.
Belief #2: Discrimination is the Cause of All Unequal Group Outcomes
The second belief is that, absent the hand of discriminatory actors, all group-level outcomes would be equal. However, this belief precludes fully considering the role of potential differences in preferences, priorities, and culture that might also contribute to unequal outcomes. It also doesn’t fully recognize the complex ways in which different factors (including but not limited to discrimination) might interact in shaping group outcomes, and the challenges of distinguishing correlation from causation.
To take one example, consider a culture in which music plays a particularly large and central role. Such a culture might be expected to produce a disproportionately large number of people who become accomplished musicians. Now, it might also be true that the members of this culture experience discrimination. One can then ask whether they have notably high levels of musical achievement as a consequence (among others) of discrimination. Or is this outcome independent of discrimination? Or, perhaps the role of music in this culture can be tied in part to cultural factors independent of discrimination and in part to discrimination.
Under the second belief, the unequal group outcome—in this case, a higher level of musical achievement among members of this culture—must be due to discrimination. But as the foregoing example illustrates, this assumption forecloses a more expansive inquiry that is more open to recognizing culturally driven differences without necessarily tying them to narratives of oppression.
Another factor sometimes raised in relation to group differences is biology. This is a particularly fraught topic, and understandably so given the frequency with which spurious biological explanations for group differences have been used for nefarious purposes in the past. And to be clear, we are not suggesting that there is any validity to flawed assertions regarding, for example, purported racial or gender differences in intelligence.
But the fact that claims regarding purported group differences have often been driven by some combination of racism, sexism, and bad science doesn’t mean that all attempts to explore group differences are attributable to such bias. It seems reasonable to posit, for example, that the dramatic statistical overrepresentation of men among violent criminals has at least some basis in biology.
A similar assertion regarding an underlying biological role could also be made regarding the fact—reflected in car insurance rates—that young male drivers tend to get in more accidents than do young female drivers. Yet under the second belief, these suggestions are deemed improper. Instead, it is only permissible to seek explanations based on socialization and gender norms.
Belief #3: The Primacy of Identity
The third belief is in the primacy of identity, which is commonly invoked through race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. In articulating this belief we are in no way suggesting that identity isn’t important. Rather, we are asserting that although it is completely reasonable—and in some cases absolutely necessary—to see things through the lens of identity, that does not mean that an identity-centered view is the only legitimate way of examining all issues. While adherence to the third belief has the very positive consequence of ensuring that identity-centered perspectives have a seat at the table, it is often invoked in a way that excludes non-identity-centered perspectives from discourse—despite the value that those perspectives can often add.
Today’s identity politics are an understandable reaction to historical (and continuing) patterns of discrimination through which oppressed groups have often been marginalized in the past precisely because those in power placed primacy on these axes of identity and used it in despicable ways (e.g., slavery). Part of the movement to reclaim historically marginalized identities includes elevating them. Yet, as a result of this belief, it has become increasingly unacceptable to make statements suggesting that identity should not always have primacy….
In an academic culture in which identity is given primacy, it stands to reason that efforts to advance a particular group’s interests should take priority, with less attention given to ways in which those efforts may themselves be exclusionary. And, this comes at the price of deemphasizing the opportunities for engagement among members of different identity groups, which in theory is one of most important benefits of a university education. Another consequence of the on-campus focus on identity is that racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination are often the only causal mechanisms advanced for a complex set of problems, not all of which are ascribable solely to discrimination.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jGjZS0
via IFTTT
