White people have nothing to share
Apr. 16th, 2021 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOne of the things that I’ve maintained for a long time is that Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance” is a really dumb idea. I’ve long maintained that the principle we’re trying to protect is civilization, and tolerance is merely a tactic.
Tolerance is the first step toward welcoming people into your civilization, and you play tolerance as the classic game (in the “game theory” sense) of tit-for-tat: for every kindness you extend, if the newcomer responds with kindness, you respond with more until you get a virtuous spiral. For every rejection, you respond with a milder form of rejection, reinviting them into your civilization, and you keep trying until either they resume the virtuous spiral or you are forced, sadly, to reject them.
I was glad to see Yonatan Zunger echo my thoughts fairly precisely and put it with this succinct phrase: “Tolerance is not a moral precept. It is a peace treaty.” Treating it as a moral absolute, as Popper does in his Paradox, is to renounce your civilization’s right to self-protection.
But here’s the thing: I believe “tolerance” is a form of xenophobia. Tolerance is the gritted-teeth form of passive-aggressive “niceness” for which Americans are so famous. We tolerate strangers. We don’t learn about them, nor do we want them to learn about us. We’re oh-so tolerant of religious festivals that don’t fit our calendars.
Fuck. That.
Give me a party instead. Give me celebrations. Let’s find the common ground on which we want to walk, the matters of food, water, shelter, warmth, and companionship, let’s celebrate those human commonalities we cannot live without, and then let’s find ways to celebrate the cultures that bring color and life into our lives.
So here’s where things get a little sticky. If the goal of tolerance is to reach the stage where two cultures meet and exchange the light, the color, the joy in their existence… what do America’s white people have to offer?
Jews, Muslims, Sikhs have unique clothing, traditions, recipes! So do Mexicans, Thai, and Ethiopian peoples. Hell, even gays have some unique cultural attitudes and ethical stances that are wildly different from the American standard (and my God, we have tried so hard, so hard, to teach standard Americans about consent, and every night the Fox idiots sneer at it).
But what does American white culture have? Baseball? Nascar? John Philip Souza? Jello-mold salads? An incredible propensity for violence? A strange admiration of ignorance?
Seriously. What ethical principles does white American culture have that would be worth sharing, that they didn’t already steal from someone else? People talk about the “Protestant work ethic” but good grief, have you ever talked to a Jew about how important doing every single act with purpose is to his or her life? The music of American white people is completely informed and built on top of the songs of slaves and immigrants.
I don’t think it’s just American white people; they’re just the latest example, dangerously empowered by technology and money. I think this is a kind of resource curse: for the socioeconomic dominant group, every bit of cultural color and joy can be thrown overboard, the collective character collectively flensed down to nothing but fury and rage should that position at the top of the pyramid seem threatened by the growing volume of the folks with the color and the joy.
Tolerance is the first step toward welcoming people into your civilization, and you play tolerance as the classic game (in the “game theory” sense) of tit-for-tat: for every kindness you extend, if the newcomer responds with kindness, you respond with more until you get a virtuous spiral. For every rejection, you respond with a milder form of rejection, reinviting them into your civilization, and you keep trying until either they resume the virtuous spiral or you are forced, sadly, to reject them.
I was glad to see Yonatan Zunger echo my thoughts fairly precisely and put it with this succinct phrase: “Tolerance is not a moral precept. It is a peace treaty.” Treating it as a moral absolute, as Popper does in his Paradox, is to renounce your civilization’s right to self-protection.
But here’s the thing: I believe “tolerance” is a form of xenophobia. Tolerance is the gritted-teeth form of passive-aggressive “niceness” for which Americans are so famous. We tolerate strangers. We don’t learn about them, nor do we want them to learn about us. We’re oh-so tolerant of religious festivals that don’t fit our calendars.
Fuck. That.
Give me a party instead. Give me celebrations. Let’s find the common ground on which we want to walk, the matters of food, water, shelter, warmth, and companionship, let’s celebrate those human commonalities we cannot live without, and then let’s find ways to celebrate the cultures that bring color and life into our lives.
So here’s where things get a little sticky. If the goal of tolerance is to reach the stage where two cultures meet and exchange the light, the color, the joy in their existence… what do America’s white people have to offer?
Jews, Muslims, Sikhs have unique clothing, traditions, recipes! So do Mexicans, Thai, and Ethiopian peoples. Hell, even gays have some unique cultural attitudes and ethical stances that are wildly different from the American standard (and my God, we have tried so hard, so hard, to teach standard Americans about consent, and every night the Fox idiots sneer at it).
But what does American white culture have? Baseball? Nascar? John Philip Souza? Jello-mold salads? An incredible propensity for violence? A strange admiration of ignorance?
Seriously. What ethical principles does white American culture have that would be worth sharing, that they didn’t already steal from someone else? People talk about the “Protestant work ethic” but good grief, have you ever talked to a Jew about how important doing every single act with purpose is to his or her life? The music of American white people is completely informed and built on top of the songs of slaves and immigrants.
I don’t think it’s just American white people; they’re just the latest example, dangerously empowered by technology and money. I think this is a kind of resource curse: for the socioeconomic dominant group, every bit of cultural color and joy can be thrown overboard, the collective character collectively flensed down to nothing but fury and rage should that position at the top of the pyramid seem threatened by the growing volume of the folks with the color and the joy.
