Turns out Bhutan bans opinion polls. So I thought of making a poll asking this question:
- Should opinion polls be banned?
- * Yes,
- * No.
Now there is only one consistent answer to this, which is “No.” Hence the hilarity of the joke: we can giggle at whoever says “Yes.”
The right answer, incidentally, is “Yes”; the right answer in the meta sense, of course. Opinion polls reinforce the Voting Fallacy (which is a chapter in my new upcoming book) and also reinforce the silly idea that all people’s opinions matter on all questions. Skip that.
I elsewhere caused a different poll to be released, which said:
- Is race a social construct?
(Please also note your race in the comments so we can break down the results.)
- * Yes,
- * No.
Several hundred people answered this, with “No” winning with 90% of the vote.
As far as I can tell, everybody who answered did so in earnest. Many gave their race, or gave opinions about the difficulty of identifying race.
But I meant it as a joke.
You can say No, race is not a social construct, which admits race is real in some sense, and then you can state what your race is with regard to this sense.
Or you can say Yes, race is a social construct, but then you cannot state your race. Well, logically you can, of course. It’s not completely inconsistent, but if you really believed race was a social construct you’d refuse to give a race because that would only serve to perpetuate the fiction that race was real.
The raucous point, which I was sure was obvious, and which because it was not proves the true clarity (mud) of my thinking, is that our Elites always answer Yes.
Every Elite university teaches that race is a social construct in some version or another. Just as every Elite university most assiduously tracks the race of all professors and students. Diversity czars are hired, and paid handsomely, to increase “diversity”, which is defined at its apex as the absence of whites.
Many of these “degree-granting”—I almost said educational—institutions teach courses on the evilness of whites, or the despicability of whites, or the crimes of whites, hold seminars on how to avoid exhibiting whiteness, and so forth. All of which acknowledges that at least the white race is not a social construct. Or that whiteness is a social construct, but a construct only possessed by those meeting those characteristics which everybody would take as defining the white race.
A black man, say, can be said to be “acting white”, but only because those saying it admit the man is of the black race. A white man who scores as high on the same math test as the black guy, the high score being the activity that labeled the black man as “acting white”, won’t be said to be acting white, because all recognize him as being white.
Sometimes whites are said to be doing especially white things—like inventing calculus or transistors or philosophy or rockets or moral theology or vaccines. Kidding! I’m kidding. No, the kind of whiteness they mean is whites acting like goofballs; dancing badly or whatnot (and always forgetting the greatest dancer of all). But, as the description says, because these activities are only ascribed to whites, it is an acknowledgement of the white race by those making the claim.
The point—he has a point?—is the lack of consistency. We have long argued here at WMBriggs.com that if feminists really believed the nonsense blasting out of their cheap-white-wine holes then they would everywhere argue for the equal treatment of men and women. Including sports. No feminist will argue this because they, at heart, know that which they push is bullshit, and what they really want is power.
Same things with race-as-social-construct mongers. To be perfectly consistent, if you say there is no such thing as race, then you should nowhere track, mention, point to, speak of, or give acknowledgement to any idea of race. That these scammers do the exact opposite of this, and everywhere emphasize race, proves all they want is to stir up trouble and gain power for themselves and for those they consider favored races.
Now as dumb as I am, I do at least know that pointing out these inconsistencies is like barking into a hurricane. All you can do is make fun of the situation. Which I tried to do.
There. I have just reproved the ancient wisdom that if you have to explain a joke it isn’t funny.
It’s still funny, but in the sad clown sort of way.
The greatest problems America is facing all stem from one Leftist tactic – the absolute denial of reality. Men are women, and women are men. Homosexuality and transvestitism aren’t relatively rare mental disorders, but natural and normal. Children are to be treated as adults, and adults as children. Blacks are the intellectual equal to whites. Black crime isn’t caused by blacks. Poverty causes stupidity and criminality. Women can be effective as police, firefighters, and soldiers. Blacks need to be admitted to and promoted at jobs they don’t remotely qualify for. We have to eliminate discipline in our schools for the children to learn properly. All children learn the same way at the same exact rate of speed. Boys are defective girls, and must be medicated and carefully controlled. Children don’t belong to their parents. Speech must be controlled and audited in order to be free. Freedom is slavery. Poverty is wealth. Love is hate.
SJW delenda est. Leftism delenda est.
This comes up in discussion sections of news blogs often. It has been rudely pointed out with the Kavanaugh mess that feminism CANNOT exist because males and females are the same. It’s rudely pointed out that the left screams “science denier” at people who question the idiocy of global warming and the junk science, yet believes magic makes a lump of cells “human” at some point other than conception, that men and women are the same and that race is a social construct (pointing out there are only 3, maybe 4, scientifically defined races and one is NOT hispanic, sends them into hysterics). As McChuck says, it’s complete denial of reality. I find it interesting that they are being called on this more and more. Their abject hypocrisy and insanity is just not cutting it anymore. Now, can Congress and the abysmal voting public ever learn this? Humans just stand there and let insantity rule—it’s depressing……Maybe we should take a poll on that? ?
This entire article depends for its existence on a persistent, nay, dogged, logical or semantic confusion. I’ve tried before; let’s condense: social constructs are real.
I hate to admit that my femaleness/femininity/motherhood is a patriarchal construct because I agree with you 101%. Now doesn’t that prove women can’t do math? I certainly can’t—but I certainly agree with you. Where does that leave me?
All language is socially constructed.
I used to argue religion with my roommate. It’s fun, pretty much pointless but a good way to sharpen skills. In his thinking, Jesus and God are the same person. So when I encounter that sort of thinking I ask to whom was Jesus praying? Whose voice came from heaven when Jesus was baptized?
His reply was that God is very talented; that these inconsistencies aren’t really inconsistencies and we would see the elegance of the plan if only we could “see” at all. The alternative, which is that God and Jesus are not the same person and Jesus was praying to God, is for some reason not part of the Social Construct and thus cannot exist.
Whiteness is defined by those that define it. It has no intrinsic meaning whatsoever but seems to be endowed with qualities of envy foremost.
There’s a story about crabs. A bucket of crabs does not need a lid because the moment one of the crabs starts to climb out, the others will pull it back as each of the others is also trying to climb out.
When I lived in Maryland and worked in Washington DC, I visited a home of a young, single mother and her daughter. Daughter was in third grade. Her homework involved a story of the white hordes, Attila the Hun and the Mongol Hordes presumably, swept out of the Russian Steppes and wiped out the Mediterranean civilizations and their descendents enslaved Africans.
The question put to this 3rd grader was “what chance do you have in that world?”
The obvious answer: None. Vote Democrat. Your mother is on welfare and so will you be.
But the mother was trying and it’s really hard to escape the trap.
All categorizations are “constructs.” Even in a real science such as biology. The concept of taxonomic classification certainly is real enough, although “nature mocks at human categories” by giving us gradations and hybrids that don’t fit in neatly. So all constructs are wrong, but some constructs are useful. The real argument should be about usefulness and purpose and whether a particular construct is legitimate or not.
Gary:
Exactly.
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/25293/#comment-177945
Lee,
I am happy to say I agree with you. Rather it’s not the article’s existence that depends on a fallacy, but the joke.
Isn’t that funny?
No, but I suspect I would find it funny if I shared your confusion.
Let’s try this: when you talk about whether or not race is real, what do you mean by “real”?
Lee,
I’ll answer that when you say what mean means. And then when you say what do means. And what race means.
That paragraph, too, is a joke. Race is obvious.
I kinda figured.
It is obvious that Lee is either a leftist, and thus immune to facts and reality; a moron, and thus immune to facts and reality; or a troll, and thus immune to facts and reality.
Given the quality of Lee’s grammar and spelling, the probability of “moron” can be reduced to near zero. This leaves Leftist or Troll. Naturally, one can quite comfortably be both a leftist and a troll. These beings are encountered quite frequently.
Given the overall quality of prose, combined with a complete lack of facts or logic, I further surmise that Lee is college maleducated.
You’re wrong: I’m actually a moron. It’s just that it looks like genius to you.
“I have just reproved the ancient wisdom that if you have to explain a joke it isn’t funny.”
By induction, if you have to explain a work of art, it isn’t art. There, I’ve generalized it. Now anyone can be a critic.
Who decides what “goes against man’s nature”? The slippery slope of legislating such subjectivness is apparent. I don’t want the state to be able to lock me in a cage for doing what it considers “against man’s nature”. Can I still have anal sex with my girlfriend?
And if it is immoral to kill a human fetus, certainly you find it immoral to “crush, burn..etc” a sentient being such as a pig, dog, elephant or dolphin? I cannot find flaw in the reasoning of vegans when they speak against cruelty and killing. I find that they do maintain the moral high ground. I eat meat, I am complicit in animal suffering…this makes me a hypocrite, but it doesn’t change the veracity of the vegan’s logic. To cause suffering because of desire, tastes and craving is immoral.