>>
I've pondered your response, Ian, as well as what you say later in
this thread. And I couldn't disagree more. The "point" here is
hardly academic and goes right to the crux over question about
how to fight, how to eradiate racism, in its various forms.
*************
I agree the point is hardly academic. Yes the issue is how can we be most effective in getting rid of racism.
>>
If the proposition about rationality inflames some and sends
others scurrying to their bookshelves looking for definitive
treatments about human irrationality, then how 'bout replacing
the word with "instrumental." *********
Dennnis are you suggesting we replace irrationality in the context discussed with instrumental rationality?
If so, I guess my question with regards to your wanting to expand the taxonomy to show that those forms of politico-economic advantage that accrue to a statistically significant # of members of the non-capitalist class [not to mention capitalist themselves] are a manifestation of instrumental rationality, is whether this may ending up putting us in another box; namely the need to create and robustly explain/justify a normative conception of reasoning in ethics that can explain how cases of instrumental reason nonetheless violate the logical implications of a normative theory--that racism is irrational. The arguments against slavery were not won by saying northern capitalist labor contracts were more efficient in extracting surplus value.
Are we agreed, given for the moment, reason, and that racism is an irrational belief, then how would we go about explaining to workers all along the hierarchical division of labor the tenets of the theory? How would we get them to forego the advantages that accrue to using instrumental reason whenever the opportunity to capture rents presents itself?
>>
The dynamics of domination clearly
have the irrational swirling through them; hatred, violence, the
casual use of terror and brutality are hardly epiphenominal.
**********
Agreed.
>>
And Yoshie may well stand on firm theoretical ground claiming that
our real ethical and material interests are only served by
people recognizing the limitations in their relative advantages.
*********** All advantages have limits. The problem is the very idea of advantage itself. Capitalists and their proxies in management recognize that they have comparative advantage on the shop floor and elsewhere at this point in history even though there giddiness is tempered right now because of events over the last 24-36 months. The question for egalitarians is the contradiction between the cognitive dynamics whereby we strive to gain a material advantage and the cognitive dynamics whereby we strive to instantiate equal respect for persons irrespective of "race" and "gender" or property and other asset "holdings".
>>
And the rigged game of capitalism also gives shape and meaning
to varied unequal relationships and intergroup strife.
But various forms of inequality have an instrumental quality
to them, directly and indirectly.
******* Well it seems that again the question is what is the argument/critique we can make that is both internal to the instrumental reason that leads some to believe/act in such a way that racism and sexism are the results and external to instrumental reason; namely a normative argument that disables, say, rational choice economism. How do we improve on Heather Boushey's and others methodologies? What do we tell each other if, after deepening that research strategy and giving it more explanatory power, we find that what we thought was racism turns out to be merely asymmetric bargaining power between capitalists, their proxies and the rest of us? Proving the structural "intentionality" of racism/sexism is very difficult precisely because it's very hard to locate and easy to hide in various institutional locations.
For instance, in the example I gave yesterday of where I worked, how would we forestall an RC claim that "yes the managers in question were irrational in the decisions they made but it wasn't because the workers they harmed were African Americans but because they didn't know how to satisfice/optimize under a budget constraint consistent with other company policies prohibiting timecard fraud and the like?" When we reply "well, because, only white managers were doing it, no African American managers did it." What should be our response to their next assertion [the denial of racism assertion or the "well it's racist for you to suggest that it was racist"?--I've seen this argument up close and it is something we have to learn how to disarm]
>>
What is gained in either
defining that away or denying it? If some experience a
premium - whether it be wages, jobs, housing, land, health
care, education, or whatever and by experience where talking
about something more than the thin veneer of subjectivity,
then the instrumentality of racism becomes a major barrier
to change. ********
Agree. And that is the vulnerability of our case if these instrumentally driven advantages can be explained away as cases of non-racism and non-sexism etc. My point being where do we want to stand normatively if we can't make a good case with methodologies such as Boushey's and others? Look at the work of Robert Bullard and the environmental racism/justice movement. One case went all the way to the Supremes and they took special care to disarm the methodologies that were used in the data workup process even as they admitted there was merit in the case. Then just look at who is waging the battle against this movement <http://216.19.142.38/books/briefly35/intro.htm>
This is why I think we need to try and understand how, in our desire to eradicate racism and sexism, hoping to defeat instrumental reason on it's own terms may not be sufficient to do the trick. Indeed, on this like so many other issues we need a swarm strategy. Clearly, accepting some normative notion of racism as irrational irrespective of whether instrumental advantages do or do not accrue to non-capitalists who have relative advantage in the hierarchical division of labor, is something we should at least consider. Otherwise we're left saying that if IR and it's associated methodologies for looking at R&S don't lead us to the conclusions we thought they would, the use of IR is acceptable even if it hurts non-whites and non-males and I think that could compromise our commitment to trying to eliminate race and sex discrimination. IR is trumps, in other words. Since I think racism and sexism is irrational, especially when myself and others seek to gain over others in a "zero-sum" situation that may appear to me, I can't avoid the conclusion that IR should not be trumps even when, on it's own terms it would be "rational" for me to think so.
>>
But the practical questions, for me at any rate, have to do
with how to confront the rewards and advantages
some gain in imposing and/or sustaining racist practices.
I think it is an error to minimize how significant those
with relative power/advantage feel theirs to be. Calling
it symbolic compensation or imply false consciousness detaches
theory from the real struggles of exclusion/usurpation.
******* Agree, the problem is with how we go about dealing with the idea of advantage.
>>
Someone - Brad Meyer I think - remarked that capitalism doesn't
allow for sharing. Yep, and more generically, power doesn't
relinquish itself until its met with some countervailing force.
Hardly a novel notion. Yet by recognizing that many groups
(and I'm speaking really imprecisely here) instrumentally gain
generally also means they'll employ a Charlton Heston-like
response when challenged: "from my cold dead hand."
New millenium and same old, same old...
Dennis Breslin
********
Well capitalism isn't a zero-sum game in all situations. It does "come down" to differential creation of and access to coercive capacities, ye old class struggle. I don't doubt that some groups gain instrumentally. How do we show that those gains are 1] the expression of irrationality, hence illusory, because if we embraced a different set of practices all would be better off, and 2]are normatively suspect and call for a redistribution of all manner of "things" along outlines suggested by Iris Marion Young and many many others, given that we are always already re-distributing. With regards to [1], the onus is then on us to show a set of paths toward those greater gains. If we get the response from workers along the lines you suggest above, and if they say that the irrationality of the situation doesn't matter, let alone whether it is normatively suspect even if, under the assumptions of IR it is rational behavior, than what's the point of Boushey's and others work? How do we put reciprocity and solidarity and class back on the public's radar screen as ways of alleviating poverty and suffering? How do we get rid of racism and sexism even if it doesn't necessarily lead to the demise of capitalism? In this sense I do think we can make different types of reason based arguments that give workers a clearer understanding of class composition and that racism/sexism serve as barriers to that end as well as to the goal of democratization that don't necessarily lead to the kinds of conclusions Przeworski came to when looking at whether Capitalism is good for the working class. This depends crucially on putting class on the political landscape and using effective communication strategies for keeping it there, something we all know is extremely difficult to do.
You're right, new millennium same old, same old...
Ian