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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » The Ashton Kutcher Scandal - Racism (explicit content) (Page 2)

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Author Topic: The Ashton Kutcher Scandal - Racism (explicit content)
Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
The anti-male stereotyping is harmful because the specific type of message being transmitted is that not only are males buffoons, they are entitled to be buffoons.
Interestingly, Scott, I think that subtext is inserted into those portrayals precisely to make them more palatable to the men that are otherwise being mocked; it's meant to suggest to the viewing men that real men actually want to sit around the house with their hand down their pants, watching sports and hiding from the kids. It's like what aggressive people do when they make a joke they know -- perhaps too late -- is a little too obnoxious; they dig an elbow into your ribs and wink and say, "Get it? It's funny 'cause it's true, ain't it? I'm just telling it like it is."
It doesn't seem to me to be a contradictory notion. These stereotypes are perpetrated by men (male actors) against men for the amusement of women, and yet, subtextually, the writing works to justify the behavior to men to make it palatable.

I see little difference between that level of humor and, say, "Sex and the City". The writing in that series was aimed squarely at using men as a source of comedy while "poking fun" at the foibles of women who in fact stood for the things that any shallow and soulless woman, or person, might aspire to be: rich, single, consumerist, flamboyant, glib, irresponsible, sexually permiscuous and living in a world of zero real consequences. The writing "made fun" of these women while endorsing virtually everything they did along with their outlook on life and relationships. It always horrified me. And don't even get me started on the men involved: it's apparently desirable for us to be clueless, aloof, emotionally shallow, manipulative, and sexually disfunctional.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Because society is made up of individuals who self-select into groups that they like (that approximately match their views). Such organizations are so numerous and shifting as to almost be infinite, and the only one that actually wields perpetual, irresistible power is the government.

This is patently not how power is pledged or divided in our united states. It's naive, to say the least, even to start with the basic assumption that individual group affiliations are initiated by attraction, rather than the manifold values that supersede those of temperament. Just try and parse your model into an actual moving system: wouldnt America be entirely, perfectly and evenly divided by geographical lines amongst different political interests, because people would all move to where their views were shared? No, of course not, because 1001 other things matter in regards to where you place a vote, what channel you watch, what you say and who you say it to. If we all just divided up our power evenly into discrete groups... I don't even know what. We wouldn't be a country.
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Dan_Frank
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Orincoro, I think you're mistakenly assuming I think a person can only care about one thing, or belong to only one group. I didn't say that, and I don't think that.

Try recalculating based on this new data.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
This attitude really baffles me, and only seems true insofar as "the status quo" is code for "what polls as appealing to most viewers" and nothing else.
Again, I ask that you think about this a bit.

quote:
And those qualifiers "not necessarily always" are huge red flags.
Well, of course they are. But what you're worried about here and what you should be worried about are two different things, as I'll discuss below. The issue isn't solely that television media is deliberately manipulated by oligarchs to maintain their status quo or push an agenda, although of course that's part of it; the issue is also that -- as noted above -- media outlets profit by correctly identifying and then pandering to or rewarding what are believed to be "popular" positions and attitudes. Sometimes there are more insidious motives at work; more often, though, the profit motive -- the motive that is always present -- is the only one necessary.

--------

More importantly: Dan, I don't think you know what "systematic" means in the context of "systematic" racism. Above all else, you seem to be reacting to the term as if it required direct action or deliberate inaction from groups consciously manipulating or controlling a given process. That's not what "systematic" means, here. While I don't necessarily hold with Carmichael's take on "institutionalized racism," either, it's important to note that at no point does it require a deliberate decision to act against the interests of a particular group of people.

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
This attitude really baffles me, and only seems true insofar as "the status quo" is code for "what polls as appealing to most viewers" and nothing else.
Again, I ask that you think about this a bit.
Done!

quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
And those qualifiers "not necessarily always" are huge red flags.
Well, of course they are. But what you're worried about here and what you should be worried about are two different things, as I'll discuss below. The issue isn't solely that television media is deliberately manipulated by oligarchs to maintain their status quo or push an agenda, although of course that's part of it; the issue is also that -- as noted above -- media outlets profit by correctly identifying and then pandering to or rewarding what are believed to be "popular" positions and attitudes. Sometimes there are more insidious motives at work; more often, though, the profit motive -- the motive that is always present -- is the only one necessary.

Yeah, media outlets of all kinds definitely profit by identifying, and then keeping, their audience. This is true, and in the case of news media it seems to result in different news media outlets trying to appeal to different perspectives.

By the way, I think that most of the people involved in these outlets aren't lying to appeal to their audience. They don't need to! Because the ideology of each outlet attracts like-minded employees, so they tell what they think is the truth, and appeal to viewers who share that idea.

And you haven't explained what any of this has to do with pushing the agenda of oligarchs. But you did manage to smuggle in an appeal to obviousness in this area ("of course" some of this is oligarchs pushing their agenda).

quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
More importantly: Dan, I don't think you know what "systematic" means in the context of "systematic" racism. Above all else, you seem to be reacting to the term as if it required direct action or deliberate inaction from groups consciously manipulating or controlling a given process. That's not what "systematic" means, here. While I don't necessarily hold with Carmichael's take on "institutionalized racism," either, it's important to note that at no point does it require a deliberate decision to act against the interests of a particular group of people.

You've roughly approximated my view here, yes. I won't quibble over it for now, at any rate.

So at this point I'm concluding that you and others are grossly misusing the word "systematic."

Do you mean that you think racism is systemic? It may still be stretching the word a bit, but it sounds like it's a little more accurate to what you're trying to describe here. I still wouldn't use it, though.

The problem with saying that people just don't understand what you mean is that words have meaning, and "systematic racism" sounds especially bad precisely because of the clear and accepted meaning of the word "systematic." It sounds much, much more insidious than "subtle racism is still common among many individuals and companies." I think that many people use this phrase precisely because it sounds so much more insidious.

But it's inaccurate.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
By the way, I think that most of the people involved in these outlets aren't lying to appeal to their audience. They don't need to! Because the ideology of each outlet attracts like-minded employees, so they tell what they think is the truth...
Having worked as a journalist -- and as someone with many friends working in media -- I have to say: you are wrong. Seriously. David Brock has written a very accessible book on this topic, although one with a definite political slant, called Blinded by the Right; I recommend it. It gives you a pretty good idea of how self-aware and knowingly complicit the media are in their interactions with the machine.

quote:
And you haven't explained what any of this has to do with pushing the agenda of oligarchs.
*sigh* Because you're not an idiot, Dan, and have access to Google. I should not have to point out the ways that, say, Rupert Murdoch cynically uses the news organs he owns to advance his own opinions; I'm sure you've heard those arguments, and have access to ample evidence if you want to look for it.

quote:
The problem with saying that people just don't understand what you mean is that words have meaning...
Yes, and systematic racism has a meaning that is in fact meaningful for people who've studied the topic. It's just another bit of technical jargon. And what I'm trying to tell you is that "systematic racism" does not mean "hostile policies imposed by an organized power to deliberately oppress a population." It actually means very nearly the opposite of that. (For what it's worth, I strongly agree that systemic racism is probably what was originally intended, but I've actually seen practical distinctions made between institutional racism, systemic racism, and systematic racism, so honestly I don't want to speak for anyone else on this one without actually having a horse in that race, myself. I have to ask: have you taken any courses on sociological concepts of power or privilege? They're very interesting, and I think you'd find them pretty intriguing.)
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Destineer
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Whether the "at" in "systematic" is needed or not, the harm done is pretty significant.

For example, what's called "systematic racism" is probably a large part of the reason why black women end up as single mothers so often.

How could that be, you may say, when their single motherhood is simply the result of their relationships breaking up? How can racism be the cause of that?

The answer is that, because of racism, black women are not often in a position to be picky about selecting their mates. As OKCupid discovered in their recent study of a massive sample of data on their online dating service, men just don't write back to black women very often. This is simply one manifestation of something we all knew from common sense in the first place: our culture doesn't value black women as romantic partners.

As a result, many black women are faced with an unenviable choice: either settle for a man who would not have been your first choice, or end up alone. Understandably, many women choose the first option. And predictably, many of the resulting relationships don't last.

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Destineer
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quote:
*sigh* Because you're not an idiot, Dan, and have access to Google. I should not have to point out the ways that, say, Rupert Murdoch cynically uses the news organs he owns to advance his own opinions; I'm sure you've heard those arguments, and have access to ample evidence if you want to look for it.
Yeah, we've talked about Fox News before, Dan. I recall showing you some of Jon Stewart's takedowns of their insane propaganda efforts.
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Destineer
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Here it is: http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/ubbmain/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=057694;p=2&r=nfx#000088
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Samprimary
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And it continues to this day!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/jon-stewart-takes-rights-cognitive-dissona

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
*sigh* Because you're not an idiot, Dan, and have access to Google. I should not have to point out the ways that, say, Rupert Murdoch cynically uses the news organs he owns to advance his own opinions; I'm sure you've heard those arguments, and have access to ample evidence if you want to look for it.
Yeah, we've talked about Fox News before, Dan. I recall showing you some of Jon Stewart's takedowns of their insane propaganda efforts.
What you're saying here in no way supports what you've quoted Tom saying.

Do you see why? I can explain in more detail if you like, but I'm writing another post at the moment.

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:

The answer is that, because of racism, black women are not often in a position to be picky about selecting their mates. As OKCupid discovered in their recent study of a massive sample of data on their online dating service, men just don't write back to black women very often. This is simply one manifestation of something we all knew from common sense in the first place: our culture doesn't value black women as romantic partners.

This is an example of something I mentioned before: the data, the trend, does not actually give us the causality that you have ascribed to it. You did that, in your attempt to explain the data.

Can you imagine any other explanations that might provide a different causality?

Edit: Or, more generally, can you see any potential flaws in using this study to reach the overarching conclusion that you reached?

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Destineer
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No plausible ones suggest themselves, no.

Obviously you're right that the data themselves contain no direct information about what causes what. Statistical data is always just correlation. One then looks for the most plausible explanation of the correlations in the data.

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Destineer
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quote:
What you're saying here in no way supports what you've quoted Tom saying.
Yeah, I thought about this after I posted. Murdoch doesn't directly tell Hannity what to say.
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Bokonon
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Bok: I'm aware Affirmative Action isn't the same thing as quotas, but I'm under the impression that it does require special considerations be given to minorities. I.E. If there are two identically qualified applicants to a school, pick the minority.

Maybe that's not the case in the letter of the law, but it definitely has held true in different places as far as implementation is concerned.

Which isn't really that surprising. The line between "don't discriminate against X" and "give X special treatment" can be really gray, I think.

What I mean is, any instance of one can be misrepresented to be the other. In close calls, like two equally-qualified-on-paper applicants, it would be hard to defend against accusations of racism if you picked the white applicant.

Well, it doesn't mean to pick the minority over the equally qualified white. And since by default an equally qualified minority won't even get an interview, based on name alone, even if it were the letter of the law, I'd be okay with it.

Because, in various situations (not just job hunting), it is shown that otherwise equivalent minorities have a SIGNIFICANT bias against them, even in this "post-racist" age.

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
What you're saying here in no way supports what you've quoted Tom saying.
Yeah, I thought about this after I posted. Murdoch doesn't directly tell Hannity what to say.
But he could sure as heck get Hannity fired if he didn't like what he said.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Some people-almost always white, surprise surprise, like to pretend that's not the reality of the situation in this advanced year of our lord 2012, but a scandal of black--->white racism is, say, Sherrod getting a hack reporting job taking shots at whites. A scandal of white----->black racism is when, say, some black guy gets shot a few dozen times picking up a wallet or gets tasered when the cops know he's got a heart condition and shouldn't be banging on his door anyway.

Huh, I would've thought a scandal of black->white racist might've been, like, some black people setting a white person on fire or something. But even so, I agree with you that more of the crimes still occur in the opposite direction.

I wasn't in any way trying to assert that racism doesn't exist, Rakeesh. Sure it does! And it's common enough to cause some trends, too! But I categorically disagree that it's systematic (more on that later), and I think that to simply call white people "Big Dogs" and minorities "the little guy" is... misguided.

Anyway, Juxtapose talks about the trends too:
quote:
Originally posted by Juxtapose:
Black people make roughly 60% of the money white people do. That disparity has increased in the last 30 years, incidentally. How many white people would be willing to trade that for the ability to make fun of other races with social impunity?

White people make more money. To hear Juxtapose tell it, of course, every white guy makes 40% more than every black guy, but he's simplifying a trend. Lots of black guys make more money than lots of white guys, just not enough to counterbalance the trend.

Of course, seeing the existence of such trends does not actually dictate causality. We have to explain causality ourselves. And there are lots of other things that cause trends.

Going by trends, whether or not your parents are together, and whether or not they have college degrees, are both huge indicators of your likely future. Just like being black can be. Are we prejudiced against people with single parents, and against people with parents who lack college degrees?

Hatrack's a smart place, I'd bet that most of you have college degrees. I don't. Therefore (going by trends), regardless of race, your kids are more likely to also have degrees and therefore more likely to succeed than mine. Are me and my theoretical kids being oppressed by you and your unjust system?

My problem is mainly in the way that people use these trends.

For these trends to have the... let's say "oomph"... that people like Juxtapose think they have, you need to view society through a deeply collectivist lens. Black people, collectively, are doing badly, so the best explanation is that another, more successful collective (white people), are pushing them down.

It is that collectivism that I'm rejecting. Not the existence of racism.

This is also basically the reason I say the problem isn't "systematic." It's not because I don't think it's a serious problem. It's because the system, the only system in society with real, cohesive, collective power... that is, the government... isn't enforcing racist policies. Both sides can quibble over what they see as exceptions (righties might say affirmative action, lefties might say voter ID)... but the deep problems, like income inequity, aren't being forced on the populace by "the system."

So, anyway, there's my knee jerk assumption that stayed within my comfort zone and in no way involved any serious thought, just operating on autopilot mouthing platitudes I heard from Rush Limbaugh. [Wink]

I'm on my phone so I don't really have the patience to type out a long response, but when I get on my computer later I'm going to lay the historical smackdown on you so hard your children will wince when they see a text book!
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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
What you're saying here in no way supports what you've quoted Tom saying.
Yeah, I thought about this after I posted. Murdoch doesn't directly tell Hannity what to say.
But he could sure as heck get Hannity fired if he didn't like what he said.
Do you think that Hannity censors his op-eds based on what he think Murdoch wants him to say?

Why, or why not?

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Bokonon
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Hey now, I think Dan is showing awesome restraint and civility.

No need for smackdowns here.

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Bokonon:
Hey now, I think Dan is showing awesome restraint and civility.

No need for smackdowns here.

Nah, no worries. Lyrhawn knows I'm into it. [Wink]

(I wish there was an even more suggestive emoticon, but I guess Hatrack isn't really the place for it)

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
What you're saying here in no way supports what you've quoted Tom saying.
Yeah, I thought about this after I posted. Murdoch doesn't directly tell Hannity what to say.
But he could sure as heck get Hannity fired if he didn't like what he said.
Do you think that Hannity censors his op-eds based on what he think Murdoch wants him to say?

Why, or why not?

For the same reasons that anyone would want to please the boss.
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Dan_Frank
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So, is it your opinion that everyone in every news source is uninterested in providing any news they believe to be true, and instead primarily interested in presenting "news" that they think their boss will like?

And also, that every "boss" of every news company prefers their employees to behave this way?

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kmbboots
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Yup. That is exactly what I said.
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Dan_Frank
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Right. With the implicit assumption being that no boss of a news company would be interested in hiring journalists who present news as they see it.

A rough analogy would be: all bosses hire programmers who they expect to code the way the boss wants them to code. As opposed to hiring someone whose body of work looks good, with the expectation that the coder will continue to code as they prefer, thus creating more success than the boss could have achieved without them. (Say, by simply hiring faceless drones with no individuality, upon whom the boss can impart their own coding methodology.)

I certainly think bosses like that exist. But, you're saying that all bosses are like that. And moreover, that all employees embrace that.

Seems preposterous. Especially when you're looking at employees who bring substantial value to their employer (like a highly successful programmer, or Sean Hannity).

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:

The answer is that, because of racism, black women are not often in a position to be picky about selecting their mates. As OKCupid discovered in their recent study of a massive sample of data on their online dating service, men just don't write back to black women very often. This is simply one manifestation of something we all knew from common sense in the first place: our culture doesn't value black women as romantic partners.

This is an example of something I mentioned before: the data, the trend, does not actually give us the causality that you have ascribed to it. You did that, in your attempt to explain the data.

Can you imagine any other explanations that might provide a different causality?

Edit: Or, more generally, can you see any potential flaws in using this study to reach the overarching conclusion that you reached?

No plausible ones suggest themselves, no.

Obviously you're right that the data themselves contain no direct information about what causes what. Statistical data is always just correlation. One then looks for the most plausible explanation of the correlations in the data.

Forgive the quote vortex, but I wanted to keep in the context.

To answer my second question first: This data point is relying on the self-selected group that is people who use an online dating service. Is there any particular, compelling reason to believe this sample is representative to everyone? Aren't people who use online dating services already, in and of itself, engaging in a specific, nonstandard activity?

If a study showed that everyone who played lacrosse had X specific dating preferences, would it be fair to extrapolate that to the general population? I don't think so. And I think that choosing to use an online service is even more likely to indicate a distorted view of romance than playing lacrosse is.

So, even assuming the conclusion of racism within OKcupid users is accurate, how fair is it to extrapolate this out the way you have?

And to the question of whether the conclusion is accurate... that is, to answer my first question second: Ostensibly, the study is controlling for "compatibility," but since compatibility includes nonsense criteria like astrology, I have very little faith in the reliability of this assertion. Do you?

And if we question their overall ability to consistently match compatibility, then an interesting question arrises. Do you think it's possible that there could be any particular body of traits common to black women that, due to differences in culture, might result in fewer interested parties? A body of traits aside from skin color, I mean.

I mean interests, language style, etc.

Of course, this might still be classified as racism by you, or others, I'm not sure. What I mean is: do you consider criticism of the predominant "black" culture to be racist? Even though it's not a function of skin color, and is a culture practiced by people of all races, and many black people aren't involved in it?

I think I've brought this issue up before, but I don't remember if it was with you or not, Destineer. I don't consider myself racist, as I understand it, but I'm not afraid to criticize cultures that I think propagate bad memes. Even if the primary adherents to a given culture are of a specific race.

I think that condemning criticism of culture as "racist" contributes to people staying in said bad cultures, so I not only don't agree with this attitude, but I think it's actively harmful.

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kmbboots
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Whether a code works, I assume, is something that can be measured objectively, yes? The same cannot really be said when it comes to a more subjective work product like news.

Rupert Murdoch has two (at least) reasons for owning media outlets. One would be to make tons of money mostly through advertising. Another would be to propagate his ideas. Plus, like most of us, he probably likes people who agree with him.

And since when am I talking about all bosses and all employees? Where, for heaven's sake do you get all from anything I have written. I don't share your tendency to think in absolutes.

Although, to expand this to TV news more generally. If one is working for a corporation, they have a vested interest in the success of that corporation. NBC News (for example) has to balance audience share (which is influenced by credibility) with how badly they slam GE. What hurts GE, hurts NBC. Actual socialism would not be good for GE (neither would a big decrease in defense spending for that matter) so even "left-leaning" media isn't all that left.

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Jeff C.
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Somebody mentioned that there aren't very many negative white stereotypes, but I disagree. If you consider Gingers to be white, there are certainly plenty of negative ones.

I'm a red head, myself, and not a day goes by that I don't get flak for it at work. People constantly ask if I have a soul, call me Ginger (or Gingy, or Ging, or Red, or Spots, or whatever), and have even said that I'm a freak of nature. I find it horribly offensive, yet when I've brought these things up to people, they've scoffed or laughed them off as not being a case of racism, stating that 'Gingers aren't a race'. Well, if we're not a race, then we're white, and if we're white, then there are certainly white stereotypes that are offensive.

I once asked a black guy, who kept calling me 'spots' and 'Ginger' and 'Soulless One' if he found the N-word offensive. He said I should watch out because that's not something to joke about. So I said, well, some people find Ginger to be an offensive term, so why would you continue to use it, especially when you don't want others to use an offensive racial term against you? He stopped after that, mostly because I brought up the Military Code of Conduct and how I could file charges against him for discriminatory behavior (I was bluffing, of course, but he didn't know that).

For those who don't think Ginger is an offensive term, consider this. With stuff like that happening, why is it still socially acceptable in both school and the workplace?

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Whether a code works, I assume, is something that can be measured objectively, yes? The same cannot really be said when it comes to a more subjective work product like news.

Well, yes and no. I'm actually not much of a coder myself, I just work for one. Both code and news have clear success criteria, certainly. But methodologies in both cases can be wildly different and still achieve "success." Code is usually integrated with other code, essentially written by a team working together, and sometimes what someone thinks is totally rad, functional code actually doesn't integrate very well and causes bugs.

Since the success criteria for news is probably "gets good ratings," this is just as quantifiable as any criteria for good code.

quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Rupert Murdoch has two (at least) reasons for owning media outlets. One would be to make tons of money mostly through advertising. Another would be to propagate his ideas. Plus, like most of us, he probably likes people who agree with him.

Sure. That's probably true.

But none of that presupposes that he likes or needs people to agree with him about everything. If someone like Hannity has the same ideological baseline, why would he mind overmuch if they disagree on this or that particular issue? Do you rake your friends over the coals for disagreeing with you about exactly how much Obama should raise taxes on rich people? Or [insert your own minor issue you probably disagree with a friend about]?

quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
And since when am I talking about all bosses and all employees? Where, for heaven's sake do you get all from anything I have written. I don't share your tendency to think in absolutes.

I'm taking your ideas seriously. That is, to their logical conclusions. Why is it true for media outlets and not other companies? Is there a compelling reason it wouldn't be?


quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Although, to expand this to TV news more generally. If one is working for a corporation, they have a vested interest in the success of that corporation. NBC News (for example) has to balance audience share (which is influenced by credibility) with how badly they slam GE. What hurts GE, hurts NBC. Actual socialism would not be good for GE (neither would a big decrease in defense spending for that matter) so even "left-leaning" media isn't all that left.

This only makes sense if you take as a given both that everyone involved in the media is, first and foremost, interested in pleasing not just their boss or their boss's boss, but their parent company... and that everyone in said parent company is actively interested in suppressing news and truth to further their corporate interests.

So, basically, every person involved, from the ground floor to the very top, has to be a lying scumbag. That's the world you think you live in.

I just don't get it.

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kmbboots
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Dan, what you consider "logical conclusions" are nonsense. As with your political views, you seem to think that the world lives at the extreme ends of things rather than somewhere in the middle. Not every idea should be pushed to the extreme and very few ideas are.

For the interests of a parent company to colour the reporting of news hardly requires everyone to be a "lying scumbag".

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Dan_Frank
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If it's nonsense, then you can explain why there's a reason it's true for media outlets and not other companies, right?

To your accusation: It's true that I think that if the logical conclusion of an idea is bad, and in order to retain the idea you have to apply it inconsistently, that's not a good sign for your idea. It creates a conflict between your ideas and your practices. Your idea may still be serviceable for now, if you have no better alternative, but it's a strong indicator that you haven't really hit upon a true idea. You've just got a partial approximation of one.

But I certainly agree that people do this all the time! That's okay. I've got no illusions about where the "world lives." People are imperfect, and problems are inevitable. Doesn't mean we shouldn't point them out, though.

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kmbboots
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Dan, there is such a thing as balance and context. If blue is a lovely colour for one room, that doesn't mean that we should "logically" paint everything blue. Same for ideas.
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Samprimary
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quote:
So, basically, every person involved, from the ground floor to the very top, has to be a lying scumbag.
everyone HAS to be? Man, i do NOT follow.
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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Dan, there is such a thing as balance and context. If blue is a lovely colour for one room, that doesn't mean that we should "logically" paint everything blue. Same for ideas.

Right, I agree with that. Because each room is different and context might demand a different color. In that case, we could explain why you like blue for the guest room but not the living room.

So, again, what specific attribute(s?) make news media so different from other businesses, in your opinion?

Why exactly do you believe that the overlords of a media company would force their employees to distort the truth in the service of helping an affiliate company?

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
So, basically, every person involved, from the ground floor to the very top, has to be a lying scumbag.
everyone HAS to be?
In order for an entire news company to manipulate and distort the news in order to benefit another private company?

How else would that be accomplished? Every reporter would have to be complicit, and you'd need to fire everyone who wasn't willing to cooperate. And then, I guess, buy them off or discredit or kill them or something, so they don't blab about your evil ulterior motive.

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Destineer
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quote:

So, even assuming the conclusion of racism within OKcupid users is accurate, how fair is it to extrapolate this out the way you have?

It certainly involves a bit of what I would consider informed guesswork. We can certainly ask, is the type of person who uses OKCupid likely to have different racial attitudes from the mean? Well, think about the demographic attracted by the site: relatively young, relatively well-educated, with the archetype being a late-20s/early-30s hipster. Such people are likely to have more enlightened racial attitudes than the general population. So while there is some uncertainty, for sure, I see no reason not to extrapolate in this case.

Another reason to extrapolate, by the way, is through pure introspection. When I think of my own attitudes about dating, I find that I don't consider a typical black woman as attractive--physically--as a typical woman from another race. Is that because black women are "objectively" less attractive? I'm not sure what that would even mean. I think the explanation, in my case and many others, is rather that we were raised by a culture which set our standards for beauty, and black women don't "score highly" by those standards. (Black men, on the other hand, do, which is why they do much better on OKCupid than black women.)

quote:

And if we question their overall ability to consistently match compatibility, then an interesting question arrises. Do you think it's possible that there could be any particular body of traits common to black women that, due to differences in culture, might result in fewer interested parties? A body of traits aside from skin color, I mean.

If the explanation were culture, things would be equally bad for black men. But they're not. Black women have a much harder time. (This is further backed up by the fact that white male-black female is the least common interracial marriage in the US, while black male-white female is relatively common by comparison.)
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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:

So, even assuming the conclusion of racism within OKcupid users is accurate, how fair is it to extrapolate this out the way you have?

It certainly involves a bit of what I would consider informed guesswork. We can certainly ask, is the type of person who uses OKCupid likely to have different racial attitudes from the mean? Well, think about the demographic attracted by the site: relatively young, relatively well-educated, with the archetype being a late-20s/early-30s hipster. Such people are likely to have more enlightened racial attitudes than the general population. So while there is some uncertainty, for sure, I see no reason not to extrapolate in this case.
Not to offend any late 20s, well educated hipsters on Hatrack (sorry Sam)... but I don't really agree with this. Certainly, such people are much more likely to think they have more enlightened racial attitudes. But that's not the same thing at all.

quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
Another reason to extrapolate, by the way, is through pure introspection. When I think of my own attitudes about dating, I find that I don't consider a typical black woman as attractive--physically--as a typical woman from another race. Is that because black women are "objectively" less attractive? I'm not sure what that would even mean. I think the explanation, in my case and many others, is rather that we were raised by a culture which set our standards for beauty, and black women don't "score highly" by those standards. (Black men, on the other hand, do, which is why they do much better on OKCupid than black women.)

Okay, let's unravel this a bit more. Is this because black women, in general, don't fit your standard of beauty? That is, the simple fact that they are black? Your standard of beauty, on some level, really does value lighter skin?

If so, I admit I'm a little surprised.

Because if we're talking about physical attractiveness, which I sort of brushed off before without thinking, since it's an online dating site (dumb assumption on my part, I know.)... there are still other causal factors here that are being ignored.

For example, the dramatically higher rate of obesity among black women. Typical cultural beauty standards don't value obese bodies as highly as slim bodies, regardless of race. More black women are obese. Ergo, more black women will be deemed unattractive.

Of course, this can circle back around, and you can say that the reason black people are more often obese is because they are more often poor and they are more often poor because of racism.

That may be true. But that argument utilizes several levels of removal, each of which requires its own examination, and I hope you agree it is a very different claim than "Our culture does not value black women as romantic partners."

Unless you think that the reason our society doesn't value obese women as romantic partners is because black women are more often obese. And that sounds like a position that would be pretty hard to defend.

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
So, basically, every person involved, from the ground floor to the very top, has to be a lying scumbag.
everyone HAS to be?
In order for an entire news company to manipulate and distort the news in order to benefit another private company?

How else would that be accomplished?

You can do it easily with a few people at the top being complicit with the idea.
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kmbboots
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And rather than being "complicit", they could simply believe in what they were doing.
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Dan_Frank
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Kate: I think that's a very different characterization, and if I'm understanding it right, one I completely agree with! [Smile]
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TomDavidson
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quote:
In order for an entire news company to manipulate and distort the news in order to benefit another private company?

How else would that be accomplished?

*facepalm*
Okay, look, I don't want to get into my own personal anecdotes, here, because I left journalism out of disgust and anger and am very glad that I'm no longer doing it. But every single news organization manipulates and distorts the news, and every organization knows that it's doing it and has regular meetings in which they discuss exactly how they're going to do it. Some attempt to minimize this distortion, from their point of view; some attempt to optimize it to cater to a particular audience. All of them have editorial boards which are directly answerable to the owners -- some of whom are aggressively disinterested, some of whom are micromanagers -- and which have a direct presence in the editorial meetings I mentioned earlier. They also control the purse strings, so they get to decide who gets sent across the country to report on something, and what gets reported on, and how many seconds they'll have to do it.

Underlying all of this is, of course, usually a profit motive. But news organizations don't make a lot of money; people don't operate newsrooms to get a good return on their investment. They do so to advance an agenda, perhaps an agenda that will give them a better return on other investments.

I mentioned Murdoch because he is, like the famous yellow journalists of years past, absolutely infamous for being directly involved in his newsrooms and setting the tone of stories; anyone familiar with his interactions with Roger Ailes -- and Ailes' power over his newsroom -- will understand the ways in which he advances his purposes through Fox, and moreover the way he deliberately makes the Fox newsroom available to other rich people to advance their agendas for the right price (which may or may not be money). (I want to clarify, too, that Fox News is far from being Murdoch's only media outlet.)

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Dan_Frank
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Tom, do you think that most instances of this distortion are things that, if you perhaps didn't call them distortion, most people in these companies would admit to?

i.e. Hannity, Beck, etc. don't pretend they aren't conservatives (at least that's my unserstanding. Do they?) Stossel doesn't pretend he isn't a libertarian. Olbermann & Maddow don't pretend they aren't leftists.

So when they talk about the news, they talk about it through those lenses. Is that what you're referring to?

Or when you say "manipulates and distorts" do you mean something different?

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TomDavidson
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Hannity and Beck and Olbermann and Maddow will pretend to be outraged when they are not. They are actors, paid by oligarchs to dance entertainingly in front of people who want to have their opinions validated. They may have some sincere beliefs that might leak into their work, but they won't let those get in the way.
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Dan_Frank
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Huh.

Okay.

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TomDavidson
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I get the impression that you don't believe me, or perhaps don't get the strength of my feeling on this. So I'll elaborate.

One of Glenn Beck's most useful skills is the ability to cry on cue. He cries a lot. This is not because he feels so strongly that he can't keep it together; his show is taped, so any time you see him crying it's because they wanted to show that to you.

But I don't want to give you the impression that it's just Beck, or just conservatives. The entire television news apparatus is hopelessly insincere -- at a very basic level. I mean, when you see an interviewer lobbing questions at an accident victim, like "And what did you do then?" or "Oh, my gosh! And that's when they broke down the door?", you know they're not actually asking questions about the event because they don't know the answers; they're shaping the narrative being conveyed for the benefit of the viewers who don't already know the story. This is an absolute requirement of television news -- it's not anything inherently corrupt, not part of some evil plan -- but it instantly creates friction between the need to tell a story and the need to know what happened. The interviewer already knows what happened; the interviewer could not possibly care less. The interviewer is there to ensure that the audience is presented with the most compelling possible version of the story.

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JanitorBlade
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Jeff C: Would you mind putting a language warning on your OP regarding your link? I'd appreciate it.
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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I get the impression that you don't believe me, or perhaps don't get the strength of my feeling on this. So I'll elaborate.

One of Glenn Beck's most useful skills is the ability to cry on cue. He cries a lot. This is not because he feels so strongly that he can't keep it together; his show is taped, so any time you see him crying it's because they wanted to show that to you.

But I don't want to give you the impression that it's just Beck, or just conservatives. The entire television news apparatus is hopelessly insincere -- at a very basic level. I mean, when you see an interviewer lobbing questions at an accident victim, like "And what did you do then?" or "Oh, my gosh! And that's when they broke down the door?", you know they're not actually asking questions about the event because they don't know the answers; they're shaping the narrative being conveyed for the benefit of the viewers who don't already know the story. This is an absolute requirement of television news -- it's not anything inherently corrupt, not part of some evil plan -- but it instantly creates friction between the need to tell a story and the need to know what happened. The interviewer already knows what happened; the interviewer could not possibly care less. The interviewer is there to ensure that the audience is presented with the most compelling possible version of the story.

I definitely get the strength of your feeling.

I'm not sure I believe you. The thing is, most of what you say in this post jives with my understanding of reality just fine. I don't really see those sorts of things as lying, per se.

At some point the interviewer and the victim probably did speak, but with more stutters and halts and so on. And I'm sure sometimes the interview really is done in one take (If you assert that interviews with lots of stutters and halts were crafted that way intentionally, I'll have to raise an eyebrow.)

I guess it's that I sort of accept the gist of what you're saying, but the depth to which you push it makes me skeptical. Beck crying on cue doesn't mean he's fundamentally lying about the things that ostensibly make him cry, for example. Ditto for Olbermann's frantic rage-gasms.

I don't know... Phrases like "They are actors, paid by oligarchs to dance entertainingly in front of people who want to have their opinions validated. They may have some sincere beliefs that might leak into their work, but they won't let those get in the way." ... just seem a little out there, man. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see in the comments of a Ron Paul youtube video.

Sorry, I'm not actually trying to be a jerk, it's just how it seems to me.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
I don't know... Phrases like "They are actors, paid by oligarchs to dance entertainingly in front of people who want to have their opinions validated. They may have some sincere beliefs that might leak into their work, but they won't let those get in the way." ... just seem a little out there, man.
I understand. It does seem cynical, even paranoid. I recognize, too, that you're choosing to draw a distinction between cosmetic frauds -- like hypocritical or feigned outrage or sorrow, or multiple takes to get a "spontaneous" reaction right -- and more material frauds. (I'd suggest, though, that you consider whether deciding which callers and guests to have on a show might be capable of substantially shaping the tenor of a discussion, even before you factor in the power of producers to kill microphones or simply blackball a guest from future appearances on the network.)

Please do read Blinded by the Right, though.

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
I don't know... Phrases like "They are actors, paid by oligarchs to dance entertainingly in front of people who want to have their opinions validated. They may have some sincere beliefs that might leak into their work, but they won't let those get in the way." ... just seem a little out there, man.
I understand. It does seem cynical, even paranoid. I recognize, too, that you're choosing to draw a distinction between cosmetic frauds -- like hypocritical or feigned outrage or sorrow, or multiple takes to get a "spontaneous" reaction right -- and more material frauds. (I'd suggest, though, that you consider whether deciding which callers and guests to have on a show might be capable of substantially shaping the tenor of a discussion, even before you factor in the power of producers to kill microphones or simply blackball a guest from future appearances on the network.)
Yeah, that's another example that I think I largely agree with you on. There's no question that shows have narratives. Again, I'm just questioning the depth of fraud in those narratives.

I feel like it's the difference between railing at the Cato institute because they are a right-wing libertarian thinktank, and railing at them because they have a secret agenda to give the Koch brothers super ultimate power and will stoop to any depths to achieve it. If that makes sense.

quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Please do read Blinded by the Right, though.

I'll put it on the list once I finish Merchants of Despair. I read nonfiction a lot slower (well, more sporadically) than fiction, though, so... may be a while. [Smile]
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TomDavidson
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Does it matter whether the agenda is secret? I think ALEC may be a better example than Cato, but it's certainly not a secret cabal. It is, however, certainly a cabal.
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Lyrhawn
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Okay, this conversation has moved all over the place, and I only have internet for a few minutes.

But systemic racism does exist in America. You only have to look at the data concerning hiring practices, to say nothing of racist sentencing guidelines for drug law violations. There are more black men in jail today than there were enslaved in 1863.

We're living out the legacy today of hundreds of years of state-enforced and society-created racism against black Americans. Even if today we could honestly say that all racism or discrimination were gone, we'd still have a huge debt that we owe to black America from keeping them down for so long.

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