"check your privilege"

[S@tanicoaldo]

Well, it depends, if witches are real, then not taking that into consideration would be pretty ridiculous. I don't think it's very likely they are, but if that is true, then we should investigate it. And the only way I can know for sure that it isn't is listening when somebody presents me with a proof that witches are real. If I don't listen to them, how can I know that I'm right?

Edit: Also as soon as you start dismissing one idea out of hand, it's easier to dismiss another, until you're dismissing something that is no longer absurd, but merely disagreeable.

So you just do what people tell you to do?

[2D8HP]

Please,
The term is metaphysically gifted women (we do not use the "w" word anymore).

It's a fun link

[AMFV]

So you just do what people tell you to do?

Where are you getting that? I don't 'do what people tell me to do'. Nothing I've said is even close to that. Nothing. I just said I would listen to evidence. In what world does being willing to listen to ideas and evaluate them using logic mean that I'm just doing what other people tell me?

Again, I'm not killing a woman because somebody says she's a witch. I'd need solid evidence that she was about to harm somebody. Because that's the evidence that I'd need to kill somebody in normal circumstances. If somebody was claiming that she would use witchcraft to do that, then I'd some pretty solid proof that witchcraft existed. I mean if she started shooting fire from her hands at somebody that would be probably be sufficient, but otherwise there probably wouldn't be time.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Never mind that I think I get you. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

You fear people considering some ideas unworthy and think that ideas are harmless. People who complain are cry babies.

But ideas are not harmless. And we don't need to go to nazis to see how ideas can kill.

Here is a exemple:

My ex-boyfried's mom was a really sweet old lady. She baked pies and cookies and was always happy and kind.

One day she got cancer. And it was a really bad case too. She never liked going to doctors so the cancer was advanced.

Luckly the treatmeant was working and she was getting better.

One day while watching tv a tele evagelist said that doctors only poison people and if you had cancer all you needed to do was donate money to him and he would pray the cancer away. She did. And she got worst. And died as she refused to go to the hospital.

Do you really think that guy's opinion that doctors poison people and giving him money cures cancer is as valid as go to doctor and take care of your health?

Do you really think he has the rigth to spred miss information like that and profit on the gullible and desesperate?

[AMFV]

Never mind that I think I get you. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

You fear people considering some ideas unworthy and think that ideas are harmless. People who complain are cry babies.

You don't get me. I don't think either of those things. And the third one is just silly. I don't think that all ideas are worthy. Or that ideas are harmless, ideas can be very dangerous. What I do think though is that an idea should not be considered less worthy because of its source, in a field where there are no experts. Such as in matters of societal or philosophical import.

Not listening to an idea because it comes from a white person in a discussion of race relations would be what I'm against. Saying that somebody should not speak because of their race. That's what I'm against.

Ideas can be very dangerous. And instead of complaining against an idea you should attempt to disprove it. That's a lot more powerful, ideas that are pushed down and hidden can fester and gain a lot more power than ideas that are confronted. If you complain about ideas you aren't confronting them.

But ideas are not harmless. And we don't need to go to nazis to see how ideas can kill.

Yes, I would say the Nazis are a very good example of a place where ideas are dangerous. But much more dangerous if they aren't taken seriously. I can't go into the history on that, but in the 1920s, people didn't take them seriously and they used that. That's a dangerous pattern.

Here is a exemple:

My ex-boyfried's mom was a really sweet old lady. She baked pies and cookies and was always happy and kind.

One day she got cancer. And it was a really bad case too. She never liked going to doctors so the xancer was advancing.

Luckly the treatmeant was working and she was getting better.

Obe day while watching tv a "priest" said that doctors only poison people and if you had cancer all you needed to do was donate money to him and he would pray the cancer away. She did. And she got worst. And died as she refused to go to the hospital.

Do you really think that guy opinion that dictors poison people and giving him money cures cancer is as valid as go to doctor and take care of your health?

Do you really think he has the rigth to spred miss information like that and profit on the gullible and desesperate.

I don't think that he has the right to spread misinformation like that without having it challenged. But I don't think that he shouldn't be denied free speech. I do think that he should have to deal with the consequences of his speech. Lawsuits and the like, if he's giving false medical advice then he should be sued. That's the system we have for that.

As far as the lady, I think that if she wants to listen to somebody who gives her bad advice, she should be allowed to. She should not be forced to go the hospital if she doesn't want to. That's part of being free is the ability to make decisions that aren't the best for you. If you can only make decisions that are the best for you, then you aren't free.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Ok. I see your point now. That's reasonable. A true american you are :)

I will pester you no more. But I don't think nazis got in power because no one was paying attetion.

[AMFV]

Ok. I see your point now. That's reasonable. A true american you are :)

Where speech is concerned, very much so.

I will pester you no more. But I don't think nazis got in power because no one was paying attetion.

I don't think that was the only thing that got them into power. But I do think that helped. And I do think it stopped international interference from happening prior to their militarization and buildup to power.

[JadedDM]

I'm pretty sure they came into power by people making the same assertions that AMFV is making now. "Hey, let's hear them out. Everyone deserves to be heard. Let's give them platforms and debate their ideas on whether certain types of people are sub-human or not in the open."

[AMFV]

I'm pretty sure they came into power by people making the same assertions that AMFV is making now. "Hey, let's hear them out. Everyone deserves to be heard. Let's give them platforms and debate their ideas on whether certain types of people are sub-human or not in the open."

I think that if you'd do actual research you'd find that wasn't the case. There's even an editorial in the New York Times, I believe where they discuss how Hitler wasn't serious and that his racism was like a quaint affectation rather than something genuine. Which would not be possible as an assertion had they read any of his speeches or any of the documents he published, certainly not possible if they'd read Mein Kampf, although that would not have been possible, since that was not yet published.

Then we had the European powers, who were confident that his plans described in Mein Kampf, to invade France and the Soviet Union were mere fantasy and that now that he was in power that he'd abandon them.

As you can see more damage was caused by not taking his ideas seriously than had they. If they had taken his ideas seriously then France would have likely invaded in 1932 and removed him from power. Which would have likely been a better outcome.

[JadedDM]

I was speaking, specifically, of the Germans. Had they just banned that sort of hate speech, the Nazis wouldn't have been able to so easily get into the spotlight and get their ideas out there. Incidentally, they are banned now. But I suppose you think that's a horrible blow to freedom.

[AMFV]

I was speaking, specifically, of the Germans. Had they just banned that sort of hate speech, the Nazis wouldn't have been able to so easily get into the spotlight and get their ideas out there. Incidentally, they are banned now. But I suppose you think that's a horrible blow to freedom.

I do, and they still have supremacist groups, despite the ban. I mean they put Hitler in prison, and he was still able to rise to power. Do you think that telling people that his speech was illegal would have hindered him in any way? I doubt it. The environment that let the Nazis come into power would still have existed and would have still given them plenty of opportunities even if they'd made such speech illegal.

Interestingly enough the US, who had free speech and a much darker more racist backstory at that time, had Nazi sympathizers but they weren't able to rise to power. I suspect that's because in the US we are much more willing to challenge ideas and we had a fundamental democratic system that makes Nazism less appealing. So maybe freedom is a better solution than restrictions on it?

I mean part of the reason the Nazis were able to seize control is because the previous Chancellor had passed a series of laws restricting free speech. This was an attempt to control the Nazis, but they used those laws on their adversaries as soon as they came into power.

[Zendy]

Because of this "all ideas are equally valid" mentality we now have people who genuinely believe earth is flat and want to be taken as serious as astronomists.

I swear we are devolving. Losing sigth of basic truths.

[AMFV]

Because of this "all ideas are equally valid" mentality we now have people who genuinely believe earth is flat and want to be taken as serious as astronomists.

I swear we are devolving. Losing sigth of basic truths.

Where are you people getting "all ideas are equally valid". I haven't said that, I haven't implied that, I don't believe anybody else has. I mean it's a convenient strawman to attack. What I (and others) have said is that ideas should be confronted properly, with better ideas, not with jackbootery and silencing tactics.

There are many proofs to disprove somebody who says that the earth is flat, so you present them with those, if they're rational they'll listen, if they aren't then it wouldn't matter what you said anyways. So the point is that you counter their ideas with better ideas, you don't silence them because you don't like what they say. You silence them by pointing things out that silence their ideas.

Basically the point is that unless you listen to ideas you can't know if they're valid. That's why it's important to listen to all ideas so that you can properly assess them.

[Goaty14]

Because of this "all ideas are equally valid" mentality we now have people who genuinely believe earth is flat and want to be taken as serious as astronomists.

So you take them as seriously as an astronomist and then you prove them wrong? Heck, if we're assuming you have to continually prove wrong a bunch of "laymen" who continually try to think they're right, then all you'd have to do is disprove all of their claims, and then refer them to such a response if they have nothing new to bring to the table. Keep in mind that as a serious "astronomist", they have to have evidence that they're right in the first place.

I swear we are devolving. Losing sight of basic truths.

Like how you get a bunch of oppressive governments when you start to forcibly stop people from thinking the "right" way?

EDIT: I'm here because I like arguing

[Anymage]

Because of this "all ideas are equally valid" mentality we now have people who genuinely believe earth is flat and want to be taken as serious as astronomists.

I swear we are devolving. Losing sigth of basic truths.

Of course. The earth is self-evidently round, as befits the sphere's place as the perfect form of nature. And it's similarly self-evident to all the learned experts that the heavens rotate around the earth in spherical orbits of their own. Who has time to listen to nonsense about the earth not being the center of all of creation?

I could rattle off a long list of times when the expert consensus was wrong, especially when the issue was less one concretely testable issue and more a fuzzy policy point. Given how many points in our history we've been embarrassingly wrong - and how many of those points have happened in our recent history - I'd be really careful trying to say that only opinions popular in the current zeitgeist have merit.

[Mith]

While I can appreciate the idea of "Initially treat all ideas as valid, then run them through logical tests to see which are valid." is a good concept, it rests on the idea that at least a significant majority of people can be swayed by logic, and any passionate screed can be picked apart and defused to impotence.

Historically speaking, this rarely, if ever happens. Populist ideas stay popular until a critical mass is reached and the whole thing implodes on itself. However, until such a time, these ideas can still cause a lot of harm, and like an old plague, can rise back to prominence due to complacency.

Right now, on a lot of issues being discussed for "check you privleges", these issues are not ones that have been settled by logical discourse and are rising back to the surface. These are ideas that have been pushed under by the inertia of the norm coming out and having their say. And it's is and going to be an awesome mess until we can pick up the pieces.

You don't kick someone when their down, or when they are just coming to their feet.

[WarKitty]

One related issue here is when you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

They actually did some studies in academia. There were several results:

One was that when they had a third party review recordings who was specifically looking for it, women were interrupted and cut off far more often than men and had their points responded to less often - sometimes even having cases where a man made a similar point later and was taken more seriously and credited with making the point. Participants in the discussion, especially men, were generally unaware of this and were of the belief that everyone was participating equally.

There was another that measured over a semester how much men and women talked in class. The men talked more. But when they made some efforts to have the women speak up more, the men felt that the women were dominating the discussion and they weren't getting a chance to speak. Again, when someone reviewed the recordings and measured, the men were still speaking more than the women, but those same men perceived that they were being silenced because they weren't getting to speak as much as they were used to.

That's going to be part of the complication - if someone is used to being able to spend most of the time with the attention focused on them, and perceiving that as equality, then someone coming in and saying it's not equal and they're being neglected and need to be able to speak up too, is going to be perceived as silencing. That was my point with the pie example upthread. If there's only so much pie, and I'm asking to have an equal share, it's going to be natural for you to think "why are you trying to take my pie away from me?"

[AMFV]

While I can appreciate the idea of "Initially treat all ideas as valid, then run them through logical tests to see which are valid." is a good concept, it rests on the idea that at least a significant majority of people can be swayed by logic, and any passionate screed can be picked apart and defused to impotence.

Well, first, why are you attempting a discussion with somebody who is not going to be swayed by logical discourse? That seems like a huge waste of your time and energy. Second, if you resort to "Check Your Privilege", you're going to alienate people who could be convinced by logic and reasoning, especially if you have not correctly assessed their privilege which certainly is often going to be true if you're only looking at the broadest possible categories. Third, you'll devolve the discussion into a shouting match, which is going to make look you just as ridiculous as the person with whom you are arguing.

Historically speaking, this rarely, if ever happens. Populist ideas stay popular until a critical mass is reached and the whole thing implodes on itself. However, until such a time, these ideas can still cause a lot of harm, and like an old plague, can rise back to prominence due to complacency.

The problem is that not all old popular ideas are inherently bad ones, even ones that result in some discomfort for some groups. They have to be evaluated and examined, to see if they're bad for everybody or if they're particularly oppressive. Also with this kind of thinking you ignore ideas that sound similar because you assume they are, and you don't give them full credit.

Right now, on a lot of issues being discussed for "check you privleges", these issues are not ones that have been settled by logical discourse and are rising back to the surface. These are ideas that have been pushed under by the inertia of the norm coming out and having their say. And it's is and going to be an awesome mess until we can pick up the pieces.

You don't kick someone when their down, or when they are just coming to their feet.

We're not kicking anybody though, listening to an idea is not equivalent to putting it into practice.

One related issue here is when you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

The issue is that oppression also feels like oppression. In your example I bet that there were men who had not spoken as much as other men. Maybe some who hadn't spoken at all. When the women started to participate more, those men were just as silenced as they had been before, just as oppressed. But that would be the group you'd be telling to check their privilege. That's the big problem, you don't know somebody's individual history. You're making assumptions and every knows what those do to you and I.

So unless you have some very solid proof that the person was privileged and usually people using that phrase don't. This is an even worse set of assumptions, it's like saying "Well you were privileged before now you're just being petty" Which is even worse to say than "Check Your Privilege" and likely often as unfounded, since you're trying to basically associate an individual with an entire group, and in the case of White or Male, a huge incredibly diverse group with all kinds of people in it.

That's going to be part of the complication - if someone is used to being able to spend most of the time with the attention focused on them, and perceiving that as equality, then someone coming in and saying it's not equal and they're being neglected and need to be able to speak up too, is going to be perceived as silencing. That was my point with the pie example upthread. If there's only so much pie, and I'm asking to have an equal share, it's going to be natural for you to think "why are you trying to take my pie away from me?"

Well the problem is that a lot of guys haven't had any pie yet. You're saying "Well you're the same group as the group that had pie, so that means that you don't get any because there won't be enough for this other group." Which is a SERIOUSLY problematic statement.

[georgie_leech]

Well, first, why are you attempting a discussion with somebody who is not going to be swayed by logical discourse? That seems like a huge waste of your time and energy. Second, if you resort to "Check Your Privilege", you're going to alienate people who could be convinced by logic and reasoning, especially if you have not correctly assessed their privilege which certainly is often going to be true if you're only looking at the broadest possible categories. Third, you'll devolve the discussion into a shouting match, which is going to make look you just as ridiculous as the person with whom you are arguing.

So let's put it this way. Can you see how what you are arguing for can look a lot like "spend time and energy discussing things with people that won't be swayed by logic" given different experiences?

[AMFV]

So let's put it this way. Can you see how what you are arguing for can look a lot like "spend time and energy discussing things with people that won't be swayed by logic" given different experiences?

Right, but initially hearing ideas, knowing what people think and have to say is in my opinion NEVER a waste. It might not always be the most edifying thing, but it's useful. Because you have to share the world with these folks. So hearing an idea is always good, evaluating an idea for it's merits, is always good. Can you not see how that would be very different from a continuous state of argument with somebody that you are not going to convince?

Hell, even racist and abhorrent ideas are useful to hear, because they show you what is racist and abhorrent first of all, because without actually being exposed to that sort of thing, it's often poorly defined, which is why you see people accusing people of prejudice when there clearly is very little if any, because they aren't familiar enough with actual prejudice to recognize it. And it can be useful because you can figure out what the root of those bad ideas are, and you can't help a problem without finding its root, and a lot of people don't know its root. I think that listening to what people have to say, honestly listening is the most useful way to get closer to what is actually true.

Of course, that's challenging since honest listening requires that you avoid your prejudices, that you don't put words into somebody's mouth to fit your narrative, that's what I was talking about in the TED talk transcript I linked. Because that's very easy to bring about. So you have to make a conscious effort on that, just like you should probably make a conscious effort to recognize the place you're coming from, your privilege as it were. But nobody else can really recognize that for you, only you are the custodian of your own biases and experiences.

[WarKitty]

Well the problem is that a lot of guys haven't had any pie yet. You're saying "Well you're the same group as the group that had pie, so that means that you don't get any because there won't be enough for this other group." Which is a SERIOUSLY problematic statement.

Again, privilege is relative, and you can have privilege in one group and not another. So you can benefit from being a man even when you simultaneously lose for being poor. "I've been poor, so I should have a right to have my voice heard over women trying to talk about being sexually harassed as women" doesn't work.

There is also an issue where some people might not even recognize the privilege they have. I used the job example upthread - if you have a better chance of getting a job because someone else is assumed to be less competent based on their name, you may not even know that you're getting that extra bit of the pie.

So let's put it this way. Can you see how what you are arguing for can look a lot like "spend time and energy discussing things with people that won't be swayed by logic" given different experiences?

One thing I'll also say is that this is going to look different depending on the setting. For example, if you're in a university environment and putting something out to the public, you simply cannot have everyone who wants to have a say be able to talk. The logistics won't work. So if you want, say, LGBT+ issues to be highlighted, it makes perfect sense to say "we're going to prioritize the voices of those who are part of the community talking about discrimination over the voices of straight/cis folk." Because you're going to have way too many people who want to have a say than you can actually hear out, and LGBT+ folk are statistically a minority. In that situation you're going to have to say "we've been hearing from S/C folk a lot, this is specifically to focus on LGBT+ people so everyone else gets to hear them too."

It's going to look very different if you're in an individual discussion or a small group.

[Goaty14]

There was another that measured over a semester how much men and women talked in class. The men talked more. But when they made some efforts to have the women speak up more, the men felt that the women were dominating the discussion and they weren't getting a chance to speak. Again, when someone reviewed the recordings and measured, the men were still speaking more than the women, but those same men perceived that they were being silenced because they weren't getting to speak as much as they were used to.

How about instead of separating people divisively with racial/gender/etc lines, and then appropriating people in such a group to "talking less" or "talking more" the researchers instead just put the people who talk more into the "talk more" group, people who talk less in the "talk less" group, and then proceed to target the people in the "talk less" group to talk more? Sure, naming each individual in a research study takes more work than grouping them by physical features, but it'd give more accurate results.

Even then, it could still be silencing because well after "equality" is reached, then whoever is pushing the "talk less" group might not stop trying to encourage them, thus causing a flipped imbalance. There is no legal definition of what "equality" is exactly, and when it has reached or not.

[georgie_leech]

Right, but initially hearing ideas, knowing what people think and have to say is in my opinion NEVER a waste. It might not always be the most edifying thing, but it's useful. Because you have to share the world with these folks. So hearing an idea is always good, evaluating an idea for it's merits, is always good. Can you not see how that would be very different from a continuous state of argument with somebody that you are not going to convince?

Hell, even racist and abhorrent ideas are useful to hear, because they show you what is racist and abhorrent first of all, because without actually being exposed to that sort of thing, it's often poorly defined, which is why you see people accusing people of prejudice when there clearly is very little if any, because they aren't familiar enough with actual prejudice to recognize it. And it can be useful because you can figure out what the root of those bad ideas are, and you can't help a problem without finding its root, and a lot of people don't know its root. I think that listening to what people have to say, honestly listening is the most useful way to get closer to what is actually true.

Of course, that's challenging since honest listening requires that you avoid your prejudices, that you don't put words into somebody's mouth to fit your narrative, that's what I was talking about in the TED talk transcript I linked. Because that's very easy to bring about. So you have to make a conscious effort on that, just like you should probably make a conscious effort to recognize the place you're coming from, your privilege as it were. But nobody else can really recognize that for you, only you are the custodian of your own biases and experiences.

Sure, so what happens when from one perspective it's about a sharing of ideas, and from another it's about arguing with someone that won't be convinced otherwise? Different people have different standards for what ideas merit attention. Like, to borrow a twist on a joke I've heard, if someone wants to discuss with me whether the moon exists or is actually a government hologram, they need to lead with significant evidence beforehand, otherwise my priors are that the conversation isn't going to lead me closer to any kind of truth.

[AMFV]

Again, privilege is relative, and you can have privilege in one group and not another. So you can benefit from being a man even when you simultaneously lose for being poor. "I've been poor, so I should have a right to have my voice heard over women trying to talk about being sexually harassed as women" doesn't work.

But that's not what I'm arguing for. At all. Like ever in this thread. I'm arguing that if I am in a conversation about sexual harassment and it's an honest one, I expect that all parties in the conversation are going to listen to what I have to say and take it in and evaluate it, the same as they would any other participant in the conversation. Everybody should be respectful to everybody in discourse. That's how it works.

Because again, you experiencing harassment, doesn't make you an expert on it. It does give you some better perspective on how to frame the problem. But you aren't an expert, you don't know how to solve the problem, any better than the men involved. And the men's perspective is important, because the people who are doing the harassing are often their peers, and they have a better understanding of the psyche of their peers than you do. So their voices should be heard on this topic.

And again that's how a discourse should work, you want to hear everybody who might have a good idea. Not silence anybody unless they're breaking down the discourse, and shouting at somebody to "check their privilege" is as surely breaking the down discourse as shouting "she was asking for it". Those are both ways to stop the conversation from moving forwards. Because they aren't logically reasonable things to say. Again, privilege is tricky. As I've said I've been harassed, and you have no way of knowing if that was by somebody who might be a physical threat to me, I mean there are some scary women about, and men harass other men on occasion. So again, you're forced to make assumptions based on the group I belong to and that's bigotry.

One thing I'll also say is that this is going to look different depending on the setting. For example, if you're in a university environment and putting something out to the public, you simply cannot have everyone who wants to have a say be able to talk. The logistics won't work. So if you want, say, LGBT+ issues to be highlighted, it makes perfect sense to say "we're going to prioritize the voices of those who are part of the community talking about discrimination over the voices of straight/cis folk." Because you're going to have way too many people who want to have a say than you can actually hear out, and LGBT+ folk are statistically a minority. In that situation you're going to have to say "we've been hearing from S/C folk a lot, this is specifically to focus on LGBT+ people so everyone else gets to hear them too."

Well "putting something out to the public" isn't something you should do when you're in the infant stages of a discussion, rather the time to do that would be when you have several options and solutions in mind and you want to see if there's a general consensus on those issues. The same way that we have discussion of a small group then a larger group then the general public for ballot measures. Because logistically there isn't really a way to have a productive discussion in a large group setting like that. And tribalism makes that even less likely.

Edit:

Sure, so what happens when from one perspective it's about a sharing of ideas, and from another it's about arguing with someone that won't be convinced otherwise? Different people have different standards for what ideas merit attention. Like, to borrow a twist on a joke I've heard, if someone wants to discuss with me whether the moon exists or is actually a government hologram, they need to lead with significant evidence beforehand, otherwise my priors are that the conversation isn't going to lead me closer to any kind of truth.

You are WRONG, it can lead to all kinds of truth. Truth about the person to whom you are speaking. Truth about conspiracy theories, and truth about the sort of thing that somebody might find compelling. Hell, depending on the person involved, you might find a lot of truths about mental illness in that conversation as well. And that's just me spitballing without actually hearing any of it.

[georgie_leech]

You are WRONG, it can lead to all kinds of truth. Truth about the person to whom you are speaking. Truth about conspiracy theories, and truth about the sort of thing that somebody might find compelling. Hell, depending on the person involved, you might find a lot of truths about mental illness in that conversation as well. And that's just me spitballing without actually hearing any of it.

And if you've had that type of conversation before? If I discussed that with Bob the day before, am I obligated to speak with him about it today, and tomorrow, and the day after? Am I obligated to see learning about Bob as some inherent good, or is it alright to be more concerned with other things?

That is, at what point to I get to decide that it's closer to arguing with someone that won't listen to logic than to a discussion?

[AMFV]

And if you've had that type of conversation before? If I discussed that with Bob the day before, am I obligated to speak with him about it today, and tomorrow, and the day after? Am I obligated to see learning about Bob as some inherent good, or is it alright to be more concerned with other things?

I think that you could learn those same truths differently from having a similar conversation with different people. Since you're again learning truths about the person involved and why they might believe something which on its face is absurd. If you're still having a productive discussion with Bob, I can't see why you wouldn't want to continue that discussion. I mean I have never had a discussion that was exclusively repetition, and it's possible that the more time and the more empathy you invest in that discussion the more likely you are to have Bob see what is more likely the actual truth.

As far as "obligated", you aren't obligated to do anything. Your decision on whether or not to listen to Bob should have to do with how much you are interested in learning and finding the truth of things. And if Bob has become not a good avenue for that, you can probably move on to other conversational partners. HOWEVER, what you ought not to do is to A.) Try to silence Bob in group discussions because you've no further learning to be had from him, and B.)Try to prevent him from talking to others. The problem is that "Check Your Privilege" is intended to do both of those things. And again, you don't know Bob's background and history, without having a conversation with him, so you can't appropriately tell him to check his privilege without having a really solid grasp on Bob, which you'd need to have a lot of discussions to attain.

[georgie_leech]

I think that you could learn those same truths differently from having a similar conversation with different people. Since you're again learning truths about the person involved and why they might believe something which on its face is absurd. If you're still having a productive discussion with Bob, I can't see why you wouldn't want to continue that discussion. I mean I have never had a discussion that was exclusively repetition, and it's possible that the more time and the more empathy you invest in that discussion the more likely you are to have Bob see what is more likely the actual truth.

As far as "obligated", you aren't obligated to do anything. Your decision on whether or not to listen to Bob should have to do with how much you are interested in learning and finding the truth of things. And if Bob has become not a good avenue for that, you can probably move on to other conversational partners. HOWEVER, what you ought not to do is to A.) Try to silence Bob in group discussions because you've no further learning to be had from him, and B.)Try to prevent him from talking to others. The problem is that "Check Your Privilege" is intended to do both of those things. And again, you don't know Bob's background and history, without having a conversation with him, so you can't appropriately tell him to check his privilege without having a really solid grasp on Bob, which you'd need to have a lot of discussions to attain.

Right. So let's say you were trying to have a discussion about something else. Say, what the various crater depths suggest about the early stages of the of the solar system, when Bob inserts himself as part of the conversation. You didn't set out to have that conversation, but someone else intervened and made it that way. But It's not a big loss, you can have the conversation you wanted to have another time.

Then the next time you try to talk about lunar craters, Bob chimes in again. And again. Each time, there is an effort being made by them to divert the conversation from what you want to have, into another one. You can see how in this context, this kind of thing would be frustrating and unhelpful for the discourse you're trying to have, right?

[Florian]

Ok, let me give you a very German perspective on this topic:

We actually do know how it looks and feels when a democracy is being dismantled and we also know how it looks and feels like when you're forced to restructure your society as a whole. Been there, done that, one of the few "great" countries that this actually happened.

We actually have experience when it comes to cutting "freedom (of speech)" and when to enforce that, when it comes to dismantling a democracy.

Thing that this discussion shows, and partially tries to disguise as that fundamental topic, is that our "western" societies begin to fall apart, disintegrate at the seams. A democratic society works based on a commonly shared consensus, not on a "winner" dictating what is "truth" or not, forcing the "losers" to follow. That never really worked, in n democracy, starting with the bronze age....

Someone once told be that they'd prefer an absolute monarchy over a functional democracy, because in the later, change happens in a glacial speed and always includes compromises.

[Anymage]

And if you've had that type of conversation before? If I discussed that with Bob the day before, am I obligated to speak with him about it today, and tomorrow, and the day after? Am I obligated to see learning about Bob as some inherent good, or is it alright to be more concerned with other things?

That is, at what point to I get to decide that it's closer to arguing with someone that won't listen to logic than to a discussion?

You're not obligated to engage. If you don't have the time or emotional energy, you can either beg out or just ignore.

However, if your engagement with people who disagree with you often sounds like "STFU, rich boy" or "I'm going to go out of my way to tell you how little I regard your opinion", I'm going to be skeptical as to how much your arguments are logically sound, vs. how much they boil down to annoying the other person until they give up in exasperation. In practical use, people who use "check your privilege" tend to fall into the latter category.

How about instead of separating people divisively with racial/gender/etc lines, and then appropriating people in such a group to "talking less" or "talking more" the researchers instead just put the people who talk more into the "talk more" group, people who talk less in the "talk less" group, and then proceed to target the people in the "talk less" group to talk more? Sure, naming each individual in a research study takes more work than grouping them by physical features, but it'd give more accurate results.

Even then, it could still be silencing because well after "equality" is reached, then whoever is pushing the "talk less" group might not stop trying to encourage them, thus causing a flipped imbalance. There is no legal definition of what "equality" is exactly, and when it has reached or not.

Okay. Complicated gender talk time.

Assume for a moment that one group of people is regularly told that the value they bring and the support they can expect is tied directly to the resources and status they manage to personally garner. Some other group finds that people will support them and take their side just for being them. Which group do you think will fight harder and dirtier in order to get prestigious, high salary positions? Which one do you think will sacrifice more in order to bring home more bacon at the end of the day?

To then be told that members of the first group are only overrepresented in top positions because society hates other people is grossly simplistic, and seems designed to cherry pick data towards a wanted interpretation instead of trying to gain a clearer picture of the underlying causes.

For a fantasy example, consider halflings in a human city. Halflings have a hard time living in a place made for people much larger than them, but then halflings can also get by spending a lot less money (on space, on food, on anything where quantity of material is an important element of cost), allowing them to have more discretionary income towards their goals.

If all the halflings do is talk about human privilege while all the humans do is talk about halfling privilege, one gets the sense that they're more concerned with earning cheap debate points than they are getting a better sense of the other's positions and all the complicated, interrelated systems tradeoffs that happen in this racial situation.

[AMFV]

Right. So let's say you were trying to have a discussion about something else. Say, what the various crater depths suggest about the early stages of the of the solar system, when Bob inserts himself as part of the conversation. You didn't set out to have that conversation, but someone else intervened and made it that way. But It's not a big loss, you can have the conversation you wanted to have another time.

Well then you have to steer the conversation back to where it was. Knowing how to do that is an important part of discourse, and if Bob is as ridiculous as you describe eventually the other people involved will pull the conversation back to the point where it was.

Then the next time you try to talk about lunar craters, Bob chimes in again. And again. Each time, there is an effort being made by them to divert the conversation from what you want to have, into another one. You can see how in this context, this kind of thing would be frustrating and unhelpful for the discourse you're trying to have, right?

I can see how that could be frustrating and how it might be perceived as unhelpful. That's if Bob is just repeating himself. But moving the discussion to someplace else would be probably the best solution. However there is a pretty marked difference in this sort of thing from the whole privilege discussion, since that isn't necessarily repetition and arguing that all people from the same group don't need to be listened to is pretty frustrating.

The problem with your example is that it's extreme hyperbole and it doesn't translate that evenly to the situation we're discussing. Now it's possible that Bob isn't that useful a part of discussion. In which case in a formal discussion you should have time limits, Bob can speak his piece, then his time is up and everybody else can discuss craters. That would be the fair way to do it. Yes, having Bob there may make things take longer, but it's also possible that he might have an insight that you wouldn't, his mind is obviously very different.

So again, the trick here is to have the conversation be more formal and less of a situation that can devolve into a shouting match or something, that kind of conversation you can't control. And definitely telling Bob to "Shut the **** up" is not going to help. That's the biggest issue. Bob isn't going to shut it cause you told him too, he's more likely to become more agitated and louder.

So not only is the idea of calling somebody out on their privilege frustrating in terms of the assumptions you have to make about somebody and unethical in that you're viewing somebody only in terms of their race or gender, but it's likely completely ineffective.

Edit:

Ok, let me give you a very German perspective on this topic:

We actually do know how it looks and feels when a democracy is being dismantled and we also know how it looks and feels like when you're forced to restructure your society as a whole. Been there, done that, one of the few "great" countries that this actually happened.

We actually have experience when it comes to cutting "freedom (of speech)" and when to enforce that, when it comes to dismantling a democracy.

Thing that this discussion shows, and partially tries to disguise as that fundamental topic, is that our "western" societies begin to fall apart, disintegrate at the seams. A democratic society works based on a commonly shared consensus, not on a "winner" dictating what is "truth" or not, forcing the "losers" to follow. That never really worked, in n democracy, starting with the bronze age....

Someone once told be that they'd prefer an absolute monarchy over a functional democracy, because in the later, change happens in a glacial speed and always includes compromises.

Right, which is why we don't have formal true democracy in any place. We have small groups who are able to reach a consensus and then share that with the masses who get to decide if the composition of the groups change based on that. Which is a much better system.