Comment by DanHulton
6 days ago
We are recreating the "not all men" argument here, except hyper-specialized to "not all straight white cis men."
And so, in the spirit of that argument, sure, maybe not all straight white cis men are a problem, but ENOUGH of us are that we should be paying attention to see if we're unknowingly part of the problem, or even better if we can help at all to improve things.
Hopefully in another couple decades we can revisit this topic, only specialized down another couple adjectives. =)
Cis white male covers a very broad spectrum of people from very different economic, ethnic and social backgrounds.
Labelling an entire race (noting caveat above) of people as problematic is not a traditional progressive worldview and in my opinion that this view is being promoted in modern progressive politics has contributed to a large proportion of traditional progressives feeling politically stranded.
It also makes people like me completely shut down any reasonable discourse. Focus on specific behaviors and don’t try to solve racism with more racism.
> We are recreating the "not all men" argument here, except hyper-specialized to "not all straight white cis men."
We absolutely are.
I think that in itself is the problem, you dont need to be cis, white or male to be the problem, its just a group that is the target of choice.
Targeting straight white men this way isnt going to be the solution to the problem, especially those that are the problem. I don't have a good solution to this but pouncing on a large group for the actions of a few isnt a great idea.
If they want to radicalize a group, this is a great way to go about it.
Not all men is a sensible argument because it condemns generalization, a foundational principle of humanism.
There is no spirit of argument, your axioms are lacking. Either you can form an argument without generalization or it is very weak. That is mostly the gist of the criticism of contemporary progressive arguments.
Especially on the topic of racism it is paramount to stay precise in your wording and especially if your own policies circle around changes in language.
And if your argument gets the basics wrong, you should not wonder about any headwind and no, these arguments cannot form a revisited civil rights movement.