Perhaps review "Dialectics of the Concrete," which if read carefully, might ameliorate your smug demeanor.
By the way, you failed to address his main point that the US is taking a turn towards authoritarianism, and instead chose to critique a secondary part of his claim. Why is that?
I'm confused about how the article minimizes the suicide rate in boys. It even has multiple paragraphs analyzing why this gap exists.
It seems like you're framing gender dynamics as a zero-sum game, where improving the situation of one results in stepbacks the other. I agree that men do face significant struggles in today's society [1], but there are ways to move forward in ways that benefit everyone [2].
[1] Perry, Grayson. The Descent of Man. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.
[2] hooks, bell. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 2000.
Because men already have a hell of a time getting support, sympathy or understanding without the issue being reframed as "well it is toxic masculinity's fault", "you should have seen a psychiatrist" or "yeah but women try more and that's totally not a sign of attention seeking behavior as opposed to genuine fatigue/despair with life".
So yeah people represented by the more afflicted group will find it particularly offensive that it's being reframed in yet another female-centric manner.
You make a good point, there can be no improvement in male suicide rates until any and all record keeping of female suicides ceases entirely. As posters online our first duty upon seeing an article like this is to demand that nobody ever write anything like this until such a time that it is deemed worthy of study by us, the posters
Are you saying that attempting suicide, potentially multiple times, is not a sign of genuine despair? What would you consider a “genuine” enough sign of despair?
You start by saying that men have a harder time getting sympathy, and then minimize the same issue for women by implying that women who attempt suicide aren’t “trying” as hard and they don’t feel ‘actual’ distress but rather they are being manipulative.
There are a lot of ways to get attention, which is a totally normal thing for humans to want, and if someone is that desperate for it I think it’s safer to go ahead and assume it’s because they are actually unhappy and it’s worth addressing rather than calling them a liar?
How much does this greening offset the other effects of climate change, such as increased severe weather, ecosystem loss, and water scarcity, among other things [1] ?
I find your point extremely interesting, though I think I'm missing one of your core assumptions. When you highlight the term "democratic," it seems to me as though you implicitly switched away from the ethical perspective of nequo's comment based on the assumption that universal human rights should be respected no matter what. Instead, you seem to be working from a legal perspective based on American law and ethical theory surrounding it. Do you mind expanding on this?
You have to distinguish between “democracy” and “liberal democracy.” Democracy doesn’t inherently require “rights.” And in general “rights” are invoked to curtail democracy. For example, Germany is more democratic than the US, insofar as it leaves far more things to the public to decide—everything from abortion to guns to campaign finance to same sex marriage—without invoking “rights” to override the public’s decisions. The problem with sweeping invocations of “universal human rights” is that in practice they’re not so universally accepted, and tend to be invoked to override the popular will.
My quibble with OP is that he’s using “anti-democratic” to mean exactly the opposite. The concern is not that a minority of voters will force countries to exclude climate refugees. To the contrary, the concern is that a majority of voters will seek to exclude refugees, in contravention to, as you put it, migrants’ “rights.” But who decided those rights exist? Most people in the world would not agree anyone else has a right to live in their country. Even insofar as they might welcome refugees, they would see that as an act of magnanimity, not “rights.”
Illiberal democracy is not an American invention. See Hungary. The truth is that people can vote in whichever government they like. As long as that government still ensures free and fair elections it's still a democracy.
Whether or not Hungary meets this definition in 2022, however, is an open question.
Most people don't define democracy that way. For example, consider the EU's reaction to Poland and Hungary destroying their court systems, not to mention refusing to obey EU court decisions.
From the paper "Right-wing extremism/radicalism: reconstructing the concept" [1]:
> Although nationalism, racism and xenophobia are all discrete concepts, policies of exclusionary nationalism and cultural homogeneity often go hand-in-hand with racism and/or xenophobia. Homogeneity is usually advocated on the grounds that there are irreconcilable natural differences between groups of people and that these groups should not mix – i.e. according to a racist doctrine.
> It is the values inherent in liberal and pluralist democracy and the procedures and institutions that sustain these values that particularly stick in the craw of right-wing extremists/radicals. Indeed, Carter defines right-wing extremism by reference to two elements: ‘a rejection of the fundamental values, procedures and institutions of the democratic constitutional state’, and ‘a rejection of the principle of fundamental human equality’.
You’re creating a false dichotomy between multiculturalism and right-wing extremism. Most people in the world believe in “exclusionary nationalism and cultural homogeneity” insofar as they believe that their ethnocultural group should have a country of their own to govern according to their culture and values. My home country of Bangladesh was created on this principle. Most people in Asia and the Middle East take it as a given. That’s what the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights calls “the right of self determination.”
That doesn’t make them right wing extremists! Bangladeshis (and Japanese and Chinese) don’t believe that they’re superior to everyone else and that entitles them to rule over others. That’s what crosses into right wing extremism.
> Most people in Asia and the Middle East take it as a given.
It's funny that you give Asia and the Middle East as examples, because many of the countries and borders there are the result of European colonialism and not "natural" borders between ethnocultural groups. Take India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq , Syria, Afghanistan, China as examples - they're either with significant ethnic or religious minorities (often multiple of them, like Syria and Iraq, China, Myanmar) or straight up with hundreds or thousands of different ethnic groups (India, Indonesia).
Right, and folks in these countries are constantly cursing the British for that. Few people are happy that they have to share a body politic with different groups. The Hindu population in Bangladesh has dropped by half since independence. India is moving towards integrating its disparate groups along the lines of Hindu identity, marginalizing it’s substantial Muslim minority. And the Chinese have decided that nearly its whole population is “Han” and nearly all speak “dialects” of Chinese in order to erase these internal divisions. In Syria, the Alawite minority has gained power during the Assad dynasty and is taking it out on the majority for past oppression. In Iraq, voting in Parliamentary elections falls largely along ethnic lines.
I was answering a question asking for a link between xenophobia and democracy. This article establishes the link through an analysis of right-wing supremacy in the United States. Could you explain how your reply applies that that context?
However, you do touch on an interesting point regarding the link between Nationalism and democracy. This review paper [1] might be of interest to you. The underpinning question seems to be the moral implications of this relationship in regards to climate change, and I'd love to hear you thoughts on it.
My point is that this analysis conflates ordinary democratic nationalism with anti-democratic right wing extremism.
Most people in the world don’t like outsiders, and don’t like the idea of people from outside their country immigrating and changing their country’s culture. Take for example the Japanese. Maybe that makes them “xenophobic” (although I don’t think even that’s accurate) but they certainly aren’t “anti-democratic.” To the contrary, it’s a Democratic sentiment. The people broadly agree that they like their culture and it wouldn’t be good for outsiders to change it. India is a another good example. Hindu nationalism is highly democratic, insofar as it’s broadly supported by the body politic. By contrast, Indian secularism is anti-democratic. It was established by an elite, British educated minority, and is crumbling as ordinary people attain greater political power in the country: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial...
Viewing society the way most people in the world view it makes me “right wing?” It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I’ve heard Americans on the left say that the Japanese are “bigots” for not wanting immigrants. I don’t think they understand how radical that is.
Maybe Bangladeshis (and Japanese and Chinese and Arabs and most everyone else) are “right wing.” Or maybe some folks mostly in a few western countries have adopted a radical preoccupation with minorities, to the point that they deny the right of majorities to structure their society as they see fit according to their culture and values.
That's not the correct comparison. Household income often includes two incomes, which is going to bring the value up. Your same link says the median earnings for a male individual is $61,417. Not significantly less, but this distinction is often important.
Median personal income is around $36k. [0] Annualized median earnings of the full-time employed are around $52k. [1] Households often have more multiple income earners.
Wikipedia notes, "The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median personal income at $35,977 in 2019 with a base year of 2019 for all people over 15 years old.[3] The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median earnings at $41,535 in 2020 for all workers with earnings[4] and lists the annual median earnings at $56,287 in 2020 for people who worked full-time, year round."
Of course there is also cost of living, and, quoting the AVETH survival guide (2012): "It is common in many departments to
reduce the amount of payment from 100 percent to 80 percent or 60 percent.
However, you are still expected to work full time. Make sure you know what
you are about to sign."
Maybe it's just that my search skills are subpar, but I can't seem to find any relevant works on Google Scholar. Would you mind taking the time to share some of these sources?
Thanks for the link, I actually haven't seen that. Here's an interesting preprint tackling this issue as well: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rw4es
I'm also curious as to why you thought that this was "very well known," however. Could you elaborate on how you determine which set of facts can be selected to be well known, and which set cannot?
> The solution is to defund universities and stop this elitist nonsense. We are a better society without their control and political agendas.
As someone currently doing a PhD, I definitely agree that there is some elitism in academia, and that school administration usually sucks. However, I also love the work I do, which I couldn't really do anywhere else, and the community of students and faculty, which is pretty unique.
What makes you condemn the institution as a whole?
> There is little of value that isn't better done by a YouTube video today.
As someone who enjoyed the liberal arts education portion of their education, it seems like we don't have the same way of defining "value." Could you describe how you measure if something has value?
By the way, you failed to address his main point that the US is taking a turn towards authoritarianism, and instead chose to critique a secondary part of his claim. Why is that?