Delusional Nostalgia Is Killing White Men

[bush_cheney2004]

Don't you have Turkey to eat or something.

No, I am watching the Lions-Eagles game, just like many Canadians. It's America's job to make life in Canada less boring, so as to prevent suicides by white males.

[eyeball]

It does but racist ideas don't lead to suicide. That only comes from a feeling of helplessness and people telling you that you are to blame for your problems will only exacerbate the problems. People telling you others are to blame would help re-establish your self worth - not take it away as the op would like to believe.

It could also lead to a shooting spree.

[Boges]

No, I am watching the Lions-Eagles game, just like many Canadians. It's America's job to make life in Canada less boring, so as to prevent suicides by white males.

I don't imagine Lions v Eagles reduced instances of suicide. Dallas v Carolina perhaps.

[jacee]

yada yada yada. Yes life is tough for people without a college education today. But trying to blame that on a gross stereotype of a political opinion you don't agree with is absurd. If anything resentment motivates people to action - not suicide. To encourage suicide you need to encourage feelings of guilt and hopelessness which the "progressive" agenda does with it 'white men are the root of all evil' propaganda.

Alcohol is the main issue. Most people don't equate it with suicide.

Hopelessness is the issue ... And blame.

By 'action' do you mean murdering black people?

That's happening.

And TimG, your disrespect for people without college is disturbing.

They are the primary focus of this topic, the most affected and disaffected. My purpose is not to disparage them, but to point out how they are being used and abused and dying at increasing rates.

.

Edited November 26, 2015 by jacee

[TimG]

Alcohol is the main issue. Most people don't equate it with suicide.

Only addicts who recover see it that way. Doesn't change the fact that chronic alcoholics are people who would like to kill themselves but don't have the guts.

By 'action' do you mean murdering black people?

That's happening.

Nonsense. One guy does not a trend make. More people have died at the hands of Islamic terrorists in the US that white guys with resentments. Hell black guys get into the killing random people thing too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks

Action can mean any number of things including voting for politicians who offer to do something about the problems. My point is suicide anger is directed inward and it is irrational to suggest that encouraging resentments leads to suicide.

Edited November 26, 2015 by TimG

[jacee]

Only addicts who recover see it that way. Doesn't change the fact that chronic alcoholics are people who would like to kill themselves but don't have the guts.

Nonsense. One guy does not a trend make. More people have died at the hands of Islamic terrorists in the US that white guys with resentments.

You are misinformed. Look it up.

Both the FBI and the RCMP consider white supremacists the number one terrorist threat.

And their ranks and violence are increasing since Obama won.

Edited November 26, 2015 by jacee

[-1=e^ipi]

They play on the lower middle class' impulse to believe themselves better than some other group which becomes the basis for their own self-esteem.

So you are essentially calling an entire group of people racist.

[Moonlight Graham]

I am distinguishing between white working men ... and their white bosses who mislead them by creating fear and hatred of the 'others', so they can talk their workers into low pay, no benefits, etc.

Do bosses really "talk their workers" into low pay, no benefits? Or do the bosses just do it? And maybe they give their workers whatever excuses they come up with.

[Moonlight Graham]

It has nothing to do with equal rights. It is the absurd fiction that white men living today are should feel guilty for the errors of the past.

Well the thing is, even if white men today had nothing to do with the actions of their ancestors, they still reap the benefits of these actions. This includes global colonialism/imperialism. I'm not saying they should feel guilty or not about this, I'm just stating reality.

Reality also states that virtually anyone living in a western country, white or otherwise, are economically benefiting right now from our dominance over weaker countries. We secure their resources, bribe their corrupt officials, establish new markets at the expense of local businesses, make them fight so we can sell them our weapons etc. Nothing has really changed, and we will even still kill to do it. Imperialism is alive and well, just in different forms. It's still a very harsh world, and we do very harsh things to the less powerful to ensure our standard of living simply because we can.

I haven't made any moral judgements about it, just stating how the world works. Do we feel guilty about it? Most of us don't, because most of us don't really comprehend it's happening as we go about our day and buy products we have no idea the history & politics behind, or if we do comprehend we still mostly ignore. The history of the humanity, as in the rest of nature, is about winners and losers, the stronger and more adaptable dominating over the weaker. Since we're so removed from this brutal reality, it's easy to ignore it. (just like the Syrian refugee crisis, it was ignored by the masses until we saw the picture of the dead boy & finally faced a small part of the reality). If we saw it all face-to-face, I'm sure most of us couldn't emotionally fathom continuing what we do (while others would still be fine with it), because most westerners are kind, empathetic people...but terribly naive and uninformed.

Another reality is that what white western men have done over the past 500 years to dominate the world is little different than what any other culture/race would have done if they were in the same position with the same technology and power to dominate. A world dominated by India, China, Africa, Arabs etc. would be just as brutal, maybe more so.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Moonlight Graham

[-1=e^ipi]

Reality also states that virtually anyone living in a western country, white or otherwise, are economically benefiting right now from our dominance over weaker countries.

Is that why people in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are so well off? Because of their dominance over weaker countries?

How about the fact that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, etc. all have higher real GDP per capitas (PPP) than Canada?

It's still a very harsh world, and we do very harsh things to the less powerful to ensure our standard of living simply because we can.

Is that why Keystone XL was passed, or the EU is the most aggressive in cutting CO2 emissions, or why so much aid comes from Western countries, or why a million Syrians are being accepted as refuges in Western countries while the Gulf states do nothing?

[jacee]

So you are essentially calling an entire group of people racist.

I didn't write the article.

However the authors suggest that working class white men are being fed racist crap by their cheapskate bosses, being encouraged to blame women, immigrants, the Chinese, African Americans ... anybody but the bosses who lay them off, cut wages, etc.

.

[jacee]

Do bosses really "talk their workers" into low pay, no benefits? Or do the bosses just do it? And maybe they give their workers whatever excuses they come up with.

They just do it ... and blame someone else.

[TimG]

Reality also states that virtually anyone living in a western country, white or otherwise, are economically benefiting right now from our dominance over weaker countries [add]capitalist society governed with a strong rule of law.[/add]

If we simply did not trade with third world countries we would still be rich relatively speaking. The idea that our wealth only exists because we exploited others is not a credible argument. It is exists because we created a society that fosters the creation of wealth. Exploitation did go on but it was not a necessary prerequisite.

I haven't made any moral judgements about it, just stating how the world works. Do we feel guilty about it? Most of us don't, because most of us don't really comprehend it's happening as we go about our day and buy products we have no idea the history & politics behind, or if we do comprehend we still mostly ignore.

Technically you are making a moral judgement by describing the process in the terms that you do.

Another reality is that what white western men have done over the past 500 years to dominate the world is little different than what any other culture/race would have done if they were in the same position with the same technology and power to dominate. A world dominated by India, China, Africa, Arabs etc. would be just as brutal, maybe more so.

A point that gets often forgotten. What is also forgotten is the idea that any technologically advanced society would simply show up and hand over tech and money to the locals so they could compete with their industries is simply naive. Altruism at that level does not exist. The result is that poorer countries have a choice to either take the time to develop on there own or provide incentives to foreign companies with the money and technical know how to extract resources profitably. Edited November 28, 2015 by TimG

[Rue]

Jacee , the power one has over others, not skin colour, genitilia or sex preference is perhaps a distinction to look for when predicting their behaviour.

Your comments though are illogical. There are by numbers alone far more people in India and China who are not white so being exploited by non white rich men. So that in itself makes your stereotype silly.

Furthermore where did you get this ridiculous notion rich white dudes spend their time spreading hatred. Wow. The ones I know spend all their time drinking themselves to death worried about other rich men trying to take them down. Lol what world do you live in because I would like to know. Sounds like you have no clue about actual rich white men. You even know one?

Not sure what world you live in but the poor white folks I know and grew up with were no more or less hateful then blacks, yellows, greens, and none of us poor shmucks were told by rich folks to hate-we come up with our hate on our own thank you and it was based on a lot of things but not what rich people told us.

Get real. The rich white man is a myth. Its a ridiculous myth. Look in the mirror. Do you stereotype your own reflection? Stop. Its not white, its not brown, its not black, its not female, its not male, its you-and what you choose to do, begins and ends with you. This myth of a rich white man conspiring against you to flood the world with angry white poor folks is a crock of sheeyit. Enough.

Get out their and do good things and stop allowing stupid stereotypes to limit your unlimited potential to heal the world. You are too good for needing generalizations. Think outside the box and you will find others as well doing the same and those are the people you will do good things with. Stereotype them and you will never meet them and find out how they can help you and vice versa.

Just because people are "white" or "rich" does not make them hateful an dno white people don't conspire to hate anymore than you do.

Rich white men. Hah. Most of them have debts up to their wazoo and drive leased cars kid. Get real.

If you saw the no. of rich white men whose marriages and lives fell apart as I have in family mediations you would realize they aint no different then men of every other skin colour or women for that matter.

We all hate, we all love. We have equal potential to do both. Its got nothing to do with being white and everything to do with how you as an individual choose to take on life.

Stereotypes are for insecure weak people who need excuses for their own failures. I hear words like privilege, I hear envy in the voice of the person using that word. Privilege my ass. Try envy. Privilege is what a person full of envy sees in another.

Privilege? What working 20 hours a day and being surrounded by two faced back stabbing sob's that want your butt? No thanks. Privilege? Right you think Donald Trump is a rich privileged white man? He's a puffed up, blowhard, a wealking, surrounded by over extended debts, has zero friends and hasn't a clue what a bird is unless its gold and a statute.

You envy that? You think he has power? Please. His underwear has the same stains as a poor man. Get real.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Rue

[Moonlight Graham]

If we simply did not trade with third world countries we would still be rich relatively speaking. The idea that our wealth only exists because we exploited others is not a credible argument. It is exists because we created a society that fosters the creation of wealth. Exploitation did go on but it was not a necessary prerequisite.

I never made those arguments. We're richer because we dominate, that's all I'm saying. Canada wouldn't even exist without western domination.

Technically you are making a moral judgement by describing the process in the terms that you do.

Ridiculous. You're making this up in your head.

[Moonlight Graham]

Is that why people in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are so well off? Because of their dominance over weaker countries?

No, a major reason for their success is that they've been able to reject and insulate themselves from western dominance of their economies. No neoliberal IMF bullcrud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_state

How about the fact that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, etc. all have higher real GDP per capitas (PPP) than Canada?

They're swimming in cheaply extractable oil.

[TimG]

I never made those arguments. We're richer because we dominate, that's all I'm saying.

You are mixing up cause and effect. We dominate because we are richer. Money, technology and a functional civil society create virtuous circle which leads to more of the same. This gives societies with those features advantages when they interact with societies without them. i.e. we have the social/economic structures which leads to dominance - not the other way around.

Ridiculous. You're making this up in your head.

Nope. Your narrative of "dominance leading to wealth" is an assumption with a negative implied morality. There is no obvious reason to assume the causality in the way that you assume.

[Moonlight Graham]

You are mixing up cause and effect. We dominate because we are richer. Money, technology and a functional civil society create virtuous circle which leads to more of the same. This gives societies with those features advantages when they interact with societies without them. i.e. we have the social/economic structures which leads to dominance - not the other way around.

We impose power because we have power. The cause of domination is power, the effect is more power and continued domination. Power = the ability to achieve desired outcomes. We came to dominate the world hundreds of years ago because of many reasons like technological superiority, wealth, the will to explore, the religious will to convert etc. Our technology and wealth gave us the power, or will and culture led us to use this power the specific way we did. All of this led to more wealth and power over the centuries and it continues to this day.

My original point was that if a white male chooses to feel guilty about the past, or if another race/culture living in the west wants to make whites feel guilty about the past, then they are hypocrites because virtually everyone living in western countries today benefits from continued western domination which I don't see the masses doing anything about. There's charities/NGO's helping out a bit etc and we might throw the developing world some spare change here and there but the system of domination and benefit is well entrenched. If we discontinued our domination our standard of living would suffer, and therefore our economy and security would too because there's other "civilizations" out there (ie: Russia, China) very willing to take out place. An example is the middle-east, where if the West stopped dominating the region the Chinese and Russians would be very willing to fill that power vacuum and they'd have more control over international oil security to our detriment.

Nope. Your narrative of "dominance leading to wealth" is an assumption with a negative implied morality. There is no obvious reason to assume the causality in the way that you assume.

Any morality is completely implied on your part. You're making a guess about my moral position that's incorrect. "Our dominance over other countries helps us achieve more wealth for ourselves" is something that could be said by a wall street banker/billionaire capitalist or a human rights NGO, and would be equally correct.

[TimG]

If we discontinued our domination our standard of living would suffer, and therefore our economy and security would too because there's other "civilizations" out there (ie: Russia, China) very willing to take out place.

This is where I disagree. I think the suggestion that our standard of living is higher because we "dominate" other societies is a complete myth. I agree we dominate because it is an unavoidable consequence of power. If we benefit from anything it is from peaceful trade and losing that peaceful trade would hurt us. The loss of 'domination' would not.

Any morality is completely implied on your part. You're making a guess about my moral position that's incorrect.

English words convey meaning. 'Dominance over others' conveys a negative meaning.

[Moonlight Graham]

This is where I disagree. I think the suggestion that our standard of living is higher because we "dominate" other societies is a complete myth. I agree we dominate because it is an unavoidable consequence of power. If we benefit from anything it is from peaceful trade and losing that peaceful trade would hurt us. The loss of 'domination' would not.

To say, for instance, that a nation as powerful as the US, which has all sorts of means of coercion, be it militarily or economically etc., doesn't use them for their own economic gain at the expense of others would be naive and ignorant of the facts. International economics is rife with more powerful countries putting economic conditions on weaker countries to the benefit of the former to the detriment of the latter. When you have the power you get to write the rules.

[TimG]

To say, for instance, that a nation as powerful as the US, which has all sorts of means of coercion, be it militarily or economically etc., doesn't use them for their own economic gain at the expense of others would be naive and ignorant of the facts. International economics is rife with more powerful countries putting economic conditions on weaker countries to the benefit of the former to the detriment of the latter. When you have the power you get to write the rules.

The US and any other country with something that others want will use their negotiating position to secure terms that are good for them. If these countries did not want the wealthy countries have they would have no need to negotiate terms. After all, these countries got by for millennia without access to modern technologies and they could continue to do so if that is what they wanted. The thing is they don't so they have to negotiate terms.

The trouble with your narrative is you seem to think international relations should be governed by altruism and the wealthy should just give away technology and money instead of self interest which strikes me as a bit naive.

In any case, my point was that most of the developing countries in the world are not relevant to the world economy and if they opted out we would be slightly less wealthy because of the reduced trade - not because of the lose of "dominance".

Edited November 30, 2015 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

The trouble with your narrative is you seem to think international relations should be governed by altruism and the wealthy should just give away technology and money instead of self interest which strikes me as a bit naive.

A while ago I have argued something similar to this, but I haven't in this thread. You're probably assuming I'm coming from this moral angle in this thread too, which I'm not, and so you're projecting my past moral stances on what I'm saying now. Reasonable mistake. Maybe you don't realize this but I'm actually agreeing with you on the whole.

What I'm saying in this thread is that certain international players obviously have more power vis a vis others, and they use this power to secure their own self-interested gains. They've done this long before colonial Europe and continue to do so today. I'm also saying that even while white men in the west may not have had anything to do with past colonialism/self-interested gains, they are still benefiting from these actions today. Again, I'm not saying they should feel guilty about it, I'm just stating reality.

[overthere]

A while ago I have argued something similar to this, but I haven't in this thread. You're probably assuming I'm coming from this moral angle in this thread too, which I'm not, and so you're projecting my past moral stances on what I'm saying now. Reasonable mistake. Maybe you don't realize this but I'm actually agreeing with you on the whole.

What I'm saying in this thread is that certain international players obviously have more power vis a vis others, and they use this power to secure their own self-interested gains. They've done this long before colonial Europe and continue to do so today. I'm also saying that even while white men in the west may not have had anything to do with past colonialism/self-interested gains, they are still benefiting from these actions today. Again, I'm not saying they should feel guilty about it, I'm just stating reality.

are you talking about places that were formerly colonies that are now wealthy, powerful and/or influential in world affairs like the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, China etc?

It is not clear which international players you mean.

[Moonlight Graham]

are you talking about places that were formerly colonies that are now wealthy, powerful and/or influential in world affairs like the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, China etc?

It is not clear which international players you mean.

I mean exactly what I wrote, I'm not referring to any countries specifically. Some countries are more powerful than others, and in bilateral or even multilateral trade, more powerful countries usually have more leverage in trade deals.

It's not even confined to countries as political actors. Certain corporations have more wealth and international power than some countries do. Corporations act to maximize profits (self-interest) in every way possible. Linking back to this thread, my point is that whether it's a white man or a black/asian/latino/arab etc. man or woman CEO running these publicly traded corporations, they would do little differently. They have to please share-holders, which means maximizing share-value by things like maximizing profit by increasing revenue and reducing costs as much as possible vis-a-vis their competitors.

More to the point: white men have been and are vilified because through twists of history they've been the dominant aka most powerful group the past 5-6 centuries or more, and they've used their dominance to increase or maintain their power and self-interest. Would any other cultural/racial group in the world have done any different in their position? If so, some other group would have come along and left them in the dust & taken their power away so they could then dominate. Ironically, it's mainly white men who have created the liberal laws and norms, like human rights etc., that form the very basis upon which they are to be criticized and judged for their historical & present "wrongs".

[Black Dog]

The concept of "white privilege" is not about the past. It is the claim that anyone white could not have gotten where they have if it was not for the alleged advantage they have because of white skin.

That's not it, but thanks for playing. White privilege is, quite simply, that whiteness confers certain advantages on a day-to-day basis that other do not enjoy. That's all there is to it.