Idaho and Critical Race Theory

[Avnger]

The Babylon Bee Guide To Critical Race Theory

Back in the good old days, CRT just stood for "cathode ray tube," as in, "Ugh, I've gotta pack up my giant CRT monitor and lug it over to Bert's LAN party."

babylonbee.com

This is a humor site, so don't take it too literally.

Ah the Babylon Bee. It's like The Onion but for punching down.

 

[Schadrach]

The people who came up with the idea of race didn't know what an allele was. They barely understood the concept of heredity. This is scientific racism, it's the distortion of science to fit a concept that has no basis and no place in science.

I guess we should invoke how long the word "critique" or similar older derivations have been around before the development of Critical Theory?

The people who came up with the idea of medicine had no idea about biochemistry or any of the underlying biological mechanics (or anything else too small to be seen by the naked eye), even though that's at the underlying core of how it works.

The definition I gave is an accurate one. To remove the fancy jargon from it "A set of traits one has that can be seen by another human that show one's ancestors came from a certain region."

We certainly grasped the concept of heredity and ancestry meaning something at least in nonhumans, because we'd done our fair share of breeding things for purpose by the time we had anything resembling civilization. Most domestic animals and most crop plants did not occur naturally without human involvement in selectively breeding them for purpose. Wheat and cows are grotesque perversions of their nearest wild relative, and had been for centuries before any kind of formal notions of evolution, natural selection, genes or alleles. Selective breeding for purpose makes literally no sense as something to even attempt if you don't understand that children inherit at least some traits from their parents

The prevalance of sickle cell disease within any given population is not "caused" by African ancestry. It is caused by natural selection due to malaria. Malaria is not present in many regions within Africa. Malaria is present in many regions which are not in Africa, as is sickle cell disease. What you're describing is, at best, a correlation. There's no causality to it at all.

Misrepresentation of what I wrote. Higher prevalence of sickle cell is not caused by African ancestry directly, but the source of both dark skin and a higher prevalence of sickle cell is having African ancestry, because a part of that ancestral history is dramatically increased selection pressure from malaria (the actual cause of increased rates of sickle cell). African ancestry means one is more likely to have sickle cell because of that selection pressure and also dramatically more likely to have dark skin.

African ancestry means your ancestors were likely subject to considerably more selection pressure from malaria than other groups. That selection pressure causes an increased rate of sickle cell. Other selection pressures in the region lead to dark skin. But both are in the same region, being descended from that region indicates you have a higher likelihood of either or both, and as a consequence you can use one as a heuristic for who is more likely to have the other. Hence, "black people are more likely to have sickle cell."

We also have to account for the very real effects of racism on crime statistics through things like overpolicing.

Let's look specifically at a crime where economic motives are secondary at best and blaming the difference on overpricing makes no damned sense at all. Homicide.

Most homicide recorded involved both perpetrator and victim being the same race. So for the difference to be a result of policing means that police have to either be ignoring a bunch of white corpses as not worth investigating or taking extra care and effort to pursue people who kill black folk. Neither sounds like what one would expect from a white supremacist system.

But about half of all homicide in the US is committed by a black perp, according to FBI UCR stats.

The only answer I can see that lets you simply blame white supremacy and racist policing is if there's a whole fuckton of white folks killing black folks and framing other black folks. I'd want evidence of this happening nationwide at scale before I'd believe it.

We could do the same thing with rape, given that a third of all rapes are committed by a black person. Also no economic motive, also mostly within the same race (but not as strongly as homicide).

Also regarding poverty, it's worth noting that there are lots of poor folks of other races too. It would be far from impossible to grab a sample of poor white folks from a few regions in the US and compare their rates of violent criminality. I genuinely wonder what we'd find? You could even pick poor folks in the whitest regions in the US if you wanted, to reduce the frequency of white people successfully framing black people for crimes, if you believe that's a likely explanation for differences in homicide and rape rates.

That whole group was also, who could have guessed, very big on standpoint epistemology.

Without standpoint epistemology you can't use demographic membership to decide whose anecdotes are valid insight with at least as much explanatory power as quantitative or statistical methods and whose should be ignored without being some flavor of -ist or -phobe.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Every subset of critical theory shares the same methodology: lean hard into the hypothesis that all things are problems are caused by societal structures, because identifying true issues and their true causes is less important than identifying ammunition to fire at the status quo.

How would you solve a "true issue" or deal with the "true cause" of a social problem without the power structure doing something differently?

 

[tstorm823]

How would you solve a "true issue" or deal with the "true cause" of a social problem without the power structure doing something differently?

Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you accept the things you cannot change. Sometimes the necessary changes lie at the individual level. And sometimes you do change by doing things differently with the power structure, but that's not necessarily the fault of the structure. Without the structures of society, we all would be struggling not to starve to death. It's asinine to blame the things that let most people avoid hunger for not being 100% successful.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you accept the things you cannot change. Sometimes the necessary changes lie at the individual level. And sometimes you do change by doing things differently with the power structure, but that's not necessarily the fault of the structure. Without the structures of society, we all would be struggling not to starve to death. It's asinine to blame the things that let most people avoid hunger for not being 100% successful.

Sounds like an excuse to leave abusive and exploitative relationships as is

 

[tstorm823]

Sounds like an excuse to leave abusive and exploitative relationships as is

There's certainly an argument to be made about the philosophical difference between causing a problem and failing to prevent it, but you did me the favor of going straight to "abusive and exploitative" so we don't have to argue about nuance. I disagree with your perspective, not much else to say to that.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I'm sure all the usual Escapist free speech ultras will be along in just a moment to condemn this.

Somehow I doubt that, were this conversation about intelligent design -- another pseudo-scientific theory advanced by would-be demagogues with ulterior motive to denude and subvert the scientific method and core scientific principles whilst parasitizing the scientifically-illiterate -- you'd have quite the same response keyed up.

 

[tstorm823]

Somehow I doubt that, were this conversation about intelligent design -- another pseudo-scientific theory advanced by would-be demagogues with ulterior motive to denude and subvert the scientific method and core scientific principles whilst parasitizing the scientifically-illiterate -- you'd have quite the same response keyed up.

Here's a tangent about intelligent design: how much time could you possibly spend teaching that? "Some people believe God created all beings in exactly the way they are, the end." That's like a footnote, at best.

 

[Terminal Blue]

All of those names are mentioned as casual appropriation of the term, and I don't know if any of them identified their own theories as "critical theory".

Would Horkheimer have identified them as "critical theorists?"

Is your definition of critical theory where only members of the Frankfurt school are critical theorists, actually come from the Frankfurt school? Is it actually something Horkheimer, or any member of Frankfurt school, actually said, or believed? Heck, did the members of the Frankfurt school call themselves the Frankfurt school? Or are these terms, perhaps, something people made up retrospectively as a way of making it easier to understand or teaching the work of members of the Frankfurt school?

It's cause they were doing the same thing.

So, this thread is a lot of things. For me, it's been stressful and kind of retraumatizing. Again, I recently had a mental breakdown due to my work, so having a bunch of people try to shit on the legitimacy of other people's work, and by extension my work, with unearned confidence is not exactly what I need to hear. This, however, is what I needed to hear, because it actually crosses that line into being hilarious.

Sure Foucault was not a member of the Frankfurt school, but his thing was critical analysis of societal power structures.

There's a problem when you teach people Foucault for the first time, in that what they'll do is read Foucault's earlier work (which is easier to understand) and immediately leap to apply a Marxist lens to it. They'll read Discipline and Punish and think "wow, prisons are really bad man. We need to free everyone from the mind prison. It's like the Matrix!" You've kind of done the same thing here, but from an even stupider political position.

Actually, the book is saying the opposite. The purpose of prisons is ultimately benevolent. They are benevolent machines for turning people into good people without having to torture them to death in public. Prisons are so great that our entire modern world resembles one and most of the time we don't even notice, because we are the product of a society that resembles a prison. We have not just absorbed the ideology of living in a prison, prison makes us the people we are, we could not exist as the people we are outside of a society that resembles a prison.

This is probably the most important hurdle you have to get over when reading Foucault. Foucault's "critical analysis of societal power structures" is completely indifferent to whether or not power is good or bad, and only really interested in what power actually does. For Foucault, human beings have no independent existence outside of societal power structures, and the belief that they do is merely the product of societal power structures itself. Any revolutionary politics, any desire to change the society you live in, is ultimately just the desire to replace one power structure with another. There is no red pill. There is no possibility of escape or revolution. These things are just another form of power, inseparably bound to the systems of power that created them and necessitate their existence.

Foucault's work is devoid of any kind of easy answers. It's depressing and often eschatological and not politically useful at all (not unless you have the doctorate level understanding required to tease out the political meaning) and the worst part of it is that of all the three people I mentioned Foucault is still the only one whose work could remotely be related to that of the Frankfurt school, it's just that the relationship is completely antagonistic. But seriously, I want to see you try pulling this shit with Baudrillard. If this is anything to go by, that would make my day.

Critical theory is critique of society to challenge existing power structures. Critical race theory is critique of racial aspects of society to challenge power structures. One is a focused application of the other.

So, is critical theory the Frankfurt school, or is it things that you've decided resemble the Frankfurt school? Now you're just being inconsistent in your definitions, which is weird for someone who fought so hard to force an artificially narrow definition of critical theory that excludes common academic and colloquial usages. If critical theory is the Frankfurt school, then critical race theory is not critical theory. If critical theory is just things that resemble the Frankfurt school, then why did you spend all that time arguing against that very position?

Also, how is this new definition you're proposing meaningful? Are you saying that anyone who critically analyses societal power structures is bad, or nefarious, or automatically related? Do you have any real logic or rationale for making these connections, or are they just the connections you need to justify your irrational dislike of theory you've clearly never read?

 

[tstorm823]

So, is critical theory the Frankfurt school, or is it things that you've decided resemble the Frankfurt school? Now you're just being inconsistent in your definitions, which is weird for someone who fought so hard to force an artificially narrow definition of critical theory that excludes common academic and colloquial usages. If critical theory is the Frankfurt school, then critical race theory is not critical theory. If critical theory is just things that resemble the Frankfurt school, then why did you spend all that time arguing against that very position?

Also, how is this new definition you're proposing meaningful? Are you saying that anyone who critically analyses societal power structures is bad, or nefarious, or automatically related? Do you have any real logic or rationale for making these connections, or are they just the connections you need to justify your irrational dislike of theory you've clearly never read?

I'm not being inconsistent. I've been proposing a consistent understanding of critical theory, which you have been dismissing as only the Frankfurt school. That I now say other people have been called critical theorists for doing the same thing isn't inconsistent or contradictory at all. You were the one trying to separate the Frankfurt school from everything else, not me. And "things resembling the Frankfurt school are critical theory" is so wildly not the position you've been arguing, unless you want to take the most useless view of the word "resemble".

No, not everyone critiquing power structures is the same, and you're leaving out the single most important part, that distinguishes "critical theory" from theories that happen to be critical of something. Critical theory isn't trying to really understand or fix problems, but to rationalize how power structures are problematic. Societal problems are not the subject of critical theory, but the means with which to criticize society. Like, there are many levels at which one can criticize the institutions of society. God knows there are infinite things that one can criticize the government directly for, and tons of reasonable people doing so. It doesn't take critical theory to see issues with government officials taking bribes and discuss the consequences of and solutions to that problem. It does take critical theory to think that if being on time is seen as good and being late is seen as bad, that must just be the product of the white anglo-saxon protestant hegemony, formulated as an excuse to hold prejudice against non-white people.

 

[Seanchaidh]

There's certainly an argument to be made about the philosophical difference between causing a problem and failing to prevent it, but you did me the favor of going straight to "abusive and exploitative" so we don't have to argue about nuance. I disagree with your perspective, not much else to say to that.

Naturally. Contentment with the sort of abuse and exploitation that happens to go on right now is foundational to your political philosophy.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I'm not being inconsistent. I've been proposing a consistent understanding of critical theory, which you have been dismissing as only the Frankfurt school.

You did that to yourself.

This whole argument has gone full circle. We started with you insisting that critical theory and critical race theory are somehow the same thing because something something power structures. I pointed out to you, correctly, that that was bollocks. Your response was to point to a bunch of at-best entry-level online sources that equate critical theory directly with the philosophy of the Frankfurt school. But that position isn't actually compatible with your earlier insistence that critical theory and critical race theory are the same thing.

So now we've gone full circle. Now you're insisting once again that critical theory and critical race theory are the same thing, but you're the one who put forward a definition of critical theory whereby that can't be true. So, which is it? Are we using a restrictive definition of critical theory, or are we using a broader definition of critical theory? We can do either, but we can't switch back and forth between them whenever it suits you.

That I now say other people have been called critical theorists for doing the same thing isn't inconsistent or contradictory at all.

But they're not doing the same thing.

If you want to try and argue that Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan, Jurgen Habermas, Theodore Adorno, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Talal Asad, Kimberle Crenshaw, Homi Bhabha, Zygmunt Bauman, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Luce Irigaray and countless others who together represent a significant proportion of the Western intellectual tradition are all "doing the same thing because "critiquing power structures" then you're the one with a useless definition of resemblance.

No, not everyone critiquing power structures is the same, and you're leaving out the single most important part, that distinguishes "critical theory" from theories that happen to be critical of something. Critical theory isn't trying to really understand or fix problems, but to rationalize how power structures are problematic.

1) What exactly is the difference? How do you understand and fix problems without engaging in the assumption that power structures are problematic? What exactly is "problematic" about government officials taking bribes, for example? Who cares if government officials take bribes? Can't we just accept that as a part of the power structure that exists and move on.
2) Again, how is someone like Michel Foucault, who literally doesn't accept the possibility of human existence without power, primarily concerned with rationalizing how power structures are problematic?
3) According to Horkheimer's definition of critical theory, which up until now you've been trying to claim is the definitive source on critical theory, critical theory cannot be critical theory unless it both explains social problems that exist and offers practical solutions for how to respond to those social problems. How exactly is that "not really trying to understand or fix problems". Again, you can't switch between making up your own definition and religiously quoting wikipedia whenever it suits you.

It does take critical theory to think that if being on time is seen as good and being late is seen as bad, that must just be the product of the white anglo-saxon protestant hegemony, formulated as an excuse to hold prejudice against non-white people.

I mean, this may as well be a reply to all the "look at this silly thing someone said" right youtube outrage culture bullshit.

So I haven't read the argument you're deliberately not citing, but I know how I would make it and I know that it's a lot more complicated and a lot more relevant than your flippancy makes it sound. There are very good reasons to look at punctuality and race as historically associated ideas. It certainly isn't something that would be difficult to substantiate or provide quite a lot of evidence for. Sure, it sounds stupid, but racism is really stupid. That is actually the real point here. It's incredibly stupid to think that the colour of a person's skin would have anything to do with their ability to be punctual, but that is a thing almost everyone believed for centuries, and we still live with the legacy of that and many other stupid beliefs that continue to influence our society.

But the more disturbing thing is what your motivation is. Why do you seek out these examples in order to deliberately misinterpret them? Why have you arbitrarily decided that you hate people whose work you've never read? See, I've been trying not to get too personal, but it's kind of unavoidable here. The problem isn't theoretical, it's emotional. This is a debate about your feelings, and in particular how you feel when people talk about race.

Let's dispel any illusion. However you try to wiggle out of it, you do live in a society that has historically associated people like you with civilization, intelligence, beauty and virtue, purely because of the way you look and what that says about your ancestry. Other people have suffered, and continue to suffer to this day, purely because they don't look like you. It's horrible, and its unfair, and its shitty, but it's the world we live in. It doesn't matter whether or not that makes you upset. It doesn't matter whether or not that makes you doubt your achievements are the product of your own worth. It doesn't actually matter whether or not you feel persecuted, or attacked or hated. It doesn't matter what you feel at all. The truth is still the truth.

So drop the white guilt and white fragility. It doesn't do anything, it doesn't accomplish anything, it doesn't achieve anything. If you want to live in a world without race, if you want to live in a world where noone ever has to talk about race or say "divisive" things, go and make one. Whining about it won't do anything.

 

[tstorm823]

So now we've gone full circle. Now you're insisting once again that critical theory and critical race theory are the same thing, but you're the one who put forward a definition of critical theory whereby that can't be true. So, which is it? Are we using a restrictive definition of critical theory, or are we using a broader definition of critical theory? We can do either, but we can't switch back and forth between them whenever it suits you.

I have only provided one definition of critical theory. You have attempted to dispute it from two different directions and confused yourself. Your argument about me switching is completely baseless.

But they're not doing the same thing.

If you want to try and argue that Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan, Jurgen Habermas, Theodore Adorno, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Talal Asad, Kimberle Crenshaw, Homi Bhabha, Zygmunt Bauman, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Luce Irigaray and countless others who together represent a significant proportion of the Western intellectual tradition are all "doing the same thing because "critiquing power structures" then you're the one with a useless definition of resemblance.

If they weren't doing the same thing, why would you list them all together like that? You wrote that list, you grouped those people together for a reason. I assume that's a list of critical theorists, though not all those people would even say that about themselves, but I didn't suggest all those people are the same, you did. You think they belong grouped together, so this really isn't a point of contention.

1) What exactly is the difference? How do you understand and fix problems without engaging in the assumption that power structures are problematic?

You can't understand and fix all problems without considering where power structures might be the problem, but you can't solve the vast majority of problems by assuming power structures are problematic. Attacking power structures is great in an instance of human corruption, but does absolutely no good at all at dealing with an invasive beetle killing all the trees. The natural state of the world does not give you houses, clothes, agriculture... society, including the power structures of society, helps with far more important issues than what it creates, so to approach any given situation with the assumption that power structures are problematic is essentially suicidal.

2) Again, how is someone like Michel Foucault, who literally doesn't accept the possibility of human existence without power, primarily concerned with rationalizing how power structures are problematic?

Foucault isn't concerned with that, and Foucault famously rejected all the various labels people wanted to apply to his philosophy. Foucault is retrospectively assigned the label of critical theorist by people who are concerned with rationalizing how power structures are problematic, because the work of a philosopher/political activist who saw power structures in all things contains a lot of arguments useful for building that rationalization. Again, I'm not calling him a critical theorist, nor did he, others have done that who find his philosophy a useful stepping stone for their own arguments in conjunction with things like the Frankfurt School.

3) According to Horkheimer's definition of critical theory, which up until now you've been trying to claim is the definitive source on critical theory, critical theory cannot be critical theory unless it both explains social problems that exist and offers practical solutions for how to respond to those social problems. How exactly is that "not really trying to understand or fix problems". Again, you can't switch between making up your own definition and religiously quoting wikipedia whenever it suits you.

I think you might give too much weight to the word "practical" there. This is also someone who said critical theories must be directed at the totality of society. I don't think any average person would use the common usage of "practical" to describe any effort to fix the totality of society. "Actionable" would perhaps be a synonym without the same baggage.

Regardless, the disconnect is in what Horkheimer and I identify as problems. I think an old bridge in disrepair is a problem. Horkheimer would suggest the powers that be of society that allowed it to fall into disrepair, along with all the historical context that allows those powers to be, are the actual problem. The requirement of a "practical solution" to a "problem" looks very different when all problems are structural, it becomes a requirement that all critical theories have an actionable method of undermining the totality of society. One taking that perspective would certainly say that they're trying to solve problems, it is from my perspective that I suggest they are ignoring the problems to try and "solve" society.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Anyway, turns out the complaint against a university that caused this snap legislation about nothing was made up bullshit from Not Even A Student.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/editorials/article251651118.html

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

You can't understand and fix all problems without considering where power structures might be the problem, but you can't solve the vast majority of problems by assuming power structures are problematic. Attacking power structures is great in an instance of human corruption, but does absolutely no good at all at dealing with an invasive beetle killing all the trees. The natural state of the world does not give you houses, clothes, agriculture... society, including the power structures of society, helps with far more important issues than what it creates, so to approach any given situation with the assumption that power structures are problematic is essentially suicidal.

Okay, so you understand that it's not an either/or situation, right? It's not "stop the beetles from killing the trees" *or* "prevent future invasives" from being imported.
It's "stop the beetles from killing the trees" *and* "figure out how they became invasive in the first place to prevent future invasives"
This is straight up Matt Bors Comic territory.

 

[tstorm823]

Okay, so you understand that it's not an either/or situation, right? It's not "stop the beetles from killing the trees" *or* "prevent future invasives" from being imported.
It's "stop the beetles from killing the trees" *and* "figure out how they became invasive in the first place to prevent future invasives"

Does attacking the power structures of society solve either of those problems? If the invasive species traveled in the bag of a refugee on a boat, what is challenging those in power in your own nation going to do to prevent that? Do you really think the question "how do we prevent future problems" is inherently critical of power structures, or does the TSA still check every ordinary person that gets on a plane?

 

[Silvanus]

Does attacking the power structures of society solve either of those problems? If the invasive species traveled in the bag of a refugee on a boat, what is challenging those in power in your own nation going to do to prevent that? Do you really think the question "how do we prevent future problems" is inherently critical of power structures, or does the TSA still check every ordinary person that gets on a plane?

Well, let's take a look.

The refugee was forced to flee because the power structures in their home country failed to provide a stable living space. Their luggage was not properly vetted because either 1) if they were on a legal crossing, then checks & regulations weren't properly carried out by the power structure in place; or 2) if they were on an illegal crossing, checks didn't take place at all... which then places some of the responsibility on the international refugee laws which drives people to attempt illegal crossings in the first place. International refugee laws which are determined by diplomatic and domestic-political power structures.

Let's look at Covid-19. You could just look at it and say, "it's a virus, let's fight it, end of story". But assuming it developed in a wet market, then the power structure in China has failed to regulate its markets or tackle black-market meat trading. Countries around the world failed to implement border policies, lockdowns, etc... very often being hesitant to do so because of the money that would be lost to businesses. Political power structures came to a decision to place short-term economic benefits above public health and even longterm stability. Why? Because the financial power structure in place encourages the former and disincentivises the latter.

So if we just fight the virus, then yay! We might win. But we've had viruses cross borders from wet markets before. And if nobody looks at regulation, public health policy, and the prioritisation of short-term profit over health and stability, then we will again... and we'll make the same mistakes. And all of those areas involve looking at issues with who made decisions, what incentivises those decisions. Where power rests. In the structure.

 

[Eacaraxe]

There's a problem when you teach people Foucault for the first time, in that what they'll do is read Foucault's earlier work (which is easier to understand) and immediately leap to apply a Marxist lens to it. They'll read Discipline and Punish and think "wow, prisons are really bad man. We need to free everyone from the mind prison. It's like the Matrix!" You've kind of done the same thing here, but from an even stupider political position.

Actually, the book is saying the opposite. The purpose of prisons is ultimately benevolent. They are benevolent machines for turning people into good people without having to torture them to death in public. Prisons are so great that our entire modern world resembles one and most of the time we don't even notice, because we are the product of a society that resembles a prison. We have not just absorbed the ideology of living in a prison, prison makes us the people we are, we could not exist as the people we are outside of a society that resembles a prison.

This is probably the most important hurdle you have to get over when reading Foucault. Foucault's "critical analysis of societal power structures" is completely indifferent to whether or not power is good or bad, and only really interested in what power actually does. For Foucault, human beings have no independent existence outside of societal power structures, and the belief that they do is merely the product of societal power structures itself. Any revolutionary politics, any desire to change the society you live in, is ultimately just the desire to replace one power structure with another. There is no red pill. There is no possibility of escape or revolution. These things are just another form of power, inseparably bound to the systems of power that created them and necessitate their existence.

Foucault's work is devoid of any kind of easy answers. It's depressing and often eschatological and not politically useful at all (not unless you have the doctorate level understanding required to tease out the political meaning) and the worst part of it is that of all the three people I mentioned Foucault is still the only one whose work could remotely be related to that of the Frankfurt school, it's just that the relationship is completely antagonistic. But seriously, I want to see you try pulling this shit with Baudrillard. If this is anything to go by, that would make my day.

You've illustrated the exact problem with how postmodern philosophy, specifically Foucault, is taught that brings about problematic conclusions -- a methodology that is willingly exploited by contemporary critical race theorists to further their own causes. Foucault can't be taught in a contextual vacuum, and to what you're alluding is a critique of Bentham's panopticon for those who are unaware -- a regulated and moderated exercise of state monopoly on coercion, is still an exercise of coercion regardless the form it takes (violent or nonviolent, direct or indirect, hard or soft), still a punitive exercise, and still subject to the whim of those in power whose motive is to remain in power.

A more clear example that's more relevant to a video game forum, is found in how "pop culture critics" deliberately misinterpret Foucault to de-empathize idealization and condemnation, so they may make an argument focused solely on cultivation as a vector for normalization. Never mind the former is actually the necessary factor in it, being normalization is merely operant conditioning on a societal scale. Or that good-faith arguments based entirely on cultivation would yield conclusions entirely subversive to their goals.

The difference between Foucault and other commonly-cited postmoderns, is his philosophy has scientific analogues contemporary to his work to bridge the gap, meaning his philosophy is actually testable and therefore falsifiable. In this case, I'd point to Milgram, but more importantly Stanford.

...we've had viruses cross borders from wet markets before...

Are we critiquing it from the perspective that in the highly-globalized 21st Century with rapid, trans- and inter-continental, transportation and infrastructure, sovereign states have heightened obligation to protect their citizenship from novel disease spread, and additional obligation to protect trading partners from the spread of novel disease from within their own borders, meaning strict regulation of vectors through which novel diseases might originate is both necessary and proper to contemporary society?

Or are we critiquing it from the perspective that (predominantly white) states in the economic north, with their lush and expansive histories of imperialism, colonization, and ethnic supremacy, have no right to make domestic policy demands of (predominantly POC) states in the economic south to change their cultures, and that to do so reinforces and perpetuates global, institutional, white supremacy? Or alternatively, market activity which enables the emergence and spread of novel disease is, of and by itself, reflective of the historic legacy of white supremacy by way of resource privation and mass poverty?

 

[tstorm823]

Well, let's take a look.

The refugee was forced to flee because the power structures in their home country failed to provide a stable living space. Their luggage was not properly vetted because either 1) if they were on a legal crossing, then checks & regulations weren't properly carried out by the power structure in place; or 2) if they were on an illegal crossing, checks didn't take place at all... which then places some of the responsibility on the international refugee laws which drives people to attempt illegal crossings in the first place. International refugee laws which are determined by diplomatic and domestic-political power structures.

Let's look at Covid-19. You could just look at it and say, "it's a virus, let's fight it, end of story". But assuming it developed in a wet market, then the power structure in China has failed to regulate its markets or tackle black-market meat trading. Countries around the world failed to implement border policies, lockdowns, etc... very often being hesitant to do so because of the money that would be lost to businesses. Political power structures came to a decision to place short-term economic benefits above public health and even longterm stability. Why? Because the financial power structure in place encourages the former and disincentivises the latter.

So if we just fight the virus, then yay! We might win. But we've had viruses cross borders from wet markets before. And if nobody looks at regulation, public health policy, and the prioritisation of short-term profit over health and stability, then we will again... and we'll make the same mistakes. And all of those areas involve looking at issues with who made decisions, what incentivises those decisions. Where power rests. In the structure.

A) You're looking to power structures for solutions to natural problems, not looking at them as the cause of those problems.
B) It's not fair to imagine that, should we just do everything right in the future, there will never be pandemics. Pandemics happen. Don't expect regulation to make pandemics disappear forever.

 

[Silvanus]

A) You're looking to power structures for solutions to natural problems, not looking at them as the cause of those problems.

No, that's transparently false. The impact of the beetle and the virus are obviously determined, in large part, by decisions by authorities around the world. In the virus' case, it's unlikely it would have even infected a human in the first place if wet markets were not so poorly regulated by the power-structures in place, creating fertile grounds for cross-species infection and mutation.

Yes, the decisions by authorities to overlook and ignore regulation of wet markets caused the problem. Yes, the decisions by authorities to place short-term profit over long-term stability and public health caused it to develop into a year-plus-long pandemic. Had different decisions been made by the authorities-- had the power structures had different priorities from the start, focusing on regulation and public health above profit and turning-a-blind-eye-- then the coronavirus would be plaguing some bats somewhere.

B) It's not fair to imagine that, should we just do everything right in the future, there will never be pandemics. Pandemics happen. Don't expect regulation to make pandemics disappear forever.

"We can't be sure we'll prevent all tragedies, so let's not learn any lessons, even though we can now clearly identify the poor decisions".