Babel and Xenophobia

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Steve3007
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Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Steve3007 »

Fear of strangers is a natural human tendency, but over the years there have been one or two posters on these forums who have made it a central theme of their posts. The most extreme and recent of these is of course Dachshund whose consistently and unashamedly expressed central message here has been that all people who look, dress or talk differently from himself are violent, sub-human morons deserving death; that there are no individual human beings among the other tribe but only a faceless bloc. I think it's interesting to explore some of the causes of this attitude.

It seems to me that one hugely important cause is linguistic differences, as exemplified by the allegorical story of the Tower of Babel from the book of Genesis. Almost all of us know from personal experience, as well as wider observations of the world, that looking another human being straight in the eye and engaging them in personal conversation is the most effective way we have of connecting with them and recognizing what we have in common as individuals. When the ability to easily, fluently and instantly converse with other people is removed and when, to our ears, the sounds coming out of their mouths seem meaningless and lack many of the numerous clues of intonation and subtext with which we're familiar in our native language (whatever that is), it is much harder to recognize that thing that we all really know: that most human beings are motivated by essentially the same things regardless of the language that they use. As examples to add to personal experience, try watching interviews with such people as soldiers from both sides who have fought in wars in places like Vietnam. The more different a language sounds from the familiar tones of our own mother tongue, the greater the effect. It's even true, albeit to a lesser extent, between different accents in the same language.

Technology has started to make a difference here. Simultaneous translation, along the lines of the fictional "Babel Fish" is just starting to be possible. But it is still nowhere near being able to instantaneously translate all of the subtly of language, with its cultural reference points, in a way that would make it just like talking to somebody from one's own cultural background; one's cultural brother or sister. It's not clear that this could ever be possible, but if it were would it allow us to empathize with the stranger? Or is our natural tribalism and hostility necessary and would it still need to assert itself in other ways?
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chewybrian
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by chewybrian »

Steve3007 wrote: June 29th, 2018, 2:46 am Fear of strangers is a natural human tendency, but over the years there have been one or two posters on these forums who have made it a central theme of their posts. The most extreme and recent of these is of course Dachshund whose consistently and unashamedly expressed central message here has been that all people who look, dress or talk differently from himself are violent, sub-human morons deserving death; that there are no individual human beings among the other tribe but only a faceless bloc. I think it's interesting to explore some of the causes of this attitude.
Thank you! I haven't seen anyone else that didn't seem to want to pretend nothing was wrong with these statements (including the moderators). I have been waiting for someone else to speak up (I did). I thought maybe there was some dark sarcastic element to this, some joke that I was not in on. But, it is just horrible and should be called out for what it is.

A philosophy forum is one that should never need censorship; we can handle seeing disturbing points of view. We shouldn't have to coddle anyone or give them a pass, though. People should say whatever they want, but we should feel a duty to call them out for something like obvious racism. I have been disappointed and confused as to why nobody was saying anything, and I am relieved to see you write that.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
Steve3007
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Steve3007 »

chewybrian wrote:Thank you! I haven't seen anyone else that didn't seem to want to pretend nothing was wrong with these statements (including the moderators). I have been waiting for someone else to speak up (I did). I thought maybe there was some dark sarcastic element to this, some joke that I was not in on. But, it is just horrible and should be called out for what it is.
I think it's just that he joined the forum a few months before you and perhaps by the time you joined most of the speaking up against him had already been done. He'd already made his case for the slavery of women and the labelling of non-white people as sub-human.

Like you, when I first saw those kinds of views expressed I assumed that they were part of an act or affectation whose purpose was simply to provoke an outraged reaction for fun. A.K.A. trolling. I'm still not sure whether or not that's true, or partly true, and I guess I never will be, but I'm slightly more convinced now that the views he expresses are genuinely his own. They seem to fit into a pattern of being almost pathologically fearful and hateful of "the other", along with a condescension of tone that speaks of a deep, deep arrogance. The hatred and vitriol extends from all non-white people to targets as bizarre and specific as women who dye their hair. If it's genuine, then I think it's quite an interesting, if disturbing, case.

Anyway, when views like that are expressed, eventually it becomes pointless to call them out because their craziness is too obvious. The conversation has moved on. This is why, when it was the turn of the entire past and present population of Japan to be vilified and condemned in a recent post of Dachshund's, I skimmed it and thought "Meh. More of the same." Let him rant.
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chewybrian
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by chewybrian »

Steve3007 wrote: June 29th, 2018, 7:39 amLike you, when I first saw those kinds of views expressed I assumed that they were part of an act or affectation whose purpose was simply to provoke an outraged reaction for fun. A.K.A. trolling. I'm still not sure whether or not that's true, or partly true, and I guess I never will be, but I'm slightly more convinced now that the views he expresses are genuinely his own. They seem to fit into a pattern of being almost pathologically fearful and hateful of "the other", along with a condescension of tone that speaks of a deep, deep arrogance. The hatred and vitriol extends from all non-white people to targets as bizarre and specific as women who dye their hair. If it's genuine, then I think it's quite an interesting, if disturbing, case.
This expression of arrogance combined with disdain for anyone not 'in the tribe' seems consistent with genuine racism. Of course, it is a frustrating fact of being on the internet that people often pretend to be something they are not for a host of reasons. I have to agree with your assessment, though I'll never know, either.
Steve3007 wrote: June 29th, 2018, 7:39 amI think it's just that he joined the forum a few months before you and perhaps by the time you joined most of the speaking up against him had already been done. He'd already made his case for the slavery of women and the labelling of non-white people as sub-human.
...
Anyway, when views like that are expressed, eventually it becomes pointless to call them out because their craziness is too obvious. The conversation has moved on. This is why, when it was the turn of the entire past and present population of Japan to be vilified and condemned in a recent post of Dachshund's, I skimmed it and thought "Meh. More of the same." Let him rant.
This is a reasonable explanation of the indifference I was seeing. It becomes seemingly tedious and unnecessary to respond. But it brings to mind something I was reading just yesterday:

https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/L ... m_Jail.pdf
I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years
I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great
stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate
who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace
which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods
of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of
time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of
good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more
bewildering than outright rejection.


Of course, this situation is not perfectly parallel. Nobody is, presumably, suffering direct injustice because some guy on the internet thinks he is superior to others due to the color of his skin or the city of his birth, and not because of character or worthwhile accomplishments (both of which would usually involve humility rather than arrogance!).

But, it seems worth pointing out that MLK was more frustrated with moderates who accepted the status quo than active racists, because they could have and should have been pushing for justice instead of taking the easy way out. They had a greater burden than the racists because they perceived the injustice accurately, instead of mistaking it for justice, yet did not want to act.

I don't mean to push for censorship or banning, or to make anyone feel bad for not saying anything. Maybe just a little nudge, though...
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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LuckyR
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by LuckyR »

When someone shows you who they are, believe them. When an adversary is harming their own position, let them.
"As usual... it depends."
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JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

Steve3007 wrote: June 29th, 2018, 2:46 am It's not clear that [instantaneous language translation] could ever be possible, but if it were would it allow us to empathize with the stranger? Or is our natural tribalism and hostility necessary and would it still need to assert itself in other ways?
I’ve been thinking about this since I read E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence (highly recommended). A weird thing happened when evolution generated a cultural species. We know that evolution is driven (loosely) by “survival of the fittest”. But when creatures evolved that can communicate in complex ways, cooperation within a defined group turned out to be a better strategy for fitness than competition. But then there seems to be a dynamic tension between cooperation and competition both inside the group and between groups. So inside the group you can get individuals who are more competitive than cooperative, and they tend gain advantage over others within the group. But if there are too many such in the group, the group will fail in its competition with other groups.

And when you get a higher level of communication complexity, you get culture. And then you get the same dynamics at a meta-level. The more competitive groups will gain advantage over other groups, but cooperative groups which form a meta-group, such as States which become United, have an advantage against other groups.

I think as a natural result of the tension between cooperation and competition, natural selection “chose” to produce individuals whose innate (genetic) level of cooperation v. competition exists over a range. Culture can modify innate settings by establishing ethics via specific teachings (golden rule), laws (thou shalt not kill), but these modifications can go both ways. Sometimes we praise the Uber-cooperator (martyrs), and sometimes we praise the Uber-competitor (champions).

But along with this higher level of communication, you get rationalization, and this lets individuals self-modify, or at least justify, their innate settings and thus resist modification of those settings in spite of culture. This is how you get individuals who think they are being cooperative by sacrificing themselves in an act (suicide bombing) that seems so uncooperative to observers. This is also how you get individuals who choose to redefine their group with absurd reasoning so as to justify their innate settings. Anything outside the group becomes unworthy of concern, and can safely be competed against.

So the bottom line is: competition is good but cooperation is better. And all we can do is use culture to influence those we can influence, and control the damage of those we cannot.

*
Eduk
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Eduk »

Tribalism is a way of punishing or rewarding children for their parents behaviour. Reality, over time, tends to win so tribes need to either adapt or cease to be. Either are good options.
The worst option is to cross tribes and allow other tribes good actions to counterbalance your tribes bad actions. Or vice versa.
By the way Steve non verbal communication, in my experience, is pretty effective. And many things of real import don't need saying out loud. Actions speak louder. Not that a Babel fish wouldn't be a great thing but I don't think it would be as profound as you posit.
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Steve3007
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Steve3007 »

JamesOfSeattle:

Yes I agree that the tension between cooperation and competition in human tribes and societies is interesting. I'm not sure if we can really say that one is better than the other. Perhaps they're just complimentary?
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Steve3007 »

Eduk wrote:By the way Steve non verbal communication, in my experience, is pretty effective. And many things of real import don't need saying out loud. Actions speak louder. Not that a Babel fish wouldn't be a great thing but I don't think it would be as profound as you posit.
I agree that non-verbal communication is very important and I think that's one of the reasons why face-to-face contact between people is so important. For example, I think it's significant that despite all of the fantastic means of remote communication that modern technology gives to political leaders, when attempting to build mutual understanding they generally tend to want to throw all that aside and talk in person, with nothing in between them.
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Eduk »

This might deserve its own post but how do you define racism Steve?
Does using a racial slur make you racist? Are there levels of racism? Can a person who has no contact with other races than their own be racist? How important is discrimination?
To draw a comparison there are some groups today who label themselves Nazis. How do they differ, if at all, from the original group?
My point really is that some of the more trollish members of this forum are possibly in quite a weak and unexamined position. I even have some, small, hope for them should they ever experience a little more of life.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Sy Borg »

chewybrian wrote: June 29th, 2018, 6:56 amThank you! I haven't seen anyone else that didn't seem to want to pretend nothing was wrong with these statements (including the moderators).
Steve is exactly right. We don't feel compelled to repeat ourselves in circular arguments with forum oddities to keep putting on a good show for new members. Maybe if we were paid it would be another matter.

I suggest you try asking John (Dachshund) if I have accepted his ideas without argument. The poor guy hates just about everything and everyone so he probably could do with a belly laugh :D
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Sy Borg
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve, my head was turned around by a documentary about a chimpanzee society that was unusual for its size https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQn1-mLkIHw

Most chimp societies fracture at about 100 but the Ngogo chimps numbered far more. What brought up the light bulb over my head was the narrative near the end, noting that the society started to fracture at around 200. The warning signs were that some troupe members would start treating other members as they would outsiders. That is exactly what happens in human societies when populations become too large.

Looking at the world happiness index, it would seem that populations over ten million tend to be less cohesive and supportive. Still, I think that xenophobia levels would have naturally reduced through greater societal maturity and awareness except for rapidly increasing immigration rates without associated infrastructure investment. If you were going to devise a way of turning people racist, that is exactly how you'd do it - bring in millions of people and do nothing to reduce or acknowledge the inconvenience.

Racism is exacerbated further by the fact that politicians refuse to seriously discuss the issue and the media refuses to give the issue any air. Thus, there is clearly collusion between government and big business to drive up immigration levels for the latter's profits, with zero regard for little people.

All of this is sustained by the lie that immigration is needed for growth. In truth, a rising GDP is pointless if GDP per capita is falling, with increasing numbers of the middle class falling into poverty, and greater number of poor people without homes.
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Felix
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Felix »

All of this is sustained by the lie that immigration is needed for growth. In truth, a rising GDP is pointless if GDP per capita is falling, with increasing numbers of the middle class falling into poverty, and greater number of poor people without homes.
It would not be a lie in those countries with a large percentage of older, non working age people, and a low and/or declining birthrate. It is said those demographics fit the U.S. but the large and ever increasing disparity in income between the "one percenters" and the rest of the population makes one question that statistic.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Sy Borg
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Sy Borg »

Felix wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 9:59 pm
All of this is sustained by the lie that immigration is needed for growth. In truth, a rising GDP is pointless if GDP per capita is falling, with increasing numbers of the middle class falling into poverty, and greater number of poor people without homes.
It would not be a lie in those countries with a large percentage of older, non working age people, and a low and/or declining birthrate. It is said those demographics fit the U.S. but the large and ever increasing disparity in income between the "one percenters" and the rest of the population makes one question that statistic.
That's increasingly less important because jobs are rapidly being replaced by automation. There is also a difference between the migration programs of old and deeply problematic numbers today in many nations that's driving the rise of racism and xenophobia.

The losers in this situations are migrants being victimised and struggling locals who can no longer compete for work or housing. The perpetrators who should be bearing any cost and brunt - multinational companies and complicit politicians - are thriving from the extra profits and artificially inflated metrics. It's pure exploitation, but the discussion has been rendered taboo. Many of us don't care if migrants are Chinese, British, Indian, Sudanese, Tongan or Betelgeusian - it's simply a matter of numbers.
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Re: Babel and Xenophobia

Post by Eduk »

If I had been raised in an abusive household and done my best not to work at school and enjoyed the excesses of life, drink, drugs, rough sex etc. And then some migrant came along willing to work harder than me and able to deal better with the trauma in their lives then I too would be xenophobic. I'm not sure it's fair though.
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