/lit/ - Literature

what a nuanced reading you gave. totally not a hack post.

>>7290353
to make money

>>7290353
>Why is this guy and this book taken so seriously?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sxttk5REkM

>How is that interesting to people?
It's relevant to current events and political trends. I guess there are people out there that think it provides insight.

>>7290353
Read his huge article he wrote in The Atlantic about the need for reparations. I dont fully agree with his conclusion, but his arguments are very interesting, and his writing and research are stellar. Heres the link fam http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

>>7290369
>ucla
>relevant in academia

White liberals enjoy reading a book to absolve their guilt and some black people enjoy thinking they've never done anything wrong.

>>7290374
I couldn't take it seriously the moment I saw the phrase "moral debts."

>>7290374
>and his writing and research are stellar.
>writing/stellar

Than Shakespeare is GOD.

>>7290353
He's the latest pet nigger of leftist intellectual circles. Leftists are overjoyed that they finally a found a nignog who can string two sentences together and whose work is entirely based on blaming whitey, so they made him famous.

>>7290353

The consolation is the test of time. No mediocre writing will survive just because the author is so and so and people pity him/her. In the long run you are either very good or you will cease to be read and studied.

This guy doesn’t have what it takes to survive; he doesn’t have what it takes to make the whole journey. He is doomed to die as an artist. Merit does not give a damn about the reason why you can’t achieve real greatness: if it is because of your nature, nurture, culture or biology, it doesn’t matter: mediocrity will eventually die. It can take 50 or 100 years, but it will die.

>>7290380
>>relevant in academia
>academia
>relevant

In the end it’s all individual.

>>7290419
I see what you're saying, but what if it changes this time?

he's coming to speak at my school in like two weeks, will report back

>>7290353
Who honestly gives a shit about modern literature though?

>>7290419
That is the destiny of most people that analyze contemporary issues. Unless they persist into the future in a very similar manner, it is very unlikely that he'll appeal to future readers. The question we should ask ourselves about writers of this sort is why exactly are they popular at the moment.

I think he's right, actually.

>>7290475

No, you dont.

>>7290475
Niggers already receive plenty of reparations, it's called welfare and affirmative action.

>>7290475
:^)

>>7290518
/pol/ please go

I don't think anyone on this board had read this book.

>>7290561
You're right.

>>7290470
why should i care about who is popular in the moment

>>7290550

bla bla bla, fuck off.

>>7290550
It's a shame that guy had to bust out the N-word, but affirmative action and welfare programs represent a pretty big gift to that community.

I think we should do something to improve black communities, but 'reparations' goes too far. It pushes the issue into purely symbolic territory - will we be paying black people off to apologize for their ancestors being enslaved, even after solving their current problems?
>"Hey, we've ended police brutality, stopped the drug war, and raised living standards in the inner city, but MLK got shot so gib moni pls."
t. Coates in 2050

>>7290588
It's not a gift if anyone can receive it. You're just mad because you don't think anyone should get free stuff. Be honest with yourself.

>>7290608
Not everyone can use affirmative action

>>7290617
Not everyone is a victim of prejudice.

>>7290624
Yes, only white males are at this point in our fucked up, leftist Hell we call "society"

>>7290608
>anyone can use affirmative action
There's also a solid case to be made that one community disproportionately leaning on the dole paid for by groups that disproportionately pay income taxes is receiving a lot from them, whether the symbolism is present or not.

I'm in favor of universal basic income, and don't see how that conflicts with my interpretation of the past 50 years of welfare payouts.

>>7290601
This. Meeting a well defined set of criteria is much more useful than responding to everyone who makes an impassioned plea for a gesture.

>>7290353

I like the substance of OP's rhetoric, but no one else has pointed this out, so I will: you misspelled "insightful", OP. Now you will have a little better command of language for next time. </spelling_nazi>

As for the book itself, I think it's just a meme for progressives to dovetail with the BLM stuff, so it's "relevant" both for real reasons, and at the same time because the media has been manufacturing its relevance. Basically what this guy said (who spelled "insight" correctly :^) . MSNBC anchors can't stop fapping to this guy.

There really is an anti-white ethnomasochism which has gripped the west, helped by some whites, which has intensified in the past five years to the point of wanting whites to somehow be "leveled" down to everyone else's level, whether by wealth redistribution, killing cops, etc. Nor is it legitimate for an anon to scoff "/pol/ pls go" at this; everyone reading this knows exactly what I am talking about, in its present-day context.

>>7290624
Thats funny because I see black people on facebook all the time saying that they can be prejudice and not be racist

>>7290640
>People on FB are dumb and wrong
You are truly the greatest philosopher of our time.

>>7290632
Now you show your true colors! Why didn't you start out by doing that? People would think you were a lot more sincere and willing to engage.

>>7290636
/pol/ pls go :')

>>7290645
Every single shitskin and woman in the West knows that they're no longer oppressed. All White Men in their hearts know that our potential is being crushed in the vice-like grip of Zionism. In the depths of his soul EVERY SINGLE White Man in the West knows that he suffers unimaginable oppression on a daily basis, but he fears the leftists Zionists too much to speak out.

Report /pol/, please don't give them the satisfaction of thinking they've successfully disguised their shit as a /lit/ related post.

>>7290634
Wow, poor people don't pay much in income taxes, AND they get dole money? Who'da thunkit? It's not the like Western world intentionally aims for a progressive income tax regime. You should apply for a position at Cato, genius.

As for receivers of welfare, the purpose of programs like these is to achieve societal goals. So-called "leveling of the races" is a societal goal, whether you want it to be or not. Americans figured out 50 years ago that they were fucked if they didn't pursue racial reform.

>>7290660
Yes, black people are disproportionately poor compared to other groups because of their history of oppression. Where are you getting the idea that I disagree with you about that?

>whether you want it to be or not
Where are you getting the idea that I don't want it to be? Because I don't think one man's proposal for one specific action is a good idea? Take a chill pill.

>>7290353
>Everything he writes starts from a premise (white people are guilty, black people are innocent) then jumps through a million hoops to justify it for any situation.

Sounds like he got better arguments than u and u just mad nigguh

too fucking /pol/ in here

each side is just pushing absurd victim-identity politics that completely disregard the agency of the individual in some kind of presumption that egalitarianism in capable of penetrating even a single fiber of the consumerist chokehold on society, it's a disgusting competition to see how far you can throw away your dignity to claim offense against you

>black people are victims, we deserve your money because our descendants used to work
>white males are the REAL victims of today's society, blacks and minorities have endless entitlements and we're all slaves to the jew, also people want to ban my videogames and porn
>women are literally each raped hundreds of times a day, and have been enslaved by men since time began, they are the greatest victims of all
>trannies

>>7290470
>writes about contemporary issues
>popular during the period those issues are contemporary

GEE I WONDER

>>7290701
>point out a salient issue
>STOP BEING A VICTIM
>BACK 2 /pol/

Yeah, whatever you say cuck

>>7290644
Im just saying that is how the average nigger thinks

Dont even get me started on the Nation of Islam

>>7290711
He's right though. Fighting to be acknowledged as a victim is pathetic, and the people who do so know it because they always try to point out how they're also actually the master race (we built the pyramids/white men conquered the world because they're all better than you/women are smarter than men).

>>7290359
>hack writing
>chinese cartoon imageboard

>>7290711

Explain to me how you think that identifying as a victim is at all beneficial aside from essentially throwing yourself at the mercy of your victimizer and demanding that they pity you?

>>7290677
>Yes, black people are disproportionately poor compared to other groups because of their history of oppression
Black people are disproportionately poor because they have a lower average IQ than whites.

If you actually control for IQ - i.e., compare the household income of whites and blacks of the same IQ - then the disparity disappears. A black with an IQ of 100 makes as much money as a white with an IQ of 100.

>>7290721
>Im just saying that is how the average nigger thinks
By that reasoning, the average conservative thinks that the truth of a statement increases in direct proportion to the number of artifacts in the jpg through which the statement is presented.

>>7290738
>>7290747
Being a victim means you deserve an apology for the respect you were denied. If someone punched you in the face and laughed, what would you do, being the victim?

>>7290353
>Dissing Ta-Nietzche GOATes

smh tbh this generation fam

>>7290754
Racism and cognitive differences aren't mutually exclusive. I don't doubt that there's a difference, but regardless there's a case to be made that avoiding having an obvious caste system is a good thing.

>>7290763
Are you saying the appropriate response to getting punched in the face is to cry a lot and follow the guy around explaining all the nuances of how he's a dick that punched you in the face?

You'd get way more respect (if that's something you value) if you took it like a man, told the guy who punched you that he's not shit and went about your day, then in the future you make more money than him or something. Begging for an apology like your life depends on it may get an apology, but it won't get respect.

>>7290759
Kek'd

I hate conservatives and liberals fam

>>7290767
>Racism and cognitive differences aren't mutually exclusive
The point being that there is no proof that racism prevents blacks from achieving success since intelligent blacks perform on par with whites when accounting for IQ.

> but regardless there's a case to be made that avoiding having an obvious caste system is a good thing.
Too late, a caste system based on cognitive ability has already happened. It's an inevitable consequence of public education.

>>7290777
Wrong. You sure are stupid!

You take him to the court of public opinion, like black people did with white people. These things actually happened, with actual results, and those who did the punching were found guilty.

>wuh wuh wuh why don't black people just go about their day and be good

Eat shit faggot.

>>7290797
The only people who go around punching people in the street are blacks. They call it the knockout game.

>>7290777
This analogy would work well if you weren't trying to anthropomorphize millions of people throughout a variety of eras fam.

Affirmative action is wrong, but people from lower income brackets deserve government assistance.

>>7290815
>but people from lower income brackets deserve government assistance.
Why?

>>7290807
Nice job being dense, you're very convincing.

>>7290814
You're misusing the word anthropomorphize. Consider getting your GED.

>>7290824
Who are those mythical white people who go on punching innocent blacks?

>>7290816
If you'd ever been raised in a poor household you'd know why.

>>7290797
>These things actually happened, with actual results
One of those results is that a lot of people either resent blacks or treat them like children, and a lot of black people are aware of this and hate it.

>>7290834
Yes, good show. Keep it up. (maybe reread what you're responding to, I'm getting embarrassed for you)

>>7290842
That's not a valid answer. That's like a black guy saying "well if you were black you'd know".

Tell me why industrious people should support the lazy, without resorting to "muh fee-feels"

>>7290848
Societal cohesion is a worthwhile goal to seek. Society cohesion is increased when the poor have no reason to riot.

>>7290831
what? anthropomorphosize is to attribute human form or personality to something. How is it misuse if you're attributing human form or personality to a whole mass of people?

both people in this thread have good stuff to say

>>7290848
>If you're poor it's because you're lazy.

What a misconstrued conception you have of the world. You were clearly born middle-class and never had to struggle to eat before in your life. This has nothing to do with race: it's hard-working people struggling to make ends meet. Care about someone other than yourself for once in your life.

>>7290852
>Societal cohesion is a worthwhile goal to seek
American society was far more cohesive before the advent of the welfare state.

Also, I'm very wary of any attempt to increase government size in the name of "social cohesion". That sounds like it could lead to totalitarianism.

>>7290852

>>7290861
American society also had the benefit of nigh-unlimited land, Manifest Destiny, and later on, unionism and anti-Communism. I bet society was pretty cohesive in the 17th century, too. That doesn't mean you can compare it with now and not look like a retard.

>HURR SLIPPERY SLOPE!
Okay, now I know you're not worth bantering with.

>>7290860
>What a misconstrued conception you have of the world
Actually, I try very hard to inform myself about what the statistical data says.

>You were clearly born middle-class and never had to struggle to eat before in your life.
Sure. However, I used to be a bleeding-heart before I actually looked at the data.

>This has nothing to do with race: it's hard-working people struggling to make ends meet
Oh please, enough with this "respectable people who just had bad luck and are trying their best" meme.

Most poor people in America are either mentally retarded or borderline mentally retarded. Many of them are incredibly irresponsible: the bulk of welfare recipients are single mothers with many kids by as many different fathers. They are the worst offenders when it comes to sociopathic behavior : they commit virtually all recorded cases of child abuse, they commit most petty crime, they absolutely destroy the section 8 housing they are generously given, they destroy any school they send their moronic children to.

> Care about someone other than yourself for once in your life.
I care about the intelligent and hard working people. Protip : they're not on welfare.

>>7290860
Why should he care about anything? Before you answer that, explain how "shoulds" exist. You are implying that reasons can exist, but they can't. Reasons are fictions of the imagination.

This guy could be anything: black, White, Martian, a transsexual, a Nazy, anything, as long as he was great as a writer.

The problem is that this guy is simply an average writer. He defends some sociological points, like thousands of people do, in a normal prose style: he is just the same thing as thousands of other boring writers that are of no interest to one who loves writing for either plot-storytelling, character creation and verbal beauty/poetic-capacities.

This guy is not a creative writer, he is a pseudo sociologist who can write the in the same way that all columnists in the newspapers around the world.

He is not exceptional, he is not truly gifted: he is a normal dude. That’s the problem.

>>7290875
>American society also had the benefit of nigh-unlimited land, Manifest Destiny, and later on, unionism and anti-Communism.
I don't see how that would cause social cohesion. Imperial Russia had many of those things, and it was very unstable.

> I bet society was pretty cohesive in the 17th century, too.
Depends on which country you're talking about.

>HURR SLIPPERY SLOPE!
Just saying "slippery slope" does not constitute an argument. Without wanting to score any Godwin points, I just want to remind you that some pretty atrocious things were done in the name of "social cohesion".

>Okay, now I know you're not worth bantering with.
I thought we were having a debate, not bantering.

ITT: an adjunct professor and an edgy twentysomethnig

>>7290878
>Why should I care about anything?

Nihilistic autism.

>>7290877
>I care about other people, BUT only given these certain circumstances.

Born silver spoon in hand, feel no empathy for others unless they fit my narrow guidelines, make blanket statements on entire groups based on what the news tells me: I AM middle-class America.

>>7290892
>>I care about other people, BUT only given these certain circumstances.
How is that bad? Am I a bad man for not caring about pedophiles either? Pedophiles don't fit my criteria of respectability, am I being a bigot? Fuck off. I'm sure you hate rich people a hundred times more than I dislike poor people.

>, make blanket statements on entire groups based on what the news tells me
I base my opinions on social studies I read on the internet. If I watched the news, I'd think exactly like you : that poor people dindu nuffin and it's all the fault of evil rich people.

>>7290901
>dissing on the middle class this hard
Sorry they're not interesting, but cultivating more like them is a surefire way to societal cohesion.

>>7290906
>dissing on the middle class this hard
What? I'm DEFENDING the middle class.

Worthless leeches on welfare ARE NOT THE MIDDLE CLASS.

>>7290910
whoops, meant >>7290906 for >>7290901

>>7290918
goddammit I meant for >>7290892

>>7290918
Try again, third time's the charm...

>>7290877
Very forward thinking, and realistic! Except you don't improve results by withdrawing aid. Bleeding hearts have it right, you have it wrong: Benefits like welfare and TANF is the far wiser and more productive choice than have these people be relegated to crime (that you so decry) and other unproductive behavior. Do you think people on welfare would commit less crime if they had no way to support themselves? Get real. Your other allegations I don't doubt, but a source sure would be nice since you sound more like a virulent racist foaming at the mouth than any kind of thinking person.

>It's all their fault, just be a problem that never goes away
Good thing you're not in office!

>>7290901
Doubtful. I don't claim upper-class people to be the scum of the earth as you happen to be doing for lower-class.

I'm pro-welfare because there were times in my childhood where the cupboards were empty and my mother couldn't make ends meet to feed me. It wasn't my fault I was born under these circumstances, and I've since then contributed more to my community in positive ways than anyone like you who reads "social studies ... on the internet" ever would care about doing.

No one's at fault here, but it's not a dog eat dog world like your parents raised you to believe. We're here to help each other out the best we can and to love one another before life is sealed by death. Relearn empathy, you former "bleeding heart."

>>7290879
Mark Twain could be anything: black, White, Martian, a transsexual, a Nazy, anything, as long as he was great as a writer.

The problem is that this guy is simply an average writer. He defends some sociological points, like thousands of people do, in a normal prose style: he is just the same thing as thousands of other boring writers that are of no interest to one who loves writing for either plot-storytelling, character creation and verbal beauty/poetic-capacities.

This guy is not a creative writer, he is a pseudo sociologist who can write the in the same way that all columnists in the newspapers around the world.

He is not exceptional, he is not truly gifted: he is a normal dude. That’s the problem.

>>7290353

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT /POL/ CAN'T YOU JUST STAY ON YOUR FREAKSHOW CONTAINMENT BOARD?

>>7290927
>Very forward thinking
I know you're saying this ironically, but since the mainstream position is now similar to yours, I am indeed forward thinking.

> Except you don't improve results by withdrawing aid.
Yes you do. You break the welfare cycle.

>Bleeding hearts have it right, you have it wrong: Benefits like welfare and TANF is the far wiser and more productive choice than have these people be relegated to crime (that you so decry) and other unproductive behavior.
Far wiser if you want America to look like Detroit. If those people had a job maybe they wouldn't have the time to commit crime.

> Do you think people on welfare would commit less crime if they had no way to support themselves?
Well, yes.

>Get real
So your main argument against the abolition of welfare is that those mentally retarded welfare recipients will chimpout if we block their EBT accounts? That's the most pathetic argument I've ever heard.

You know what? Let them chimpout. Send in the national guard, and mow them down.

> Your other allegations I don't doubt, but a source sure would be nice since you sound more like a virulent racist foaming at the mouth than any kind of thinking person.
My main source is "The Bell Curve" from Murray and Herrnstein.

>Good thing you're not in office!
Good thing for you indeed.

>>7290885
Wow, I have apples, you have oranges. We should start a fruit stand.

Imperial Russia was also a monarchy instead of a republic, in case you're being willfully ignorant.

The rest is trash unworthy of consideration. Come back when you can make a lick of sense.

>>7290892
If you're going to go that route, I'll just dismiss your posts as emotional autism.

>>7290929
>Doubtful. I don't claim upper-class people to be the scum of the earth as you happen to be doing for lower-class.
That's because upper class people behave in the most civilized manner.

>I'm pro-welfare because there were times in my childhood where the cupboards were empty and my mother couldn't make ends meet to feed me.
Where was your father? Why couldn't your mother make the ends meet? How old was she when she had you? What was her educational level?

>It wasn't my fault I was born under these circumstances,
Sure, it was your mother's fault most probably.

>and I've since then contributed more to my community in positive ways than anyone like you who reads "social studies ... on the internet" ever would care about doing.
Contributed how? Even if you win the Nobel prize, it wouldn't change the fact that you're a statistical abnormality: most children of welfare recipients become welfare recipients themselves.

>No one's at fault here, but it's not a dog eat dog world like your parents raised you to believe.
I never claimed it's dog eat dog, obviously the basis of society is human cooperation. All I'm saying is that people who are unable to contribute shouldn't be subsidized out of a false sense of morality.

>We're here to help each other out the best we can and to love one another before life is sealed by death.
Not really, we're here to survive and to leave a genetic legacy by having babies. No more no less.

>Relearn empathy, you former "bleeding heart."
I'm very empathetic, just not towards degenerates who constitute most welfare recipients...

>>7290942
>Look at me, I'm a card-carrying Ku Klux Klan member

I didn't know you guys still existed.

>Do you think people on welfare would commit less crime if they had no way to support themselves?
>Well, yes.

And you're a comedian, too!

>>7290747
rile up enough people who are tired of aiding and abetting this system to organize the inevitable synthesis event between races (i.e.: race war(

>>7290942

>>7290949
>Imperial Russia was also a monarchy instead of a republic, in case you're being willfully ignorant.
So what? You're inventing imaginary reasons as long as you go. And anyways, I should remind you that there was an american civil war during the 19th century...

>The rest is trash unworthy of consideration.
Nice cop out. I bet you win all of your debates on reddit too.

>>7290815
>I'm still in high school!

>>7290967
If you had actually read the book, you'd know that race is a very minor subject. They only talk about race in one chapter out of 22. Of course, since libtards such as yourself are moronic retards who go frothing at the mouth as soon as there are the two words "black" and "IQ" mentioned in the same sentence, the book was christened by self-righteous leftists as a horrible racist evil book. But really, if you read it, you'll be surprised at how little they talk about blacks.

>>7290974

(nice job missing the joke entirely, brah)

>>7290885
>I don't see how that would cause social cohesion. Imperial Russia had many of those things, and it was very unstable.

You know nothing about Russian history.

>>7290980
What joke?

>>7290968
>le reddit boogeyperson

Oh heavens, call the Internet police, someone's browsing an unapproved website.

As I see you are being willfully ignorant about the difference between monarchies and republics, I acknowledge your duplicity and understand why you would resort to such a thing. As for some civil war or something regarding, what was it, America? One can't imagine how that would have happened. After all, America was extremely cohesive, everyone living there was happy, and no one could have seen it coming in the early 1860s.

>>7290984
I'm pretty sure I know more than you.

Anyways, this argument is stupid. That anon's original argument that "manifest destiny" caused social cohesion is so stupid I shouldn't have bothered trying to find a counter example.

>>7290990
>One can't imagine how that would have happened. After all, America was extremely cohesive, everyone living there was happy, and no one could have seen it coming in the early 1860s.
Well, that's what you (or some other anon) were claiming in this post : >>7290875

>>7290995
Are you fucking serious nigger?

Are you trying to refute one of the main tenets of modern American historiography, the moving frontier of Frederick J. Turner?

You know why you couldn't find a counter-example? Because there fucking isn't one.

>>7290963
I'm sure my life story is exactly what you expect, and even though I may be a "statistical abnormality," look at this way: it's like due process in a court of law. Even though it's very likely that criminal lawyers will find loopholes in the system to aid criminals into not going to prison, so people who can't make ends meet also deserve the same rights.

Sure, some will abuse the system. But it's for those people who were falsely accused of criminal actions who are the reasons why we hold trials for people we otherwise wouldn't think twice about deeming as a criminal.

Just because people abuse the system doesn't mean we should strip it from the people who potentially found themselves caught trapped in it helplessly. By removing welfare you're depriving it not only from the "degenerates" but also the people who sincerely need it.

>>7290986

The joke is that there are a great deal of self-styled "racial realists" who base the order of their racial hierarchy theories on IQ data from the Bell Curve but are so lazy they only glean this from the Wikipedia article rather than the actual text.

It's funny that they don't read the source of the arguments and numbers they use as a foundation for their worldview. One could make similar pictures using, say, a screencap of "Das Kapital" and large text stating, "I AM AN EXPERT ON CLASS RELATIONS."

>>7290995
I dunno, bro, land for everyone sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Get those bottom-feeding criminals in the East out in the pasture of the West where they can stop being such a nuisance.

>>7291002
>Are you trying to refute one of the main tenets of modern American historiography, the moving frontier of Frederick J. Turner?
...wat? You're so goddamned retarded I don't know what you're trying to argue here.

Are you honestly claiming that the lower crime rates, lower rates of child illegitimacy and lower rates of divorce, all of which contribute to this thing called "social cohesion", were due to, I quote : "nigh-unlimited land, Manifest Destiny, and later on, unionism and anti-Communism" ?

>>7291008
>lower rates of child illegitimacy

And this is important because?

>lower crime rates, lower rates of child illegitimacy and lower rates of divorce

And these are the sole indicators of social cohesion because...?

>>7291000
Exactly. It was cohesive, and then you had those annoying non-white people thinking they had rights or whatever, and then it all went to shit for 150 years. Right? That's exactly what happened, right?

>>7291003
>I'm sure my life story is exactly what you expect
All right.

>look at this way: it's like due process in a court of law. Even though it's very likely that criminal lawyers will find loopholes in the system to aid criminals into not going to prison, so people who can't make ends meet also deserve the same rights.
I don't get it. Welfare is not "having the same rights". It's having extra rights.

>Sure, some will abuse the system. But it's for those people who were falsely accused of criminal actions who are the reasons why we hold trials for people we otherwise wouldn't think twice about deeming as a criminal.
The criminal justice system and welfare are not at all comparable. I'm not even targeting "people who abuse the system" specifically. I'm against ANYONE using welfare.

>Just because people abuse the system doesn't mean we should strip it from the people who potentially found themselves caught trapped in it helplessly
Yes we should. Nobody should get free handouts.

> By removing welfare you're depriving it not only from the "degenerates" but also the people who sincerely need it.
Nobody "sincerely needs" welfare. Only degenerates rely on welfare.

>>7291030
Alright, I tried. Have a nice day. At least I can take comfort in knowing my vote will cancel yours out.

>>7291004
Don't generalize, I actually read the book.

>>7291040

God you are an intolerable piece of shit. Don't take pictures on the internet personally you fucking queer.

>>7291008
Think of it this way: Manifest Destiny means free land. Free land for 100+ years, you just have to go out and take it (and slaughter some Indians, but who cares). How is that any different from welfare? You're literally getting free stuff, and nobody even has to pay for it! The relative cohesion of the 19th century for America isn't a big surprise compared to the endless revolutions in Europe at that time. People in American could fucking move 2,000 miles away if they wanted to get away from their government.

>>7291005
There were similar colonization programs in Siberia during the reign of the Tzar.

>>7291026
>And this is important because?
Are you being serious? Illegitimate children have all sorts of behavioral problems. Illegitimacy increases social instability.

>And these are the sole indicators of social cohesion because...?
They're not the sole indicators, they're indicators off the top of my head. I'm curious as to what are your indicators?

>>7291027
Now you're trying to shift the goalposts with a ridiculous appeal to emotion, trying to get me to say something along the lines of "hurr durr those stoopid niggers".

If you don't have anything intelligent to say, please refrain from posting.

>>7291039
>Alright, I tried. Have a nice day.
You too. But you haven't refuted a single one of my points, you do realize that?

>At least I can take comfort in knowing my vote will cancel yours out.
This is a strong argument against universal suffrage.

>>7291051
...wat? Why the outburst of sudden impotent rage?

>>7290763
>you deserve an apology

I don't deserve anything. Nobody does. The idea of deserving something does not exist save for in those minds who do not understand the myth of its existence being wholly necessary to hide our nature.

>>7291061

My joke stands discarded, unappreciated. Meanwhile you are asking for a trophy for reading a book on the literature board and complaining about how the joke offended you. I mean sure, maybe it was a bad joke, but just role along then, sheash.

"Uhhh that's not funnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"

That makes me angry, dick breath.

>>7291053
Mmmh, that makes sense. I guess this could be an argument in favor as to why America didn't have any revolutionary movements (well apart from the confederates, but that's a whole other story) against the government. But when I was referring to "societal cohesion" I was more referring to things such as low crime rates, not popular discontent.

>>7291054
Siberia is a little different, being completely inhospitable. Not like, say, San Francisco, you might notice, if you weren't blind.

As for alleged bait, not at all. Slurs are the purview of people who don't have the power to enact their worldview. You don't hate any people, you just advocate unproductive policies that destroy people. These are two very different things: one is an appeal to oneself, the other is an appeal to one's (misguided) ideals.

>>7291061
I was merely giving you my perspective of the world gained through personal experience. If you see everything as an argument I suppose it's pretty difficult not to realize that, though.

>>7291062
Nothing exists, which is great for me when I think of you, because when I do that, I can remind myself you're nothing.

>>7291064
Are you legitimately autistic? Do you also react this way IRL when one of your shitty jokes flops?

>>7291089

Yeah I do so what pussyboy

>>7291083
>Siberia is a little different, being completely inhospitable
Siberia is not completely inhospitable. Many parts of Siberia are fertile. There was indeed during the 19th century a great migration of russian farmers to Siberia.

>As for alleged bait, not at all. Slurs are the purview of people who don't have the power to enact their worldview. You don't hate any people, you just advocate unproductive policies that destroy people.
If you hadn't noticed, welfare is destroying America. I'm advocating for policies which halt this destruction.

>>7291085
>I was merely giving you my perspective of the world gained through personal experience.
I thank you for that, but it's not really relevant.

>If you see everything as an argument I suppose it's pretty difficult not to realize that, though.
I'm not your psychologist, we are indeed having an argument.

If it's not too indiscreet, why were you on welfare as a kid? Where was your father? How old was your mother? How educated was she?

>>7291102
It doesn't matter. I'm done here.

>>7291108
I thought you were giving your perspective. Your refusal to answer basic questions shows that you are not being very genuine.

>>7291112
I already gave my perspective and you disagreed with it. Nothing more to see here, folks.

>>7291114
>I already gave my perspective and you disagreed with it
No you didn't, you said a bunch of platitudes. Now you're refusing to answer basic questions. This is pretty childish tbh.

>>7290374
But his arguments are basically dishonest, or at least badly uninformed. Let's go through it in order:
I-III. The first substantive thing in here is the contract-mortgage saga. Here's the thing: the provisions that he's complaining about are only slightly different from those that are in every mortgage. Then he throws out some factoids about African-Americans with high incomes having less in savings than Whites of the same income level. No real context or explanation is given--we're just meant to infer that sinister forces are at work. Then we get some inspirational stories that don't really have much upshot.
IV. Slavery. He presents a fair number of statistics, but he doesn't really do so systematically. He doesn't do the work of coming up with a number, or even a rough approximation of one. He talks for a while about separation of slave families, but he doesn't come close to a hard number for how many occurred. Is it not possible to make an estimate? Has he declined to do the research? Is he just declining to tell us? Not at all clear.
V. Violence in the post-Reconstruction South. A lot of vivid anecdotes and not a lot to concretize what the conditions really were for most people.
VI. Back to housing in Chicago--some stuff about race riots in the 1940s, but, again, not much context or explanation of what the real material stakes were or what the outcomes were.
VII. Back to the Contract Buyers League--very vivid storytelling, not a lot of hard facts.
VIII-IX. A lot of quotes from various community leaders and academics, plus some more oral-history anecdotes. Not much to really respond to.
X. Suddenly we're talking about the Holocaust and the German reparations to Israel. These are supposed to have been responsible for Israel's new-found prosperity. OK, an argument for once. Certainly the money must have had some impact--but in combination with the high education, training, and social capital of the Israeli Jewish population, the general worldwide economic boom of the 1950s, the general tendency for new settler states to grow rapidly, etc. Has Coates thought about these factors? Then, oddly, we pivot to the real-estate bubble. Coates has spent thousands of words now on the moral evil of banks that refused to lend to black home-buyers. But in the Clinton/Bush era, when they did provide loans at an unprecedented rate, at the behest of the federal government--this, too, is a vast injustice.

He's a skilled rhetorician, but he just doesn't have enough factual knowledge of the world to really make any honest point.

>>7291102
Pretty sure welfare is one of the main components of America being the richest country on earth. In purely economic terms, the case for welfare is obvious.

If you're arguing about moral fabric or similar, then we can argue until the cows come home. I would again point to those places without or with less welfare and compare them to those with.

I'll let you save face on Siberia, since it's not Antarctica, but you might want to look at its population density compared to that of the American West.

>>7291129
>Pretty sure welfare is one of the main components of America being the richest country on earth.
Err no, welfare recipients don't create any wealth. The wealth gap between America and the rest of the world was much higher before the advent of the welfare state.

>In purely economic terms, the case for welfare is obvious.
Ha! Really? In what ways?

>If you're arguing about moral fabric or similar, then we can argue until the cows come home. I would again point to those places without or with less welfare and compare them to those with.
Or you could just look at the kind of behavior welfare breeds.

>I'll let you save face on Siberia, since it's not Antarctica, but you might want to look at its population density compared to that of the American West.
Not really comparable, since a lot of it is frozen Tundra. Novossibirsk is the third biggest city in Russia. I'll let you look where it is on a map.

None of this has to do with literature.

>>7290934

Whats the point of this post?

>>7290767


>but regardless there's a case to be made that avoiding having an obvious caste system is a good thing.

Is there? Is there really? That sounds more like symbolic masturbation to me. Looking at the evidence of history its the societies that had caste systems, implicity or explicitly, and *validated* this state of affairs, that were the longest lived.

Whenever you have two groups living in the same space with different situations (garnished by the metalroposition that different groups always will be in different situations), if either group feels that groups position is 'unjustified', conflict is inevitable.

There are basically two solutioexactne is for each group go their own way to their own spaces, side stepping the issue; the other is for society to acknowledge that the subordinate position of one or more groups is meet and right, confronting the root of the issue.

I think in practice you would ideally approach it from both ends. Some groupings are more essential than others, many different systems throughout history have been attempted for different things in different places, and have ended up working out in spite of themselves simply because everyone was already 'on the same page' to begin with. Specifically, whatever particular variation or permutation you may have in mind, ethnic homogeneity is a basic prerequisite for stability. Its not simply a question of differing levels of average ability leading to differing levels of average outcomes leading to resentiment and conflict, though that is part of it. Rather, it has more to do with that fact that if the overall organism is more similar in psychology and general temperament, this makes it easier for cultural technology and frameworks of tradition that mediate social relations and interactions to be invented and implemented, especially in terms of overall solidarity.

After that, what differences remain would be much easier to articulate within a system (namely, with a much less heavier hand).

I think he's right.