Here's a thought for you which you may find interesting, obtuse, or both. Applying an engineering concept to social issues, and the question you tease: when are social issues important to address and at what level. I wrote this as a comment on a post about another social issue than racism, but my point is that all social issues require some sort of similar analysis. At least if one is to be practical vs. mearly ideological......
People need to understand the concept of signal to noise ratio, with repect to social issues. Noise in the societal sense, are the low level problems of everyday life, which everyone experiences, that are annoying, but in no way are impediments to one's long term success and happiness. Take racism for example. If you go to a McDonald's and get poor service because the server is racist. Sure it's bad, but it doesn't have any effect on your life as a whole. It's in the noise. If you can't get into graduate school because you're being discriminated on the basis of race. That's a major impediment to your success -- it's above the noise.
To the author's point, many play victim today, but few really are. Largely this is a failure to appreciate life will never be perfect, we'll always be subject to the noise of life's daily problems and imperfections. The healthy among us will understand this, shrug it off, and persevere anyway.
Not to say there aren't social issues to fix. But we shouldn't be distracted by the noise, which is ever present and unfixable.
I like your framing of the issue. Noise is ever present and an irritant for everyone. Noise is just part of life and creates the stuff of resilience. Pressing the lever of race in my favor with the Echols Scholars program set me on a privileged course towards Harvard Law School and beyond. It was the opposite of not getting into graduate school due to being discriminated on the basis of race.
Here's a question -- suppose one is denied a promotion because one is too black for some and too white for others? Would that be the noise of life or discrimination on the basis of race and thus a major impediment to success? I always fear non-conformers face unarticulated "oppression" in the world.
In my case, the noise has decreased 95% to 98% since the fall of 1969. That is progress. It is also, I suspect, an individual assessment. Over 40 million Americans will have over 40 million perceptions of noise over a lifetime. This is healthy since we want to perceive social issues through the lens of the individual, not the racial group.
I'm curious -- did systemic racism fall away for me in the fall of 1969, the fall of 1978, or some later point in time? It is an individual question, not a collective or group question. Thanks for your good insight into noise versus major impediments to success.
The noise of life is not oppression. The noise of life is...life.
Here's a thought for you which you may find interesting, obtuse, or both. Applying an engineering concept to social issues, and the question you tease: when are social issues important to address and at what level. I wrote this as a comment on a post about another social issue than racism, but my point is that all social issues require some sort of similar analysis. At least if one is to be practical vs. mearly ideological......
People need to understand the concept of signal to noise ratio, with repect to social issues. Noise in the societal sense, are the low level problems of everyday life, which everyone experiences, that are annoying, but in no way are impediments to one's long term success and happiness. Take racism for example. If you go to a McDonald's and get poor service because the server is racist. Sure it's bad, but it doesn't have any effect on your life as a whole. It's in the noise. If you can't get into graduate school because you're being discriminated on the basis of race. That's a major impediment to your success -- it's above the noise.
To the author's point, many play victim today, but few really are. Largely this is a failure to appreciate life will never be perfect, we'll always be subject to the noise of life's daily problems and imperfections. The healthy among us will understand this, shrug it off, and persevere anyway.
Not to say there aren't social issues to fix. But we shouldn't be distracted by the noise, which is ever present and unfixable.
I like your framing of the issue. Noise is ever present and an irritant for everyone. Noise is just part of life and creates the stuff of resilience. Pressing the lever of race in my favor with the Echols Scholars program set me on a privileged course towards Harvard Law School and beyond. It was the opposite of not getting into graduate school due to being discriminated on the basis of race.
Here's a question -- suppose one is denied a promotion because one is too black for some and too white for others? Would that be the noise of life or discrimination on the basis of race and thus a major impediment to success? I always fear non-conformers face unarticulated "oppression" in the world.
In my case, the noise has decreased 95% to 98% since the fall of 1969. That is progress. It is also, I suspect, an individual assessment. Over 40 million Americans will have over 40 million perceptions of noise over a lifetime. This is healthy since we want to perceive social issues through the lens of the individual, not the racial group.
I'm curious -- did systemic racism fall away for me in the fall of 1969, the fall of 1978, or some later point in time? It is an individual question, not a collective or group question. Thanks for your good insight into noise versus major impediments to success.
The noise of life is not oppression. The noise of life is...life.