Yet more problematic stuff

[JimC]

Some left academic postures are very divisive, with a large component of self-righteous sneering at those who do not fully embrace the ideology de jour.

Having said that, their sins pale in comparison to the racist right...

[Sean Hayden]

Study debunks myth that some nations are happier than others

A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has challenged the notion that some nations' citizens are happier than others, finding that inequalities within nations have a greater influence on people's happiness.

The study's author Dr Richard Burns said the findings questioned the usefulness and validity of comparisons of happiness between nations.

"All things considered, happiness does not actually vary very much between nations," said Dr Burns, from the ANU Research School of Population Health.

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/st ... han-others

Between-nation differences in wellbeing are frequently reported. Such differences are attributed to between-nation differences in social, economic and political factors. However, there is a likelihood that between-nation differences are over-estimated as they fail to account for the extent to which wellbeing varies within-nation owing to within-nation factors.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 018-9964-4

Unfortunately I can't find the paper for free atm. If I do I'll link to it.

[Scot Dutchy]

Amazing when the Anglo-Saxon world discovers it is on the lower end of any scale. Instead of trying to improve they just try to form a fog bank of a defence. America is so unhappy that they cant believe that other nations are.

[Sean Hayden]

I remember hearing from someone once that they were surprised their husband thought so fondly of his childhood. He had grown up during a civil war so it just seemed obvious that he should have been miserable. They couldn't wrap their mind around a childhood in such conditions being anything else. But people are funny creatures.

--//--

This study does attempt to find ways to improve happiness btw. You however, have taken the approach of reminding the depressed person of what all they have to be happy about...

--cheer up Scot, you live in paradise after all

[Scot Dutchy]

I would not disagree with that Sean especially after reading about other societies but this is true of all Northern European Social Democracies who enjoy a level of prosperity both socially and financially unknown to many societies where happiness plays a substantial role.

[Sean Hayden]

It's hard to argue that the safety nets in place in the Netherlands wouldn't contribute to increased wellbeing anywhere they were implemented. I mean, despite having similar attitudes towards employment --fire for any reason for example-- we are worlds apart in taking care of those who do find themselves unemployed. Just knowing that you won't be out on the streets if you lose your job is huge.

What I found interesting is the idea that comparisons like these between countries are difficult. It's possible that what really matters isn't that relative to me you have a great deal of security, but that relative to your immediate surroundings you may still be worse off enough to affect your sense of wellbeing. Or, in the case where again relative to the Netherlands someone may have few comforts, there may still be a different dynamic at play which contributes to wellbeing e.g. community.

[Scot Dutchy]

I would agree that not all societies would appreciate the security we have and could live with it. My sister's partner in Mexico cant stand this country as it is too organised and controlling. He loves the corruption of Mexican society. Different strokes for different folks. I like to see happy people not pure poverty in my face.

[Sean Hayden]

[Seabass]

Thomas Sowell.

• Asian-Americans are well off, not because of government policies, but because of culture? What a joke. I've already explained elsewhere that Asian-Americans do well in the US because of Civil Rights era changes to immigration policies.
• The US isn't a meritocracy. Not a very good one, anyway.
• Britain wasn't the first country to abolish slavery.
• This guy claims that black Americans adopted "redneck culture" from poor Southern whites. This is ridiculous on its face. Why would black Americans adopt "redneck culture" at a higher rate than white Americans?
• Descendants of white slaves do better in the US than ancestors of black slaves because eventually they are accepted as white. Honestly, does this even require explanation?
  
  Historically downtrodden white cohorts eventually get promoted into the upper caste because white supremacy is self-defeating since biracial people don't get to be white (e.g. Obama is considered black rather than white despite being mixed). If Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc., weren't given white status, "white" would only be comprised of an ever-shrinking number of WASPS, and "white" people would quickly be outnumbered. For obvious reasons, very few black people will ever attain white status in this country.

Sowell is an insane revisionist. It's no wonder that he is every American racist's favorite house negro.

Sowell argues that systemic racism is an untested, questionable hypothesis that is a piece of propaganda pushed on the American people. Sowell has said that "it really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in the way that one tests hypotheses" and "it's one of many words that I don't think even the people who use it have any clear idea what they're saying". He has argued that it is a propaganda tactic akin to those used by Joseph Goebbels because it comes with an attitude that it must be "repeated long enough and loud enough" until it is believed and people "cave in" to it.

Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Sowell urged voters to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. In 2018, when asked on his thoughts of Trump's presidency, Sowell replied "I think he's better than the previous president."[51]

In March 2019, Sowell commented on the public's response to mainstream media's allegations that Trump is a racist: "What's tragic is that there's so many people out there who simply respond to words rather than ask themselves 'Is what this person says true? How can I check it?' And so on."[52] A month later, Sowell again defended Trump against media charges of racism, stating: "I've seen no hard evidence. And, unfortunately, we're living in a time where no one expects hard evidence. You just repeat some familiar words and people will react pretty much the way Pavlov's dog was conditioned to react to certain sounds."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell

[Sean Hayden]

Referring to him as a house negro strikes me as particularly toxic. Why is a well educated black whose opinions differ from our own considered more white than black? That certainly seems like a cultural problem, like black means just this, and never that...

[Seabass]

Descendants of white slaves do better in the US than ancestors of black slaves

'ancestors' should be 'descendants', but it's too late to edit it.

[Seabass]

Referring to him as a house negro strikes me as particularly toxic. Why is a well educated black whose opinions differ from our own considered more white than black? That certainly seems like a cultural problem, like black means just this, and never that...

That's not what that means.

African-American activist Malcolm X commented on the cultural connotations and consequences of the term in his 1963 speech "Message to the Grass Roots", wherein he explained that during slavery there were two types of slaves: "house negroes" who worked in the master's house, and "field negroes" who performed outdoor manual labor. He characterized the house negro as having a better life than the field negro, and thus being unwilling to leave the plantation and potentially more likely to support existing power structures that favored whites over blacks. Malcolm X identified with the field negro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_slave#United_States

[Sean Hayden]

Oh stop it. In common usage referring to a black as a house negro carries the connotation that he thinks he's white, or may pass himself off as such.

[Seabass]

I've literally never seen it used that way. I've always seen it applied to people like Clarence Thomas and Candace Owens—black Americans who uphold or do apologetics for the white supremacist power structure.

[Sean Hayden]

You've literally never picked up the connotation from its usage? Okay, so in your opinion referring to smart blacks as whites is a wholly separate issue, with wholly different origins. That's hard to believe.