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About a year ago I heard a pop song on my Pandora that was a little less annoying than Ke$sha, and I looked up the singer up. Her real name was Jessica Malakouti. My immediate though was “that last name sounds Iranian.” Then I watch the video above, and my revised thought with the new priors (i.e., what she looks like) was “well, she’s probably of Lithuanian heritage, and that’s an archaized surname that sounds vaguely Iranian.” For reasons I don’t even recall somehow I stumbled onto this singer’s Wikipedia page recently, and it had been updated with the fact that she is of Iranian heritage. It turns out her father is from Iran, and she is a product of the greater Los Angeles Iranian Diaspora community. The citation for the Wikipedia entry is a Youtube interview where she refers to herself as “mixed-race” and talks about rapping in Farsi (I guess she’s a wannabe Arash).
If someone who looks like this refers to herself as “mixed-race” this country is going to need to update its 1960s era Civil Rights framework soon. One of the podcasts I listen to is On Point with Tom Ashbrook, and a week it ago it had a show with the title Race In America, From Watts To Ferguson And Beyond. Actually, on the podcast version it was shortened to “Race in America.” Despite the fact that less than 40 percent of people who are in some way not non-Hispanic white (which includes people from the Middle East, like Jessica Malakouti’s father in any case) are of black American heritage, they loom large enough in this nation’s history and consciousness that I knew that “Race is America” was going to be about two races, with the rest of us rendered invisible. Of the guests on that particular show only John McWhorter even grappled with the fact that there were groups outside of the black-white dichotomy. When I was a kid in the 1980s this was how it went too. And to a great extent it was how it should have gone. Black Americans have been in this country since the Founding, and most of their ancestry dates to before the Founding. They were the largest racial minority for most of its history, and were when I was a child. Things are different now on the ground. But you wouldn’t know that from the media. 15 years ago The New York Times published its prize winning series How Race is Lived in America. I thought that that was going to be the last testament to the old biracial America due to the nation’s changing demographics. I was wrong.
After finishing The Making of Modern Japan, Japan is big in the media this week. There are yearly stories on the apology, but there is a new twist with the current Prime Minister’s attempts to modify the hyper-pacifist orientation of the Japanese state and society (more precisely, it strikes me that he wants to make it so that the “Self Defense Forces” have some real bite and can be more flexible in their operations internationally). After reading a book which outlines how Japan got to where it is today, I really value the importance of dense historical knowledge. It’s like going from sepia photographs to high resolution digital color imagery. I had been meaning to get back to A New History of Western Philosophy, which I dropped in the medieval section when I switched to reading The Indo-European Controversey, but now I am curious as to whether I should fill in my blank spot (in relative terms) in regards to modern Chinese history. Perhaps it’s the antiquarian in me, but I’ve never been much curious about Chinese history beyond the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. Now I’m inclined to pick up Jonathan Spencer’s The Search for Modern China, though part of me wants to finally learn about the Taiping Rebellion through God’s Chinese Son. Recommendations are welcome.
Recently I posted some analysis where it seems pretty clear that there’s Indian admixture into the Cambodian population. The main issue that I have when trying to get a fix on this is whether it’s deep common shared ancestry via the South Eurasian substrate which was present from India all the way to the South China Sea and down toward maritime Southeast Asia, or, whether it was more recent, on the edge of historical times (and whether it was connected to the cultural impact of India on Southeast Asia). I think I presented persuasive evidence that it was in part more recent. Yesterday I stumbled onto a smoking gun which was right in the literature all along. In the supplementary table for Norton et al.’s 2007 paper on convergent light skin adaptation it reports that of 22 Cambodians the frequency of the derived variant of SLC24A5 is 9% (so 4 allele copies out of 44). They are the only East Asian group south of the Yangzi with this allele. One hypothesis is that it could be French admixture. But there are no copies of SLC45A2 derived allele. The sample size is small, but I checked the 1000 Genomes, and the Vietnamese have very low frequencies of both alleles, consistent with French admixture. The best candidate for a donor group is obviously a South Asian one. It is interesting that the allele frequency is pretty low, probably consistent with overall admixture proportion, consistent with no selection in situ.
In January I wrote that op-ed in The New York Times last year so that the debate would be a little less “battle of the sexes” in rhetoric about abortion. But whenever I read/listen to liberals talk about it they often fallback on the trope that women implicitly support abortion rights and men do not. I have no idea what the point of this caricature is, because if you are talking to your own side everyone already agrees, while pro-life people are probably going to be pretty annoyed by your blatant mischaracterization. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think part of it is that some people feel better about their own viewpoint when they can couch it in anti-sexism, where they (often these are liberal men) are on the side of women and their opponents are not.
Over the last year and a half or so I’ve gotten more into my fitness. Partly it was for reasons of health. I’m South Asian, and we have issues with morbidity relating to metabolic disease. It runs in my family. I have kids now and I want to be around for them. I was never that fat. Probably the highest my BMI ever got was 26 in March of 2002 (I’m 5’8, that’s 170 lbs), when I pretty much cut out all soft drinks from my diet (I was never a big consumer, but I went from occasional to literally zero). Since then I’ve been as light as 140 lbs (spring of 2008), but have veered between 150 and 160 in graduate school. My weight had has not shifted much since I began to make changes, but I’ve been lifting, so losing fat and gaining muscle. This has really helped the second, and not secondary, reason that I am working out, and that is aesthetic. It is really nice not to be soft anymore!
In any case, there was a recent link posted about low fat vs. low carb diets. The problem is that nutrition is basically a semi-science, and people rightly can offer their own opinions. Personally I find cutting carbs the main way I can sustain cutting calories, but the robotic pattern of responses by low-carb folks is too reminiscent of low-fat propoganda. For a balanced, and striving toward scientific view, I’d suggest you check out my friend Kevin Klatt’s blog (or send him questions on Twitter, that’s what I do).
Preemptive apology if I can’t respond to all your comments, though I try to read the “open threads.” I’ve got a lot of responsibilities in “real life” as I attempt to be a “grown-up,” so don’t take it personally.
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Razib,
I don’t know if you have read those before, but regarding Abe’s Apologies, here’s an alternate analysis of the prime minister’s words:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2015/08/sorting-through-shinzo-abes-dog-whistles.html
Same blogger, with a another earlier piece offering another alternate analysis of Japan’s ostensible pacifism:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-good-history-deniers.html
This writer often has a semi-SJW chip on his shoulder regarding Asian American affairs, but on this area he is good at pointing out the outright lack of moral agency and ownership in Abe’s statement. It would be very interesting to compare that to the past apologies of German chancellors.
Also, right now in Japan there is a controversy over one of their major WW2 museums:
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Philip-Seaton/4348/article.html
I find it useful as a comparison to imagine what would happen if Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial was suddenly changed to the language and content of that newly “renovated” museum in Osaka.
Regarding the second link, the situation with Abe's support is more complicated than many people admit. You have to remember (1) that Japan is a nation of real living and breathing people with real problems of the present. They are not an abstract embodiment of the heritage of WW2. Also, (2) political affiliations everywhere are subject to many psychological factors.
What I observe in talking with a classroom of adult students is that the most vocal critics of Abe's war stance are also in favor of things like open borders, bankrupting the country if necessary to get rid of nuclear power, and resisting military build-up even if means Japan can't really protect its own borders.
I assume that my classes are a microcosm of broader political discourse. Therefore, I think that to most not-well-informed, moderate voters (always a majority), criticism of Abe's social and geopolitical positions looks like it should be categorized with a desire to delegitimize desires for prosperity and self-determination. Given 1 & 2 above, I think you can see how people might be given to dismissing criticism of Abe's war stances. I don't think the country is broadly right-wing in the sense of being imperially aggressive.
Also, regarding the third link and the school history book scandals, I think it looks to many people like Japanese have a war issue. But the issue is with the state of knowledge and truth in Japanese society. It sounds strange to say this about a place that has high-tech industries, but it's true. The Japanese don't just retcon the past, they retcon the present, and their physical environs as well. Thus, accounting scandals and ikebana. I'm not making an apology for changing the museum, but it's not necessarily an example of reviving racism or militarism. You can see that in the cartoon about the children. Japanese children are supposed to be cheerful, positive, and happy with their circumstances vis-a-vis older people and society. Anything that violates this norm is bound to be ignored and smothered.
Lastly, apologies serve social functions. They need to be followed by an action or change of state. In personal relationships, a situation in which their is a never-decisively-accepted apology and ongoing demand for apologies for the same thing would be considered problematic. AskAKorean's commentary doesn't touch on the fact that Abe, in pointing out all the nations that graciously accepted Japan back into the community of nations, constrasts these with Korea and China.
Perhaps the reason that Korea and China cannot get satisfaction is that they really want revenge, which would be understandable. It may be that America made a mistake in the way it handled the post-war situation in Asia. Perhaps they should have pulled out altogether instead of focusing on democratization, rebuilding and anti-communism. Do you think Korean comfort women would be happier today if the US had extracted reparations, handed them a big fat check, executed a lot of Japanese in Korea (rather than repatriating them), and then left before 1950? I kind of doubt it, but it's possible. What about the rest of their countrymen? Probably not.
Going back to 1 above, the Japanese I know do basically embrace their past. I don't think it's normal for people to adopt negative narratives about their own history unless it happens as a generational break. The other day I brought up Nobunaga's slaughter of Buddhist monks, and it created a lot of tension until I said that, yes, well, in the past everyone fought a lot. Realistically, I think the two choices for Japan are (1) the historical memory is alterred slightly to put Japan in a better light or (2) youth disassociate from what the WW2 generation did. Perpetual responsibility and apologies is probably not a realistic expectation.
Regarding abortion rhetoric “I think part of it is that some people feel better about their own viewpoint when they can couch it in anti-sexism”, my favorite framework for this is from Arnold Kling’s 3-axis framework:
1. Progressives default to analyzing by Oppressors – Oppressed
2. Conservatives default to Civilization – Barbarism
3. Libertarians default to Freedom – Coercion
So progressives try to shoehorn arguments into oppressor-oppressed, in this case of course women are oppressed around abortion. Hence their (false) intuition that women don’t oppose it. Why I like this framework is it reveals the logic behind apparently illogical positions. For example, it makes no genetic sense that Caitlyn Jenner can choose her gender but Rachel Dolezal can’t choose her race (Y chromosome should trump a social construct). But from an oppressors/oppressed axis, you can squint and see that Jenner is a victim and Dolezal is not, at least in the progressives default framework. Hence defending the oppressed results in supporting Jenner but not Dolezal.
Basically saying I agree with your intuition about anti-sexism, but think it fits into this larger framework. Anyway, you might find Kling’s “The Three Languages of Politics” interesting if you haven’t read it. Short and clear. Easy read (that’s a compliment as obviously he worked hard at making it clear and short).
It was a while ago but one comment really struck me. A woman claimed to have rerun the figures and come to the conclusion that the actual male-female difference was not significant. This was apparently a rebuttal.
it’s good to know who the oppressed/oppressor is in a pinch 😉 or at least to the be the decider.
Maybe prettier but not less annoying.
well, that is less annoying.
For a light introduction to Republican China I’d recommend The Soong Dynasty, about what a bunch of fools that Sun Yat-sen and his fellow agitators were.
It’s hilarious and a quick read, although probably not the scholarly working you’re looking for.
Re: Taiping Rebellion
A bigger picture of why that happen. Their leader, Hong Xiuquan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan “was a Hakka Chinese”
What is the common factor among Mao Tzedong, Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, Sun Yatsen (Chinese revolutionary agaist the Manchu), (former Thailand PMs) Thaksin and
Yingluck Shinawatra, (former Phillipine PM) Corazon Aquino and (super model) Naomi Cambell ?
They are fully, partially or lapsed members of the Chinese Hakka subgroup.
Deng and LKY are known member http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people This could be one of the reason LKY got along well with Deng.
Mao appeared to be a lapsed Hakka but his ancestor was listed in the written family genealogy records.
http://vbn.aau.dk/files/40334846/No5SpiritDiscussionPaper_Flemming_Christiansen_.pdf
Corazon Aquino http://globalbalita.com/2009/09/22/the-cojuangco-wars/
The Shinawatras and pics of their ancestor temple http://shanghaiist.com/2014/11/01/yingluckthaksin_go_on_a_family_trip.php
Naomi Cambell http://www.in.com/naomi-campbell/biography-1358.html
It is a puzzle why a Chinese subgroup of about 3% of the population manages to dominate politics in so many places.
In 1984, half the Chinese Politburo Standing Committee were Hakka
http://www.pdx.edu/intl/sites/www.pdx.edu.intl/files/Erbaugh%20Secret%20History%20of%20Hakkas%20CQ%20%282%29.pdf
Historically the Hakka often had disputes with the surrounding Cantonese and the French Catholic priests tended to give them sanctuary. Thus many Chinese Catholic priests are Hakka.
one could posit a materialist-cultural explanation, as my understanding is
that since they were newcomers to the south they occupied marginal territory.Replies: @CaoMengDe
A bigger picture of why that happen. Their leader, Hong Xiuquan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan "was a Hakka Chinese"
What is the common factor among Mao Tzedong, Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, Sun Yatsen (Chinese revolutionary agaist the Manchu), (former Thailand PMs) Thaksin and
Yingluck Shinawatra, (former Phillipine PM) Corazon Aquino and (super model) Naomi Cambell ?
They are fully, partially or lapsed members of the Chinese Hakka subgroup.
Deng and LKY are known member http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people This could be one of the reason LKY got along well with Deng.
Mao appeared to be a lapsed Hakka but his ancestor was listed in the written family genealogy records.
http://vbn.aau.dk/files/40334846/No5SpiritDiscussionPaper_Flemming_Christiansen_.pdf
Corazon Aquino http://globalbalita.com/2009/09/22/the-cojuangco-wars/
The Shinawatras and pics of their ancestor temple http://shanghaiist.com/2014/11/01/yingluckthaksin_go_on_a_family_trip.php
Naomi Cambell http://www.in.com/naomi-campbell/biography-1358.html
It is a puzzle why a Chinese subgroup of about 3% of the population manages to dominate politics in so many places.
In 1984, half the Chinese Politburo Standing Committee were Hakka
http://www.pdx.edu/intl/sites/www.pdx.edu.intl/files/Erbaugh%20Secret%20History%20of%20Hakkas%20CQ%20%282%29.pdf
Historically the Hakka often had disputes with the surrounding Cantonese and the French Catholic priests tended to give them sanctuary. Thus many Chinese Catholic priests are Hakka.Replies: @Razib Khan
did not know about mao. is the term ‘lapsed’ hakka even a thing though?
It is a puzzle why a Chinese subgroup of about 3% of the population manages to dominate politics in so many places.
one could posit a materialist-cultural explanation, as my understanding is
that since they were newcomers to the south they occupied marginal territory.
Mao's ancestor Mao Tai Hua, during end of the Mongol rule, beginning of Ming dynasty, went as a Ming military colonist from Jiangxi to Yunnan. Yunnan on the Burmese border was the last stronghold of Mongol rule in the southwestern corner of China.
After Ming conquest of Yunnan, Ming founder send in over a million Ming miltary colonists and their families from old Ming base in Southeastern China to settle the Yunnan frontiers. Mao's patrilineal ancestor Mao Tai Hua is one of them.
Old Mao is originally from what is regarded as a traditional Hakka county in Jiangxi, that's why he has been regarded by many Hakka as a member. After Old Mao's military service in Yunnan, he eventually settled in Hunan and Mao family has stayed in Hunan for the next 500 years.
The thing is, even if Old Mao was originally Hakka, after 500 years in Hunan, Mao family has thoroughly assimilated into local Hunanese society, and no longer regarded as Hakka .
Deng Xiao Ping's ancestor also came to Sichuan as part of the Ming army, also from Jiangxi province. Whether being from Jiangxi = originally Hakka is up for debate. But after 500 years in Sichuan, Deng speaks and identifies as a Sichuanese and he does NOT speak Hakka.
I highly recommend God’s Chinese Son. But then again, I have an interest in millennial movements. I’d be interested in your take.
I don't know if you have read those before, but regarding Abe's Apologies, here's an alternate analysis of the prime minister's words:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2015/08/sorting-through-shinzo-abes-dog-whistles.html
Same blogger, with a another earlier piece offering another alternate analysis of Japan's ostensible pacifism:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-good-history-deniers.html
This writer often has a semi-SJW chip on his shoulder regarding Asian American affairs, but on this area he is good at pointing out the outright lack of moral agency and ownership in Abe's statement. It would be very interesting to compare that to the past apologies of German chancellors.
Also, right now in Japan there is a controversy over one of their major WW2 museums:
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Philip-Seaton/4348/article.html
I find it useful as a comparison to imagine what would happen if Berlin's Holocaust Memorial was suddenly changed to the language and content of that newly "renovated" museum in Osaka.Replies: @Chrisnonymous
I’d like to make a few observations based on my experience living in Japan.
Regarding the second link, the situation with Abe’s support is more complicated than many people admit. You have to remember (1) that Japan is a nation of real living and breathing people with real problems of the present. They are not an abstract embodiment of the heritage of WW2. Also, (2) political affiliations everywhere are subject to many psychological factors.
What I observe in talking with a classroom of adult students is that the most vocal critics of Abe’s war stance are also in favor of things like open borders, bankrupting the country if necessary to get rid of nuclear power, and resisting military build-up even if means Japan can’t really protect its own borders.
I assume that my classes are a microcosm of broader political discourse. Therefore, I think that to most not-well-informed, moderate voters (always a majority), criticism of Abe’s social and geopolitical positions looks like it should be categorized with a desire to delegitimize desires for prosperity and self-determination. Given 1 & 2 above, I think you can see how people might be given to dismissing criticism of Abe’s war stances. I don’t think the country is broadly right-wing in the sense of being imperially aggressive.
Also, regarding the third link and the school history book scandals, I think it looks to many people like Japanese have a war issue. But the issue is with the state of knowledge and truth in Japanese society. It sounds strange to say this about a place that has high-tech industries, but it’s true. The Japanese don’t just retcon the past, they retcon the present, and their physical environs as well. Thus, accounting scandals and ikebana. I’m not making an apology for changing the museum, but it’s not necessarily an example of reviving racism or militarism. You can see that in the cartoon about the children. Japanese children are supposed to be cheerful, positive, and happy with their circumstances vis-a-vis older people and society. Anything that violates this norm is bound to be ignored and smothered.
Lastly, apologies serve social functions. They need to be followed by an action or change of state. In personal relationships, a situation in which their is a never-decisively-accepted apology and ongoing demand for apologies for the same thing would be considered problematic. AskAKorean’s commentary doesn’t touch on the fact that Abe, in pointing out all the nations that graciously accepted Japan back into the community of nations, constrasts these with Korea and China.
Perhaps the reason that Korea and China cannot get satisfaction is that they really want revenge, which would be understandable. It may be that America made a mistake in the way it handled the post-war situation in Asia. Perhaps they should have pulled out altogether instead of focusing on democratization, rebuilding and anti-communism. Do you think Korean comfort women would be happier today if the US had extracted reparations, handed them a big fat check, executed a lot of Japanese in Korea (rather than repatriating them), and then left before 1950? I kind of doubt it, but it’s possible. What about the rest of their countrymen? Probably not.
Going back to 1 above, the Japanese I know do basically embrace their past. I don’t think it’s normal for people to adopt negative narratives about their own history unless it happens as a generational break. The other day I brought up Nobunaga’s slaughter of Buddhist monks, and it created a lot of tension until I said that, yes, well, in the past everyone fought a lot. Realistically, I think the two choices for Japan are (1) the historical memory is alterred slightly to put Japan in a better light or (2) youth disassociate from what the WW2 generation did. Perpetual responsibility and apologies is probably not a realistic expectation.
Most high IQ people (excuse my PC language and coded language) are incapable of understanding that mixed race=mixed race, regardlss of physical phenotype per the Jessica Malakouti. Rashida Jones, Ronda Roussey or Troia Bellisario? gene expression.
Dominant and recessive gene show themnselves where appropriate despite anyone’s preconceived and erroneous opinions on how the should be. That is nature!
2) iranians consider themselves white, and are white on the census fwiw (some iranians are brown-skinned and some are white-skinned, so i think this is a confused issue; my experience is more iranians are white than brown though).
3) jones, roussey and bellisario are different, since everyone would agree that their ancestry is mixed.
Dominant and recessive gene show themnselves where appropriate despite anyone's preconceived and erroneous opinions on how the should be. That is nature!Replies: @Razib Khan
1) genes are not dominant or recessive. alleles may express only in homozygote state, in which case their expression is recessive.
2) iranians consider themselves white, and are white on the census fwiw (some iranians are brown-skinned and some are white-skinned, so i think this is a confused issue; my experience is more iranians are white than brown though).
3) jones, roussey and bellisario are different, since everyone would agree that their ancestry is mixed.
Why would Jones, Roussey and Bellisario be different vis a vis Malakouti. The latter’s father is Iranian but what of the mother? I would venture to say that she is US American white (English?) so I can see where the phenotype expression may be termed dominant.
Iranians (Persians) can be Tajik, Azeri-Turk (a strong majority) or affiliation with a ‘minority’ group but still be part of nationality thereby Iranian. I have come across many of varied ‘ethnicities’ who identify as Iranian but are usually other designation.
pairwise Fst between the mixing populations is 10x greater in the first three cases
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7555/fig_tab/nature14317_ST3.html
(don't respond to this comment, the conversation is over)
Iranians (Persians) can be Tajik, Azeri-Turk (a strong majority) or affiliation with a 'minority' group but still be part of nationality thereby Iranian. I have come across many of varied 'ethnicities' who identify as Iranian but are usually other designation.Replies: @Razib Khan
Why would Jones, Roussey and Bellisario be different vis a vis Malakouti.
pairwise Fst between the mixing populations is 10x greater in the first three cases
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7555/fig_tab/nature14317_ST3.html
(don’t respond to this comment, the conversation is over)
The Hakka are an endogamous linguistic subgroup of Han with some cultural differences in the details but still clearly identifiable culturally and visually as Han and regarded by other Han sub-groups as such, and not strongly differentiated by religion (the endogamy is now breaking down majorly, obviously) who have lived traditionally in walled clan villages, regarded historically in Guangdong and Fujian as interlopers and forced into marginal land. They have a history of very bloody clan wars with other linguistic groups, generally over territory. That may explain their relative activism – they tend to be combative and quick to militancy, if I can exercise a gross generalisation. But then, it could be argued that they have had cause.
During the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, a guerrilla group formed composed largely of Hakka to combat the Japanese occupiers. Mao was openly critical of that group for ‘localism’, and they were refused any recognition at all as resistance fighters until really very recently. I guess you could say that Mao had ‘lapsed’ in the sense that he had sworn off pro-Hakka clannishness and ‘localism’ in favour of ‘whole of China’. I can’t think of any other sense in which a Hakka can lapse, other than marry out, which he also did, of course.
Even now, Hakka often work in more menial jobs, e.g. a lot of Hakka women still work as construction labourers.
Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 is pretty good as an introduction to the topic.
I enjoyed that NY Times piece you did quite a bit, but I don’t think it’s entirely wrong to couch this in anti-sexism. The negative consequences of restricting or criminalizing abortion are almost exclusively felt by women. The legislators proposing these restriction are overwhelmingly men. The preferences of the general public don’t change those two facts, and so long as they remain true the question of sexism will always enter this debate, and rightly so.
Not to mention, since when does having a pair of ovaries make one immune to sexism?
One thing that I found interesting from Pew’s research on party affiliation (http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/) is that married women, and married people in general, skew towards the Republican Party compared to the general public. It’s R+9 for married women compared to the general public, and R+22 for married men. For unmarried women it’s D+19 and for unmarried men it’s D+8. For women overall it’s D+7 and for men it’s R+9. (Again I’m correcting all of these relative to the general public.)
Sorry for all the numbers, but the TL;DR is that political preferences seem to vary ~twice as much based on marital status than based on gender.
And to tie this back to my earlier point on salience – who bears the brunt of the negative consequences of criminalizing or restricting abortion? It’s not just women, but particularly unmarried women that have the most to lose from restricting or criminalizing abortion. And assuming I plugged the terms into the SDA correctly, for the post 2000 samples, married women oppose unrestricted abortion by a 63-37 margin, while unmarried women oppose it by only a 46-54 margin (and breakdowns were similar for men in both categories).
So maybe we should be plugging married people into our oppressor/coercer matrix, oppressing/restricting the freedoms of unmarried women. But as I said before, there’s no reason women can’t have sexist attitudes towards other women. Sexism and gender are still pretty relevant.
On a separate tangent.
I’d just like to reiterate that when you use the word “race” Razib you mean something very different from what 99% of society means. :3
Hope that wasn’t too much of a ramble. My brain’s a bit addled by fatigue and illness at this moment lol.
“Perhaps the reason that Korea and China cannot get satisfaction is that they really want revenge”.
I would bet anything that they want reparations, i.e. money. Lots of it. Demanding apologies is just a prelude to demanding admission of blame, which in turn provides the basis for demanding reparations.
In a case like comfort women, or raped and mass murdered ancestors, money helps when nothing else will.
When a Chinese person is killed, it is absolutely the norm that their family will demand financial reparations, and will push for the maximum achievable. You can see this demonstrated repeatedly whenever Chinese people are killed, even in events which are ‘accidents’.
And Japanese out of any disputed territory, obviously, as in the Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Islands.
Anyone who dares to suggest that maybe the Japanese don't all eat babies for breakfast gets denounced as an evil colaborationist.
Given that Korea and China compete with Japan in the world markets, and have little to gain by being nice to Japan, they'll keep the racket going forever.Replies: @John Massey
1. Progressives default to analyzing by Oppressors - Oppressed
2. Conservatives default to Civilization - Barbarism
3. Libertarians default to Freedom - Coercion
So progressives try to shoehorn arguments into oppressor-oppressed, in this case of course women are oppressed around abortion. Hence their (false) intuition that women don't oppose it. Why I like this framework is it reveals the logic behind apparently illogical positions. For example, it makes no genetic sense that Caitlyn Jenner can choose her gender but Rachel Dolezal can't choose her race (Y chromosome should trump a social construct). But from an oppressors/oppressed axis, you can squint and see that Jenner is a victim and Dolezal is not, at least in the progressives default framework. Hence defending the oppressed results in supporting Jenner but not Dolezal.
Basically saying I agree with your intuition about anti-sexism, but think it fits into this larger framework. Anyway, you might find Kling's "The Three Languages of Politics" interesting if you haven't read it. Short and clear. Easy read (that's a compliment as obviously he worked hard at making it clear and short).Replies: @Andrew
In the comments below the abortion article a large proportion attempted to claim (on various grounds) that the figures were wrong. Of the subset who accepted the figures the most common argument seemed to be that any woman who supported abortion restriction was suffering from false consciousness. Therefore the actual problem could be restated as men (controlling) abortion rights vs women (advocating) abortion. If some of the men just happened to be women then that is just evidence that they have been misled-manipulated. Thus the real numbers don’t matter, (in fact raising the question of numbers was itself considered an unreasonable move. This is the position I encounter most frequently.
It was a while ago but one comment really struck me. A woman claimed to have rerun the figures and come to the conclusion that the actual male-female difference was not significant. This was apparently a rebuttal.
I just started reading Frank Dikotter’s “The tragedy of liberation” (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620403471/ref=x_gr_w_glide_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_glide_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1620403471&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2) . It is clear that he really really disapproves of the Maoist revolution, so it is not an attempt at being (or sounding) very “objective and neutral”, but it adds a lot of detail to the period from 1949 to 1959 (the “good period” of the Chinese revolution) and seems well worth reading. I have not read his other books, but his pre-1949 book also looks very interesting.
It may be that as a “lapsed Maoist (very superficially knowledgeable “Maoist”, as most supporters of any ideology are), I find these books more interesting because I used to have the opposite biases once upon a time, but if you have not already read it, you may wish to add this to your book pile.
Not to mention, since when does having a pair of ovaries make one immune to sexism?
One thing that I found interesting from Pew's research on party affiliation (http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/) is that married women, and married people in general, skew towards the Republican Party compared to the general public. It's R+9 for married women compared to the general public, and R+22 for married men. For unmarried women it's D+19 and for unmarried men it's D+8. For women overall it's D+7 and for men it's R+9. (Again I'm correcting all of these relative to the general public.)
Sorry for all the numbers, but the TL;DR is that political preferences seem to vary ~twice as much based on marital status than based on gender.
And to tie this back to my earlier point on salience - who bears the brunt of the negative consequences of criminalizing or restricting abortion? It's not just women, but particularly unmarried women that have the most to lose from restricting or criminalizing abortion. And assuming I plugged the terms into the SDA correctly, for the post 2000 samples, married women oppose unrestricted abortion by a 63-37 margin, while unmarried women oppose it by only a 46-54 margin (and breakdowns were similar for men in both categories).
So maybe we should be plugging married people into our oppressor/coercer matrix, oppressing/restricting the freedoms of unmarried women. But as I said before, there's no reason women can't have sexist attitudes towards other women. Sexism and gender are still pretty relevant.
On a separate tangent.I'd just like to reiterate that when you use the word "race" Razib you mean something very different from what 99% of society means. :3
Hope that wasn't too much of a ramble. My brain's a bit addled by fatigue and illness at this moment lol.Replies: @Razib Khan
this is a lawerly answer, but
The negative consequences of restricting or criminalizing abortion are almost exclusively felt by women.
can disagree. MRA really favor male input into abortion because they don’t want to support kids. second, women arguably also gain the upsides of having kids more than men, so a net-zero. third, one of the reasons abortion was important in the past is that out of wedlock pregnancy and pre-marital sex were taboo and socially destructive (also, see nixon’s worry about interracial sex). not so today. so in *theory* the cost born by women could “just” be a pregnancy.
second, arguments about false consciousness and voting one’s “interests” lead nowhere. affluent liberals criticize lower class conservatives for voting against their interests…but arguably they’re doing the same thing! but they don’t view themselves as having interests, they have values. lower class people on the other hand don’t have this sort of agency.
btw, i agree that sex difference isn’t that big of a deal. that’s one of my major issues; women are not a ‘voting bloc’. generally ppl don’t know about men as a ‘voting bloc’.
And voting blocs or not, the legislators' gender is still predominantly male. So long as the "pregnancy cost" is exclusively born by women and the legislators that set these rules are mostly men, this will be a gendered issue. That may be an uncomfortable truth, but you seem to like those. I don't think it's wrong for people to bring that up in these discussions, though I do think the way people do it often falls victim to the fallacies you bring up.
But yah, I definitely agree re: gender voting blocs (or lack thereof) particularly on this, and I think that's a very important to highlight, which you did very well.
I may have asked this before, but do you do much reading on social choice theory, or on the nuts and bolts of democracy? If not I can't point you to a few interesting texts on the subject. I find it pretty fascinating.
I would bet anything that they want reparations, i.e. money. Lots of it. Demanding apologies is just a prelude to demanding admission of blame, which in turn provides the basis for demanding reparations.
In a case like comfort women, or raped and mass murdered ancestors, money helps when nothing else will.
When a Chinese person is killed, it is absolutely the norm that their family will demand financial reparations, and will push for the maximum achievable. You can see this demonstrated repeatedly whenever Chinese people are killed, even in events which are 'accidents'.
And Japanese out of any disputed territory, obviously, as in the Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Islands.Replies: @spandrell
Money is nice, but Korea and China simply have been basing much of their legitimacy in having “beat the Japanese imperialists”, and can’t just stop blaming everything on Japan. It’s the national sport now, what the government publishes to keep the people entertained.
Anyone who dares to suggest that maybe the Japanese don’t all eat babies for breakfast gets denounced as an evil colaborationist.
Given that Korea and China compete with Japan in the world markets, and have little to gain by being nice to Japan, they’ll keep the racket going forever.
It's not that long ago that there was serious anti-Japanese rioting in the Mainland, with Japanese businesses being trashed, and the government trying to stop them/keep the lid on anti-Japanese sentiment, while being wary of the rise of the Japanese right.
Just back from vacation in Berlin, Germany. The impression is that Berlin entire city is big memorial for WW 2 sin and education for young German students about fault of their ancestors. They did not just blame Hitler for the disaster, but themself as people to embrace the national socialism. In other words, there is no `scapegoat’. Never seen such remoseful people on the earth. All memorial and mesuems educate young Germans about historical prejudice against Jews and racist nature of national socialism. All these places are full of young German students with their teachers for the education. Quite remarkable. It seems that German tried hard never repeating history.
Comparing to Germany, Japan might miss some thing after ww 2. But the nature of Japanese aggression against neighors are different from that of Germany.
The Nazis were not just quantitatively worse, they were qualitatively different: http://t.co/1ulhihOQ2Q
Yah, I thought about bringing that up – just left it out out of simplicity. Though I don’t think anyone is reasonably suggesting that men should be able to force a woman to have an abortion I hope? But yah, I suspect there is that motive there – not wanting to be on the hook for raising a kid that neither parent wanted. And interestingly enough, support for unrestricted abortion was highest among people who have been divorced lol.
That’s a not insignificant risk though. I don’t know about you, but as a man I’d prefer not to be forced to have an 8 lb organism grow and live off of me for 9 months in my abdomen, and I’d definitely rather not have to try to pass it through an existing orifice at the end of those 9 months either.
That’s an American specific issue. Our politics don’t skew in that direction here (it’s more of a U shaped distribution in terms of income vs left/right). I do recognize that people vote primarily based on emotion of course. Anyone halfway competent politically should recognize that. I guess explains why the Democrats keep losing elections. I don’t think it’s unreasonable though to suggest that the issue of restricting abortion has a pretty different emotional impact when you are at risk of having to pay to raise a child alone, or to have the spawn of your rapist grow inside you for 9 months.
And voting blocs or not, the legislators’ gender is still predominantly male. So long as the “pregnancy cost” is exclusively born by women and the legislators that set these rules are mostly men, this will be a gendered issue. That may be an uncomfortable truth, but you seem to like those. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to bring that up in these discussions, though I do think the way people do it often falls victim to the fallacies you bring up.
But yah, I definitely agree re: gender voting blocs (or lack thereof) particularly on this, and I think that’s a very important to highlight, which you did very well.
I may have asked this before, but do you do much reading on social choice theory, or on the nuts and bolts of democracy? If not I can’t point you to a few interesting texts on the subject. I find it pretty fascinating.
One thing people here might find interesting by the way is the current state of Canadian politics.
Broadly and simplistically speaking, we have three major parties arranged in a left (NDP) – centre (Liberal) – right (Conservative) spectrum, with each major party holding about 30% of the vote. If you look at voters’ preferences though, they’re actually not arranged on a left-centre-right spectrum. All three parties are roughly equidistant from each other. There are roughly as many Conservative/NDP swing voters as there are Liberal/Conservative and Liberal/NDP swing voters. While the discourse is still often about a left/right axis, it actually does a really poor job of explaining how voters actually feel.
Our election is scheduled for October 19, so we’ll get to see pretty soon how things shake out. There’s been a large Liberal->NDP movement and a smaller Conservative->NDP movement over the past couple months, but that’s seems to have stabilized and reversed slightly. The latest seat projections are 121 for the NDP, 120 for the Conservatives, 95 for the Liberals and 2 for others (Greens and the Bloc Quebecois), but the uncertainty is as much as +/- 50%, so we’re in a position where 3 different parties each have realistic shots at forming the next government. Though right now an NDP government with Liberal support is probably the most likely outcome.
Latest polls and projections: http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/poll-tracker/2015/index.html
one could posit a materialist-cultural explanation, as my understanding is
that since they were newcomers to the south they occupied marginal territory.Replies: @CaoMengDe
Mao is not so called “lapsed Hakka”
Mao’s ancestor Mao Tai Hua, during end of the Mongol rule, beginning of Ming dynasty, went as a Ming military colonist from Jiangxi to Yunnan. Yunnan on the Burmese border was the last stronghold of Mongol rule in the southwestern corner of China.
After Ming conquest of Yunnan, Ming founder send in over a million Ming miltary colonists and their families from old Ming base in Southeastern China to settle the Yunnan frontiers. Mao’s patrilineal ancestor Mao Tai Hua is one of them.
Old Mao is originally from what is regarded as a traditional Hakka county in Jiangxi, that’s why he has been regarded by many Hakka as a member. After Old Mao’s military service in Yunnan, he eventually settled in Hunan and Mao family has stayed in Hunan for the next 500 years.
The thing is, even if Old Mao was originally Hakka, after 500 years in Hunan, Mao family has thoroughly assimilated into local Hunanese society, and no longer regarded as Hakka .
Deng Xiao Ping’s ancestor also came to Sichuan as part of the Ming army, also from Jiangxi province. Whether being from Jiangxi = originally Hakka is up for debate. But after 500 years in Sichuan, Deng speaks and identifies as a Sichuanese and he does NOT speak Hakka.
Anyone who dares to suggest that maybe the Japanese don't all eat babies for breakfast gets denounced as an evil colaborationist.
Given that Korea and China compete with Japan in the world markets, and have little to gain by being nice to Japan, they'll keep the racket going forever.Replies: @John Massey
Not disagreeing, but just pointing out – China and Japan are big trading partners with each other. It’s complicated.
It’s not that long ago that there was serious anti-Japanese rioting in the Mainland, with Japanese businesses being trashed, and the government trying to stop them/keep the lid on anti-Japanese sentiment, while being wary of the rise of the Japanese right.
This reminds me of the interviews in those 2000s-era Deep Space Nine dvd’s. One of them was with Alexander Siddig who played Doctor Julian Bashir. (In other words, himself.)
Siddig’s accent is James Bond English and this brogue was just as strong on the show. The show had whole episodes showcasing Bashir’s love for English spy movies.
In the interviews our man on Terok Nor spoke about his struggle as a “person of color” – or colour, as he’d spell it. I am looking at this handsome Mediterranean sophisticate in his upper-class accent and his nice clothes, basking in his fame, and in his adulation by the Star Trek fanbase… and I’m thinking, “nuts”.
you know Alexander Siddig's paternal uncle was Sudanese prime minister,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq_al-Mahdi
and as you can tell from the photo, will not pass as white on either side of the pond.
I was surprised to learn that Siddig's maternal uncle was none other than English actor Malcolm McDowell. I guess when you cross Malcolm McDowell with the Sudanese gentleman, you get exactly Doc Julian Bashir as their love child!
Siddig's accent is James Bond English and this brogue was just as strong on the show. The show had whole episodes showcasing Bashir's love for English spy movies.
In the interviews our man on Terok Nor spoke about his struggle as a "person of color" - or colour, as he'd spell it. I am looking at this handsome Mediterranean sophisticate in his upper-class accent and his nice clothes, basking in his fame, and in his adulation by the Star Trek fanbase... and I'm thinking, "nuts".Replies: @CaoMengDe
Well, Doctor Julian Bashir’s ancestry is far from Mediterranean!
you know Alexander Siddig’s paternal uncle was Sudanese prime minister,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq_al-Mahdi
and as you can tell from the photo, will not pass as white on either side of the pond.
I was surprised to learn that Siddig’s maternal uncle was none other than English actor Malcolm McDowell. I guess when you cross Malcolm McDowell with the Sudanese gentleman, you get exactly Doc Julian Bashir as their love child!
Indeed, I think the Japanese do have a point. Their army was cruel and atrocity-prone, but even in China they did not have any large-scale extermination project to compare with Germany.
The Nazis were not just quantitatively worse, they were qualitatively different: http://t.co/1ulhihOQ2Q
On brain size & intelligence: http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116 Too much intelligence may not make brain too large.
When I took adderall a couple times per week it dropped me from my normal weight of ~145-150lb (5’6″) to ~130lb. The lighter weight was very helpful with reducing knee problems from running. I ran & still run every other day. Modafinil made for a slightly less significant weight loss.
I never dropped below ~140lb with diet changes, including eating only oatmeal & salads.
Sometimes drugs really do help.
My understanding is that cortical area/convolution is highly correlated to IQ (the neocortex is made up of only! 6 layers). And this in part explains the brain size IQ correlation since increased size and increased cortical area/convolution go together.