Posted on 10/02/2019 1:08:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
During my student days at a UCLA economics department faculty/graduate student coffee hour in the 1960s, I was chatting with Professor Armen Alchian, probably the greatest microeconomic theory economist of the 20th century. I was trying to impress Alchian with my knowledge of statistical type I and type II errors. I explained that unlike my wife, who assumed that everyone was her friend until they prove differently, my assumption was everyone was an enemy until they proved otherwise. The result: My wife's vision maximized the number of her friends but maximized her chances of betrayal. My vision minimized my chances of betrayal at a cost of minimizing the number of my friends.
Alchian, donning a mischievous smile asked, "Williams, have you considered a third alternative, namely, that people don't give a damn about you one way or another?" Initially, I felt a bit insulted, and our conversation didn't go much further, but that was typical of Alchian -- saying something profound, perhaps controversial, without much comment and letting you think it out.
Years later, I gave Alchian's third alternative considerable thought and concluded that he was right. The most reliable assumption, in terms of the conduct of one's life, is to assume that people don't care about you one way or another. It's an error to generalize that people are friends or enemies, or that people are out to either help you or hurt you. To put it more crudely, as Alchian did, people don't give a damn about you one way or another.
Let's apply this argument to issues of race. Listening to some people, one might think that white people are engaged in an ongoing secret conspiracy to undermine the achievements and well-being of black people. Their evidence is low black academic achievement and high rates of black poverty, unemployment and incarceration. For some, racism is the root cause of most black problems including the unprecedentedly high black illegitimacy rate and family breakdown.
Are white people obsessed with and engaged in a conspiracy against black people? Here's an experiment. Walk up to the average white person and ask, "How many minutes today have you been thinking about black people?" If the person isn't a Klansman or a gushing do-gooder liberal, his answer would probably be zero minutes. If you asked him whether he's a part of a conspiracy to undermine the achievement and well-being of black people, he'd probably look at you as if you were crazy. By the same token, if a person asked me: "Williams, how many minutes today have you been thinking about white people?" My answer would probably be, "Not even a nanosecond." Because people don't care about you one way or another doesn't mean they wish you good will, ill will or no will. They just don't give a damn.
What are the implications of the people-don't-care vision of how the world works? A major implication is that one's destiny, for the most part, is in one's hands. How you make it in this world depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. Black politicians, civil rights leaders and white liberals have peddled victimhood to black people, teaching them that racism is pervasive and no amount of individual effort can overcome racist barriers. Peddling victimhood is not new. Booker T. Washington said: "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs." In an 1865 speech to the Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that people ask: "'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!" Or as Patrick Moynihan urged a century later in a 1970 memo to President Richard Nixon, "The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect.'"
yup
I realize that this article is about the notion that black people should strive to improve themselves without seeking victimhood.
But there are other alternatives beyond the three options mentioned. Otherwise, this train of thought makes everyone out to be a jerk unwilling to help anyone else. There are a lot of people who are willing to give a helping hand to improve conditions for others. Just like there are a lot of people who want to hurt others. Not everything is black or white. (I do think black people should give up victimhood and try to improve their own condition.)
I don’t think it is the case that people don’t give a damned, but rather, how do you help someone who won’t help himself?
My best friend at one of my duty stations in the Army was a black guy. He was smart, I think very smart. But when I tried to convince him to get on the GI Bill when he got out and work his butt off every waking minute, no partying, I could see the doubt in his face. It was something I had to do myself and I had my own doubts about my ability, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me and was determined to give it a go and see how it went. But I couldn’t convince this buddy of mine that the same applied to him and he really, really ought to try it because it might work out better than his wildest dreams. I certainly think he would’ve done great. :-(
I have talked about just this with some black acquaintances. Some think white people lie awake at night trying to figure out ways to defeat blacks.
When I tell them that whites are too busy living their own lives to have a second thought about blacks, they seem to struggle with the concept.
I think he means that people “don’t give a damn about you” in theory, especially as a member of a category. It doesn’t mean that most people who actually encounter you would, for example, stand by and watch you drown or get hit by a bus.
Do find that many people are so bought into their self identified, identity politics personal with all its attendant preconceptions, world view, implicit bias and general chip on the shoulder attitude that it often makes interpersonal relations very problematic
I’m will to accept them as individuals and as a person, but they are only willing to see me as member of a stereotypical group and usually one they have been taught is adversarial and oppressive to their assumed identity.
Really makes it hard to develop a relationship and be friends with a person who has already pre judged you as some bad person
Strangely, gender seems to be the worst and most common example. Women who have bought into feminist ideology often really seem to have problems in their interpersonal relationships with men because they are fundamentally incapable of relating to a man as a unique individual but instead can only see men as oppressive members of some imagined enemy patriarchy they have been taught is conspiring to keep them down as its sole purpose in life.
The whole identity politics obsession in today’s world Balkanizes people into competing interest groups all at odds with the collective members of other identity blocs
The quote from Booker T. Washington is so true and the race hustlers and all Democrat politicians simply cannot give up their lucrative gig. The race hustlers get rich and the Dems get re-elected. How does the country ever break this pernicious behavior and get us to the “benign neglect” stage of race relations?
My first thought at reading the headline was “The only person that cares about me is - MYSELF!” (Yeah - my family will beg to differ).
But it goes back to my reading of Ayn Rand as a teen. I don’t agree with some of her stuff (faith in Christ, etc.) - but most of it I do. (Hmm - in re-reading the excerpt below, I have used my REASON to believe in Christ as my Savior, not a blind faith).
The following is from some blog about her. I think if folks thought more about how they think about themselves, and not about what others think of them, the world would be a better place.
******************
Self-Interest
Ayn Rand focused all her writings on one basic tenet: be selfish. Selfishness has a negative connotation, however. Feelings of thoughtlessness and greed spring to mind. Rand, however, states that such negative acts are not in your self-interest. According to aynrand.org, to be selfish means:
Follow reason, not whims or faith.
Work hard to achieve a life of purpose and productiveness.
Earn genuine self-esteem.
Pursue your own happiness as your highest moral aim.
Prosper by treating others as individuals, trading value for value.
Rand believes that humans are not born with an inherent sense of good vs. evil. She teaches her followers that, “Man must choose his actions, values, and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man - in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill, and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.”
My guess is what he means is essentially this: if you’re walking down a busy city street and you see hundreds of people - white, black, Asian, whatever - none of them register. But if one of them trips, falls, and is writhing in pain - white, black, Asian, whatever - they’re no longer nameless, faceless nonentities -they’re somebody who could be you. And most of us would then stop and help out.
And I think that extrapolates to social controversies: if it’s the usual carping and moaning (”that’s racism”) we don’t even let it register; but if it is a true racial injustice and we can do something, most of us would.
You forgot to mention who benefits most from the Balkanization of all of us into special interest groups. Democrats created “identity politics” and propel it forward because that’s the only way they can get elected. They simply cannot win on ideas.
Good explanation.
I had someone in my office claiming she was being targeted and harassed by the utility companies. I assured her they cared nothing about her in particular and cared only what numbers registered on her meters.
I believe that too. Most people.
A long time ago, my co-worker was walking into SF City Hall when Mayor Dianne Feinstein was coming the opposite direction down the hallway and she tripped. My co-worker caught her, preventing her from getting injured. Us being conservatives, we reflected on it afterwards, and would do it again. Today, I'm not so sure!
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