alt Hacker NewsWhat we’re talking about is the notion of what constitutes good or “being a good person”.
Within the Liberal frame “not discriminating” or at least “not being seen as discriminating” is good and the opposite is bad.
You’re still approaching this from the Liberal frame. It is very hard to transcend this because it is the totalizing predominate ideological substrate of the modern world.
In reality there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination itself, only with particular forms of it. Types of discrimination which are considered non-controversially acceptable would be people’s choices of mate, who they hire into their company according to their skillset and “culture fit”, who is invited to a birthday party, or allowed into a home, things like this. These are forms of discrimination. The term itself in common usage has a negative valence which means “bad forms of discrimination”, “bad” according to Liberal/modern sensibilities.
We are talking about modifications to what constitutes bad vs good forms of discrimination.
If someone is still struggling with this, consider the semantics/valence of the phrase “I have a very discriminating taste in art”. This doesn’t have negative valence but the basic idea of discrimination is being invoked here.
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I'm not sure it is true that "discrimination = bad" is a "liberal frame".
On the opposite, I feel that this idea is quite common amongst non-liberals who misinterpret liberals. A liberal would say "this is discrimination, this is bad", and the non-liberal would hear "this is discrimination, all discrimination is bad, this is bad". But similarly, one could say "this is sharing private information, this is bad". Does it mean that the conclusion is that sharing private information is always bad? Even when you share info with your family? Or when you open up to your partner? The mistake done by the liberals is that they assume the context is obvious. They assume that it is obvious for everyone that "that particular discrimination" is one of the bad ones.
(and, sure, I'm sure some liberal people also don't get the distinction and fall into the mistake of thinking that all discrimination is bad. My point is that it is not particularly a "liberal frame")
There is a good way to estimate if a discrimination is "the normal one" and "the bad one". A discrimination is bad if the real principal objective is to favour the in-group and disfavour the out-group.
People use that criteria themselves unconsciously. If I say "I'm not giving this to Steve because I know they don't like it", people will just think it's fine. If I say "I'm not giving this to Steve despite the fact he deserves it but I don't like him", people will notice it's unfair. I think liberal people just assume this is obvious, or even not realise it themselves.
This criteria works well. For example, in the examples you gave, none of these actions have been done because "we don't think the people we excluded from the advantage don't deserve it for not being our in-group".
But it is also true that when it comes to conservatism, there are elements where the discrimination is made to exclude the out-group not on fair principal reason, but for the principal reason that it is advantageous for the in-group and the out-group is arbitrarily considered "not worthy of it".
> What we’re talking about is the notion of what constitutes good or “being a good person”.
For most people it follows pretty basic principles that are based on notions of "goodness" which might include humility, fairness, generosity, courage...
Under those circumstances, almost all humans believe that treating everyone as equals is aligned with those principles and therefore makes you a good person. Having to square that with conflicting dehumanised views of others, means that the easiest way to do it is to simply pretend that you are treating everyone the same while subjecting those you discriminate with a harshness that isnt applied equally.
> In reality there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination itself,
You are using two different definitions of the word in a way that is sophist and not sophisticated.
Discrimination of humans is the mistreatment of others based on characteristics that are protected (those that are predetermined). Discrimination as the noticing differences and evaluating them based on taste is a second definition of the word, used in very different contexts.
That is not "liberal sensitivity" that is just polysemic words.
In the same way that standing in a room with a very powerful light bulb would not make your argument any brighter.
> We are talking about modifications to what constitutes bad vs good forms of discrimination.
No. We were talking about the psychological tools used by conservative people to deal with the cognitive dissonance of wanting to believe themselves as moral and accepting of inherently good precepts like the equal value of all human life while they want to not accept the consequences of the police state they set up to control people they believe inferior.
YOU tried to make it about the semantic similarity between two of the three meanings of the word discrimination. Which is the kind of parlour trick that only works if your audience is stupid.
Liberalism does neither uniquely hold the axiom that all humans are equal, nor does it shape the minds of people to hold it as a universal principle. It is a pretty universal tenant of almost all ethical systems, the only exceptions being system where some humans are not considered human (to avoid the everyone should be treated the same principle still being upheld), or systems that are openly discriminatory in which case they hardly call themselves moral.
Systems that say "we win because we are more powerful" do not do it based on ethics, and systems that have an underclass tend to dehumanise it (slaves not being citizens in rome). Everywhere else people are "equal", where the upper class are exempt from the worst consequences of legal frameworks (see sunset towns in jim crow america only affecting black people).
Yes, words have different meanings depending on context.