> Most of the things written in past few years about
> diversity. The western culture is evil, because it
> was built by white men.
As a white man, I'm yet to read anything I've taken seriously suggesting that "western culture" is evil. I've read plenty to suggest that my experience isn't always the most important one though, and I think the whole idea of privilege is very very useful. I found the whole GitHub meritocracy debate to be genuinely mind-expanding.
> Regardless of the merit, when you have actual white
> men talking like that, it seems a tad
> self-destructive.
I wonder what we'd make today of the discussions about Southern Culture around the time of abolition. Self-destructive?
> As a white man, I'm yet to read anything I've taken seriously suggesting that "western culture" is evil.
Try "colonialism", "white man's burden", etc. I've seen a lot of those being thrown around lately, with the implication that the current western culture is still imperialistic and oppressive, and therefore all of us - stereotypical westerners - should ask the world for judgement and forgiveness. My point is - well, sure, imperialism happened, lot of bad things were done. Let's resolve particular claims of particular peoples in a mature and legal way. But beyond that, I don't feel any personal responsibility for what happened 100+ years ago, and I don't see why I now - as suggested - should hate myself, hate my culture, or bow down and voluntarily make place for the "oppressed" to step up.
> I wonder what we'd make today of the discussions about Southern Culture around the time of abolition. Self-destructive?
Discussions about slavery != discussions about the whole culture of people. Again, I'm fine with discussing a specific issue on merits - but the current media situation is that one has to be wary of saying anything "too white" or "too patriarchy", lest he be chastised by his own fellow white men - that feels like a pretty self-destructive phenomenon.
Genuine question lost in the blizzard on this thread... but why would a citation add to this? It would just indicate that someone else agreed; what does this add?
Presumably, citation is requesting some factual evidence that this is true, not that people feel it is true.
Though both are important, if there's not actually a "War on Christmas" and Obama didn't actually rename the White House christmas tree the winter tree, but the new President has been cited by his son as running because those things did happen, then both these facts are interesting.
edit to add: something to look forward to, when Trump announces he's renamed the tree to the Christmas tree, even though it never got called anything else. I'm trying to imagine how they'll spin that without actually telling a blatant lie, probably just by making a big fuss about it and letting other people online lie about it.
