Top US law professors publish article claiming 'not all cultures are equal'
An American law professor has defended a controversial newspaper article in which she criticised black and Hispanic immigrant ways of life and argued that “not all cultures are equal”Outraged students at the elite University of Pennsylvania signed an open letter condemning the op-ed by law faculty Professor Amy Wax and Professor Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego.
In their article, the lecturers called for the reinstatement of 1950s “bourgeois culture” as best suited for “preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy”, arguing that citizens from certain ethnic groups had “abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values”.
In particular, Profs Wax and Alexander criticised “the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks’ and “anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants”.
More than 50 students and alumni signed open letters calling on Pennsylvania and San Diego to take action, saying the values espoused in the Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed were “steeped in anti-blackness and white hetero-patriarchal respectability”.
But Prof Wax told The Independent it was the students themselves who were guilty of “incoherence” and that bourgeois values were not “somehow racist”.
“If indeed bourgeois values are so racist, the progressive critics should be out there in the street demonstrating against them, stripping them from their own lives, and forbidding their children to practice them,” she said.
“They should be chanting ‘No more work, more crime, more out of wedlock babies, forget thrift, let’s get high!’ As an added bonus, that would help promote equality.
“After all, giving up their successful habits would soon cause the upper middle class to sink. Of course, there’s little chance we’re going to see anything like that, which shows the incoherence, indeed the silliness, of the critiques.”
The dean of the Pennsylvania law faculty admitted that some students may find the professors’ arguments “disagreeable or offensive”, but said faculty members like students were “entitled to express their views as part of academic freedom”.
“Any assertion that one culture is superior to all others is contrary to our core values and current practices as an institution, and personally and as a scholar of constitutional law and history I reject such a view,” he told The Independent.
“ But encouraging broad and robust debate on controversial issues is another core value here, and the right to speak is empty if we only extend it to speech that we like.”
The university’s failure to criticise Professor Wax has only fuelled student anger further. One group describing itself as representative of a multitude of backgrounds at Pennsylvania wrote in an open letter published on Medium: “Penn does not empower all students.
“Instead, by failing to take a public stand against rhetoric that harms, dehumanises, and compromises the education of its vulnerable students, Penn merely reinscribes existing social hierarchies and inequalities. We hold that Penn can do better.”
Speaking to the Times Higher Education website, a spokesperson for San Diego, where the article’s co-author Prof Alexander teaches, said the college had not had any complaints from students, who are yet to return to campus for the new term.
They said: “While we recognise and protect the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, we are mindful that diverse points of view may be upsetting to some who do not agree with opposing perspectives.
“We continue our work to ensure that members of our campus community feel safe and supported as we discuss and debate the urgent challenges facing our world.”
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Lecturers call for reinstatement of 1950s 'bourgeois culture' as best suited for 'preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy', and hit out at black and Hispanic groups
Common sense:
“They should be chanting ‘No more work, more crime, more out of wedlock babies, forget thrift, let’s get high!’ As an added bonus, that would help promote equality.
“After all, giving up their successful habits would soon cause the upper middle class to sink. Of course, there’s little chance we’re going to see anything like that, which shows the incoherence, indeed the silliness, of the critiques.”
‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ (George Orwell)
Please do not trifle with my intelligence and say that all cultures in this world are at an equally advanced level. If you are speaking only of America, then consider that there are immigrants who bring their primitive culture with them.
Buzz,
Although a "primitive" culture may not be as advanced and sauve as "bourgeois" culture, does that make it a bad culture?
The culture of America, is not equal to the culture of Romania, or even England, but that does not mean one is better than another, they are simply different.
I wasn't thinking of countries like Romania or England when I made my statement about "primitive" cultures. There are cultures in this world that have not advanced much from the middle ages, and some immigrants from those are among immigrants to western-type nations.
A lot of the problems in America, including some of those mentioned in this article, can be traced in part back to this
I cannot open the image you posted. Can you descibe it so I can reply, if I feel it necessary?
It is a clip from the movie Wall Street when Gordon Gekko speaks to a stockholders meeting
Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love , knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
Thank you John. I recently watched that movie again, and saw Michael Douglas making that speech.
So then is the preference is have 33 VP's of a corporation making over $200,000 each?
Your intention is to take the words of the clip literally?
How was I to know what was in your mind when you posted it?
I didnt post that clip Buzz
that is what Perrie led you to
I didnt post that ok.
I am not going to rehash every word of what I posted . I showed you exactly what I posted in MY coment to you
That's not your name and avatar on this comment?
and your text follow-up? So you cherry picked out of a whole speech, and felt that the full context of what was said was to be ignored. Okay, I see.
It is a clip from the movie Wall Street when Gordon Gekko speaks to a stockholders meeting
Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love , knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
Where in there do you see a reference to 33 VP's making 200,000 dollars each?
In order to fully understand what was said, I did not cherry-pick just the part I wanted. I read the speech in its total context. That way I better understood the point he was making.
For example, I didn't just consider that MLK said "I have a dream" so I could interpret that as meaning, so he was a dreamer, and maybe he would have been better off realizing that there was reality. However, when I read the WHOLE speech I got to understand what he meant.
That's not your name and avatar on this comment?
and your text follow-up? So you cherry picked out of a whole speech, and felt that the full context of what was said was to be ignored. Okay, I see.
Yes, I cherry picked. I really only wanted a 15 or 20 second clip with "greed is good" , but there wasnt one that short. So I used one that contained only the part I showed you in type.
Perrie did a nice thing by directing you to an audio that contained what I had posted in a video, and you responded by CHERRY PICKING a sentence out of the entire speech that was irrelevant to what I had posted . It's not my problem Buzz.
Cherries have recently been determined to be a very healthy thing, so let's both continue to cherry-pick.
There are people who work the welfare system and take a lot out of it that they don't deserve. They are the few, but there are some. You know what their "defense" is?
"We are being ripped off by giant corporations, and "Wall St." and thieves and con men every day. Everyone is corrupt. Why shouldn't I get mine"? They game the system? OK. "Everybody" does it in one way or another.
On the whole the bourgeois lifestyle may be better, but there are bourgeoisie who are corrupt and dishonest and racist or misogynist or hypocrites too. That hypocrisy is what led to the counter culture in the first place.
Buzz,
You can hear it here:
Thanks Perrie - what a great web site that is.
I thought you would like it... right up your alley!! :)
I don't think it is their ethnic cultures that harm people in those groups as much as their hunger to be part of the real American dream - get rich quick. As they see glorified in popular entertainment over the past 30 or 40 years. Even sports figures go from nothing to 20 or 30 million in the relative bat of an eye. They see Wall St crooks and connivers become obscenely wealthy and they say "maybe I can't do exactly that sort of thievery but I can deal drugs and get rich quick that way". The bourgeois mentality kids itself that it has the way. It could and it would , but popular entertainment , and sports, and the media in general tell young Americans different. Basically, crime pays. White collar crime pays even better and you get to stay respectable.
Actually what is the point of this article? I criticize those who are not open to even consider concepts that differ from their own, and their support of those whose culture does not permit them to be open-minded.
Buzz, I don't think the seeded article is "comparing" cultures for honest differences, it is finding fault with the cultures that do not reflect the traditional American white middle class.
Too bad. Those were a lot better, more peaceful, more honest and trusting days, when education actually trained students to know that:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
One group describing itself as representative of a multitude of backgrounds at Pennsylvania wrote in an open letter published on Medium: “Penn does not empower all students.
“Instead, by failing to take a public stand against rhetoric that harms, dehumanises, and compromises the education of its vulnerable students, Penn merely reinscribes existing social hierarchies and inequalities. We hold that Penn can do better.”
When are these kids ever going to learn that there are other ideas in this world that they may not like and need to learn how to articulate and cogently defend their own beliefs? Going to college in the early 70's, we learned how to articulate our ideas, and if it could be proven that we were wrong, (holy shit) we changed our ideas.
EXACTLY !!!
I can speak for university students of the late 1950s and early 1960s as well. I NEVER saw such closed-minded supposedly educated individuals back in those days. The study of the humanities, philosophy, social psychology, sociology, comparative religions and law led to open-minded individuals. What do students study now? Basket-weaving?
The professor is correct:
“not all cultures are equal”
But, "Cultures" are NOT the same as "Races" or "Ethnicities".
There are races: black, white, yellow, red, brown
There are cultures: American, Central American, South American, Asian, Arabic, etc..
Not all cultures are equal, because not all cultures are the same. Some cultures are almost homogeneous with a dominant race, Asian - Japanese, Asian - Chinese, then some cultures are heterogeneous as in American - a melting pot of all races, ethnicities, religions, sharing a common homeland and government.
Not all cultures are equal, and to make judgements of people based on their culture or their race or ethnicity is just plain stupid, because we are all totally unique INDIVIDUALS. Some of may look the same, but we are different. I would venture to say there are a lot of white people on this site, but just because they are white and American does NOT make them similar. Some are conservative, some liberal, some neither. We are ALL different and unique.
As individuals we are NOT equal. yet we must be treated equally under the law so that we all have a chance to succeed on the even playing field.
Lumping people together in any kind of a group is just plain stupid, because we are all different and unique. We are not equal.
Not all cultures are equal, because not all cultures are the same.
How do you objectively determine the "value" of a culture? It strikes me as entirely subjective exercise because people have a cultural bias in favor of the culture in which they were raised.
It's good if your culture doesnt do drugs as much as blacks or hispanics do, gets more education than blacks or hispanics do, and stays out of prison more than blacks and hispanics do. Then you can look down on them.
I didn't actually see anything where these two pseudo experts made any attempt to even determine what black values are, even in a ghetto.
All human beings live on the Earth.
Groups live on different continents, and thus may share similar physical features and skin tones.
Subsets of those groups live in different countries, speak different languages, have different customs.
There are a variety of states, parishes, precincts, counties, communities, cities, towns, hamlets. etc...
What it all comes down to is that each of us is a unique individual.
I live in a community, but have virtually nothing in common with my closest neighbors. To make a generalization about a much larger group when even my closet neighbors are totally different than I am is a lazy way to categorize people. In my community I am a political minority, but in my state I am in the plotical majority.
Still, what it all comes down to is the fact that we are all individuals and all different and unique.
Even here on this site some come mainly to agravate and anger others, some come to share ideas and thoughts, some come to seek out allies, some come here to exercise authority. None of us is the same.
Have fun with it. I'm out.
I don't see anything about these two clowns that makes them any more qualified to make cultural comparisons than two drunks in a trailer park. To them, "black ways" are typified by a ghetto which is presumably composed entirely of thugs and shiftless people. These derelicts supposedly have values that shout:
No more work, more crime, more out of wedlock babies, forget thrift, let’s get high!
Whites, on the other hand, are culturally superior because their everyday lives are apparently like an episode of the old Leave it to Beaver show. What total bullshit.
White poeple have their fair share of drunks, drug addicts, thugs, derelicts, loons, and unwed mothers. One white collar white criminal can steal more money than all the black thugs put together. The society is filled with spoiled brat gender confused doper babies. Men marry each other and women chop their breasts off to look like men. We have two political parties: one nominated a liar to be president and the other nominated a buffoon.
People from other cultures could see us the most demented culture the world has ever known and certainly in no position to look down our noses at them.
Whites, on the other hand, are culturally superior because their everyday lives are apparently like an episode of the old Leave it to Beaver show
That's not what she said, at all.
What the objections boil down to is that the bourgeois virtues are somehow racist, or somehow cause racism—contentions that I and my co-author expressly contest, of course. But if, indeed, bourgeois values are so racist, the progressive critics should be out there in the street demonstrating against them, stripping them from their own lives, and forbidding their children to practice them.
White poeple have their fair share of drunks, drug addicts, thugs, derelicts, loons, and unwed mothers
Did the authors claim differently?
. . . . arguing that citizens from certain ethnic groups had “abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values”.
This statement implies that either the entire ethnic group has abandoned their role or that some have abandoned it and the group is still somehow responsible. This lays the groundwork for the view that whites are culturally superior.
In particular,“If indeed bourgeois values are so racist, the progressive critics should be out there in the street demonstrating against them, stripping them from their own lives, and forbidding their children to practice them,” she said. “They should be chanting ‘No more work, more crime, more out of wedlock babies, forget thrift, let’s get high!’ As an added bonus, that would help promote equality.
This statement says to me that the alternative to white bourgeois values are the values of thugs in the black community. Again, laying the groundwork for cultural superiority.
guing that citizens from certain ethnic groups had “abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values”.
Who made that statement? I don't see anything resembling that in the article written by the law professors.
s to me that the alternative to white bourgeois values are the values of thugs in the black community. Again, laying the groundwork for cultural superiority
The authors do not equate "bourgeois values" with being white. There's certainly nothing in the article claiming these are "white values". Rather the authors point is that bourgeois values are the values of successful people and those values are being lost in our society because those that still follow them don't champion them.
Are these values inherently "white?":
Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.
This is core of their argument:
Among those who currently follow the old precepts, regardless of their level of education or affluence, the homicide rate is tiny, opioid addiction is rare, and poverty rates are low. Those who live by the simple rules that most people used to accept may not end up rich or hold elite jobs, but their lives will go far better than they do now.
The authors do not equate "bourgeois values" with being white. There's certainly nothing in the article claiming these are "white values . . .
Sure there is. The article points to "black and immigrant ways" of life and people from "certain ethnic groups who had abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values." By implication, American born whites do not have black or immigrant ways and a reference to "certain ethnic groups" is usually a reference to non-whites. So, to me, the phrase "bourgeois values" is a thinly veiled reference to white American middle class values and the article is specifically saying that blacks and certain ethnic groups have abandoned the core values that American middle class whites still retain. The article is an insult to other people and they rightly protested it.
The article points to "black and immigrant ways" of life
The paragraph that points to "black and immigrant ways of life" includes a criticism of whites' ways of life: "Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites,,,; "
An article arguing for the superiority of whites would not criticize whites, black and immigrants even handily.
certain ethnic groups who had abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values."
No, the quote is: And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values.
The subject of that sentence includes adults of all races.
nd a reference to "certain ethnic groups" is usually a reference to non-whites.
I don't see the words "certain ethnic groups" anywhere in the article. Can you quote that language that I'm missing?
e article is specifically saying that blacks and certain ethnic groups have abandoned the core values that American middle class whites still retain
That's specifically not what it says. There's one paragraph that even mentions ethnic groups, and it criticizes anti-social white behavior as well.
The article points to "black and immigrant ways" of life
The paragraph that points to "black and immigrant ways of life" includes a criticism of whites' ways of life: "Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites,,,; "
An article arguing for the superiority of whites would not criticize whites, blacks and immigrants even handily.
certain ethnic groups who had abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values."
No, the quote is: And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values.
The subject of that sentence includes adults of all races.
nd a reference to "certain ethnic groups" is usually a reference to non-whites.
I don't see the words "certain ethnic groups" anywhere in the article. Can you quote that language that I'm missing?
e article is specifically saying that blacks and certain ethnic groups have abandoned the core values that American middle class whites still retain
That's specifically not what it says. There's one paragraph that even mentions ethnic groups, and it criticizes anti-social white behavior as well.
Do you think it's a bad idea or racist to emphasize a culture of hard work, community service and family?
The paragraph that points to "black and immigrant ways of life" includes a criticism of whites' ways of life: "Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites,,,; "
The term "working class whites" is a reference to blue collar workers and the article is excluding their antisocial habits from American born middle class white values. Black ways obviously don't include white "middle class" ways. If they did, then the authors wouldn't need the distinction.
An article arguing for the superiority of whites would not criticize whites, black and immigrants even handily.
It's directly criticizing black ways and suggesting that some blue collar white ways aren't much better. Specifically, rednecks don't have bourgeois values.
certain ethnic groups who had abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values."
No, the quote is: And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values.
The subject of that sentence includes adults of all races.
I'm reading this article not the original and it says:
"In their article, the lecturers called for the reinstatement of 1950s “bourgeois culture” as best suited for “preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy”, arguing that citizens from certain ethnic groups had “abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values."
I don't see the words "certain ethnic groups" anywhere in the article. Can you quote that language that I'm missing?
I'm reading this article not the original. This article says:
In their article, the lecturers called for the reinstatement of 1950s “bourgeois culture” as best suited for “preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy”, arguing that citizens from certain ethnic groups had “abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values”.
i don't want to keep parsing through this article. I think it can justifiably be viewed as an insult. If you read it differently than I do, that's fine. We can agree to disagree.
Are ALL your (Warning Your is ROYAL not personal ) fingers " equal " if not why not?
Try trying something to make them all the same length and see how " useful they then are " so what lesson learned?
I think we are thinking different cultures necessarily involve different people:
Would anyone claim that China during the Cultural Revolution is morally equal to China today?
I suppose when I read the article and the posts that followed, somehow, I came away with something that triggered my memories of long ago.
Culture of a poor family where a mother and father led three children along a path that instilled dignity, honesty and family closeness. It wasn't let's pretend. The children never envied someone who had more material objects and never heard their parents complain about their four room shotgun house. Never complained when do nuts or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were served at dinner time because that all they had. Saw their Daddy sit at the head of the table mixing together peanut butter and jelly for his family like it was carving a roasted turkey. Their Mother and Daddy didn't go their way and the children their way growing up. Always sat at the table as a family to eat
The core of a family unit is not whether one is rich or poor, black or white or what Country. All cultures have to have a center from which to set values that children will follow into adulthood. Values to see one through the hard times and give thanks for the good times.
The article was truth as I see it.
The core of a family unit is not whether one is rich or poor, black or white or what Country. All cultures have to have a center from which to set values that children will follow into adulthood. Values to see one through the hard times and give thanks for the good times.
Mag, I think you've got ir
Thank you.