I’ve thought of the “Improving awareness and training of social justice” point a bit in the past when thinking about gender diversity and find it difficult. I am a bit worried that it is extremely hard or impossible without everyone investing a substantial amount of time:
My impression is that a lot of (ethnic/gender/...) diversity questions has no easy fixes that some people can think about and implement, but would rather benefit a lot from every single person trying to educate themselves more to increase their own awareness, esp. community builders, and high profile people that get a lot of attention. One example that I think is hard to improve otherwise: I noticed in Toby Ord’s The Precipice the following sections:
“Indeed, when I think of the unbroken chain of generations leading to our time and of everything they have built for us, I am humbled. I am overwhelmed with gratitude”
I know this doesn’t detract from his overall point of what the generations of the last hundreds of thousand years have done “for us”, but I can’t help to wonder how reading this must feel like for some people that primarily associate history with their ancestors being fucked over by colonialism or being enslaved, and them still paying the price for this. The Precipice actually mentions this later but is clearly written from the perspective of the people descending from those inflicting injustice, and not receiving it:
“Consider that some of the greatest injustices have been inflicted [...] by groups upon groups: Systematic persecution, stolen lands, genocides. We may have duties to properly acknowledge and memorialise these wrong; to confront the acts of our past. And there may yet be ways for the beneficiaries of these acts to partly remedy them or atone for them.”
While I’m a POC, I’m certainly not from an ethnicity that suffered the most from the historic (and ongoing) actions of the elites in primarily white countries. But I can imagine that many people whose families are or have been on the receiving end of the injustice might be alienated by this section, which reads a bit like it’s a given that readers are on the other side of the coin.
I don’t want to slander the book or the person, I very much enjoy the book, and don’t assume any negative intentions (and think the section can also be read more charitably, but I think it’s important that it can be read in an alienating way by POC). I just think this is a good example of the problem and that it is really hard to be aware of such things when you didn’t spend substantial time to understand underrepresented groups—that you are not part of—better.
While, in an ideal world, I would like everyone in the world to do so, it is a big time sink and feel reluctant about recommending everyone to invest this time, especially when the opportunity cost are so high. I’m not sure how to remedy this; whether investing the time is clearly worth it; there are better ways to make progress that are less time intensive; or whether we should only aim for low hanging fruit; or something entirely else. I would be very curious to hear other people’s thoughts, I’d gladly notice that I’m totally off the mark and I worry more than warranted :)
(I also feel weary of openly saying that investing into understanding underrepresented groups might not be worth the time, as I just did, because I think it can be very hurtful and dehumanizing.)
Thanks for doing this work!
I’ve thought of the “Improving awareness and training of social justice” point a bit in the past when thinking about gender diversity and find it difficult. I am a bit worried that it is extremely hard or impossible without everyone investing a substantial amount of time:
My impression is that a lot of (ethnic/gender/...) diversity questions has no easy fixes that some people can think about and implement, but would rather benefit a lot from every single person trying to educate themselves more to increase their own awareness, esp. community builders, and high profile people that get a lot of attention. One example that I think is hard to improve otherwise: I noticed in Toby Ord’s The Precipice the following sections:
“Indeed, when I think of the unbroken chain of generations leading to our time and of everything they have built for us, I am humbled. I am overwhelmed with gratitude”
I know this doesn’t detract from his overall point of what the generations of the last hundreds of thousand years have done “for us”, but I can’t help to wonder how reading this must feel like for some people that primarily associate history with their ancestors being fucked over by colonialism or being enslaved, and them still paying the price for this. The Precipice actually mentions this later but is clearly written from the perspective of the people descending from those inflicting injustice, and not receiving it:
“Consider that some of the greatest injustices have been inflicted [...] by groups upon groups: Systematic persecution, stolen lands, genocides. We may have duties to properly acknowledge and memorialise these wrong; to confront the acts of our past. And there may yet be ways for the beneficiaries of these acts to partly remedy them or atone for them.”
While I’m a POC, I’m certainly not from an ethnicity that suffered the most from the historic (and ongoing) actions of the elites in primarily white countries. But I can imagine that many people whose families are or have been on the receiving end of the injustice might be alienated by this section, which reads a bit like it’s a given that readers are on the other side of the coin.
I don’t want to slander the book or the person, I very much enjoy the book, and don’t assume any negative intentions (and think the section can also be read more charitably, but I think it’s important that it can be read in an alienating way by POC). I just think this is a good example of the problem and that it is really hard to be aware of such things when you didn’t spend substantial time to understand underrepresented groups—that you are not part of—better.
While, in an ideal world, I would like everyone in the world to do so, it is a big time sink and feel reluctant about recommending everyone to invest this time, especially when the opportunity cost are so high. I’m not sure how to remedy this; whether investing the time is clearly worth it; there are better ways to make progress that are less time intensive; or whether we should only aim for low hanging fruit; or something entirely else. I would be very curious to hear other people’s thoughts, I’d gladly notice that I’m totally off the mark and I worry more than warranted :)
(I also feel weary of openly saying that investing into understanding underrepresented groups might not be worth the time, as I just did, because I think it can be very hurtful and dehumanizing.)