This book, which veen recommended and which I hated thoroughly, makes the argument that humans inherently hate each other and given half an excuse, they'll throw each other in ovens. The author argues that places where Jews weren't exterminated were places where there was some sort of thin thread of humanity that kept them from being property but he doesn't make a very good argument, also he makes this whole argument about the racism that the Jews faced in Europe for fifteen hundred years and then for the last chapter goes AND THAT'S WHY THE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST IS COMING. Tim Snyder is an asshole. The argument of the article, which definitely has an agenda, is to point out that the sociological studies that have been done - and it lists them - point out that economic victimhood does not create racism. The argument can actually be made - and the above article does - that racism is often expressed as economic victimhood going as far as demonstrating statistics wherein racism actually went down during the recession. Basically, the article lays forth the argument that white people aren't feeling oppressed and victimized because they're doing badly economically - they're not, not by any metric, when compared to 2007-2010. They're feeling oppressed and victimized because there's a black president which has caused them to feel victimized because suddenly, they can't point at all the niXXers doing worse than they are. The article makes the point that a rise of ethnic violence is predicted, historically, by a minority ethnic group achieving higher status. In other words, the more blacks in college, the more blacks are gonna get shot by George Zimmerman.
So really they're all whiney because people who they perceived as inferior are doing better than they are and they just pretend it's about the economy ? As in they're not doing badly economically, they're just doing worse than somebody who they thought less of and that feels pretty damn shitty to them so they have to make up excuses for their own perceived short comings while also tearing down the higher achieving immigrants ? What a mindfuck.
HL Mencken said "Happiness is making $5k more a year than your wife's sister's husband." He was hardly the first to suggest that happiness is relative but he was one of the more colorful ones. There have been ample studies demonstrating that happiness is relative and that knowing you're doing just a little better than the Joneses matters far more than knowing you're doing many times better than a family on the street in Calcutta. The article argues that socially, we peg our relative level of happiness to where the out groups in our society are. In other words, so long as someone's picking on the Furries, the LARPers feel better about themselves. Fundamentally, the argument is being made that as people become more equal, those with latent racist sentiments will express them in a number of ways. It's not that Barack Obama is a secret muslim, it's that he's black. It's not that Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster or some shit, it's that she's a woman. And it's not that the EU was draining the NHS, it's that those darkies with their chip shops are sending their kids to the same school you are.
Maybe I'm not reading your comment right, but do you agree with that point? It's a depressing view of humanity (not unlike Snyder in that regard), but you've said before that drawing parallels between Brexit and Trump is meaningless, which this article essentially does. PS: I read it because b_b recommended it, so don't forget to blame him too. ;)The article makes the point that a rise of ethnic violence is predicted, historically, by a minority ethnic group achieving higher status. In other words, the more blacks in college, the more blacks are gonna get shot by George Zimmerman.
My beef with Snyder is he basically outlines a scenario in which a newly-relevant people get stomped on by WWI and then the Soviet revolution will commit genocide against their neighbors if the authorities say "the Jews' farms are up for grabs to anyone willing to kill them for them" and then turns around and then argues, in no uncertain terms, that genocide can happen anywhere anytime under any circumstances. half the book is useful because it paints the Holocaust not as "and one day the Nazis built gas chambers" but as "If you give someone a powerful carrot and a powerful stick they will do powerfully awful things" but the other half is bullshit because it basically says "no carrot or stick necessary." This article changed my mind about the parallels between Brexit and Trump - partly. Most of the Brexit/Trump articles are some form of "because Brexit, Trump will win" instead of "the same forces that led to the Brexit are the ones that led to Trump." The former is simplistic the same way Snyder is - there's such a rush to shit all over American exceptionalism that cerebral authors fundamentally ignore history. The latter is a discussion I've read and entertained, but the above article is the most convincing argument I've yet read that it isn't about money, it's about racism.