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Comment by yakshaving_jgt | Hacker News Reader

Postmodernist movements like DEI were never about objective reality — in fact the idea of an objective reality is outright rejected. It doesn't matter if men are being left out of jobs (statistically) — they're [according to the ideology] the eternal benefactors of invisible, omnipresent systemic privilege. This is of course the complete opposite of the ideals of liberalism and the human rights movement, which is why so many people are fundamentally at odds with common illiberal corporate policy today (although it's often difficult to articulate why without being dismissed as a bigot).

For more on this, I recommend Cynical Theories[0] by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53052177-cynical-theorie...

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Paragraphs like this use a lot of words to not actually saying anything. If you don’t mind elaborating:

What about DEI rejects reality?

How have men /not/ been the clear benefactors of gender for effectively all of history, which negatively impacts women in the workplace today?

Human rights is about equality, and DEI achieves that through pulling up the mistreated to reach parity, no? Are you saying “it’s not equality unless everyone is treated equal”? (IE building a wheel chair ramp is not equality, because we’re treating disabled people different)

Oof… It's a big topic. That's why I referenced a book.

You'd have to read some of Lyotard's or Foucault's work to understand the roots of this. The idea is that all knowledge is shaped by language, power structures, and cultural context. This is where we get the idea that there isn't "the truth", but that instead there is "my truth".

> Human rights is about equality, and DEI achieves that through pulling up the mistreated to reach parity, no?

Equality is an overloaded term here, which is also a device prevalent in this ideology. Similarly, the term "normal" is taken to mean either statistically common or morally acceptable or both, depending on the argument and who's making it. That's where we get the idea of the problematics of heteronormativity, for example.

It is of course debatable (and has been hotly debated for decades) what qualifies as "mistreated", and to what quantity. As is what counts as "pulling up" versus paradoxical discrimination.

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I'm sorry, but I can't boil down decades of philosophy into a neat paragraph for you.

> It doesn't matter if men are being left out of jobs (statistically) — they're [according to the ideology] the eternal benefactors of invisible, omnipresent systemic privilege.

This implies a contradiction that doesn't exist.

Centuries ago, the aristocracy was statistically left out of jobs and also the eternal benefactors of (quite visible!) omnipresent systemic privilege.

There are multiple potential reasons for men to, statistically, be taking fewer of a set of newly created roles. It could certainly be some systemic bias against them, but it could easily also be that they are choosing not to take them for what are surely good reasons for themselves. It could be that fewer men are interested in new jobs right now period, relative to women. I'm sure there are many other potential explanations as well.

I don't think there's a contradiction here.

I'm not arguing against you, and I think your argument here actually supports mine. My point is epistemological: that the DEI ideological framework is structured in a way that makes it unfalsifiable. I am not saying that men being statistically underrepresented in certain jobs necessarily implies discrimination against them.

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