Post by Optimus on Jan 19, 2017 2:48:45 GMT -5
I'm not a fan of the term/concept (you're shocked, I know). In fact, I think it's total bullshit. Partly because it relies on and trades in the currency of victimhood and bigotry (using the terms "perpetrators" and "victims"), and treats minorities and women like fragile little eggs that must be protected and sheltered (in a "safe space," presumably) lest they completely break from the smallest of unintentional slights. Also, partly because it requires an uncharitable presumption on the part of the listener, intentionally interpreting oftentimes innocuous gestures as "aggression" and judging that the person who committed the gesture is an aggressive bigot who doesn't even know how bigoted they are. That's a key facet of them; the person who "microaggresses" someone else mainly does it unintentionally, but they are to be treated as if they are basically a member of the KKK for doing/saying something that would be interpreted as completely innocuous by normal people (most people in the US who don't live in the Regressive bubble).
I also think they're bullshit because a lot of the people who prattle on about them are taking it upon themselves to speak for people who likely don't find microaggressions to actually be offensive. It's training kids to not only look for but expect the worst in (mostly white) people and the social interactions they have with them. There's also not really much convincing evidence that microggressions are a legitimate thing.
As John McWhorter said, using the concept of microaggressions in this way is "just bullying disguised as progressive thought."
Last week, Scott Lilienfeld (pretty well-known in psychology) published a research article in the APS journal, Perspectives in Psychological Science, examining whether or not microaggressions are (as defined) actually a legitimate phenomenon and whether or not there is adequate evidence to warrant them influencing social policy.
Spoiler alert: They're not and there's not.
Personally, I think his new name for this is dumb and he could've done better but, for the rest...about damned time. Derald Sue, the guy who has pushed the term in the research and, even more so on college campuses, based his original studies on very small sample sizes and very broad, ever expanding definitions of what "microaggressions" were. He also has made an entire career out of them and sold lots of books. He has a very large financial stake in perpetuating this bullshit on the public.
Jonathan Haidt (one of the top social psychologists) wrote a commentary on the article, and I feel that he sums up the overall issues nicely:
It’s bad enough to make the most fragile and anxious students quicker to take offense and more self-certain and self-righteous. But what would happen if you took a whole campus of diverse students, who arrive from all over the world with very different values and habits, and you train all of them to react with pain and anger to ever-smaller specks that they learn to see in each other’s eyes?
And what would happen if the rise of the microaggression concept coincided with the rise of social media, so that students can file charges against each other—and against their professors—within minutes of any perceived offense? The predictable result of welcoming the microaggression program to campus is turmoil, distrust, and anger. It is the end of the open environment we prize in the academy, where students feel free to speak up and challenge each other, their professors, and orthodox ideas. On a campus that polices microaggressions, everyone walks on eggshells.
And what will happen to a democracy as students graduate from college and demand that microaggression training be implemented in their workplaces? Might entire democracies be tipped into a state of constantly rising grievance mongering, mistrust, and demands for silencing the other side? If you think American democracy is polarized and dysfunctional in 2016, just wait until the baby boomers have aged out of leadership positions and the country is run by a millennial elite trained at our top schools, which immersed them in a microaggression program for 4 years.
Education should help students to cultivate wisdom. We can’t teach wisdom directly, but we can teach habits of thinking, learning, and interacting that will, over time, make our students more nuanced in their thinking and more effective at dealing with each other and with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. An essential first step that every college should take is to renounce the microaggression program and discourage faculty and administrators from even using the term. Instead, colleges that care about fostering diversity and inclusion should ask themselves: How can we teach students to give each other the benefit of the doubt? How can we cultivate generosity of spirit?
There's also an interesting paper that came out a year or two ago about how microaggressions are perpetuating a damaging form of morality that is unfortunately shifting us from a culture that values and promotes dignity to one that embraces a culture of victimhood.
Here's a link in case you ever get bored: www.academia.edu/10541921/Microaggression_and_Moral_Cultures
*I wasn't sure whether to stick this here or in General Current Events, but given that the entire "safe space" and "microaggression" bullshit movement is so closely tied to politics, I felt it was better suited here.
I also think they're bullshit because a lot of the people who prattle on about them are taking it upon themselves to speak for people who likely don't find microaggressions to actually be offensive. It's training kids to not only look for but expect the worst in (mostly white) people and the social interactions they have with them. There's also not really much convincing evidence that microggressions are a legitimate thing.
As John McWhorter said, using the concept of microaggressions in this way is "just bullying disguised as progressive thought."
Last week, Scott Lilienfeld (pretty well-known in psychology) published a research article in the APS journal, Perspectives in Psychological Science, examining whether or not microaggressions are (as defined) actually a legitimate phenomenon and whether or not there is adequate evidence to warrant them influencing social policy.
Spoiler alert: They're not and there's not.
In addition, as we have discovered, there is no research evidence that microaggressions correlate with indices of either aggression or prejudice in deliverers. Further muddying the waters, some microaggressions, especially many microassaults, are blatantly prejudicial and anything but subtle. There is no reason why the prefix “micro” should be affixed to such actions. Doing so blurs the potentially important conceptual distinction between overt and subtle prejudice, risks trivializing severe acts of prejudice, and renders it difficult to exclude the possibility that some of the association between global scores on microaggression measures and adverse outcomes is due to overt prejudice.
With these considerations in mind, a name change appears to be overdue. I propose that “microaggression” be replaced by a term that is free of its problematic conceptual and empirical baggage, especially its unsubstantiated presumption of hostile content. I further propose that microassaults and other overt forms of prejudice and discrimination be dropped from the microaggression concept. Specifically, I provisionally suggest that microaggressions instead be termed “inadvertent racial slights” to (a) highlight the unintentional nature of most or virtually all microaggressions, especially microinsults and microinvalidations (see Sue et al., 2007), and (b) shed the unmerited implication that microaggressions are aggressive in nature and perhaps intent, a presumption that may engender unjustified hostile attributions in recipients. From there, research can proceed to identify and better understand the sources, correlates, and potential consequences of inadvertent racial slights from a multi-informant perspective, incorporating self-reports and reports of multiple observers.
....
As in all domains of psychological science, humility should be the watchword (McFall, 1997; see also Ioannidis, 2016). I encourage microaggression researchers to continue their scholarly inquiries while substantially tempering their assertions, especially those concerning (a) the causal association between microaggressions and adverse mental health and (b) the presumed effectiveness of microaggression intervention efforts. The MRP has generated a plethora of theoretically and socially significant questions that merit thoughtful examination in coming decades. But it is not close to being ready for widespread real-world application.
With these considerations in mind, a name change appears to be overdue. I propose that “microaggression” be replaced by a term that is free of its problematic conceptual and empirical baggage, especially its unsubstantiated presumption of hostile content. I further propose that microassaults and other overt forms of prejudice and discrimination be dropped from the microaggression concept. Specifically, I provisionally suggest that microaggressions instead be termed “inadvertent racial slights” to (a) highlight the unintentional nature of most or virtually all microaggressions, especially microinsults and microinvalidations (see Sue et al., 2007), and (b) shed the unmerited implication that microaggressions are aggressive in nature and perhaps intent, a presumption that may engender unjustified hostile attributions in recipients. From there, research can proceed to identify and better understand the sources, correlates, and potential consequences of inadvertent racial slights from a multi-informant perspective, incorporating self-reports and reports of multiple observers.
....
As in all domains of psychological science, humility should be the watchword (McFall, 1997; see also Ioannidis, 2016). I encourage microaggression researchers to continue their scholarly inquiries while substantially tempering their assertions, especially those concerning (a) the causal association between microaggressions and adverse mental health and (b) the presumed effectiveness of microaggression intervention efforts. The MRP has generated a plethora of theoretically and socially significant questions that merit thoughtful examination in coming decades. But it is not close to being ready for widespread real-world application.
Personally, I think his new name for this is dumb and he could've done better but, for the rest...about damned time. Derald Sue, the guy who has pushed the term in the research and, even more so on college campuses, based his original studies on very small sample sizes and very broad, ever expanding definitions of what "microaggressions" were. He also has made an entire career out of them and sold lots of books. He has a very large financial stake in perpetuating this bullshit on the public.
Jonathan Haidt (one of the top social psychologists) wrote a commentary on the article, and I feel that he sums up the overall issues nicely:
It’s bad enough to make the most fragile and anxious students quicker to take offense and more self-certain and self-righteous. But what would happen if you took a whole campus of diverse students, who arrive from all over the world with very different values and habits, and you train all of them to react with pain and anger to ever-smaller specks that they learn to see in each other’s eyes?
And what would happen if the rise of the microaggression concept coincided with the rise of social media, so that students can file charges against each other—and against their professors—within minutes of any perceived offense? The predictable result of welcoming the microaggression program to campus is turmoil, distrust, and anger. It is the end of the open environment we prize in the academy, where students feel free to speak up and challenge each other, their professors, and orthodox ideas. On a campus that polices microaggressions, everyone walks on eggshells.
And what will happen to a democracy as students graduate from college and demand that microaggression training be implemented in their workplaces? Might entire democracies be tipped into a state of constantly rising grievance mongering, mistrust, and demands for silencing the other side? If you think American democracy is polarized and dysfunctional in 2016, just wait until the baby boomers have aged out of leadership positions and the country is run by a millennial elite trained at our top schools, which immersed them in a microaggression program for 4 years.
Education should help students to cultivate wisdom. We can’t teach wisdom directly, but we can teach habits of thinking, learning, and interacting that will, over time, make our students more nuanced in their thinking and more effective at dealing with each other and with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. An essential first step that every college should take is to renounce the microaggression program and discourage faculty and administrators from even using the term. Instead, colleges that care about fostering diversity and inclusion should ask themselves: How can we teach students to give each other the benefit of the doubt? How can we cultivate generosity of spirit?
There's also an interesting paper that came out a year or two ago about how microaggressions are perpetuating a damaging form of morality that is unfortunately shifting us from a culture that values and promotes dignity to one that embraces a culture of victimhood.
Here's a link in case you ever get bored: www.academia.edu/10541921/Microaggression_and_Moral_Cultures
*I wasn't sure whether to stick this here or in General Current Events, but given that the entire "safe space" and "microaggression" bullshit movement is so closely tied to politics, I felt it was better suited here.
