# Young and Social Difference

## October 28th, 2020

-   "COVID-19 isn't exactly spiking on campus, but the cases have doubled over the past week from ~5 cases a week to ~10 - I'm keeping a close eye on that, so a reminder to keep yourselves getting tested"
    -   As nice as it is to be in a room with other human beings, I might cancel our 3rd in-person meeting
    -   "One of my neighbors is going to make a 20-foot long candy chute out of PVC pipe for contactless trick-or-treating, which I love so much"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-   I know I've talked a lot the last few lectures, so this one I'll try to make a few comments on Chapter 3
    -   A comment on this chapter: Young argues that people have a false dichotomy between the Republican and Liberal models of democracy, thinking that you can't have a meaningful "public good" while having individual interest groups with their own divisive concerns; Young argues in Chapter 3 that this contrast is drawn too harshly, and tries to argue that it's possible to have a deliberative democracy that recognizes "social difference," and even can use it to be more just
    -   Essentially, Young argues that these social groups aren't purely aggregative (i.e. closed-off groups of individuals only looking for their own good), but are instead more open and willing to engage in discussion and deliberate

-   For those of you who've read this, is that a fair summary of what Young's saying - that "politics of difference" doesn't have to lead to a self-centered, rent-seeking behavior?
    -   Later on, Young seems to suggest that the common good just means that individuals have wants and needs that go beyond "I want this for me" to "I want this for US, for JUSTICE"
    -   "As a side-note, Young's book isn't an almanac of purely factual information, but a set of perspectives and arguments that challenge how we understand the world - it's not quite analogous to pure information or little kernels of fact. Deliberation and debate isn't pure right-or-wrong information, but something in-between: an argument, or point-of-view"

-   Young also lays out what public policy people nowadays call "intersectionality" - that people can be part of multiple groups (a man could be a man, white, rural, an engineer, etc.), and so to say "you're just coming with your interests as a black person, or white person, or X" isn't usually accurate; everyone is coming with multiple interests, many of which are shared with other groups
    -   "In Young's view, a claim for justice is not a claim for private interests or satisfaction; it's not about me, it's about 'justice' or 'fairness,' which we all as human beings should be interested in"
    -   Young makes this point because many other philosophers have criticized "identity politics" as splitting democracies into these mutually-suspicious groups that don't listen to one another; Young's trying to get away from that and argue that groups having interests doesn't have to boil down into divisiveness
        -   "I'm one of the faculty who runs workshops on implicit bias for other faculty, and I try to demystify it; I just try to show that people can have background assumptions and associations that they don't realize are there that then affect what they think are obvious judgements. My go-to example is that as a white 1970s kid who grew up in Ohio, I immediately think of 'jelly' when you say 'peanut butter' - and when someone tells me they like 'peanut butter and pickle sandwiches,' I get OFFENDED, because pickles aren't SUPPOSED to go on peanut butter - it seems disgusting, even! But of course, peanut butter is used in a savory context all the time (like in Thai cuisine). So, if someone tells me something that doesn't fit with my views, I have 2 choices: judge them immediately, or listen and try to understand - without erasing those differences"
    -   This is different from Rousseau; Rousseau thinks the proper Republican model is that we should shed all our individual differences and talk purely about what all human beings in the Sovereign can agree with, but Young thinks we can't do that, and instead we need to bring our personal experiences to the table while following the deliberative norms of being open to correction, etc.
        -   In fact, Young argues that trying to ignore our personal experiences is just going to reinforce the status quo

-   Now, let's talk about Young's idea of "social structure"
    -   "I will note the very idea of social structure is kinda hard, since we're often not aware of such structures until we butt up against them - which, for people who are well-to-do in society like highly educated engineers, isn't very often"
    -   Essentially, SOCIAL STRUCTURE is anything in society that shapes or constrains what a person can do
        -   Young gives the metaphor of a birdcage, where a single wire doesn't constrain you much, but many wires together reinforce each other and makes it harder and harder to break out of those norms, and they often reinforce each other (e.g. the expectation of women to raise kids meaning they're less likely to find a job, which means they're more likely to raise kids, perpetuating the expectation)
        -   "This is what people talk about with systemic racism, although Young doesn't use the term; it's not conscious 'I hate black people' racism, but instead the preexisting social structures that limits what African Americans can do as opposed to others; even though, say, redlining has been made illegal in housing policies, we still inherit a society"
    -   IMPORTANTLY, Young says that this is NOT the same thing as identity; you can be socially constrained without "identifying" with a certain group. This is just talking about your relative position in society, not your conscious identity
        -   Young argues that you can therefore critique identity politics without denying this idea
    -   Now, there are social structures that DO make certain things possible (you can't collaborate effectively without some structure), and it seems it is possible to do so in a just way that doesn't hurt anyone - it just opens up more opportunities for those who haven't had them

-   *Tangent about a bluegrass movie called "Throw Down Your Heart," with a guy going to Africa to learn about the origin of bluegrass music*

-   Interestingly, the day before the election, we'll be talking about how representation works, and can contrast Young's take with Rousseau and Locke's more abstract pictures - stay tuned for that!