Happy your comment encouraged me to read this, because I will disagree on the “worth reading” comment here! Hardly any other core topics covered besides Wax’s unwillingness to define what constitutes racism, and her utter distaste for countries outside of the metaphorical West. This interview accomplishes hardly any ground at all. I applaud Chotiner’s willingness to challenge Wax’s musings in one sense, and feel equally frustrated by the platform that he gives her to spew broad generalizations. Like many prominent voices of neo-conservatism, Wax deflects whenever Chotiner highlights individual examples of prejudice. The human suffering and individual traumas that the reader can more closely examine in Chotiner’s examples seek to undermine her (flawed) broader generalizations. This is “how to maintain a white nationalist base” 101. Using broader “othering” tactics because empathy for the individual is too powerful of a counter-racist force. Time and time again, Wax elects to discredit tangible instances of prejudice, and pushes macro generalizations of whole ethnic groups and developing nations. This allows for her to pull from a wider data pool that ignores the individual and communal effects of prejudice in favor of this phony bias that uses global economic data to discredit entire races based on the economic and cultural prowess of the countries they inhabit. This is the same brand of pseudo-intellectual, borderline eugenicist drivel that has been spewed for what feels like an eternity. What does Wax end up proving in this interview besides that she feels that non-“western” (her definition might be closer to non-white) countries have faultier sanitation practices? I feel this is a waste of a dialogue that only gives Wax a comfortable platform to espouse her inaccurate prejudices in a more palatable way. There’s nothing civil about her stance.
Yo. I'm with you on a lot of this. I think we both felt the same internal distaste for so much of what Wax is all about. A lot of it just sounds and smells vile.
In college, I remember learning (from Robert Sapolsky) that people tend to be attracted to people who look like them (and their parents) - sexually and socially. The fact kinda freaked me because it almost sounded like an endorsement for a type of racism.
In my own life, I value diversity, so I seek it out. It's weird to admit publicly, but I sometimes wonder to what extent I'm battling (intellectually) against evolution and nature.
I've been very wrong about some essays, especially recently (so please let me off the hook if I my opinions shift with time!) but my memory is this: I enjoyed watching Chotiner run circles around Wax. I also appreciated Wax's insistence that as a society we're still in the midst of a true communication crisis. People (1) can't say how they feel about stuff like this and (2) aren't willing to look in the mirror. Really.
For some reason, the disturbing little tidbit about the Berkshires really stuck in my head this week. What might the country look like if all the white people who would genuinely prefer to live amongst white people were able to say so publicly?
Thank you so much for your comment. It definitely enhanced my reading of this article!
Yo. Thank you for sharing a deeper perspective on this article! Your thoughts on Chotiner’s circle-running certainly ring true. I agree completely re: the Berkshire’s example as well. It’s int
*it’s interesting to consider the role that white silence plays in so much of this discourse. There’s an unsettling link between Wax’s obsession with whiteness and her unattainable standards of cringe-worthy “purity”.
Yep. It's dumbfounding irony that Wax is working, in her own way, to undo that white silence. I wish some less overtly racist white people would start getting more comfortable speaking up. Perhaps Readup can help... ;)
These past few days, I've been imagining what kind of stuff she says in private, behind closed doors. A fascinating thought experiment. It's totally possible that she feels misunderstood and lonely. That she's kind. But I can't help but think that she publicly dulls a much deeper, darker hatred. To put on a soft face for The New Yorker. Who knows...
Whoa. Lots to chew on. Worth reading.
Happy your comment encouraged me to read this, because I will disagree on the “worth reading” comment here! Hardly any other core topics covered besides Wax’s unwillingness to define what constitutes racism, and her utter distaste for countries outside of the metaphorical West. This interview accomplishes hardly any ground at all. I applaud Chotiner’s willingness to challenge Wax’s musings in one sense, and feel equally frustrated by the platform that he gives her to spew broad generalizations. Like many prominent voices of neo-conservatism, Wax deflects whenever Chotiner highlights individual examples of prejudice. The human suffering and individual traumas that the reader can more closely examine in Chotiner’s examples seek to undermine her (flawed) broader generalizations. This is “how to maintain a white nationalist base” 101. Using broader “othering” tactics because empathy for the individual is too powerful of a counter-racist force. Time and time again, Wax elects to discredit tangible instances of prejudice, and pushes macro generalizations of whole ethnic groups and developing nations. This allows for her to pull from a wider data pool that ignores the individual and communal effects of prejudice in favor of this phony bias that uses global economic data to discredit entire races based on the economic and cultural prowess of the countries they inhabit. This is the same brand of pseudo-intellectual, borderline eugenicist drivel that has been spewed for what feels like an eternity. What does Wax end up proving in this interview besides that she feels that non-“western” (her definition might be closer to non-white) countries have faultier sanitation practices? I feel this is a waste of a dialogue that only gives Wax a comfortable platform to espouse her inaccurate prejudices in a more palatable way. There’s nothing civil about her stance.
Yo. I'm with you on a lot of this. I think we both felt the same internal distaste for so much of what Wax is all about. A lot of it just sounds and smells vile.
In college, I remember learning (from Robert Sapolsky) that people tend to be attracted to people who look like them (and their parents) - sexually and socially. The fact kinda freaked me because it almost sounded like an endorsement for a type of racism.
In my own life, I value diversity, so I seek it out. It's weird to admit publicly, but I sometimes wonder to what extent I'm battling (intellectually) against evolution and nature.
I've been very wrong about some essays, especially recently (so please let me off the hook if I my opinions shift with time!) but my memory is this: I enjoyed watching Chotiner run circles around Wax. I also appreciated Wax's insistence that as a society we're still in the midst of a true communication crisis. People (1) can't say how they feel about stuff like this and (2) aren't willing to look in the mirror. Really.
For some reason, the disturbing little tidbit about the Berkshires really stuck in my head this week. What might the country look like if all the white people who would genuinely prefer to live amongst white people were able to say so publicly?
Thank you so much for your comment. It definitely enhanced my reading of this article!
Yo. Thank you for sharing a deeper perspective on this article! Your thoughts on Chotiner’s circle-running certainly ring true. I agree completely re: the Berkshire’s example as well. It’s int
*it’s interesting to consider the role that white silence plays in so much of this discourse. There’s an unsettling link between Wax’s obsession with whiteness and her unattainable standards of cringe-worthy “purity”.
Yep. It's dumbfounding irony that Wax is working, in her own way, to undo that white silence. I wish some less overtly racist white people would start getting more comfortable speaking up. Perhaps Readup can help... ;)
These past few days, I've been imagining what kind of stuff she says in private, behind closed doors. A fascinating thought experiment. It's totally possible that she feels misunderstood and lonely. That she's kind. But I can't help but think that she publicly dulls a much deeper, darker hatred. To put on a soft face for The New Yorker. Who knows...