Call for an International Panel on Migration and Asylum

[bgmt]

Call for an International Panel on Migration and Asylum to guide European policies and global migration governanceThis text seems to me entirely adequate. It addresses real long-term issues, it does not give easy solutions, it calls just for opening one's eyes and seeing that there is a problem that cannot be addressed on a short-term basis. One

Comments

[chaource]

You see, that's the weird thing - some 15-20 years ago, when I worked as a young academic researcher at a university, I used to share your point of view on pretty much all political issues. I used to support feminism, abortion rights, gay rights, and affirmative action. I supported these positions not just in words but in some volunteer community work I did back then. I used to view anything "right-wing" with deep suspicion, and I thought that "conservatives" are simply rich and evil people. I canceled my subscription to the "National Review" (initially I didn't know it was a conservative publication) when I found an article there that openly praised capitalism. I used to think that politically correct speech codes (e.g. to say "African-American" instead of "black", or to say "his/her" or "they" instead of "his" when the gender is indefinite, etc.) are a good thing, a sign of necessary respect towards oppressed minorities, and so on.

My point of view has started to change about 10 years ago, and now it's quite different, as you correctly observe. However, the mainstream media's position has not changed - it's still the same politically correct, far-left progressive ideology I know very well. I know all their arguments and all their political positions, and I could argue their side with my eyes closed. It's just that now I don't think those arguments are correct, I don't think those political positions are based on empirical evidence, and I don't think any longer that those policies (e.g. affirmative action or gay rights) bring happiness to anyone at all (minorities and immigrants included). I learned the arguments from the conservative side, and I know that there are many good, common-sense, and empirically solid arguments in favor of economically conservative, socially conservative, and even nationalist conservative viewpoints, - arguments that are empirically based and free of racist, sexist, or other prejudice. The kind of arguments that I, as a scientist, would have accepted 20 years ago, had I seen them anywhere in the media. Conservatives want to improve life, just as the left liberals do. And there are good, solid arguments for adopting certain conservative policies because these policies do demonstrably improve everyone's life. Now that I understand these arguments and positions, I can't possibly accept the left-wing talk at face value as I did 20 years ago.

But I can still discuss things with people who have a different point of view, if the discussion is "in good faith" - i.e. if both sides honestly want to agree on policies that will tangibly improve people's lives. Then there is a solid shared ground, regardless of philosophical and ideological differences. Then the discussion can be productive - it will be about empirical evidence, about the expected consequences of this or that proposed policy, and this is the kind of discussion people need today.

But we live in a world where an ordinary software developer and the president of Harvard University are fired equally easily for supposedly being "prejudiced" - because they dared to mention in public some small portion of empirical data that contradicts the mainstream feminist ideology. An explicitly color-blind policy is nowadays called "racist", an "unfair privilege" actually means "earned reward"; a "harmful prejudice" means "empirical data that contradicts our chosen ideology", and "we need to have a discussion" means "our despicable opponents must be silenced".

In this "call for international panel", I couldn't avoid seeing this kind of Orwellian distortion of language. There, "confused" means "disagreeing with the politically correct point of view"; the "stakeholders" in the immigration crisis are not the European (or foreign) citizens but some unnamed "international experts". "Our" opponents are wrong because their policy is "ideology-driven", and yet at the same time "we" shouldn't look at empirical data - instead "we" must follow a certain "correct" ideology when formulating policy.

The immigration crisis must be discussed, but a discussion can't possibly be productive if the issues are formulated in such a heavily distorted language. The first step towards a productive discussion is to stop the Orwellian newspeak.

[agasfer]

One should only engage in a productive dialogue with good, smart people. And good, smart people can't disagree with you 'cause they share your views, naturally ;)