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I'm with Ty in thinking that this isn't even hypothetically possible, but more importantly, why? What are we going to learn? "Oh, it turns out you're responsible for your own oppression, so gtfo?"
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I agree. The area of inquiry has little upside in my estimation.
But that doesn't mean one gets to say things that aren't true to avoid it. The true answer here is, "We could make such assessments, but it's not going to aid society."
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I should be directing you to go read TM again, but to restate, how do you divorce a "group's own actions" (whatever that means) from the context in which they acted?
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The way courts have been doing it for years. Unless you don't believe people have free will (which, oddly, Harris does not, and has written about at length, enough to be considered an expert on the subject).
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And even if it was possible, how is "black people smoke 17% more weed than would be expected as a reaction to systemic oppression" useful information? Would it allow us to stop caring about the systemic oppression? No. (Although that's Murray's goal)
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Nor should it. If the study were done here, all but a small fraction of the disadvantages would be traceable directly back to systemic oppression. But again, people do not get to say an assessment is impossible, or that no such assessment is credible just because its value would be dubious. They get to say, "We could do that... But we shouldn't." Which is what I think Klein wanted to say but couldn't because I think he thought it would be a capitulation to Harris.
