April 27, 2021
Dear Friends and Family,
Segment 11 of the Nihilism series builds on the Critical Race Theory – Segment 2 and last week’s American Philosophy – Segment 10. Here is my summary premise of the two:
Racism is ordinary, an everyday experience of most people of color in our country. It is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained in our society. We cannot escape it. White people are inherently racist, and they are the only people that can be racist. Not seeing people in terms of their race is racist in itself and is an attempt to ignore inherent subconscious microaggressions by white people which perpetuates white privilege.
In the current political spectrum, we are hearing more and more about systemic racism and how it must be stamped out, so this segment is timely in understanding today’s world.
My Takeaways:
Social Justice theorists (primarily from academia) have created a new religion, a faith that is hostile to reason and to disagreement of any kind. An ideological world that promises to sort out every inequity on earth. An ideology which expects to be accepted without challenge because of the wisdom garnered by the experiences of an elite group primarily consisting of people of color. The reasoning behind this expectation: members of oppressed groups understand both the perspectives of the dominant race (whites) and also the perspectives of the oppressed races (people of color), whereas whites only understand the dominant perspective which is fueled by their life of privilege. So, whites should just listen and learn.
The Social Justice faith assumes a dead God, examples of power and privilege in every action by the dominant race, and victimhood in every interaction by the dominant race that affects the oppressed races of the country. Everything they expect the country to embrace is about race and the associated overwhelming injustices. Many of the theorists and their followers view our country as evil which must be eradicated. Those who disagree with this viewpoint are bigots, homophobes, sexists, misogynists, racists, transphobes or all of the above. Disagreement is not tolerated.
This is the reported conclusions of the social justice advocates which has resulted in identity group politics and elevation of intersectionality viewpoints. The excerpts will provide more detail.
Commentary:
From my perspective there are three decided trend lines occurring in our country today. The first is that of Critical Race Theory, Social Justice Scholarship and Thought, and Intersectionality. Net, we have Nihilism – “a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded, and their existence is senseless and useless.” It is important to recognize that this philosophy is being taken seriously by a generation of young people, people of color, many politicians, and has now become embedded in employment law (through a commitment to diversity) in all major corporations and government bodies.
The second trend is U.S. demographic projections that predict people of color will exceed the white population by 2040. It will come sooner if our border situation remains as it exists today. So, in the next twenty or so years, the majority will shift from the white population to the people of color.
The third trend line is the current political proposals that are challenging and attempting to change some of the fundamental aspects of our political institutions – abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, etc. Is this a continuance of Nihilism?
This calls into question whether these three trends will result in “tyranny of the majority.” This was a major concern of the Founding Fathers. As you know, to protect against that eventuality they devised a governmental system of checks and balances via three branches of government. Further they provided some protections against representative officials being solely determined by the majority of the electorate. First, an elected body (the Senate) that was proportional to the states versus the country’s majority. The same for the election of a President (the Electoral College) that was not based purely on a majority vote but a proportionality of the states. Further, they created the third branch of government (the Judiciary) that is not elected and who is charged to interpret the laws of the land not created them as an alternative legislative branch. All of this was in part to protect the minority. It is not a perfect system but in the long run it has served us well. Should the system be discarded for a different system that decreases the protection of the minority? Is this Nihilism?
You be the judge to the importance of the three trend lines, whether it is Nihilism, and is it Good or Bad.
Next:
The first two segments of this Philosophy section of the series have focused primarily on race. But critical theories have expanded from that of race to those of gender, sexuality, and sex. The next four segments will focus on those theories and resultant perspectives. Segment 12 will focus on the LGBTQ community. First, the excerpts will look at gays versus queers, then at Queer Theory, followed by a series of refutes (myths) of Queer Theory by a sexologist.
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
Segment 11 of the Nihilism series builds on the Critical Race Theory – Segment 2 and last week’s American Philosophy – Segment 10. Here is my summary premise of the two:
Racism is ordinary, an everyday experience of most people of color in our country. It is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained in our society. We cannot escape it. White people are inherently racist, and they are the only people that can be racist. Not seeing people in terms of their race is racist in itself and is an attempt to ignore inherent subconscious microaggressions by white people which perpetuates white privilege.
In the current political spectrum, we are hearing more and more about systemic racism and how it must be stamped out, so this segment is timely in understanding today’s world.
My Takeaways:
Social Justice theorists (primarily from academia) have created a new religion, a faith that is hostile to reason and to disagreement of any kind. An ideological world that promises to sort out every inequity on earth. An ideology which expects to be accepted without challenge because of the wisdom garnered by the experiences of an elite group primarily consisting of people of color. The reasoning behind this expectation: members of oppressed groups understand both the perspectives of the dominant race (whites) and also the perspectives of the oppressed races (people of color), whereas whites only understand the dominant perspective which is fueled by their life of privilege. So, whites should just listen and learn.
The Social Justice faith assumes a dead God, examples of power and privilege in every action by the dominant race, and victimhood in every interaction by the dominant race that affects the oppressed races of the country. Everything they expect the country to embrace is about race and the associated overwhelming injustices. Many of the theorists and their followers view our country as evil which must be eradicated. Those who disagree with this viewpoint are bigots, homophobes, sexists, misogynists, racists, transphobes or all of the above. Disagreement is not tolerated.
This is the reported conclusions of the social justice advocates which has resulted in identity group politics and elevation of intersectionality viewpoints. The excerpts will provide more detail.
Commentary:
From my perspective there are three decided trend lines occurring in our country today. The first is that of Critical Race Theory, Social Justice Scholarship and Thought, and Intersectionality. Net, we have Nihilism – “a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded, and their existence is senseless and useless.” It is important to recognize that this philosophy is being taken seriously by a generation of young people, people of color, many politicians, and has now become embedded in employment law (through a commitment to diversity) in all major corporations and government bodies.
The second trend is U.S. demographic projections that predict people of color will exceed the white population by 2040. It will come sooner if our border situation remains as it exists today. So, in the next twenty or so years, the majority will shift from the white population to the people of color.
The third trend line is the current political proposals that are challenging and attempting to change some of the fundamental aspects of our political institutions – abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, etc. Is this a continuance of Nihilism?
This calls into question whether these three trends will result in “tyranny of the majority.” This was a major concern of the Founding Fathers. As you know, to protect against that eventuality they devised a governmental system of checks and balances via three branches of government. Further they provided some protections against representative officials being solely determined by the majority of the electorate. First, an elected body (the Senate) that was proportional to the states versus the country’s majority. The same for the election of a President (the Electoral College) that was not based purely on a majority vote but a proportionality of the states. Further, they created the third branch of government (the Judiciary) that is not elected and who is charged to interpret the laws of the land not created them as an alternative legislative branch. All of this was in part to protect the minority. It is not a perfect system but in the long run it has served us well. Should the system be discarded for a different system that decreases the protection of the minority? Is this Nihilism?
You be the judge to the importance of the three trend lines, whether it is Nihilism, and is it Good or Bad.
Next:
The first two segments of this Philosophy section of the series have focused primarily on race. But critical theories have expanded from that of race to those of gender, sexuality, and sex. The next four segments will focus on those theories and resultant perspectives. Segment 12 will focus on the LGBTQ community. First, the excerpts will look at gays versus queers, then at Queer Theory, followed by a series of refutes (myths) of Queer Theory by a sexologist.
Happy Learning,
Harley
NIHILISM: GOOD OR BAD? – SEGMENT 11
SOCIAL JUSTICE SCHOLARSHIP AND THOUGHT – EXCERPTS
SOCIAL JUSTICE HISTORY: We have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives have collapsed. One by one the narratives we had were refuted, became unpopular to defend or impossible to sustain. The explanations of our existence that used to be provided by religion went first. Then over the last century the secular hopes held out by all political ideologies began to follow in religion’s wake. In the latter part of the 20th century, we entered the postmodern era. An era which defined itself, and was defined, by its suspicion towards all grand narratives. The answer that has presented itself in recent years is to engage in new battles, even fiercer campaigns and ever more demands. To find meaning by waging a constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question.
The unbelievable speed of this process has been principally caused by the fact that a handful of businesses in Silicon Valley (notably Google, Twitter, and Facebook) have the power not just to direct what most people in the world know, think and say, but have a business model which has accurately been described as relying on finding customers ready to pay to modify someone else’s behavior. These wars are not being fought aimlessly. They are consistently being fought in a particular direction. And that direction has a purpose that is vast. The purpose is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies, a new religion, if you will. An ideological world view which promises to sort out every inequity not just in their own lives but every inequity on earth. The interpretation of the world through the lens of ‘social justice,’ ‘identity group politics,’ and ‘intersectionalism’ is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the end of the Cold War at creating a new ideology. To date ‘social justice’ has run the furthest because it sounds attractive. ‘Identity politics,’ meanwhile, has become the place where social justice finds its caucuses. It atomized society into different interest groups according to sex (or gender), race, sexual preference and more. It presumes that such characteristics are the main, or only, relevant attributes of their holders and that they bring with them some added bonus. The assumption in there is ‘a heightened moral knowledge’ that comes with being black or female or gay.
It is a system that is not just unworkable but dementing, making demands that are impossible towards ends that are unachievable. But today intersectionality has broken out from the social science departments of the liberal arts colleges from which it originated. It is now taken seriously by a generation of young people and has become embedded via employment law (specifically through a ‘commitment to diversity’) in all the major corporations and governments.
New heuristics have been required to force people to ingest the new presumptions. The speed at which they have been mainstreamed is staggering. Phrases like ‘LGBTQ’, ‘white privilege’ and ‘transphobia’ went from not being used at all to becoming mainstream. It is why the number of Americans who view racism as a ‘big problem’ doubled between 2011 and 2017. Rather than showing how we can all get along better, the lessons of the last decade appear to be exacerbating a sense that in fact we aren’t very good at living with each other.
One thing that everybody has begun to at least sense in recent years is that a set of tripwires have been laid across the culture. It took a little while for the delineation of these tripwires to become clear, but they are clear now. Among the first was anything to do with homosexuality. In the latter half of the 20th century there was a fight for gay equality which was tremendously successful., reversing terrible historic injustice. Then, it was morphing. GLB (Gay, Lesbian, Bi) became LGB so as not to diminish the visibility of lesbians. Then a T got added. Then a Q and then some stars and asterisks. And the gay alphabet grew, so something changed within the movement. It began to behave – in victory – as its opponent once did. When the boot was on the other foot something ugly happened. To fail the gay marriage issue – only years after almost everybody failed it (including gay rights groups) – was to put yourself beyond the pale. People may agree with that rights claim, or disagree, but to shift the mores so fast needed to be done with extraordinary sensitivity and some deep thought. Yet we seem content to steam past engaging in neither. Other issues followed a similar pattern. Women’s rights had – like gay rights – been steadily accumulated throughout the 20th century. They too appeared to be arriving at some sort of settlement. Then just as the train appeared to be reaching its desired destination it suddenly picked up steam and went crashing down the tracks and into the distance. In a similar fashion the civil rights movement in America, which had started to right the most appalling of all historic wrongs, looked like it was moving towards some hoped for resolution. But yet again, near the point of victory everything seemed to sour. Suddenly – after most of us had hoped it had become a non-issue – everything seemed to have become about race. As with all the other tripwire issues, only a fool or a madman would think of even speculating – let alone disputing – this turnaround of events.
Then finally we all stumbled, baffled, into the most unchartered territory of all. This was the claim that here lived among us a considerable number of people who were in the wrong bodies and that as a consequence what certainties remained in our societies (including certainties rooted in science and language) needed to be utterly reframed. What everyone does know are the things that people will be called if their foot even nicks against these freshly laid tripwires. ‘Bigot’, ‘homophobe’, ‘sexist’, ‘misogynist’, ‘racist’, and ‘transphobe’ are just for starters. How might somebody demonstrate virtue in the new world? By being an ‘ally’ to LGBT people, obviously. We are asked to believe things that are unbelievable and being told not to object to a thing (such as giving children drugs to stop them from going through puberty) which most people feel a strong objection to. The pain that comes from being expected to remain silent on some important matters and perform impossible leaps on others is tremendous.
Source: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray (2019).
MORAL CLARITY AND VALUES: When Good Organizations Go Bad: During my feminist activism, I entered into a religion of the Left – a feminist and gay fundamentalism that viewed Christianity, decency, and morality as the enemy, the competitor if you will, for the soul of America. Every special interest group needs and enemy – feminists and gays found that enemy in Christianity. It wasn’t always this way with NOW. When I joined the organization in 1986, I was attracted by its history of correcting actual wrongs against women. Changes spearheaded by NOW in the 1960s and 1970s benefit women across the board. Over the last two decades things have changed, and not for the better. I was president of Los Angeles NOW from 1990 to 1996. During my presidency we organized coalitions, offered courtroom support, and held candlelight vigils. But our efforts were on behalf of women who were victims of violence. Never would I have thought, even in the age of death of right and wrong that a NOW chapter would be reflective of a movement that desires the complete extirpation of any role for men in woman’s lives. Putting family first – children and husband – is the ultimate blasphemy and must be fought against. That fight includes painting childbirth and the pressures of motherhood as something that drives women mad. Literally.
Source: The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce.
THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO SOCIAL JUSTICE: After decades of being treated like knowns within the sectors of academia and activism, the principle, themes, and assertions of Theory became ideas taken for granted as true statement about the world that people “just know” are true. Social Justice scholarship and its educators and activists see these principles and conclusions as The Truth according to Social Justice – and they treat it as though they have discovered the analogue of the germ theory of disease, but for bigotry and oppression. In Social Justice scholarship, we continually read that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cis-normativity, heteronormativity, ableism, and fatphobia are literally structuring society and affecting everything. They exist in a state of immanence – present always and everywhere, just beneath a nicer-seeming surface that can’t quite contain them.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF COLOR BLINDNESS – STANDPOINT THEORY: Standpoint theory operates on two assumptions. One is that people occupying the same social positions, that is, identities – race, gender, sex, sexuality, ability, status, etc. will have the same experiences of dominance and oppression and will, assuming they understand their own experiences correctly, interpret them in the same way. From this follows the assumption that these experiences will provide them with a more authoritative and fuller picture. The other is that one’s relative position within a social power dynamic dictates what one can and cannot know: thus, the privileged are blinded by their privilege and the oppressed possess a kind of double sight, in that they understand both the dominant position and the experience of being oppressed by it. Thus, members of oppressed groups understand the dominant perspective and the perspective of those who are oppressed, while members of dominant groups only understand the dominant perspective. Standpoint theory is at the root of identity politics.
THOU SHALT NOT DISAGREE WITH THEORY: Perhaps what is more worrying about Social Justice scholarship is the increasing difficulty of speaking about issues relevant to social justice in any way other than under is own inflexible terms. This means doing so only with the approved terminology and accepting the validity of standpoint theory and identity politics. Disagreement is rarely tolerated. Example: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (2018). DiAngelo insists that society is permeated by white supremacy and that any disagreement with her ideas is the result of a weakness that has been socialized into white people through their privilege. White people are complicit beneficiaries of racism and white supremacy. This is the Truth According to Social Justice – disagreement is not allowed. If disagreeing, remaining silent, and going away are all evidence of fragility – mere “defensive moves” – the only way one can avoid being “fragile” is to remain put, show no negative emotions and agree with The Truth – after which one must actively participate in discovering the Truth, that is, learning how to deconstruct whiteness and white privilege. This is quite staggering. DiAngelo, a white woman, contends that all white people are racist and that it is impossible not to be, because of the systems of powerful racist discourses we were born into.
SUMMARY: The overarching liberal principle of conflict resolution – to put forth one’s best arguments and hash the issue out, deferring to the best available evidence whenever possible – is completely eliminated by this approach. Indeed, it’s billed as a conspiracy used to keep marginalized people down. It is therefore no exaggeration to observe that Social Justice Theorists have created a new religion, a tradition of faith that is actively hostile to reason, falsification, disconfirmation, and disagreement of any kind. Indeed, the whole postmodernist project now seems, in retrospect, like an unwitting attempt to have deconstructed the old metanarratives of Western thought – science and reason along with religion and capitalist economic systems – to make room for wholly new religion, a postmodern faith based on a dead God, which sees mysterious worldly forces in systems of power and privilege, and which sanctifies victimhood. This increasingly, is the fundamentalists religion of the nominally secular left.
Source: Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
THE TREND TO OVERCIVILIZATION: It would certainly seem that America has come a long way since 1960 – so far, in fact, that we may actually be returning to the place from whence we came. After decades of civil rights crusades, we have perhaps become so accustomed to fighting for progress that we are pushing it to the point of our own detriment. The truth is that black America currently finds itself in a position of privilege that civil rights leaders of the 1960s could only have dreamed. Yet rather than bask in the glory of our victories, we are instead creating new challenges. All of these developments reflect the current social climate of America, which I have come to describe as “overcivilized.” Civilization was achieved when we made the decision as a country to welcome law-abiding immigrants from around the world into our lands, while also providing due process for those seeking asylum from less civilized circumstances. But over-civilization is what is happening now with demands that we become a country with no borders – allowing any and every undocumented person to flood into our lands.
We reached civilization within the black community when we received our rights to live, work, vote, and love in accordance with out own desires. Over-civilization is our current state of race-baiting, fabricated oppression, and calls for self-imposed segregation. Let’s face it, those born in America after the 1980s are among the most privileged human beings ever to walk the face of the planet. And yet spending hours daily on our smartphones and rotating between various social media apps seem to have left us devoid of contentment. Our desire for a more meaningful existence has driven us to the never-ending pursuit of “social justice” causes; causes like gender-neutral bathroom signs and proper pronouns available for those struggling with their identity. Indeed, only in a time of tremendous peace can such meaninglessness take place.
The generation before us lived through the Vietnam War, which the United States combat forces participated in for 17 grueling years. And just 14 years before the start of that conflict, young American men who should have been enrolling in college were instead enlisting in what would become to be known as the bloodiest conflict in human history: World War II. And just a little more than two decades before then marked the start of World War I, battles fought among men whose average age was 24 but reaching as low as just 12 years. Fast-forwarding to today and students are demanding safe spaces on college campuses because they view it as a form of torture to be exposed to opposing viewpoints. Yes, in the wake of achieving progress, in the manifestation phase of our ancestors’ dreams, we are now working overtime to dismantle all that they fought for. We have no world wars to end, no major civil rights issues to champion, and yet our desire to triumph rages on. It would appear that we love an underdog story so much so that we are now unnecessarily casting ourselves as underdogs. Of course, there is danger in this pursuit past the point of civilization. For it is possible to demand so much progress that regression is the natural result.
The Racist Boogeyman: There are those in black America who uses charges of racism as a social handicap. With the expectation that the mere utterance of the word will vindicate them in every scenario. And the Left, always happy to exploit our victimhood urges us on. Many times, in fact, white liberals join in the game, alleging that they see instances of discrimination and microaggressions everywhere as proof of their commitment to our cause.
While it is well within reason to remark at injustice, the immediate claim that every moment of our temporary discomfort is segregation. It is impossible to forge ahead while walking backward. Recognizing our equality might make some black people uncomfortable, because with no one to blame but ourselves for failures, the weight of our responsibility may seem too heavy a burden to bear. It is much easier to go through life with a white supremacist boogeyman. And so, we become willing participants to the Left’s sport of identity politics, despite the perpetual outcome of our defeat. So comforted are we by the ease of the progressive path laid beneath our feet, that we ignore that it’s a path to nowhere.
Source: Blackout by Candace Owens (2020).
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
SOCIAL JUSTICE SCHOLARSHIP AND THOUGHT – EXCERPTS
SOCIAL JUSTICE HISTORY: We have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives have collapsed. One by one the narratives we had were refuted, became unpopular to defend or impossible to sustain. The explanations of our existence that used to be provided by religion went first. Then over the last century the secular hopes held out by all political ideologies began to follow in religion’s wake. In the latter part of the 20th century, we entered the postmodern era. An era which defined itself, and was defined, by its suspicion towards all grand narratives. The answer that has presented itself in recent years is to engage in new battles, even fiercer campaigns and ever more demands. To find meaning by waging a constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question.
The unbelievable speed of this process has been principally caused by the fact that a handful of businesses in Silicon Valley (notably Google, Twitter, and Facebook) have the power not just to direct what most people in the world know, think and say, but have a business model which has accurately been described as relying on finding customers ready to pay to modify someone else’s behavior. These wars are not being fought aimlessly. They are consistently being fought in a particular direction. And that direction has a purpose that is vast. The purpose is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies, a new religion, if you will. An ideological world view which promises to sort out every inequity not just in their own lives but every inequity on earth. The interpretation of the world through the lens of ‘social justice,’ ‘identity group politics,’ and ‘intersectionalism’ is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the end of the Cold War at creating a new ideology. To date ‘social justice’ has run the furthest because it sounds attractive. ‘Identity politics,’ meanwhile, has become the place where social justice finds its caucuses. It atomized society into different interest groups according to sex (or gender), race, sexual preference and more. It presumes that such characteristics are the main, or only, relevant attributes of their holders and that they bring with them some added bonus. The assumption in there is ‘a heightened moral knowledge’ that comes with being black or female or gay.
It is a system that is not just unworkable but dementing, making demands that are impossible towards ends that are unachievable. But today intersectionality has broken out from the social science departments of the liberal arts colleges from which it originated. It is now taken seriously by a generation of young people and has become embedded via employment law (specifically through a ‘commitment to diversity’) in all the major corporations and governments.
New heuristics have been required to force people to ingest the new presumptions. The speed at which they have been mainstreamed is staggering. Phrases like ‘LGBTQ’, ‘white privilege’ and ‘transphobia’ went from not being used at all to becoming mainstream. It is why the number of Americans who view racism as a ‘big problem’ doubled between 2011 and 2017. Rather than showing how we can all get along better, the lessons of the last decade appear to be exacerbating a sense that in fact we aren’t very good at living with each other.
One thing that everybody has begun to at least sense in recent years is that a set of tripwires have been laid across the culture. It took a little while for the delineation of these tripwires to become clear, but they are clear now. Among the first was anything to do with homosexuality. In the latter half of the 20th century there was a fight for gay equality which was tremendously successful., reversing terrible historic injustice. Then, it was morphing. GLB (Gay, Lesbian, Bi) became LGB so as not to diminish the visibility of lesbians. Then a T got added. Then a Q and then some stars and asterisks. And the gay alphabet grew, so something changed within the movement. It began to behave – in victory – as its opponent once did. When the boot was on the other foot something ugly happened. To fail the gay marriage issue – only years after almost everybody failed it (including gay rights groups) – was to put yourself beyond the pale. People may agree with that rights claim, or disagree, but to shift the mores so fast needed to be done with extraordinary sensitivity and some deep thought. Yet we seem content to steam past engaging in neither. Other issues followed a similar pattern. Women’s rights had – like gay rights – been steadily accumulated throughout the 20th century. They too appeared to be arriving at some sort of settlement. Then just as the train appeared to be reaching its desired destination it suddenly picked up steam and went crashing down the tracks and into the distance. In a similar fashion the civil rights movement in America, which had started to right the most appalling of all historic wrongs, looked like it was moving towards some hoped for resolution. But yet again, near the point of victory everything seemed to sour. Suddenly – after most of us had hoped it had become a non-issue – everything seemed to have become about race. As with all the other tripwire issues, only a fool or a madman would think of even speculating – let alone disputing – this turnaround of events.
Then finally we all stumbled, baffled, into the most unchartered territory of all. This was the claim that here lived among us a considerable number of people who were in the wrong bodies and that as a consequence what certainties remained in our societies (including certainties rooted in science and language) needed to be utterly reframed. What everyone does know are the things that people will be called if their foot even nicks against these freshly laid tripwires. ‘Bigot’, ‘homophobe’, ‘sexist’, ‘misogynist’, ‘racist’, and ‘transphobe’ are just for starters. How might somebody demonstrate virtue in the new world? By being an ‘ally’ to LGBT people, obviously. We are asked to believe things that are unbelievable and being told not to object to a thing (such as giving children drugs to stop them from going through puberty) which most people feel a strong objection to. The pain that comes from being expected to remain silent on some important matters and perform impossible leaps on others is tremendous.
Source: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray (2019).
MORAL CLARITY AND VALUES: When Good Organizations Go Bad: During my feminist activism, I entered into a religion of the Left – a feminist and gay fundamentalism that viewed Christianity, decency, and morality as the enemy, the competitor if you will, for the soul of America. Every special interest group needs and enemy – feminists and gays found that enemy in Christianity. It wasn’t always this way with NOW. When I joined the organization in 1986, I was attracted by its history of correcting actual wrongs against women. Changes spearheaded by NOW in the 1960s and 1970s benefit women across the board. Over the last two decades things have changed, and not for the better. I was president of Los Angeles NOW from 1990 to 1996. During my presidency we organized coalitions, offered courtroom support, and held candlelight vigils. But our efforts were on behalf of women who were victims of violence. Never would I have thought, even in the age of death of right and wrong that a NOW chapter would be reflective of a movement that desires the complete extirpation of any role for men in woman’s lives. Putting family first – children and husband – is the ultimate blasphemy and must be fought against. That fight includes painting childbirth and the pressures of motherhood as something that drives women mad. Literally.
Source: The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce.
THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO SOCIAL JUSTICE: After decades of being treated like knowns within the sectors of academia and activism, the principle, themes, and assertions of Theory became ideas taken for granted as true statement about the world that people “just know” are true. Social Justice scholarship and its educators and activists see these principles and conclusions as The Truth according to Social Justice – and they treat it as though they have discovered the analogue of the germ theory of disease, but for bigotry and oppression. In Social Justice scholarship, we continually read that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cis-normativity, heteronormativity, ableism, and fatphobia are literally structuring society and affecting everything. They exist in a state of immanence – present always and everywhere, just beneath a nicer-seeming surface that can’t quite contain them.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF COLOR BLINDNESS – STANDPOINT THEORY: Standpoint theory operates on two assumptions. One is that people occupying the same social positions, that is, identities – race, gender, sex, sexuality, ability, status, etc. will have the same experiences of dominance and oppression and will, assuming they understand their own experiences correctly, interpret them in the same way. From this follows the assumption that these experiences will provide them with a more authoritative and fuller picture. The other is that one’s relative position within a social power dynamic dictates what one can and cannot know: thus, the privileged are blinded by their privilege and the oppressed possess a kind of double sight, in that they understand both the dominant position and the experience of being oppressed by it. Thus, members of oppressed groups understand the dominant perspective and the perspective of those who are oppressed, while members of dominant groups only understand the dominant perspective. Standpoint theory is at the root of identity politics.
THOU SHALT NOT DISAGREE WITH THEORY: Perhaps what is more worrying about Social Justice scholarship is the increasing difficulty of speaking about issues relevant to social justice in any way other than under is own inflexible terms. This means doing so only with the approved terminology and accepting the validity of standpoint theory and identity politics. Disagreement is rarely tolerated. Example: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (2018). DiAngelo insists that society is permeated by white supremacy and that any disagreement with her ideas is the result of a weakness that has been socialized into white people through their privilege. White people are complicit beneficiaries of racism and white supremacy. This is the Truth According to Social Justice – disagreement is not allowed. If disagreeing, remaining silent, and going away are all evidence of fragility – mere “defensive moves” – the only way one can avoid being “fragile” is to remain put, show no negative emotions and agree with The Truth – after which one must actively participate in discovering the Truth, that is, learning how to deconstruct whiteness and white privilege. This is quite staggering. DiAngelo, a white woman, contends that all white people are racist and that it is impossible not to be, because of the systems of powerful racist discourses we were born into.
SUMMARY: The overarching liberal principle of conflict resolution – to put forth one’s best arguments and hash the issue out, deferring to the best available evidence whenever possible – is completely eliminated by this approach. Indeed, it’s billed as a conspiracy used to keep marginalized people down. It is therefore no exaggeration to observe that Social Justice Theorists have created a new religion, a tradition of faith that is actively hostile to reason, falsification, disconfirmation, and disagreement of any kind. Indeed, the whole postmodernist project now seems, in retrospect, like an unwitting attempt to have deconstructed the old metanarratives of Western thought – science and reason along with religion and capitalist economic systems – to make room for wholly new religion, a postmodern faith based on a dead God, which sees mysterious worldly forces in systems of power and privilege, and which sanctifies victimhood. This increasingly, is the fundamentalists religion of the nominally secular left.
Source: Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
THE TREND TO OVERCIVILIZATION: It would certainly seem that America has come a long way since 1960 – so far, in fact, that we may actually be returning to the place from whence we came. After decades of civil rights crusades, we have perhaps become so accustomed to fighting for progress that we are pushing it to the point of our own detriment. The truth is that black America currently finds itself in a position of privilege that civil rights leaders of the 1960s could only have dreamed. Yet rather than bask in the glory of our victories, we are instead creating new challenges. All of these developments reflect the current social climate of America, which I have come to describe as “overcivilized.” Civilization was achieved when we made the decision as a country to welcome law-abiding immigrants from around the world into our lands, while also providing due process for those seeking asylum from less civilized circumstances. But over-civilization is what is happening now with demands that we become a country with no borders – allowing any and every undocumented person to flood into our lands.
We reached civilization within the black community when we received our rights to live, work, vote, and love in accordance with out own desires. Over-civilization is our current state of race-baiting, fabricated oppression, and calls for self-imposed segregation. Let’s face it, those born in America after the 1980s are among the most privileged human beings ever to walk the face of the planet. And yet spending hours daily on our smartphones and rotating between various social media apps seem to have left us devoid of contentment. Our desire for a more meaningful existence has driven us to the never-ending pursuit of “social justice” causes; causes like gender-neutral bathroom signs and proper pronouns available for those struggling with their identity. Indeed, only in a time of tremendous peace can such meaninglessness take place.
The generation before us lived through the Vietnam War, which the United States combat forces participated in for 17 grueling years. And just 14 years before the start of that conflict, young American men who should have been enrolling in college were instead enlisting in what would become to be known as the bloodiest conflict in human history: World War II. And just a little more than two decades before then marked the start of World War I, battles fought among men whose average age was 24 but reaching as low as just 12 years. Fast-forwarding to today and students are demanding safe spaces on college campuses because they view it as a form of torture to be exposed to opposing viewpoints. Yes, in the wake of achieving progress, in the manifestation phase of our ancestors’ dreams, we are now working overtime to dismantle all that they fought for. We have no world wars to end, no major civil rights issues to champion, and yet our desire to triumph rages on. It would appear that we love an underdog story so much so that we are now unnecessarily casting ourselves as underdogs. Of course, there is danger in this pursuit past the point of civilization. For it is possible to demand so much progress that regression is the natural result.
The Racist Boogeyman: There are those in black America who uses charges of racism as a social handicap. With the expectation that the mere utterance of the word will vindicate them in every scenario. And the Left, always happy to exploit our victimhood urges us on. Many times, in fact, white liberals join in the game, alleging that they see instances of discrimination and microaggressions everywhere as proof of their commitment to our cause.
While it is well within reason to remark at injustice, the immediate claim that every moment of our temporary discomfort is segregation. It is impossible to forge ahead while walking backward. Recognizing our equality might make some black people uncomfortable, because with no one to blame but ourselves for failures, the weight of our responsibility may seem too heavy a burden to bear. It is much easier to go through life with a white supremacist boogeyman. And so, we become willing participants to the Left’s sport of identity politics, despite the perpetual outcome of our defeat. So comforted are we by the ease of the progressive path laid beneath our feet, that we ignore that it’s a path to nowhere.
Source: Blackout by Candace Owens (2020).
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| 11_nihilism_long_social_justice_scholarship_--_segment_11.pdf |