I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked why it is that the Woke won’t seem to have a debate or discussion about their views, and I’ve been meaning to write something about it for ages, probably a year at this point. Surely you’ll have noticed that they don’t tend to engage in debates or conversation?
It is not, as many think, a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation—that prevents those who have internalized a significant amount of the Critical Social Justice Theory mindset that prevents these sorts of things from happening. There’s a mountain of Theoretical reasons that they would avoid all such activities, and even if those are mere rationalizations of a more straightforward fear of being exposed as fraudulent or losing, they are shockingly well-developed and consistent rationalizations that deserve proper consideration and full explanation.
I often get asked specifically if there’s some paper or book out there in the Critical Social Justice literature that prohibits or discourages debate and conversation with people who don’t already agree with them. I honestly don’t know. I’ve looked in a cursory fashion and haven’t found one, but, then, Critical Social Justice scholars are also rather incredibly prolific (an undeniable benefit of having no rigorous standards to meet and a surplus of ideological zeal, as it happens). That is to say, there’s a lot of Woke literature out there, and maybe someone has explained it very clearly and at length with a lot of specificity, but if so, I haven’t seen it. So far as I know, there’s not some specific piece of scholarship that closes the Woke off to debate, like a single paper or book explaining why they don’t do it. It’s just part of the Woke mindset not to do it, and the view of the world that informs that mindset can be read throughout their scholarship.
There are a number of points within Critical Social Justice Theory that would see having a debate or conversation with people of opposing views as unacceptable, and they all combine to create a mindset where that wouldn’t be something that adherents to the Theory are likely or even willing to do in general. This reticence, if not unwillingness, to converse with anyone who disagrees actually has a few pretty deep reasons behind it, and they’re interrelated but not quite the same. They combine, however, to produce the first thing everyone needs to understand about this ideology: it is a complete worldview with its own ethics, epistemology, and morality, and theirs is not the same worldview the rest of us use. Theirs is, very much in particular, not liberal. In fact, theirs advances itself rather parasitically or virally by depending upon us to play the liberal game while taking advantage of its openings. That’s not the same thing as being willing to play the liberal game themselves, however, including to have thoughtful dialogue with people who oppose them and their view of the world. Conversation and debate are part of our game, and they are not part of their game.
1. They Think the System Is Rigged Against Them
The first thing to understand about the way adherents to Critical Social Justice view the world is just how deeply they have accepted the belief that we operate within a wholly systemically oppressive system. That system extends to literally everything, not just material structures, institutions, law, policies, and so on, but also into cultures, mindsets, ways of thinking, and how we determine what is and isn’t true about the world. In their view, the broadly liberal approach to knowledge and society is, in fact, rotted through with “white, Western, male (and so on) biases,” and this is such a profound departure from how the rest of us—broadly, liberals—think about the world that it is almost impossible to understand just how deeply and profoundly they mean this.
In a 2014 paper by the black feminist epistemology heavyweight Kristie Dotson, she explains that our entire epistemic landscape is itself profoundly unequal. Indeed, she argues that it is intrinsically and “irreducibly” so, meaning that it is not possible from within the prevailing system of knowledge and understanding to understand or know that the system itself is unfairly biased toward certain ways of knowing (white, Western, Eurocentric, male, etc.) and thus exclusionary of other ways of knowing (be those what they may). That is, Dotson explains that when we look across identity groups, not only do we find a profound lack of “shared epistemic resources” by which people can come to understand things in the same way as one another, but also that the lack extends to the ability to know that that dismal state of affairs is the case at all. This, she refers to as “irreducible” epistemic oppression, which she assigns to the third and most severe order of forms of epistemic oppression, and says that it requires a “third-order change” to the “organizational schemata” of society (i.e., a complete epistemic revolution that removes the old epistemologies and replaces them with new ones) in order to find repair.
This view is then echoed and amplified, for example, in a lesser-read 2017 paper by the Theorist Alison Bailey. Therein she invokes explicitly that in the neo-Marxist “critical” tradition, which is not to be mistaken for the “critical thinking” tradition of the Western canon, critical thinking itself and that which is seen to produce and legitimize it are part of the “master’s tools” that black feminist Audre Lorde wrote “will never dismantle the master’s house.” Since nobody ever believes me that she really writes this, here’s the quote:
The critical-thinking tradition is concerned primarily with epistemic adequacy. To be critical is to show good judgment in recognizing when arguments are faulty, assertions lack evidence, truth claims appeal to unreliable sources, or concepts are sloppily crafted and applied. For critical thinkers, the problem is that people fail to “examine the assumptions, commitments, and logic of daily life… the basic problem is irrational, illogical, and unexamined living.” In this tradition sloppy claims can be identified and fixed by learning to apply the tools of formal and informal logic correctly.
Critical pedagogy begins from a different set of assumptions rooted in the neo-Marxian literature on critical theory commonly associated with the Frankfurt School. Here, the critical learner is someone who is empowered and motivated to seek justice and emancipation. Critical pedagogy regards the claims that students make in response to social-justice issues not as propositions to be assessed for their truth value, but as expressions of power that function to re-inscribe and perpetuate social inequalities. Its mission is to teach students ways of identifying and mapping how power shapes our understandings of the world. This is the first step toward resisting and transforming social injustices. By interrogating the politics of knowledge-production, this tradition also calls into question the uses of the accepted critical-thinking toolkit to determine epistemic adequacy. To extend Audre Lorde’s classic metaphor, the tools of the critical-thinking tradition (for example, validity, soundness, conceptual clarity) cannot dismantle the master’s house: they can temporarily beat the master at his own game, but they can never bring about any enduring structural change. They fail because the critical thinker’s toolkit is commonly invoked in particular settings, at particular times to reassert power: those adept with the tools often use them to restore an order that assures their comfort. They can be habitually invoked to defend our epistemic home terrains. (pp. 881–882)
Here, the “master’s tools” are explicitly named by Bailey as including soundness and validity of argument, conceptual clarity, and epistemic adequacy (i.e., knowing what you’re talking about) and can easily be extended to science, reason, and rationality, and thus also to conversation and debate. The “master’s house” is the “organizational schemata” laid out by Kristie Dotson as the prevailing knowing system. Her claim is that these tools—essentially all of the liberal ones—cannot dismantle liberal societies from within, which is their goal, because they are the very tools that build and keep building it.
Bailey’s point is clear: the usual tools by which we identify provisional truths and settle scholarly disagreements are part of the hegemonically dominant system that, by definition, cannot be sufficiently radical to create real revolutionary change (a “third-order” change, as Dotson has it). That is, they can’t reorder society in the radical way they deem necessary. The belief, as both scholars explain in different ways, is that to play by the existing rules (like conversation and debate as a means to better understand society and advance truth) is to automatically be co-opted by those rules and to support their legitimacy, beside one deeper problem that’s even more significant.
The deeper, more significant aspect of this problem is that by participating in something like conversation or debate about scholarly, ethical, or other disagreements, not only do the radical Critical Social Justice scholars have to tacitly endorse the existing system, they also have to be willing to agree to participate in a system in which they truly believe they cannot win. This isn’t the same as saying they know they’d lose the debate because they know their methods are weak. It’s saying that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system, which is a different belief based on different assumptions. Again, their game is not our game, and they don’t want to play our game at all; they want to disrupt and dismantle it.
Their analysis would insist that their methods aren’t weak; it’s that the dominant system treats them unfairly. By being forced to participate in the dominant system, they therefore believe, they’re being cheated of the full force of their cause. To them, if we set the legitimization of the system part aside, to engage in scholarly conversation or debate is like a boxer stepping into an MMA match in which kicks, punches, throwing, and grappling are all on the table for the MMA fighter whereas gloved punches are the only thing the boxer is allowed to use, only far worse.
Debate and conversation, especially when they rely upon reason, rationality, science, evidence, epistemic adequacy, and other Enlightenment-based tools of persuasion are the very thing they think produced injustice in the world in the first place. Those are not their methods and they reject them. Their methods are, instead, storytelling and counter-storytelling, appealing to emotions and subjectively interpreted lived experience, and problematizing arguments morally, on their moral terms. Because they know the dominant liberal order values those things sense far less than rigor, evidence, and reasoned argument, they believe the whole conversation and debate game is intrinsically rigged against them in a way that not only leads to their certain loss but also that props up the existing system and then further delegitimizes the approaches they advance in their place. Critical Social Justice Theorists genuinely believe getting away from the “master’s tools” is necessary to break the hegemony of the dominant modes of thought. Debate is a no-win for them.
Therefore, you’ll find them resistant to engaging in debate because they fully believe that engaging in debate or other kinds of conversation forces them to do their work in a system that has been rigged so that they cannot possibly win, no matter how well they do. They literally believe, in some sense, that the system itself hates people like them and has always been rigged to keep them and their views out. Even the concepts of civil debate (instead of screaming, reeeee!) and methodological rigor (instead of appealing to subjective claims and emotions) are considered this way, as approaches that only have superiority within the dominant paradigm, which was in turn illegitimately installed through political processes designed to advance the interests of powerful white, Western men (especially rich ones) through the exclusion of all others. And, yes, they really think this way.
For adherents to Critical Social Justice Theory, then, there’s just no point to engaging in conversation or debate with people with whom they disagree. They reject the premise that such a thing is possible at all, because what is discussed or debated are, if changeable, in some sense matters of opinion. They don’t see the world this way at all, though. “Racism is not a matter of opinion” is, after all, one of their thought-stopping mantras. For them, disagreements across a stratifying axis of social power are a matter of being, experience, reality, and even life and death. These are not matters to be debated; they’re far too important for that.
2. A Metaphysics of Discourses
Secondly, the organizing principle of their worldview is that two things structure society: discourses and systems of power maintained by discourses. Regarding the systems of power, their underlying belief is genuinely that of the Critical Theorists: society is divided into oppressors versus oppressed, and the oppressors condition the beliefs and culture of society such that neither they nor the oppressed are aware of the realities of their oppression. That is, everyone who isn’t “Woke” to the realities of systemic oppression lives in a form of false consciousness. Members of dominant groups have internalized their dominance by accepting it as normal, natural, earned, and justified and therefore are unaware of the oppression they create. Members of “minoritized” groups have often internalized their oppression by accepting it as normal, natural, and just the way things are and are therefore unaware of the extent of the oppression they suffer or its true sources. In both cases, though in different ways and to different ends, the falsely conscious need to be awakened to a critical consciousness, i.e., become Critical Theorists.
Adherents to this worldview will not want to have conversations or debate with people who do not possess a critical consciousness because there’s basically no point to doing such a thing. Unless they can wake their debate or conversation partner up to Wokeness on the spot, they’d see it as though they’re talking to zombies who can’t even think for themselves. Unwoke people are stuck thinking in the ways dominant and elite powers in society have socialized them into thinking (you could consider this a kind of conditioning or brainwashing by the very machinations of society and how it thinks). We will return to this aspect of the problem further down in the essay.
For now, we’ll turn our attention to how that socialization (into accepting the dominant views) is alleged to happen, which is through dominant discourses. The Critical Social Justice worldview holds that systemic power structures society, and systemic power is a function of which “discourses” are viewed as legitimate and which aren’t. That discourse-legitimation process, which is roughly what is described in the section above, is viewed from within Theory as a set of wholly political decisions, mostly because of the Theorizing of the French postmodernist Michel Foucault.
Foucault held, among his many ideas, that whether or not a truth claim is actually true or not is mostly irrelevant because the interesting thing to focus upon is the political process that allows certain people (say, scientists) to be regarded as recognized authenticators of truths. This process is what shapes the prevailing discourses and thus defines, as Foucault had it, a “regime of truth” or “episteme” that dictates what is and isn’t considered true (whether it is true or not) and thus how society will be organized politically, socially, and practically. In particular, it explains what ideas will be considered accepted and acceptable and which will be considered unacceptable, unthinkable, or crazy. In this way, power, as “power/knowledge” works through everyone at all times, and this is the backbone of how Foucault framed the world.
Again, it is difficult to express from within the liberal paradigm (to their point, I guess) just how fully and profoundly they believe this. Their view constructs, in fact, a metaphysics of discourses that, in some sense, becomes the operative mythology underlying all of society and its operation. Because of the already critical orientation of the postmodernists and then the further amplification of taking on Critical Theory much more fully later, Critical Social Justice views this metaphysics of discourses in a very particular way with regard to the moral valence of how discourses are constructed.
This, by the way, outlines what Helen Pluckrose and I called “the postmodern knowledge principle” and “the postmodern political principle” in our forthcoming book, Cynical Theories. The knowledge principle is that knowledge is socially constructed and the result of political processes, and therefore objective truth is unattainable and irrelevant except in that some people make unjustified claims upon having access to it. The political principle is that these unjustified claims create a form of hegemonic dominance that needs to be deconstructed and dismantled through manipulations within the discourses at the level of the meanings of ideas.
You really do have to understand this like a religious view, very much like a Holy Spirit that is the Word, where the “Word” is the prevailing discourses, and the “Spirit” isn’t really holy: it’s systems of power and attempts at their disruption. Power is viewed to work through all people at all times as a result of the discourses that they accept and participate in, and so participating in conversation or debate with people who uphold the dominant discourses causes that power to work through you as well. That makes you complicit in the dominant discourses, even if you think you reject them, which makes having a conversation with the wrong person tantamount to a sin. This attitude is overwhelmingly present in the critical whiteness literature, which devotes a considerable portion of all of its proliferation to pointing out that white progressives who try to help out are the worst kind of racists because they no longer think that they’re equally significant conduits of the problematic dominant discourses and systems of society.
That’s a bit complicated, I admit, and so a simplification of this idea is that adherents to Critical Social Justice see discourses—ways we think it is legitimate to talk about things—as the true fabric of reality and thus the core site of ethical consideration. This is their mythology, in a nutshell. As such, they will not be willing to participate in any process that reinforces, maintains, upholds, reproduces, or legitimizes the unjustly dominant discourses, as they see them. Supporting those is, in fact, just about the highest sin one can commit in the Woke faith. The discourses must instead be engineered into a state of perfection—God’s Kingdom through Perfect Language—and it would not be permissible to engage in any behavior or process that allows oppression to be spoken from or into our discourses. Conversation and debate with people who speak from and in support of the dominant discourses would certainly therefore be considered highly problematic, and anyone who participates in it intentionally or even neglectfully would similarly be problematic.
So, their view of conversation and debate in this regard is one that considers it with extreme reticence and caution. Foucault said that it’s not that everything is bad but that everything is dangerous, and under the “metaphysics of discourses” that they’ve adopted and adapted from him, they would see conversation with people who uphold the dominant discourses as profoundly dangerous, not just for themselves, lest they be tempted and lose purity, but for others who will hear it and thus maintain the very power structures they think must be fundamentally dismantled. This fear that people will speak the wrong way and uphold “hate speech” or some such is so profound that they will be very wary of engaging in conversation or debate with people who disagree with them on principle, even with all other concerns set aside.
3. No True Disagreement
Thirdly, adding to this is a theme we draw out significantly in the eighth chapter of Cynical Theories: they believe all disagreement with them to be illegitimate. If we followed from Dotson in the paper named above and another slightly earlier one (2011) about “epistemic violence,” it could be pinned on what she calls “pernicious ignorance.” Robin DiAngelo would call it “white fragility” to disagree. Alison Bailey refers to it as an attempt to preserve one’s privilege under the kind of term George Carlin lived to make fun of: “privilege-preserving epistemic pushback” (four words, twelve syllables, one hyphen). Further, Bailey said all attempts to criticize Critical Social Justice thought, because they come from that “critical thinking” and not the “critical theory” tradition (within which they’d obviously agree), generate “shadow texts” that follow along but don’t truly engage (in the correctly “critical” way; i.e., agreement with her). Barbara Applebaum said similar in her 2010 book, Being White, Being Good, wherein she explains that the only legitimate way to disagree with Critical Social Justice education in the classroom is to ask questions for clarification until one agrees (which, you might notice, isn’t disagreeing at all).
In general, as mentioned a bit earlier in the essay, if you disagree, you either have false consciousness or the willful intention to oppress, and so your disagreement isn’t genuine. Only disagreement that comes from a Critical Theory perspective would be genuine, but this isn’t actually disagreement with the Woke worldview, only with superficial aspects of how it is playing out. The Woke view genuinely is that unless you agree with the Woke worldview, you haven’t disagreed with the Woke worldview in an authentic way, and therefore your disagreement cannot be legitimate. Read it again: unless you actually agree, you didn’t disagree correctly (cue Jim Carrey as the karate teacher defending against the knife attacker).
Now put yourself in the mind of someone who really thinks this way. The Critical Social Justice view of their conversation or debate partner is literally someone who is willfully, actively, or perniciously misunderstanding and misrepresenting all of their arguments in order to preserve their own dominant status and the system in which they are unjustly granted that dominance. Would you debate with someone you know would only be a bad-faith actor who is operating not in the interest of the truth but instead in their own selfish political interests? Not unless cornered. But this is how the Critical Social Justice advocate thinks about anyone who disagrees with them, in addition to seeing them as utterly morally degenerate.
4. Guilt by Association with Racists
Fourthly, the Critical Social Justice view sees people who occupy positions of systemic power and privilege and yet who refuse to acknowledge and work to dismantle them, to the full satisfaction of the Critical Social Justice Theorists, to be utterly morally reprehensible. They are racists. They are misogynists. They hate trans people and want to deny their very existence. They are bigots. They are fascists. They are “literal” Nazis. Not only that, they are willfully so, and their main objective is to defend and spread their hateful ideology in the world. If you truly believe this about the people you’ve been asked to have a conversation with, would you be about to help them do that by giving them a platform and lending your own imprimatur to them? Of course not. Such views are not even to be tolerated, much less entertained, engaged with, platformed, or amplified.
Furthermore, because of the theories of complicity in systemic evils that live at the heart of Theory, such a stain is automatically contagious, in addition to whatever real damage it does to further its advancement into the world. As they tweet, so they are: “ten people at a table with one Nazi is eleven Nazis at a table.” And not only are they supposed to endorse the platforming of that by sharing a stage with people they see this way, but they’re supposed to do it in ways that the dominant system, which is all of those things as well and their guarantor, approves of and advances its own interests through. These horrible ways include civil conversation and debate, which aren’t happening.
To give you some idea of just how extreme they are in their fear of being associated with people “on the wrong side of history,” there is a (somewhat fringe) concept within the Critical Social Justice worldview called “non-consensual co-platforming” (two words, nine syllables, one hyphen). What this concept describes is the following situation. Imagine that a Critical Social Justice Theorist were to publish an essay in the New York Times Opinion column this month, and a couple of months from now, I were invited to do so and did. Now we’re both people who have essays published in the New York Times Opinion column. The logic of “non-consensual co-platforming” would be that the editors of that column did a bad by putting me, a known undesirable, in the Opinion pages where there is also a Woke purist, obviously without having first got her consent to have been “co-platformed” with me in the same publication. (This example is rare, but more common is the same claim made about being platformed to speak at the same conference.) Now, the Woke purist is in the unpleasant situation of having been published in a place that is willing to sully its own reputation later by the publication of some deviant rascal. This is how seriously they take the stain of guilt by association.
The Woke ideology is so sensitive to the moral taint of being associated with moral undesirables that—again, especially in the context of a conference lineup—they believe that stain of co-platforming is contagious even in this extraordinarily distant way. If you think that people who think this way about moral contagion are going to get on stage and have a conversation with you, you’re positively out of your mind.
5. They’re Too Tired
As a fifth and final point, since this is getting pretty long already, remember that Critical Social Justice activists tell us more or less constantly how exhausting it is to fight this constant uphill battle in which no one takes them seriously (read: fight shadows of their own nightmarish projection). They tell us constantly about the high emotional labor costs of doing the “work” they do (and never being taken seriously for it). To invite them to a public conversation or debate is to ask them to get exploited in this way for other people’s benefit by getting up on stage in a dominance-approved paradigm with a bad-faith moral monster who just wants his opportunity to reinforce the very dominance that exhausts them in front of an audience who not only doesn’t but can’t actually get it, unless they already do. Again, that’s not happening. Even if very handsomely (read: ridiculously and exorbitantly) paid for their “emotional labor” to subject themselves to this situation, the other four points make it a nonstarter (and would drive up the price to basically literally infinity).
In Sum
One of the biggest mistakes we keep making as liberals who do value debate, dialogue, conversation, reason, evidence, epistemic adequacy, fairness, civility, charity of argument, and all these other “master’s tools” is that we can expect that advocates of Critical Social Justice also value them. They don’t. Or, we make the mistake that we can possibly pin Critical Social Justice advocates into having to defend their views in debate or conversation. We can’t.
These principles and values are rejected to their very roots within the Critical Social Justice worldview, and so the request for an advocate to have a debate or conversation with someone who disagrees will, to the degree they have adopted the Critical Social Justice Theoretical ideology/faith, be a complete nonstarter. It’s literally a request to do the exact opposite of everything their ideology instructs with regard to how the world and “systemic oppression” within it operates—to participate in their own oppression and maintain oppression of the people they claim to speak for.
These facts about the Critical Social Justice ideology extend from the microcosm of engaging in debate and conversation to each of those specific “master’s tools” a—science, reason, epistemic adequacy, civility, etc.—every bit as much as they do to the whole system that these tools combine to form: liberalism in the Modern era. This is a system that advocates of Critical Social Justice repeatedly tell us must be dismantled in the sparking of a “critical” revolution that replaces the whole of it, including its basic epistemology and ethics, with Critical Theory.
The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it.
299 comments
It can be summed up as:
“It’s all YOUR fault. YOU are the problem!”
I.e.it is all just ‘political’ or ‘politicised’ psychological projection. and should be treated as such.
James. What a pathetic, petulant little child you are. Presumably you’re funded by an American Christian fascist organization.
there it is, you will provide 0 arguments 0 facts, ANYTHING AT ALL, simply pathetic and not worth the time debating. you provide nothing
Nice read. I now see more clearly that the woke way of thinking is just like religious thinking but without a god to lean on. In a way the aim to change the current reality to theirs so that there arguments finally make total sense to everyone and nobody objects anymore. An impossible task for humans I might add.
I’d contend that debate is not a tool for refining truth; it’s barely a tool for finding a winner.
It’s a reversion to our old ancestry where we hooted and screamed at neighboring packs.
I can’t speak for history (though I suspect historical debates weren’t much different), but these days debate is a spectacle where the primary focus is to make the other person look bad. This isn’t done by calmly and rationally laying out the state of reality as we see it, no, the audience won’t tolerate a lecture unless it’s punctuated with derision for their opponent (You dingus).
The best methods I’ve seen for “winning” a debate are to always talk about your position and appeal strongly to emotion, never talk about the opponent’s position except in vague derogatory terms, and never answer questions from the opposition. If it’s mandatory that you answer questions, answer a question that they never asked. If they try to tie you down to answering the question, insult them and waste their time.
By these methods, and a few more subtle gambits, you can convince an unreasonable number of people to believe a number of unreasonable things.
Truth is usually approximated through observation and experimentation, not a rowdy verbal brawl to find which of these two has the biggest, shiniest, wrinkliest brain. It’s just… stupid. It’s wild to me that so many people respect debate and aren’t exhausted by it.
If two people want to work to refine truth from two opposing positions, it’d be better as a collaborative task, where neither acts as a champion for a side for the fight. Instead, they’re just a couple researchers working point by point to get to the bottom of this seeming conflict.
Listen, I understand the appeal to debate like I understand the appeal to blood sport. It’s a spectacle that makes us feel things, mostly good things. That’s valuable I guess, in a way. You can enjoy a good debate, I just urge you not to take it seriously. Because it’s not serious. It’s embarrassing.
That may be the case in “debates” now. However, a proper devate with rules and moderation, where you can’t use logical fallacies or insults, you have to answer questions and give reasons not just emotions, would be a different story. These things were implicitly understood and followed in the past.
I heard the Woke hides under your bed and in your closets. They only come out late at night to nibble on your cheeses. You think it’s just a mouse doing it, but really it’s that damn, dirty Woke. Protect your cheese from the Woke, y’all!
We who believe in what’s right ,must come together as one .
Open our hearts as a nation and pray for our woke liberal leaders to find peace and joy in the arms of their great grandparents, as always it’s about love of family and country….
“hey literally believe, in some sense, that the system itself hates people like them and has always been rigged to keep them and their views out.”
Given the bloody history of the ideology underpinning Critical Social Justice Warriors, a rational society would hate their ideas.
“that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system”
Sounds awfully like communists saying that their “great” experiment would work if only those meddlesome counter-revolutionaries would just get out of the way.
Uhm, James you refused to debate to people when they offered.
This whole article is nonsense, you literally ran away from people like Lindsey Ellis.
There’s so much wrong with this article I’m not sure where to even start. Perhaps the biggest cancerous lump in the neck of your main argument lies in the assumption that anyone functioning within a so called “system designed to fail” cannot possess the capacity or enough solid ground for that matter, to even take any reasonable stand in debate… and so they refuse to do so…. is deeply flawed.
What a giant crock of misconception. Observation alone drives my own personal views and opinions and I’d happily and willingly speak openly about what truly drives our system and what is at stake. Once you can view the invisible net that prevents most if not everyone from passing through it without doing so in pieces, it becomes apparent to even the dimmest of self proclaimed conformists that the barriers there are not only well planned but designed with the precision akin to a quantum computer pumped with AI ability in terms of complexity.
We are all slaves to a system we do not understand. The deepest purpose of this prolifically exploitative system remains on the outward parts, invisible to most. Traditional problem solving and logic systems fail in the face of this because what lies protected has been so successfully protected among the upper echelon most never even glimpse it.
Simply put, one does not need to be able to see a covered piece of furniture in a photograph to know that what lies underneath must be a couch. We can see the shape and more importantly, we can see the arrangement of other pieces AROUND the couch to make room for it’s volume. Same thing applies here. The systems like government, finance (or money rather), and religion are assumed to be created by mankind, yet we have no proof of this because we were only TOLD these things are true and given very limited evidence to support this if not fabricated or twisted to fit a narrative. More likely these systems of control were in place long before we set conscience foot on this realm. In this way, the boundaries were laid in at the beginning and so too, our laid in course for existence.
How likely is it that mankind would develop a system based on a begining deficit of poverty for most right out of the womb. Sure, sign me up! Sounds fair! Baloney. No animals do this. Yes we have more advanced brains than our annual counterparts but how and why that happened in such a short duration are still in need of careful examination.
Without giving too much away early on, I’ll simply say that your opening argument applies as well to you as it does to anyone else. You have not met with me or spoken to me in a debate forum. You are a product of a system designed to defend itself at it’s core and so through generations of programming, you continue to do just that, secure in your cognitive dissonance.
The fact that we as a planet have not come up with a more equitable system based not in fluctuating monetary values but in more valued humanistic qualities of compassion and equality shows that the system supports itself defensively and aggressively, each one taking part in the exploitation of the smaller guy below and receiving his due reward for that act in turn.
I’ll close for now because speaking about the unspeakable would only serve to upset those who hold this reality firm and without question. The ability to perceive realities beyond this apparent one are extremely rare in practice. Everyone claims to be woke because they can now see the threads of reality coming apart within the system. That has little to do with the complete picture, which would send most scholars diving under their beds with fear and confusion.
Thanks for reading this. I’m available for continued comment anytime. Namaste.
hi Kevin!
I read your comment. I fail to understand your point. What are you trying to say?
You say a lot of things, yet nothing of value.
“there’s so much wrong with this article, I’m not sure where to even start”, at the beginning, please, step by step, explain how this article is wrong.
You seem to hold virtuous opinions, how would you go about implementing them? A more compassionate, wholesome, equal world.
You also say “we as a planet”, do you identify with this planet? How should I see this?
I’ve tripped on dozens of psychedelics, meditated well over 1000 hours at this point, talked to alllll kinds of people – what is this “speaking about the unspeakable” you speak of?
“We are all slaves to a system we do not understand. The deepest purpose of this prolifically exploitative system remains on the outward parts, invisible to most. Traditional problem solving and logic systems fail in the face of this because what lies protected has been so successfully protected among the upper echelon most never even glimpse it.”
– that’s a lot of words without substance! What do we not understand, and in turn, are enslaved by?
– who is this upper echelon?
– glimpse what?
I’d love to hear more about this, please, by all means, shatter my worldview!
“The ability to perceive realities beyond this apparent one are extremely rare in practice.”, okay, what kind of realities? How? Altered realities due to substances? Or deep meditative absorption?
I’d like to know more about “this reality” you point to, and “the ability to perceive realities beyond this apparent one”; could you give me some examples, please?
I’d love to know more!
Take care 🙂
I do not know whether or not Kevin was referring to the Deep State but I would actually be willing to agree with his criticism of the system. If he is in fact a Social Justice Warrior, they certainly come in more shapes than I or even James Lindsay seem to be aware of.
A system we do not understand would be the monetary system, which was created and is being protected by the banks. And we are all definitely slaves to money, unless we are part of a hunter-gatherer tribe that hasn’t been contacted by “civilization” yet.
This is the perspective I’m coming from, I would recommend you watch all episodes. I’m pretty sure that not even psychedelics can grant you this worldview: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFreePeoplesMovement/featured
If you study “postmodernism”, as it is taught in schools, his answer makes perfect sense – right down to throwing smug insults instead of substance.
There is no truth: interpretation is power (that is, being right is irrelevant, Your narrative is everything: if it wins, you wins. You don’t win by debating but by asserting power.
All existence is struggle. Other is going to annihilate you, so you may as well annihilate Other first.
And so on.
It is a philosophy built out of wishing and cognitive dissonance and pure power politics.
He was confusing, but only for a second. Then this sentence came up, explaining it all:
“More likely these systems of control were IN PLACE LONG BEFORE WE SET [CONSCIOUS](sp) FOOT ON THIS REALM. In this way, the boundaries were laid in AT THE BEGINNING and so too, our laid in course for existence”
I want to thank you, James, for explaining earlier about the culto-religious weirdness of the gnostic portion of the critically conscious. Initially I thought it was a deviation from the more solidly Marxian/French/German philosophical traditions. I was wrong. Now I see these assholes as knee-deep in this ideological shit show, and inextricable from this entire class of assholes we have to eject from society.
I’m actually shocked any of these post consciousness humans bother to read you at all.
Lindsay sounds right in presenting the intellectual basis of wokeness. But does that play much of a role? Particularly unconvincing is that the woke are at all appealing to Foucault’s actual thought. The literature I’ve read suggests they mostly have no understanding of Foucault. For the bulk of the woke, the reticence towards debating is almost certainly of psychological (not theoretical) origin. Let’s not forget that the woke are not alone in avoiding debate.
A couple more serious objection to Lindsay’s essay involves a manner of proceeding, a sort of informal fallacy, let me call it the conjunction fallacy.
“Power is viewed to work through all people at all times as a result of the discourses that they accept and participate in, and so participating in conversation or debate with people who uphold the dominant discourses causes that power to work through you as well. That makes you complicit in the dominant discourses, even if you think you reject them, which makes having a conversation with the wrong person tantamount to a sin.”
The thought found in all but the last relative clause predated wokism by at least half a century, and would, in my opinion, be the most effective (and the most true to reality) approach to take in opposing wokism itself. Foucault was not woke, nor was Lacan, and Trump was not woke when he said the game is rigged (against the US working class). When Lindsay tags all of this with the issue of sin, the rhetorical effect is for the reader to reject the whole shebang. Only if one enters, as I do, with an independent study of discourse, does one notice the fallacy, let me call it the conjunction fallacy — conjoin a, b, and a reprehensible c, and c drags a and b with it — whereas I’d rather treat each conjunct in its own right, in which case discourse, when properly understood, has some merit that one would not grant to calling your opponent a sinner.
Similarly with the assumption regarding enlightenment. Lindsay does not think to qualify by noting that there are plenty of legitimate critiques of the enlightenment throughout the centuries, none of which, until recently, had anything to do with wokeness, and a lot of which would be tools against wokeness.
Similarly with references to the Frankfurt School. There was no wokeness in the Frankfurt School, and you will search in vain to find a strain of identity politics even in Herbert Marcuse. His student, Angela Davis, wrote a book called Women, Race, and Class, that is mostly layman sociology, and has no reference to Marcuse, nor could any of the ideas on women and race have come from Marcuse, who remained true to Marx’s own rejection of identity politics. (Remember, Marx was the most radical anti-identitarian, even class identity was endorsed only as a means to it being abolished.)
I have a few questions: 1) What is the actual evidence that the “woke” refuses to debate? (I know of some, just want an answer from someone who is on the side of Lindsay)
2) Since it does seem that many people in the comment section and Lindsay here believe that this all extends to all critical theory people, and pretty much the “left” generally, what evidence is there that the left generally, and critical theorists refuse to debate?
3)Again, on the same note, what evidence is there that Marxists refuse to debate generally?
What I think you will find, and as far as I know, is that as you go down those 3 questions you will find less evidence. Especially with Marxism and radical leftism that isnt “woke”, just some easy examples: Jordan Peterson getting scheduled to be in a discussion with Marxist podcaster Doug Lain, and then cancelling just before his first Joe Rogan appearance in which he claimed Marxists just dont debate. Jordan Peterson refusing to debate Marxist economist Richard Wolff, and also refused the first attempt for a peterson-zizek debate. Dennis Prager refused to debate leftists when actually confronted about it many times, not to say its never happened but the amount of requests vs him accepting is a high ratio. Ben Shapiro has not really responded to the many requests to debate him, especially from Ben Burgis.
Marxist don’t debate because they’re ideology is embodied in their strategies. They don’t want to debate because that’s frustrating. They’re above all that. They don’t talk, they just do.
The truth is they hate rational debate, and they fear it. Above all they don’t want to discuss their own premises. That’s what you do to your enemies. You never let your enemies do that to you.
That’s Friedrich Nietzsche and Marx 101.
The truth is they are a cult of broken people with mental health issues. End of story.
How true. I have a copy of Kerry Bolton’s “The Psychotic Left” and it describes these people exactly. I know this personally as I was part of this at a fairly high level in the 1970s and saw it with my own eyes. They’re incapable of thinking a thought through to it’s logical conclusion since logic is part of the old ideology they want to replace.
I agree. They’re ALL mentally ill. Some more than others but all nonetheless. There is no healthy debate anymore. It’s being taught to do the exact opposite. To say the right is authoritative is beyond me. To say the right cannot engage in debate and conversation is completely false. Not only is there evidence of this on everyday national television it is evident in my EVERYDAY LIFE. We aren’t allowed to have any differences or disagreements or otherwise we’re phobics and hateful and nazi’s and should die. It’s sick. It’s complete insanity. And it’s being taught in our schools, reinforced and incepted by the government and main stream media. People on the left actually spit on people who they don’t agree with and justify this behavior. It’s complete insanity. We cannot evolve like this. We will only DEVOLVE! The list goes on, sadly, of the sick, demented actions and ways of thinking on the left. There is no changing their mindset even through actual facts, truths, evidence….and laying it out in front of them. This is absolutely a mental illness. They are sociopaths. It is and will destroy our world. I pray for future generations.
Wow…. As lengthy, wordy, and misdirecting an attempt at a justification for the “refusal” by WOKE-sters to debate (because they cannot TRULY defend their ideological position beyond BELIEVING some non proven “theoretical rambling” by someone else) this WAS: The author only reaffirmed the title for her article: “No, The Woke Won’t Debate Any Position That Proves Us Wrong”.
i.e., “WE ARE “WOKE”!!” “We Have NO INTEREST In Hearing Something That Could Change Our Delusion”
The insanity of this philosophy is in its circular reasoning. They want to use the irrational (emotions, story telling) to create truth and admit they can’t win with their ideas using the ‘tools’ of critical thinking. So, it’s kinda like the kid on the play ground who is an outsider from the rest of the kids, who wants to create an ever-changing set of irrational rules that only result in conferring upon himself, power and control. What is missing is that for a philosophy to be valid, it needs to confer a benefit beyond the notion of personal power and result in practical benefits for the whole. Question: does this Marxist deconstructionism result in producing food, shelter, better health or anything that is necessary for it to be useful? Obviously, no. So, just trying to rig the game in your favor because you realize you cannot win, is not a appealing concept to the rest of us who are just trying to live. Pushed too hard, and it will result in a MUCH harder push back, either by the failure and collapse of society or the (armed) resistance of the much larger group acting in its own self-interest that is shared by the much larger overall society.
All very interesting, but doesn’t answer the question I came here to investigate, namely, what is the psychological meaning behind wanting to tear down society? What does it say about these people that they reject logic and meaning as tools of oppression and embrace emotion and irrationality as tools of “justice”? It’s all well and good to try to understand WHAT these lunatics think, but I want to know WHY they think this. Essentially, what’s wrong with these people?
commmenter wrote: “… I want to know WHY they think this. Essentially, what’s wrong with these people?”
“Why Do So Many People Buy Into The Narrative?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLDpZ8daIVM
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
Aldous Huxley
Luxurious Totalitaria above the 49th parallel:
“[The unvaxxed] don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space. This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?”
Justin Trudeau Dec 2021
Let the delicious maltreatment begin. How about waterboarding using maple syrup: a very Canadian twist to sweeten deplorable racist unvaxxed who are taking up some space.
Well, William. I am very left wing.
I can tell you that simply because we come to different conclusions about the world, I don’t “reject logic” whatever that actually means – I suspect it means “don’t think exactly the way I do”.
I’d also like to know what’s wrong with “embracing emotion”. I’m a human, not a robot.
But since you think we are lunatics (with no logic) then surely there is no understanding the “why”, clearly we are insance.
Unless of course you’re wrong about “what” we think. But that couldn’t possibly be the case, could it?
How quaint, David. Tell me more about what I *really* think so you can use it as an excuse to discard all my views before you even hear them.
Don’t forget to mention the agility of my tongue and my virtuoisty at lying while you’re at it.
I haven’t told you what you really think at all.
Feel free to quote where I have.
You said that he thinks leftist are lunatics and now pretend that you said nothing. Typical leftist tactic.
Ivan for some reason, I cannot reply to your post (February 7) , so I will reply to my own one and hope it shows up in the timeline.
You said “You said that he thinks leftist are lunatics and now pretend that you said nothing. Typical leftist tactic.”
But if you look at William’s original post from December 6 you’ll see that he says (this is a direct quote) “It’s all well and good to try to understand WHAT these lunatics think, but I want to know WHY they think this.”
So I haven’t ascribed thoughts to William at all. So if by “typical leftist tactic” you mean “I read his post” then I am guilty as charged.
Teenage rebellion and too much comfort. None of this fluff survives an hour in the dentist’s chair when the Anaesthetic isn’t working.
It’s very simple: Us and Them.
It’s over exaggerated and amplified by mass media
Its an obsessive behavior wrought with fear and anxiety
Its nearly paranoid schizophrenia,
And we’re all together on this ship of fools.
Try not to take it personally (yeah, right) and understand that its a failure to communicate – not an indictment of feelings or ideas, in spite of an oppositional stance.
Humanity. What a concept,
Neo-environmental wind power advocates show similar traits, refusing to logically debate anyone who thinks their landscape-trashing machines are anything less than righteous opponents of Big Oil.
Big Wind can’t possibly be a close cousin of the fossil fuels that build it. If you oppose industrial wind energy, you “must” be a climate change denier, in bed with fossil fuel interests. Period.
That’s not true. As someone who wants to see our energy produced by renewable sources, I don’t think people who advocate for oil and gas to generate power are climate change deniers or in bed with the fossil fuel companies.
I think you could just be really, really dumb.
So, if you want to see our energy produced by ‘renewable sources’ you should be wholly behind oil and its cousins gas and coal. Oil is constantly being created. We don’t understand the process so we can’t calculate the rate, but less than 10% of our oil could have possibly come from decaying plants and animals. Everyone in the oil industry understands this. Many oil wells have been exhausted and capped, only to come back later and find it producing at high rates late. I personally witnessed a coal seam being uncovered in Montana where the wall of coal had embedded in it a pair of boots and a hat.
I won’t call you “really, really dumb” because pointing out someone else’s presumed deficiencies is unkind and presumptuous. I have five degrees: psychology, quantum chemistry, MBA, JD and MDiv, so I listen. I have taught economics in college, along with law, business, finance, accounting and logic, reason and rhetoric. I have sympathy for the goals of the left, but when implemented it has only resulted in poverty and, eventually, tyranny in trying to make it work when it becomes evident that it won’t.
I have read several of your posts and find that you engage primarily in retorts, witticisms and deflection. If your ideas have merit, provide well constructed proofs and their related real world examples. Thanks for reading this.
I think we agree.
I have sympathy for the goals of the Right, but when implemented it has only resulted in poverty and, eventually, tyranny in trying to make it work when it becomes evident that it won’t.
So there, We see whats wrong. Its not my doing. I guess its not your doing either.
Karate teacher … I was still chuckling about that one to the end.
Lindsay jams on ’em. On and on. Just destroying them.
Destroying…. who?
Jordan Peterson explains why postmodernists (the woke/ SJWs / NPCs) won’t even engage in debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCfIuFmULkg&t=1088s
Well, why not call Sam Seder on the Majority Report. He’s a leading left leaning voice and will happily take your call.
Let me guess, there’s some pretext you’ve just invented that means you won’t lower yourself to debate him.
I bet Chapo Trap House would love to interview you. Or Kyle Kulinski. David Pakman would have you on. TYT would no doubt welcome you.
And I am sure most of those people would go on Joe Rogan’s show too. But for some reason, they’re not asked. How very odd.
David. My friend. Stop being the guy who comes just to ruin the comments section please. Maybe you had a point on one thing, then you kept goin one after another and showed you’re just here to respond to every single person that they’re wrong. The Sam Seder thing made me laugh too. Poor guy is like Joyce Reed, not a serious intellectual. I’d like to give your side a fair chance so could you give me a just one example of this “woke” ideology represented in something we would consider like a debate? Thank you sir I hope you do.
A rational person would welcome a conversation to discuss their views. However, you can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational person.
Well if the “woke” are irrational, who cares if they won’t debate you?
Yet you do. Interesting.
It’s not interesting at all, it’s common sense.
“Wokesters” are famous for causing trouble for reasons “non-wokesters” don’t understand. It’s only natural to think you could potentially talk them out of their foolishness, but James has explained why that’s not possible.
That’s not so hard to understand, now is it?
You should care about them, because they have dedicated their lives to dismantling society. And since they reject reason, and only rely on emotion, it’s a very small step from that to rage, and to violence, as we constantly see.
Sorry to enter the argument late. How about “because they’re dangerous” as an answer?
Who let in the troll?
Interesting. A leftist asks some basic questions and you call them a “troll”.
Is that your usual debate tactic?
Referring to Ken’s views, posted on August 19, 2020 at 9:38 pm:
Good start, Ken, but I see them as standing for, not merely Moral Purity, but unspoken (upper-middle) Class Superiority (esp. vs. the Deplorables), which usually manifests itself in a determination to (surreptitiously) *dictate* the Agenda of Discourse.
Most wokesters don’t mind “debate”, as long as it’s on their *rigged* terms!
In his podcast at https://newdiscourses.com/2021/03/onlysubs-how-wokeness-makes-conversations-impossible/ , James talks about how wokesters shift the agenda, from being about the facts, toward emotional and, later, identity-based levels.
I see these tactics as being a part of a larger repertoire, of them *dictating*/ shifting the Agenda at will, on the basis of their (surreptitious) Class Hegemony.
I only debate them, after they’ve *clearly* acquiesced, in Debate Rules being set, whereby all parties have equal time/ rights, and where they fully address the first issue at hand, before the agenda gets moved to *their* favorite subjects, e.g. Identity etc.
When confronted by insistence on such rules, they typically exhibit huge offense, as if none of them had ever gone down such Alinsky-type roads.
These sociopaths are always on the attack, while styling themselves as the Oppressed. As long as you think of them as normal people, you’ll be putty in their hands.
Reading their tripe is crucial, to get hip to sociopathic approaches, but Engaging with them is as totally hopeless, as is engaging with a Hitler, or any other totalitarian.
Only if they acquiesce, in them being held to standards to which they (implicitly) hold others, can such engagement have *any* remote hope of fruitful results.
The games that these brats run *exploit* the non-specification, of traditional tacit rules about (what they pompously call Oppressive) Discourse.
When normal adults engage, it’s usually tacitly assumed, that rules apply fairly to all participants.
But, these brats try to wiggle in their implicit social superiority, such that their whims get to bend the rules in their favor.
Moreover, their repertoire now includes the implicit threat, to deploy their *armies* of Woke allies, to dox you on social media.
So, any direct engagement with them has much more downside, than existed 15 years ago.
Until Wokesters explicitly/ emphatically rip these implicit threats, to deploy *armies* of Woke allies against those with the “gall” to critique Wokeism, such Wokesters have *no* more place at the table of adult debate, than does a follower of Alex Jones.
In particular, the Wokester (incl. in the MSM) performance vs. N. Sandmann, in Jan. 2019, was spectacularly sociopathic.
I think the key word is “brats”. The CSJ wokies appear to be about 3 years old inside their heads. “Everything I believe is true because I say it is, and everyone is out to get me because I am the only one to know the Real Truth., and rules don’t apply to me because they aren’t MY rules.” So in other words, they’re infantile idiots pitching a non-stop tantrum, complete failures as reasoning humans. What they need is a spanking and time alone in their room until they can behave.
If they’re such infantile morons, why do you want to debate them so much? You clearly don’t think they have anything to say and they, being the babies they are, won’t listen.
A skeptic might suggest that by infantilising your ideological opponents, if one of them did want to debate, you’ve set up a scenario where you don’t have to debate them.
I love talking with “them”, find out what they think, and discuss, ‘debate’. Haven’t had a chance to do it much, but some of them are open to talking, discussing, ‘debating’.
What if the moron is in a position of power and has friends? I would think you wouldn’t find the reason Nazis wouldn’t debate someone irrelevant.
You literally don’t make any sense. You deflect in every comment. You have zero substance in any of your comments. You repeat what others are saying and then end your posts with a question. I would say in a way this forum is a form of a debate that we are all engaging in and you have proven what everyone is stating…..that you are completely unable to debate and are finding every deflection you can to make it sound like you’re debating. Ending most posts with a question that don’t even make sense is just throwing crap at the wall to see if it will stick. I’m sure you feel empowered too at the end of every post like you’re actually defending any view or position you hold. People on the left cannot and will not engage in anything of substance. Deflection and gas lighting is the only thing you bring to the table. Nothing is ever your fault and you take zero responsibility for any of your actions. It’s sick and destroying our world.
I recommend everyone listen to this to understand much of what has happened in America and many other western countries:
https://www.audible.ca/pd/Rules-for-Radical-Conservatives-Audiobook/B071LC6JMV
I just finished the whole 10 hours of it.
Woke brigades and their members don’t and won’t debate. Last spring during the peak of the riots inNYC, I saw Caucasian young people making signs of support for BLT in the plaza where I walked to a parking garage. I said audibly “all lives matter”amd was confronted by a long haired mail who told me in no uncertain terms that the system had to be destroyed. I responded by telling him that my comment was dictated by a greater and older moral code that prohibited murder-which was ignored in Nazi Germany. He walked away spooked by my comment. You can debate woke types but just prepared for a Marxist response to your comments. That is the consequence of being brainwashed
I 100% believe that this story never happened.
The story absolutely happened. The woke world is not interested in debate, but intends to tear down what we regard as merit , a constitutional republic, , traditional morality and civil norms.
So by “the woke world” you mean “some random person I met in a garage once”.
Lmao if this really happened that’s great. I want to be that creative. You responded like a youtube comment in real time.
An interesting read. One thing these “woke scholars” you quoted don’t seem to realize is the self-defeating irony of trying, within their own writings, to use logic, reasoning, discourse and other “tools of oppression” to decry the same “tools of oppression.”
They are operating as if they were basically insane.
Just recently, I had someone tell me not to comment on their posts any more, but to message them directly. Apparently when getting into debates with their friends who are BLM it makes them uncomfortable to have their beliefs questioned. Most people just remain silent, or go straight to some trolling.
No, that’s not true. It’s just an imaginary strawman you’ve been told about. Just like the imaginary strawmen that James made in this article.
Maybe people just don’t want to talk to James because they don’t take him seriously. Just like he doesn’t take them seriously.
After all, the poster boy of high level ideas, Dave Rubin famously won’t talk to Sam Seder. Neither will cold feet Crowder.
Hey James! Go on Chapo.
Lest we not forget #coldfeetCrowder
“Just like the imaginary strawmen that James made in this article.”
That long Alison Bailey quote James shared (complete with conveniently linked article) was just a figment of his imagination then?
Here it is again in case you forgot it-
“ The critical-thinking tradition is concerned primarily with epistemic adequacy. To be critical is to show good judgment in recognizing when arguments are faulty, assertions lack evidence, truth claims appeal to unreliable sources, or concepts are sloppily crafted and applied. For critical thinkers, the problem is that people fail to “examine the assumptions, commitments, and logic of daily life… the basic problem is irrational, illogical, and unexamined living.” In this tradition sloppy claims can be identified and fixed by learning to apply the tools of formal and informal logic correctly.
Critical pedagogy begins from a different set of assumptions rooted in the neo-Marxian literature on critical theory commonly associated with the Frankfurt School. Here, the critical learner is someone who is empowered and motivated to seek justice and emancipation. Critical pedagogy regards the claims that students make in response to social-justice issues not as propositions to be assessed for their truth value, but as expressions of power that function to re-inscribe and perpetuate social inequalities. Its mission is to teach students ways of identifying and mapping how power shapes our understandings of the world. This is the first step toward resisting and transforming social injustices. By interrogating the politics of knowledge-production, this tradition also calls into question the uses of the accepted critical-thinking toolkit to determine epistemic adequacy. To extend Audre Lorde’s classic metaphor, the tools of the critical-thinking tradition (for example, validity, soundness, conceptual clarity) cannot dismantle the master’s house: they can temporarily beat the master at his own game, but they can never bring about any enduring structural change. They fail because the critical thinker’s toolkit is commonly invoked in particular settings, at particular times to reassert power: those adept with the tools often use them to restore an order that assures their comfort. They can be habitually invoked to defend our epistemic home terrains. (pp. 881–882)”
I’m talking about the stawman of the imaginary woke person who won’t debate James. I’ve sent multiple messages to him offering a debate but he won’t even schedule a date.
Ben Shaoiro has been debating various SJ tyoes for years
Remember when he was interviewed by Andrew Neil (a notorious right wing figure, but with a sense of fairness who challenges his interview subjects instead of gently soothing the ones who agree with him) and Ben had a total meltdown and left the interview?
That was super funnt.
Not sure where else to post this but Great Britain just published a pretty thorough rebut to the concept of systemic racism as it is claimed to exist in GB.
The report states Race is not a good indicator as to whether someone will be a full ‘participant’ in society (ie gain an education, stay out of trouble with the law, achieve a level of economic success…). They determined there was a much stronger correlation with social class, ‘family’ culture, and geography.
The report was “led by the evidence”, or in other words, based on mountains of data collected over the last 5 years and was analyzed statistically. Of course this method will be completely dismissed by SJW’s as “white oppression methods”.
The first thing that crossed my mind as I began reading it was whether the 10 person committee (all but one are ethnic minorities) understand the level of persecution they will face individually from now on.
Here’s the report:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf
James you never actually say who “they” are that won’t debate you. In fact in the entire article you only name two people who wrote articles 4 and 7 years ago.
I am sure Ben Burgis would have you on his podcast. Contact The Majority Report with Sam Seder, they’d love to have you on. Go on Chapo.
The fact is, you don’t WANT to debate any of these people. It’s why when you search for “James Lyndsay debate” on YouTube, all you’ll find is you being interviewed by people who already agree with you 100%. Hell 95% of the links in this piece link to other pages on newdiscourses.com. You won’t even leave the safety of your own website.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Is this even true? Let’s see, throw out the saw, the hammer, the screwdriver . . . re-invent the wheel . . . If I thoroughly de-colonize my toolkit, will the results even be worth calling “tools?” Suppose Thurgood Marshall had de-colonized his legal practice. We would still have 2 separate drinking fountains. When in future a Black lawyer goes before the Supreme Court, should he or she insist on double standards; Black arguments should not be judged by the same hegemonic standards used by white lawyers? And is Justice Sotomayor supposed to be impressed? (Oops, 3 separate drinking fountains. No, 4 . . . ) Are not calls to decolonize intellectual life, to reject all the old tools, are ultimately calls for rigidly separate ethnic silos?
How do they rationalize using anything by Marx? He was a man, Western, and Privileged. I guess its just convent for them when they want to dismiss something they don’t like.
Socialism is largely the product of DWEMs. So for that matter was the movement to abolish slavery. Kwame Anthony Appiah is attuned to how much decolonization and the critique of “Eurocentrism” itself owes to the rhetoric of European Romanticism — “Volkish Africanism” as it were (though this is not Appiah’s term). Cf his book In My Father’s House, pp. 59-60.
They call themsleves Marxist, but I bet they never read Marx.
This is exactly it. Marx founded the ideas of dialectical and historical materialism. He was focused on an objectively-real world and its implications on people.
Postmodernists, despite a train of thought-descent from him, reject large, fundamental parts of his philosophical system. They are not Marxists, despite huge swaths of this neo-Left CSJ community proclaiming Marxism as their ideology. As you say, they have never actually read Marx, and if they did, he’d probably be next on the chopping block.
“Marx founded the ideas of dialectical and historical materialism”
Pretty sure that was Hegel.
No. YOU call them Marxists. Because “marxist” like “communist” is now right wing speak for “all the things I don’t like”.
“Marxist” and “communist” are left wing speak for “fascist I like”.
Much if not all of the woke agenda can be found in the works of Adorno and Marcuse who clearly were Marxist in their views.
You’re literally the most entertaining part of this comment section I changed my mind.
Sounds like Scientologists playbook. Watch Leah Reminis Netflix documentary and you’ll see an overlap.
– “non-consensual co-platforming” (two words, nine syllables, one hyphen)
TWO hyphens, BIGOT!
Ah, the night of the sleep wokers from an alternate universe, demanding that you just believe in their religion – for that is really what it is, since they disdain logic.
Would you please write a follow up piece giving strategies for engaging with the woke – if there are any…
I’m Woke as hell. What do you want to talk about?
Heffron – Unfortunately this site doesn’t notify commenters if someone replies to their comment so it not very conducive to back-and-forths but…
I’m not a debater but I’m a curious person so I’m interested in your thoughts on a couple of the main claims made in this article, mainly;
1. “they have accepted the belief that we operate within a wholly systemically oppressive system. That system extends to literally everything, not just material structures, institutions, law, policies, and so on, but also into cultures, mindsets, ways of thinking, and how we determine what is and isn’t true about the world. In their view, the broadly liberal approach to knowledge and society is, in fact, rotted through with “white, Western, male (and so on) biases,””
2. “the organizing principle of their worldview is that two things structure society: discourses and systems of power maintained by discourses. Regarding the systems of power, their underlying belief is genuinely that of the Critical Theorists: society is divided into oppressors versus oppressed, and the oppressors condition the beliefs and culture of society such that neither they nor the oppressed are aware of the realities of their oppression.”
Do you see these as fair, albeit highly reduced, representations of these aspects of woke ideology? If not, how would you amend the statements?
I recognize you don’t speak for all Woke (and nor does Lindsay) but you can provide another perspective to the one in the article (and this site generally) so I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks for engaging!
OK. So I’m going to start out with what seems like a dodge, but I think goes to the heart of the matter.
So I think the biggest problem here is that “they” is never clearly defined. “They” seem to be “every who James doesn’t like”. So could I find a couple of people who actually do think in the way that James describes? Absolutely.
Is it the main body of thinking in the progressive world view? No.
Is a less caricatured version of what James describes a main body of thinking amongst progressives? Yeah, probably.
But that’s not a new body of thinking. It’s just that, particularly in America, due to the absolute failure of the MAGA establishment and a dull but mostly competent Biden administration, the talking heads of the right wing (see? I can do “they” as well) realise that having no main policy objectives outside of cutting taxes, that it’s time to fall back on the “it’s political correctness gone mad” shtick of the 80’s and 90’s. It’s the Culture War. Wait until you see the “war on Christmas” segments Fox has lined up for this year!
And similarly, this is James’s shtick. He’s the latest guy to jump on the CRT band waggon and he’s turning a nice little profit from it. I don’t give this article much credit – his named sources are about 10 years old and the majority of the links in the article are to other New Discourses articles that he’s written. Talk about the woke not wanting to debate, James won’t leave the safety of his own website. I’m sure Sam Seder would LOVE to have him on. Ask James to Go On Chapo.
As to the two quote you’ve mentioned…
1. What he’s describing is, as I say, a caricature of CRT. I mean society as we understand it today HAS been the product of the overwhelmingly white, western and male. Only one President hasn’t been white (and people lost their MINDS over that fact) in the UK only two PM’s haven’t been men. In the boardroom for the last 100 years it’s been overwhelmingly white and male. As it has with finance, entertainment, war, etc etc. Is it really so controversial to say that perhaps there may indeed be some bias there?
2. James is more accurate there. However, I’m unaware of what the problem is. Take slavery for example. I am against slavery but I am quite sure that something in my house is a product of modern day slavery – a chip in my phone, a t-shirt a pineapple. I am indirectly benefitting from slavery and so that’s why society is telling corporations that they need to make sure their suppliers don’t use slavery (I can’t go to Vietnam to inspect the textile company directly). They need to fix broken systems.
In the same way, I am against racism (I would hope most people are) but as another example, part of the reason I was able to buy my house was an inheritance from my grandfather after we sold his house. Now, if I were black, we wouldn’t have sold my grandfather’s house. Because he wouldn’t have been given a mortgage back in the 1950’s. So when you do an economic analysis of people in 2021 then CRT will allow you to explain why black homeownership is lower than white.
So, what’s wrong with looking at all of the facts and trying to understand how those facts came about?
1. Name any society which approaches the US in terms of its social and political progress and name any society whose intellectuals, writers and scientists have enriched their society in the same manner
2. Thanks to the Civil War, the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and civil rights law and litigation that declared segregation illegal, racism as a legal doctrine is dead. No society can or should promise equity or identity of results for people of different intellects. The overregulation of capitalism led our corporations to seek a cheap laborbase abroad in a Communist totalitarian dictatorship called China . Go tell Beijing to have such companies pay their employees a living wage -that ends up with the advocate of such ideas being sentenced to a reeducation camp or worse.
I’m replying to my own comment because for reasons unknown I cannot reply to Steven Brizel’s comment of October 19th.
I’ll start by saying that although he has numbered his points, they don’t seem to be related to my numbered points, so not sure what’s happening there.
Steven wrote:
“1. Name any society which approaches the US in terms of its social and political progress and name any society whose intellectuals, writers and scientists have enriched their society in the same manner”.
So I am not sure exactly how Steven would define progress in this context. Britain has a national health service, paid maternity leave, multiple political parties that hold seats at every level of the political life and has produced countless intellectuals, writers and scientists. All without having a mass shooting incident every other weekend. So there’s one.
In fact, I suspect most European countries could lay claim to that achievement. Even so, I am not sure how it’s relevant to anything.
2. The point he made is mostly whataboutism.
Do you think that NHS employees ought to be allowed to refer to “breastfeeding mothers” and “women giving birth”?
I do not care either way. If this is the latest thing to be outraged by then good for you.
You don’t think this a clear example of you being wrong. You do 10/10 pretending to be intellectual and then he brings up the two ridiculous quotes that are simple evidence that something is wrong there when people are being prevented from saying that. Your response is a sad non argument. What happened to your numbered points and paragraphs. Is the fact that birthing people is the better term now and men can have babies is common not evidence you take into consideration?
….and like priests of all ages, they’re loath to work in the fields with the real producers. Oh no no no….
“We have removed the sheets from the farmhouse beds, and sleep between blankets. And very comfortable beds they are too! But not more comfortable than we need, I can tell you,
comrades, with all the brainwork we have to do nowadays. You would not rob us of our repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to carry out our duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?”
The animals reassured him on this point immediately, and no more was said about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds. And when, some days afterwards, it was announced that from now on the pigs would get up an hour later in the mornings than the other animals, no complaint was made about that either.
So yeah, meh, hogwash.
“You really do have to understand this like a religious view, very much like a Holy Spirit that is the Word, where the “Word” is the prevailing discourses, and the “Spirit” isn’t really holy: it’s systems of power and attempts at their disruption. ”
I’m glad you said this, because engaging with critical theorists (for as long as I could hack it) it dawned on me that their founding myth is genesis – “in the beginning was the word and the word was with god” – and these are priests creating reality with words (they think). They just crave priestly power and status.
Could you elaborate? What is their founding myth? That historically there’s been a lot of racism in the country and that still has an effect today?
Because, you know… that’s true.
Proof please?
What is very disturbing to me is the absolute correlation between how people act who are in a cult and this mindset. People in a cult will not admit it. They have internalized the half truth and taken on the language that makes the feel superior in their actions. They are now virtue signaling everyone else and it is self congratulatory. It is very dangerous to be allowing this to infect our schools.
Who won the 2020 American Presidential election?
Biden won-There was evidence of fraud that the various federal Courts refused to consider that made the fraudulent conduct in n Bush v Gore look minimal by comparison but not enough for the Courts to get involved and risk civil unrest coordinated by the woke left and such groups as BLM and Antifa .
It is no secret that Democrats in the battleground states ran roughshod over the Electors’ Clause explicit language that only legislators of states vote on electors for Presidential elections, and that the ballots in those states were never audited on a vote by vote basis to determine who voted legally and who voted illegally and cast multiple votes, etc.
If Trump had been represented by Dershowitz and Turley, as opposed to his awful lawyers who talked the talk but failed to set forth a winning case in Court, Trump’s post election litigation just might have produced results.
Y’all are the wildest bunch of echo chamber-dwellers I have encountered in a while… which is saying something.
Very little institutional power is held by the so-called CJ crowd. So why waste so much energy trying to invalidate their worldview?
Did they hurt your feelings? Boycott your business? Ohh I know — did they call you a racist (clutches pearls)? Because they don’t have power to do much of anything else.
WokeVegas – honestly that’s a pretty ignorant opinion. Though they’re not currently knocking on my door to take my children away, their influence is far and wide. I could put down a long list of ways the ‘CSJ Crowd’ exerts influence and is in the process of remaking our society but for crying out loud, read the well-sourced articles on this site for yourself.
Live from WokeVegas.. “Very little institutional power”? ….
Elementary schools pushing “Queer story hour” onto little children, and the MSM showing this as nice, and wonderful when it is not. It is perverted. Pushing the “woke” ideology of, “power and race”, onto little children. Parents allow this, and go along with this, that is too bad.
LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!
State laws requiring so called, “social, emotional ” learning” in schools. “Equitable math.”
Schools now announcing they want “woke” teachers only.
Employees in all kinds of companies having to sit through “diversity” trainings, telling them they are racist because they are “white.”
Biological men allowed in women’s sports, including in the Olympics.
Biological boys, men allowed in girls/women spaces, and some rapes have happened.
The AMA stating sex needn’t be on birth certificates..
Oregon passes law allowing underage kids 15, and over to get hormone treatments without parental consent.
California, Oregon, Washington DC allow third “gender” category of “nonbinary” on license.
********
If you don’t think any of this is a big deal. Especially the state taking away parental rights, and women getting raped, then where would you draw the line?
Pedophilia? Why? Afghanistan has a nice little system of Bacha-bazi. We could do that. After all, what does it matter? Children are already prostituting themselves anyway. No big deal.
Our society is playing with fire, and it seems more people just don’t care, than do care.
Oh, forgot to add the DA’s in cities like San Fran, L.A. , New York, that think it’s fine to leave criminals out on the streets. Along with the “defund the police” demands, so, of course, all kinds of crimes are going up, including murder.
That along with the law in CA that allows nothing to happen to you if you steal $1000, or less.
Several Walgreens, that serviced needy communities had to close in San Fran because of the chronic theft.
Wokey-dokey is great for screwing with your head, and encouraging criminals!
Has anyone ever pointed out to the Critical Justice wokesters the fatal flaw that destroys all their posturing: they are speaking using the very language of the oppressors: English! Tell them: “The words you are using are those of the language of oppression: English. Why do you insist in speaking using the very words and language structures of the oppressors? Can you not express yourselves with your own untainted and uncompromised language?”
BTW, changing languages doesn’t really help; lots of oppressors speak Spanish or French or Russian or Chinese… but perhaps Esperanto is not tainted. 😉
They don’t respond to this tactic because like most cults, they rely on a “script”. Its figuring how to bypass the rehearsed/programmed answers and interact with the individual. They are caught up in group think and whether they’d admit it or not, they’ve lost the sense of being an individual. Its much better to try to bring them back to THEIR personal experience not a group’s experience. Something like “I’m more interested in your experience/ your life than every other person”. The saddest thing is that both woke and non woke people expect them to be the bearers of the collective history/pains of all people of color. That is alot for anyone and is unfair. Its can hamper them from being the unique human being they’ve been created to be.
Well I imagine the hated SJW of France and Russia are speaking in French and Russian. But you’re simply not aware of them.
Cue the “yet you participate in society” meme.
No, (you and) they don’t “participate in society”. They are in a shared world, but outside the “oppressive society,” doing nothing more than attempting to burn it all down, to reveal the kernel of pre-existing utopia.
commenter wrote: “…perhaps Esperanto is not tainted.”
Sorry. It’s White. “Esperanto [was] devised in 1887 by [Polish and bald] Dr. Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof (1859-1917), a [White] eye doctor…”
Esperanto’s Whiter than White.
Almost as White as the wokafarian new-age-esque yoga-pant-shamanesses, racistic bwana-ettes and left-overboard bernie bro-elles (of both sexes) whose self-loathing and shame-based jealous envy is long honed and now wielded as an hysterical Vengeance Race Truncheon to smash in the White faces of every White handsome male jock and White pretty female cheerleader who ignored them in high school as the stanky-assed-creepy-faced-hippomeat-Brontosaurus-Frisee-midden-scags (and that’s just their personalities) that they were then, are now and will be till they either suicide, heart attack or electric chair themselves to death; and whose Revenge on popular high school whites they blame for their twisted formative (sulfuric pablum) psychologically deforming Janis-Ian-At-17-loser-ugger-snub-grudge-hag fury is very very woke White indeed.
the article and all the comments are correct, but in my mind the issue isn’t the critical theorists — they’re too fargone and have convinced themselves of thea arguments James Lindsay puts forth because it’s so self-serving to do so. The issue now is why some of these ideas (white supremacy, privilege, etc.) are being taken up by people who aren’t critical theorists yet buy into at least some of the woke BS. There’s no point battling the critical woke theorists, but there’s every reason to keep hammering at those who buy into some of their ridiculous notions out of empathy for the oppressed or some other such thing. Those people are still reachable, because they still live in the real world.
As for contention #1, the critical theorists are absolutely correct — IF one substitutes the word “reality” for “the system”.
What most Americans do not understand is the doctrine that stands behind these radical zealots, because its not taught, in order to avoid disclosure.
I discovered this doctrine entirely by mistake, while pulling on a string tied to a statement Jesus Christ made in the book of Revelation …. Revelation 2:15: “So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.” Most Christians would want to know what that doctrine was and how they might identify it and sort it out. I found direct links concerning this doctrine to Socrates, Aristotle and of course the more contemporary Hegel and Young Hegelian’s
The Apostle Paul refers to this doctrine as Philosopha doctrine, in two places in biblical text, Acts 17 and Colossians 2. The Greek word philosopha was changed later to philosophy and later philosophy had its meaning changed to avoid detection of the doctrine. No doubt the doctrine still lives stronger today than perhaps during Paul’s time. The 5 pillars or Branches of this doctrine are:
Metaphysics
Epistemology
Ethics
Politics
Esthetics
All of these branches sit atop a methodology used to force deception, demonetization, and even destruction, called “Applied Dialectics”. Everything the philosopha do, flows through the lens of Applied dialectics. Every ideal they believe and every action they take is bound up in the 5 pillars and filtered and focused using applied dialectics.
What they will never mention is their use of Applied dialectics… as anyone with their own capability of reasonable thought will easily understand with only minor observation, that Applied Dialectics is a circular reference of self destruction.
Applied dialectics is the tool Charles Darwin used when he wrote his work origin of the species. Without philosopha doctrine and Applied Dialectics, Darwin’s postulation would have never seen the light of day….
So how do these things affect us today? Let me say unequivocally that there is absolutely zero difference between the methods of BLM and the 3rd Reich…. The identical can be said of other groups such as Antifa and the US Democrat party….. All of these hold the same doctoral belief and reliance upon Applied dialectics…..
The prime example of just how destructive Applied Dialectics can be is their use by the 3rd Reich against the Jews in Europe. If anyone thinks that those were extreme measures which cannot be repeated… They are not listening to BLM or Antifa…. BLM would have no problem justifying in their minds taking the identical actions against the “White” people as was taken by the 3rd Reich against the Jews. Factually examining BLM, their statements and actions, brings this truth into clear focus. The actions of the DNC and BLM together are a joint force to cause the identical outcome witnessed by the 3rd Reich only it would occur against all Israel (Samaria and Judah/Benjamin). The Kenites (Sons and Daughters of Cain) are the ones pushing the buttons of groups such as the DNC, BLM and Antifa. After all it was their (Kenites) father who designed and released philosopha doctrine and Applied Dialectics.
So why won’t the philosopha debate people who don’t believe in their doctrine? The answer to that question is very simple…. They consider it beneath them… They have assigned themselves as the all knowing all understanding … via “Science” and therefore see no valid reason to debate with those whom they consider inept. Its basically self aggrandizement to the point of becoming arrogantly pompous. Interestingly, a pompous, arrogant, braggart is one of the key identifying features of a Kenite.
The more interesting point to be made here, is that the purveyors of philosopha doctrine are easy to defeat, because they can be counted upon to be extremely repetitive in their actions and thinking. The philosopha never step outside the box of their doctrine… they are not allowed….
Nowhere in the Bible is the doctrine of the Nicolatians specifically laid out. Moreover, no historian has been able to identify its tenets/beliefs or found written or oral records. Conspiracies and wild speculations are not helpful especially to the goal of sharing the Gospel. All humans have at one point or other set themselves up as “gods”.
What’s the motivation? What is this critical justice theory an expression of? If we consider all things (experiences, thoughts, imaginings, hypotheses, truths) that occur, abhorrent and glorious, as real aspects of this grand project, what then, is the critical justice theorist expressing, which, rather than being considered validatory or antagonistic, is instead considered to be part of the functioning whole?
Logic cannot be validated by emotion. Emotion cannot be validated by logic. So, do systems of what emotion ‘thinks’ logic is, develop as an effort for emotion to validate itself in the sphere of logic, believing that logic is based on proving what is valid and what is invalid? Does logic realise, that to validate emotion it must abandon the very foundation of what it is that makes it logic? How can I validate your anger at my oppression when reason demonstrates that your claim is paradoxical?
These systems of meaning, these ‘internally coherent’ systems, are arbitrarily opposed. A social justice theorist has tenure at a university accepting the value of a premise which is the antithesis of their worldview. A logician gets angry that the word ‘racism’ undergoes a social normative process giving it a ‘jargon’ meaning that debilitates reasoned discussion of the subject.
What need does it meet, that these polarize into a power struggle for the primacy of one system of coherence over another, when both clearly exist?
If we weren’t fighting, tooth and nail, to cultivate the magnificent architecture of thought that we have inherited, or, to raise to the ground all that causes grief and suffering so that something righteous and true can arise in its place, what would we be doing? What would there be to talk about? Do we need the tension between poles to generate life in all its manifestations? Do we hate, but also love the confrontation?
So many question marks.
There’s a prespective on Critical Race Theory that provides a much simpler explanation of why they don’t debate. The real goal of Critical Race Theory (presumably unconscious for most participants) is to feel oneself morally pure. Many aspects of the ideology come together when it’s viewed in this light.
To feel oneself morally pure, one must view moral ambiguity as the enemy, because you can’t be pure without there being definitive good guys and bad guys. The good guys must always be good, and the bad guys always bad, otherwise the hated ambiguity arises. The chosen bad guys are white male western culture, so they need to be bad in *every way.*
Thus we see that no oppression by non-westerners gets called out, and no aspect of western culture is seen as positive or desirable. In particular, logic and reason must be bad. (They are doubly bad because there is no system of pure good guys and pure bad guys that can hold up under logic and reason.) There’s no point of debating when logic and reason are property of the bad guys. We have to have “other voices,” whether their message is worthy or stupid.
In general, if you take an aspect of Critical Race Theory and ask, “How does this help people feel morally pure?” you will almost always get a consistent explanation for it. It’s like “follow the money” in politics, that way.
Good start, Ken, but I see them as standing for, not merely Moral Purity, but unspoken (upper-middle) Class Superiority (esp. vs. the Deplorables), which usually manifests itself in a determination to (surreptitiously) *dictate* the Agenda of Discourse.
Most wokesters don’t mind “debate”, as long as it’s on their *rigged* terms!
In his podcast at https://newdiscourses.com/2021/03/onlysubs-how-wokeness-makes-conversations-impossible/ , James talks about how wokesters shift the agenda, from being about the facts, toward emotional and, later, identity-based levels.
I see these tactics as being a part of a larger repertoire, of them *dictating*/ shifting the Agenda at will, on the basis of their (surreptitious) Class Hegemony.
I only debate them, after they’ve *clearly* acquiesced, in Debate Rules being set, whereby all parties have equal time/ rights, and where they fully address the first issue at hand, before the agenda gets moved to *their* favorite subjects, e.g. Identity etc.
When confronted by insistence on such rules, they typically exhibit huge offense, as if none of them had ever gone down such Alinsky-type roads.
These sociopaths are always on the attack, while styling themselves as the Oppressed. As long as you think of them as normal people, you’ll be putty in their hands.
Reading their tripe is crucial, to get hip to sociopathic approaches, but Engaging with them is as totally hopeless, as is engaging with a Hitler, or any other totalitarian.
Only if they acquiesce, in them being held to standards to which they (implicitly) hold others, can such engagement have *any* remote hope of fruitful results.
The games that these brats run *exploit* the non-specification, of traditional tacit rules about (what they pompously call Oppressive) Discourse.
When normal adults engage, it’s usually tacitly assumed, that rules apply fairly to all participants.
But, these brats try to wiggle in their implicit social superiority, such that their whims get to bend the rules in their favor.
Moreover, their repertoire now includes the implicit threat, to deploy their *armies* of Woke allies, to dox you on social media.
So, any direct engagement with them has much more downside, than existed 15 years ago.
Until Wokesters explicitly/ emphatically rip these implicit threats, to deploy *armies* of Woke allies against those with the “gall” to critique Wokeism, such Wokesters have *no* more place at the table of adult debate, than does a follower of Alex Jones.
In particular, the Wokester (incl. in the MSM) performance vs. N. Sandmann, in Jan. 2019, was spectacularly sociopathic.
The problem with wokeness is that it is illogical. They have no way to find truth. Therefore they see no reason to debate or even converse. Western advances have all been subject to debate and logic is the means of determining truth. If you are not seeking truth, you are just wandering through life without a rudder. The woke’s main argument is that the world is being unfair to them. They find no way to break down the culture so they just act like it isn’t legitimate. Western culture is the product of centuries of gradual improvement based on logical persuasion. They want to tear that down in just a few years.
I don’t consider myself woke, or a social justice warrior, and I had never heard of Critical Justice Theory until I began reading your stuff. But I’m becoming increasingly convinced that your narrative is just the polar opposite of those you criticize, and for the sole purpose of being polar opposite. If one were to read your, and only your website, one would be convinced the world is in danger of being overrun by a bunch of “woke sheep”. I’ll give you a couple more weeks to balance your editorial, but I’d I still see the same bias bovine excrement, I will cease to continue using your prose as a credible in any fashion.
Would it be too much to ask for some specific substantiation re the polar-opposite claim? How are the Woke theorists, and the now-many fruits by which they are known, not intellectually reprehensible? How can Lindsay’s article possibly disgust someone as much as the Woke theorists do? (That’s my takeaway from the “polar opposite” characterization, i.e., they’re comparably bad.) Isn’t the very fact that they don’t debate (or debate in good faith) pretty strong evidence of how reprehensible they are?
Is the “Master’s Tools” quote somehow unrepresentative of what’s going on in Woke theory?
Just a minor editing suggestion: “non-consensual co-platforming” has two hyphens, not one.
Typo aside, it’s a great article.
I think that what James describes here is true and thus trying to debate with these folks is pointless. What we need to do is push them aside and get on with things. They are hopelessly wrong and unwilling to try to understand the truth which they deny even exists. It’s not our unwillingness to debate them that is the problem, we are of course willing to do so, but they aren’t willing so other means need to be found to deal with them. Of course many of us find this uncomfortable (I know I do) because we are used to being able to resolve issues by reason, evidence, and discussion, but that’s not who we are dealing with here.
As in all Marxian polylogism, Alison Bailey’s argument is entirely self-refuting because to assert what she does she must use the very tools she rejects. Such unacknowledged circularity is not always done consciously, but such apparent ignorance belies her serious epistemological failure in submitting to ideas that claim to be beyond validation or refuting.
All of this can be summed up very simply: Critical Theory is deeply inconsistent (both formally and informally) and therefore anyone who actually thinks this way, or at least pretends to when it suits their political agenda, is fundamentally and self-consciously irrational. A self-consciously irrational person will of course perceive himself at a “structural” disadvantage in a rational discussion.
All of the Woke’s attempts at “critical epistemology” and meta-reasoning — attacks on logical reasoning, evidentiary justification, and the notion of an objective truth that is at least partly accessible with these tools — are built on the same juvenile paradox that every high school student crashes into the first time they learn about philosophical skepticism: We can’t know anything for sure… but wait, if we can’t know anything for sure, then that means we can’t know for sure that we can’t know anything for sure…*head explodes*. Self-description and recursion are necessary and extremely tricky parts of any meta-theory, as anyone who has spent more than five minutes working on such a theory, from philosophical epistemology to axiomatic set theory, will attest. In Woke epistemology, logic, evidence, and objective truth are part of oppressive false consciousness, and true knowledge is formed through narratives, lived experience and power dynamics. But by definition, that means their knowledge is no better than my knowledge, since we both have lived experiences and narratives and perceptions of power structures, yet somehow I’m arriving at the “wrong” meta-theory of knowledge. Why is my mirror broken and theirs isn’t, and why can their mirror detect whether it is broken while mine can’t? Clearly, there has to be some kind of ordering defined on the set of possible experiences and narratives, some way to decide which yield “more” truth and “less” truth, but how do we define such a function if objective truth doesn’t exist and the only source of knowledge is the set itself?
Deep down, all the Woke realize this problem, even if some aren’t intelligent or educated enough to articulate it clearly. That’s why they are pathologically obsessed with the notion of identity groups. It’s their escape valve, their way of breaking out of the clumsy endless epistemological loop they have built for themselves. If we take their definitions of identity groups and the various oppression dynamics between them as our axiomatic starting point, then suddenly the rest of the theory can be made to (sort-of) work. They have made race and gender identity transcendental: not only are they elements of the set of lived experiences, but they also form a separate binary relation defined *on* the set. This is a “God is omnipotent and we also have total free will”-level hole they’ve dug for themselves. It’s the most base and crude and illogical way imaginable to glue an irredeemably broken theory together into a grotesque semblance of a whole. Deep down, most of them *know* this. No matter how outrageously elaborate their coping mechanisms, they know it. Who would want to try and sell that kind of lemon to a customer that hadn’t already bought it?
History of warfare would suggest that a basic reason that the Woke don’t engage in reasoned discourse is that reasoned discourse is “letting your enemy choose the battlefield and the mode of fighting on that field.” Why fight by your enemy’s rules? Why fight where your enemy wants you to fight?
That the non-Woke don’t recognize that warfare is happening is because they cannot believe that warfare is happening. So much vested interest in not waking up to the unhappy reality that the opponent is actually an enemy. Thus, for instance, the omnipresence of the principle “if we give them what today they say that they want, then they will quiet down and everything will be okay.”
Who are some of the biggest names of the left-wing online? Sam Seder, Chapo Trap House, Contrapoints. Vaush. David Pakman. Kyle Kulinski. The TYT Channel guys.
I 100% guarantee they would have Murray on their shows.
One thing that can be done, and must be done immediately, is push back. NYU-Buffalo’s recent Woke brigade’s attack on Millard Fillmore (“we DEMAND that his name be removed from a campus building, even though he founded the university”) could be met with an equally forceful DEMAND that his name be kept in place — or, if removed, a relentless, never-ending public campaign to have it restored. Non-woke (i.e., rationalist) people need to be forming student groups and non-profit organizations to stand up to these bullies and hypocrites. If they don’t, their erasure is assured, and the USA will be a hopelessly tyrannical, bleak place to live.
I cannot overstate the value of what James, Peter and others here have done. But be clear – they are an asset to the Right for us to learn from. Read this piece but don’t get lost in the byzantine reasoning – the point is that they won’t participate in frikkin’ “MODERNITY” and the classical liberal order with us. They won’t agree to be governed by reason and to compromise with us.
What does this really mean? Simple – it’s a revolutionary ideology. “3rd order” means revolution and that starts with destroying our social order, which means destroying our society.
Revolutionaries need to be stripped of power and either banned from the nation or locked up. There is a crime called “sedition” on the books these “intellects” are breaking it. I’m happy to settle it out in the streets too – I don’t need the govt to handle this. I just need to be able to deal with them as active combatants in a revolution against my country.
If we don’t deal with them as such, they will keep winning. They are just about beyond the point of no return by my recknoning. We’ve already lost at least one generation of kids that we need to reclaim. We’ve already seen them destroy so many institutions. When will you fight back? Articles aren’t fighting back as they are not open to new information.
Most of you aren’t ready for this conversation. Most of you still think there is hope that somehow we’ll just “turn it around” by electing some new politician. Trump was elected. The Republicans held POTUS, senate and the House – and we didn’t push the left back much. It’s up to the people to take on these revolutionaries in your communities directly with a counter-revolution.
Hard for right wingers to conceive of but there no other response that is sufficient to stop them. Be clear of the implications of this article. They want a revolution. And there is no talking to them or debating them or compromise possible. So you either fight them on their terms or surrender. And no matter how many articles one writes, in the face of this force, one is just surrendering and pretending to fight. We can’t win a war of ideas with them, if the past 40 years haven’t proved that to you, nothing will.
On a site that does such a wonderful job of dissecting and exposing the origins of this Woke mind virus I’m surprised I have never seen anyone else mention Tema Okun.
Okun and Kenneth Jones wrote an anti-racist tract all the way back in 2001:
White Supremacy Culture
From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and
Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001
This chunk of postmodern slime mold has in subsequent years seeped into schools, business organizations and government.
Here it is straight from her organization.
https://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjL8vq93oXrAhWDmOAKHQvZATMQFjAJegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3i_TFfpNuLzCv19_N6zkAG&cshid=1596688756490
It practically served as the template for the Smithsonian’s recent racist infographic on all that bad stuff that defines Whiteness.
It would seem Okun deserves far more of the blame for this virulent idiocy than posers like Robin DiAngelo.
Just search for “White Supremacy Culture” Okun. You’ll find it all over the place – sadly.
Indeed, I haven’t the slightest idea what to do about — or to — the “wokes.” What do you advise doing about them, and to them?
There is, indeed, no talking to them or debating them, or compromise possible with them.
Whenever they start their ad hominem etc. routine, you’ve all the right to hurl such back at them, to boycott them, or to warn others of their toxic conduct.
“If Hillary/ Oprah insinuates me as having a “problematic” agenda, her having done so *thereby* reveals her to be running a “problematic” agenda, such as to *disqualify her* from being treated, as an authentic adult worthy of interaction with.”
A fairly “deniable” way to imply the above is, to simply answer them with “Whatever!”
And, no matter how they respond, simply answer them with “Whatever!”
The very vagueness of that one word will likely set them on their heels.
It may imply, that they utterly lack stature/ qualifications (to pontificate about anyone, besides themselves?), or that you lack the time now to stoop into their gutter.
They ‘ll likely be enraged, but will lack any solid grounds for whining, to anyone but those already in their pockets.
“Woke” is simply another religion. Religious people tend to reject reason. Some religions or religoous people use force or the threat of force to compel conformity. This is why most religions hold the threat of some angry deity who will roast your “immortal soul” in unspeakable torment for all eternity if you don’t tow the party line.
“Social Justice” is anything but “Critical.” It is a religious sham foisted on weak minds unable to operate within the confines of reality. Their mutual fellowship within the echoing halls of their confirmation bias is filled with the same virulent hatred, venom, and vitriol that Southern Baptist preachers and radical Islamic Imams hurl at the infidels mulling around without their gates. Their mantra? The non-Woke deserve destruction and eternal damnation — reason and facts be damned!
Provide example of “virulent hatred, venom, or vitriol” from a Southern Baptist preacher
Hey Biff, respectfully I submit that I don’t know about YOUR Southern Baptist experience, but mine is about love and acceptance. Just because we won’t tolerate unrepentant sinners converting and propagandizing our impressionable youth doesn’t mean we hate such sinners. If we believe (and we do indeed believe) that eternal torment and separation from God is the result of unrepentant sinful behavior, and we don’t tell the sinner about it, then are we not as great a sinner and hypocrite as they are?
Moreover, when you accuse Christian people of being weak minded, you destroy your own argument on the basis of falsity/ invective alone. There are many thousands of very reasoned, astute and intelligent people who believe in not religion, but the one true God, and Jesus Christ as His Son. All other religious worldviews are works-based perversions of the historically proven Bible, with views that were either created whole cloth, added-on later, or “prophecied” by sinful humans outside of valid contact with God in the original Word that He dictated and proved/verified through fulfilled, specific prophecy.
When judging “Westboro Baptist” style hate-filled people, understand that they are sinful outliers, deceived and subverted by the power of evil, NOT Christianity. We will not be projected upon by hate-filled sinners. Those same evil and hateful people do, however, certainly give unbelievers plenty of ammunition to justify their selfish and immoral choice to demonize and belittle believers of the Word.
The Bible clearly spells out that we would have those type of opponents. In fact, without such, the Word would have one less verifier of it’s truth.
Finally, you may hate Christianity, but I doubt you’d be comfortable living in a world not essentially crafted by the morality that it represents and all the good that it has brought (which is distinct from the sin and evil shown by many of it’s false and misled so-called adherents).
Peace to you, my friend.
I wonder what standards of debate Woke Folk would advocate for if they were ever put on trial for a crime they didn’t commit. Logic, reason, cause-and-effect, etc? Or, emo story telling?
They’d probably say they’re against trials and crime is a social construct or some such. At least until they’re a victim. Or, to paraphrase William Barr, at least until the flames are put out.
They’re perpetual teenagers — rebelling against systems upon which they are entirely dependent.
For that, perhaps the first part of Fitroy Maclean’s Eastern Approaches might help, with his observations as a diplomat attending Stalin’s show trials of some of the leading lights of the Russian Revolution. Essentially, his view wass that those on trial had so crafted Party doctrine that, even though they were objectively not guilty of the farago of allegations against them, they were axiomatically guilty because the charges had been brought against them by the Party.
This is one of the tactics I’ve used with some success in trying to deprogram Wokesketeers I know.
Another is to turn the Kafka trap around on them:
“Still cheating on your wife?”
“I don’t cheat on my wife”
“Which is exactly what someone cheating on theor wife would say. I’m gonna call her now and tell her.”
Tends to at least crack the egg for most…
This reminds me, as a Christian, of Romans 1. God gave the rebellious humanity over to a “debased” mind. They had rejected reality to such a degree God left them to live in their incoherency. It saddens me, but when you reject reality itself, you have embraced what is ultimately self-defeating.
Should we be thinking of Critical Social Justice Theory advocates as being religious? James’ essay hints at this view but doesn’t investigate it very deeply.
The vision of CSJ being a 21st century equivalent of 16/17th century Puritanism I think fits quite well, particularly when, for instance, TRA’s (Trans-Rights Activists) determine recalcitrant women (or ‘TERF’s) to be literal witches.
That ‘literal’ term is often employed by CSJ advocates/allies as a means of demonising an opponent. A ‘literal Nazi’ would of course be a member of The National Socialist German Workers Party (the NSDAP) which hasn’t existed since 1945. People of course can be neo-Nazis. That’s not the point though. The ‘literal Nazi’ term is simply because I reckon CSJ bods/The Woke aren’t quite yet comfortable with calling their victims ‘literal demons’. Nazi’s are I guess the next nearest thing we have to demons, and so that will have-to-suffice.
The problem is, such terms get over-used. The ‘#nodebate’ term, the very basis of Wokeness, ended-up being over-employed, and then derided, is rarely-seen now. Current terms are generally ‘literal Nazi’, ‘witch’, or to use ‘dog-whistle’ in an effort to shut-down discussion or thinking.
Yet even these terms will and are being over-employed. So I reckon The Woke will have to resort to calling people ‘demons’, not least because that probably expresses their true emotions about how they regard their victims, but also because the general populace will just become immune to accusations of racism, bigotry, transphobia…
If we frame this war as one against a militant religious theocracy, then battling Wokeness becomes a little easier-to-contemplate. Fortunately liberals have a huge, as-yet-underused weapon to-hand; unlike the Woke who treat history as something which requires erasure, liberalism is able to learn from history how best to fight this New Bigotry. And for that 16th & 17th century North American and European will fit-the-Bill perfectly.
This essay is brilliant yet sad for the necessity of having to write it. What it comes down to is that these folks haven’t grown up. To the extent that some may indeed have grown up, I believe they’re cynics as reflected in the title “Cynical Theorists.” This belief may come from my own cynicism in that I believe (living among them) that if their paychecks, livelihoods, reputations, ambitions, relationships and love affairs depended on it, they’d sell their supposed principles for a penny. In any event, their position, summed up in meme, is that Might Makes Right. Deconstruction begins with a chambered round and ends with the squeeze of the trigger.
Mr. Lindsay, another superb essay.
Most commenters, compliments for well thought thru & expressed comments.
To all, the solution to critical theory is to REQUIRE adherents to experience life solely on the basis of critical theory (CT). They MUST:
* Fly in planes designed solely with CT
* Use vehicles designed solely with CT over bridges & thru tunnels (especially underwater tunnels) designed solely with CT
* Receive healthcare that relies solely on CT
* Eat food grown, harvested, preserved, transported, distributed … by CT approved methods
* Rely on CT approved energy sources and systems
The resulting lived experience will smarten them up, shorten the time they plague society, or both.
Exactly, they should stop culturally appropriating our values and methods…
The article discusses five points, all of which are true. However, the entire article and all five points basically derive from one thing — the one thing that is central but is missed: The current mindset of those on the left is that they are superior to those who disagree with them.
They believe they are the ones who are absolutely right. This is not the kind of thinking where a stubborn person refuses to concede in the face of facts and logic. This is the kind of thinking that the Nazis had in the 1930s. THEY are right. And not only that, but THEY are the pure ones, and those who disagree are tainted and worse. And because THEY are so right about such important things, then THEY are also right in using whatever means it takes to ensure that THEIR moral view is imposed on the world in order to achieve moral purity. This is their religion.
That includes violence, as has been prolifically demonstrated over the last few years and with heightened evidence over the last few months. The Nazis were more than happy to use peaceful means to subjugate society, as long as people went along with it and were silently led to the slaughter. But when a Resistance started to rise up, then the Nazi tactics got more and more violent. This has been exactly paralleled by the left. For decades they have been happy to peacefully shove their ideology down everyone’s throats through the crafting of more and more leftist political policies, the molding of culture through the educational system and the entertainment industry, and the retooling of American thought through the media and legal professions. But then something happened. Trump came along. Now there are plenty of things wrong with Trump that I cannot defend. But those are not the things that got the left so riled up. They use those things as excuses, but the real thing that causes them to react as they do is because they cannot control him. They cannot use the typical pressures they put on other Conservative politicians to shut them up. Those things don’t work with Trump — they cannot control him with the traditional leftist tools, so they resort to their next tool: violence.
Leftists on campus have similarly been electing to use the violence tools when they see that this “free speech” thing is actually starting to be used against them. Now leftists are saying that they oppose free speech because it allows some to engage in “hate speech” — i.e., any speech they want suppressed. We see this in examples of college campuses having had violent protests when Conservative speakers are scheduled. We even see them turn on “their own” when they attack other Leftists and Democrats who are not left enough. This is the same reaction that the ultra-leftists had during the French Revolution.
Leftists can’t publicly say that they are superior to others — i.e., Conservatives. They know that would quickly be rejected by the American public, at least at this time. Instead, they use the logic put forth by George Orwell in Animal Farm: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. And because they see themselves as being superior to those who disagree with them, it is pointless and useless to debate them.
Perhaps not the majority at this time, but a significant portion of the leaders of this “movement” have a definite goal: incite a race war in this country so that it brings the kind of chaos that they hope can propel them into having absolute control. Remember: Hitler did not get in power through a violent revolution. He was overwhelmingly elected by a population that was seduced by the lies he spread. But he could not STAY in power unless he used violence. This is the mindset of the left.
There are those who “identify” with the left and read this and scoff at it, thinking that they themselves have none of those tendencies. Well, those individuals would be the “useful idiots” that Lenin and Marx said they would use to achieve their overthrow of civil society in order to impose Marxism. And they, too, won’t get into a debate because they think anyone who makes arguments like this are inferior. But see? The same superior attitude.
Good stuff, esp. about how, like the Nazis, the mindset of those on the left is that they are superior to those who disagree with them.
These folks are (led by) Upper Class Snobs.
But, a claim that Hitler was overwhelmingly elected, is false.
He never got an outright majority in a really contested election.
You might be referring to the 1933 election where Hitler’s National Socialist party garnered 44% of the vote but acquired the largest number of seats, and thus a controlling power, of Parliament. In referring to that, you are correct; however, I was referring to the 1934 vote for Hitler’s proposal to merge the offices of President and Chancellor, which would make him the sole undisputed supreme leader of Germany. In that election, Hitler won 88% of the vote. Quite overwhelming.
“I was referring to the 1934 vote”.
Fair enough, tho that vote had no foes on the ballot.
It was the first of his Plebiscites.
That’s why I referred to “a really *contested* election”.
“The Nazis were more than happy to use peaceful means to subjugate society, as long as people went along with it and were silently led to the slaughter. But when a Resistance started to rise up, then the Nazi tactics got more and more violent. This has been exactly paralleled by the left.”
Respectful semantic correction: The Nazi’s WERE/ARE “the Left”.
Other than that, 100% agree. 😃
Isn’t that more like what happened in the 2020 election. The Republicans were very happy that their guy won (even though he got less votes) because it followed the established rules of the electoral college.
But when they didn’t win, they rose up and called the elections fake and attacked the Capitol?
The TL;DR is that they don’t debate because they’d lose.
These people are a product of the prosperity that only their object of hatred (liberalism, of the classical sort) could produce and the fact, because of liberalism, modern humans have few real problems.
I mean, if there are actual problems (invading hordes, famine, disease, etc), what philosophy are you going to go with? The one that believes in linear thinking, cause and effect, logic, reason, etc, or the one that tells emo stories?
The reality is the hucksters selling critical race theory, etc, are the ones terrorizing blacks. We had a struggle session at work where black colleagues expressed how sometimes they’re scared to go for a walks because of police violence. That’s borderline agoraphobia caused by whites — not the police, the woke progressives. It’s actual abuse. And, these are economically successful people, at least. How many more blacks will be locked out of prosperous employ because they’ve internalized ideas from white abusers like Robin Di Angelo?
It has been logically established here, and in the personal experiences of many, that The Woke will not be swayed by reason, logic, evidence, presumption of innocence or any of the other “Master’s Tools”. Those tools have been slowly and skillfully discredited, with purpose, by the shamans of the woke – Tema Okun, Robin DiAngelo, and those who came before.
Where does that leave the rational “silent” majority? Those of us who correctly believe that we are doomed once society has relinquished its grasp on reason must have some means of fighting back. The “debunking” and rejection of Enlightenment reasoning though appears to leave us naked in a knife fight. What do we have left to work with?
I’ve begun to wonder if dealing with these zealots can only be done through an offensive stance using their “reasoning” against them while trapping them in their rejection of Enlightenment “tools”. The Woke operate right now with a fearless bravado knowing that they can bring down anyone of their choosing with only a simple accusation for which there is almost no acceptable defense. This imbalance must change in order for us to see the light at the end of this tunnel.
It’s not going to be nice. You aren’t going to make more friends this way, but society may well swing in the balance. Silently hoping this will just simmer down is not a workable solution. George Carlin sounded the alarm on this long ago and it’s now in full bloom.
When the next logical conversation on social issues breaks down entirely or you’re being accused of racism and berated for your low melanin levels or lack of advocacy maybe it’s time to go on the offensive.
How about offering this response to your Woke attacker?
“In my lived experience, you are a pedophile.”
Very few will simply shrug that off. It will almost always illicit a visceral response. You might even get hit but more likely you will be met with immediate, slack-jawed shock and indignation. “How dare you!” they might say along with a host of colorful epithets.
The thing is, if they don’t simply run away or immediately disengage (a sure sign of guilt using White Fragility type logic), they are stuck. You have just accused them of one of the most universally hated crimes. Jeffrey Epstein is a reviled figure for good reason. They virtually have to respond but their only way out of this is to appeal to reason, logic, evidence and due process, all among the tools they have so effortlessly discarded up to that point.
Where the conversation goes from there probably won’t be pretty. If you just said that to a “White Fragility” consultant at your company you probably won’t have a job, but of course you can still sue for discrimination just for being accused of white fragility in the first place. They haven’t yet changed those laws but the clock is ticking. California is already hard at work trying to remove your legal protection against race-based discrimination.
Is the point of this to weaponize yet another term in the juvenile pursuit of escalation? No, though it surely will escalate things. The point is to shock the Woke anti-racist with an accusation of similar gravity. Many will not respond to to this tactic but the similarity of the accusation and corresponding lack of any requirement for evidence and due process will stick in the minds of some leaving a mental splinter they will have to wrestle with. In the very least it will illustrate to the most rabid wokist that there remains a weapon that can be used against them as well.
I can’t take credit for this analogy. As others have pointed out on this site, the target of your accusation is an adult which means they have no way to escape their “adult privilege” or the fact they live in a society controlled by those who also have “adult privilege” and regularly benefit from that status. After all, adults can no longer by subject to the crimes of a pedophile and adults control society. Thus all adults are complicit with a systemic “adult privilege” rendering them most certainly, a pedophile. Mountains of disingenuous DiAngelo-esque logic are obviously in use here but that’s the whole point.
This is NOT the easy way to deal with the Woke, but I don’t know that there remains an easy way to deal with these cultists. We are going to have to make things tense. Unless the rational start forcefully pushing back, the war is likely lost.
I don’t know. Should I start printing T-shirts and mugs with the slogan “You say I’m a racist. I say you’re a pedophile.” ?
Better still, is
“In my lived experience, you are a (McCarthyite) Class Bigot.”
For an intro into the class part, see
https://worldnewstrust.com/the-Hate-that-dare-not-Speak-its-name-john-michael-greer .
Or, you could say
“In my lived experience, you are a 30-something, going on 13″ (or “a 30-something, going on 14”, “a 50-something, going on 15”, etc.)
Overall, I avoid any such confrontations, unless they are in the presence of others, whose minds are rather *more open* than the particular CSJ.
The chances of changing the CSJs themselves are too remote to be worth the troubles.
See my various comments about such encounters, above.
Scott. Yes. there are plenty of good, little slogans out there. I’ve come across some, and thought the same thing, about putting them on T-shirts. Personally, I am very introverted so it’s not my thing to wear statements on shirts, or “protest ” Go for it.
I agree with needing to come out slinging. figuratively speaking. So many people keep folding like collapsing chairs in the face of this wokey garbage, and oppression. Why there is so little backbone in so many adults is another big question of mine. Sometimes mine included. I’ve noticed for me it depends on the situation.
According to stories I am hearing, the madness seems to be getting worse by the day. Now, we have “WC”, White Coats for Racist Healthcare. Well, that’s what I call it.
Some (wokey) Pedophile stated why not have lockdowns to be nice to the climate.
Idolatry. The Climate God. 🤪
I wouldn’t push anything past these totalitarian, perverted freaks, and their “useful idiots.” I’ve already seen what too many people have been willing to put up with these last couple years, what some have gone through when they didn’t want to comply, and lose their business, or even tried to comply, and lost anyway.
European, “lockdown” protesters are getting their heads bashed in.
“Some (wokey) Pedophile stated why not have lockdowns to be nice to the climate”
utter gibberish.
I find woke theory particularly nauseating since it’s supposed to be in support of People of Color, and yet the dense, incomprehensible academic language makes it impossible for a typical Person of Color to understand.
How can you claim to support people of color by writing books nobody but your fellow specialists can understand?
I had been thinking about this, too. They create a catch-22, I think.
Because, what if you ask, “are blacks racists, too?”.
If they answer “yes”, then why is white racism relevant?
If they answer “no”, then you can follow up with “doesn’t that make blacks superior?”.
If they answer “no”, you can ask how it’s not superior to be not racist
If they answer “yes”, you can point out that’s an argument for why they should be racist, which is a contradiction of the answer to the first question
And, then, you’ve reached an interesting point because the only way out, that I see, is for the academic to assert that blacks are superior, but maintain that blacks cannot be made aware of this fact, which is condescending to say the least.
Godwin’s Law applies to the “Woke” crowd too.
Democrats bad. Republicans good. That’s it. End of argument.
The Communist won’t debate you because they don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
So they still are phony people then? Not woke but pretend sleeping stuff?
James is a smart guy. I agree with him in general. And the interview he did with Joe Rogan about this and other topics is one of Joe’s best shows ever.
However, I find myself agreeing more with the commenters here than with James. First, as one of the above people wrote, I see a lot of analysis here but I don’t see a lot of answers. If I were to compare it to an asteroid that is supposed hit the earth–nobody cares about its composition, its speed, its rotation or where it came from. Sure, the analysis is interesting and a bit of it may even be relevant to stopping it. But the average person will only want to know two items: 1. When it is supposed to hit. 2. Is there a plan to stop it. So, if CSJ crap is an asteroid heading toward our free speech planet, forget the analysis. As an expert on it, just tell us laypeople what the plan is and what we can do to help. And if there is no plan, maybe we can all brainstorm to figure something out.
Second, I also reject the idea that the “argument avoidance” is something that was cooked in from the beginning. Why? Because it flies in the face of human nature. People LOVE to tell everybody else how smart they are, and beautiful they are. They love to brag about their kids, their income, their car, their house, their big IQ. Really, that’s what social media is. That’s what the Internet has become.
So, to believe someone at some time came up with all these crazy ideas, thinking they were spectacular, and their next instinct was, “Hey, I can’t show the other side how brilliant I am”, flies in the face of 6000 years of homo sapien existence. Because although these people allegedly reject science and facts and truth, they can’t resist their own nature–at their core their wiring is the same as ours.
Instead, I think these creators ran to the very first person they encountered and said, “Look at this! Look at this!”. And that person responded, “You know that’s crap, right?” But then the ego kicks in, not to mention that suckers are born every minute. Eventually, NOT talking to people about their “great” ideas was inserted as a way to keep the charade going, to keep their wallets full with the suckers’ money, and to protect their own egos–maybe the biggest reason of all. It’s just a gig. It would be funny if it wasn’t all so dangerous.
Third, my opinion as a layman is the best way to combat them and their ideas is to not tangle with them on the theoretical level. The free speech level. The public discourse level. Because really, there are all sorts of groups all over the political spectrum who would love to silence the opposition through all sorts of means.
A different tactic should be used. The “in practice” level is where their thinking breaks down. How exactly do computers and jets and Green Energy equipment and microphones and bull horns and leaf blowers and molotov cocktails get made without science, logic, and critical thinking. Hmmmm, I wonder . . .
How can these CSJ warriors–who claim no compromises can ever be made–show up to events and seminars when reason and facts were used to build the buildings they give these speeches in, ride in that subway that brought them to that seminar even though logical engineering is the antithesis of CSJ thinking, wear clothes made from fabric that has been scientifcally-engineered when it should, according to their thinking, cause them to be sent to a re-education camp? Hmmm, I wonder . . . how DO you build a straw hut with just emotions and stories?
See, I think they know all this. They aren’t THAT stupid. My guess? IF they get power, they’ll suddenly become as logical as Spock. And that’s when the real problems will start. But their thinking has many flaws . . . maybe it’s time to start devising a plan to blow up the asteroid instead of just explaining it.
Ed, you’re on the right track, when you urge “to not tangle with them on the theoretical level”.
But, when starting to assess their motives, you present “People LOVE to tell everybody else how smart they are, and beautiful they are”, and then neglect the “beautiful” part, which likely dominates over the “smart” part.
Their hidden game is, to leverage the “Beautiful People” part (of their “educated” background), into your submission to them as also being smart.
“although these people allegedly reject science and facts and truth, they *can’t* resist their own nature”.
Oh yes they can, for long enough to matter hugely.
Instead of trying to coddle them into facing “their own nature”, the wise approach is to ignore them, and to make clear to others why you’re doing that.
One way to make that clear, is to start with a vivid quote from earlier in this thread, from stpaulchuck:
“ ‘Arguing with leftists is like playing *chess with a pigeon*. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and *strut around* like it is victorious.” – from RealScience.’ ”
These brats are actually little better than pigeons, demanding that their views be treated as if coming from Grand Masters.
They get this treatment via (among other means) moving to *set the agenda*, gambling that others lack the street smarts, to know how much agenda-setting affects subsequent outcomes.
A page, where I posted extensive comments about this CSJ gamble, is
https://areoMagazine.com/2020/07/30/possible-Conversations/ , where I critique a quixotic proposal from Iona Italia, for “Possible Conversations” with CSJ brats.
Quixotic, insofar as she assumes that these brats will be (for any length if time) as fair to, say, Deplorables (let alone Creationists or Holocaust Deniers), as the brats expect others to be fair to them.
Only one of the “debates” she featured included a Righty (this about guns), in which the parties “display an unusual level of mutual trust: they clearly believe that they share the same values and simply need to discover how best to promote those values.”
I again call this quixotic, in that it should be brutally obvious, that very few CSJs can, for any decent span, express “mutual trust” toward Righties, without being quickly under hyper-suspicion from their fellow CSJs.
ED. Totally agree. Personally, I think too much sh*t has hit the fan already, since they have been in the schools for awhile, and kids have already been influenced by this garbage for awhile now.
I think people are right on when they say if you aren’t a “fighter” then support those who ‘fight.’
I donate to the ONLY feminist org. I know of, that is fighting against the acceptance of biological men in women’s sports, and women’s spaces. That one is a huge issue to me, as well as what is happening in the schools. I don’t have a kid in the schools, but I think any adult can set up an appointment to go into a class. Or, it used to be that way.
It’s going to mostly be up to parents to stop this garbage in the schools. So many go along with it though – who knows how it will keep evolving.
We certainly shall see.
SJWs do have one rule in their “debates”:
You shut up and listen.
(Your) words are violence.
But wait, there’s more:
Silence is violence.
I have seen these SJW declarations often. To tell them they contradict themselves is to invite a fist to the face.
“You are a soldier in a war being waged right now,” says Julian Christopher here.
A fantastic (if necessarily brain-challenging) overview. Most illuminating. Thank you so much for this.
One small issue: I tried hard to make sense of this sentence from the second paragraph of item 4, but could not.
“And not only are they supposed to endorse the platforming of that by sharing a stage with people they see this way, but they’re supposed to do it in ways that the dominant system, which is all of those things as well and their guarantor, approves of and advances its own interests through.”
I’d revisit that bit if you edit or copy or re-use this in future.
Did you notice that the Critical Theorist Alison Bailey, to argue against logic and reason, uses logic and reason?
What do two Critical Social Justice scholars do when they disagree with each other on an important issue (and they will disagree, sooner or later)?
Physically attack each other–no debates allowed!–with the one who’s left standing being seen as the one with the “right” views?
Isn’t that how hominids, with no language, “debated” hundreds of thousands of years ago–by slaughtering dissidents?
Refusing to debate is a major ingredient in the recipe for war. Critical Social Justice will soon collapse in on itself, or be physically driven into exile, if not killed off.
A truly sad state we seem to be entering.
They hold paint swatches up to each other’s arms and the one with the highest albedo concedes defeat to their Melanated Queen 😂
Great answer
If I get into a fight with a CSJ warrior, I will do it on a day I have been bagging up charcoal! Easy
my favorite quote about this:
———–
“Arguing with leftists is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious.” – from RealScience
Here’s the thing about playing chess with a pigeon though: it makes people stop and say “why are you playing chess with a pigeon? Pigeons are stupid!”
Arguing with these Neo-Marxists forces normal people to acknowledge how stupid they are, and that they have NO PLACE in intellectual human society, instead of simply ignoring them until they shit all over you, like you usually do with pigeons.
Indeed, they have NO PLACE in intellectual human society, and thus it behooves us to give to their allies an ultimatum: the more you hang with these pigeons, the more we’ll boycott you!
It’s a thought provoking piece, obviously rather biased, but god, the comments. It seems to be a necessity that any good argument drags a zombie army along for the ride.
This is clearly the case with critical theory, being hijacked by identity politists, and also the right.
The take-away is that the current rational world-view is incomplete.
Take for example economics, based on rational self-interested economic agents in a free market, which completely dominates the way the world truly operates at the moment.
It is not difficult to immediately ‘deconstruct’ nearly all of the base assumptions of economics; that people are rational, that they care about absolute wealth (as opposed to relative wealth/status), that markets participants are treated fairly, and so on.
And so, the rational world, having dug in to it’s limited orthodoxy is now facing a backlash, not just to it’s truth, but to it’s very rationale for existing.
We do need to find a way to reign in the current madness, which is simply regressive – taking us back to a pre-technology era of respected elders and so on. That seems great on the level of a cozy tribe, but not on a planet scale, with climate threats and all kinds of other problems of complexity.
But we also need to embrace the not-knowledge that very many people everyone can feel is missing from modern society.
If that effort is refused with an argument that ‘I can’t debate with ancestors of slavers’, then my answer would be ‘where would you be now if the cross-atlantic slave-trade didn’t exist?’. But I like to be controversial.
“… economics, based on rational self-interested economic agents in a free market, which completely *dominates*….”
In today’s colleges, that may be true, but elsewhere, you’re giving a quite suspicious generalization.
“… that they care about absolute wealth (as opposed to relative wealth/status), that markets participants are treated fairly….”
Flatly false. Colleges, and other places, are all-but dominated by economists etc. who routinely raise hell vs. the extent to which current markets don’t treat participants fairly.
While those who try defend PostMods are entitled to their opinions, they’re not entitled to their own facts.
One other thing – I couldn’t help but notice that every single critical theorist in this analysis seems to be a woman. To what extent is that true?
Unless I’m missing something, do the Woke ever address the fact that they are using argumentation in order to formulate their ideas? How could they, in good faith, use argumentation to prove argumentation is not legitimate? It’s a self refuting statement. By the use of argumentation, you imply it’s legitimate. You can’t have both. To go one step further, regarding the use of language, one cannot argue that “language is meaningless” because you have to first recognize that language is meaningful in order to make that argument. How do they square that circle?
It’s fascinating to see what happens when something goes wrong and a critical theorist does somehow end up in a debate with someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Probably the most famous example in recent times is the viral interview of Jordan Peterson on Channel 4 News, which despite lasting 30 minutes and roaming over many obscure topics is the second most popular video on their channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Channel4News/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid
The debate happened only because the critical theorist was meant to be interviewing someone as part of her job, but of course, couldn’t resist trying to skewer Peterson and make him look bad. The complete intellectual destruction that follows is more popular than “CCTV video of an ISIS attack” and “virgins for sale in Columbia”. Beaten only by a weather forecaster successfully pronouncing an unpronounceable town in Wales (and all credit to him for doing so!).
I find myself torn between the view posited in the article (that refusal to debate is a matter of deep quasi-religious belief) and the alternative given in the comments (that these supposedly coherent views on epistemology are in reality just parrot-style reflexes created through a kind of Twitter-fuelled evolutionary debate-avoidance fire).
Clear they want to tear down the master’s house. I just can’t imagine what the want to build in its place.
Satan’s Throne
good article
This memory is at least 20 yrs old, I was watching a news interview with a conservative and an leftist. As I watched it seemed this leftist’s only defense was to roll her eyes and click her mouth, She did this over and over again. I thought her whole effort was to do these things to make it look like her opponent just could not see the obvious. Yet she was completely unable to articulate anything! I think the left still does that, and when that doesn’t work the yell and scream and threaten! To see this progress is quite interesting, but more frightening to me now!
I *don’t* think some of the woke are very self-aware, because they focus on group issues and cliched generalities instead of introspection, personal ethics, and analysing unique situations on their own merits. Can each of us say we haven’t sometimes done/said racially or homophobically insensitive things, which are at bottom being unkind to someone who is different than you? I think there’s still things we can do individually about such things. The current climate of oversensitivity (including the fact that an “oppressed” person can’t simply be wrong about perceiving a “microaggression” in a given situation) gets in the way of honest dialogue. Feel-good wokeness substitutes for making systemic changes that may be genuinely warranted.
As someone who lived thru the 60s-70s, I sometimes feel like “this isn’t my first rodeo.” I wonder how this “revolution” will devolve, like the ones before it – splinter into factions that differ re tactics and ideological purity, succeed and fail at changing institutions and intractable problems. What will happen as some of the young proponents age into family life and responsibilities? Will they “get” that others have tried some of the same things and learn from their mistakes? There will surely be backlash, as there was to affirmative action and the equal rights amendment for women. We could end up with a patchwork application of this stuff, just as we have red/blue states and red/blue areas within states. Could we anti-woke liberals ally with religious conservatives in court cases? Surely a clever attorney could argue something about freedom of religion, quoting some of the many people who have noted the religious character of wokeness. Surely religious conservatives would object to the transgender ideas now being wrapped into critical race theory.
One thing rarely addressed is how woke ideas can seem like East/West Coast and big city ideas that are out of touch with some people’s “lived experience”(!). I live in a small midwestern city with few POC (I moved here for reasons other than race), where woke issues, like big-city coronavirus ones, can seem to have little relevance. Even if woke/CT ideas weren’t wrong in many ways, winning over small-town and rural folks requires not dismissing them as “deplorables” and “flyover country.” I’ve read NYTimes articles about the race issues in NY school systems, but I doubt if such writers understand or care about how things are elsewhere in the country. Wokeness can’t succeed if people lack such basic understandings of each other.
“Wokeness *can’t* succeed, if people lack such basic understandings of each other.”
Oh yes it can, if it gets all gov’t agencies on its side, which it has a chance to do, as early as next Jan.
James,
I have a question regarding the last line of your post, “The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it.” I know the fight we’re in, but I still don’t have the slightest idea what to do about it. Seriously, what can we do with these mostly college-age religious zealots? I need some guidance.
What can we do? The wise approach is to *ignore* them, and to make *clear to others* why you’re doing that.
One way to make that clear, is to start with a vivid quote from later in this thread, from stpaulchuck:
“ ‘Arguing with leftists is like playing *chess with a pigeon*. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and *strut around* like it is victorious.” – from RealScience.’ ”
These brats are actually little better than pigeons, demanding that their views be treated as if coming from Grand Masters.
They get this treatment via (among other means) moving to *set the agenda*, gambling that others lack the street smarts, to know how much agenda-setting affects subsequent outcomes.
These quasi-sociopaths will respect only strength, incl. the strength to *always* tell them “NO”, regardless of what they whine about.
This esp. includes, when they *ask* any questions, about things which are NOYDB.
Most of these folks are, as Chris Wetherell put it (after he watched the first Twitter mobs use his new Retweet tool): “We might have just handed a *4-year-old* a loaded *weapon*.”
Most of them, when alone, will back off when stood up to.
When they outnumber you, it’s harder.
Then, if they threaten you, you may have to replace “NO” with “Whatever”, implying that you’ll not be rolled.
Of course, in that case, you may weigh your practical options if they “call your bluff”, as you would when encountering any sociopath.
Where I above write “make *clear to others* why you’re doing that”, the others are normal people.
Those of us who know The Score have some responsibility, to coach normal folk on how to scope, and navigate vs., these sociopaths.
They won’t back off in the slightest.
The woke administrators rule my major State University.
Endless woke virtue signalling emails from them.
Endless political posturing (which is flat out illegal – except for Democrats).
And they have already tried to have me fired, just on the suspicion I am not playing along.
I am fairly obviously blacklisted from hiring and most other committees.
And I am in Engineering.
And I never once even pushed back. I got that for keeping my head down.
Retiring in 2 years, despite the possibility of endless cushy tenure…
I loath these politically religious bigots.
This historical situation is such, that so much could change before you retire in 2 years, that you may be able to then tolerate the situation at schools such as yours, if Barr/ Durham make big busts.
The next 4-6 weeks will say much, about which way the wind is blowing on such matters.
And, the election figures to tell how long such probes will last.
If some big Obama Admin. fish start singing, the ensuing chain reaction could rope in big fish from various walks of life, incl. Higher Ed.
Otherway’s depiction of State University admin & cancel-cult: utterly effing disgusting.
These people are basically thieves and parasites upon the taxpayer. They are a cancer on the body politic. And they’re thoroughly dishonest, malicious people.
I agree, excluding them from serious consideration is the answer, and making that clear to everyone else why as well is key since they will look for other avenues if you close off their initial ones.
I also recommend identifying the true nature of their terminologies by providing helpful alternative definitions of their terms:
White/Male Privilege/Fragility: A racial/sexual slur, of exactly the same kind as “Jewish greed”, “Mexican sloth”, or “black stupidity”, and just as unacceptable in polite company.
Anti-Racism: An entitlement to commit racist acts as though they were not racism. Again, this is not acceptable in polite company.
Social Justice and Inclusion: The idea that it is commendable to commit acts of individual injustice as long as you are flying this banner. That racist and sexist banner is unacceptable in polite company as are acts of individual injustice as is required by this ideology.
Equity: The new name for “communism”. New branding doesn’t make the old idea any more morally or politically acceptable than it was before they rebranded it.
Some people may take this as some kind overreaction, and it might seem so if people have not been paying attention, but some good examples of this are good to have at the ready in case such questions arise…Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, the rioters currently burning our cities and attempting to shut down intellectual inquiry at our universities with such catch phrases as “shut down STEM” and as exemplified by the banishment of university professors and administrators like Brett Weinstein, Nicholas Christakis, and Lawrence Summers. No, I’m not just making this up.
Good stuff, Brian.
A key aspect is that of “unacceptable in polite company.”
That the CSJ gets away with systematic ad hominems in polite company is outright brutal, showing an “elite” political culture in its death rattle.
The best prospects for swiftly turning this around seems to me to be
1) a housecleaning in the MSM, starting with Conspiracy busts by Barr/ Durham (?), and
2) a housecleaning at the colleges, starting with huge cuts in federal funding to them.
Maybe the seeds of the rot, of what became to be seen as (un)acceptable in polite company, began with Barnum (and Hollywood) and Bernays (and Mad Ave.).
In any case, Americans became ever more renowned for social pushiness, such that ambushing with nosy questions has become more and more accepted.
To streetwise folk, the US is largely seen as having become a Sales Society.
This CJS stuff may well be, just the (hyper-) politicization of prior baleful trends.
In my view, when any casual “friend”, let alone stranger, asks anything of you, beyond boilerplate requests (e.g. “please let me pass thru your blocking of the grocery store aisle”), you’ve the right to expect a reason.
And, when any stranger etc. asks for *info* from you, beyond boilerplate requests (e.g. “do you know where XXX Blvd. is?”, let alone tries to steer the interaction toward emotive subjects, esp. politics, you’ve the right to evade the maneuver.
Some viable ways to deploy such evasion may include:
“Whatever”,
“I’m otherwise preoccupied”, or
‘”Can you give me basis, to believe that you’re pursuing a legit probe for a LE Agency?”
Much of the game of the CJS crowd is to feign friendliness, and then to whine about your MicroAgressions, if you evade their probes.
Such whining would never have been nearly acceptable, in an authentically mature culture.
I would agree that ignoring some is the answer, but we cannot ignore the people in power who are setting the chess board with these ideas. When we talk about the man on the street are simply seeing the “useful idiot”, who you can ignore, running around throwing a tantrum. I am not sure we can think that way about the people who are pulling the strings in politics and media. Ignoring for too long has lead us to this point. It is a dangerous game that they are playing.
“Ignoring for too long has lead us to this point.”
Indeed.
I’m just suggesting, that before you fight them, line up ducks.
This coming election will say much, about who will be able to line up how many ducks.
Very good comments you post here. However, I disagree about the idea that ignoring the CSJs is a viable approach or response.
Part of the reason why we are where we are today is because those who disagreed with the increasingly-liberal take-over of social commentary simply did that — they ignored it. Or, more precisely, they insisted they needed to “take the higher road”. They insisted their response had to be “better than that”. I reality, they (1) did not know how to stand up to the CSJs, (2) were too afraid to say anything because they did not want to be targeted themselves. No, ignoring the CSJs will simply play into their hands and will embolden them. They will see that as more opportunity to continue to peddle their class-baiting rhetoric.
In the book “The Games People Play” by Eric Berne, the argument is made that social interaction is a type of “game” with unwritten rules we are taught to follow. As long as we play by the rules, those who wrote the rules tend to win. The best way to get the upper hand with someone who is abusing the game is to “break the rules”. Play by a different set of rules and that tends to disrupt the opposing person’s process, enabling you to gain an upper hand.
So, in this situation today, we must think about the rules that have been placed onto today’s social discourse. We are told we must use only certain terms and avoid certain other terms. We are told that some terms apply only to certain groups and don’t at all apply to other groups. For example, the left has for decades used the term “Nazi” to refer to the right. However, the left has actually been the ones that are following the same kind of thinking that the Nazis applied in the 1930s.
So the way to respond is to NOT ignore the left and the CSJs. However, don’t try to engage them thinking that you will have any sort of intelligent discourse. Instead, respond to their invective with arguments structured in ways that they are not accustomed to, and using terms that they don’t expect.
I mostly concur, except for the drift that we are urging *only* ignoring these CSJs.
Recall above, I wrote “make *clear to others* why you’re doing that.”
But, yeah, you may respond to their invective with arguments structured, in ways that they are not accustomed to.
Recall, above I wrote:
“When they outnumber you, it’s harder.
Then, if they threaten you, you may have to replace “NO” with “Whatever”, implying that you’ll not be rolled.”
And, implying that you don’t see their pitches as worthy of serious consideration.
And, *explaining to bystanders*, that you don’t see CSJ pitches as more worthy of serious consideration, than is due Creationists or Holocaust Deniers.
*Put the burden* on CSJs or their defenders, to show why CSJs are more worthy of serious consideration, than is due Creationists or Holocaust Deniers.
If you do this, it may well make quite a dent, as an argument structured in ways that they are not accustomed to.
This won’t likely dent the CSJs themselves, as they’re far too invested in their *hate* of the White Patriarchy.
Your more promising audience is uncommitted bystanders, who, I’ll grant, have been heretofore left adrift, to fend off (?) the CSJ onslaught.
Our job is to help fortify their resolve, and give them tools to use for defense against such onslaughts
So, you may give the CSJ the chance to inflict one of their standard ad hominem onslaughts, after which you reply with “spoken like a true ‘(Twitter) *Mobster*’ “, this a reference to Greenwald’s label, for the CSJs who teed off on N. Sandman in Jan. 2019.
Those who won’t kowtow to CSJs are actually “better than that”, but can do a better job of showing this, mostly by rubbing into peoples’ noses, just *how degenerate* CSJs are.
Get bystanders to stew, on why CSJs don’t deserve to be dismissed, as is done with Creationists or Holocaust Deniers.
“In my lived experience, these CSJs have shown themselves to be (stealthy) sociopaths.
Associate with them at your major peril.”
And, time permitting, you may add
“For more fair warning, on how they treat their liberal allies, see the recent Harper’s open letter, signed by 150 respected thinkers, e.g. Chomsky, Steinem, ….”
And, you can add:
“When they whine about how the System Is Rigged Against Them, or How Tired They Are, they deserve laughter *into their faces*.
The are the most Coddled crowd (of its cohort size) in human history, but utterly lack interest in anything other than to **ride** others, for the cheapest of ‘reasons’ .”
Then, refer to Haidt’s “Coddling” book .
Also, you could add:
“In my lived experience, these CSJs have shown themselves to be quasi-*Maoists*, esp. with their slobbering all over the WHO’s pitches about HCQ etc.”
And, crucially, don’t interact *verbally* with them, *unless* you have a body cam, a friendly witness, or some other way, to refute the systematic deceit which these CSJs will be delighted to deploy, to spin your words, tone, etc., in the most vicious possible way.
The famous quote from V. Lombardi (of course, in a quite different context) goes
“Winning isn’t every thing, it’s the only thing!”
One of the more repulsive aspects of this is, that most of this crowd is spectacularly unqualified to pontificate about *anything* of real importance, save for (in some cases) entering Code, or Cooking books.
By far, most of the really important work is done by Deplorables.
The only times these CSJs go thru the motions of walking Walk (e.g. on their “caring for the oppressed” ), is when the field is rigged in their (e.g. antiFa’s) favor.
This, while they whine about how the System Is Rigged Against Them!
If the current US is mostly a Salescraft Society, these folks are its apotheosis.
A disproportionate number of them are in the “education” or media rackets, or gorge themselves (some indirectly) on gov’t Cheese.
Anyone who puts weight, on what such scammers say about life issues, e.g. about diet, finance, family/ gender dynamics, personal safety/ medicine (incl. HCQ),
do so at their peril.
(And, talking to them about Whiteness is like talking to a Nazi about Jewry.)
Moreover, so many of these CSJs are as stupendously dishonest with themselves, as they are with others.
Anything that goes wrong is *always* someone else’s fault, while they are *always* the victim.
To paraphrase Churchill, never have so many, had things so very good, but nonetheless reacted with such self-delusory venom (to their pompous asses not being *totally* rimmed).
They can’t help but caricaturize their prior self-images.
To be frank;
This article disturbed me. I’m finding it very hard to comprehend this worldview.
Where does one even begin to create a foundation when truth, logic and reason are deigned immoral “tools of the master”?
Moreover, how can one even engage with such ethereal characters?
Much to think about. Thank you for all the work.
“how can one even engage with such ethereal characters?”
You can’t, except from the kneeling position.
For details, see my response to Ed, posted below, on August 2, 2020 at 4:02 pm.
To say the very least, most of those who push Critical Theory, or who whine about “fascism”, have *not earned* minimal trust, that they will refrain from pulling Social Rank, on those they see as Deplorables.
Far from them being *entitled* to a seat at the table, they’ve done *nothing*, to build confidence that they won’t trash the table.
It is they, who richly deserve to be “cancelled” from a place at the table, until such time as *they* come clean, about the spectacular damage their allies have been doing to the table.
Truth, then Reconciliation.
A post I tried to publish at Aero Mag, has so far not appeared, but I’ll past it here:
“People *should* be held responsible for the speech or actions of others, insofar as the people here explicitly (or implicitly but obviously) identify with those others, esp. insofar as those others are *renowned* for explicitly or emphatically inflicting such speech or actions upon others,
The article I’m replying to here appeared, precisely in reaction to a (Harper’s) letter, which objected to conduct by a large, powerful group, because that group’s tyrannical conduct has become so renowned.
It is indeed argued, that the very essence of Critical Theory is, its (sometimes stealthy) insistence on demanding the very Cancellation Culture, to which the Harper’s signatories object.
They demand the power to Cancel, precisely because they require, that those who are allowed at the Table, to be only those who will tolerate their systematic rigging of terms of debate (usually by rigging of the Agenda etc., into Heads we win, Tails you lose).
Anyone who imagines that the Cancellers will debate Possible Conversations, under any remotely honest/ fair conditions, for any substantial time-span, is refusing to face the essence of Critical Theory doctrine.
Such people should be dealt with, as if they were pals with those (CSJs) who carry on as if they’re urging, that football should be played, not with a pigskin, but with a *hand grenade*.”
Some of these people have emotional problems and need to have a rigid worldview imposed on others (look up descriptions of BPD for a personality disorder where people regularly do this). Others are malignant narcissists or psychopaths who lack normal human consciences and can only function by actively manipulating others at all times. These people tend to be cult leaders, and set up groups that prey on others to indoctrinate them into their world view.
You can reach the others (though it’s hard), but the hard core leaders are either too far gone, or are incurably criminal personality types, who you have fight against, because they’ll never stop.
The scary thing is that these people seem to be increasingly influential within the “educated” classes.
The idea that they “know” something that cannot be understood or explained is ridiculous on it’s face. That we don’t simply laugh at them allows them to pretend they have some secret knowledge the rest of us lack. This has gone on long enough. As a minimum this nonsense needs to be driven from academia.
“I often get asked specifically if there’s some paper or book out there in the Critical Social Justice literature that prohibits or discourages debate and conversation with people who don’t already agree with them. ”
Here’s something – there’s a very popular book called “Antifa: The anti-fascist handbook”. If you listen to the author, he’s strongly opposed to letting “fascists” voice their views- no debating, no engaging, no allowing them a platform. He’s touted his anti free-speech views on several major outlets: Here, and here.
Fantastic article, thanks for writing and publishing it. I wonder, do the Woke ever ask themselves whether they are just trying to become new oppressors with their own inauthentic dialogue? Do they have an answer that isn’t just sadism, greed, or hypocritical pretense to have found (at last) the objective truth?
Rather than thinking of it as ‘becoming new oppressors’, they might phrase it as ‘it is their turn to be ascendant’, or that ‘it’s time to re-balance the imbalance’, or ‘to be heard, for a change’, or ‘to bring their voices to the fore’. Etc. Etc. Language can be made to do all sorts of amazing things.
Mimi,
Thanks. Wow. So they really are that mindless?
Yes, of course they’re that mindless.
So were Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, ….
It’s all about power/ revenge, in “compassionate” gloss, plus the ego boost for excelling at deceit.
It’s kind of human nature. The bullied becomes the bully. The revolutionaries become the tyrant. In this case, the academic elite (hardly an oppressed group, by any definition), and the many other allies, are taking up the cause for those who historically were bullied, even if significant progress has been made. But they’re doing so with all the same moral vigor as if they had been raised on a plantation.
I can’t really explain it but this article brought up such a feeling of sadness. Reading it was like watching someone drowning and offering them assistance, but they could only refuse the help. They couldn’t even believe in the help. It reminded me of the things a former friend/lost addict used to say to me about his addiction.
This begs the question:
Without “debate, dialogue, conversation, reason, evidence, epistemic adequacy, fairness, civility, charity of argument” (which are conveniently written off as “tools of the master”) what remains?
We make a critical mistake when we look at the degreed and assume that because they possess a degree they are “smart” and know what they are talking about. If debate and reason and evidence is discounted as racist, how can they actually be informed about anything? If a plumber arrived at your house and said he had no respect for blueprints, fluid dynamics, or traditional methods, what sort of job would you expect him to do? Degrees mean nothing today. One is capable of thinking and expressing herself, or she is not.
Yet, these are exactly the people civilization is up against. They are incapable of experiencing cognitive dissonance because there is never a conflict—reality is invented moment to moment. Down can be up, freedom can be slavery, and suffering can be joy because disagreement is, ipso facto, tyranny. It is normalized mental illness.
In my opinion, this is a spiritual and intellectual house of cards that can not stand. It will not weather well or survive the test of time. Within this paradigm the most outraged wins the day, and because of this the proponents will always turn on one another. Every room is too small when a universe revolves around each person in the group, and their universes will collide.
Your starting question is the scariest aspect of all of this. If there is no possibility of reasoned debate to get to the truth of all of this and decide as a society if there is merit and what, if anything, needs to change, then what is left is the primary force that has been solving human disputes since our inception as a species. Violence. We turned to reason and debate to specifically to turn away from using violence as a dispute resolver. If the Woke have completely abandoned that as a “master’s tool” and have decided to completely dehumanize and demonize those who disagree, violence will be the natural result. After all, why shouldn’t they assault, brutalize, and murder demons who deny the obvious truth and commit “atrocities” as a result? We’re seeing it play out now in many of our major cities right now. And eventually everyone else is going to get sick of being assaulted and abused and meet them on their terms. This is not going to end well for anybody.
The proponents of Critical Theory are dependent upon everyone adhering to the rules of logic and decency that they eschew. They win every debate so long as they make the rules, define all of the terms, and set the point at which something is indecent and beyond the pale. Any departure from the dogma then becomes an exercise in outrage and feigned offense. My instinct when faced with this is to push back.
When I first crossed paths with critical theory in a masters level class on literary criticism in ‘94 or ‘95, I was horrified. What in the world, I wondered, does a feminist Marxist reading of Huckleberry Finn have to do with anything, and who but a Marxist feminist would care? In my assessment of the reading, I assumed my understanding–my “critical vocabulary”–was as valid as anyone’s (which is the point of Critical Theory, after all) so I referred to the reading, the entire enterprise, as an “academic circle jerk”. The prof was not pleased, but I defended my position using the terms he had set. Why was my understanding less valid than a Marxist feminist? He was unprepared to defend intersectionality. That might not be the case today.
The point being, it’s bullshit, and there is no reason to be polite about it. Intersectionality? Bullshit. Critical vocabulary? Bullshit. If the Critical Theorists do not care to debate? So be it. Flat Earthers are not keen on debate either. I’m happy to call it what it is and if that makes some proponent of Critical Social Justice ideology sad? Well, stupidity should hurt. I feel no compunction to entertain silly fantasies, no matter how seriously others choose to treat them, and I don’t feel the slightest need to be polite about it.
You are correct. This doesn’t end well, for anyone, but we didn’t bring the turd to the party and insist everyone pretend it is foie gras.
“They win every debate, so long as they *make* the rules, *define* all of the terms, and *set* the point at which something is indecent….”
The above is crucial, it’s all about them finding suckers, who lack the street smarts to see thru their sales techniques.
It’s Mad Ave.’s conquest of, first academia, then the MSM, then….?
“The point being, it’s bullshit, and there is no reason to be polite about it. Intersectionality? Bullshit. Critical vocabulary? Bullshit.”
Being even less polite about it, as is eminently fitting, we should use another word to describe Woke MO: Dishonest. Blatantly so.
The academic Woke theorists in particular deserve no benefit of the doubt. They have made an utter disgrace of their intellectual profession. Apparently this crap was making its way through the academy for some decades and now the wider public gets to witness the utterly disgusting cashing-in as Woke ideology bubbles out into the non-academic culture (“White fragility,” the cancel cult, etc.).
Far-left-ish academics are pretty much as low a form of intellectual life as it gets, and the Academy is also culpable for subsidizing this utterly dishonest and easily-discredited (Sokal 2.0) garbage.
I quite agree, the Woke could very easily justify going genocidal like the Khmer Rogue of Cambodia if they achieved power. It was the communists of Vietnam that put an end to the genocide. The Vietnamese communists believed in science, education, law and order, a rationally planned economy and progress (Ok their version). They look like a paragon of western civilisation compared to the Khmer Rogue and todays Woke thugs. Note, Marx’s communist manifesto was written in London in 1848, and is a product of western civilisation embracing many of its values if rejecting others. Wokeism is a complete rejection of western civilisation and is far more dangerous. When the left make Stalin seem reasonable then watch out. However the purity rules within left culture, and especially Woke culture make the self formation of circular firing quads frequent. This should be encouraged. Their purity rules are a weakness!
“non-consensual co-platforming” (two words, nine syllables, one hyphen).
– That would be 2 hyphens
You as an intellectual continue to try to parse and explain in academic terms what is happening around you and your system. I just think really dont understand because you are too close to the fire. This is a revolution that is occuring. The revolutionaries in academia are clothing themselves within words and arguments which are smokescreens for the revolution. After all is said and done, they are seeking to dismantle and destroy ideas and lives, just like all the other marxist revolutions that have occured in the last hundred years. The ringleader of this is the devil.
The “non-consensual co-platforming” part further illustrates why there was a hysterical reaction to the Tom Cotton piece.
Thought the exact same thing.
The better example here is the fallout from the 150-signatory Harper’s letter – fallout which proved its point.
It’s because actively opposing them in any way outs you as an irredeemable villain in their eyes.
Everything is gut level first and foremost, the ideology comes after. First is the visceral reaction, then the rationalisation explains it.
Error has no rights in Critical Social Justice. Only the truth has rights–and exclusive rights.
Proponents of Critical Social Justice start with values that are so obviously, uncontroversially moral, (i.e. ‘racism is bad’). This is the cultural motte of a motte and bailey trick, used to enable the following fallacy:
“We are doing X because Y.”
“If you object to X, you object to Y.”
Since theirs is the one true religion, there is no room for anything else. The “correct” positions have already been decided; anyone acting in any way, shape, or form against them does know because they have knowingly and willingly decided to abandon the Good People virtues. Such heretical views are dangerous, and should be suppressed. Dissenting ideas are patently wrong and a sign of inferior, malignant character. The wicked have effectively forfeited their rights, dissent cannot be tolerated.
If one’s sense of identity, status and virtue is at stake in this way, dissent is not mere difference of opinion, it is an evil to be driven out of the public arena. Furthermore, it is an outlook that generates some tendency to depart from reality, since a large barrier is created to any inconvenient truths that undermine the status-marker ideas. When ideas matter more than people and error has no rights, you wind up with burning people at the stake for heresy.
Without freedom of conscience, there can be no diversity or tolerance.
It is very instructive to go through this essay replacing a number of terms with the words “sin”, “sinners” “the devil”, and “the elect”. This is a new form of extreme dogmatic religious impulse: a combination of 17th century iconoclastic puritanism and the 19th century emotion-based revivalist movement. The underlying psychology is the same.
As Graham Starkey pointed out.
Oops, “non-consensual co-platforming” is two words, nine syllables, and two hyphens—not one hyphen.
All that circular and self justifying reasoning of theirs was beginning to make me dizzy.
This is something I have talked with my friends about. My analysis is that the critical theory worldview developed defensive mechanisms through a process similar to evolution to avoid having rational discussions. Because rational discussions would naturally undermine belief in critical theory, it would require defense mechanisms to rational discussion for the ideology to sustain itself. The defense mechanisms I see most often are as follows:
“Lived experiences of racism” were the defense mechanism that developed to counter evidence that racism was not actually as prevalent as was argued. For example presenting evidence that unarmed African Americans are shot at a relatively low rate, the response is “lived experience” to avoid having to discuss the actual low risk of being shot unarmed by the police.
“Emotional labor” or “it’s your job to do your own learning” developed as a ways to avoid the socratic method. Telling people to go do their own learning, is an easy shutdown to someone who is using the socratic method to try to get critical theorists to question their own beliefs. The socratic method requires asking questions where the asker already knows the answer and is trying to get the listener to walk down the path of getting to that answer. Usually it is used when the listener has an idea that doesn’t make sense, the listener is asked questions that will force the listener to examine parts of their belief system that are faulty that they haven’t thought about before. I’ve noticed that whenever I engage a critical theorist with the socratic method to get them to think critically about their own beliefs they either say I should do my own research or say it’s emotional labor. (When talking to critical theorists, I flip this back on them and point out I’m also doing emotional labor. And then I point out I’ve read their sources and that I’m specifically asking them about their personal beliefs).
“Using buzzwords” (e.g. disrupt and dismantle systemic racism). Critical theorists often keep their discussions at the super general (and ambiguous) level of buzzwording. For example, if they say they are fighting “systemic racism.” It allows them a huge amount of wiggle room if you start pointing out the lack of specific examples of racism. “Disrupt and dismantle” don’t really mean anything. They are too general. But, this gives them a feel good way to say they are morally correct and that they are actually arguing to do something. However, if you try to get them into specifics and ask “where is the racism” and “what specific policies are you advocating to reduce said specific racism” then they will hit you back with more buzzwords. E.g. “Systemic racism is obvious, clearly the system is racist because of the disparities faced by black people. We need to fight it.” But, try to get them into the specifics again and they’ll jump back to different buzzwords or go to the emotional labor argument. And then finally they will end on othering you to not have to listen to your ideas.
“teacher mindset” Critical theorists are taught that they have special knowledge about race or gender that other people do not. So they learn to think of themselves as teachers who are helping others learn how they are problematic. For example: a critical theorist will something racist (dictionary definition) about white people. They get called out for the racist comment. Then the critical theorist has been trained to put on their teaching hat, and they say: “you can’t be racist against white people, racism = prejudice + power.” By switching to the teaching mode they adopt a position of authority that often does not get challenged. People assume they must have misunderstood what racism was and they feel like they are learning. This technique typically only works against someone not familiar with critical theory and it’s flaws. However, it also protects the critical theorists as they believe they are more informed than people who don’t know critical theory and thus they try to teach instead of listen when having discussions.
“othering” (e.g. calling you a conservative, racist, nazi etc) as a way to discredit people developed as a final backstop when all other avoidance techniques fail. This is the equivalent to when talking to a religious person and you back them into a corner on their belief and they say finally that they “just have faith.” This technique involves finding some way to label as outside of their tribe so that they don’t have to listen to you. When debating critical theorists I nearly always get called a republican, alt-right, racist, or a nazi when the other person starts hitting the cognitive dissonance point and recognizes that their worldview doesn’t make sense. It’s the easiest and safest way for them to fall back into their worldview despite its inconsistencies.
I highly doubt these sort of techniques arose out of intent to avoid rational discussion. Instead I suspect these techniques evolved over time as critical theorists had discussions with people who pointed out flaws in their arguments. Since they were determined to continue believing in their belief system, they needed to come up with defenses to those arguments. Thus, these defensive mechanisms developed over time and then they started teaching these same mechanisms. Women’s studies 101 teaches all about emotional labor and telling people to do their own research as a quick inoculation to critical thinking. It also start teaching the basics of thinking of themselves as teachers by teaching people to say: “racism = prejudice + power” and that they should always correct people who misunderstand this. Anyway, just my thoughts on why they don’t want to have rational discussions, I think it was an evolutionary process where they learned techniques to deal with the cognitive dissonance they faced.
Yeah good post. Relatedly Twitter is a perfect tool for iterating ideas and speeding up the evolutionary process. It has real time feedback in the like/retweet system and a large test pool of users.
Anytime an event happens the various ideological groups rapidly generate takes within their echo chamber until a satisfying idea rises to the top. The idea doesn’t have to be true it just has to preserve the individual’s ideological comfort.
Excellent and helpful comments and of course essay. Do you have more ideas? Once James said to marginalize them and keep labeling them as “extremists”. And like a religion … I think this is important
Is it important? Because the actually powerless people James rails against view your lot as extremists, as well. Where do you think that is going to end?
Ultimately it will end in the ideological defeat of these “powerless” people (who just so happen to control all major cultural institutions in the west).
Religion, at least good religion makes some sense, and it’s adherents can usually make quite decent sense regarding their belief system.
This is cult think, racist gobbledygook This is very, very bad religion.
Well it makes sense if you can justify the underlying premise. E.g. God exists and it has communicated they way it wants people to live via a holy text.
Since that’s never been justified, no religions make sense.
Excellent comment.
Particularly valuable was your use of labels. It reminded me of personal humiliation.
Years ago I was a student in a class that would eventually teach negotiation. Prior to the main course we had our appetites whetted. Negotiate a deal with classmate. Being a good student, I had read ahead. Thus, I entered the negotiating room with confidence. It was misplaced.
My opponent was a better student. He labeled each of my gambits seconds after I made them.
“Oh, so you are trying the…”
“Why are you using the…”
“Come now, wait until after I reject the first offer before you decide to…”
It was embarrassing. He knew the game better than I did.
Labeling the kinds of arguments/attacks and offering a corresponding counterattack has the benefit of making it all seem less sincere. It makes it seem more like a game. The labels signal to your opponent that you know the rules and moves, that you know how, um, artificial the game is.
I tend to believe that the Critical Theory academic might have a well-thought out reason for not engaging in debate. But the Woke Coworker doesn’t. He’s too unsure, too ill-informed. Quick use of labels — in some respects making the conversation meta — might be enough to unmoor him, to get him to stop thinking about the substance of the matter and more about the process of arguing.
One thing; if Racism /= prejudice + Power, then it is irrelevant. If you have no Power to put me in a negative position, your prejudice against me does nothing. THAT is why Racism = prejudice + Power. Now, if you can explain why Power is irrelevant to the definition, please share.
Because it’s irrelevant to the definition. Racism is a mindset, not an action. Theyre not defining RACISM, they’re defining OPPRESSION.
OPPRESSION = Prejudice + Power
RACISM = Prejudice + Race
SEXISM = Prejudice + Sex
MATRIARCHY/PATRIARCHY = Sexism + Power
Now do you understand?
Thank you. I admit that this is like tangling with Medusa to me. The serpents are many, and in order to defeat them I must look at them, which puts me at risk of looking at her. So how to solve?
That’s the toughest question of all to handle. This site is one of the few even making an effort to solve it, though I find it lacking most of the time, sadly.
One thing this site does well is exploring the roots of this phenomenon and defining it. Without that first step, I’m not sure it’s possible to move forward. In this particular aspect, this is about language and defining terms. The Marxist will define racism, and everything else, in terms of power dynamics, i.e. Racism=prejudice+power. This is an activist redefinition of the language which evolved from something that originated by referring only to white, South African males. The English definition of it later evolved normally to include prejudice+race.
But that formulation isn’t useful to Social Destructionists, thus the introduction of power dynamics to foment dissent between demographic groups. The Social Destructionist understands perfectly how language must be co-opted for political purposes (drawing lines between groups and pitting them against one another). Meaningful communication is secondary.
The only thing I’ve found so far to solve this problem is to never, ever accept their terms or framing. Challenge the very words they use. If you do that, you can short-circuit them from the start.
“Tangling with Medusa.” That’s a good way to put it. Although, I think tangling with Medusa, and getting all tied up in knots sounds like a fun party compared to this CRT mess.
For me, I have to keep it simple. So, apparently I am “racist” because my DNA is “whitey.” And if I make any claim I am not racist, then that just shows how oppressive, whitey, “racist” I REALLY am.
But, Oprah, and a whole lot of other black people have so much more influence, power and money to effect change than I do. I guess that doesn’t count.
This is a fun game. 😝
So can black people be racist if they have power? I think you can easily make the case that black people have lots of power these days. There is a black vice principal at my kids’ school. There are lots of black cops, black politicians, black employees at the DMV, black IRS agents, black doctors, black clients who have hired/can fire me, black school board members. We’ve even had a black president! All of these people exercise some form of power over me. If they don’t like white people and have the power to put me in negative positions, could they be racist?
Power dynamics exist at all levels of human relationships. You don’t have to be a member of some “white banking illunimati” to have power over others. You can racially oppress another person by directly interacting with them. Here’s an example that a friend of mine experienced in high school. He wanted to ask out girl he had a crush on. He was a nice person, and so was she. He was white, she was black. They were seniors, in the process of applying for college. When he asked her out, and she said yes, her father (who was a preacher) threatened to disown her if she went out with a white guy (I think he said something about all white men are “devils”). He controlled the purse strings of her college tuition, and would also cut her off from contact with their extended family. She caved, and crying, told my friend they couldn’t go out. That ‘sracism + power = oppression on an interpersonal scale. This whole structuralist crap neatly allows people to justify these kinds of small cruelties.
And are you ALSO saying that someone’s racist tendencies don’t matter if they are powerless to do anything negative about them?
Delwyn, sure. But who has the power?
People who can get everybody else fired for thought crimes?
People who can riot when they they please?
People who own almost all the media?
People who own academia and the hollywood useful idiots to sell it?
Those who get hiring and university preferences (systemic racism FOR them) to the detriment of others?
Those who make up Smollett lies and hoaxes endlessly, and never get shamed for them?
By your own definition – Blacks are the hands-down biggest racists in society today.
Are you sure you want to stick with your definition?
Or do you want to call me names and not engage in civil debate?
“People who can get everybody else fired for thought crimes?”
Do you mean like Bari Wiess who signed the Harper’s Letter?
“People who can riot when they please?”
You mean like …the Bosten Tea Party? Or …all those sporting events when white people rioted and no one cared?
“People, who own almost all the media?”
Do you think people protesting for a change in policing own the media? Media is dictated by capital. So, was it the Kings of Captial out there getting pepper spray and beaten? Or was it just regular folks?
People who own academia and the hollywood useful idiots to sell it?
Capital owns Academia. Follow the capital.
The same Bari Weiss who resigned from the NYT for the very reason you’re pretending doesn’t exist? The Harper’s Letter that proved prescient? This wasn’t a strong opening.
The Boston Tea party is an event in which you need significant remedial education. Comparing that to nationwide acts of rioting, looting, murder, arson, and subversion of local elected governments over a dubious cause is a false equivalence. Not to mention tu quoque. There’s a reason logical fallacies have names, and it’s to prevent someone from embarrassing themselves, should they care.
And what on Earth are you going on about sporting events and rioting? No one cared? People were arrested. Police were involved. And no one called for the dismantling of law and order as a result.
You’re obviously being purposefully obtuse here, but considering the media is out running interference for so-called “regular folks”, lionizing pedophiles for their heroic fight against those oppressive fascists running the cities they’re torching, I’ll step out there with a solid “yes”.
Despite the best efforts of the Social Destructionists to mainstream degeneracy, pedophiles and serial sexual assaulters and rapists aren’t “regular folks” to those of us who still occupy civil society.
Academia is largely “owned” and funded by the State. Did you have a coherent point to make with this?
No, I have no wish to call you names – that dehumanizes you and demies the Imago Dei in you. I like the definition because – and this might be a problem of confounding the concept with the praxis – racism without teeth is like religion without believers. It might be an interesting artifact of a bygone era, but it has no practical impact.
In like manner, racism only can impact a person if the racist has the ability to weaponize his/her venom. From that standpoint, one COULD conceive of a situation, say for example, in a Nation of Islam mosque, where the social structures enable blacks to exercise power/authority over others, and do so to the detriment of non-blacks.
In like manner, in inner-city environments where blacks have population dominance, they COULD use it to control access to political power and community economic opportunity. Recognize, however, that those communities, like Gary, IN, exist in a bubble whereas in the State of Indiana and the United States as a whole, those communities, like their demographic dominance, are a decided minority. As a result, their power can be overturned anytime the majority chooses to do so simply by choking off those communities’ access to the general economic and political levers of power.
Regarding your last paragraph – such are the hazards of grouping and delineating political power and economic opportunity by race. Every act, proclamation, and decree becomes both de facto and – more importantly – de jure racist. This has been increasingly institutionalized since the 1960s. A well-meaning intent, with disastrous results for racial reconciliation and harmony.
Note how the same people call such an ambition for color-blindness “white supremacy” and any denial of such to be evidence of guilt. The same people who call “racist” the very system for redressing the alleged repression of choking off a race-based community’s access to general economic and political power. The Social Destructionist theorists behind this consider “objectivity” and “color-blindness” to be white supremacy.
One can only imagine their alternatives to a objective, color-blind justice system.
If you think “black lives matter” isnt racist, check out thier newest publication on amazon, Black Jokes About White Folks: The Black Lives Matter Joke Book. It was published 6 days after the JRE podcast with James Lindsay. Down with the racist scumbag blm adjenda
Excellent write up Anton, summarises most of my own thoughts perfectly. I was about to write a similar post but having read yours, you’ve saved me the “emotional labor” of having to do so, thanks for that 😉
What we are seeing is simply the modern version of a prototype movement initiated at the start of the Long March. Im of the belief it has simply been 50+ years of trial-and-error , as the beast iterated its way towards a viable solution. By solution, I mean to the initial problem that Marxists had, namely a cultural revolution to overthrow capitalism/scientific method/Western progress.
Im not sure whether this is the monster’s final form, or whether come the US elections in November, we’ll cut off the head of the Hydra and 2 more will grow back.
Nonetheless its impressive how, in the age of the internet, modern medicine and creature comforts, that a cult such as this can operate in broad daylight. To the point where it has infiltrated institutions, sucking in the rich, the famous and “educated” academic elites. It is well on its way to dismantling many of the values we hold dear, such as logic, reason, forgiveness.
The question is, what is the most effective intellectual response to this? Or have we been beaten by a superior (collective) foe, the ideological kryptonite to the superman we called Civil Society.
I won’t mince words: I think those defense mechanisms are blatantly intellectually dishonest. These people need intellectual boot camp, not kid-gloves treatment.
Anton. As some others stated, insightful post.
Easy to read through. Thanks
While reading it, I thought of a friend who has an uncanny knack at condescending deflection, dismissing or defensiveness toward me when I have a position, or differing pov from hers she doesn’t like.
Some people just have a great knack for that. Undoubtedly, many CRT newbies pick up the habits of the more experienced.
And yet they are at institutions that were built by, and continue to manage their affairs by, the very same system that they say treats them unfairly. They got tenure, fercrissakes. They get paychecks. They teach classes and publish in journals in order to earn those paychecks and maintain their positions. How exactly is it that the system that created this very lucrative scam for them is somehow oppressing them?
There you go again using your straight white male logic. When you will every learn that your role is to shut up and obey? Thinking is straight white male poison and they will have none of that!
Of course your argument is perfectly logical but they are committed enemies of logic. Real arguments might have an impact on those not yet infected, but they will never sink an inch into the brains of those who are already transformed into zombies, I’m afraid.
academic freedom is the freedom to challenge established ideas and debate them. There has to be the right conditions for this to happen, but it is a vital feature of these institutions.
Our knowledge changes and adapts , sometimes in big leaps or ‘paradigm shifts’.
Emotionally most people prefer the comfort of a fixed truth, usually the one they learnt early in life. There is often merit in tried and tested ideas but conservation for the sake of it leads to fossilised thinking.
As a note, during the early days of the Soviet Union, the new Soviet government often went after individuals and groups by claiming that those groups were oppressing them. Of course, those groups, like Ukrainian farmers, had no power – but facts never get in the way of a good story.
Who do you think the readers of New Discourses represent? The Farmers? Or maybe, in a strange plot twist, James and readers of New Discourses are actually claiming to be oppressed by people with no power.
That’s cute – but you are making the very mistake James says the CSJ make: you are assuming that all claims to truth are only power plays, and so the only way you can see James and the ND folks is that they are only claiming to be oppressed. They are actually claiming nothing of the kind — only that there is a Truth to be known that none of us owns, but can be known by way of reason. James and the readers of New Discourses are actually claiming to have discovered something true, and because it is available to all, it can be debated. But the notion of truth, debate, and reason is lost on those who have drunk the CSJ kool-aid, which is the point of the original article.
So, scientific thinking/hypothesis testing are merely elements of a hegemonic white male paradigm, devoted to maintaining existing oppressive power relations, eh?
In that case, how do Social Justice theorists account for scientific revolutions in the Thomas Kuhn sense of that phrase? For example, what hegemonic episteme, solely devoted to maintaining pre-existing power relationships and an oppressive status quo, would permit the collapse of classical phyics and the rise of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century?
Cults emerge and thrive in times of crisis. The failure of Communist states in the 20th century, and the failure of the proletariat to carry out its supposed historic mission to overthrow the non-Communist ones, created a crisis among authoritarian Leftists. The rise of Social Justice obscurantism looks a lot like a cultic defense mechanism within the minds of people whose entire worldview and sense of identity and purpose were under threat.
I concur with this point. A corollary to this is that the SJW is filled with self-loathing, AND concludes that you also must be filled with self-loathing to formulate an equitable outcome for everyone. If you don’t comply, you must be “problematized”. Some argue that the misplaced feelings of the left are the problem. For me, I see their incessant sense of self-loathing breeding deep resentment which gives them a foothold to problematize others. Self-loathing, resentful people are ungrateful. Ungrateful people are unhappy people. Ungrateful, self-loathing, unhappy, resentful people become cruel people. And cruel people, ultimately commit genocide. This may sound like a leap, but the history of the 20th century, along with the rioting of 2020, suggest we are always very close to these horrific, extreme outcomes.
“In fact, theirs advances itself rather parasitically or virally by depending upon us to play the liberal game while taking advantage of its openings.”
Such an excellent point! I still don’t see why you wouldn’t make an open challenge and force a response.
One can try to force a response. Whether that has the potential to be productive will depend on the audience. There are people who support leftists with their vote, but are not true believers. Some people simply haven’t heard any other narrative beside the leftist Current Truth. Some of these people can be convinced.
Force a response? From whom, via what means?
This crowd is one PoTUS election away, from getting total power “forever”.
Were I them, I’d sit pat, until something turned hugely against current trends.
Good article, but I remain unconvinced that points 1 through 5 aren’t mostly a rationalization for exactly this:
“a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation”
This stuff doesn’t survive the sunlight. It doesn’t survive in one on one encounters. It doesn’t survive real human relationships. It doesn’t being pressed *at all* from *any* angle. Even when they’re allowed to arbitrarily define all these rhetorical terms and gotchas, they’re arguments still crumble.
The only way it survives is hidden behind emotion. It only survives riding the mob or tribalism. It only survives by parasitizing noble causes or strategically hiding behind societal taboos. It only survives where the power structures are carefully arranged ahead of time to protect it, like someone read Foucault as a how-to guide.
I’m sure there are some kooks, but there’s no way most of the big names in this stuff are not, at least on some level, self-aware to the fact that if they ever found themselves on a fair debate stage in a public forum with a large enough audience watching, the entire critical social justice project would be set back decades.
If they were not self-aware there’s no way they’d have crafted this elaborate web so intricately, sticking to the shadows, remaining unknown or partially known, slowly revealing a bit here or a piece there, but only when then power structure is tilted significantly enough in their favor, only when they have the rhetorical kill move and don’t need to fall back on logic or knowledge or truthfulness, do they expose themselves and inch forward their influence.
There’s no way they’d focus so much on branding, marketing, rhetorical traps, and emotional manipulation over traditional scholarship. They know what they’re doing.
It is EXACTLY “a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation”. and the people who constructed all of the system of Critical Social Justice Theory knew it. They hate the very idea of truth more than anything because they cannot stand the idea of being wrong. It is an affront to their very existence. It is why their entire system starts with the assertion that “truth” is bullshit and that anyone who thinks there’s truth, and thus supports all of its associated “systems” for discovering it, are evil. All of this is quite literally an assault on western civilization, which catapulted itself forward in search of truths of many sorts, by a nihilistic, narcissistic religion of anti-truth.
Well said and profound, all in one paragraph! I’m keeping this comment with my copy of this fine article.
As I said on another article today, this is the continuing agenda of the Counter-Enlightenment to destroy liberal progress.
“Liberal’ comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”
― Gore Vidal, “The Great Unmentionable: Monotheism and its Discontents,” The Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, April 20, 1992.
Mike. But the problem is, why do so many just go along with this poison? Parents are fine allowing their little elementary kids to be indoctrinated into this sick, racist garbage.
I think it’s because it’s not really happening.
Ok groomer
They don’t debate, because they reject the very notion of objective reality, and debate is pointless if it doesn’t lead to truth about the objective reality. Everything else was built upon that. The relation of debating to more elaborate constructs like critical race theory as explained in the article are pure retconning.
This article never claims that they are not self-aware. They are, and they willingly reject the very basis of what you call ‘fair debate’ or ‘arguments’ for the reasons explained; in that light, dismantling the “master’s house” using its own tools only when they see a possibility to win is perfectly understandable.
I really don’t see the fear to be exposed as being the impetus for their movement, but rather they have constructed an honest worldview where they are not part of the same epistemic paradigm as us, and theirs is the good one.
Please explain why you think their worldview is the good one.
Oh, I forgot–you don’t debate or explain. So let’s meet and literally physically fight it out, with the one who’s left standing being considered “right.”
I’m betting you’re young and inexperienced in the world.
I believe Flo is not saying she thinks their world view is the good one–but rather, reporting on what she believes THEIR narrative is.
Well said, male. My thoughts are simple. IF their “truth” is so good and a society should be built on this no-oppressive ideology, why can they only destroy everything in front of them. If I handed one of them a shovel and a trowel and some mortar, could they build a building, or a home, or anything of value to someone else’s life? Would that be considered being oppressive? After every building is destroyed, every memory or monument is erased, who will build this great society of freedom that they dream about? Oh, and of course, they will want to rule it. Will they then become the oppressors? Very simple truth, Jesus said. “I am the way, the Truth and the Life.”
Flo – I believe you’ve summarized it well.
Should you have put “honest worldview” in the last sentence in quotes?
Excellent points. While many Leftists are arrogant elitists this is a facade to hide their 5th grade approach to problem-solving . They are also ignorant of their own ignorance. Like bullying children live solely by hope and emotion eschewing unhappy facts and utterly dismissing any consideration of cause and effect. They won’t debate because they don’t have any answers to the hard questions that reality or Conservatives pose.
‘It’s not that Leftists don’t know anything that makes them so dangerous… It’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so…’
~R. Reagan
I appreciate your point and wonder about it, too.
Meanwhile, let me pose this reduced form rationalization: The social justice people don’t debate, because they’re committed to preserving two axioms: (1) All institutions are Designed by the Elite, for the Elite, and of the Elite. (2) All exchange is zero-sum. That is, if I win, then you lose. There are no gains from trade.
One can find expressions of the first idea in Engel’s writings. The combination of both ideas really hit me when I was writing a review about a book on medieval Genoese commercial contracting practices. The author observed a discrete change in contracting practices, but rather than suggest that the change may have reflected an adaptation to new circumstances, the author merely brushed the observation aside by asserting that the change must have suited the elites’ interests and — this is the second part — to the detriment of all non-elites. So, the story was: institutions had served the elites’ interests; something changed (pray tell, what changed?); contracting practices must have been maladapted to the purpose of serving the elites’ interests; the elites changed the way they did business so that they might again get back to the business of serving their own interests; the non-elites remained shut out of the business of making good money; the system was not “inclusive” to begin with; it remained non-inclusive going forward.
“Gains from trade” is a pretty sophisticated idea, and it is the one best idea to come out of neo-classical economics. Zero-sum economics, by contrast, has more intuitive appeal to the random Jacobin on the street.
Who runs all these “institutions”??? News media, universities, tech conglomerates etc. are all run by so-called liberal democrats. A dog chasing its own tail is the most simplistic way to describe this mentality and way of thinking.
“Good article, but I remain unconvinced that points 1 through 5 aren’t mostly a rationalization for exactly this:
“a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation””
Exactly correct, Chris.
I don’t even think that it is that complex. There is no debate within the system they are educated, reside, work and live (the echo chamber). So if they have never faced the debate, they inherently believe that their thoughts and worldview are “the” correct and only world view. Why debate? We as a society as a whole have been proverbial frog in the boiling pot. The slow degradation of traditional western enlightened reasoning has taken place in higher academics and has trickled down to our K-12 education system. In simplistic terms is has been clothed as tolerance, political correctness, character education and revisionist history. Questioning any of these ideas has been discouraged and silenced at the youngest of ages. So in the circles of academia that make the rules for educating the masses, they have literally changed the rules of the game and we are now seeing the the extreme results (the water is starting to boil) . There is no reason to debate, the system is rigged, burn it down, destroy and replace it, etc.
Wow, Chris, what a direct and accurate representation. Gave me chills. These groups are extremely strategic and committed.
It strikes me that critical theory is so divorced from practice that it exists only in the mind and the “printed page”. There are many ways of exposing such academic posturing. Including pointing out that in a free society everyone is able to incorporate their ideas into their endeavors and reap the practical benefits (or consequences).
“By their fruit they are known”.
” branding, marketing, rhetorical traps, and emotional manipulation over traditional scholarship”
Um, you mean like James starting a site called “New Discourses” based on the rhetoric of a free speech attack, jerking your emotions writing about this like it is the most important thing in the world to everyone – nearly every day – how much money has James raked in since this supposed little war between Woke vs Dark Webbers started? What scholarly solutions has he offered up for any of the problems presented to us in this moment besides another echo chamber where people can feel like they’re the rational saviors of the dying republic?
How can anyone imply that they have spent any reasonable amount of time on this site while also claiming there have been no scholarly solutions presented on it?
Do you think that characterizing this easily accessible website as “dark webbers” represents your intellect well? Do you think non-sequiturs about the author’s income do?
Judging by your sneering at the idea of the rational arguments presented here, and the lack of any rationality in your response, I’m guessing this article hit a little too close to home for you.
Try contributing something other than an emotional outburst.
While I found this comment thought-provoking, and correct on many counts, I’m not sure it’s entirely correct. There is no way that an ideology so hostile to the pillars of a civilized society could have taken so deep a hold on such vast swathes of society so quickly without a psychology primed to absorb it. More on that in a moment.
This site does an admirable job of identifying and naming the toxic ideologies associated with Social Destructionism (I reject the term CSJ, coined here), but this particular article highlights the inherent impasse built into the “discourse”. If they won’t debate (and I think he’s right on that), what’s the point here? We’re focusing on discourse; they’re focused on power.
This stuff survives the sunlight because of the psychology of its disciples. They don’t need to convince their opposition of the soundness or validity of their arguments – all they need to do is build consensus, and thus wield power. So they build consensus through psychological appeal instead of the strength of their ideas. “Fascists are the bad guys, we’re anti-fascist, ergo we’re the good guys, how could you be against us?”
We might call this emotional appeal, but it is a carefully constructed psychological gambit. This is what leftist intellectuals are very well aware of. Saul Alinsky brilliantly exploited this and codified it. They are so far ahead of everyone else in understanding and manipulating the psychology. The closest I think anyone from the right or the more sane Left has gotten to the psychological mechanisms in play are here: https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/touching-the-raw-amygdala-an-analysis-of-liberal-debate-tactics-preface/
I could quibble with some of that, and the application of his techniques are wanting and cause the entire work to lose a lot of steam in the second half, but I think the essence of it is true, and it’s the direction our anti-Social Destruction movement needs.
Certainly emotion is their epistemology.
That’s a key reason they get violent when they are not winning a debate.
(Thankyou John Ridpath for explaining that in his ‘Faith, Force, and the Mind’ lectures. He thinks they have used one method for so long they cannot change even if they want to.)
More fundamentally, they deny the effectiveness of the human mind for life.
Personally, I suggest they have a psychological problem – a deeply held negativity about human life. Thus they evade what they can see all around them – people taking care of their environment, people creating and producing, people collaborating with other honest people, and people defending people against aggression.
Indeed, they object to defending anyone, whether by defense or justice systems (courts and police), and support tyrannical regimes.
As well, observe what the article touched on – they redefine words. That’s consistent with neo-Marxist/Posts-Modernist teaching that words create reality. In contrast, Aristotle and Ayn Rand taught clear communication and one reality, ‘A is A’.
Then they whine when they are not getting their own way even with their fellow travelers, as one of The Squad in the US Congress just did.
I relate quotes of Marxists here. The ones pointing to hatred of the US and Israel (the freest society in the Middle East) are illustrative.
Yes. I respectfully disagree with Dr. Lindsay. The real reason they refuse to debate is fear of exposure. This is oft betrayed by their anger.
In an honest debate, they should be made to answer for their rejection of logic. After all, they use their smart phones, cars, etc. etc. If they are going to reject logic, are they not traitors to their ’cause’ when using them?
I have a ‘friend’ who has a PhD in hydrology, a ‘hard’ science (I’m an EE), a 70ish white New Englander. Once told me that in grad school he took an advanced statistics course. Yet he refuses to apply that knowledge to the false claims of police targeting black men. Here is an excerpt from our last email exchange, Sep 2020, after he expressed disappointment in my being conservative:
“But disappointment can cut both ways. Can you see why I might have disappointment in you, a man of science with a PhD in a physical science — not a low IQ field like a social science — who is apparently refusing to apply the scientific method to the question of police brutality? And instead, apparently in service of a meme, risking blaming innocent officers? You studied advanced statistics. So yes, I’m disappointed that you apparently are ignoring all of the data and mathematics that clearly indicate that unjustified police killings of black men, however unfortunate, are rare. Very very rare. Like Daniel Moynihan once said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts…”
I finished with this “So, yes, you can kick me out of your echo chamber. But I hope not.” He did.
How does the scientific data you mention that accounts the number of “black men killed by police” designate the difference between “unjustified police killings” and all police killings? Is there some reason why a dead body is “very very rare” only when its deemed a “justified” killing? Who exactly makes that determination in your unbiased scientific inquiry of the facts? If you’re really interested in the statistics, then you don’t get to cherry pick your sampling of the data. You count all of the dead black men. Then you can rationalize why they are dead however you want. “Justified” has no scientific relevance in statistics that count dead black men killed by police, or dead white men killed by police, or the number of dead police killed on the job. Justification is completely irrelevant when you actually care about citing the scientific statistical data.
The term “justified” in this context has a concrete, empirical, and legal meaning, to wit, potentially lethal force is considered to be justified if it serves to prevent death or injury to officers or bystanders.