I agree that too many professors, journalists, and activists try to present their beliefs as settled truth. Frankly, I believe this actually hurts them. It gives the impression that they are not actually as secure in their beliefs as they think they are, if they believe that people are so easily swayed that the only way to protect them i…
I agree that too many professors, journalists, and activists try to present their beliefs as settled truth. Frankly, I believe this actually hurts them. It gives the impression that they are not actually as secure in their beliefs as they think they are, if they believe that people are so easily swayed that the only way to protect them is via preventing contact with 'bad' ideas.
I first learned about critical race theory ten years ago reading academic blogs run and commented on by adults. I had never heard of the concepts before and found many of them illuminating in explaining things about the world. But because the position was a minority position, it meant that these people had to advocate for their position with people who could not be assumed to know what any of the terms meant. There was a tremendous amount of research, discussion, and even creativity.
Unfortunately, I also saw some very bad conversational norms right from the very beginning. The whole "you can't expect me to educate you" idea was always stupid and self-defeating. I think positionality has some merit to it, but people ended up using it as a way of pulling rank on others ("well, I am a {$OPPRESSED_GROUP}, and you are {$LESSER_OPPRESSION_VALUE}, so you are unequipped to have these conversation").
Once it hit Tumblr and Twitter, as far as I'm concerned, these toxic social norms became locked in and all nuance evaporated. Not least of all because the audience changed from people in their 30s and 40s to teenagers and 20-year-olds. And they succeeded in making it the primary lens through which to view race on Tumblr.
I wish this attitude were different, because I don't believe it is to critical race theory's credit that many of its most devoted believers rarely interact with anyone who doesn't agree with them already. All theories need to evolve and change with the times and with more understanding of the world. Unfortunately, as Singal's blog is testament, they've instead adopted a beleaguered attitude that prevents them from hearing thoughtful critique that isn't already being framed in their language. I find that a crying shame.
"I don't believe it is to critical race theory's credit that many of its most devoted believers rarely interact with anyone who doesn't agree with them already."
That's not exactly a new problem though; the whole theory was developed in an echo-chamber where pushback was moralized away as "not caring about racism", which is why it has so many glaring weaknesses/blind spots. For example, CRT & systemic racism theory really don't have an answer for why minority groups like Jews, Asian Americans, and even recent African immigrants frequently outperform white people on more or less every socioeconomic metric, except to No-True-Scotsman them away as "white-adjacency" and/or "internalized whiteness" (which gets really racist really fast as soon as you scratch the surface, e.g. studying as a "white" behaviour).
CRT has a lot in common with medieval "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" theology, which is why it's so convoluted to try to explain it to laymen and anyone who hasn't spent years being indoctrinated into accepting its various sketchy assumptions as axiomatic truths.
I agree that too many professors, journalists, and activists try to present their beliefs as settled truth. Frankly, I believe this actually hurts them. It gives the impression that they are not actually as secure in their beliefs as they think they are, if they believe that people are so easily swayed that the only way to protect them is via preventing contact with 'bad' ideas.
I first learned about critical race theory ten years ago reading academic blogs run and commented on by adults. I had never heard of the concepts before and found many of them illuminating in explaining things about the world. But because the position was a minority position, it meant that these people had to advocate for their position with people who could not be assumed to know what any of the terms meant. There was a tremendous amount of research, discussion, and even creativity.
Unfortunately, I also saw some very bad conversational norms right from the very beginning. The whole "you can't expect me to educate you" idea was always stupid and self-defeating. I think positionality has some merit to it, but people ended up using it as a way of pulling rank on others ("well, I am a {$OPPRESSED_GROUP}, and you are {$LESSER_OPPRESSION_VALUE}, so you are unequipped to have these conversation").
Once it hit Tumblr and Twitter, as far as I'm concerned, these toxic social norms became locked in and all nuance evaporated. Not least of all because the audience changed from people in their 30s and 40s to teenagers and 20-year-olds. And they succeeded in making it the primary lens through which to view race on Tumblr.
I wish this attitude were different, because I don't believe it is to critical race theory's credit that many of its most devoted believers rarely interact with anyone who doesn't agree with them already. All theories need to evolve and change with the times and with more understanding of the world. Unfortunately, as Singal's blog is testament, they've instead adopted a beleaguered attitude that prevents them from hearing thoughtful critique that isn't already being framed in their language. I find that a crying shame.
"I don't believe it is to critical race theory's credit that many of its most devoted believers rarely interact with anyone who doesn't agree with them already."
That's not exactly a new problem though; the whole theory was developed in an echo-chamber where pushback was moralized away as "not caring about racism", which is why it has so many glaring weaknesses/blind spots. For example, CRT & systemic racism theory really don't have an answer for why minority groups like Jews, Asian Americans, and even recent African immigrants frequently outperform white people on more or less every socioeconomic metric, except to No-True-Scotsman them away as "white-adjacency" and/or "internalized whiteness" (which gets really racist really fast as soon as you scratch the surface, e.g. studying as a "white" behaviour).
CRT has a lot in common with medieval "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" theology, which is why it's so convoluted to try to explain it to laymen and anyone who hasn't spent years being indoctrinated into accepting its various sketchy assumptions as axiomatic truths.