Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Race

  • Collective Guilt

    Are there such things as collective guilt and collective responsibility? In Black Reparations, I put forth the following principle: Only those who are victims of a crime are entitled to reparations for the crime, and only those who are the perpetrators of a crime are obliged to pay reparations for it. A commenter, not impressed…

  • The Insanity of the Left: Reparations

    For California 'residents.' Given that California is a sanctuary state, those 'residents' will include 'black' illegal aliens. There is a bit of a problem with that. Should those who reside illegally in the U. S. pay reparations to blacks?  Why not? Don't the illegals benefit from the putative legacy of slavery like everyone else?  On…

  • Reckless Reparations Reckoning

    Another episode in Victor Davis Hanson's chronicling of our wanky descent into unhinged Unsinn.  Here is a choice morsel: Current racial tribalization obsessions have descended into a nadir that makes Al Sharpton’s 1990s Tawana Brawley/Crown-Heights career start (“If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my…

  • Half-Way Cultural Appropriation

    You appropriate our science and technology, why not then appropriate the values, virtues, attitudes, and behaviors that led to the science and technology? Here are some of them: hard work, self-control, self-knowledge, deferral of gratification, focus, protracted study, objectivity, rational thinking, coherent speech, respect for legitimate authorities, respect for elders, and punctuality.   Why the…

  • Is ‘Monkey Pox’ Racist?

    Substack latest. Short, sweet, and lethal. Match grade argumentative ammo for your encounters with your leftist pals.

  • Identity Politics: Is it Possible to Remain Classically Liberal?

    There is an identity politics of the Left and an identity politics of the Right. The second kind became obvious to me when, after objecting to the tribalism of blacks, Hispanics, and other racial/ethnic groups, and after calling for a transcending of tribalism, I was countered by certain alt-rightists/neo-reactionaries who reject any such transcending and…

  • Contraindicated: Resisting Arrest

    It may be harmful to your health. The meme below makes a very important point. Everyone, but blacks in particular, need to learn that the police have legitimate authority and that their commands must be obeyed. Not to do so is not only illegal but highly imprudent. Michael Brown, Daunte Wright, and Adam Toledo all…

  • Counterexamples and Outliers

    An exception to a universal generalization is a counterexample that refutes the generalization. All you need is one. Generic statements cannot, however, be similarly refuted. 'Nuns don't smoke cigars' is a generic statement. If you turn up a nun who smokes cigars I won't take you to have refuted the generic statement. I'll dismiss the…

  • What Is Critical Race Theory?

    An explanation by James Lindsay that goes to the heart of the matter in less than three and one half minutes. I add the following which is an excerpt from my Substack article, Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical. A key word in the CRT arsenal is 'equity.' 'Equity' sounds good and so people are…

  • Polylogism and Leftist Racism

    Anthony Flood sends us to Charles Burris, Polylogism — The Root of America's Divisiveness, Decline and Destruction. History is repeating itself before our eyes. The widespread controversy surrounding President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as a “black woman” recalls the editorial in The Washington Times, “A Judge Too Far,” concerning President Obama’s earlier…

  • Almost Mugged in the Big Easy

    I came close to being mugged in New Orleans' French Quarter in '90 or '91. I was there to read  a paper at an American Philosophical Association meeting.  Early one morning I left the hotel to sample the local color and grab some breakfast. Striding along Bourbon street, I noticed a couple of black dudes…

  • For the Kerouac File

    Black Like Kerouac I was awfully naïve once, but never so naïve as Kerouac/Paradise, who understands so little about the lives of black Americans that he wishes he “were a Negro [because] the best the white world could offer was not enough ecstasy, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.” It is…

  • Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory

    Sullivan writes, Here is how critical theory defines itself in one of its central documents. It questions the very foundations of “Enlightenment rationality, legal equality and Constitutional neutrality.” It begins with the assertion that these are not ways to further knowledge and enlarge human freedom. They are rather manifestations of white power over non-white bodies.…

  • Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical

    People are suckers for Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they cannot think critically. A key word in the CRT arsenal is 'equity.'  ('Arsenal' is the right word given the Left's weaponization of language.) It is an Unbegriff, an unconcept. It combines something good with something unattainable except by the toleration of grave evils. Let me…

  • Charles Murray, Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America, Introduction and Chapter One

    Herewith, some notes and commentary. Double quotation marks are used for quoting, single for sneering, mentioning, etc. The first truth is that "cognitive ability" is differently distributed among the groups under examination: American whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians. The second is that these groups "have different rates of violent crime." (ix)  These propositions are indeed…