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 by the principle, offers this by way of rebuttal:

Continue reading “Collective Guilt”

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 the  other hand, if you think that only the  descendants of slave holders should pay reparations, then we citizens who are are not descended from slave holders are off the hook. None of my ancestors held slaves. Hell, some of them probably were slaves themselves, members of the Spartacus rebellion who ended up crucified along the Via Appia.  

And what about the blacks who are descended from blacks who held slaves? Do they get reparations too? And who is black anyway? Rachel Dolezal?  If race is just a social construct, can I re-identify as black and get in on the goodies? If I can identify as a girl and then compete in an all-female athletic event, why can't I identify as black?

There will never be black reparations for slavery. The idea is just too incoherent for implementation. And it perpetuates the victim mentality that keeps blacks on the bottom. Nor should there be reparations for slavery. See the following. Trigger warning! They are exercises in reasoned discourse.

David Horowitz on Black Reparations

On Black Reparations

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 house.”/ “We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”) look amateurish in comparison. In this context, new calls arise for ludicrous reparations simply because we have become a ludicrous society.

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 half-way cultural appropriation? Go all the way, and you will benefit yourself enormously.
 
There is nothing 'white' about the above values and virtues, attitudes and behaviors. After all, Asians implement them as well as Caucasians, if not better. The values and virtues, attitudes and behaviors, are normatively universal and good for everyone. No race or ethnicity owns them. They are common goods. 

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 think that what is needed is a white tribalism to oppose tribalisms 'of color.'
 
While I reject the destructive falsehoods of left-wing tribalists, and understand the urge of 'alties' to oppose them with vigor, I don't want to go into reactionary mode if I can avoid it. The reactionary is defined by what he reacts against. I want to move in a positive direction. I want to reject identity politics of both the Left and the Right by transcending them both. To be identity-political is to take one's primary self-identification to be a tribal or group identification, an identification in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, socio-economic class, or some combination of these.
 
That is not how I self-identify, and I believe that no one should self-identify in that way. I identify as a person, as a rational being, as a free agent, as a truth-seeker, as a lover of the good and the beautiful, as a conscious and self-conscious subject. I do not primarily self-identify as an object in nature, a two-legged land mammal, or in any such way. Of course, I am an animal, a genetically human animal, essentially (not accidentally) Caucasian, and essentially (not accidentally) male, whence it follows, contrary to current leftist lore, that I cannot change my race or my sex. But while I am an animal, I am also a person, a spirit.
 
Here is one problem we face. Our enemies on the 'woke' and thus tribalist Left reject this scheme which ultimately rests on a personalist and theistic foundation. They are an existential threat to us, where an existential threat is not merely a threat to one's physical existence, but also, and more importantly, a threat to one's way of life as a spiritual, cultural, and historical being as opposed to a mere biological system for whom biological survival is the only value. There is no reaching these 'woke' folk  with talk of persons and rights and the equality of persons and of rights. That is to them just bourgeois ideology that serves only to legitimate the extant social order. They are tribalists who refuse to transcend their tribal identifications and see themselves as persons, as rational beings, as autonomous agents. But not only that, they are also race realists despite their obfuscatory and logically inconsistent talk of race as a social construct. The inconsistency doesn't bother them because truth is not a leftist value, and logical consistency can count as a value only to those for whom truth is a value. This is because truth enters into the definition of logical consistency. 
 
The problem, then, is that it is probably not possible to defeat our enemies — who, nota bene, do not want peaceful coexistence — except by going tribal ourselves, and engaging them in the way they apparently want to be engaged, with blood and iron. Either that, or we accept political dhimmitude. And so a certain amount of pro tempore white tribalism may be needed to counteract the tribalists 'of color.' 
 
I would like it not to be true, but I fear that it is. 

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 brought about their own deaths by their foolish  behavior. Similarly with Jacob Blake. He didn't die, but was severely injured. A cop is under no moral or legal obligation to wait for you to shoot at him before he shoots at you. 
 
Racism was not involved in these shootings. A cop will use deadly force against ANYONE who threatens him with deadly force. Race doesn't come into it, except insofar as blacks as a group are more criminally prone than other groups. To put the point as clearly as possible: while there are racist cops, and there are cops who commit murder under color of law, the vast majority of police shootings of blacks are not racist acts. Proportionally more blacks get shot because their criminality  is higher than that of Asians, whites, and other groups.  This is a well-known  fact. Bear in mind that  while there are racial facts, facts about race, there are no racist facts. This is a very simple distinction: even a 'liberal' is able to make it. Question is, will he?
 
Pat Post Dangerous Activities
 
 

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 exception as an 'outlier.' 

Memo to self: develop this line of thinking and then apply it to 'hot button' issues such as race. Is Candace Owens representative of black females or is she an 'outlier'? And to which generic statements is she an outlier?  You won't touch this question, will you? Not with an eleven-foot pole, which is the pole you use to touch questions you won't touch  with a ten-foot pole. 

See my aptly appellated entry, Generic Statements, for more on generic statements.

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 thoughtlessly for it. It is like 'social justice' in this respect. They don't realize that leftists, semantic distortionists nonpareil,  have hijacked a legitimate word so as to make it  refer to equality of outcome. Being uncritical, people don't appreciate that there is an important  difference between equality in its formal senses — equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality in respect of political/civil rights, etc. — and equality of outcome or result. Formal equality is an attainable good. Material equality is unattainable because of group differences.  To achieve material or non-formal equality, equality of outcome, the means employed would be worse than the supposed cure.

Given undeniable group differences, 'equity' does not naturally arise; hence the only way to achieve 'equity' is by unjustly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive.  The levelers would divest the makers of what is rightfully theirs to benefit the undeserving takers. 'Equity' is unjust!  It is unjust to deny a super-smart Asian or Jew a place in an MIT engineering program because of a racial/ethnic quota.  Judging candidates by merit and achievement, however, naturally leads to the disproportional representation of Asians and Jews in such programs. That is a consequence that must be accepted. Candidates must be judged as individuals and not as members of groups.  Indeed, the superior black must take precedence over the inferior Asian or white, but not because he is black, but because he is superior. 

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 nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.  The editorial perceptively observed:

“Judge Sotomayor seems to think that inherent racial and sexual differences are not simply quirks of genetics, but make some better than others. Consider her 2002 speech at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” she said. “I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”

“She also accepted as potentially valid the idea that the “different perspectives” of “men and women of color” are due to “basic differences in logic in reasoning” due to “inherent physiological or cultural differences.”

The brilliant Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, regarded as the greatest economist of the 20th Century, discussed this Marxist nonsense in his magnum opus, Human Action, under the category of polylogism. 

This is the bogus idea that the logical structure of the mind is different based on one’s class, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual preference, etc.

This skewed Marxist concept lies at the root of all “politically correct” notions of cultural relativism and multiculturalism fashionable in academia, the elite media, and critical race and legal theory circles today.

And if President Biden has his way, upon the highest court in the land.

This is more than the widely-accepted idea that our various life experiences shape our world view, or influence our value judgments in making ethical and moral decisions.

Again, polylogism specifically holds that the logical structure of the mind is different based on one’s class, race, nationality, gender, sexual preference, etc. There is no objective reality independent from these fixed determinative factors of causality.

The notion of a Constitutionally-driven independent judicial temperament or impartiality becomes impossible.

The rest is below the fold. 

Did you catch the exchange between Senator Ted Cruz and nominee Jackson? 

"For example, I'm a Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man — would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard's discrimination because I made that decision?" Cruz added.

Jackson replied that she could not respond to questions based on hypotheticals.

Lord help us.  Yet another indication that leftists are mendacious to the core. 

Continue reading “Polylogism and Leftist Racism”

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 on the other side of the street.  I was wearing a beret, which may have suggested to the loiterers that I was a foreigner and an easy mark. One dude approached and commented on my shoes in an obvious attempt to distract me and throw me off my guard. My situational awareness saved me. That, together with my stern mien, height, leather jacket and purposeful stride.  I gave the punk a hard look, increased my pace, and blew him off.

Profiling is part of situational awareness. Profiling is just common sense, which is why 'progressive' fools oppose it. A couple of black youths loitering in a touristy area are probably up to no good. It is a well-known fact that blacks as a group and more criminally prone than whites as a group. There is nothing racist about pointing that out because a fact about race is not a racist fact.  It cannot be racist to speak the truth in situations where it is important that the truth be spoken. But if common sense and truth-telling make me a racist, then we should all be racists, including decent black folk. 

Bourbon Street Nawlins

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 passages like that—about, for instance, the “happy, true-heart ecstatic Negroes of America”—that inspired me to pull from the shelf another book that expresses much the same desire. It did so, however, with greater honesty and courage than On the Road. It also conveys more pleasure, in large part because it makes far fewer claims for itself.

This was Really the Blues, the autobiography of an endearing oddball named Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow. Born in Chicago in 1899 to Russian Jewish parents, Mezzrow fell under the spell of Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, and other early jazz musicians. He learned to play the clarinet, recorded with many of these better known musicians, including Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and—here’s where things get fun—decided he too wanted to be black. Mezzrow determined that he “was going to be a Negro musician, hipping the world about the blues the way only Negroes can.”

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. Formal legal equality, they argue, the promise of the American experiment, has never been actual equality, even as, over the centuries, it has been extended to everyone. It is, rather, a system to perpetuate inequality forever, which is the single and only reason racial inequality is still here.

This is pernicious nonsense. Why has "formal legal equality" never led to "actual equality"? Why hasn't equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and the like led to equality of outcome or result? Because, as a matter of empirical fact, we are not equal, not physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, socially, politically, or economically.  By no empirical measure are people equal either as individuals or as groups.   We are naturally unequal.    And because there is no natural equality, it is no surprise that there is no racial equality of outcome.  Since there is no "white power over non-white bodies," this nonexistent factor cannot be used to explain racially inequality of outcome or result.  Sullivan continues his description of CRT:

Continue reading “Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory”

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 explain.

'Equity' sounds good and so people are thoughtlessly for it. It is like 'social justice' in this respect. They don't realize that leftists, semantic distortionists nonpareil,  have hijacked a legitimate word so as to make it  refer to equality of outcome. Being uncritical, people don't appreciate that there is an important  difference between equality in its formal senses — equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality in respect of political/civil rights, etc. — and equality of outcome or result. Formal equality is an attainable good. Material equality is unattainable because of group differences.  To achieve material or non-formal equality, equality of outcome, the means employed would be worse than the supposed cure.

Given undeniable group differences, 'equity' does not naturally arise; hence the only way to achieve 'equity' is by unjustly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive.  The levellers would divest the makers of what is rightfully theirs to benefit the undeserving takers. 'Equity' is unjust!  It is unjust to deny a super-smart Asian or Jew a place in an MIT engineering program because of a racial/ethnic quota.  Judging candidates by merit and achievement, however, naturally leads to the disproportional representation of Asians and Jews in such programs. That is a consequence that must be accepted. Candidates must be judged as individuals and not as members of groups.  Indeed, the superior black must take precedence over the inferior Asian or white, but not because he is black, but because he is superior. 

Suppose you disagree. Then I argue as follows.

The state apparatus needed to bring about this 'equitization' or equalization of outcomes is vastly larger than the one permitted by our founding documents.  The attempt to achieve it brings us closer and closer to an omni-invasive totalitarian police state.  That would be worse than a situation in which natural hierarchies are respected.

In any case, natural hierarchies always have the last word. If the USA weakens itself by going 'woke,' it will become easy prey for its foreign enemies.  Their dictators are salivating as we speak. Never forget that states are in the state of nature with respect to one another, and that nature is red in tooth and claw. A 'woke' military is a weak military. 

The paradox should not be missed: the equalization project requires agencies of equalization vastly more powerful that the groups they seek to equalize.  The upshot, then, is not equality of power and position but a situation of material inequality in which the governors oppress the governed.

Is CRT a theory?  A commenter on my Facebook page correctly notes that

The advocates of the current re-education program are not presenting a theory but rather requiring their victims to signal their uncritical, obsequious acceptance of a canon of dogmas. Calling a dogma or set of dogmas a theory is a rhetorical ruse used to disguise their insidious indoctrination with the a veneer of real educational activity.

My commenter is right. CRT is not a theory to be discussed and tested but a set of dogmas to be imposed on children of all ages whose critical faculties are no match for the indoctrination.

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.

Murray CharlesThe 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 truths. But why discuss these incendiary matters?  Because "We are engaged in a struggle for America's soul." (x)  We are indeed, and the stakes are high. 

The first chapter  is entitled "The American Creed Imperiled" and covers pp. 1-8.  

America's soul is her founding ideals, the American creed, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.  Among the ideals: liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, human rights, the rule of law, and private property.  I would add limited government to the list and insist that private property is the foundation and sine qua non of individual liberty, which of course entails opposition to totalitarian schemes such as socialism and communism.

But the founding ideals were a long time in achieving.  On 28 August 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous 'I have a dream' speech that "evoked the American creed from start to finish." (2) The next year brought the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson.  "The act had to be a good and necessary thing. As a college junior at the time, I certainly thought so." (3)

But the 1964 Act drove a "philosophical wedge . . . between those who wanted strict adherence to the ideal of treating people as individuals, equal before the law, and those who advocated group-based policies as a way to achieve social justice." (3-4)  But what's with the "social"?  What's wrong with plain old 'justice'? How could justice not be social?  Could old man Murray be unaware that 'social justice' is a leftist code-phrase?

The wedge was driven deeper.

Group-based policies proliferated and by the end of the 20th century 'American creed' had fallen into desuetude and the thing itself had been repudiated altogether to be replaced by intersectionality, critical race theory, and a "bastardized vision of socialism." (4)  The new ideology came to dominate "the left wing of the Democratic Party."   Question for  Murray: Is there a right wing? Who belongs to it?

The label that sums up all the newfangled Unsinn is 'identity politics.'  "The core premise of identity politics is that individuals are inescapably defined by the groups into which they were born — principally (but not exclusively) by race and sex — and that this understanding must shape our politics." (5, emphasis in original)   The American creed is thereby "turned on its head."  Treating people as individuals becomes immoral because it ignores racism and sexism. Racism is systemic and white privilege omnipresent. The power of the state not only may be used, but must be used to treat people of color preferentially.

It took him a while, but Murray came to see that left-wing identity politics is "toxic."  (6) I would add that the same goes for the identity politics of the alternative right.  Be that as it may. The topic is Murray. He finds identity politics "toxic" because "It is based on the premise that all groups are equal in the ways that shape economic, social, and political outcomes for groups and that therefore all differences in group outcomes are artificial and indefensible." (6) Murray goes on to say that the premise is "factually wrong." "Hence this book about cognitive ability and criminal behavior."

Here is the way I would present the fundamentally fallacious  leftist identity-political reasoning:

1) We are all equal in the ways Murray mentions.  We are equal in interests, aptitudes, intelligence, work habits, criminality, etc. But

2) There is no equality of outcome.

3) The only possible explanation of this is systemic racism and sexism and unearned white privilege. Therefore

4) It is morally acceptable to use the power of the state to equalize the inequalities. And individual liberties be damned.

The main problem with the argument, of course, is that (1) is provably false.  

Unfortunately, Murray backpedals out of fear of being misunderstood and, I would guess, fear of being labelled a nasty racist and white supremacist. He assures us:

I am not talking about racial superiority or inferiority, but about differences in group averages and overlapping distributions. Differences in averages do not affect the abilities of any individual. They should not affect our approach, positively or negatively, to any person we meet. (6)

No? Take the third sentence. If Murray is convinced that blacks as a group are more criminally prone than whites as a group, and he encounters a black person whom he does not know, then it would be highly irrational of him NOT to allow that conviction of his to affect his approach to the black person.  Suppose Murray is walking down a street and a number of black youths are approaching him, while on the other side of the street coming in his direction are a number of white Mormon youths. Would it not be highly irrational of Murray to remain on the black side of the street?

Now look at the first sentence. Obviously Murray is talking about racial superiority/inferiority if he argues that Asians as a group are better at math that blacks as a group.  "Come on, man!" as Joey B. would say.

To Murray I say: you will be called a racist and a white supremacist no matter what you say. So man up and don't try to curry favor with our political enemies.

………………………….

A reader comments:

I was reading your post about Murray and thinking over your example toward the end about the group of black youths on the street.  Years back I read an example almost exactly like this in a philosophy paper, except that the author was careful not to include any racial description of the "teenagers" in the story.  (Maybe in the same way that newspapers like to call a black criminal an "area man" or "local youth".)  
 
According to the author, he couldn't help but cross the street on the basis of his "prejudiced" belief that a group of "scowling" teenagers dressed like gangbangers represents some kind of danger.  He later feels ashamed​ of his belief that they "pose a danger" because, after all, "I do not know them" and "they could be harmless".  The belief was "epistemically ungrounded".
 
Isn't that amazing?  You'd think anyone would have to agree that in this situation it's obviously rational​ to believe that a bunch of young men "pose a danger" and rational​ to act on your assessment of danger by simply crossing the street.  But NO.  Here we have a senior distinguished philosopher just asserting for no particular reason that his belief and behavior was not rational​.  And he even thinks it was immoral​ or something.  Anyway, he claims to be ashamed.
 
So there may be no getting through to these people.  Or maybe they know what they're saying is ridiculous but they're so desperate to appear "good" that you can't have an honest conversation with them about even the blindingly obvious.
The prospects for fruitful conversation do indeed seem dim. We are living through a period of race madness which addles the brains of many including the distinguished philosopher you mention.  White liberal guilt is probably a factor, as well as a desire to be liked and accepted, fit in, keep drawing his salary, and seem 'good' and bien-pensant. I suspect that the belief that we are all equal, not just formally, but materially and behaviorally, and in a way that would make it reasonable not to cross the street in my example, is a perverse secularization of the Christian notion that we are all equal in the eyes of God, just as the notion that we are collectively guilty for the sins of slavery is a perverse secularization of the Christian notion of original sin.
 
On top of that there is the widespread false belief that the only motive a Charles Murray could have for his researches is bigotry and hatred of the Other, never a genuine scientific interest. This comports well with the current assault by 'wokesters' on the concept and value of objectivity which is denigrated — if that is an acceptable word these days — as a 'white supremacist' concept and value.