Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Race

  • Nietzsche, Truth, and Power

    Nietzsche's conflation of truth with power is one source of Critical Race Theory. Substack latest.  

  • Dreher contra Buchanan on “All men are created equal.”

    Rod Dreher quotes Patrick J. Buchanan: “All men are created equal” is an ideological statement. Where is the scientific or historic proof for it? Are we building our utopia on a sandpile of ideology and hope? Dreher responds: With that, Buchanan repudiates not only the founding principle of our Constitutional order, but also a core teaching of…

  • Can One Change One’s Race?

    No more than one can change one's species, with apologies to the late David Avner, the Cat Man.  Substack latest.

  • On the Academentia Front: You Have to Read This

    Bari Weiss: If you don’t know about Brearley, it’s a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It costs $54,000 a year and prospective families apparently have to take an “anti-racism pledge” to be considered for admission. (In the course of my reporting for this piece I spoke to a few Brearley parents.) Gutmann…

  • On Prejudice

    Hector writes, It seems he [John McWhorter] is not aware that 'prejudice' does not necessarily require a negative attitude towards that concerning which one is prejudiced and is therefore actually not an ideal replacement for 'racist'. Surely, 'bigoted' would be better. I agree. 'Prejudice' admits of pejorative but also non-pejorative uses.  'Bigot' does not. Note…

  • For the Left, the Subject is not the Subject: Why Math is ‘Racist’

    It has often been noted that for the Left, the issue is not the issue.  David Horowitz: As President Obama’s political mentor, Saul Alinsky, put it in Rules for Radicals: “One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.” Here is another…

  • Dennis Prager on Liberalism, Leftism, and Race

    Here at Substack.   IS IT REASONABLE TO BE A SEX REALIST BUT A RACE IRREALIST LIKE PRAGER? If not, should one affirm the biological reality of both, deny the biological reality of both, or affirm race realism and sex irrealism?

  • I Didn’t Start Out Conservative

    Like many conservatives, I didn't start out as one.  My background is working class, my parents were Democrats, and so was I until the age of 41.  I came of age in the '60s.  One of my heroes was John F. Kennedy, "the intrepid skipper of the PT 109" as I described him in a…

  • The Hyphenated American

    One may gather from my surname that I am of Italian extraction. Indeed, that is the case in both paternal and maternal lines: my mother was born near Rome in a place called San Vito Romano, and my paternal grandfather near Verona in the wine region whence comes Valpollicella. Given these facts, some will refer to…

  • Who Am I? Personal Identity versus Political Identity

    Preliminary note: what has been exercising me lately is the question whether there is a deep common root to the political identitarianism of the Left and the Right, and if there is, what this root is. Nihilism, perhaps? I wrote: . . . my identity as a person trumps my identity as an animal. Part…

  • This Man is a Racist?

    Two-minute video. Judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their hair.

  • Politeness and the Belief in Objectivity Really Do Have to Go

    And you wonder why blacks are on the bottom?

  • BLM is Playing by the Book. Alinsky’s Book

    Michael Brown: In his insightful, 2009 mini-book, Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model, David Horowitz quoted an SDS radical who wrote, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” As Horowitz explained, “In other words the cause — whether inner city blacks or women — is never the real…

  • Grammar is Propadeutic to Logic

    So if grammar is 'racist,' then so is logic. What is the criterion whereby a subject or activity is deemed 'racist' by leftists?  It appears to be this:  Whatever blacks and other 'people of color' are poor at is 'racist.'  And what is at the back of that criterion?  It appears to be the assumption…

  • Is ‘Looters’ Racist?

    But of course! Blacks are 'over-represented' among looters. It would be racist to hold blacks to civilized standards of behavior because such behavior is not 'who they are.' Therefore, any use of 'looters' is racist. Is that the 'reasoning'? I'm just asking.  See here: At the Los Angeles Times, for instance, an editor has said…