{"id":2533,"date":"2021-07-16T15:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T15:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/07\/16\/andrew-sullivan-on-critical-race-theory\/"},"modified":"2021-07-16T15:48:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T15:48:17","slug":"andrew-sullivan-on-critical-race-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/07\/16\/andrew-sullivan-on-critical-race-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sullivan writes<\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Here is how critical theory defines itself in one of its central documents. It questions the very foundations of \u201cEnlightenment rationality, legal equality and Constitutional neutrality.\u201d 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<\/em> reason racial inequality is still here.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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, a<\/span>s 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<\/em> 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:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Claims to truth are merely claims to power. That\u2019s what people are asked to become \u201cawake\u201d to: that [classical] liberalism is a lie. As are its purported values. Free speech is therefore not always a way to figure out the truth; it is just another way in which power is exercised \u2014 to  harm the marginalized. The idea that a theory can be proven or disproven by the empirical process is itself a white supremacist argument, denying the \u201clived experience\u201d of members of identity groups that is definitionally true, whatever the \u201cobjective\u201d facts say. And our minds and souls and institutions have been so marinated in white supremacist culture for so long, critical theorists argue, that the system can only be dismantled rather than reformed. The West\u2019s idea of individual freedom \u2014 the very foundation of the American experiment \u2014 is, in their view, a way merely to ensure the permanent slavery of the non-white.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This too is a load of nonsense. If claims to truth are claims to power, that holds for the claims of critical race theorists.  This crap is really beneath refutation.  In any case, refutation can't do them any good. They need defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The 1619 Project is a case in point. It doesn\u2019t just expose some of the hideous past we\u2019d rather forget. It insists that \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d is the <\/span>definition<\/em> of the United States, that its true founding was therefore 1619, that its core principle from the get-go was not freedom but slavery, that slavery is the true basis for American wealth, that the police today are the inheritors of slave patrols, that only black Americans fought to end slavery, and so on. It insists that the Declaration of Independence was \u201cfalse\u201d, not merely imperfectly implemented, and designed to obscure the real project of racist oppression. And its goal is the dismantling of liberal epistemology, procedures, ideas and arguments in order to revolutionize what cannot by definition be reformed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

This is what makes CRT different. When it began, critical theory was one school of thought among many. But the logic of it \u2014 it denies the core liberal premises of all the other schools and renders them all forms of oppression \u2014 means that it cannot long tolerate those other schools. It must always attack them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critical theory is therefore always the cuckoo in the academic nest. Over time, it throws out its competitors \u2014 and not in open free debate. It does so by ending that debate, by insisting that the liberal \u201creasonable person\u201d standard of debate is, in fact, rigged in favor of the oppressors, that speech is a form of harm, even violent harm, rather than a way to seek the truth. It insists that what matters is the identity of the participants in a debate, not the arguments themselves. If a cis white woman were to make an argument, a Latino trans man can dismiss it for no other reason than that a white cis woman is making it.<\/em> Thus, identity trumps reason. Thus liberal society dies a little every time that dismissal sticks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every time a liberal institution hires or fires someone because of their group identity rather than their individual abilities, it is embracing a principle designed to undermine the liberal part of the institution. Every university that denies a place to someone because of their race is violating fundamental principles of liberal learning. Every newspaper and magazine that fires someone for their sincerely-held views, or because their identity alone means those views are unacceptable, is undermining the principles of liberal discourse. Every time someone prefers to trust someone\u2019s subjective \u201clived experience\u201d over facts, empiricism and an attempt at objectivity, liberal society dies a little. <\/span><\/p>\n

And every student who emerges from college who believes that what matters is whether you are on \u201cthe right side of history\u201d rather than whether your ideas can be tested by the ruthless light of open debate is a student who does not have the ability to function as a citizen in a liberal society. The ability to respect and live peaceably alongside people with whom you vehemently disagree is a far harder skill than cheering on one of your own. And yet liberal institutions are openly demonstrating that it is precisely this kind of difficult toleration they will not tolerate.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry but this matters. It\u2019s not the only thing that matters right now, I know. But if we remove the corner-stone of liberal democracy \u2014 the concept of a free, interchangeable citizen using reason to deliberate the common good with her fellow citizens, regardless of any identity \u2014 then it is only a matter of time before it falls. This does not mean ignoring or overlooking the real struggles that African-Americans in particular have endured and continue to endure. It is to insist that we can do better \u2014 within a self-correcting, open liberal system \u2014 without surrendering to tribalism, race obsessiveness, or utopian attempts to force<\/em> racial justice which violate the core guardrails against tyranny we rely upon for the survival of liberal democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

This debate is not about whether you are a racist or an antiracist. The debate is about whether, in your deepest heart and soul, you are a liberal or an anti-liberal. And of those two options, I have no doubt where I stand. Do you?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sullivan writes, Here is how critical theory defines itself in one of its central documents. It questions the very foundations of \u201cEnlightenment rationality, legal equality and Constitutional neutrality.\u201d 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. … Continue reading “Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[388,163,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-race-theory","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}