Quite interesting. Something you said about the nature of white supremacy, and how it expressed itself in Germany -- the Holocaust -- and how axioms might be incorrect, led me to this abstract comparison between Nazi ideology and that which underpins Critical Race Theory. In the axiom system below, "we" are the people who have been marginalized, and "they" are the putative marginalizers:
a) They are wealthy, because they have stolen what we created.
b) They have set up a system to continue to take what we create. They act as a group.
c) They do not understand what they are doing to us.
d) They do not understand what systemic advantages they have over us.
e) They need to be made to understand what they are doing.
f) They need to yield their power to us.
g) They need to be placed into the same situation in which they placed us.
h) We must be made whole by taking as much from them as they have taken from us.
i) No matter what, we are better than they.
j) They deserve what we must do to them.
As you can see, the axioms imply that wealth is zero sum. There are accounts, and accounts must be balanced.
The axioms also imply that we are pure, and they are evil. There is no possible way that "we" can become evil, and there is no way that they can become good.
The axioms also imply that both we and they are monolithic. Each person in "we" has endured the same transgressions, and each person in "they" has perpetrated the transgressions.
Now, the thing that makes all clear: We: {Germans,Blacks} They: {Jews,Whites}
If you examine the 1920 Platform of the German National Socialist Workers Party, and you examine the axiom system above, you see definite similarities.
If you examine the system outlined by Ibram Kendi, and compare to the axiom system above, you see definite similarities.
The only question remains: How similar are the two systems
Of course I've touched that third rail that says that nobody should ever compare another group to the Nazis, but you can see that such a comparison is unavoidable.
As an exercise, one can see whether the axioms above would be sufficient to support a system like Jim Crow, or antebellum enslavement, or whether further axioms would be needed.
The axioms might be true, or they might be false, but they motivate people to actions which, in the end, history finds to not be very good. They are axioms that create a victim class, an oppressor class, and then demands that justice be extracted from the oppressors in exactly the same way the oppressors oppressed back in the day.
Is it worth noting that totalitarianism in general maps onto these axioms? Not to defend our 40s German brothers and sisters, but I kept thinking of Stalin and the Kulaks, and walking the Killing Fields in Cambodia looking at the bones of the country's educated who had to die because they were not pure like the peasants. Great list, thanks.
It wasn't meant to be exhaustive, nor, given how quickly thrown together, completely accurate. You and , in the comment, indicates that for a true catastrophe to occur, this axiomatic thinking must be applied in an environment of the applicant holding total power.
But you bring up the Germans, and what they were thinking to give totalitarian power to the person they did? Consider what the Treaty of Versailles was doing to the German economy -- the crippling blow of hyperinflation due to syphoning of wealth (stored work) from the German economy to repay the war debts to England and France. The temptation to yield power to a strong leader is -- strong.
Here, it's more subtle now. A house appraiser lowers the value of one's house by over 50% merely for the color of skin of the person owning said home, rendering it impossible to obtain a necessary loan,. You are seeing a minor version of Germans v. the rest in action, a syphoning of intergenerational wealth and a reason to think that one is being systemically conspired against.
The discrimination exists. But is it systemic? Or is it local? Note the power centers in the article, and which are the greater ones, and what they think is right. What is the remedy? There's a lot in this article, some of it hidden in between the lines, like the effects of requesting one's FICO score multiple times (I'm at a loss as to how a request for a score would cause it to fall. It's like some weird application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal -- that measuring something affects the thing measured. I would expect that FICO scores would be immune to Heisenberg, but they deliberately aren't.
Your 10 points overlap with the standard story arc, e.g. Haidt's Grand Narratives, of golden age, fall, and rise. Every story must have a hero, and villain.
An additional gaping flaw, common to much psycho-social research, is that CRT isn't falsifiable. In Popper's words:
"I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being *tested* by experience. These considerations suggest that not the *verifiability* but the *falsifiability* of a systems is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation." (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg. 40, emphasis in the original)
"According to my proposal, what characterized the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested." (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg. 41)
Popper expands on this criteria in greater detail throughout his book. However, if one were so bold to bring a black swan before the clerisy in the Church of CRT, they are "canceled." That is not the falsifying or negation of which Popper speaks.
"Children are not the enemy..."
But they are a threat. Sneaky and tricksy they are, filled with free range curiosity and innocent disregard for categories and agendas. The adults with pricey but shallow "Studies" credentials can't tolerate such independence.
I am coming around to the idea that our scientific and technical communities, as threatened and sometimes poisoned as they are, may be the life blood of what survives in America. For now that is my focus as I chase down Popper and David Deutsch in my reading. I still retain high regard for Taleb, Douglas Murray, Andrew Sullivan, and several others, but I truly want to distill the essence of the philosophy of science as it relates to what cultural progress should be.
The problem with CRT is that it is a philosophical belief which offers an explanation as to why the world works in the way it does -- in short it contains a distinct moral code. It is also a highly contested philosophical belief. To put it in 18th century parlance it operates as a religion.
The 1st Amendment of the Constitution in its first sentence, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The free exercise of religion includes the right for parents/legal guardian to decide which moral code to teach their children. Sec 18.4 of the UN Charter of Human Rights Sec 14.8 says parents have this right to educate their children in morals and the state should stay out.
Thus teaching CRT or indeed trying to teach empathy/compassion as it is sometimes termed is not the job of the state. Moral education has to be a right reserved to parents or where does freedom of belief go. Engel v Vitale (1962) on school prayer might assist.
Thus K - 12 public schools should not be teaching any sort of identity/moral education.
They can teach non contested philosophical beliefs such as All Men Are Created Equal or that people are equal under the law. They can teach such and such happened on such and such date.
The ascribing of motivation to individual action is the teaching of a moral code and should be forbidden from state funded school as violating the Freedom of Belief.
Adults are free to reject the moral code they were taught as children by their parents. Thus I have no problem with it being taught to post secondary education. Lots of theories are taught then.
CRT with its insistence on a hierarchy of victimhood is contrary to my moral code which states Equality means Equal Under the Law and Equal in the Moral Order even though people have differing gifts and talents. (from Common Cause 1947). I realise it is an ideal, and may not even be achievable but surely it is something worth shooting for. Deciding to opt out of the race game is hard but worth it.
"Blatant indoctrination or koolaid distribution" The former is what so many see and could probably name pretty much in those or very similar terms. The latter is the point and the harm of the former and I think your reference to Jonestown points to the ideological cyanide in the CRT. It is quite surprising how eagerly some like the corporates are guzzling it. Keep it up and it could finish Western civilization.I particularly like your critique of CRT based on Popper. Never thought of it that way. In any case, we evidently share a strong feeling of exasperation about the entire mess.
Quite interesting. Something you said about the nature of white supremacy, and how it expressed itself in Germany -- the Holocaust -- and how axioms might be incorrect, led me to this abstract comparison between Nazi ideology and that which underpins Critical Race Theory. In the axiom system below, "we" are the people who have been marginalized, and "they" are the putative marginalizers:
a) They are wealthy, because they have stolen what we created.
b) They have set up a system to continue to take what we create. They act as a group.
c) They do not understand what they are doing to us.
d) They do not understand what systemic advantages they have over us.
e) They need to be made to understand what they are doing.
f) They need to yield their power to us.
g) They need to be placed into the same situation in which they placed us.
h) We must be made whole by taking as much from them as they have taken from us.
i) No matter what, we are better than they.
j) They deserve what we must do to them.
As you can see, the axioms imply that wealth is zero sum. There are accounts, and accounts must be balanced.
The axioms also imply that we are pure, and they are evil. There is no possible way that "we" can become evil, and there is no way that they can become good.
The axioms also imply that both we and they are monolithic. Each person in "we" has endured the same transgressions, and each person in "they" has perpetrated the transgressions.
Now, the thing that makes all clear: We: {Germans,Blacks} They: {Jews,Whites}
If you examine the 1920 Platform of the German National Socialist Workers Party, and you examine the axiom system above, you see definite similarities.
If you examine the system outlined by Ibram Kendi, and compare to the axiom system above, you see definite similarities.
The only question remains: How similar are the two systems
Of course I've touched that third rail that says that nobody should ever compare another group to the Nazis, but you can see that such a comparison is unavoidable.
As an exercise, one can see whether the axioms above would be sufficient to support a system like Jim Crow, or antebellum enslavement, or whether further axioms would be needed.
The axioms might be true, or they might be false, but they motivate people to actions which, in the end, history finds to not be very good. They are axioms that create a victim class, an oppressor class, and then demands that justice be extracted from the oppressors in exactly the same way the oppressors oppressed back in the day.
Is it worth noting that totalitarianism in general maps onto these axioms? Not to defend our 40s German brothers and sisters, but I kept thinking of Stalin and the Kulaks, and walking the Killing Fields in Cambodia looking at the bones of the country's educated who had to die because they were not pure like the peasants. Great list, thanks.
Totalitarianism is zero-sum thinking. It is also zero-tolerance thinking. It catastrophizes and it says what doesn't kill you makes you weaker.
It wasn't meant to be exhaustive, nor, given how quickly thrown together, completely accurate. You and , in the comment, indicates that for a true catastrophe to occur, this axiomatic thinking must be applied in an environment of the applicant holding total power.
But you bring up the Germans, and what they were thinking to give totalitarian power to the person they did? Consider what the Treaty of Versailles was doing to the German economy -- the crippling blow of hyperinflation due to syphoning of wealth (stored work) from the German economy to repay the war debts to England and France. The temptation to yield power to a strong leader is -- strong.
Here, it's more subtle now. A house appraiser lowers the value of one's house by over 50% merely for the color of skin of the person owning said home, rendering it impossible to obtain a necessary loan,. You are seeing a minor version of Germans v. the rest in action, a syphoning of intergenerational wealth and a reason to think that one is being systemically conspired against.
Here's the story: https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2021/05/13/indianapolis-black-homeowner-home-appraisal-discrimination-fair-housing-center-central-indiana/4936571001/
The discrimination exists. But is it systemic? Or is it local? Note the power centers in the article, and which are the greater ones, and what they think is right. What is the remedy? There's a lot in this article, some of it hidden in between the lines, like the effects of requesting one's FICO score multiple times (I'm at a loss as to how a request for a score would cause it to fall. It's like some weird application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal -- that measuring something affects the thing measured. I would expect that FICO scores would be immune to Heisenberg, but they deliberately aren't.
Your 10 points overlap with the standard story arc, e.g. Haidt's Grand Narratives, of golden age, fall, and rise. Every story must have a hero, and villain.
Not that I have a choice. Major key: Hero. Minor key: Villain.
An additional gaping flaw, common to much psycho-social research, is that CRT isn't falsifiable. In Popper's words:
"I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being *tested* by experience. These considerations suggest that not the *verifiability* but the *falsifiability* of a systems is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation." (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg. 40, emphasis in the original)
"According to my proposal, what characterized the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested." (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg. 41)
Popper expands on this criteria in greater detail throughout his book. However, if one were so bold to bring a black swan before the clerisy in the Church of CRT, they are "canceled." That is not the falsifying or negation of which Popper speaks.
"Children are not the enemy..."
But they are a threat. Sneaky and tricksy they are, filled with free range curiosity and innocent disregard for categories and agendas. The adults with pricey but shallow "Studies" credentials can't tolerate such independence.
I am coming around to the idea that our scientific and technical communities, as threatened and sometimes poisoned as they are, may be the life blood of what survives in America. For now that is my focus as I chase down Popper and David Deutsch in my reading. I still retain high regard for Taleb, Douglas Murray, Andrew Sullivan, and several others, but I truly want to distill the essence of the philosophy of science as it relates to what cultural progress should be.
The problem with CRT is that it is a philosophical belief which offers an explanation as to why the world works in the way it does -- in short it contains a distinct moral code. It is also a highly contested philosophical belief. To put it in 18th century parlance it operates as a religion.
The 1st Amendment of the Constitution in its first sentence, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The free exercise of religion includes the right for parents/legal guardian to decide which moral code to teach their children. Sec 18.4 of the UN Charter of Human Rights Sec 14.8 says parents have this right to educate their children in morals and the state should stay out.
Thus teaching CRT or indeed trying to teach empathy/compassion as it is sometimes termed is not the job of the state. Moral education has to be a right reserved to parents or where does freedom of belief go. Engel v Vitale (1962) on school prayer might assist.
Thus K - 12 public schools should not be teaching any sort of identity/moral education.
They can teach non contested philosophical beliefs such as All Men Are Created Equal or that people are equal under the law. They can teach such and such happened on such and such date.
The ascribing of motivation to individual action is the teaching of a moral code and should be forbidden from state funded school as violating the Freedom of Belief.
Adults are free to reject the moral code they were taught as children by their parents. Thus I have no problem with it being taught to post secondary education. Lots of theories are taught then.
CRT with its insistence on a hierarchy of victimhood is contrary to my moral code which states Equality means Equal Under the Law and Equal in the Moral Order even though people have differing gifts and talents. (from Common Cause 1947). I realise it is an ideal, and may not even be achievable but surely it is something worth shooting for. Deciding to opt out of the race game is hard but worth it.
"Blatant indoctrination or koolaid distribution" The former is what so many see and could probably name pretty much in those or very similar terms. The latter is the point and the harm of the former and I think your reference to Jonestown points to the ideological cyanide in the CRT. It is quite surprising how eagerly some like the corporates are guzzling it. Keep it up and it could finish Western civilization.I particularly like your critique of CRT based on Popper. Never thought of it that way. In any case, we evidently share a strong feeling of exasperation about the entire mess.
Thank you once again. I appreciate your contributions to our shared efforts at understanding.