The “Race” Endgame

Sam Harris appeared on stage with Scott Galloway to discuss many topics, including "race." I am using these scare quotes because I do not recognize "race" to be a reality-based category, but only an extremely toxic temptation for both well-meaning people and power-seekers. I'm convinced that from Day One, recognition of "race" was always a bad idea and it continues to be a bad idea that needlessly tears people apart, often causing physical violence and sometimes causing death. The concept of race has the scientific validity and reliability of astrology--both concepts are gross miscategorizations, attempts to silo complex human beings (and all human beings are complex) on the basis of immutable irrelevant characteristics. The less credence we grant this concept, the better, in my view. Here's what Sam Harris had to say about his view of the best endgame for the concept of "race."

The goal has to be to get to a society where we care less and less about the superficial differences between people. It seems to me patently obvious that there can't be a matter of caring more and more about these differences. [There are] people who were actually living in a post-racial society in the sense that they weren't they did not care about the color of anyone's skin or anyone's sexual preference or gender identity. There were many people living truly ethical lives having broken out of this this truly toxic past with respect to those forms of bigotry. They're getting pushed back. They're being told by this corner of the culture “No no no! It's too soon to say that. It’s always going to be too soon to say that you're post-racial or blind with respect to these differences among people. These differences have to be ramified. They have to be acknowledged. You as a white person have no standing with which to say anything about race.” That's madness. It's absolute madness.

The goal for us ethically and intellectually has to be to arrive at a time where we don't care about these things no more than we care about hair color. Just imagine if we were coming from a time where people had been discriminated against based on hair color. That would be totally perverse.

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Princeton University Posing as a Critic

Excerpt of "Letter from Princeton Open Campus Coalition to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber":

When university administrators speak officially on controversial matters of social importance, they must be cognizant of the fact that––as faculty at the University of Chicago recognized at the height of the Vietnam War––“[t]he university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”[1] If the university itself becomes the critic––which occurs when administrators qua administrators opine on controversial issues not bearing a tangible impact on the university’s ability to function––it diminishes the openness of an academic climate that would otherwise invite dissenters to engage boldly with their peers and colleagues. This truth led the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee to recognize that institutional neutrality enables the “fullest freedom of its faculty and students as individuals to participate in political action…” [2] We believe that the institutional neutrality principle, so articulated, reasonably restricts university officials’ speaking in their official capacities.

Unfortunately, recent events at our University suggest that the neutrality principle has been dangerously dishonored. In the case of Dean Jamal’s November 20th statement regarding the Rittenhouse verdict, the significant factual errors (while embarrassing) are not the cause of our protest. [3] What motivates our letter is a concern about the implications of a University administrator, speaking in her official capacity, promulgating to an entire community of students her moral evaluation of the outcome of a highly publicized and controversial trial. Her doing so in effect places SPIA’s institutional support behind a particular position on a matter which, as it engages the interests of so many, should invite a vigorous and respectful conversation amongst students and faculty alike.

Instead, students and faculty are left to read that a Dean has adopted a definitive stance on a matter about which reasonable people of good will can and do disagree. Dean Jamal writes with a “heavy heart” as she decries the “incomprehensib[ility]” of a not-guilty verdict, labels the defendant a “minor vigilante,” and situates the alleged outrageousness of the trial’s outcome within the broader context of racial inequalities pervading “nearly every strand of the American fabric.”

Each of these features––the verdict, the alleged vigilantism, and the systemic racism claim––are the subjects of genuine debate among serious legal commentators and academics. Contrary to Dean Jamal’s forceful assessment that some of these issues––viz., the systemic racism allegation––are settled “without a doubt,” these topics occupy the debates of students, faculty, and the public at large. Though no one claims that Dean Jamal’s statement directly forces dissenting students to remain silent or to affirm what they do not believe, it is no stretch to conclude that the establishment of an institutional position tends to draw restrictive parameters around a dialogue that would be otherwise unfettered.

[Emphasis added]

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Every Single Person is Unique

I absolutely agree with Glenn Greenwald here. I would further add that there are no homogeneous groupings at all. To suggest otherwise is to start down the slippery slope to identity politics. Even the members of tight-knit families are dramatically different from each other, which can be seen when you take the time to get to known them as individuals.

And why is it that we leave out people from low-earning people without college degrees when we claim the need for "diversity"? I believe that it is because it is perfectly OK to treat low-earning working class people without college degrees as pariahs in modern society--just try to find some of them in featured roles on TV shows and movies. The heroes live in fancy apartments and they wear expensive clothes.

Even one step further, which member of the working class. They are not all the same. If you take the time to get to know people who don't earn much money this is indisputably clear.

One more for now: what about viewpoint diversity? When we speak of having a "diverse" environment, that is overlooked, often intentionally, I believe, because it blows apart the notion that merely recruiting a "woman of color" into the conversation would be a meaningful way to achieve true diversity.

How many people are there on the planet? Seven billion? There are seven billion types of people on this planet.

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A Few Questions about Race

I enthusiastically support Glenn Loury's Substack. He often discusses race issues with John McWhorter. Glenn invited questions for their upcoming question and answer session. Here is my question. I hope they have time to address it on their Q & A:

Here’s a hypothetical for the two of you.

Assume that God visits the United States next Tuesday. After sizing things up, God performs a miracle. He/She/They decide to make it impossible for anyone to know the “race” of anyone else. There are no longer any physical or historical ways to determine the “race” of any people you meet. Two questions: What % of people would like this new world? What % would be distressed because they no longer have a quick proxy for judging the character of others? I suspect that some people doing DEI work will get upset because they will lose their jobs. Some people will get busy trying to determine new immutable characteristics upon which to judge the characteristics of other people—perhaps astrology and phrenology theories will again flourish. In the midst of all this panic, distress and commotion of this non-racial reckoning, the news media reports that someone (race unknown) murders 15 people (race unknown). Many people watching the news reports don’t know whether to give a shit in the absence of “racial” information.

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About Counterweight

It's time to take back the word "liberal" from a relatively small number of loud boorish illiberal people who happen to be strategically placed in our sense-making institutions. Counterweight, founded by Helen Pluckrose, is there to help you.

Helen Pluckrose:

When I say that attaching social or moral significance to ‘race’ is bad, I am told that this attitude will make me blind to racism. That makes no sense. Racism is the worst form of attaching social & moral significance to race which is the very thing I oppose.

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