I look forward to reading Chloe S. Valdary when I'm looking for intelligent, good-hearted, nuanced and hopeful ideas. I like her approach here. We desperately need big unifying ideas at this point. This is an excerpt of her recent Tweet thread, focusing on the universal plight of alienation. [Note:DEI is an acronym referring to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion].
I see the opposite of Jefferson's wise approach commonly being celebrated on FB.
A few months ago, I was booted from a decades-long friendship by a woman who insisted, out of the blue, that I needed to acknowledge the unparalleled wisdom of the Roman Catholic Church. Ideological purity tests everywhere I look these days. This is exactly what Terror Management Theory predicts when death is in the air, when mortality is "salient."
From a recent article by psychologist Valerie Tarico titled, "The Righteous and the Woke – Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger Me in the Same Way."
It occurred to me recently that my time in Evangelicalism and subsequent journey out have a lot to do with why I find myself reactive to the spread of Woke culture among colleagues, political soulmates, and friends. Christianity takes many forms, with Evangelicalism being one of the more single-minded, dogmatic, groupish and enthusiastic among them. The Woke—meaning progressives who have “awoken” to the idea that oppression is the key concept explaining the structure of society, the flow of history, and virtually all of humanity’s woes—share these qualities.To a former Evangelical, something feels too familiar—or better said, a bunch of somethings feel too familiar.
Tarico then lays out many of the similarities in detail. The similarities include:
Righteous and infidels
Insider jargon
Born that way
Original sin
Orthodoxies
Denial as proof
Black and white thinking
Shaming and shunning
Selective science denial
Evangelism
Hypocrisy
Gloating about the fate of the wicked
People who don't know me well sometimes assume that it's easy for me to keep my weight down. This is completely untrue. I constantly watch what I eat. I constantly force myself to exercise and I make myself get on the scale several times each week. If I don't do these things I will gain 2 or 3 pounds per month. I've repeatedly and unwittingly run the experiment of not paying attention to my weight during my life. Each time I fall off the rails, I have had to call a stop to the nonsense and declare war on my fat. Over the past 30 years, this has led me to begin ever new rounds of weight loss boot camp (on my own, at home) where I've worked hard to lose 35, 20, and 20 pounds, as well as various smaller amounts of weight. I'm currently in yet another (minor) boot camp that will end when I lose 5 more pounds. This is my plight, my burden and my opportunity if I am going to maintain a body that feels good and fits my clothes. I also want to avoid risks of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses associated with excess weight.
Whenever I find out that friends are trying to reduce their size, I encourage them and celebrate their successes with them. I silently applaud when I see obese people I don't know exercising at the park Good for them! I hope they reach their goals!
Increasingly, however, the excesses of the "body positivity" movement invade my thought process, occasionally making me do mental double-takes. Body positivity is a double-edged sword:
On the one hand, body positivity—the attitude associated with the movement—aims to try to help overweight and obese people (especially women—see also, fat feminism—and sometimes, when intersectionally analyzed, specifically black women) accept themselves and their overweight status as they are so that negative emotions are not tied up with it. This, of course, has the direct benefit of helping people not feel bad about themselves for a state of facts about the world (weight, BMI, body fat percentage, etc.), which can be demotivating and hinder weight loss attempts (or, which can just be mean and bullying—see also, fat shaming).
On the other hand, body positivity tends to rather aggressively deny any connection between weight status, including obesity, and health (see also, healthism). It rejects such connections as a “medicalized narrative” (see also, regulatory fiction). This rejects mountains of medical evidence suggesting otherwise, that being overweight and especially obese correlates strongly with and causes a number of serious health issues. This view relies upon seeing body weight status and obesity ultimately as a social construction that is used to create an unjust power dynamic that discriminates against and oppresses fat people. Activism in the body-positive movement often encourages overweight people not to want to lose weight (sometimes as a means of identity politics—see also, identity-first), which is irresponsible, at best (e.g., a book in the movement is titled You Have the Right to Remain Fat).
I agree with the benefits of body positivity described above. Overweight people should not be shamed. They should not be shunned. Doing these things is cruel and destructive. We should recognize every other person to be a precious human being. It all starts with I and Thou, Martin Buber's version of the golden rule.
That said, how can it possibly be bigoted when I work hard to be healthy and look better by losing weight. How can I possibly be acting out of bigotry to the extent that I encourage others to reach their weight loss goals? It's not. For background, see this article on Woke attitudes toward obesity at New Discourses. This is shut-up ("Woke") culture doing what it does best: halting important and necessary conversations under the guise of combating alleged discrimination. Today's excess is an article by CBS featuring a sociology professor who claims that concern with obesity is veiled racism.
Why did the UC system stop using the SAT? This article by Andrew Conway offers some insight "The University of California and The SAT: Speaking the Truth?." Here is an excerpt:
Here are two main conclusions from the report:“Overall, both grades and admissions test scores are moderate predictors of college GPA at UC. The predictive power of test scores has gone up, and the predictive power of high school grades has gone down, since the 2010… study of this issue. At present, test scores are a slightly better predictor of freshman grades than high school grades are. Both grades and scores are stronger predictors of early outcomes (freshman retention and GPA) than of longer-term outcomes (eventual graduation and graduation GPA).”
“Test scores contribute significant predictive power across all income levels, ethnic groups, across both first-generation and non-first-generation students, and across all campuses and majors.” Based on these results (and more), the special task force recommended that the UC continue to use the SAT in the admissions process.
But then, on May 21, 2020, the University of California Regents released a statement. They announced their decision to drop the SAT requirement for all applicants to all UC schools. I was shocked. Drop the SAT? Why?