The Sinning and Sad Atonement by the Editor of an AMA Journal

Andrew Sullivan describes the situation and the pathetic spineless nebulous apology by the Editor of journal of the American Medical Association. I invite you to visit (and support) Sullivan's excellent substack website, "The Weekly Dish," for the full article and a steady stream of excellent writing by Andrew Sullivan. Here's an excerpt regarding the AMA Editor. This is who we are becoming:

I was just reading about the panic that occurred in the American Medical Association, when their journal’s deputy editor argued on a podcast that socio-economic factors were more significant in poor outcomes for non-whites than “structural racism.” As you might imagine, any kind of questioning of this orthodoxy required the defenestration of the deputy editor and the resignation of the editor-in-chief. The episode was withdrawn from public viewing, and the top editor replaced it with a Maoist apology/confession before he accepted his own fate.

But I was most struck by the statement put out in response by a group called “The Institute for Antiracism in Medicine.” Here it is:

The podcast and associated promotional message are extremely problematic for minoritized members of our medical community. Racism was created with intention and must therefore be undone with intention. Structural racism has deeply permeated the field of medicine and must be actively dissolved through proper antiracist education and purposeful equitable policy creation. The delivery of messages suggesting that racism is non-existent and therefore non-problematic within the medical field is harmful to both our underrepresented minoritized physicians and the marginalized communities served in this country.

Consider the language for a moment. I don’t want to single out this group — they are merely representative of countless others, all engaged in the recitation of certain doctrines, and I just want an example. But I do want to say that this paragraph is effectively dead, drained of almost any meaning, nailed to the perch of pious pabulum. It is prose, in Orwell’s words, that “consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.” It is chock-full of long, compounded nouns and adjectives, riddled with the passive voice, lurching and leaning, like a passenger walking the aisle on a moving train, on pre-packaged phrases to keep itself going.

Notice the unnecessary longevity: a tweet becomes an “associated promotional message.” Notice the deadness of the neologisms: “minoritized”, “marginalized”, “non-problematic”. As Orwell noted: “the normal way of coining a new word is to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the -ize formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentatory and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning.” Go back and see if you can put the words “minoritized” or “non-problematic” into everyday English.

Part of the goal of this is political, of course. The more you repeat words like “proper antiracist education” or “systemic racism” or “racial inequity” or “lived experience” or “heteronormativity,” the more they become part of the landscape of words, designed to dull one’s curiosity about what on earth any of them can possible mean. A mass of ideological abstractions, in Orwell’s words, “falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.”

In modern America, this is how easy it is to get intelligent people in high places to stop saying what they are thinking. You have probably wondered, like I have, why the German people didn't rise up to overthrow Hitler. Now think about what is happening today in the United States. People are not being sought out and killed. Their relatives are not being threatened with death. They are not being thrown into education camps. They are merely being threatened with social disapproval and economic loss. But they are so terrified, their assholes so incredibly puckered, that they are refusing to ask obvious questions and to say obvious things. Highly trained medical professionals are afraid to stand up and acknowledge the obvious need to conduct multivariate analyses to understand complex situations.  They are willing to look in their mirrors in the morning knowing that they are living and speaking lies. That's how powerful and perverted the Woke Movement is. That is why I have a difficult time walking away from this topic.

Wokeness (including the modern version of CRT) is clearly a religion (as John McWhorter argues). I've been through this kind of thing all my life, given that I am both an agnostic and an atheist. I've seen the Overton window closing on me. I've seen the disappointment in others as I ask obvious questions and acknowledge obvious things around me. This is giving me something like PTSD, bringing me back to the days when my well-meaning father worked overtime to jam overly-pious Catholicism down my throat. I've been there, seen this, and don't know what to do about it, given that those who are captive have done the equivalent of constructing "electric fences" around numerous critically important topics in their minds, thereby nullifying the possibility that we can move forward by using Enlightenment Principles. Too many of us can't (or won't) talk anymore, even about the Emperor's state of undress.

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Matt Taibbi: The Horseshoe Theory is Now a Real Thing

This is what I am seeing too. It is based on our Americhean (American + Manichean) zeitgeist. Matt Taibbi calls it the "horseshoe theory." He has unlocked his entire article, which I highly recommend, mostly for people who (mostly) will refuse to read it, but who need to read this. The title is "Congratulations, Elitists: Liberals and Conservatives Do Have Common Interests Now." Here is an excerpt:

The American liberalism I knew growing up was inclusive, humble, and democratic. It valued the free exchange of ideas among other things because a central part of the liberal’s identity was skepticism and doubt, most of all about your own correctitude. Truth was not a fixed thing that someone owned, it was at best a fleeting consensus, and in our country everyone, down to the last kook, at least theoretically got a say. We celebrated the fact that in criminal courts, we literally voted to decide the truth of things.

This new elitist politics of the #Resistance era (I won’t ennoble it by calling it liberalism) has an opposite view. Truth, they believe, is properly guarded by “experts” and “authorities” or (as Jon Karl put it) “serious people,” who alone can be trusted to decide such matters as whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop story can be shown to the public. A huge part of the frustration that the general public feels is this sense of being dictated to by an inaccessible priesthood, whether on censorship matters or on the seemingly daily instructions in the ear-smashing new vernacular of the revealed religion, from “Latinx” to “birthing persons.”

In the tone of these discussions is a constant subtext that it’s not necessary to ask the opinions of ordinary people on certain matters. As Plato put it, philosophy is “not for the multitude.” The plebes don’t get a say on speech, their views don’t need to be represented in news coverage, and as for their political choices, they’re still free to vote — provided their favorite politicians are removed from the Internet, their conspiratorial discussions are banned (ours are okay), and they’re preferably all placed under the benevolent mass surveillance of “experts” and “professionals.”

Add the total absence of a sense of humor and the inability of “moral clarity” politics to co-exist with any form of disagreement, and there’s a reason why traditional liberals are suddenly finding it easier to talk with old conservative rivals on Fox than the new authoritarian Snob-Lords at CNN, MSNBC, the Daily Beast or The Intercept. For all their other flaws, Fox types don’t fall to pieces and write group letters about their intolerable suffering and “trauma” if forced to share a room with someone with different political views. They’re also not terrified to speak their minds, which used to be a virtue of the American left (no more).

From the moment Donald Trump was elected, popular media began denouncing a broad cast of characters deemed responsible. Nativists, misogynists and racists were first in line, but from there they started adding new classes of offender: Greens, Bernie Bros, “both-sidesers,” Russia-denialists, Intellectual dark-webbers, class-not-racers, anti-New-Normalers, the “Substackerati,” and countless others, casting every new group out with the moronic admonition that they’re all really servants of the “far right” and “grifters” (all income earned in service of non-#Resistance politics is “grifting”). By now conventional wisdom has denounced everyone but its own little slice of aristocratic purity as the “far right.”

They’re wrong on the ideology, but right about one thing: they’ve created a brand of imperious elite politics so revolting that it has the potential to unite even this Balkanized wreck of a country. If they keep this up, liberals and conservatives may start talking for real, and maybe even fix a thing or two.

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Alternatives to “Likes” on Social Media

Most social media platforms invite users to reply "Like" a Tweet, Post or Photo. It might be fun, for instance, when a dozen people "Liked" a photo of my salad. As argued, in "The Social Dilemma," however, piles of like can serve to steer people into tribes. This can happen when people post conclusions rather than thoughtful discussions.  It can happen when people make ad hominem attacks on their least favorite politicians and simplistic cartoons of complex social issues, such as immigration.

What is social media for?  That's a good question and it might evoke ten different answers from ten people.  Is it for cat videos and photos of one's children or is it appropriately used for discussing critically important social issues?  The suggestion that I'm about to make is for those of us who see social media as an opportunity to engage in serious conversations about important issues of the day with others in our network. Those not interested in serious discussions are invited to continue sharing cat photos.

I would suggest that in addition to the "Like" option, we add a few other options, including the following:

  • Your post merely parrots a talking point of one of the two political parties.
  • You are making an ad hominem attack on a person, not providing me with useful information.
  • You are engaged in a [cognitive bias] [logical fallacy].
  • Your post caused me to think about a topic in a new way.
  • Your post made me less certain of an opinion that I had.
  • Your post made me realize that this topic is more complex than I realized.
  • Your post states the facts fairly, but I still disagree with you.
  • You provided me with new intriguing information that I appreciate.
  • Your post made me angry, but I am glad you read it.
  • Your post irritates me, I disagree with you, but I value you as a friend.

I'm sure there are others that should be considered.  The main question is whether we are satisfied hoot panting for each other to display tribal loyalties or whether we want to be challenged to understand out world better . . .

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What Should be Done about the Way Many Schools are Preaching Critical Race Theory to their Students?

Bari Weiss has written a column that includes a comprehensive discussion with Christopher Rufo and attorney/writer David French. It is a highly civil and insightful discussion. She begins her column with this:

If you are reading this, I suspect you are disturbed by an ideology that segregates people by race; that insists on a racial hierarchy in which entire racial groups are monolithically good or bad; that does away with race-blind tests in the name of progress; and that insists that any inequality of outcome is evidence of systemic discrimination.

Those are bad ideas at odds with our most foundational American values. On Friday, Andrew Sullivan published an essay arguing that CRT removes the “bedrock of liberalism.” I agree.

The question is: What should be done about it? . . . The idea of banning ideas should make any American shudder.

In my discussion below, everything I write is a paraphrase other than the bits of text that are in quote marks.

At min 35 in the discussion French asserts that the many new statutes banning there teaching of critical race theory "flat out violate the constitution." I agree with Weiss and French. There is a big difference between teaching about a subject and preaching that subject in a way that makes students feel that they are compelled to agree. French disputes that the CRT movement has deep radical control over America's institutions, even though it is influential. He believes that we have the means, including our legal system, of addressing this ideology. He worries that overblowing the force of CRT is mustering a anti-First Amendment pushback on the political right (e.g., regulating big tech and anti-CRT legislation).

Rufo "strongly disagrees, urging that CRT is overwhelming American institutions from coast to coast, and that these are extraordinary and dangerous times. He argues that the State does not have free speech rights. They, through public schools, have a state run monopoly and a captive audience (that consists of children, even young children) upon which they are forcing compelled speech that takes the form of "racial poison." Children should not be compelled to express belief in racial essentialism, racial discrimination, the need for collective guilt or the need to acknowledge that one is responsible for the crimes of one's ancestors. He argues that the State, though Departments of Education, already have the power (and obligation) to implement the school curricula.

French responds (at min 45) that much of the proposed legislation is not necessary in that there are already robust Constitutional protections against compelled speech. Further, many of the bills are not limited to K-12 education. Unconstitutional grant-making is already illegal by the theory of "unconstitutional conditions." We need to take these bills "bill by bill." There might need to be a lot of litigation about this, in that many of these bills are wildly vague. French completely agrees that compelled CRT speech is improper (with or without the new bills). Some of these bills improperly take aim at some of the foundational principles of traditional liberalism.

Rufo argues that these new ("race neutral") laws are necessary to protects one's right to conscience. He argues that communities ought to be able to enforce their own values in their own institutions, which they fund. He argues that many of the laws allow the teaching of CRT as a theory, in a contextual way, but you can't force your students to believe them. You cannot teach CRT as a dogma. He argues that the State has much more "shaping power" in K-12, grades that students are required to attend. He argues that the public should also do whatever it can to shape the values instilled by public colleges, including criteria for grant-making, which many of these new laws seek to protect.

French compares to teaching religion. The Constitution allows teaching about Christianity, but not teaching it "as truth."

Weiss asks French what he would suggest to combat CRT if these new state laws are unconstitutional. He suggested local courageous control of schools. Get involved in your child's school. Many non-elite public schools are not steeped in CRT. There are many opportunities to speak up. In K-12, the state is already given lots of leeway to determine curriculum. Laws affecting that cannot be unconstitutionally vague.

French: The question is not whether these ideas are good. The question is what are the limits of constitutional protection? Many of these bills attack compelled speech, but the First Amendment already protects students from compelled speech. Right now, no school has the right to force a student to wrote a letter of apology to students for one's "white privilege."

Rufo urges that these bills are necessary because students are being forced to do such things. Rufo states that he has a database of more than 1,000 institutions where students are currently being forced to engage in such behavior.

French responds: "Then file a lawsuit." He admits that only the Idaho statute comes close to being constitutional. The other statutes ban the expression of particular viewpoints. (Min 1:02:00). This is lawful only in narrow circumstances (re state employees). The universities do not have First Amendment rights, but the professors do, and based on French's experience as an attorney, most of these new laws will be struck down as speech codes, if challenged in court.

French "wants to hear" from those who promote CRT. He disagrees with many of these ideas, but he wants to hear them, understand them and, I many cases, reject them. But he does not want to ban these ideas from the marketplace of ideas.

Weiss to French: Aren't the CRT promoters trying to erase the ability of people like French to reject CRT?

French: There is no doubt that many of these people want to shut him up. There are speech codes and they generally fail in the courts. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) indicates that at one time 80% of colleges had speech codes.  As a result of litigation, only about 25% of them currently have speech codes.

At min 111, both French and Rufo, who have Multi-racial families, describe how they talk with their own children about their "identities and about what it means to be American." It was a heartfelt ending to a vigorous and engaging conversation.

Follow up Tweet by David French:

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How Pervasive is the Teaching of Critical Race Theory?

Last month, Andrew Gutmann started speaking out against critical race theory, as it was being taught at his daughter's private expensive Manhattan school, Brearley School. In his letter to the Brearly community, he accused Brearly of teaching children illiberal and indoctrinating antiracism initiatives and divisive obsession with race. Gutmann has founded Speak Up For Education. .

Today, Gutmann authored an opinion piece at The Hill. Here is an excerpt:

There appears to be widespread belief that opposition to critical race theory is a view held solely by the political right. This perception is wrong. It is certainly true that the conservative media has almost exclusively embraced viewpoints unfavorable to critical race theory while the liberal-oriented media has been overwhelmingly approving. But our polarized media does not seem to accurately reflect the view of most Americans.

Since my letter became public, I have received several thousand supportive emails and messages from people across this country, including many from self-described Democrats and liberals. The tone of most of the messages sent to me is not at all political in nature; instead, the tenor is one of desperation and powerlessness.

I have received emails from parents expressing devastation that their kids, as young as five years old, are coming home from school after being taught to feel guilty solely because of the color of their skin. I have received messages from grandparents feeling hopeless that their grandchildren are being brainwashed and turned against their own families. And I have received notes from teachers brought to tears because they are being required, day after day, to teach fundamentally divisive, racist doctrines and being forced to demonize their own students.

Perhaps the most powerful – and most frightening – of the notes I have received are the several dozen from those who identify themselves as having immigrated to America from the former Soviet Union or from countries in formerly communist Eastern Europe. These emails are never political in nature and are nearly identical in message: These first-generation Americans all write that they have “seen this movie before.” They are familiar with the propaganda, the tactics of indoctrination and the pervasive fear of speaking up that plague today’s United States. Simply put, they cannot believe this is happening here.

Continue ReadingHow Pervasive is the Teaching of Critical Race Theory?