The Science Femme poses a simple question. The many comments are worth a careful read. Some of them might keep you up at night in that the humor is laced with deep concern.
The Woke Temple provides an illustration of the Woke alternative to the scientific method using a real-life problem. This type of "reasoning" is ubiquitous these days:
Need I say this at the beginning of this post? Unfortunately, I might need to. On many topics I disagree with Tucker Carlson and his peers at FOX, or the current Republican Administration, because I lean left on many issues. That said, now on with the post.
I'm glad that Tucker Carlson is shining light on the use of critical race theory in the federal workforce. Carlson's guest, journalist Christopher Rufo, is gathering this information from hundreds of workplaces where CRT is taking the form of religious indoctrination. As Rufo indicates, "There is no place for this toxic, divisive, pseudoscientific ideology in our public institutions."
Rufo Tweeted yesterday: "In the past 18 hours, I've received more than 1,000 messages and 100 new sources for leaked government documents." Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
I'm posting Rufo's recent Tweet below, along with Geoffrey Miller's well phrased comment:
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
Then . . .
And now. Click on the photo for the story of this woman dining in DC, who was approached by BLM protesters, not satisfied to invade her while in a restaurant but insisting on the alleged need for compelled speech.
The woman dining in the restaurant is bravely exhibiting the correct approach when someone threatens you to make you say something you don't believe. Here is a classic photo showing how to be brave. Click on the photo for the story of the man who refused to salute Hitler.
Have you heard about "Babygate"? The crux of the problem is that a white man affectionately held a Black friend's Black baby on his lap, at the friends's request during a meeting of the NYC Community Education Council. Members of the Council complained, indicating that this was "harmful" and that it "hurts people." The formal written accusation contained the following:
The letter characterized the lap incident as harmful: “Imagine the insult and emotional injury any thinking person, especially a person of color, suffered when they witnessed this scene and heard that comment,” it stated, calling them “shocking, disgusting, offensive, and racially incendiary.” It demanded that Wrocklage resign, claiming that allowing such incidents to continue without consequences “will only further empower the perpetuation of similar racist behaviors.
When the man who held the baby was called out, he challenged the accusers to state why this was racist. The accusers could not explain why this was racist. They told him that he needed to read Robin DiAngelo. This incident illustrates how crazed we are getting. "Anti-racist" ideology is has successfully turned innocent human kindness into a bad thing.
This recent incident and its aftermath were described in detail, then analyzed by Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic in an article titled "Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart: What a viral story reveals about contemporary leftist discourse." An excerpt:
Folks who have different ideas about how to combat racism should engage one another. They might even attempt a reciprocal book exchange, in which everyone works to understand how others see the world. A more inclusive anti-racist canon would include Bayard Rustin, Albert Murray, Henry Louis Gates, Zadie Smith, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Danielle Allen, Randall Kennedy, Stephen Carter, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Barbara and Karen Fields, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Adolph Reed, Kmele Foster, Coleman Hughes, and others.
As long as sharp disagreements persist about what causes racial inequality and how best to remedy it, deliberations rooted in the specific costs and benefits of discrete policies will provide a better foundation for actual progress than meta-arguments about what “anti-racism” demands.