The Two Starkly Different Meanings of “Black Lives Matter,” and Political Ideas That Must Never Be Criticized

"Black Lives Matter" is a simple looking phrase, but it functions as a Trojan Horse. Many people don't understand that there is a big difference between A) stating the obvious fact that Black lives do, indeed, matter and B) embracing the controversial political agenda of the Black Lives Matter organizations. Just because one believes A doesn't necessarily mean that one believes B, but this conflation flies under the radars of many people who embrace both A and B even though the only part that they have carefully considered is A.

Consider this excerpt from a recent news article about Nick Buckley, a man who has spent many years of his life helping desperate others through a charity he founded in 2011, Mancunian Way, based in Manchester, England. The problem started when Nick dared to write an article:

In the article the 52-year-old started by saying: “Of course black lives matter. Let’s get this obvious point over and done with at the beginning”, but went on to criticise the political agenda of the organisation BLM which sought to repudiate the values expressed by Martin Luther King.

I am sympathetic to Nick Buckley's clearly stated concerns. Like Buckley, I am concerned that some of the political ends of BLM sharply conflict with the wisdom of Martin Luther King. The fact that Nick Buckley dared to speak up about this critical issue cost him his job and that is a tragedy.

In some circles, the phrase "Black Lives Matter" has taken on the status of an unassailable fundamentalist religion, which is extremely unfortunate. Whenever this phrase is uttered, we should be asking whether the speaker is asserting A, B or both A and B.  Whereas A is self-evident truth to me, B is a complex set of ideas, many of them ill-defined and/or problematic.

Every idea, especially every political idea, should be open to vigorous criticism and discussion. There should be no exceptions, for the reasons carefully stated by John Stuart Mill in his work, On Liberty. To every claim I respond: "Let's test it." To the extent that any ideas are declared to be sacrosanct, off-limits to discussion and criticism based on science, statistical analyses and the diverse wisdom collected by thinking people from the beginning of time, our democracies are dead.

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About Mary Wollstonecraft

Today I first learned about proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. I can barely fathom how any person could muster the courage to take such a strong moral stand in 1792. You don't need much imagination to understand the abuse she took as a result of writing her book. History is filled with many such "insane" ideas that eventually become common sense. From Wikipedia:

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by the 18th-century British proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who believed that women should not receive a rational education. . . . Wollstonecraft maintains that women are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men, and that treating them as mere ornaments or property for men undermines the moral foundations of society. . . . She launched a broad attack against sexual double standards, indicting men for encouraging women to indulge in excessive emotion. Wollstonecraft hurried to complete the work in direct response to ongoing events; she intended to write a more thoughtful second volume but died before completing it.

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Reddit: Don’t Be Hateful Toward Most People

Is Reddit concerned about Hate Speech or not? Here's the brand new Reddit hate speech policy. What's next? A new version of the Golden Rule?

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Edit 2020.06.30 11pm: Interesting ... Reddit has now changed the offending paragraph to read: "While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect those who promote attacks of hate or who try to hide their hate in bad faith claims of discrimination."

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Fairy Tale Week

Last week I found a big book of Grimm's Fairy Tales in my basement. Out of curiosity, I've been reading a few Grimm's Fairy tales each day for the past several days. More than a few of these stories involve people being desperately hungry or poor. On a regular basis, the wonderful ending is that the people end up with a comfortable house that includes a magic pantry that never runs out of food. These stories must have been written in desperate times. Reading them has reminded me how lucky most of us are that we are not chronically hungry and homeless.

Many of these fairy tales also seem bizarre, involving men actively coveting other mens wives, women treated like property, and families putting their kids to cruel tests. Reading these tales has reminded me that one of my daughters attended a Waldorf School in St. Louis County about 15 years ago. The teachers repeatedly told me that the ONLY thing I should ever read to my daughters, at least until 3rd grade, was Grimm's Fairy Tales. I refused to follow that advice. It strikes me as bizarre today as it did back then, and it was a factor in pulling her out of that school and enrolling her in a much better school. I suspect that they were expecting us to cherry pick for better quality fairy tales, avoiding the bizarre and pointless stories. Cherry picking is common, of course. I'm reminded of the many people who have insisted that I should read the Bible, focusing on the "good parts," not on the bizarre stories, such as the time God sent bears to kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha because he was bald. (2 Kings 2:23-25).

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Recognizing and Escaping from Kafka Traps

Until now, I didn't realize there was a name a peculiar type of argument, but from now on I will recognize it as a "Kafka Trap":

In The Trial, Kafka presents a totalitarian world where a man is arrested by unspecified authorities and accused of an unspecified crime. Kafka traps occurs when people are accused of something but their denials are interpreted as absolute proof that the accusation is true. For example,

You are an liar!"
"No I am not."
"That proves it. Liars always deny they are liars!"

Kafka Traps seem to work because they are circular, thus evidence-free, thus unfalsifiable. You can expose the fallaciousness of Kafka Traps by making some simple substitutions, e.g.,:

"You are a jelly donut!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Jelly donuts always deny they are jelly donuts!"

Now consider this argument:

" You are a racist!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it.  Racists always deny they are racists!"

This argument that all white people are racists has been employed by Robin DiAngelo:

Yes, all white people are complicit with racism. There will be umbrage and upset. People will insist that they are not racist. That I don't know them ... 'I've traveled a lot. I speak lots of languages ... I had a Black roommate in college. I'm a minority myself.' This is the kind of evidence that many white people used to exempt themselves from that system. It's not possible to be exempt from it.

These Kafka Traps are fact-free pseudo-arguments that remind me of St. Anselm's alleged proof for the existence of God ("That than which nothing greater can be conceived") and St. Thomas Aquinas' Contingency proof for the existence of God ("even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an uncaused cause. The only thing missing from these three fallacious arguments is the word "Abracadabra!"

To escape a Kafka Trap, you can also demand evidence for these extraordinary claims, then (after no evidence is produced) invoke Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

If you are facing an evidence-free claim that you are a racist, simply flip the argument 180 by substituting "maker of false accusations" for "racist":

"You are a maker of false accusations!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Makers of false accusations always deny they are makers of false accusations!"

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