The Importance of Exposing Yourself to the Viewpoints and People that Make You Uncomfortable

In order to avoid peanut allergies, we need to make sure we are exposed to peanuts at a critical window.

[E]arly exposure to peanuts produced an 81% reduction in peanut allergy among high-risk children, deemed so because they had already tested positive for other food allergies and/or had eczema. More than 600 children ages 4 to 11 months either consumed, or strictly avoided, peanuts until age 5. Of the children who avoided peanuts, 17% had a peanut allergy by age 5, compared to only 3% in the peanut-consuming group.

In order to maintain a healthy well-balanced intellect, we need to repeatedly expose ourselves to people and viewpoints we find uncomfortable. We need to do this with an open mind, putting their best foot forward. What uncomfortable people and viewpoints have you intentionally exposed yourself to during the past year?  If you disagree with these people and viewpoints, are you able to give them their best foot forward before convincing others that your position is superior?

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Bill Maher Discusses Dangers Awaiting the Democratic Party Despite Joe Biden’s Victory

IMO, Bill Maher is spot-on here. If the Democrats (and their supporters) don't find the courage to speak out about these excesses of the Woke fringe of the political Left, they won't even be able to win the office of dog catcher next election--we just witnessed how badly Democrats were hurt in lower tier federal and state elections from coast to coast.

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In a year Democrats hoped to capture the Senate and bolster their House majority, the loss of so much ground in Congress has touched off an intense volley of finger-pointing, insults and plotting by each feuding faction to keep the other out of party leadership posts. The familiar ideological rift between the left and the center-left is intensifying after an election in which the message sent by voters was so muddled: embracing Joe Biden while spurning so many down-ballot Democrats.

Joe Biden would have lost in a truly massive landslide except that Trump was the worst candidate who has ever run for the office of President. Biden (for whom I voted) should have won by at least 90/10 over such an arrogant proudly-ignorant self-absorbed bully, yet almost half of our country voted against Biden. As it was, had merely 200,000 people in key states swapped their votes, Trump would have been reelected by a "landslide" the equivalent of the "landslide" Biden's supporters are currently proclaiming. We can't depend on the Republicans ever again choosing such a bad candidate. This bodes terribly for 2022 as indicated (in Maher's video) by Abigail Spanberger (U.S House of Rep-VA).

Here's an inconvenient fact: Many Republicans were voting against the Democrats, not for Trump, and not because "they are all racists."  If you don't believe this, it is because you have been unwilling to listen to real life Republicans who live and work in your community. It's time for all of us to do some serious soul searching. We need to confidently reassert evidence-based principles that have largely (though admittedly imperfectly) worked over time: It is a good thing to reward hard work and competence. It's critically important to set aside our feelings and self-critically get the facts correct before we discuss any political issue. It is absurd to loudly proclaim, contrary to strong evidence, that every "white" person is a "racist." It is unhinged to argue that police should be "abolished" or "defunded" in light the inevitable consequences of defunding, especially on poor communities (who largely want more police presence, not less). Here's a recent crime report from Minnesota, which actively defunded its police:

Homicides in Minneapolis are up 50 percent, with nearly 75 people killed across the city so far this year. More than 500 people have been shot, the highest number in more than a decade and twice as many as in 2019. And there have been more than 4,600 violent crimes — including hundreds of carjackings and robberies — a five-year high.
Do the Democrats really want to take back some seats in 2022?  If so, we need to have the courage to speak out against the sanctimonious left fringe, which excels at making cartoons out of complex individual people by jamming them into identity-silos and rigging public speech with dozens of hair-triggers.

Most of us recognize Wokeness to be a terrible foundation for collaborating with each other to run our country, but we are hesitant to speak out because we might be called names by the fringe left. It often feels uncomfortable to speak up because the Woke are so well embedded in many of America's primary sense-making institutions, including universities, media and political entities.  It will all be much easier if we encourage each other to start publicly saying what almost all of us are privately thinking.  It's time to get to work.

Continue ReadingBill Maher Discusses Dangers Awaiting the Democratic Party Despite Joe Biden’s Victory

A Social Vaccine to Protect People From Critical Race Theory

Many of us grew up with and/or currently live with other people who look different than we do. I am of European ancestry and my two daughters were adopted from China. We look a bit different, but I think of them as fully and forever my two wonderful daughters, albeit with this footnote: our ancestors came from different parts of the planet and we were so incredibly lucky we have found each other. My daughters are now young adults. They are capable and beautiful women, unique in their looks, their personal character and their interests. Anyone taking even a tiny bit of time to get to know my daughters would quickly agree.

It recently occurred to me that many people would consider that my daughters are of a different "race" than me. That strange thought jumped as I was studying Critical Race Theory (CRT), which strongly advocates for an intensely racialized social landscape:

Critical race Theorists therefore advocate not being colorblind or meritocratic. Instead, they recommend that we all focus on race and racism specifically at all times and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring and other opportunities. In practice, this often means to run mandatory implicit bias tests and training in workplaces and ensure that more people of racial minorities are represented in any (prestigious) workplace that lacks them.

I refuse to think of my daughters as being of "another race." In fact, this is a repulsive and divisive thought for me. All human beings have descended from various populations of one single species. Despite our common biological roots, each person is unique in a complex ways.  No two people are alike and the only way to get to know any other person is to spend some quality time with them. Thinking of other humans as simple colors rather than as unique people prevents us from having meaningful relationships with each other.

Hence my Tweet:

Side note: I'm fully aware that the United States is filled with people who still think that superficial immutable physical traits are more than skin deep.  I disagree. The concept of "race" is defective in the same way that astrology is defective. These two approaches for attempting to get to know other people fail. Both of these lazy approaches use irrelevant accidents as a false proxy for taking the time to get to know each other.

I try to avoid using the word "race" except in scare quotes because a) Use of the term "race" suggests that there is a benefit to seeing people as colors, b) The term "race" confuses people and needlessly divides us from each other, and c) fretting about "race" is always followed by destructive conduct: trying to judge the personal character of other people by the the way their bodies look is truly one of the most idiotic things people have ever done.

It also occurs to me that there might be a causal connection between my experience harmoniously living with people of "another race" and my forceful rejection of CRT. I suspect that my experience living in a "multi-racial" household has incentivized me to forcefully reject the poisonous and divisive ideology offered by Critical Race Theory. People cannot meaningfully be stuffed into a simplistic color categories. They can only be understood as individuals, one by one, and there are no shortcuts.  I've learned this in many ways during my life, not just being a parent in a "mixed race" household. I've been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to really get to know many people of different "races" during my life as a student, asa photographer, as a musician and as an attorney who has handled more than a few civil rights cases for plaintiffs.

I've also noticed that many prominent writers from "racially mixed" households have taken similar strong stands against Critical Race Theory (CRT). This includes John McWhorter, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Wilfred Reilly, Christopher Rufo, Shelby Steele, Barack Obama, Coleman Hughes and others. This makes me wonder whether those who have lived lives well-blended with people of other "races" can more easily see that sticking people in "racial" categories is a terrible way to get to know other people.

Contrast this with the fact that many Americans who are suspicious of other "races" have spent their entire lives segregated from those of other "races."  I've noticed that many of the shrill CRT advocates are "white" people who tend to run in homogenous packs of "white" people.  Could it be that their willingness to embrace CRT flows from their segregated lives? Is it possible that many CRT people (such as Robin DiAngela) have been damaged by their failure to really get to know people of other "races"?  It would take a high degree of ignorance, or perhaps fear or laziness (again, I'm thinking of Robin DiAngelo), to categorize complex individuals who come in many shapes, colors, skillsets, histories and personal characteristics (including the Big Five personality traits) and levels of accomplishments into silos that are simplistically labeled "white" and "Black."

It is my operating assumption that people will not willingly categorize each other into color categories if they spent quality time with those of other "races." People who have made close relationships with people of other "races" have essentially essentially given  themselves a vaccine to protect them from getting caught up in CRT.

Consider this quote by Miguel de Unamuno:

"Fascism is cured by reading, and racism is cured by traveling."

Similarly, racism is cured by "traveling" through life having close relationships with those of other "races."

I am interested to know whether any social scientists have studied what I am describing.  My observation, once again, is that people who have close and enduring relationships with those of other "races" are far more likely to be repulsed by CRT.

[Edit note 2020.11.13: I posted a much simpler version of this post yesterday.  I expanded on this idea as I considered it further].

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More Criticism of the Political “Left” and “Right” from Eric Weinstein

Eric Weinstein's apt Tweet:

Or, instead of off-script and on-script, should we refer to people as "Thinks for Themselves" and "Doesn't Think for Themselves"? Labels of Left/Right are (often intentionally) deceptive, obscuring massive internal dissent within the "two" tribes for purposes of feigning homogeneity. Tribes use these labels to fluff up their feathers to try to appear coherent, like politically powerful voting blocks.

The labels "Left" and "Right" look precise, but simplistically clean appearance of these labels disguises a lack of precision.  Primarily, these labels refer to heterogenous tribes that try to portray themselves as homogenous.  This is not merely academic. The use of the Left/Right labels (legitimized and amplified by lazy media and social media) is tearing our society apart.

Continue ReadingMore Criticism of the Political “Left” and “Right” from Eric Weinstein