Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing millennia of brilliant philosophers’ attempts to identify the ultimate morality, that we can only bow down in humble acquiescence.
It’s continually amusing to me that some of the most outwardly “anti-religious” people (I’m reminded of this Silicon Valley scene [1]) adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism, with the minor difference of the content of beliefs being different. It makes sense, really: cultures don’t suddenly go 180 in the opposite direction. They adjust and build on already-established modes of thought. I think this is called the Horseshoe theory, but that’s usually applied to politics.
From a clinical psychological perspective, one of the things you often see in a therapeutic setting is that people fall prey to behavioral patterns they don't fully understand. Often, they don't understand them because they're deliberately ignoring them.
I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For example, they will have scathing, visceral, passion-fueled outbursts against religion (often despite knowing very little about it, save for the New Atheist talking points). When you try to point out that they're getting impassioned, they deny it. I think this denial is earnest; they might notice their heart-rate increasing, but they will tell you that there is a rational reason for it to be doing so, and that it is therefore not clouding their judgement nor stunting their curiosity for the subject of discussion.
In exactly the same way, I suspect the people running from "American Protestantism" hardly know what it is and hardly pay attention to it, hence your observation.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."
> adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism, with the minor difference of the content of beliefs being different
Look, as an American Catholic it's not unusual for me to encounter people who drastically stereotype Protestants, but literally the only thing that unites the quite diverse group encompassed by the term “American Protestantism” is the content of their beliefs systems, and at that a fairly small subset of the content.
Pretty much any thing you could imagine is “nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism” but for the content of belief systems.
The "or in deciding how we express ourselves" is what gets me in that passage. The social contract we had was described by Voltaire in Letters on England #6 ("as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace", https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2445/2445-h/2445-h.htm). My religion should affect how I express myself; my religion should not affect how you express yourself (or vice versa).
>It’s continually amusing to me that some of the most outwardly “anti-religious” people (I’m reminded of this Silicon Valley scene [1]) adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism,
This is an empty statement. You accuse him of somehow behaving similar to "protestants" with zero further description of why or how this is true.
Lot's of disparate intellectual movements share many ideas, it doesn't make them any better or worse or have any bearing on their value at all.
> It’s continually amusing to me that some of the most outwardly “anti-religious” people (I’m reminded of this Silicon Valley scene [1]) adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism, with the minor difference of the content of beliefs being different.
I used to hang out with a bunch of ex-Evangelicals, and I noticed the same thing. The content of their beliefs changed (radically), but their outlook and habits of mind stayed the same.
> They adjust and build on already-established modes of thought. I think this is called the Horseshoe theory, but that’s usually applied to politics.
I don't think that's Horseshoe theory. IIRC horseshoe theory is more about extremists from different "ends" of the political spectrum having uncanny commonalities, and establishing a kind of moderate/extremist political axis as its own thing.
From where I live (EU), I strongly disagree with that analysis. Anti-religious people tend to mostly be people who perceive religion as any other personal opinion and perspective of the world. The European declaration of Human rights come to mind, which also make it clear that religion hold no special distinction over a personal opinion.
The rejection of religion as something special that should handled outside of common rules and laws is just that, a rejection. A religious school in my view is no better than one segregated by race, and a religious leader that is talking about believers and unbelievers is no different if they had picked the two groups based on race.
The angle nobody ever mentions on this issue is that nothing mass-produces racism and extremist political views more than treating an entire generation of young men as though they are automatically racist, regardless of their actions, or lack of action. Most people under 40 right now were raised to be completely ready to forget about race and treat it like a non-issue. In response, a lot of well-intentioned and non-bigoted young whites have been called "racist" as little more than a bludgeoning word. It, ironically, has the strong stink of a racial slur when it is flung at one's feet in this way.
20 year old me could not have cared less about race except to protest against some elements of our society that I viewed as structurally racist(prison reform, drug and sentencing laws, police reform and accountability). I would have strongly outwardly identified as anti racist at that time.
And I still think of myself as anti racist internally but when I see someone else outwardly promoting anti racism my first thought is that I should stay away from them for risk of getting wrapped up in toxic behavior, not that they are my ideological ally. I definitely intentionally seek not to be viewed as being related or sympathetic to public anti racist movements in the current era.
At this point my views on race are that the concept if it is brought up at all is probably going to be used as a club to beat me with(metaphorically) and that anyone wielding it isn't my friend.
McWhoter is hero IMO for willingly taking on all of the social consequences of stating these view points to advocate for what he thinks is right.
"It, ironically, has the strong stink of a racial slur when it is flung at one's feet in this way."
That's because it is used as a slur, a powerful one which can end careers, almost exclusively against members of a single racial group. If that's not a racial slur, then what is?
> nothing mass-produces racism and extremist political views more than treating an entire generation of young men as though they are automatically racist, regardless of their actions, or lack of action.
To the extent the hypothetical condition here describes something that actually happened anywhere recently and not a pure counterfactual irrelevancy, I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation of “young men” has been more effectively manufactured into an army of racist than has ever occurred by any other means.
> Most people under 40 right now were raised to be completely ready to forget about race and treat it like a non-issue.
I haven't read the article yet, but McWhorter is the mastermind behind Lexicon Valley, a linguistics podcast and perhaps my favorite podcast of all times. McWhorter is both a bona-fide expert and a thoughtful, funny communicator - a rare combination. Oh, and he's also into musical theater, as you will learn very, very quickly if you listen to any Lexicon Valley episode.
> McWhorter is the mastermind behind Lexicon Valley,
not exactly, no. He took the show over from a duo of other hosts.
He is a professor of linguistics and author of the bastard-tongue book. He is not an expert on sociology, though socio-linguistics is part of the curiculum. Neither is he a expert on history, politics, or all what linguisticis may be tangentially related to (everything!!1).
What he does seem to have on lock down is showmanship and theatrical inventory, but the latter part I'm sure is procured by a team behind the show. It's fa-bu-lush
Oh I'm definitely going to check that out. I've always been a fan of his writing and think he does a great job of making linguistics accessible to the general public. If I had been exposed to his writing in high school I definitely could see myself going into the field.
By chance have you ever listened to the Conlangery podcast? It's primarily about constructed languages but there's a lot of info and cool factoids about natural languages contained within.
I would second this recommendation. A great podcast, and said podcast lends credence to McWhorter not being some fire-breathing MAGA chud. His defense and explanations of creoles and African-American Vernacular English are wonderful.
(On the musical theater bit: some people will hate McWhorter for his heterodoxy on race. I hate him for making me listen to scratchy showtunes to get to the good content.)
On linguistics? I'm willing to assume that for the sake of argument. On racial politics? Given his writing on that issue (and not just the current piece) the generous assumption is “no, not at all, he's just a blowhard that's been given a platform because he can spin a tale that people in power like to hear well”.
Being a “bona fide expert” in a different field plus being black doesn't make you an expert on racial politics/social movements.
Opportunistic people have realized by now that it's better to join this movement than to risk appearing to oppose it. Corporations have created new positions and new departments to seem like they're part of this movement. In our forever-online, forever-catalogued, hyperconnected world, people are smart to recognize shame as an existential threat, and movements are smart to recognize shame as the ultimate weapon.
If we suppose that outside opposition will harden the movement, then the only way it will falter is if its ostensible beneficiaries -- by the terminology, 'people of color' -- renounce it as not speaking for them. Perhaps McWhorter can plant the seeds of this examination and sustain it before he's swiftly vilified by those among the movement with the most to lose.
If the past is any indication, movements tend to be generational. The next generation will come along and discover for themselves the crises affecting their world. If this movement is incapable of delivering a better outcome for the people it purports to benefit, then it will be challenged by another one. And if it does deliver a better outcome for people of color, but at a profound psychological cost to their sense of self, then it will be challenged just the same.
I'd recommend reading Ibram X. Kendi's counter to another piece by McWorther which demonstrates similar straw man rhetoric (pointed out by lisper) as this piece: agglomerating disparate positions from hundreds of people and pointing to a lack of internal consistency in such disparate points of view.
Well yeah, if you assemble myriad opinions about racism in society in a long list, many of them won't be coherent. It's either surprisingly naive, or a calculated rhetorical device.
I agree that if you aggregate opinions from a bunch of people, you're going to find inconsistencies. Using that to point out the intellectual incoherence of their position is a flawed argument.
But maybe I'm not trying to refute these "Elect" intellectually. Maybe I'm just trying to live my life. Their diverse opinions means that there is nothing I can do to keep them from yelling at me and trying to destroy me. Forget whether it's coherent or not; forget whether within the spread of their opinions there is a credible intellectual position or not. Collectively, they have created a game at which I can only lose.
So to them I say: Forget that. I'm not going to play your game.
In terms of the actual effect on society (and people in society), the contradictions matter. To steal a phrase from a former co-worker, dealing with the "Elect" as a group is like dealing with a psychotic.
(Note well the "as a group". I am not saying that the members of the group are psychotics. I'm saying that the group as a whole interacts something like a psychotic.)
When many of those myriad opinions are attacks on others but simultaneously attack people on opposite sides of an argument in a way to make you damned if you do, damned if you don't (exactly the way he points out in many cases in the article) then don't be surprised when people point out the bullshit of it being inconsistent.
Question, because I dont know. Do identity politics help or hurt racism? My knee jerk reaction is that is highlights differences and can cause folks to dig their heels in on issues surrounding race/gender/sexuality/<personalidissuehere>. However pretending that all of these sorts of differences dont exist seems a bit naive at best and boneheaded at worst.
What is the path forward? How do you integrate different races/cultures/etc in a thoughtful way where you can simultaneously acknowledge that we're different but we're also the same?
The only solution I can think of is that we need to be able to talk it through and not get cancelled/shut down/provoke reactions if we get it wrong. Ive changed my point of view on a million different things a million different times, but not because I was force fed the "right" one.
“Identity politics” is too broad of a category for that to be usefully or meaningfully answered beyond “it depends”. You might as well ask “does use of words help or hurt racism”.
White supremacism/nationalism is itself “identity politics” (as is Nation of Islam style black nationalism); the civil rights movement was “identity politics”, the effort in revolutionary Mexico to build a post-racial unifying national identity was “identity politics”.
An enormous amount of "being against identity politics" is itself identity politics. The most blatant example is "all lives matter", a deliberate misunderstanding of what "black lives matter" means. It's white identity politics, predicated on the assumption that whiteness is the default for human beings, and so anything that addresses issues that don't apply to them is ipso facto racist.
I interpret accusations of "identity politics" as, most of the time, playing identity politics itself. It just gets to assume that their identity, as the default identity, can't be identity politics.
The way forward is difficult, because these are thorny and deeply linked issues. But they're not made any easier by demands that we erase any dicussion of race from discussions of racism. What is clear about the way forward is that it starts by listening to what people say about racism rather than assume that our experience accurately reflects what happens to people.
If you're getting "shut down" because you're telling black people what happens to black people, maybe you could imagine that they feel that you've been canceling them -- and feel entitled to do so.
From a european perspective there is currently no nation more divided that the USA in terms of culture and politics.
In france, equality means making nation-wide republican programs where everyone should be treated the same at all part of society. This is a bottom up approach.
In this US, equality means there are grants for women, black, disabled, asians, mulims, jews, blinds, deafs, natives... and pretty much none for white people. Or it's Positive Discrimination. Pretty much everyone is doing stuff for its own group, AGAINST the other groups...
The people (democrats) pretending to fight for equality are just fighting for SPECIFIC MINORITIES all the time. No wonder people voted trump.. at least he was a honest asshole.
> Of a hundred fundamentalist Christians, how many do you suppose could be convinced via argument to become atheists?
The word "fundamentalist" is unhelpful here, but if you ask adult Christians why they are Christian, I would be willing to bet most would give you a reasonably rational, well-articulated answer (that you may happen to disagree with). The same is true for adults of other religions.
The other problem with this particular statement is that statistics show that lots of Christians stop being Christians. Some were devout Christians who become devout Atheists. Some were lukewarm Christians who stopped going to church. Some never really went to Church, so just stopped calling themselves Christian. On the other hand, there are plenty of biographies of atheists who became Christian.
John McWhorter [1], together with economist Glenn Loury [2], describe themselves as the black wing of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) [3]. One can argue that he and Steven Pinker make up the linguistic wing of the IDW and both are cultural treasures. This article is an excerpt from his new (release date?) book, The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists and their Threat to a Progressive America.
> One more thing: We need a crisper label for the problematic folk. I will not title them “Social Justice Warriors.” That, and other labels such as “the Woke Mob” are unsuitably dismissive. One of the key insights I hope to get across is that most of these people are not zealots.
> The author and essayist Joseph Bottum has found the proper term, and I will adopt it here: We will term these people The Elect.
The OP was flagged to death yesterday, and this is an attempt to recreate a comment I couldn't submit.
> Black students must be admitted to schools via adjusted grade and test score standards to ensure a representative number of them and foster a diversity of views in classrooms. But it is racist to assume a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences, and racist to expect them to represent the “diverse” view in classroom discussions.
I don't think this is the contradiction that he presents it as. I understand affirmative action to be an attempt to ameliorate the effects of unjust generational racism. It would undermine that goal to not have a taboo about "assume[ing] a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences," because it would just maintain some of that racism in a different form. Both affirmative action and the taboo are interlocking efforts towards the same goal.
Some might object and say you have obviate the need for that taboo by just not having affirmative action, but the problem with that is that it might take orders of magnitude longer to wash away the effects of the unjust generational racism in the area in question.
I don't fully align with McWhorter's take on these issues, but it's nice to see someone take a somewhat measured approach in stating their opposition, rather than living in some pretend world where woke zombies are shambling out of our college campuses and destroying everything.
I used to write off all of McWhorter's race punditry, but as I have continued to follow him as a linguistics communicator, I've seen more peeks that he has thoughtful and non head-in-the-sand views on the subject, which makes it easier to take what he says seriously. I wish this article had included some real acknowledgement of the continued effects of racism in our society, but perhaps that would have only proved to be a distraction.
>This is directly antithetical to the very foundations of the American experiment. Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing millennia of brilliant philosophers’ attempts to identify the ultimate morality, that we can only bow down in humble acquiescence.
Anyone else see this article as incredibly two-faced? He's lowkey slipping in the assumption that we all want to be broadly excluding people from intuitions based on their beliefs and then complains about... people wanting to exclude him?
From a european perspective there is currently no nation more divided that the USA in terms of culture and politics.
In france, equality means making nation-wide republican programs where everyone should be treated the same at all part of society. This is a bottom up approach.
In this US, equality means there are grants for women, black, disabled, asians, mulims, jews, blinds, deafs, natives... and pretty much none for white people. Or it's Positive Discrimination. Pretty much everyone is doing stuff for its own group, AGAINST the other groups... It's even men vs women in some parts of the dating scene..
The people (democrats) pretending to fight for equality are just fighting for SPECIFIC MINORITIES all the time. No wonder people voted trump.. at least he was a honest asshole.
Eventually people will realize that the best way to treat others is identically no matter the color of their skin. That used to be an uncontroversial viewpoint but it’s dangerous to say that now!
The idea that a claim of group membership can be used to categorize a person, and then be used as a rationale for group punishment (eg. deplatforming) is repulsive and silly.
And is now widely accepted as "woke" and generally accepted as correct behavior.
This isn't going to end as pleasantly as proponents expect.
It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack.
That being said...
This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques.
On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have been in the past, there is still a latent undercurrent of actual racism in the U.S. which sometimes bubbles to the surface and manifests itself in various harmful ways, up to and including (but far from limited to) black people being systematically disenfranchised, and publicly tortured and killed by authorities, often with impunity. To people like me, straw-man arguments like the one in TFA (and F does not stand for Fine in this case) are offensive because I of course agree that the position being critiqued is risible. Whether or not it was the author's intent, some people will surely read it as saying, tacitly, there is no problem, and anyone who says there is a problem is being hysterical or otherwise detached from reality.
Well, there is a problem, and there has been for hundreds of years. We have made a lot of progress towards solving this problem. But we have not yet solved fully solved it, and anyone who says that we have, particularly when they say it in such a condescending way, is part of the problem.
[UPDATE] A lot of people are disputing my claim here. What no one has yet done is provide an actual reference to anyone going on the record to endorse the ten-point position that McWhorter calls "third-wave anti-racism." Lots of anecdotes. Zero data.
> I am not writing this thinking of right-wing America as my audience. I will make no appearances on any Fox News program to promote it. People of that world are welcome to listen in. But I write this to two segments of the American populace. Both are what I consider to be my people, which is what worries me so much about what is going on. One segment is the New York Times-reading, National Public Radio-listening people of any color who have innocently fallen under the impression that pious, unempirical virtue-signaling about race is a form of moral enlightenment and political activism, and ever teeter upon becoming card-carrying Third Wave Antiracists themselves. The other is those black people who have innocently fallen under the misimpression that for us only, cries of weakness constitute a kind of strength, and that for us only, what makes us interesting, what makes us matter, is a curated persona as eternally victimized souls, ever carrying and defined by the memories and injuries of our people across four centuries behind us, ever “unrecognized,” ever “misunderstood,” ever unpaid.
I think this is key to understanding this article, and perhaps he should have led with it.
I tend to think of myself as a "classical liberal" in the sense that I value freedom, and that I believe that tolerance and freedom of expression are foundational to a healthy democratic society.
I think the "thought police" aspect of what McWhorter calls "third wave antiracism" is concerning. It reminds me of McCarthyism, and I have imagined that this is unsustainable and will eventually dissipate. But of course, that is not guaranteed.
> However, they and everyone else should also realize: I know quite well that white readers will be more likely to hear out views like this when written by a black person, and consider it nothing less than my duty as a black person to write it.
I think this is correct as well. It seems right to be that we should primarily be looking to people from the black community as thought leaders on these issues. Their debate, based in first-hand experience, is more interesting and noteworthy to me.
McWhorter also contributes to a group called 1776 Unites (https://1776unites.com), which is a group of black leaders and scholars generally writing counter narratives to the mainstream, or what McWhorter has called "third wave antiracism." Again, as a "classical liberal," I find their ideas worth considering.
---
A side note, I have a copy of McWhorter's book "Words on the Move," and I highly recommend it :)
McWhorter is a great writer and linguist. Incredibly entertaining and enjoyable to read.
Which is why I find his political takes such as this one...so disappointing. Generally my biggest criticism is that he's not nearly as far left as he positions himself and often makes himself a useful idiot deployed against those who actually are.
"Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me wanted to teach his son that America is set against him; I want to teach my kids the reality of their lives in the 21st rather than early-to-mid-20th century. Lord forbid my daughters internalize a pathetic—yes, absolutely pathetic in all of the resonances of that word—sense that what makes them interesting is what other people think of them, or don’t."
This reeks of "racism is dead or nearly so" which is laughable given the protests of the past year especially when juxtaposed against the police response compared to the state capitol protests that culminated in the insurrection in D.C.
"Third Wave Antiracism is losing innocent people jobs. It is coloring, detouring and sometimes strangling academic inquiry."
The first sentence falls under outrage obsessed social media more broadly and is lacking any sort of evidence.
The second is remarkably ignorant of the suppression/ignoring of ideas and views that have recently been forced into broader conversation. Combined with the previous comment on race that I highlighted it points to a "Let's go back in time" mentality that is the complete antithesis of progressive political thought.
Why does the list sound like a caricatures? I don’t actually believe any of these are common or normal views.
Even taking the points apart, the two halve don’t seem realistic even in isolation but more like if someone took an intentional misunderstanding of what people actually say, and then further took the misunderstanding down a slippery slope.
[+] [-] ceilingcorner|5 years ago|reply
It’s continually amusing to me that some of the most outwardly “anti-religious” people (I’m reminded of this Silicon Valley scene [1]) adopt belief systems and act in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism, with the minor difference of the content of beliefs being different. It makes sense, really: cultures don’t suddenly go 180 in the opposite direction. They adjust and build on already-established modes of thought. I think this is called the Horseshoe theory, but that’s usually applied to politics.
1. https://youtu.be/TWoRVaGlFRc
[+] [-] omginternets|5 years ago|reply
I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For example, they will have scathing, visceral, passion-fueled outbursts against religion (often despite knowing very little about it, save for the New Atheist talking points). When you try to point out that they're getting impassioned, they deny it. I think this denial is earnest; they might notice their heart-rate increasing, but they will tell you that there is a rational reason for it to be doing so, and that it is therefore not clouding their judgement nor stunting their curiosity for the subject of discussion.
In exactly the same way, I suspect the people running from "American Protestantism" hardly know what it is and hardly pay attention to it, hence your observation.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
Look, as an American Catholic it's not unusual for me to encounter people who drastically stereotype Protestants, but literally the only thing that unites the quite diverse group encompassed by the term “American Protestantism” is the content of their beliefs systems, and at that a fairly small subset of the content.
Pretty much any thing you could imagine is “nearly indistinguishable from American Protestantism” but for the content of belief systems.
[+] [-] jkingsbery|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anm89|5 years ago|reply
This is an empty statement. You accuse him of somehow behaving similar to "protestants" with zero further description of why or how this is true.
Lot's of disparate intellectual movements share many ideas, it doesn't make them any better or worse or have any bearing on their value at all.
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
I used to hang out with a bunch of ex-Evangelicals, and I noticed the same thing. The content of their beliefs changed (radically), but their outlook and habits of mind stayed the same.
> They adjust and build on already-established modes of thought. I think this is called the Horseshoe theory, but that’s usually applied to politics.
I don't think that's Horseshoe theory. IIRC horseshoe theory is more about extremists from different "ends" of the political spectrum having uncanny commonalities, and establishing a kind of moderate/extremist political axis as its own thing.
[+] [-] belorn|5 years ago|reply
The rejection of religion as something special that should handled outside of common rules and laws is just that, a rejection. A religious school in my view is no better than one segregated by race, and a religious leader that is talking about believers and unbelievers is no different if they had picked the two groups based on race.
[+] [-] wilsocr88|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anm89|5 years ago|reply
20 year old me could not have cared less about race except to protest against some elements of our society that I viewed as structurally racist(prison reform, drug and sentencing laws, police reform and accountability). I would have strongly outwardly identified as anti racist at that time.
And I still think of myself as anti racist internally but when I see someone else outwardly promoting anti racism my first thought is that I should stay away from them for risk of getting wrapped up in toxic behavior, not that they are my ideological ally. I definitely intentionally seek not to be viewed as being related or sympathetic to public anti racist movements in the current era.
At this point my views on race are that the concept if it is brought up at all is probably going to be used as a club to beat me with(metaphorically) and that anyone wielding it isn't my friend.
McWhoter is hero IMO for willingly taking on all of the social consequences of stating these view points to advocate for what he thinks is right.
[+] [-] thisiscorrect|5 years ago|reply
That's because it is used as a slur, a powerful one which can end careers, almost exclusively against members of a single racial group. If that's not a racial slur, then what is?
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
To the extent the hypothetical condition here describes something that actually happened anywhere recently and not a pure counterfactual irrelevancy, I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation of “young men” has been more effectively manufactured into an army of racist than has ever occurred by any other means.
> Most people under 40 right now were raised to be completely ready to forget about race and treat it like a non-issue.
[citation needed]
[+] [-] dandersh|5 years ago|reply
Sorry but throwing the N word around and casual racism existed before social media.
The "I'm not the racist you are" is childish and unfortunately par for the course in online discourse now.
[+] [-] loevborg|5 years ago|reply
https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley
[+] [-] posterboy|5 years ago|reply
not exactly, no. He took the show over from a duo of other hosts.
He is a professor of linguistics and author of the bastard-tongue book. He is not an expert on sociology, though socio-linguistics is part of the curiculum. Neither is he a expert on history, politics, or all what linguisticis may be tangentially related to (everything!!1).
What he does seem to have on lock down is showmanship and theatrical inventory, but the latter part I'm sure is procured by a team behind the show. It's fa-bu-lush
[+] [-] dandersh|5 years ago|reply
By chance have you ever listened to the Conlangery podcast? It's primarily about constructed languages but there's a lot of info and cool factoids about natural languages contained within.
[+] [-] perardi|5 years ago|reply
(On the musical theater bit: some people will hate McWhorter for his heterodoxy on race. I hate him for making me listen to scratchy showtunes to get to the good content.)
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
On linguistics? I'm willing to assume that for the sake of argument. On racial politics? Given his writing on that issue (and not just the current piece) the generous assumption is “no, not at all, he's just a blowhard that's been given a platform because he can spin a tale that people in power like to hear well”.
Being a “bona fide expert” in a different field plus being black doesn't make you an expert on racial politics/social movements.
[+] [-] temp-dude-87844|5 years ago|reply
If we suppose that outside opposition will harden the movement, then the only way it will falter is if its ostensible beneficiaries -- by the terminology, 'people of color' -- renounce it as not speaking for them. Perhaps McWhorter can plant the seeds of this examination and sustain it before he's swiftly vilified by those among the movement with the most to lose.
If the past is any indication, movements tend to be generational. The next generation will come along and discover for themselves the crises affecting their world. If this movement is incapable of delivering a better outcome for the people it purports to benefit, then it will be challenged by another one. And if it does deliver a better outcome for people of color, but at a profound psychological cost to their sense of self, then it will be challenged just the same.
[+] [-] olivierlacan|5 years ago|reply
Well yeah, if you assemble myriad opinions about racism in society in a long list, many of them won't be coherent. It's either surprisingly naive, or a calculated rhetorical device.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrIbram/status/135558708058016153...
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|5 years ago|reply
But maybe I'm not trying to refute these "Elect" intellectually. Maybe I'm just trying to live my life. Their diverse opinions means that there is nothing I can do to keep them from yelling at me and trying to destroy me. Forget whether it's coherent or not; forget whether within the spread of their opinions there is a credible intellectual position or not. Collectively, they have created a game at which I can only lose.
So to them I say: Forget that. I'm not going to play your game.
In terms of the actual effect on society (and people in society), the contradictions matter. To steal a phrase from a former co-worker, dealing with the "Elect" as a group is like dealing with a psychotic.
(Note well the "as a group". I am not saying that the members of the group are psychotics. I'm saying that the group as a whole interacts something like a psychotic.)
[+] [-] thisiscorrect|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] anm89|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S_A_P|5 years ago|reply
What is the path forward? How do you integrate different races/cultures/etc in a thoughtful way where you can simultaneously acknowledge that we're different but we're also the same?
The only solution I can think of is that we need to be able to talk it through and not get cancelled/shut down/provoke reactions if we get it wrong. Ive changed my point of view on a million different things a million different times, but not because I was force fed the "right" one.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
“Identity politics” is too broad of a category for that to be usefully or meaningfully answered beyond “it depends”. You might as well ask “does use of words help or hurt racism”.
White supremacism/nationalism is itself “identity politics” (as is Nation of Islam style black nationalism); the civil rights movement was “identity politics”, the effort in revolutionary Mexico to build a post-racial unifying national identity was “identity politics”.
[+] [-] jfengel|5 years ago|reply
I interpret accusations of "identity politics" as, most of the time, playing identity politics itself. It just gets to assume that their identity, as the default identity, can't be identity politics.
The way forward is difficult, because these are thorny and deeply linked issues. But they're not made any easier by demands that we erase any dicussion of race from discussions of racism. What is clear about the way forward is that it starts by listening to what people say about racism rather than assume that our experience accurately reflects what happens to people.
If you're getting "shut down" because you're telling black people what happens to black people, maybe you could imagine that they feel that you've been canceling them -- and feel entitled to do so.
[+] [-] sangnoir|5 years ago|reply
Racism is identity politics.
[+] [-] mam2|5 years ago|reply
In france, equality means making nation-wide republican programs where everyone should be treated the same at all part of society. This is a bottom up approach.
In this US, equality means there are grants for women, black, disabled, asians, mulims, jews, blinds, deafs, natives... and pretty much none for white people. Or it's Positive Discrimination. Pretty much everyone is doing stuff for its own group, AGAINST the other groups...
The people (democrats) pretending to fight for equality are just fighting for SPECIFIC MINORITIES all the time. No wonder people voted trump.. at least he was a honest asshole.
[+] [-] jkingsbery|5 years ago|reply
The word "fundamentalist" is unhelpful here, but if you ask adult Christians why they are Christian, I would be willing to bet most would give you a reasonably rational, well-articulated answer (that you may happen to disagree with). The same is true for adults of other religions.
The other problem with this particular statement is that statistics show that lots of Christians stop being Christians. Some were devout Christians who become devout Atheists. Some were lukewarm Christians who stopped going to church. Some never really went to Church, so just stopped calling themselves Christian. On the other hand, there are plenty of biographies of atheists who became Christian.
[+] [-] sradman|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McWhorter
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Loury
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web
[+] [-] sradman|5 years ago|reply
> One more thing: We need a crisper label for the problematic folk. I will not title them “Social Justice Warriors.” That, and other labels such as “the Woke Mob” are unsuitably dismissive. One of the key insights I hope to get across is that most of these people are not zealots.
> The author and essayist Joseph Bottum has found the proper term, and I will adopt it here: We will term these people The Elect.
I prefer the term Social Justice Activists.
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
> Black students must be admitted to schools via adjusted grade and test score standards to ensure a representative number of them and foster a diversity of views in classrooms. But it is racist to assume a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences, and racist to expect them to represent the “diverse” view in classroom discussions.
I don't think this is the contradiction that he presents it as. I understand affirmative action to be an attempt to ameliorate the effects of unjust generational racism. It would undermine that goal to not have a taboo about "assume[ing] a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences," because it would just maintain some of that racism in a different form. Both affirmative action and the taboo are interlocking efforts towards the same goal.
Some might object and say you have obviate the need for that taboo by just not having affirmative action, but the problem with that is that it might take orders of magnitude longer to wash away the effects of the unjust generational racism in the area in question.
[+] [-] caturopath|5 years ago|reply
I used to write off all of McWhorter's race punditry, but as I have continued to follow him as a linguistics communicator, I've seen more peeks that he has thoughtful and non head-in-the-sand views on the subject, which makes it easier to take what he says seriously. I wish this article had included some real acknowledgement of the continued effects of racism in our society, but perhaps that would have only proved to be a distraction.
[+] [-] omginternets|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|5 years ago|reply
Anyone else see this article as incredibly two-faced? He's lowkey slipping in the assumption that we all want to be broadly excluding people from intuitions based on their beliefs and then complains about... people wanting to exclude him?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mam2|5 years ago|reply
In france, equality means making nation-wide republican programs where everyone should be treated the same at all part of society. This is a bottom up approach.
In this US, equality means there are grants for women, black, disabled, asians, mulims, jews, blinds, deafs, natives... and pretty much none for white people. Or it's Positive Discrimination. Pretty much everyone is doing stuff for its own group, AGAINST the other groups... It's even men vs women in some parts of the dating scene..
The people (democrats) pretending to fight for equality are just fighting for SPECIFIC MINORITIES all the time. No wonder people voted trump.. at least he was a honest asshole.
[+] [-] seibelj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjkundert|5 years ago|reply
And is now widely accepted as "woke" and generally accepted as correct behavior.
This isn't going to end as pleasantly as proponents expect.
[+] [-] rglover|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lisper|5 years ago|reply
That being said...
This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques.
On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have been in the past, there is still a latent undercurrent of actual racism in the U.S. which sometimes bubbles to the surface and manifests itself in various harmful ways, up to and including (but far from limited to) black people being systematically disenfranchised, and publicly tortured and killed by authorities, often with impunity. To people like me, straw-man arguments like the one in TFA (and F does not stand for Fine in this case) are offensive because I of course agree that the position being critiqued is risible. Whether or not it was the author's intent, some people will surely read it as saying, tacitly, there is no problem, and anyone who says there is a problem is being hysterical or otherwise detached from reality.
Well, there is a problem, and there has been for hundreds of years. We have made a lot of progress towards solving this problem. But we have not yet solved fully solved it, and anyone who says that we have, particularly when they say it in such a condescending way, is part of the problem.
[UPDATE] A lot of people are disputing my claim here. What no one has yet done is provide an actual reference to anyone going on the record to endorse the ten-point position that McWhorter calls "third-wave anti-racism." Lots of anecdotes. Zero data.
[+] [-] thedudeabides5|5 years ago|reply
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/59847?in=3:39
[+] [-] caffeine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burlesona|5 years ago|reply
I think this is key to understanding this article, and perhaps he should have led with it.
I tend to think of myself as a "classical liberal" in the sense that I value freedom, and that I believe that tolerance and freedom of expression are foundational to a healthy democratic society.
I think the "thought police" aspect of what McWhorter calls "third wave antiracism" is concerning. It reminds me of McCarthyism, and I have imagined that this is unsustainable and will eventually dissipate. But of course, that is not guaranteed.
> However, they and everyone else should also realize: I know quite well that white readers will be more likely to hear out views like this when written by a black person, and consider it nothing less than my duty as a black person to write it.
I think this is correct as well. It seems right to be that we should primarily be looking to people from the black community as thought leaders on these issues. Their debate, based in first-hand experience, is more interesting and noteworthy to me.
McWhorter also contributes to a group called 1776 Unites (https://1776unites.com), which is a group of black leaders and scholars generally writing counter narratives to the mainstream, or what McWhorter has called "third wave antiracism." Again, as a "classical liberal," I find their ideas worth considering.
---
A side note, I have a copy of McWhorter's book "Words on the Move," and I highly recommend it :)
[+] [-] dandersh|5 years ago|reply
Which is why I find his political takes such as this one...so disappointing. Generally my biggest criticism is that he's not nearly as far left as he positions himself and often makes himself a useful idiot deployed against those who actually are.
"Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me wanted to teach his son that America is set against him; I want to teach my kids the reality of their lives in the 21st rather than early-to-mid-20th century. Lord forbid my daughters internalize a pathetic—yes, absolutely pathetic in all of the resonances of that word—sense that what makes them interesting is what other people think of them, or don’t."
This reeks of "racism is dead or nearly so" which is laughable given the protests of the past year especially when juxtaposed against the police response compared to the state capitol protests that culminated in the insurrection in D.C.
"Third Wave Antiracism is losing innocent people jobs. It is coloring, detouring and sometimes strangling academic inquiry."
The first sentence falls under outrage obsessed social media more broadly and is lacking any sort of evidence.
The second is remarkably ignorant of the suppression/ignoring of ideas and views that have recently been forced into broader conversation. Combined with the previous comment on race that I highlighted it points to a "Let's go back in time" mentality that is the complete antithesis of progressive political thought.
[+] [-] mint2|5 years ago|reply
Even taking the points apart, the two halve don’t seem realistic even in isolation but more like if someone took an intentional misunderstanding of what people actually say, and then further took the misunderstanding down a slippery slope.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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