[Neurons] 2021 Neurons #41 WHY CRITICAL RACE THEORY IS A TERRIBLE IDEA

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2021 Neurons #41

July 9, 2021

How Self-Actualization 

Can Save Politics #5

 

WHY CRITICAL RACE THEORY

IS A TERRIBLE IDEA

 

In the last blog, I mentioned that "critical race theory" was not only a bad
idea, but a terrible idea.  I suggested that with the success of the Civil
Rights Movement, the left needed a new "racism" to fight so they invented
"systemic racism" and critical race theory (CRT).

 

What's terrible about CRT is that the have put forward the belief that
"racism is everywhere and it is permanent."  Of course, if you believe that,
then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you can find it everywhere!
If you believe that, then you will also believe that you will always be
discriminated against even when there's no external sign of it- it is still
there, hidden, unconscious, and lurking in the hearts of the "racists" who
are all around you.

 

Now, psychologically, this is very unhealthy.  Why?  Because it is teaching
young people to mind-read insult, hostility, and prejudice into every
interaction.  No wonder so many now see the world as hostile to them and
suffer either depression or aggression against "the system."  Two scholars
on CRT, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay in Cynical Theories, write:

"The core problems with critical race Theory are that in puts social
significance back into racial categories and inflames racism, tends to be
purely Theoretical, uses the postmodern knowledge and political principles,
is profoundly aggressive, asserts its relevance to all aspects of Social
Justice, and -not least-begins from the assumption that racism is both
ordinary and permanent, everywhere, and always." (2020, p. 133)

 

CRT is a bad idea because it contradicts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideal
of a color-blind society.  They refute and object to "color blindness" and
demand that we think of people, not in terms of individuals, but group
identity.  For them, the group or groups you belong to define you.  You have
a "race identity," an "economic identity," a "gender identity," and on and
on- and so CRT doesn't deal with you as a person, but as a member of a
group.  This is the foundation of identity politics.

 

What they don't seem to understand is the unsanity of identification.  This
was one of the central themes in Korzybski's Science and Sanity, if you
"identify" in an absolute way, you are doing something unsane.  That's
because there is no sameness in the world; everything is different and
differs from everything, even itself, at different times.  Ultimately it is
the core of insanity.  Whatever groups you belong to does not define you.
You are more than your skin color, ethnic group, religion, gender, etc.

 

Again, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay speak to this in their new book,
Cynical Theories (2020): 

"It is bad psychology to tell people who do not believe that they are
racist- who may even actively despise racism- that there is nothing they can
do to stop themselves from being racist- and then ask them to help you.   It
is even less helpful to tell them that even their own good intentions are
proof of their latent racism.  Worst of all is to set up double-binds, like
telling them if they notice race it is because they are racist, but if they
don't notice race it's because their privilege affords them the luxury of
not noticing race, which is racist." (p. 134)

 

This double-find leads to name-calling and mind-reading- two significant
cognitive distortions that are as irrational as they produce high levels of
misery in people.  The CRT strikes me as a theory looking for a problem.
Those who affirm it are unthankful, ungrateful for the heroes of the real
Civil Rights Movement.  Many of them severely criticize Martin Luther King.
Jr. 

 

It's as if their success now leaves today's protesters without anything to
protest.  So CRT invents a bug-a-boo that can't be demonstrated to exist or
disproved.  And if it cannot be falsified, it is certainly not scientific.
It is a belief system.  But it seems that those who believe in the theory do
not care.  They are post-modernists and don't believe that there's an
objective reality anyway.  And because that's another really bad idea, that
will be the subject in the next post.

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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Resilience is one of the most powerful meta-states possible --- the modeling
of resilience launched Neuro-Semantics ...  in a world where things can go
wrong--- we need RESILIENCE (2020).

 

 

 

130513 Neuro Semantics Resilience Book FRONT Cover

 

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