Critical Theory is Systemically Brainwashing Us

@wokal_distance on "2 + 2 = 5"


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This is a screenshot of people saying 2+2=5. You read that right...2+2=5.

Among them are teachers, educators, and professors who plan on teaching this stuff to your children. So let's talk about what's going on here, why they're doing this, and how we can stop it.

A thread:



2/
To start, lets look at EXACTLY what they say as how they argue here is VERY important.
They don't say 2+2=4 is FALSE. They don't say 2+2 always equals 5. What they say is:

A. 2+2 can sometimes equal 5, And
B. That 2+2 doesn't always equal 4.

Please read that again carefully

3/
Please notice the woke are NOT arguing that 2+2 always equals 5, nor do they argue that 2+2 never equals 4.
The woke think there is no universally correct answer to 2+2 that is objectively true in all situations.

They aren't FALSIFYING 2+2=4, they are DECONSTRUCTING it.

4/
How does deconstruction work?
Deconstruction works by attacking at the level of MEANING. This means that words, ideas, concepts, discourses, art, texts, symbols; whatever is used to MEAN something or communicate gets deconstructed.
Thus deconstruction "destabilizes meaning."

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Wokies destabilize meaning because when a things meaning is not stable, clear, and defined the meaning of the thing can be redefined and distorted. Then people can come to any conclusion they want about it. Here are examples from art, architecture and international relations:









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Woke people think racism, sexism, and bigotry are baked into the language and concepts we use. Since we think and communicate with language, if the language we use is inherently racist and sexist then our communication, and the ideas we communicate will be racist and sexist...

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This extends into Math. The woke argue objectivity and any either/or binary about truth (answers are either true or false) are part of white supremacy. Since math uses objectivity and thinks things can be either true or false, math is rooted in white supremacy. Take a look:







8/
This is Dr. Rochelle Gutierrez.
She thinks math teachers need political knowledge (She thinks math is political), not just knowledge of teaching Math.
And she created a type of math where Humans are no longer-centered.
What she teaches her students is as follows...



9/
Her paper (which has as its keywords diversity and equity) begins with her quoting Dr. Kimmerer, who states that science and traditional knowledge can come together by listening to plants.
I feel the need to state that this is, in fact, a real published academic paper.







10/
Dr. Gutierrez also says the idea math can solve anything is a fallacy. She asks why math:
1. values logic over intuition and asks student to use logic instead of intuition, and
2. teaches people to critique reasoning rather then just appreciate it various reasoning attempts.





11/
The answer to 1 and 2 above appears to simply be "because it is math.

She then suggests that rather then learning "dominant math" students might instead go outside the learn to appreciate the patterns in bird songs.

Again. I must stress that this is in fact a real paper.



12/
Dr. Gutierrez also thinks it is important to ask the students to consider how various forms of problem solving bring joy. Before finally bringing us to her big point...





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Dr. Gutierrez states directly that she is not trying to get closer to truth.
This is a stunning admission. This woman is a tenured professor of education at The University of Illinois and she comes right out at says that she is not trying to find truth.



14/
This "I don't care about truth" view is common in social justice circles. For example, Kevin Bird @itsbirdemic (who mocked @conceptualjames and his followers for pushing back at people saying 2+2=5) admits here that he doesn't care about what the truth is when he does science


15/
Let's tie it all together now:
1. The woke attack the meaning of ideas via deconstruction to dissolve them
2. They think racism/ white supremacy is built into every area of western civilization
3. They are not concerned with truth.
So it should be no surprise that:

16/
Dr. Gutierrez thinks that math has been controlled by global white supremacy. So every area of mathematics might come to the conclusions it does because of white supremacy. So even 2+2=4 might be racist or the result of western imperialism. Some even say that directly.







17/
So this is where we are.
So what to do?
1. Push back with clarity. Know your stuff, don't get flustered.
2. Go to school board meetings and just say "no." SJW's show up, you have to as well
3. Learn and educate people.
And finally, you have to speak up.

18/
The time of fear is over, the time has come to boldly call this out in the clear understanding that we are looking for truth. We will not be cowed by accusations of racism, nor will we be brought to heel by social shaming. Call it out, truth is on your side.

/fin
 
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Keep posting these. There isn't a more important topic to understand than this.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Occam's Banana again.
 
If you do Twitter and/or Facebook, four good anti-Critical (Race) Theory accounts to follow are:

James Lindsay:

New Discourses:
  • Website: https://newdiscourses.com/
  • "Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness."
  • essays on and critiques of "Critical Social Justice" activism & scholarship

Wokal DistΔnce:
  • creator of succinct & informative Twitter threads on Critical (Race) Theory
  • "I won't shut up because silence is complicity."

Christopher F. Rufo:

Twitter: @realchrisrufo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realchrisrufo/

YouTube (channel): https://www.youtube.com/c/christopherrufo
YouTube (search): https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=christopher+rufo

NOTE: Rufo exposed the extensive use of Critical Race Theory in federal government training, which led directly to Trump's executive order banning CRT (and any other illiberal "woke"/racist frameworks) from such training. They even sent him the pen Trump used to sign the EO:

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1317137800362291201

​
 
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@wokal_distance on "woke 'protest' tactics"


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Want to know how activists in places like Portland take over roads, smash windows, light buildings on fire, and still have the press call them non-violent? Well, as it turns out these are well trained activists using intelligent, highly developed tactics.

Here's a primer:


2/
For starters, none of this is spontaneous.
Note that many protestors have shields. These shields take 3 hours each to make and are created by a group of 25 volunteers working all day.

You don't do that spontaneously. It takes planning.

(link below [see embedded tweet - OB])





https://twitter.com/catalinagaitan_/status/1287218058277216256
(Thread compiled @ threadreaderapp.com: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1287218058277216256.html)


3/
It isn't just the shields that are planned, everything is, from what protestors wear, to the tactics chosen in each situation.

The protestors also have a highly developed understanding of the information and media ecosystem and the tactics that work in that environment.

4/
The first strategy is to put their target in a "decision dilemma." This is where they select a method of protest that leaves the person with no good options. No matter how the target reacts they look bad.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/put-your-target-in-a-decision-dilemma/





5/
That strategy is paired with: "the real action is your targets reaction." you want to use someone's reactions to your protest against them.
IE: Blocking a road. If the police arrest you, play the martyr. If they don't, you now control the road.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/real-action-targets-reaction/





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Those two strategies are used hand in hand to create actions which activists can turn to their advantage. When they do this correctly they can create imagery that paints them as the underdogs even when they are the aggressors.

It's social and political jiu-jitsu

7/
Much of this is performative, but not in "look good to your peers" kind of way. The principle is "play to the audeince that isn't there." Activists try to create actions that LOOK a certain way to the audience on youtube or watching the news.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/play-to-the-audience-that-isnt-there/





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Please pay careful attention to this: Activists want to LOOK like they are trying to change the minds of people they protest against, but that's just for show. They see their targets unrepentant evil doers that are just props in the drama they are staging.

This is awful.



9/
This next strategy is self-explanatory: "do the media's work for them." This is where activists make sure press releases and film footage that make them look good get into the hands of sympathetic journalists.

This explains a lot of what gets on TV

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/do-the-medias-work-for-them/





10/
There's been a lot of sympathetic coverage in media. Much of it revolves around the so called "Wall of Moms."
The media story is that these moms are acting to protect the protestors from vicious police. However, this is just another strategy from the same activist playbook...


11/
And that strategy is to "lead with sympathetic characters."
It's EXACTLY what it sounds like. They put sympathetic people out front to garner sympathy and create the APPEARANCE of underdogs fighting an uphill battle against powerful interests.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/lead-with-sympathetic-characters/





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The protestors have a highly developed theory of protest optics. They understand videos can be sliced and diced to tell a certain story, so the story that "resonates" with people most, wins. So they are intentional in trying to create moments on video that can go viral...

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That isn't to say they aren't also intentional in doing damage. They are. The book Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent by author AK Thompson is the starting place for their theory of what counts as violence, and when violence is justified.

14/
Here is Alex Hundert writing [in] rabble defending "a diversity of tactics" which is a euphemism for allowing violence at protests. Hundert explicitly states a commitment to non-violence is "dogmatic" and "stifles debate" about which tactics to use.

https://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/defence-diversity-tactics





15/
So the violence is intentional. Where the "Wall of Moms" is meant to win hearts, the black bloc is there to intimidate.
If police react to the violence with arrests, the Wall of Moms is there so protestors can claim the police "attacked Moms. See how the game works?

16/
What I want you to get from this is that none of what you see is happening spontaneously.

These are high level tactics that are given to people supported by a well organized protest infrastructure (where do you think all the people making the shields come from?)

17/
These radical protestors have organized an infrastructure to, in their words, disrupt, dismantle, and deconstruct your society.

I don't want to scare any of you, I just want you to know what's happening because you can't push back against what you don't understand.

18/
Thanks for reading.

/fin
 
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cCVHokm.jpg
 
@wokal_distance on "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion"


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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

These terms are everywhere, and they do not mean what most people think they mean. These terms are loaded, and I'd like to show you what [is] under the surface of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" initiatives.

A Thread:



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When most of us hear "diversity," we might think: "make sure our group has people with different ideas, perspectives, and viewpoints, so we can look at whatever problems we face from many different angles."

This is *NOT* what Social Justice means by diversity.

3/
Sometimes people hear "diversity" and think: "make sure not to discriminate against people because of what they look like; if you do you'll end up rejecting good people and leaving 'talent on the table'."

Again, this is also *NOT* what Social Justice means by diversity

4/
Finally, some people hear diversity and think "we need people from all walks of life, with all kinds of experience, because different types of experience will help us solve a wide variety of problems."

And yet again, this is *NOT* what Social Justice means by diversity.

5/
To understand how social justice thinks about diversity, you have to remember that Social Justice places a heavy emphasis on group identity, and think of people in terms of their cluster of identities. So, are you a straight white male, or are you a black Muslim woman?

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Social Justice thinks the different identities you have are what determine your "social location." In other words, your race, sex, religion, and so on will determine your access to resources (money) and social capital (clout).

You could think of it like a video game where...

7/
there are different levels of difficulty. Social justice says "straight white men" play life on easy mode because society was built by and for straight white men, where "black disabled transgender lesbians" play life on the most difficult mode for exactly the same reason.

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Your identity list, and ONLY your identity list (IE, black, bisexual, woman) determines where you are on the social ladder. How much money you have is irrelevant. Your score in the game doesn't matter, it's the level of difficulty you play on.

Read that again.

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Social Justice thinks our social position, the level of difficulty we play on, is the lens we see the world through. So a gay person sees reality through a lens only available to gay people, and the same would apply to black, woman, lesbian, trans, and all other identities.

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Further, Social justice thinks everyone must adopt the Social justice ideology or they are decieved. They think anyone who doesn't agree with Social Justice has been "duped" by the system, or has "false consciousness," and must be woken up. Hence the term "woke."

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This is the kind of thinking going on when a black person gets called an "oreo" (black on the outside white on the inside) or when Nikole Hannah Jones (1619 project editor) said there is a difference between being "racially Black" and being "politically Black."





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So you can't just hire people in your organization that have Black skin, they must also have a Black political ideology. If you hired a Black person who thought Social Justice was nonsense, that would not count as diversity because that person has a "white mindset."

13/
This means "diversity" according to Social Justice occurs when you have a group of people of "marginalized" identities (black, gay, trans, female) who all completely agree with Social Justice and are sufficiently "woke." Non-woke minorities don't count toward "diversity."

14/
So, for example, if you hired a non-woke Black person they would call them a "token," "uncle Tom," or "race traitor." Only woke people thinking in terms of oppressed identity according to Social Justice count toward diversity.

They think everyone else is "false diversity."

15/
Once we see the game that is played, we can explain inclusion and equity in short order:

According to Social Justice, Inclusion is *NOT* making everyone feel welcome, and it is *NOT* merely ending discrimination.

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Woke people think an "inclusive" space is where no member of a marginalized group will feel attacked, pressured, out of place, unwanted, or experience any other form of social discomfort. This means people with marginalized identities must be supported at all times.

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The result of this is that anything that you might say which would offend a marginalized person is not allowed. For example, an Atheist could not, in an inclusive space, say Allah does not exist, because that may offend Muslims. Social Justice would see that as...

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an attack on a marginalized person. If you attempted to prove it using science, they would say you're just using the white western idea of science to attack the poor marginalized Muslims. (if you said "but science is true" they would claim you're only saying that to get power)

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Now, Social Justice would say eventually ALL OF SOCIETY must be an inclusive space. That means that if the woke Social Justice advocates get their way free speech is gone, and no one would be allowed to say anything offensive to "marginalized people" lest anyone feel excluded



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I would note, this does not apply to white people, and the reason why brings us to "equity."

Equity is *NOT* equal opportunity. Equity is *NOT* equality under the law. And equity is *NOT* judging everyone by the same standard.

Equity is something far different...

21/
Just like diversity and inclusion, equity is concerned about who has social power, and wants to do something incredibly expansive. It is described as "adjusting shares in order to make citizens A and B equal." What they mean by this is that they want to take from those...

22/
who have a lot, and they want to give to those who do not. However, THEY ARE NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT MONEY, they are talking about social power, social capital, and social influence. They mean clout...they mean POWER, and they say so explicitly:


23/
Further, they don't mean just making things equal now, they mean making up for past injustices. It isn't enough to make sure (for example) Black and White people have equal shares of society, Black people must be given more to make up for the times White people had more...

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In the minds of the Woke, society must give the garden of the marginalized extra water and fertilizer to make up for the social drought that they went through due to white western capitalist oppression. However, since this is according to identity lines that means...

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Oprah, Obama, and Jay-Z are entitled to reparations because they are members of a marginalized group, and poor white opiate addicts dying in the rust belt must help foot the bill because they are white males and part of the oppressor class.

This is how Woke people think.

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So, when you are at work, church, university, or school, and you see these terms used keep in mind that what is behind them is an entire worldview that has cloaked itself in language that mimics liberal equality and justice, but is very far from both. Keep in mind what is...

27/
hiding under the surface of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity.

It's a fitting coincidence that Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity form the acronym "DIE," which is exactly what happens to any organization or institution that adopts the ideas of Wokeness and Social Justice.

/fin
 
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These destructive concepts are couched in such language that, for those who do not actually understand the meaning and intent behind them (which is to say the vast majority of the public), supporting and approving of them is natural (because, by the way, most people really aren't "racist", and they most certainly do not want to "sound racist").

Thus, "antifa means anti-fascist... I'm not a fascist and I don't like fascism, so antifa must be the good guys."


Idea: let's start an organization called "Puppy Cuddles" and promote anti-statism.
 
Occam's Banana said:
...
4/
The first strategy is to put their target in a "decision dilemma." This is where they select a method of protest that leaves the person with no good options. No matter how the target reacts they look bad.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/put-your-target-in-a-decision-dilemma/





5/
That strategy is paired with: "the real action is your targets reaction." you want to use someone's reactions to your protest against them.
IE: Blocking a road. If the police arrest you, play the martyr. If they don't, you now control the road.

https://beautifultrouble.org/principle/real-action-targets-reaction/





6/
Those two strategies are used hand in hand to create actions which activists can turn to their advantage. When they do this correctly they can create imagery that paints them as the underdogs even when they are the aggressors.

It's social and political jiu-jitsu

7/
Much of this is performative, but not in "look good to your peers" kind of way. The principle is "play to the audeince that isn't there." Activists try to create actions that LOOK a certain way to the audience on youtube or watching the news.
...
Click to expand...

Here’s one of many examples:

Woman Pulls Gun on Beligerent Mom and Daughter in Chipotle Parking Lot

The video decision dilemma set-up has become quite popular. The people engaging in it probably have varying degrees of training, but set-ups are pretty basic, even idiots understand how to do it.

The BGM t-shirt guy in Denver is another example:

Protest shooting Denver
 
Us?

I reject the Concept of race..

The state defined me as WHITE,, The State Defined me as a White supremacist,,and some idiots define me as such..

I pray the the Ghost of Tommy Williams (my big brother R.I P.) come and visit them in their dreams.
 
@wokal_distance on "Ways of Knowing"


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"Ways of knowing"

If you want to know why the Woke ignore statistics, science, facts, and reason, and instead use feelings, emotions, intuition, and "lived experience" then you need to know what the woke mean by "ways of knowing."

So let's talk about it

A THREAD🧵



2/
"Ways of knowing" refers to one of the ways the woke think about "epistemology."

Epistemology is the study of human knowledge. That is, the person doing epistemology wants to know what "knowledge" is, how we get knowledge, and what knowledge can be used for.

3/
In the liberal tradition, we think knowledge is a belief that is:

1. Truth. (The belief corresponds to reality)
2. Justified. (The person is "justified" or has good reasons to hold the belief.)

In the liberal tradition, our epistemology revolves around science and reason.

4/
That is, for the enlightenment liberal, if you want to know about the world, you would use the scientific method and the faculty of reason to determine whether or not a belief is true.
Further, in the liberal tradition. any belief is open to challenge and "falsification."

5/
This means that any belief can be challenged by other people, and no belief is off limits.

Thus, I may argue that a belief is false, no matter how sacred that belief is to you, and I may try to "falsify" it by showing that the belief is false.

6/
Along with those principles, the enlightenment liberal holds to the law of non-contradiction: that contradictory beliefs cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time (if two beliefs contradict, then they cannot both be true in the same sense, and [at least] one of them must be wrong).

7/
These beliefs added together provide us a picture of something like "objectivity," which is the idea that ideas, beliefs and propositions about the world can be "objectively" true or false. That is, they are true or false regardless of what anyone says. And that means ...

8/
a belief like "The earth goes around the sun" is true regardless of what anyone says or thinks. The belief "the earth goes around the sun" isn't RELATIVE to anyone's opinions, and was true even back in the 12th century when people thought the sun went around the earth ...

9/
because the truth does not depend on what people think. Enlightenment liberals think people in the 12th century who thought the sun went around the earth were OBJECTIVELY WRONG, because the TRUTH is the earth goes around the sun, and that was true in the 12th century too.

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The result is that enlightenment liberal epistemology uses science and reason to determine objective truths about the world. The enlightenment liberal believes success of the scientific method in allowing us to make predictions about the world is a demonstration of it's ...

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validity and claims to be an objectively correct method of determining which beliefs about the world are true, and which are false.

So, if you want proof that the scientific method is true look no further then the correct predictions it allows us to make about the world.

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This is NOT how the woke see knowledge and epistemology.

The woke have a very different view of what "knowing" is, and as such, they reject the idea that science and reason are the best way to know about the world. Let's look at the woke understanding of "knowledge."

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The woke understanding of knowledge is different because the woke understanding of truth is different.

In the minds of the woke, a statement that is "true" is not considered to be "true" because it accurately describes the world, That is not how they think about truth.

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The woke see that people can't agree about how the world really is. Thus, the woke think "truth" refers to the beliefs and ideas that have been elevated by a society or culture to a place of prominence by acclamation or agreement. They see truth as a SOCIAL phenomenon.

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So they would say that if a critical mass of people in society agree that a certain proposition is the right way to think about the world, then that belief gets bestowed upon it the social status of a "truth." Once that occurs, that belief becomes "true" FOR THAT SOCIETY.

16/
So different societies have different views about what is true, and thus each society has different "truths."
This means the woke always consider the fact that each society has a different way of determining what is true, and therefore what counts as "knowledge."

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Since the woke see "truth" as a matter of social agreement, they see the production of knowledge as being a social, and therefore political, process that is ultimately about power. After all, whoever decides what society thinks is true determines the direction of society.

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For that reason, the woke always see claims to knowledge as claims to power. That is, if you can persuade society to accept your claims as true, then you can use your claims to put your policies, rules, laws, and procedures into place; and this allows you to wield power.

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For this reason, the woke think that enlightenment liberal science and reason are merely the method that white European males who agree with each other use to decide which beliefs are true (and thus, who gets to wield power). The woke would say that the white European way of ...

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deciding what society believes and who should have power only applies to white European culture. The woke think that when enlightenment liberals tell other cultures that science is the correct way to know things, the liberals are forcing their culture on other people, colonizing them.

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Why do they think that? Because they think the reason that liberals tell other cultures that science is the correct way to know things is so that liberals can use the white European way of knowing to decide white European beliefs are "true" for society, to give the power to white Europeans.

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In other words, the woke would look at science and say "you are only saying science is the way to know what is true so that you can force your white European beliefs on other cultures and then be in charge of them by deciding what everyone believes."

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The woke think that the answer to this is to legitimize "other ways of knowing" so that white people don't go around trying to control all the other societies by claiming that science is the way to get things right. Let's look at an example.

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Liberals might say that the theory of evolution is true, and that we can use that theory to set policy with regard to forests. The woke would say "you're just using the theory of evolution to justify controlling indigenous hunting lands." The woke solution would be to ...

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elevate the indigenous creation myth and say that the indigenous creation story is as true and valid as the theory of evolution, and therefore the theory of evolution can't be the arbiter of forest policy.

See how it works?

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Every time we make laws, rules, or policy in the West, we try to figure out what is objectively true (in the liberal sense) so we get the policy that best matches reality. The woke think that we are not being honest with them, or ourselves, when we say that.

27/
They think we're playing a game that they see right through, and what is REALLY going on in our example has nothing to do with the best policy. Rather it's just an excuse to control the forest and thus the indigenous hunting lands; a power grab to control indigenous people.

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So the woke say that the indigenous creation story is as valid and true as the theory of evolution - that way, we can't use evolution as an excuse to set forest policy.
Thus the woke say indigenous creation stories and the theory of evolution are equally valid "ways of knowing."

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The point of "ways of knowing" is to pluralize the term used to discuss knowledge. Rather than talking about "epistemology," which indicates there is a study of knowledge with one proper conclusion, "ways of knowing" implies many different but equally valid conclusions.

30/
This means the woke don't believe that any method to gain knowledge is objectively correct. There are just different, equally valid "ways of knowing".
This puts emotions, feelings, dreams, stories, and myths on the same level as science for understanding things like cancer research.

31/
So when you see "ways of knowing," this is what they have in mind: declaring that there is no way to decide that one epistemology (way of knowing) is objectively better at producing statements that correspond to the external world than any other epistemological "way of knowing."

32/
This means the woke believe that all truth is subjective and in some sense relative.

That's no way to run cancer research, a Covid-19 lab, or an engineering firm. However, it is what is being taught in our universities, and that should be a wake up call for all of us.

/fin
 
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1302755699424931840


The Poverty of "Lived Experiences"
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/10/poverty-lived-experiences/
I. Karamozov (04 October 2020)

Political dissidents who get into arguments with Woke Folk over the exact nature of “systems of oppression” will inevitably find themselves confronted by rhetoric of a sort that often catches them off guard. This rhetoric is, by design, meant to paint political dissidents as myopic stooges who are unwilling to “listen to the Lived Experiences of marginalized people,” thus making them unwittingly complicit in systems of oppression. In this essay, we will explore the concept of “Lived Experiences” (capitalized and scare-quoted) as understood by Woke Folk, and why this conceptualization is fundamentally deficient. Political dissidents would be well advised to consider the arguments of this essay with care, as “Lived Experiences” are foundational to Woke Ideology; indeed, dismantling Woke notions of “Lived Experiences” may be the single most effective means of preserving the integrity of liberal democratic institutions from Woke encroachment. Consequently, a firm understanding of the topic and of how to address it when engaging with Woke ideology will be the focus of this essay.

Before we can address what the concept of “Lived Experiences” entails, however, we must address its function. As was mentioned in an earlier essay, the empirical claims that are made by Woke Folk seldom survive evidential and analytical scrutiny. This is a problem for ideas in a culture which values such things as evidence and reasoned argument (as opposed to arguments from authority and moral blackmail.) Evidence and reasoned argument are the currency with which ideas earn their right to be taken seriously in liberal democracies. The tenets of Woke ideology, which are in frequent conflict with both, must therefore somehow be made adaptable to an environment which is hostile to dogmatic proclamations of unsubstantiated certainty, and the concept of “Lived Experiences” is the mechanism intended to achieve this.

The context in which Woke Folk are likely to appeal to the “Lived Experiences” of certain demographics is in the generation of knowledge claims. Indeed, intersectionality, which is the dominant paradigm under which Woke Folk are influenced, is practically founded upon the notion of “Lived Experiences.”

At first glance, it might appear that the term “Lived Experiences” is merely a somewhat belabored way of referring to events that one has personally experienced: i.e, while I was walking down the street, someone bumped into my shoulder without stopping to apologize. Under this innocent conception of the term, “Lived Experiences” are synonymous with “events,” “experiences,” and “occurrences.” A “Lived Experience,” under this view, is merely a report of what happened. This is not what Woke Folk are talking about when they refer to “Lived Experiences.”

A “Lived Experience” is an event that has been interpreted by Woke Folk as manifesting oppression: i.e, while I was walking down the street, someone bumped into my shoulder without stopping to apologize because they were racist. This is the difference between an experience and a “Lived Experience;” the former is an empirical claim that relays an event that is independently verifiable and is thus subject to scrutiny under public reason. The latter is a phenomenological claim which colors an event with intentionality, or its “aboutness relation;” and crucially, that relation is not subject to independent scrutiny. The empiricist reports on an event that occurred at some point in time and space; the phenomenologist relays the meaning of that event as interpreted by the phenomenologist.

[...]

Matters which are of interest to those who analyze the truth of empirical claims have unambiguously right and wrong answers, and matters which are of interest to those who evaluate textual interpretations have no such answers. It is a category error to attempt to apply the equations of force and motion to the question of how to properly interpret the ending of Anna Karenina, and it is similarly erroneous to attempt to apply to the tools of literary criticism to the question of how much rocket fuel needs to be loaded onto a spaceship. It is this category error that is central to the problems of Woke Folks’ understanding of “Lived Experiences” (as well as much of the contents of social science research which rely on interpretive methodology- a discussion for another time.)

[...]

The situation becomes much murkier when the system under consideration is not described by such theories- systems like those regarded by Woke Folk as being institutionally oppressive. In such instances, there do not as yet appear to be any comprehensive theories with predictive and explanatory power that can arbitrate between competing models of society, and in many ways, this is a central problem to the social sciences more generally (again, forthcoming essay on the topic.) Thus the social theorist who wishes to evaluate the workings of such systems must employ theories which, in their character, much more closely resemble the analytic frameworks employed by the textual critic than those employed by the engineer; consequently, the problem of the unavailability of unambiguously true judgements carries over.

The “Lived Experiences” meme is an attempt to bypass this problem by casting knowledge in terms of a pluralistic epistemology. Epistemology is that field of philosophy which is concerned with the nature of knowledge, and might be best understood in terms of its relation to the egocentric problem. The egocentric problem, simply stated, is that knowledge contingent upon our senses is subject to possible error and manipulation, which renders absolute certainty as to the state of the world a potential impossibility. The history of epistemology, from Plato’s allegory of the cave in Book VII of The Republic to Kant’s transcendental idealism in The Critique of Pure Reason, is a history of the tension between the egocentric problem and the practical demands of living in a world where one’s beliefs have consequences. We simply cannot, as a practical matter, treat our perceptions of the world as inconsequential simply because we lack certainty of their verisimilitude. Epistemology, from a cynical perspective, might be regarded as the application of philosophical tricks, from Descartes’ Cogito to Kant’s synthetic a priori, to give an account of our perceptions of the world and why they matter. It’s the field of philosophy in which we acknowledge that despite our lack of direct access to a world beyond our senses, we still need to find a way to explain how it is we can come to know anything, as well as what it even means to “know.”

It is this latter question of what it means to “know” something that represents the point of greatest philosophical divergence between Woke Folk and political dissidents, as the former hold to radically subjectivist accounts of knowledge whilst the latter insist upon at least some measure of objectivity. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the epistemic chasm that separates Woke Folk from political dissidents; indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that if this epistemic dispute were to be resolved immediately, the Culture War would end tomorrow.

The problem is that Woke Folk are radically skeptical of objectivity; they do not believe that it is possible to acquire knowledge of the world in a manner that stands independently of particular social values. A detailed exposition of how their epistemology is derived lies beyond the scope of this article, as does a comprehensive critique of it; for the present purposes, it is sufficient to note that Woke Folk believe in a plurality of “knowledges” that are dependent upon membership in particular demographics, and that “objectivity” is just the name given by straight white males to their own particular type of “knowledge.”

Woke Folk assert that the balance of power in society between straight white males and everybody else has imposed a culture that values evidence and reasoned argument over the more “authentic” ways of knowing that are particular to other demographics, including storytelling, mythologies, and traditional forms of “knowledge.” The philosophical lines of thought that inform these conclusions are, for our present purposes, immaterial; what matters here is the function served by this move. By pivoting from standards of discourse that are universally and independently accountable to our senses and reason, to standards of discourse in which the conclusions that are rendered are not open to challenge or confrontation from the outside, Woke Folk aim to introduce ideas that are effectively immune from criticism. Under a paradigm that values reason and evidence, an interlocutor is welcomed to challenge ideas in a fashion that allows anyone from any walk of life to evaluate concepts. But under a paradigm in which “Lived Experiences,” which are the subjective interpretations of events from one’s demographically-dependent base of “knowledge,” are held as immutable and not open to discussion or debate, all interlocutors are obligated to listen and believe.

Whether Woke Folk realize it or not, the call to “listen to the ‘Lived Experiences’ of the marginalized” is an attempt to subvert the standards of evidence and reasoned argument for the purpose of sneaking in claims that aren’t meant to be challenged. The reason for this should be fairly clear to those who are familiar with the few arguments of Woke Folk that are actually touchable by evidence and argumentation: under even minimal scrutiny, most of the beliefs offered by Woke Folk, from Implicit Association Tests’ supposed ability to demonstrate the subconscious mechanisms by which structural racism is promulgated, to the allegation that the gender earnings gap is a consequence of institutional sexism, quickly fall apart. Recognizing this, it became necessary for Woke Folk to artificially inflate their repertoire of arguments and evidence with a form of “evidence” that is immune to scrutiny; thus were born “Lived Experiences.”

[... CONTINUED AT LINK: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/10/poverty-lived-experiences/ ...]
 
Stealing the Motte: Critical Social Justice and the Principle of Charity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMUzdrQi0yA

In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, your host James Lindsay explores the principle of charity in debate and dialogue in the context of the motte-and-bailey rhetorical strategy.
Click to expand...

Subscribe to this podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, or by RSS.

There is a rhetorical strategy called the “motte and bailey” that is getting increasingly famous lately. This is because it is one of the central tools of the Critical Social Justice movement. In that strategy, named after a kind of castle, a highly defensible “motte” position, like “we just want to treat people more fairly,” is maintained while also pushing a more radical “bailey” position, like “we need to radically remake our school systems so that no one can fail.” Activists advance the bailey and, when pressed on it, retreat to the motte until scrutiny and pressure go away, at which point they return to the bailey.

In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, your host James Lindsay explores the principle of charity in debate and dialogue in the context of the motte-and-bailey rhetorical strategy. His goal is to explain how the game of critical theories is not the same game the rest of us play in broadly liberal societies. In fact, the critical game seeks to disrupt and dismantle the liberal game and replace it with its own. Exploiting the principle of charity is one of the most common ways it can achieve this.

In this long-form, flowing discussion of the phenomenon, Lindsay breaks down several recent examples of Critical Social Justice activists playing a completely different game than our own. He then illustrates how the principle of charity is exploited by Critical Social Justice advocates, who get us to build their castle for them and then use it to advance their radical, disruptive agendas. He explains that what’s needed in answer to this insidious critical game is to use the principle of charity to steal their motte and then trenchant, informed criticism to bomb their bailey every time.
 
Why are these people - these mushy, soft-headed pseudo-academic types - always so prone to use utterly meaningless phrases like, "...moving through the world with other living beings..."? Whenever I hear or read tripe like that I'm instantly repelled, and assume I'm in the presence of someone who thinks meat comes from the grocery store.

These people are the worst.
 
Danke said:
https://tomwoods.com/ep-1747-ex-marxist-exposes-postmodernism-critical-theory-and-cultural-studies/
Click to expand...

Interesting guest...

Dr. Michael Rectenwald is the author of eleven books, including Thought Criminal (2020); Beyond Woke (May 2020); Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (2019); Springtime for Snowflakes: “Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage (an academic’s memoir, 2018); Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature (2016); Academic Writing, Real World Topics (2015, Concise Edition 2016); Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age (2015); Breach (Collected Poems, 2013); The Thief and Other Stories (2013); and The Eros of the Baby-Boom Eras (1991).

Michael was a Professor of Liberal Studies and Global Liberal Studies at NYU from 2008 to 2019. He also taught at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Case Western Reserve University. He holds a Ph.D. in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, a Master's in English Literature from Case Western Reserve University, and a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Pittsburgh.

Professor Rectenwald is a pundit and champion of free speech and opposes all forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, including socialism-communism, “social justice,” fascism, and PC.
...
https://www.michaelrectenwald.com/
Click to expand...
 
A Son of Liberty said:
Why are these people - these mushy, soft-headed pseudo-academic types - always so prone to use utterly meaningless phrases like, "...moving through the world with other living beings..."? Whenever I hear or read tripe like that I'm instantly repelled, and assume I'm in the presence of someone who thinks meat comes from the grocery store.

These people are the worst.
Click to expand...

I was struck by exactly the same sense when I watched the documentary videos about the events at Evergreen State College (see post #25 in this thread). When the context would call for reference to "people" (either in the abstract, or with respect to particular individuals), the student "activists" would sometimes speak of "black and brown bodies" ... not "people" ... "bodies" ...

I found it extremely off-putting and creepy. But I guess that's just my "white privilege" coming through ...
 
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