This is the first post in (the first annual?) Short Week at freddiedeboer.substack.com. Since people constantly complain that my stuff is too long, this week all posts will be 500 words or less. We will return to our usual longwinded ways next week.
It's funny to contrast Stancil's attitude to popularism ("terrible, because it's white men telling everyone else what is good for them!") with the progressive left's attitude to the use of the word Latinx. In honor of Short Week, I'll leave my comment at that.
Think about the Russian revolution. The real one was in Feb. 1917 followed by October when Lenin stepped up. They really could not let the peasants run things. And first off the Cheka.
I think these movements are kind of like the dog that caught the car. It's easy to say all kinds of things when you never have to follow through on any kinds of reforms or create an alternative. You can literally be wrong about everything 100% of the time and suffer no consequences because your ideas aren't implemented and the worst of it will be just talk. Give them even a tiny taste of actual power and everything changes. Suddenly all the flaws start to matter a lot.
Much darker than that is, I think, that while they would never, ever admit it many or even most people on the left prefer it that way. They'd rather just shout radical critique all day and night and never have pesky reality get in the way an appealing idea. They prefer being powerless because it's easier than dealing with the consequences of actual change. Their ideas are either too incompetent to ever work on a practical level or they can't deal with or defend the amount of suffering it'd take to implement them. So we get what we have now.
There are radical Black academics who feel the way Stancil does, right? I've encountered a fair number of them online on Twitter and various social justice Facebook pages.
I think what happened here is that Stancil and people of his ilk latched on to that radical academic viewpoint as The Truth About How Black People Everywhere Feel and just ran with it. But that viewpoint is held by a very tiny percentage of the population. It's just that social media bubbles made it appear larger.
I made that mistake myself back in 2013-2016. Took me a long time to realize Twitter is not real life.
A precursor goal to getting black people money so they don’t care what white people think is honest debate. Condescension and overreach, that is tje hallmark of the liberals
Sentences that shine: "The only political respect I know of lies in respecting people’s political goals so much that you demand ruthless discipline in their efforts to achieve them, even when that hurts their feelings. " Bingo.
Sometime in my teens, Mom and I were about to cross the street. The crosswalk light was a go, and I stepped into the street with all the confidence of invincible, unencumbered youth.
Mom grabbed my arm before I took a second step. “Hang on.” She double-checked that no cars were coming, then let go of me and started to cross.
“Why’d you stop me? We had the right of way!”
She just smiled (with a little too much syrup) and said, “Well then, you’d get to have ‘I had the right of way’ on your tombstone.”
Most interpersonal interactions in life (and especially in politics) are a choice between feeling righteous (but leaving empty-handed) and swallowing your pride (while actually moving the ball down the field). Objectively, the choice is clear. But that dopamine hit from righteous fury sure is addictive.
Welcome back Freddie and commenters. I missed you guys.
Great points in this post. It’s so clear that many of these activists don’t want to win. They want to feel morally superior forever because it allows them to rationalize all sorts of antisocial behaviors. If they woke up tomorrow and government met their demands, they would feel loss rather than joy.
Aside from the extreme policy demands (abolish the police) the social demands are also designed to never end. White people must feel guilty forever; you never graduate from DEI training. Even the white diversity trainers explain that they’re still racist.
There’s just no interest in making change that can be observed in reality (and celebrated as a step in the right direction).
"The goal is not to get white people to treat Black people like they’re made of glass. The goal is to get Black people money and power and then they don’t need to care how white people treat them."
I love this phrase, but in practice it may end up not being a huge change. We see that in the kind of training now in vogue for businesses that are trying to cater to a more diverse customer/employee base -- a lot of which could be marketed as 'how to treat people as if they're made of glass'. When your money and power are exerted as customers, the kind of equality they buy is to be treated as customers, which usually means with exaggerated and insincere respect.
There's a lot of people involved in these debates who either have no cogent theory of how a majority ethnic group should interact with minority ethnic groups in a polyethnic democratic state or have no understanding of American demographics.
This post reminded me of how diffuse and ineffective the Occupy movement seemed to me at the time -- they seemed to revel in not having any kind of agenda other than being really angry at the one percent. It struck me as a little sad at the time -- I found the one percent framing a little convenient for a movement that had plenty of kids from the top five or ten percent of American income, but I want a world where young people are trying to move forward a concrete plan for change to make it better for them and those who come after them. But when it just seems like inchoate rage I don't see what the benefit is.
No, your stuff is not too long. This one was over much too fast! (Full disclosure: I'm retired so have lots of time to read)
Now I have to read the local newspaper. :(
It's funny to contrast Stancil's attitude to popularism ("terrible, because it's white men telling everyone else what is good for them!") with the progressive left's attitude to the use of the word Latinx. In honor of Short Week, I'll leave my comment at that.
Think about the Russian revolution. The real one was in Feb. 1917 followed by October when Lenin stepped up. They really could not let the peasants run things. And first off the Cheka.
I think these movements are kind of like the dog that caught the car. It's easy to say all kinds of things when you never have to follow through on any kinds of reforms or create an alternative. You can literally be wrong about everything 100% of the time and suffer no consequences because your ideas aren't implemented and the worst of it will be just talk. Give them even a tiny taste of actual power and everything changes. Suddenly all the flaws start to matter a lot.
Much darker than that is, I think, that while they would never, ever admit it many or even most people on the left prefer it that way. They'd rather just shout radical critique all day and night and never have pesky reality get in the way an appealing idea. They prefer being powerless because it's easier than dealing with the consequences of actual change. Their ideas are either too incompetent to ever work on a practical level or they can't deal with or defend the amount of suffering it'd take to implement them. So we get what we have now.
There are radical Black academics who feel the way Stancil does, right? I've encountered a fair number of them online on Twitter and various social justice Facebook pages.
I think what happened here is that Stancil and people of his ilk latched on to that radical academic viewpoint as The Truth About How Black People Everywhere Feel and just ran with it. But that viewpoint is held by a very tiny percentage of the population. It's just that social media bubbles made it appear larger.
I made that mistake myself back in 2013-2016. Took me a long time to realize Twitter is not real life.
A precursor goal to getting black people money so they don’t care what white people think is honest debate. Condescension and overreach, that is tje hallmark of the liberals
"decades of polling figures and voting attest to the fact that the average Black American is far to his right"
I think this is a feature rather than a bug. How many of these upper-middle class white guys actually want major political change?
Sentences that shine: "The only political respect I know of lies in respecting people’s political goals so much that you demand ruthless discipline in their efforts to achieve them, even when that hurts their feelings. " Bingo.
I didn't ask for shorter pieces, but I do like the energy in this post.
I think I prefer the longer pieces, but these might be nice to slip in every now and then. Allows for a punchier little piece.
Sometime in my teens, Mom and I were about to cross the street. The crosswalk light was a go, and I stepped into the street with all the confidence of invincible, unencumbered youth.
Mom grabbed my arm before I took a second step. “Hang on.” She double-checked that no cars were coming, then let go of me and started to cross.
“Why’d you stop me? We had the right of way!”
She just smiled (with a little too much syrup) and said, “Well then, you’d get to have ‘I had the right of way’ on your tombstone.”
Most interpersonal interactions in life (and especially in politics) are a choice between feeling righteous (but leaving empty-handed) and swallowing your pride (while actually moving the ball down the field). Objectively, the choice is clear. But that dopamine hit from righteous fury sure is addictive.
Never too long, Freddie. Let it rip, sir.
Welcome back Freddie and commenters. I missed you guys.
Great points in this post. It’s so clear that many of these activists don’t want to win. They want to feel morally superior forever because it allows them to rationalize all sorts of antisocial behaviors. If they woke up tomorrow and government met their demands, they would feel loss rather than joy.
Aside from the extreme policy demands (abolish the police) the social demands are also designed to never end. White people must feel guilty forever; you never graduate from DEI training. Even the white diversity trainers explain that they’re still racist.
There’s just no interest in making change that can be observed in reality (and celebrated as a step in the right direction).
"The goal is not to get white people to treat Black people like they’re made of glass. The goal is to get Black people money and power and then they don’t need to care how white people treat them."
I love this phrase, but in practice it may end up not being a huge change. We see that in the kind of training now in vogue for businesses that are trying to cater to a more diverse customer/employee base -- a lot of which could be marketed as 'how to treat people as if they're made of glass'. When your money and power are exerted as customers, the kind of equality they buy is to be treated as customers, which usually means with exaggerated and insincere respect.
I've a feeling that we all want something better.
There's a lot of people involved in these debates who either have no cogent theory of how a majority ethnic group should interact with minority ethnic groups in a polyethnic democratic state or have no understanding of American demographics.
This post reminded me of how diffuse and ineffective the Occupy movement seemed to me at the time -- they seemed to revel in not having any kind of agenda other than being really angry at the one percent. It struck me as a little sad at the time -- I found the one percent framing a little convenient for a movement that had plenty of kids from the top five or ten percent of American income, but I want a world where young people are trying to move forward a concrete plan for change to make it better for them and those who come after them. But when it just seems like inchoate rage I don't see what the benefit is.
In this post you repeatedly accuse the left activist class of being racist. Which isn't a critique, by the way. You're right.
So i guess this is another comment about feeling deeply confused as to why you still consider these people your (simply misguided) allies.