Dude, that ship has sailed. I live in Texas, and the state anti-CRT bill includes a list of 650 books that should NOT be in a teachers classroom library. "A Texas school district has removed two books by Jerry Craft from its libraries and postponed his virtual appearance before students after parents complained his graphic novels teach critical race theory, possibly in violation of a new state law."
Sorry, it's actually 850 books. "Texas House committee to investigate school districts’ books on race and sexuality
State Rep. Matt Krause, a candidate for state attorney general, asked school superintendents to confirm whether any books on a list of 850 titles are in their libraries and classrooms."
The infamous "you have to teach both sides of the Holocaust" incident is also directly related to Texas' new anti-CRT bill. I hope this plays out in the most extreme way possible, personally. Democrats in Texas can benefit from this kind of weird throwback '90s bible-thumping bullshit.
The Jesus freaks couldn't get you fired from your job for being insufficiently Jesus freaky. Your college did not have a Vice Provost for Jesus Freakdom. That's the difference.
My feeling is that's not really a new religion, but that's it's basically just the old religion.
I.e certain puritan patterns of thought are very embedded in American culture, and if one doesn't really reflect properly on one's beliefs they just fall into old and familiar structures of sin and purity.
Totally. Whenever I hear/read the equivalent of "it's not my job to educate you," my brain immediately translates it to "I care more about feeling righteous than I do about making actual change"
Freddie actually wrote about the "it's not my job to educate you" canard on his old site once, and went fairly ballistic about it if I recall correctly.
"You call yourself an activist? Well it IS your fucking job to educate people. It's like your ONLY fucking job!"
It's so bizarre to me on the one hand that people spout that inequality is everywhere and then also refuse to acknowledge the effects of that inequality.
Like yes, it wasn't "fair" that black Americans had to build up the Civil Rights Movement, but if life was "fair" they would not have *needed* a Civil Rights Movement! Inequality is a fact of life; you can accept that or you can work to change that. There aren't other options.
It’s logically equivalent to “one vote doesn’t decide anything so I won’t vote”. That’s true for one person (set side that there actually have been elections decided by one vote) but if many people do this there will clearly be bad outcomes. Yes, it is true it’s not your job to educate—- but if everyone takes that view there won’t be any educating.
I feel that this is always simply very telling. It's usually the people who tell others to do the reading who need to do the reading themselves. They CAN'T educate, because everything they HAVE read is basically based on assumptions from earlier works (such as post-modern philosophy) which they haven't read. They have just absorbed these assmuptions themselves, and therefore can't really defend them.
This is why teaching something is such a good way to learn it, because even before you get into a classroom you have to force yourself to start confronting the questions you never thought to ask.
This also brings to mind a quote from the 2001 movie “Waking Life”, Richard Linklater. Once scene is an interview with Louis Mackey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mackey_(philosopher)) who posits: “What are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?”
Given the current woke zeitgeist, I vote laziness.
Not only this, but I've always held that it's the responsibility of the person speaking to reach their audience—to take responsibility for the efficacy of their communication. People aren't mind readers and the communicator must build the bridge to comprehension. But it does appear that the current generation expects mind reading from those they are trying to reach. Not fair and just another way of making the whole effort a Kafka trap. That's why I think it's more about revenge and power than actually making a difference.
Gotta love follow on thoughts - those little insights that occur to you hours, sometimes days after having your brain stimulated. This board definitely works my thinker. Fun stuff! :-)
Another gem from the movie somewhat tangential: Pinball Playing Man: “I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.”
The refs would be the voters in this case, who they hope will see the Republicans' perfidy and punish them at the polls. It's delusional, but it seems like a healthier attitude than believing every member of society is already an immovable member of one of two camps, and therefore any and all behavior in support of your side is justified. That's depressingly common.
But the tweet is false - as Freddie says, numerous Democrats have defended CRT, and in Virginia it was (still is?) held by the state education authority as best practice to be followed. So wouldn't a voter-as-ref be first allowed to notice that, notice that Tom is lying or mistaken, and form an opinion based on that? If voters are not permitted to do this, and instead must just assume Tom is correct, then the voters aren't the ref.
Well, voters aren't a monolith. Some would find it convincing and others wouldn't. I would guess that Tom believes that CRT proponents just want to teach about slavery, Jim Crow, etc. and not the really radical stuff, and that voters who buy his argument believe the same. Even if he was out and out lying, it wouldn't be the first time someone made an argument on shaky ground in politics that still won people over.
I don't think this hypothetical voter exists, one who 1) follows this guy, 2) cares enough about CRT to read discussions on it, but somehow 3) is going to be persuaded that the whole thing is a hard-right psyop. The refs are precisely who Freddie says they are - people for whom it's convenient to act like they believe the above, in the face of all the evidence that they already know about, because their primary concern isn't the voters but being in the elite Knowingness club.
Like I said in my first comment, believing it is delusional. Anyone following him already agrees with him. That doesn't mean people can't believe a romantic fantasy where they debate in Plato's Academy and if their arguments are good enough they can sway the audience and make change happen. It's important for them that posting is praxis because posting is all most of them do.
You hit the nail on the head. They feel anxious and powerless about doing anything concrete IRL so they just return to posting...which further increases their feelings of anxiety and powerlessness in the real world. It's a sad cycle.
Is this to some extent an appeal to the HR/university administrators/tech companies that many seem to want to set up as arbiters of what's true and what isn't? I feel like this is part of the general trend of labelling something as 'misinformation' in the hope that Facebook or whoever will ban it.
I'm an HR professional and, let me tell you, people WANT those rules and arbitration. I've worked in several small- and startup-sized companies, and managers HATE it when I tell them "let's have as few policies as possible. just talk with your team members, use your best judgment. If you need a second opinion." I mean, they HATE it. They WANT there to be hard and fast rules so that they don't have to be the bad guy when they say "no" to an employee (or, conversely, so they can look like the good guy when they go "fight the man" so they can get a "yes" for their employee).
If they don't have arbiters/rules, they're miserable because of choice. If they do have arbiters/rules, they're miserable because of "bureaucracy." Say what you will about the HR profession - it's a masterclass in rubber-meets-the-road human psychology (though still second to parenting).
My experience is that a huge chunk of management isn't really capable of any thinking and just wants to follow the same processes they've been following.
I’m (only slightly) less cynical: it’s not that there’s a lack of thinking, it’s that there’s a lack of courage. They don’t want to stick their necks out - every yes/no decision is a risk.
So what they lobby for is authority without risk; I am generally disinclined to give it to them.
It’s so true. So many issues could be resolved in a straightforward way if people were willing to have a forthright conversation and not desperately avoid conflict at all costs.
It does seem like they imagine that if you say racism enough, the ref will come by and give the other person a red card. You only have to keep saying "racism." It's funny because it doesn't even work that way in sports. Sometimes the player rolls around on the ground all he wants and the ref doesn't give his opponent a red card.
Side note, I read an old style thinkpiece years ago, from before we were absolutely overloaded with thinkpieces, about how maybe the detached authority of refs in most american sports is a bad image for kids to see, and euro kids are better prepared for life by watching soccer refs, who can't even pretend they're catching every bad thing going on or making scientifically correct calls.
One key fact to keep in mind is that a lot of people don't think there is anything wrong with racism, sexism, etc. They think that someone being black or white or Asian or latino or jewish or male or female etc. gives you a lot of information about what to expect from them.
You're a manager responsible for a big high profile project and you have two people in mind to run it. One is a 27 year old guy that just got married and the other is a 27 year old woman that just got married. And you, as the manager, say to yourself, "The recently married woman is likely to get pregnant and that's a risk I can't take." Many people think that's perfectly acceptable.
Because it's reality. In a perfect world maybe everybody would get 12 weeks of parental leave and both the husband and wife would get to take off. But that is not the real world and a guy can continue working with no medical issues no matter how pregnant his wife is.
Exactly! What some see and irredeemable sexism other see as acknowledging reality. The problem is the sexism contingent is so convinced of their rightness they can’t even conceive of an alternate understanding.
But for your scenario the manager is concerned, not with sexism, but with hiring employees who will take the smallest amount of sick leave. Why should he care about sexism?
He cares about sexism because he’s using it to make decisions. Sexism, racism, agesim, etc. is about assuming that simply because someone is x that also means they are y. Just because she’s a young woman that mean she is likely to become pregnant. Maybe she’s infertile or doesn’t want kids . The manager has no way of knowing.
Hockey refs are one that I think about as well. The moaning and bitching that go on post call about how "this was the worst call in the history of calls" is not so much designed to overturn this call, but on the next close / hard to tell call, the hope is the bitching and moaning from the previous situation will place a wee bit of doubt in the ref's mind so that they think, "OK, I will give them a break since maybe I made a mistake on the last one"... I wonder how much of those hockey lessons are not lost on a few cynical actors in real life....
I know who Tom Scocca is. But, I think one of my first awarenesses of a generational divide was being perplexed about Tom Scocca.
'What it the purpose of a Tom Scocca?'
'What does a Tom Scocca do?'
'Why does a Tom Scocca exist?'
A Tom Scocca is stridently Left wing, is ironic and smug, has lots of takes, and somehow manages to get attention by riding social media churn and injecting themselves, at least tangentially, into the news cycle.
That said, Tom Scocca writing isn't good and Tom Scocca takes aren't that interesting or thoughtful. There's the standard flavor of Gawker alum commentary written from the perch of the keen observer. But the observer isn't that keen. And often writing from the burned out husk of some decrepit zombie legacy media property burning bucks from some tech oligarch or dead tech oligarch's wife.
The meta-irony with the Gawker alum is that the mean spirited irony if not malevolence has been turned back on them. 'So you thought you were going to have a cool career? Lol.'
I think you're onto someone. The other day I saw a plumbers van and on the back were "All Lives Matter" "Police Lives Matter" and "Trump 2020" bumper stickers. That guy is obviously one of those conservatives who are motivated by a respect for authority. As was traditionally the case with the left being anti-authoritarian.
These days however it seems like a libertarian disrespect for authority has spread on the right while the those on the left are beholden to a certain received wisdom. It goes along with the "front of the class" aspect of the current debate. If they've been taught something in a formal setting it's true and accepted without question. I think we've all known super eager students who are really into whatever they've just been taught.
Well, I think the conservative anti-authoritian rhetoric is performative, they never stand up to capitol or the empire. But I agree with you about liberals. They've become way too acquiescent to upper middle class authority ie "the experts."
Well, the extreme edge of the conservative anti-authoritarians did /try/ to stand up to capitol and empire. Hundreds of them have been in solitary confinement and being abused by corrections officers 23 hours a day for most of the year as a result. while awaiting "trial". The cruelty is the point, I suppose. Pour encourager les autres.
However, what probably sunk the Dems was an incoherent COVID policy, failure to make it appear that anyone was working competently to mitigate supply chain issues, the interminable foot dragging with getting schools open, and worsening inflation which is best understood as a wealth transfer.
Whether a Tom Scocca would have anything interesting to say on those issues of much greater societal importance is irrelevant because of what a Tom Scocca is.
Right - that's the math - do your wages or investment values rise faster than inflation. There will be winners and losers across the spectrum, but by and large I think the salaried lower middle/middle class will take the biggest hit. The ability of that group to negotiate wages to track with inflation hasn't been that good. They will prices rise and income lag.
Its hard to tell how much that space (lower end of the wage market) will look to other alternatives like automation or redesigning their processes as opposed to raising wages. A new fast food joint opened up by me recently, and the order process is 100% automated / self serve right from the get go. The staff have no ability to take your order
Yeah I agree it is probably temporary. It's anecdata, but... I remember driving in Australia and stopping at a couple huge highway McDonald's. Giant restaurants and almost everything was automated.
That's one example, but I totally disagree with the broader point and think leftists have become way to casual about the idea that inflation is a good thing, just because they want to increase federal spending.
The thought experiment I like is: let's say the government waved a magic wand and doubles the amount of money everyone had over 5 years. Would anyone be better off? I'd argue no, because prices would go up accordingly, and everyone would be in more or less the same place.
Now let's say the government decides to double the amount of money in the system over 5 years, but they don't fill in the details. Who do you think is in a better position to capitalize on this inflation, a hedge fund manager or a teacher? Is that really a question?
But maybe some of you are more confident than me that a bill written by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer is going to be carefully crafted to benefit the little guy...
As we’ve seen with Japan a declining population is massively deflationary. We have a declining population - that moves the balance of power in favor of labor.
That's factually incorrect. The US is almost unique among industrialized nations in that its population is stable, buoyed through immigration rather than native births.
'I think leftists have become way to casual about the idea that inflation is a good thing'
I totally agree. The government wins because it gets to effectively reduce its debt. But that falls on the shoulders of someone and not owners of large amount of equities or real estate which are more inflation resistant. Very often the hardest hit are older people or retirees who transfer their wealth to cash or conservative investments. The working class and middle class gets hit hard too. Many entitlements not pegged to inflation also get nailed.
The long and short of it is, if you want the government to do something you should find a way for the government to pay for it up front. I think expanded welfare in Europe works in part because the middle class pays in at a very high marginal rate and has high expectations. The bloated spending and white elephant projects that pass in the US would never pass in the UK, France, or Germany in part because we known it's a scam and as tax payers don't think we will be on the hook.
I think inflation is just really poorly understood so people can have all sorts of takes on it. But in moderate amounts it's really not that bad. It's generally good for debtors of any kind, which is a lot of people.
Right… but generally bad for older people with cash savings and shorter investment horizons. I don’t care about inflation because I have a long way to go retirement. If you have cash savings or conservative parameters for COLA you can be easily screwed.
I just went to the new McDonalds they built by my place. There is literally a single counter. One. Nobody was manning it. I couldn't see any employees despite the long line of cars at the drive through. Ordering takes place at one of a long line of touch screen kiosks. Then you swipe your credit card. Then when your order is ready you finally see a human being appear who calls out your name (scraped from your card), drops off your order and then vanishes again.
More inflation would be awesome cuz most of America is in the type of debt (think college debt) that actually becomes less onerous as the value is inflated away.
OK, well great for younger people who have debt. Bad for people who have money. Also bad for people who might need to take on debt.
The point is inflation involves redistribution - there are winners and losers.
If the government is in debt, the government is a big winner.
Someone who is 65 years old who has a few hundred k for retirement in conservative investments will see the value of what they have diminish considerably, tho. Not really fair to them.
I agree that there will be some who suffer financial loss, but I expect they'd be helped by some other policy because retirees are a very important voting bloc. Overall I feel like high levels of inflation would be a good thing.
Reminds me of Obama et al constantly complaining about McConnell obstructing bills, blocking the Supreme Court nomination, etc. Like, yeah, fuck the GOP. But complaining about process doesn't so anything, you gotta actually win at some point
You’re right that whining doesn’t win, but this could at least be an argument to the voters: who cares if your individual Dem rep or senator isn’t that exciting; you’re voting for the speaker and majority leader who has complete control over what can even be voted on. When McConnell didn’t bring up Garland there wasn’t a damn thing Obama could do about it. More voters understanding that fact of federal politics would be a good thing.
Saying “the voters are just racist,” though, is different and not at all productive.
The "that isn't AcKSHuaLLy CRT" defense, so popular on Twitter, was strangely ineffective with actual voters in Virginia for some mysterious reason. Some blue check strategist might want to dig deeper on that one.
It mystifies me that folks think "that isn't CRT" is some sort of defense. The people going after CRT *do not care what CRT is.* They don't know what it is, and more importantly, *it doesn't matter what it is or that they are wrong about what it is.*
They are pointing out actual *behaviors* they hate: the idea that children are being taught that white people are oppressors, that everyone has a kind of "oppression score", etc. and basing all of that on identity. Is that CRT or not CRT? They don't give a fuck.
When someone objects to that sort of epistemology while calling it CRT, and someone responds "that's not CRT" as if it somehow addressed the criticism, it is a bit like the maintenance engineer responding "actually, that's not a propeller, that's a turbine" to someone who, about to board a jet, is saying "hey, there's smoke coming from that propeller!"
The interlocutor does not want to address the uncomfortable central argument so they criticize the outlying fact. That way, they can appear to be responding with disagreement without ever having to engage the issue.
The exception to this is the CRT scholars who use the term regularly within their legal academic circles where it may have some more specific technical meaning. I get why they want to say "that's not CRT" -- but in that case, the motivation is to protect their scholarship, not to dodge addressing an uncomfortable argument.
There's a really predictable pattern to stuff like this right now. And not just for critical race theory - but with basically any hot button social or political issue that is being driven more by a small handful of zealous activists than by the mass of normies.
1). "X isn't happening!"
2) "You don't even know what X is!"
3) "X is actually really popular, despite evidence to the contrary"
4) "OK, X *is* actually happening now, but it's a good thing"
5) "I'm not going to argue with you about the definition of 'X;' right now"
6) "What's with the backlash against X?"
7) "How come the political party/candidate running with X in their platform lost because of X according to exit polling?"
Democrats have exactly one year to finally learn the lessons of 2016 or face relegation to semi-permanent minority party status. So far it’s not looking good…
And I want to add that all Rufo does is publish unaltered diversity training materials and draw attention to them. That’s literally the extent of his influence. He’s basically a beat reporter. Any complaints about public reaction must be directed at the educational materials themselves, not him.
Apparently, so I've heard, there have been situations where Twitter users have been banned (or their tweets deleted) simply for retweeting someone without comment.
Yeah the standards for censorship in modern social media are completely arbitrary. The only rule twitter seems to follow even remotely fairly is the one about misgendering people.
People have predicted permanent minority status for both parties about 10 times over the past 30 years... I think the GOP needs to come up with a message that resonates with people other than being anti-CRT before they achieve their permanent majority status. I'll commence holding my breath.
Yeah but did they predict “semi-permanent” minority status? But yes, I agree that would take republicans not stepping on their own dicks and trying to cram through a bunch of abortion laws and whatnot, and that’s far from given.
I’m getting increasingly resigned to the idea that we may need a huge electoral wipeout before we can start to rebuild. I’m hoping I’m wrong about that.
I really hate Twitter. It has absolutely made liberals its bitch. It's basically an Evangelical church for the Left. The toxic social incentives are strikingly similar.
So Dems, get the fuck outta there and start talking to average people (of all races and genders) if you want to start winning again.
Progressives don’t care about winning. How could we possibly observe their behavior and think otherwise? They don't have a party at all that ever wins an election. What do they stand for that’s reflected in achieved legislation? Far as I can tell it’s a fundraising machine, make-work program, and a tool to destroy actually progressive legislation that could be passed if progressives themselves weren't blocking it. Losing elections (then endlessly analyzing the why) is more efficient fuel than winning elections because they can continue begging for money while delivering nothing.
Politicians and institutional power structures don’t care about winning. How could we possibly observe their behavior and think otherwise? The parties and organizations aren't isn’t representative of their constituents in any meaningful sense anymore. What do they stand for that’s reflected in their legislation efforts? Far as I can tell it’s a fundraising machine, make-work program, and a tool to destroy actually effective legislation and primary challengers. Losing elections (then endlessly analyzing the why) is more efficient fuel than winning elections because they can continue begging for money while delivering nothing.
Twitter is a lot of this, but it gets to a deeper point. As we've become a post-religious country, people are searching for something to replace religion as a central force in their lives. Too many people turn to politics, which isn't likely to end well either for the person or the country.
They don't do that! Average people are deplorable, and the libs aren't here to educate them, block the toxic baddies, blah blah blah. They're on twitter BECAUSE they were like this already, it's their happy place/drug.
There's some truth to the notion that Chris Rufo was one individual who drove a major shift in the political landscape across the country. Why would someone whine about that instead of learning lessons from his success to apply to their own preferred cause?
Why has Rufo succeeded? He started with a message that resonated with a lot of people, practiced strong message discipline, and used the power of slogans to his advantage.
It's easy to contrast that to something like BLM, which had #1 and #3 working in its favor, but lost its way on #2 and blunted its impact despite infinitely greater resources than Rufo.
Rufo is actually a reasonably skilled rhetorician. He understood how to balance logos, ethos and pathos in his criticisms, and persuaded people to agree with him. That's how it's supposed to work. By contrast, left-activism on Twitter relies almost solely on pathos alone, so it really had no coherent, let alone persuasive, response to Rufo's disciplined approach.
My only exposure to Rufo is a documentary he made, and what is really different about his message compared to the professional hand-wringers is he demonstrates how the concrete policy proposals he's making could really work. In other words, he's a positivist builder, not a cynical deconstructor.
Whether or not you agree with his prescriptions, I think that's a pretty significant difference in approach and worldview; and certainly makes him more appealing to people (like parents) who are anxious about the actual future, compared to folks whose entire raison d'être is to bitch impotently about the world around them and call everyone names.
(BTW, bitching impotently about the world used to be a conservative shtick. Another way things have gotten all topsy-turvy).
From the documentary (my single data point): local initiatives, often faith-based (in lieu of family support, which is ideal, but often not an option for society's most vulnerable) instead of massive centralized bureaucracies throwing money at some ill-defined "problem, which we have been doing for half a century with the result that families are more disrupted and broken than ever, through deliberate Federal government policy.
Rufo's strategy is not costless, though. His grift is successfully driving some people away from the right. In all likelihood, not nearly enough to matter (unless you're part of the group driven away, of course).
Who are "the refs"? All of us are, in a sense, and among the more temperamentally-moderate members of the right, (they are not necessarily ideologically moderate, and seem to range from Reagan Democrats to anarcho-capitalists), the complaint that "Rufo doesn't play fairrrrrr!!!" does carry some weight.
Life isn't fair because nature isn't fair. But nature, Mr Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. There's still enough churchmarm in some of us, it seems.
That the Left is complaining that the Right has a reasonably competent social activist with a national profile is a sorry state of affairs.
If they didn't want DiAngelo, Kendi, and Kaepernick, corporatized heirs to Al Sharpton ideological traditions, to be their avatars, they shouldn't have chosen them.
This is really true. Quality control matters! There is some good DEI stuff. There’s also some terrible DEI stuff (“punctuality is white supremacy” anyone?) If you want people to respect DEI then you need to police it and call out the bad examples. But I feel like even progressives who recognize the bad examples are reluctant to do this because it feels like “punching down” to them and somehow validates and emboldens their enemies.
This is definitely part of the problem. Some of the more extreme DEI stuff, being pushed by major institutions, is racially essentialist and thus flatly racist by definition. The academic side of the anti-racists movement will ring very hollow to me as long as so many "anti-racists" won't acknowledge this.
Does it matter anymore if the strong message discipline is also dishonest? Rufo's is, in my judgment. Which still matters to me, someone who'd be pretty sympathetic to the "anti-CRT" message otherwise.
His business model is more or less handing over the receipts. Every time there's something crazy a whistle blower emails a copy.
That's really been the problem with him for the Left - when the Left dissembles he has piles of evidence (much of which is very similar to what I've seen disseminated in my field and institution).
Nothing is better for him than when someone says, 'This isn't real,' or, 'This isn't happening,' or 'This isn't that bad,' and then he has like a dozen great examples to contradict them.
It's just ideological judo. He's not the one making the effort.
Rufo does not just bring the receipts. He very carefully constructs an imputed context to them which he knows will push his audience's buttons. I elaborated one specific instance in this other comment here:
I know Christians who found themselves sincerely frightened by the purported demonic influence Rufo likely knew damn well he was insinuating.
And, while I carry no brief for Samuel Hoadley-Brill's politics — Hoadley-Brill and I would probably mutually loathe each other as twerps if we ever met — Hoadley-Brill's reporting on Rufo's bullshit artistry seems, well, more accurate than Rufo's:
'He very carefully constructs an imputed context to them which he knows will push his audience's buttons.'
Well, yes, he is a political activist. Isn't that what an activist is supposed to do?
It's his job to simplify things, make them accessible, and engage in the political arena.
He's not a scholar or intellectual.
If you want a sharp, brain in a jar with eyeballs assessment of the successor ideology how it works, and how it is transforming institutions, Wes Yang has obviously been the person.
If you want to crack the code, there are a few options but the Lindsay/Pluckrose book is very good.
You don't think the Left would like to have someone similar on their side?
From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd. This might give you some cool distance from the shenanigans of the "anti-woke" crowd, so that it's no skin off your nose to give them cynical props for effectiveness. I think most commenters here probably fall in your boat: the "woke" crowd probably has more power over their personal lives than the "anti-woke" crowd does, and is consequently considerably more irritating and threatening.
I respect that. However, not all of us are in that boat. There's plenty of America where the fallout from anti-woke politics will probably end up more important, and I'm part of this latter America. My relatives sincerely worry that the social-emotional learning benefiting my kids in their local school is creeping CRT, and I have Rufo to thank, to some significant degree, for their worry. The school district I grew up in appears currently torn apart by some COVID/property-tax/CRT revolt.
In Franklin, TN, as reported by David French, similar things are happening:
"When I first debated Chris [Rufo], the threat was theoretical. I was anticipating what these laws would do. Now we know what they are doing, and it’s not pretty. I’d urge you to read the entire post for the details, but we’re witnessing in real time increasing efforts to ban books, including books that no person could possibly label as critical race theory, efforts to identify key 'trigger words' to identify grounds for making complaints under CRT law, and even efforts to ban photographs and other images from our nation’s history.
"For example, in my home county a group called 'Moms for Liberty' has filed a complaint under the state’s new anti-CRT law that takes aim in part at Norman Rockwell’s famous depiction of Ruby Bridges desegregating Little Rock public schools."
'From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd.'
Yes, this is true. There is my institution and field. But I am also worried about many other institutions that seem unhealthy.
'From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd.'
This is interesting - I haven't really considered it from the other end. If you have further examples I would be interested to hear. I am in NYC and have young children and am concerned about the creeping identitarianism in schools that I think needs to be addressed. I grew up with a large dose of Howard Zinn pedagogy and I don't have a problem with teaching it (or James Baldwin or reading the Autobiography of Malcom X, etc. etc. etc.).
I also have several friends who are teachers (progressive but reasonable) and they all say grad Ed has become absolutely deranged. They just want the CRT to blow over.
However, a question I have is: are parents fighting with schools mostly over CRT? Or is it because they have not been open and the COVID management is a disaster? I always presumed it was more of the latter.
I don't think the book banning is good in general although a few things should probably go (the 'award winning' graphic novel with depictions of pedophilia should not be in school).
Regarding the laws, I am sure many of them are not good, but I don't think that should preclude political action. That is, I think what is taught in schools and whether class guilt assignation is encouraged is appropriate to be fought over in the political sphere. I don't think it should just be left to the courts and technocrats. In general, there's been too much that's political that isn't being addressed by politics and should be addressed by politics. So, this whole thing is a mess that will have to get worked out. But I'm not happy having Rufo as an avatar.
"You don't think the Left would like to have someone similar on their side?"
Given David Shor's treatment, the answer -- at least for those dominant in the Dems -- appears to be "not if it means any schema of prioritization that does not put my personal bugaboos first".
I have to say I don't see how his message is dishonest. I've noticed over the last couple years that things that would be considered overt hate speech against any other group have become totally normal to say about white people. This is true at an interpersonal level and also at an institutional level. It's not at all surprising that people object to being in institutions whether school or work where they're being subjected to what is essentially hate speech directed against them. This is basically what people mean by CRT and whether it's technically that or not doesn't really matter.
Rufo gins up alarm by portraying the "crazy stuff" as crazier than it really is.
By misrepresenting some supplementary items in a CA ethnic-studies plan, he convinced members of the Christian right that there are bloodthirsty Aztec demons at work in California classrooms. There are many Americans — many of them far from rubes — who consider such demonic threats real enough. You may be far enough removed from such worldview to consider such a misrepresentation trivial, but I am not.
By portraying an optional retreat (some form of DEI training was mandatory, but this particular retreat was just one option on the menu of possible options) at Sandia as mandatory, by misrepresenting opinions volunteered by the retreat attendees themselves as imposed by the retreat trainers, and by combing through retreat summaries to find those that *volunteered* apologies and then saying white men were *forced* to apologize for being white men at Sandia, Rufo was doing violence to the truth.
When I discussed this retreat with a beloved family member, that member's reaction was, "Well, OK, Rufo misrepresented the retreat, but really, a retreat like that shouldn't even have been an option for wasting taxpayer dollars, and white men even *volunteering* such stereotypes and apologies on their own behalf is a pretty sad state of affairs." Conceding all that, Rufo still misrepresented the retreat. People I care about believed Rufo's story of forced indoctrination at Sandia. Most of them probably still do, since having a conversation to sort that out is time-consuming, awkward, and often not worth having.
In your milieu, Rufo exaggerating the crazy he finds may amount to a harmless exaggeration, par for the course in politics, what else can you expect? In my milieu, the effect has been worse.
Oh please. This is absurd: "By misrepresenting some supplementary items in a CA ethnic-studies plan, he convinced members of the Christian right that there are bloodthirsty Aztec demons at work in California classrooms." Can I get a name of someone on the Christian right who believes this BECAUSE of what Rufo wrote? Uh no, there is no such person. Not a single one, anywhere.
And I (a lapsed Catholic and lifelong Democrat voter) don't want my kids chanting to Aztec gods in a classroom where the teacher can't say "Merry Christmas", whether that edict from the State came in primary or merely supplementary materials, thank you very much.
Rod Dreher is a name. There are others. Some are just nobodies like myself I spoke to privately.
I understand not wanting your kids to chant to Aztec gods, especially in a classroom where you can't even say, "Merry Christmas." But the point is, by conflating several things, Rufo greatly exaggerated the prospect of *any* child in the California schools *ever* chanting to an Aztec god in the classroom. Let's review:
Luiz Valdez penned a short poem, "In Lak'Ech" in his "Pensamiento Serpentino" It goes as follows:
Tú eres mi otro yo. / You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti, / If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mi mismo. / I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto, / If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo. / I love and respect myself.
Typically, when an "In Lak'Ech" affirmation is mentioned, this is the one referenced. It seems common in Chicano and ethnic-studies curricula. It, as you see, makes no mention of Aztec gods (though the larger work it's pulled from, "Pensamiento Serpentino", references Quetzalcoatl as a sort of syncretic Christ figure).
However, one artist wrote a long hip-hop work, which he entitled, for some reason, the "In Lak'Ech Affirmation": evidently, in the artist's eyes, his hip-hop work somehow affirms the "In Lak'Ech" principle by invoking the four Tezcatlipocas. This hip-hop work, too long for practical classroom use, is also included in the CA supplementary materials. It is not the "In Lak'Ech" included in the "Unity Chant" and common classroom use. *That* "In Lak'Ech is the short poem I gave you in full, which contains no reference to any god.
Rufo seems to have profited greatly from conflating Luis Valdez's short "In Lak'Ech", which *is* in fairly common use and mentions *no* gods, with this longer hip-hop work which is unlikely to see classroom use. This does not strike me as an honest mistake of Rufo's. Moreover, Rufo's past work at the Discovery Institute gives him practice using language that pushes the Christian right's buttons while seeming fairly innocuous to outsiders. Judging by the right-wing and religious media reactions I saw at the time, plus the personal reaction of coreligionists of mine whose take on the demonic isn't quite as metaphorical as mine, I think Rufo must've known what he was doing here.
For this criticism to really be useful you need to answer a few questions.
1. Does Rufo exaggerate in 100% of the cases he reports on? 40%? 60%? Assume it's in the 5-10% range and is randomly distributed. That would probably not be a serious issue to most people.
2. How serious is his exaggeration? If he claiming that 20 million people died in the Holocaust?
3. How serious is the actual underlying offense? To use the example from above if Rufo ran around claiming that 20 million people perished in the Holocaust that would not be enough to convince me that the Holocaust was not a big deal.
Cherry picking a few instances where he got it wrong is unproductive and veers dangerously close to an ad hominem attack.
Having just gone through a custom-designed quiz from a loved one to gauge my apostasy from anti-wokeness, I'm feeling pretty numbered out right now.
So the most honest answer I can give today is a recipe: I don't disbelieve something just *because* Rufo reported it. Still, I figure if Rufo reports it and it's true, other sources I judge more reliable will pick up on it and I can worry about it then. If they don't, I don't.
(My quiz results, incidentally, ought to have still been pretty reassuringly anti-woke. "What kind of wokeness were you expecting from me?" "Somewhere between 0 and 40%" "OK, but what expected value?" "Around 12%" My scoring a bit under my loved one's expected value mysteriously did little to reassure my loved one.)
But can't you see that when you use a term like "gin up" you are implicitly arguing that Rufo is acting in bad faith--and that additionally implies that maybe CRT isn't that bad at all? I repeat, if all you are going to do is throw out isolated examples where Rufo was wrong then that isn't good enough. Einstein was wrong about quantum theory. Relativity is still looking pretty good though.
And the next obvious question is what about the cases where he reported on something that appears to be bugfuck insane and does not appear to have engaged in exaggeration?
what's so odd about this meme on the Left is that many conservatives were talking about this topic, at length, for years (Dreher, Shapiro, et al.) -- just because Rufo randomly decided in 2020-2021 to pretend that he was the only conservative controlling messaging on CRT doesn't make it true
Good point. Rufo relies on the networks built by Dreher at all. If Rufo did not have Dreher's trust (as of a few months ago when I checked, he still did) and audience, Rufo likely wouldn't have been nearly as successful.
Right now, the Christian right appears split, though the split is probably quite uneven in Rufo's favor. On the one side are the Drehers who pity Rufo skeptics as poor sweet summer children voluntarily lining up to get rolled by the left. On the other side are the Rufo skeptics who pity the likes of Dreher as poor sweet summer children for getting rolled by the likes of Rufo. The tempest in this particular teapot could also be called the French-Ahmari split.
Why now is a good question- I think that the extended school closures really pissed a lot of parents off and a whole bunch of them stopped giving schools and teachers the benefit of the doubt on these issues. I think had we not had a pandemic, Rufo wouldn’t have gotten any traction.
"The only opinion that matters is that of the voters, and they think your whining about unfairness makes you look weak" emphasizes the moral rather than rational foundation of voters' choices, but moral in the
Sense Hume denoted "According to Hume, moral judgments typically concern the character traits and motives behind human actions. To make a moral judgment is to detect, by means of a sentiment, the operation of a virtuous or vicious quality of mind." (Stanford encyclopedia is a little more straightforward to me than Hume himself this morning) And Joseph Brodsky was very wise on the subject of referees or the lack thereof: "Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the Holy Book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose."
Dude, that ship has sailed. I live in Texas, and the state anti-CRT bill includes a list of 650 books that should NOT be in a teachers classroom library. "A Texas school district has removed two books by Jerry Craft from its libraries and postponed his virtual appearance before students after parents complained his graphic novels teach critical race theory, possibly in violation of a new state law."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-schools-remove-childrens-books-branded-critical-race-theory-2021-10-07/
Sorry, it's actually 850 books. "Texas House committee to investigate school districts’ books on race and sexuality
State Rep. Matt Krause, a candidate for state attorney general, asked school superintendents to confirm whether any books on a list of 850 titles are in their libraries and classrooms."
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/26/texas-school-books-race-sexuality/
What you don't understand is this: parents don't care. They can give their kids those books if they want to.
The left has now completed ceded the higher ground of free speech, something Freddie has been warning us about for many years.
The infamous "you have to teach both sides of the Holocaust" incident is also directly related to Texas' new anti-CRT bill. I hope this plays out in the most extreme way possible, personally. Democrats in Texas can benefit from this kind of weird throwback '90s bible-thumping bullshit.
Democrats can benefit only if they also renounce CRT excesses. I suspect few will do so.
Democrats can benefit from Republican overreach--it's happened plenty of times in the past. Conservatives are reliable overreachers. As are liberals.
The Jesus freaks couldn't get you fired from your job for being insufficiently Jesus freaky. Your college did not have a Vice Provost for Jesus Freakdom. That's the difference.
The first black principle of a high school near Dallas was fired because he was allegedly "teaching" CRT...or something.
Which is relevant how, exactly?
If you can't see how that's relevant to your comment about Jesus freaks not being able to get non-Jesus freaks fired, I can't help you understand.
I completely agree that you cannot help me understand anything.
It's too bad--you read a Marxist who disagrees with your takes on CRT but you won't listen to another commenter.
My feeling is that's not really a new religion, but that's it's basically just the old religion.
I.e certain puritan patterns of thought are very embedded in American culture, and if one doesn't really reflect properly on one's beliefs they just fall into old and familiar structures of sin and purity.
Totally. Whenever I hear/read the equivalent of "it's not my job to educate you," my brain immediately translates it to "I care more about feeling righteous than I do about making actual change"
OR "i don't really know but shut up"
Freddie actually wrote about the "it's not my job to educate you" canard on his old site once, and went fairly ballistic about it if I recall correctly.
"You call yourself an activist? Well it IS your fucking job to educate people. It's like your ONLY fucking job!"
It's so bizarre to me on the one hand that people spout that inequality is everywhere and then also refuse to acknowledge the effects of that inequality.
Like yes, it wasn't "fair" that black Americans had to build up the Civil Rights Movement, but if life was "fair" they would not have *needed* a Civil Rights Movement! Inequality is a fact of life; you can accept that or you can work to change that. There aren't other options.
It’s logically equivalent to “one vote doesn’t decide anything so I won’t vote”. That’s true for one person (set side that there actually have been elections decided by one vote) but if many people do this there will clearly be bad outcomes. Yes, it is true it’s not your job to educate—- but if everyone takes that view there won’t be any educating.
I feel that this is always simply very telling. It's usually the people who tell others to do the reading who need to do the reading themselves. They CAN'T educate, because everything they HAVE read is basically based on assumptions from earlier works (such as post-modern philosophy) which they haven't read. They have just absorbed these assmuptions themselves, and therefore can't really defend them.
This is why teaching something is such a good way to learn it, because even before you get into a classroom you have to force yourself to start confronting the questions you never thought to ask.
You crack me up...!
This also brings to mind a quote from the 2001 movie “Waking Life”, Richard Linklater. Once scene is an interview with Louis Mackey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mackey_(philosopher)) who posits: “What are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?”
Given the current woke zeitgeist, I vote laziness.
Not only this, but I've always held that it's the responsibility of the person speaking to reach their audience—to take responsibility for the efficacy of their communication. People aren't mind readers and the communicator must build the bridge to comprehension. But it does appear that the current generation expects mind reading from those they are trying to reach. Not fair and just another way of making the whole effort a Kafka trap. That's why I think it's more about revenge and power than actually making a difference.
Gotta love follow on thoughts - those little insights that occur to you hours, sometimes days after having your brain stimulated. This board definitely works my thinker. Fun stuff! :-)
Another gem from the movie somewhat tangential: Pinball Playing Man: “I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.”
The refs would be the voters in this case, who they hope will see the Republicans' perfidy and punish them at the polls. It's delusional, but it seems like a healthier attitude than believing every member of society is already an immovable member of one of two camps, and therefore any and all behavior in support of your side is justified. That's depressingly common.
But the tweet is false - as Freddie says, numerous Democrats have defended CRT, and in Virginia it was (still is?) held by the state education authority as best practice to be followed. So wouldn't a voter-as-ref be first allowed to notice that, notice that Tom is lying or mistaken, and form an opinion based on that? If voters are not permitted to do this, and instead must just assume Tom is correct, then the voters aren't the ref.
Well, voters aren't a monolith. Some would find it convincing and others wouldn't. I would guess that Tom believes that CRT proponents just want to teach about slavery, Jim Crow, etc. and not the really radical stuff, and that voters who buy his argument believe the same. Even if he was out and out lying, it wouldn't be the first time someone made an argument on shaky ground in politics that still won people over.
I don't think this hypothetical voter exists, one who 1) follows this guy, 2) cares enough about CRT to read discussions on it, but somehow 3) is going to be persuaded that the whole thing is a hard-right psyop. The refs are precisely who Freddie says they are - people for whom it's convenient to act like they believe the above, in the face of all the evidence that they already know about, because their primary concern isn't the voters but being in the elite Knowingness club.
Like I said in my first comment, believing it is delusional. Anyone following him already agrees with him. That doesn't mean people can't believe a romantic fantasy where they debate in Plato's Academy and if their arguments are good enough they can sway the audience and make change happen. It's important for them that posting is praxis because posting is all most of them do.
If I was the tattoo type, I'd have "posting is praxis" on both arms.
You hit the nail on the head. They feel anxious and powerless about doing anything concrete IRL so they just return to posting...which further increases their feelings of anxiety and powerlessness in the real world. It's a sad cycle.
Is this to some extent an appeal to the HR/university administrators/tech companies that many seem to want to set up as arbiters of what's true and what isn't? I feel like this is part of the general trend of labelling something as 'misinformation' in the hope that Facebook or whoever will ban it.
I'm an HR professional and, let me tell you, people WANT those rules and arbitration. I've worked in several small- and startup-sized companies, and managers HATE it when I tell them "let's have as few policies as possible. just talk with your team members, use your best judgment. If you need a second opinion." I mean, they HATE it. They WANT there to be hard and fast rules so that they don't have to be the bad guy when they say "no" to an employee (or, conversely, so they can look like the good guy when they go "fight the man" so they can get a "yes" for their employee).
If they don't have arbiters/rules, they're miserable because of choice. If they do have arbiters/rules, they're miserable because of "bureaucracy." Say what you will about the HR profession - it's a masterclass in rubber-meets-the-road human psychology (though still second to parenting).
My experience is that a huge chunk of management isn't really capable of any thinking and just wants to follow the same processes they've been following.
I’m (only slightly) less cynical: it’s not that there’s a lack of thinking, it’s that there’s a lack of courage. They don’t want to stick their necks out - every yes/no decision is a risk.
So what they lobby for is authority without risk; I am generally disinclined to give it to them.
It’s so true. So many issues could be resolved in a straightforward way if people were willing to have a forthright conversation and not desperately avoid conflict at all costs.
It does seem like they imagine that if you say racism enough, the ref will come by and give the other person a red card. You only have to keep saying "racism." It's funny because it doesn't even work that way in sports. Sometimes the player rolls around on the ground all he wants and the ref doesn't give his opponent a red card.
Side note, I read an old style thinkpiece years ago, from before we were absolutely overloaded with thinkpieces, about how maybe the detached authority of refs in most american sports is a bad image for kids to see, and euro kids are better prepared for life by watching soccer refs, who can't even pretend they're catching every bad thing going on or making scientifically correct calls.
One key fact to keep in mind is that a lot of people don't think there is anything wrong with racism, sexism, etc. They think that someone being black or white or Asian or latino or jewish or male or female etc. gives you a lot of information about what to expect from them.
You're a manager responsible for a big high profile project and you have two people in mind to run it. One is a 27 year old guy that just got married and the other is a 27 year old woman that just got married. And you, as the manager, say to yourself, "The recently married woman is likely to get pregnant and that's a risk I can't take." Many people think that's perfectly acceptable.
Because it's reality. In a perfect world maybe everybody would get 12 weeks of parental leave and both the husband and wife would get to take off. But that is not the real world and a guy can continue working with no medical issues no matter how pregnant his wife is.
Exactly! What some see and irredeemable sexism other see as acknowledging reality. The problem is the sexism contingent is so convinced of their rightness they can’t even conceive of an alternate understanding.
But for your scenario the manager is concerned, not with sexism, but with hiring employees who will take the smallest amount of sick leave. Why should he care about sexism?
He cares about sexism because he’s using it to make decisions. Sexism, racism, agesim, etc. is about assuming that simply because someone is x that also means they are y. Just because she’s a young woman that mean she is likely to become pregnant. Maybe she’s infertile or doesn’t want kids . The manager has no way of knowing.
Since he can't have absolute knowledge then he is better off playing the numbers game and working the percentages.
And you are assigning sexism to his motives when what he is really concerned about is math. Or is math sexist?
You're doing a bait-and-switch here, using actual medical differences between the sexes as a stand-in for sexism. Can we get an example based on race?
Your second paragraph made me sad, but your first paragraph made me laff out lout.
Hockey refs are one that I think about as well. The moaning and bitching that go on post call about how "this was the worst call in the history of calls" is not so much designed to overturn this call, but on the next close / hard to tell call, the hope is the bitching and moaning from the previous situation will place a wee bit of doubt in the ref's mind so that they think, "OK, I will give them a break since maybe I made a mistake on the last one"... I wonder how much of those hockey lessons are not lost on a few cynical actors in real life....
I know who Tom Scocca is. But, I think one of my first awarenesses of a generational divide was being perplexed about Tom Scocca.
'What it the purpose of a Tom Scocca?'
'What does a Tom Scocca do?'
'Why does a Tom Scocca exist?'
A Tom Scocca is stridently Left wing, is ironic and smug, has lots of takes, and somehow manages to get attention by riding social media churn and injecting themselves, at least tangentially, into the news cycle.
That said, Tom Scocca writing isn't good and Tom Scocca takes aren't that interesting or thoughtful. There's the standard flavor of Gawker alum commentary written from the perch of the keen observer. But the observer isn't that keen. And often writing from the burned out husk of some decrepit zombie legacy media property burning bucks from some tech oligarch or dead tech oligarch's wife.
The meta-irony with the Gawker alum is that the mean spirited irony if not malevolence has been turned back on them. 'So you thought you were going to have a cool career? Lol.'
I think you're onto someone. The other day I saw a plumbers van and on the back were "All Lives Matter" "Police Lives Matter" and "Trump 2020" bumper stickers. That guy is obviously one of those conservatives who are motivated by a respect for authority. As was traditionally the case with the left being anti-authoritarian.
These days however it seems like a libertarian disrespect for authority has spread on the right while the those on the left are beholden to a certain received wisdom. It goes along with the "front of the class" aspect of the current debate. If they've been taught something in a formal setting it's true and accepted without question. I think we've all known super eager students who are really into whatever they've just been taught.
Well, I think the conservative anti-authoritian rhetoric is performative, they never stand up to capitol or the empire. But I agree with you about liberals. They've become way too acquiescent to upper middle class authority ie "the experts."
Well, the extreme edge of the conservative anti-authoritarians did /try/ to stand up to capitol and empire. Hundreds of them have been in solitary confinement and being abused by corrections officers 23 hours a day for most of the year as a result. while awaiting "trial". The cruelty is the point, I suppose. Pour encourager les autres.
If they were really trying to stand up, they would have hung Mike Pence, instead of just chanting it.
CRT has gotten all the social media heat.
However, what probably sunk the Dems was an incoherent COVID policy, failure to make it appear that anyone was working competently to mitigate supply chain issues, the interminable foot dragging with getting schools open, and worsening inflation which is best understood as a wealth transfer.
Whether a Tom Scocca would have anything interesting to say on those issues of much greater societal importance is irrelevant because of what a Tom Scocca is.
"which is best understood as a wealth transfer."
Yes, as we see with inflation at 5% and McDonalds raising wages by 10%, a transfer from the rich to the poor.
Right - that's the math - do your wages or investment values rise faster than inflation. There will be winners and losers across the spectrum, but by and large I think the salaried lower middle/middle class will take the biggest hit. The ability of that group to negotiate wages to track with inflation hasn't been that good. They will prices rise and income lag.
That would be true is there wasn’t a chronic labor shortage especially at the lower end of the market.
Its hard to tell how much that space (lower end of the wage market) will look to other alternatives like automation or redesigning their processes as opposed to raising wages. A new fast food joint opened up by me recently, and the order process is 100% automated / self serve right from the get go. The staff have no ability to take your order
Yeah I agree it is probably temporary. It's anecdata, but... I remember driving in Australia and stopping at a couple huge highway McDonald's. Giant restaurants and almost everything was automated.
Yeah I agree that at the bottom end some lower income workers will probably come out ahead... temporarily.
That's one example, but I totally disagree with the broader point and think leftists have become way to casual about the idea that inflation is a good thing, just because they want to increase federal spending.
The thought experiment I like is: let's say the government waved a magic wand and doubles the amount of money everyone had over 5 years. Would anyone be better off? I'd argue no, because prices would go up accordingly, and everyone would be in more or less the same place.
Now let's say the government decides to double the amount of money in the system over 5 years, but they don't fill in the details. Who do you think is in a better position to capitalize on this inflation, a hedge fund manager or a teacher? Is that really a question?
But maybe some of you are more confident than me that a bill written by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer is going to be carefully crafted to benefit the little guy...
As someone who took out a mortgage a few months ago me thinks you forgot something in your “no one would be better off” analysis.
And as I said, if there wasn’t a chronic labor shortage you might be right. But there is a chronic labor shortage.
We'll have to see, but I think that will be a short-term blip compared to centuries of history of how inflation plays out
As we’ve seen with Japan a declining population is massively deflationary. We have a declining population - that moves the balance of power in favor of labor.
That's factually incorrect. The US is almost unique among industrialized nations in that its population is stable, buoyed through immigration rather than native births.
'I think leftists have become way to casual about the idea that inflation is a good thing'
I totally agree. The government wins because it gets to effectively reduce its debt. But that falls on the shoulders of someone and not owners of large amount of equities or real estate which are more inflation resistant. Very often the hardest hit are older people or retirees who transfer their wealth to cash or conservative investments. The working class and middle class gets hit hard too. Many entitlements not pegged to inflation also get nailed.
The long and short of it is, if you want the government to do something you should find a way for the government to pay for it up front. I think expanded welfare in Europe works in part because the middle class pays in at a very high marginal rate and has high expectations. The bloated spending and white elephant projects that pass in the US would never pass in the UK, France, or Germany in part because we known it's a scam and as tax payers don't think we will be on the hook.
I think inflation is just really poorly understood so people can have all sorts of takes on it. But in moderate amounts it's really not that bad. It's generally good for debtors of any kind, which is a lot of people.
Right… but generally bad for older people with cash savings and shorter investment horizons. I don’t care about inflation because I have a long way to go retirement. If you have cash savings or conservative parameters for COLA you can be easily screwed.
I just went to the new McDonalds they built by my place. There is literally a single counter. One. Nobody was manning it. I couldn't see any employees despite the long line of cars at the drive through. Ordering takes place at one of a long line of touch screen kiosks. Then you swipe your credit card. Then when your order is ready you finally see a human being appear who calls out your name (scraped from your card), drops off your order and then vanishes again.
More inflation would be awesome cuz most of America is in the type of debt (think college debt) that actually becomes less onerous as the value is inflated away.
OK, well great for younger people who have debt. Bad for people who have money. Also bad for people who might need to take on debt.
The point is inflation involves redistribution - there are winners and losers.
If the government is in debt, the government is a big winner.
Someone who is 65 years old who has a few hundred k for retirement in conservative investments will see the value of what they have diminish considerably, tho. Not really fair to them.
I agree that there will be some who suffer financial loss, but I expect they'd be helped by some other policy because retirees are a very important voting bloc. Overall I feel like high levels of inflation would be a good thing.
Or, you know, the election just reverted to the historical pattern of Virginia gubernatorial elections.
Blue for more than a decade?
Only because McAuliffe broke the pattern in 2013. The VA House of Delegates only flipped blue in 2017.
Reminds me of Obama et al constantly complaining about McConnell obstructing bills, blocking the Supreme Court nomination, etc. Like, yeah, fuck the GOP. But complaining about process doesn't so anything, you gotta actually win at some point
You’re right that whining doesn’t win, but this could at least be an argument to the voters: who cares if your individual Dem rep or senator isn’t that exciting; you’re voting for the speaker and majority leader who has complete control over what can even be voted on. When McConnell didn’t bring up Garland there wasn’t a damn thing Obama could do about it. More voters understanding that fact of federal politics would be a good thing.
Saying “the voters are just racist,” though, is different and not at all productive.
The "that isn't AcKSHuaLLy CRT" defense, so popular on Twitter, was strangely ineffective with actual voters in Virginia for some mysterious reason. Some blue check strategist might want to dig deeper on that one.
It mystifies me that folks think "that isn't CRT" is some sort of defense. The people going after CRT *do not care what CRT is.* They don't know what it is, and more importantly, *it doesn't matter what it is or that they are wrong about what it is.*
They are pointing out actual *behaviors* they hate: the idea that children are being taught that white people are oppressors, that everyone has a kind of "oppression score", etc. and basing all of that on identity. Is that CRT or not CRT? They don't give a fuck.
When someone objects to that sort of epistemology while calling it CRT, and someone responds "that's not CRT" as if it somehow addressed the criticism, it is a bit like the maintenance engineer responding "actually, that's not a propeller, that's a turbine" to someone who, about to board a jet, is saying "hey, there's smoke coming from that propeller!"
The interlocutor does not want to address the uncomfortable central argument so they criticize the outlying fact. That way, they can appear to be responding with disagreement without ever having to engage the issue.
The exception to this is the CRT scholars who use the term regularly within their legal academic circles where it may have some more specific technical meaning. I get why they want to say "that's not CRT" -- but in that case, the motivation is to protect their scholarship, not to dodge addressing an uncomfortable argument.
There's a really predictable pattern to stuff like this right now. And not just for critical race theory - but with basically any hot button social or political issue that is being driven more by a small handful of zealous activists than by the mass of normies.
1). "X isn't happening!"
2) "You don't even know what X is!"
3) "X is actually really popular, despite evidence to the contrary"
4) "OK, X *is* actually happening now, but it's a good thing"
5) "I'm not going to argue with you about the definition of 'X;' right now"
6) "What's with the backlash against X?"
7) "How come the political party/candidate running with X in their platform lost because of X according to exit polling?"
You can set your watch to this stuff lately.
I love their deflection. It's wonderful, free entertainment. :-)
Democrats have exactly one year to finally learn the lessons of 2016 or face relegation to semi-permanent minority party status. So far it’s not looking good…
And I want to add that all Rufo does is publish unaltered diversity training materials and draw attention to them. That’s literally the extent of his influence. He’s basically a beat reporter. Any complaints about public reaction must be directed at the educational materials themselves, not him.
Apparently, so I've heard, there have been situations where Twitter users have been banned (or their tweets deleted) simply for retweeting someone without comment.
Yeah the standards for censorship in modern social media are completely arbitrary. The only rule twitter seems to follow even remotely fairly is the one about misgendering people.
People have predicted permanent minority status for both parties about 10 times over the past 30 years... I think the GOP needs to come up with a message that resonates with people other than being anti-CRT before they achieve their permanent majority status. I'll commence holding my breath.
Yeah but did they predict “semi-permanent” minority status? But yes, I agree that would take republicans not stepping on their own dicks and trying to cram through a bunch of abortion laws and whatnot, and that’s far from given.
The new feature is election rigging. Republicans are preparing this in plain sight in multiple ways.
I’m getting increasingly resigned to the idea that we may need a huge electoral wipeout before we can start to rebuild. I’m hoping I’m wrong about that.
I really hate Twitter. It has absolutely made liberals its bitch. It's basically an Evangelical church for the Left. The toxic social incentives are strikingly similar.
So Dems, get the fuck outta there and start talking to average people (of all races and genders) if you want to start winning again.
Progressives don’t care about winning. How could we possibly observe their behavior and think otherwise? They don't have a party at all that ever wins an election. What do they stand for that’s reflected in achieved legislation? Far as I can tell it’s a fundraising machine, make-work program, and a tool to destroy actually progressive legislation that could be passed if progressives themselves weren't blocking it. Losing elections (then endlessly analyzing the why) is more efficient fuel than winning elections because they can continue begging for money while delivering nothing.
https://progressives.house.gov
Politicians and institutional power structures don’t care about winning. How could we possibly observe their behavior and think otherwise? The parties and organizations aren't isn’t representative of their constituents in any meaningful sense anymore. What do they stand for that’s reflected in their legislation efforts? Far as I can tell it’s a fundraising machine, make-work program, and a tool to destroy actually effective legislation and primary challengers. Losing elections (then endlessly analyzing the why) is more efficient fuel than winning elections because they can continue begging for money while delivering nothing.
Twitter is a lot of this, but it gets to a deeper point. As we've become a post-religious country, people are searching for something to replace religion as a central force in their lives. Too many people turn to politics, which isn't likely to end well either for the person or the country.
They don't do that! Average people are deplorable, and the libs aren't here to educate them, block the toxic baddies, blah blah blah. They're on twitter BECAUSE they were like this already, it's their happy place/drug.
Some were losers before twitter, but most of them weren't losers until twitter made them so.
There's some truth to the notion that Chris Rufo was one individual who drove a major shift in the political landscape across the country. Why would someone whine about that instead of learning lessons from his success to apply to their own preferred cause?
Why has Rufo succeeded? He started with a message that resonated with a lot of people, practiced strong message discipline, and used the power of slogans to his advantage.
It's easy to contrast that to something like BLM, which had #1 and #3 working in its favor, but lost its way on #2 and blunted its impact despite infinitely greater resources than Rufo.
Rufo is actually a reasonably skilled rhetorician. He understood how to balance logos, ethos and pathos in his criticisms, and persuaded people to agree with him. That's how it's supposed to work. By contrast, left-activism on Twitter relies almost solely on pathos alone, so it really had no coherent, let alone persuasive, response to Rufo's disciplined approach.
My only exposure to Rufo is a documentary he made, and what is really different about his message compared to the professional hand-wringers is he demonstrates how the concrete policy proposals he's making could really work. In other words, he's a positivist builder, not a cynical deconstructor.
Whether or not you agree with his prescriptions, I think that's a pretty significant difference in approach and worldview; and certainly makes him more appealing to people (like parents) who are anxious about the actual future, compared to folks whose entire raison d'être is to bitch impotently about the world around them and call everyone names.
(BTW, bitching impotently about the world used to be a conservative shtick. Another way things have gotten all topsy-turvy).
What type of concrete policies does he propose?
From the documentary (my single data point): local initiatives, often faith-based (in lieu of family support, which is ideal, but often not an option for society's most vulnerable) instead of massive centralized bureaucracies throwing money at some ill-defined "problem, which we have been doing for half a century with the result that families are more disrupted and broken than ever, through deliberate Federal government policy.
Rufo's strategy is not costless, though. His grift is successfully driving some people away from the right. In all likelihood, not nearly enough to matter (unless you're part of the group driven away, of course).
Who are "the refs"? All of us are, in a sense, and among the more temperamentally-moderate members of the right, (they are not necessarily ideologically moderate, and seem to range from Reagan Democrats to anarcho-capitalists), the complaint that "Rufo doesn't play fairrrrrr!!!" does carry some weight.
Life isn't fair because nature isn't fair. But nature, Mr Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. There's still enough churchmarm in some of us, it seems.
Nah dude's a narcissistic loser. Sorry you can't see through that.
That the Left is complaining that the Right has a reasonably competent social activist with a national profile is a sorry state of affairs.
If they didn't want DiAngelo, Kendi, and Kaepernick, corporatized heirs to Al Sharpton ideological traditions, to be their avatars, they shouldn't have chosen them.
This is really true. Quality control matters! There is some good DEI stuff. There’s also some terrible DEI stuff (“punctuality is white supremacy” anyone?) If you want people to respect DEI then you need to police it and call out the bad examples. But I feel like even progressives who recognize the bad examples are reluctant to do this because it feels like “punching down” to them and somehow validates and emboldens their enemies.
This is definitely part of the problem. Some of the more extreme DEI stuff, being pushed by major institutions, is racially essentialist and thus flatly racist by definition. The academic side of the anti-racists movement will ring very hollow to me as long as so many "anti-racists" won't acknowledge this.
It's more that they're afraid of being cancelled for apostasy.
Kaepernick ? I don't think he belongs in that list.
Does it matter anymore if the strong message discipline is also dishonest? Rufo's is, in my judgment. Which still matters to me, someone who'd be pretty sympathetic to the "anti-CRT" message otherwise.
What do you think is dishonest about Rufo?
His business model is more or less handing over the receipts. Every time there's something crazy a whistle blower emails a copy.
That's really been the problem with him for the Left - when the Left dissembles he has piles of evidence (much of which is very similar to what I've seen disseminated in my field and institution).
Nothing is better for him than when someone says, 'This isn't real,' or, 'This isn't happening,' or 'This isn't that bad,' and then he has like a dozen great examples to contradict them.
It's just ideological judo. He's not the one making the effort.
Rufo does not just bring the receipts. He very carefully constructs an imputed context to them which he knows will push his audience's buttons. I elaborated one specific instance in this other comment here:
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/there-are-no-refs/comment/3490647
I know Christians who found themselves sincerely frightened by the purported demonic influence Rufo likely knew damn well he was insinuating.
And, while I carry no brief for Samuel Hoadley-Brill's politics — Hoadley-Brill and I would probably mutually loathe each other as twerps if we ever met — Hoadley-Brill's reporting on Rufo's bullshit artistry seems, well, more accurate than Rufo's:
https://conceptualdisinformation.substack.com/p/chris-rufo-professional-bullshit
'He very carefully constructs an imputed context to them which he knows will push his audience's buttons.'
Well, yes, he is a political activist. Isn't that what an activist is supposed to do?
It's his job to simplify things, make them accessible, and engage in the political arena.
He's not a scholar or intellectual.
If you want a sharp, brain in a jar with eyeballs assessment of the successor ideology how it works, and how it is transforming institutions, Wes Yang has obviously been the person.
If you want to crack the code, there are a few options but the Lindsay/Pluckrose book is very good.
You don't think the Left would like to have someone similar on their side?
From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd. This might give you some cool distance from the shenanigans of the "anti-woke" crowd, so that it's no skin off your nose to give them cynical props for effectiveness. I think most commenters here probably fall in your boat: the "woke" crowd probably has more power over their personal lives than the "anti-woke" crowd does, and is consequently considerably more irritating and threatening.
I respect that. However, not all of us are in that boat. There's plenty of America where the fallout from anti-woke politics will probably end up more important, and I'm part of this latter America. My relatives sincerely worry that the social-emotional learning benefiting my kids in their local school is creeping CRT, and I have Rufo to thank, to some significant degree, for their worry. The school district I grew up in appears currently torn apart by some COVID/property-tax/CRT revolt.
In Franklin, TN, as reported by David French, similar things are happening:
"When I first debated Chris [Rufo], the threat was theoretical. I was anticipating what these laws would do. Now we know what they are doing, and it’s not pretty. I’d urge you to read the entire post for the details, but we’re witnessing in real time increasing efforts to ban books, including books that no person could possibly label as critical race theory, efforts to identify key 'trigger words' to identify grounds for making complaints under CRT law, and even efforts to ban photographs and other images from our nation’s history.
"For example, in my home county a group called 'Moms for Liberty' has filed a complaint under the state’s new anti-CRT law that takes aim in part at Norman Rockwell’s famous depiction of Ruby Bridges desegregating Little Rock public schools."
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/when-everyone-is-right-that-everyone
'From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd.'
Yes, this is true. There is my institution and field. But I am also worried about many other institutions that seem unhealthy.
'From your other comments, it sounds like your real life involves dealing with the "woke" crowd much more than the "anti-woke" crowd.'
This is interesting - I haven't really considered it from the other end. If you have further examples I would be interested to hear. I am in NYC and have young children and am concerned about the creeping identitarianism in schools that I think needs to be addressed. I grew up with a large dose of Howard Zinn pedagogy and I don't have a problem with teaching it (or James Baldwin or reading the Autobiography of Malcom X, etc. etc. etc.).
I also have several friends who are teachers (progressive but reasonable) and they all say grad Ed has become absolutely deranged. They just want the CRT to blow over.
However, a question I have is: are parents fighting with schools mostly over CRT? Or is it because they have not been open and the COVID management is a disaster? I always presumed it was more of the latter.
I don't think the book banning is good in general although a few things should probably go (the 'award winning' graphic novel with depictions of pedophilia should not be in school).
Regarding the laws, I am sure many of them are not good, but I don't think that should preclude political action. That is, I think what is taught in schools and whether class guilt assignation is encouraged is appropriate to be fought over in the political sphere. I don't think it should just be left to the courts and technocrats. In general, there's been too much that's political that isn't being addressed by politics and should be addressed by politics. So, this whole thing is a mess that will have to get worked out. But I'm not happy having Rufo as an avatar.
"You don't think the Left would like to have someone similar on their side?"
Given David Shor's treatment, the answer -- at least for those dominant in the Dems -- appears to be "not if it means any schema of prioritization that does not put my personal bugaboos first".
I have to say I don't see how his message is dishonest. I've noticed over the last couple years that things that would be considered overt hate speech against any other group have become totally normal to say about white people. This is true at an interpersonal level and also at an institutional level. It's not at all surprising that people object to being in institutions whether school or work where they're being subjected to what is essentially hate speech directed against them. This is basically what people mean by CRT and whether it's technically that or not doesn't really matter.
Rufo is a publicist for the crazy stuff. But how is the real issue not the fact that the crazy stuff exists in the first place?
Rufo gins up alarm by portraying the "crazy stuff" as crazier than it really is.
By misrepresenting some supplementary items in a CA ethnic-studies plan, he convinced members of the Christian right that there are bloodthirsty Aztec demons at work in California classrooms. There are many Americans — many of them far from rubes — who consider such demonic threats real enough. You may be far enough removed from such worldview to consider such a misrepresentation trivial, but I am not.
By portraying an optional retreat (some form of DEI training was mandatory, but this particular retreat was just one option on the menu of possible options) at Sandia as mandatory, by misrepresenting opinions volunteered by the retreat attendees themselves as imposed by the retreat trainers, and by combing through retreat summaries to find those that *volunteered* apologies and then saying white men were *forced* to apologize for being white men at Sandia, Rufo was doing violence to the truth.
When I discussed this retreat with a beloved family member, that member's reaction was, "Well, OK, Rufo misrepresented the retreat, but really, a retreat like that shouldn't even have been an option for wasting taxpayer dollars, and white men even *volunteering* such stereotypes and apologies on their own behalf is a pretty sad state of affairs." Conceding all that, Rufo still misrepresented the retreat. People I care about believed Rufo's story of forced indoctrination at Sandia. Most of them probably still do, since having a conversation to sort that out is time-consuming, awkward, and often not worth having.
In your milieu, Rufo exaggerating the crazy he finds may amount to a harmless exaggeration, par for the course in politics, what else can you expect? In my milieu, the effect has been worse.
Oh please. This is absurd: "By misrepresenting some supplementary items in a CA ethnic-studies plan, he convinced members of the Christian right that there are bloodthirsty Aztec demons at work in California classrooms." Can I get a name of someone on the Christian right who believes this BECAUSE of what Rufo wrote? Uh no, there is no such person. Not a single one, anywhere.
And I (a lapsed Catholic and lifelong Democrat voter) don't want my kids chanting to Aztec gods in a classroom where the teacher can't say "Merry Christmas", whether that edict from the State came in primary or merely supplementary materials, thank you very much.
Rod Dreher is a name. There are others. Some are just nobodies like myself I spoke to privately.
I understand not wanting your kids to chant to Aztec gods, especially in a classroom where you can't even say, "Merry Christmas." But the point is, by conflating several things, Rufo greatly exaggerated the prospect of *any* child in the California schools *ever* chanting to an Aztec god in the classroom. Let's review:
Luiz Valdez penned a short poem, "In Lak'Ech" in his "Pensamiento Serpentino" It goes as follows:
Tú eres mi otro yo. / You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti, / If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mi mismo. / I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto, / If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo. / I love and respect myself.
Typically, when an "In Lak'Ech" affirmation is mentioned, this is the one referenced. It seems common in Chicano and ethnic-studies curricula. It, as you see, makes no mention of Aztec gods (though the larger work it's pulled from, "Pensamiento Serpentino", references Quetzalcoatl as a sort of syncretic Christ figure).
However, one artist wrote a long hip-hop work, which he entitled, for some reason, the "In Lak'Ech Affirmation": evidently, in the artist's eyes, his hip-hop work somehow affirms the "In Lak'Ech" principle by invoking the four Tezcatlipocas. This hip-hop work, too long for practical classroom use, is also included in the CA supplementary materials. It is not the "In Lak'Ech" included in the "Unity Chant" and common classroom use. *That* "In Lak'Ech is the short poem I gave you in full, which contains no reference to any god.
Rufo seems to have profited greatly from conflating Luis Valdez's short "In Lak'Ech", which *is* in fairly common use and mentions *no* gods, with this longer hip-hop work which is unlikely to see classroom use. This does not strike me as an honest mistake of Rufo's. Moreover, Rufo's past work at the Discovery Institute gives him practice using language that pushes the Christian right's buttons while seeming fairly innocuous to outsiders. Judging by the right-wing and religious media reactions I saw at the time, plus the personal reaction of coreligionists of mine whose take on the demonic isn't quite as metaphorical as mine, I think Rufo must've known what he was doing here.
So what specifically did he exaggerate here?
https://christopherrufo.com/nuclear-consequences/
I've been reading Dreher for years. The notion that Rufo played any significant role in Dreher's beliefs is completely absurd.
For this criticism to really be useful you need to answer a few questions.
1. Does Rufo exaggerate in 100% of the cases he reports on? 40%? 60%? Assume it's in the 5-10% range and is randomly distributed. That would probably not be a serious issue to most people.
2. How serious is his exaggeration? If he claiming that 20 million people died in the Holocaust?
3. How serious is the actual underlying offense? To use the example from above if Rufo ran around claiming that 20 million people perished in the Holocaust that would not be enough to convince me that the Holocaust was not a big deal.
Cherry picking a few instances where he got it wrong is unproductive and veers dangerously close to an ad hominem attack.
Having just gone through a custom-designed quiz from a loved one to gauge my apostasy from anti-wokeness, I'm feeling pretty numbered out right now.
So the most honest answer I can give today is a recipe: I don't disbelieve something just *because* Rufo reported it. Still, I figure if Rufo reports it and it's true, other sources I judge more reliable will pick up on it and I can worry about it then. If they don't, I don't.
(My quiz results, incidentally, ought to have still been pretty reassuringly anti-woke. "What kind of wokeness were you expecting from me?" "Somewhere between 0 and 40%" "OK, but what expected value?" "Around 12%" My scoring a bit under my loved one's expected value mysteriously did little to reassure my loved one.)
But can't you see that when you use a term like "gin up" you are implicitly arguing that Rufo is acting in bad faith--and that additionally implies that maybe CRT isn't that bad at all? I repeat, if all you are going to do is throw out isolated examples where Rufo was wrong then that isn't good enough. Einstein was wrong about quantum theory. Relativity is still looking pretty good though.
And the next obvious question is what about the cases where he reported on something that appears to be bugfuck insane and does not appear to have engaged in exaggeration?
what's so odd about this meme on the Left is that many conservatives were talking about this topic, at length, for years (Dreher, Shapiro, et al.) -- just because Rufo randomly decided in 2020-2021 to pretend that he was the only conservative controlling messaging on CRT doesn't make it true
Good point. Rufo relies on the networks built by Dreher at all. If Rufo did not have Dreher's trust (as of a few months ago when I checked, he still did) and audience, Rufo likely wouldn't have been nearly as successful.
Right now, the Christian right appears split, though the split is probably quite uneven in Rufo's favor. On the one side are the Drehers who pity Rufo skeptics as poor sweet summer children voluntarily lining up to get rolled by the left. On the other side are the Rufo skeptics who pity the likes of Dreher as poor sweet summer children for getting rolled by the likes of Rufo. The tempest in this particular teapot could also be called the French-Ahmari split.
Why now is a good question- I think that the extended school closures really pissed a lot of parents off and a whole bunch of them stopped giving schools and teachers the benefit of the doubt on these issues. I think had we not had a pandemic, Rufo wouldn’t have gotten any traction.
"The only opinion that matters is that of the voters, and they think your whining about unfairness makes you look weak" emphasizes the moral rather than rational foundation of voters' choices, but moral in the
Sense Hume denoted "According to Hume, moral judgments typically concern the character traits and motives behind human actions. To make a moral judgment is to detect, by means of a sentiment, the operation of a virtuous or vicious quality of mind." (Stanford encyclopedia is a little more straightforward to me than Hume himself this morning) And Joseph Brodsky was very wise on the subject of referees or the lack thereof: "Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the Holy Book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose."