Your thoughts on so-called critical race theory

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

I pointed out the religion and point of origin of the slave capturers and the slave traders and owners, not the “race,” which I don’t even regard as a fixed scientific way of categorizing human beings.

Geneticists regard race as a “social fiction,” and yet we all know what it means. It’s pretty safe to assume that the slave capturers were native Africans conforming to our conception of “black people.”

And the only reason I point these facts out is because “Critical Race Theorists” like Mr. Kendi and Ms. DiAngelo like to pin the blame for slavery exclusively on “White European Males”.

Quite rightly. White caucasians created the market for slaves. Like prostitution, slavery wouldn’t exist except for customers actively soliciting product.

I’m contending that slavery was and is an evil practiced by people all over the world and that’s not diminishing the evil, but makes it all the worse.

Nice try.

And “race” has no bearing on crime either, except that knowing the appearance of a perp who is still loose can help the public catch the perp and bring them to justice.

What’s really going on in the conservative mind is revealed by statements like “most murder is black on black” crime. Conservatives make a point of contending that individuals are responsible for their actions, yet as is so often in American society, the analysis begins with “What were they (the criminals).” Were they black or Hispanic (thought so) or white (man bites dog story).

No problem on the edits and we can always discuss it further.

[_Robert_]

When I first meet somebody who may concern myself at some point I immediately categorize everything about them that I can including skin color. It’s what we do, compare, make assumptions, life is short.

Gender, age, height, weight, hair color, length, texture. General attractiveness, attire and visible health conditions. I also get a read on their intelligence, experience, sense of humor, religious views, interests and political views if I can. I try to determine if the person is likely to be an ally or a problem for me. This could be done in as short as ten minutes and I am usually not primarily cognizant on what I am actually doing. I would say that skin color is a very poor predictor.

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

All right, so where am I wrong on CRT?

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

Yes, yes, yes, the American slavers wisely (lazily?) didn’t go catch their slaves. They paid Africans to catch slaves for them. They had paid employees, basically, get them their unpaid employees.

This is what is known as a distinction without a difference.

You said Europeans “kidnapped” not “kidnapped by proxy,” so I went with that claim and refuted it.

And the distinction is with a difference because the more people involved in slavery, the more blame there is to go around.  Blame is not zero-sum, where blaming one means not blaming others.  Blame can be Both/And.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by TheEncogitationer.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen,

Yes, yes, yes, the American slavers wisely (lazily?) didn’t go catch their slaves. They paid Africans to catch slaves for them. They had paid employees, basically, get them their unpaid employees. This is what is known as a distinction without a difference.

You said Europeans “kidnapped” not “kidnapped by proxy,” so I went with that claim and refuted it. And the distinction is with a difference because the more people involved in slavery, the more blame there is to go around. Blame is not zero-sum, where blaming one means not blaming others. Blame can be Both/And.

If a guy hires a second party to kill his wife, he’s a murderer even if he didn’t pull the trigger. The same logic of agency applies to slavery.

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

My conservative “friends” are keen to point out that most blacks who are murdered are murdered by other blacks. Why? To say it’s a black problem. Let the blacks deal with it. No real understanding or acceptance of how we got to the situation we are in today.

Many people point this out, including people who live in the ghettos in the middle of the crime.   And the ghetto residents don’t buy into the calls of Progressives and BLM for “defunding the police” and “prison abolitionism.”  They want more police, they want the police in their neighborhoods, and they want them to police justly with due process and respect for the limits contained in The Bill of Rights.

BTW, while we’re spinning yarns about slavery, the Athenian Greeks often enslaved defeated enemy soldiers. This was actually mercy because the other option—practiced by many cultures—was to murder all prisoners of war. The slaves were often treated relatively well and sometimes became trusted servants allowed to handle money and watch over children.

There was always the third option of actually freeing P.O.W.s, something nations do in the modern day, even after the worst, bloodiest wars in the Twentieth Century.

False binaries and zero-sum games such as what you’ve cited are part of the reason why Theology, Philosophy, and Political Theory haven’t advanced like Science and Technology.

[Davis]

False binaries and zero-sum games such as what you’ve cited are part of the reason why Theology, Philosophy, and Political Theory haven’t advanced like Science and Technology.

Are you seriously lumping theology and philosophy into the same category? Ugh.

[jakelafort]

How does theology advance?

Burn fewer witches and assorted heretics? Stop murdering apostates? Stop dictating depraved morality? In short its path forward is through its extinction.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@jakelafort – How does theology advance?

Kant destroyed the “proofs” for the existence of god(s) and that was a crowbar to divorce theology from philosophy. Modern philosophy is secular by nature and has no concerns about ancient gods.

Thomas Paine advanced theology to its correct place in intellectually reasoned thought.

“The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.”

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Always have time to make Christians feel the Paine…….

Thomas Paine, in 1775, when he wrote his article on “Justice and Humanity,” was the first to demand emancipation in a lucid manner. The campaign for liberation of the slaves was therefore inaugurated by a freethinker, and triumphantly closed by another freethinker, Abraham Lincoln. In this manner did the Church abolish slavery. With characteristic disregard for the truth, the religionists have laid claim to Lincoln, which claim has been amply refuted; but we are still awaiting the Church’s claim to Paine as one of her devotees.

“And, truly, the case against Christianity is plain and damning. Never, during the whole of its history has it spoken in a clear voice against slavery; always, as we have seen, its chief supporters have been pronounced believers. They have cited religious teaching in its defense, they have used all the power of the Church for its maintenance. Naturally, in a world in which the vast majority are professing Christians, believers are to be found on the side of humanity and justice. But to that the reply is plain. Men are human before they are Christians; both history and experience point to the constant lesson of the many cases in which the claims of a developing humanity override those of an inculcated religious teaching.

“But the damning fact against Christianity is, not that it found slavery here when it arrived, and accepted it as a settled institution, not even that it is plainly taught in its ‘sacred’ books, but, that it deliberately created a new form of slavery, and for hundreds of years invested it with a brutality greater than that which existed centuries before. A religion which could tolerate this slavery, argue for it, and fight for it, cannot by any stretch of reasoning be credited with an influence in forwarding emancipation. Christianity no more abolished slavery than it abolished witchcraft, the belief in demonism, or punishment for heresy. It was the growing moral and social sense of mankind that compelled Christians and Christianity to give up these and other things.”

(C. Cohen: “Christianity, Slavery, and Labor.”) link to book. First published in 1918.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

There was always the third option of actually freeing P.O.W.s, something nations do in the modern day, even after the worst, bloodiest wars in the Twentieth Century. False binaries and zero-sum games such as what you’ve cited are part of the reason why Theology, Philosophy, and Political Theory haven’t advanced like Science and Technology.

The “third option” didn’t appeal to the Athenians because then the enemy could get a second bite at the apple of warring against Athens. That was their logic, like it or don’t.

[TheEncogitationer]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Yes, Jake, Theology advances by becoming a museum relic.

And, yes, Davis, if Philosophy is to be any better than Theology, it needs to come correct with something better than “Critical Theory” which is re-heated, re-packaged Marxism, a worldview whose stock in trade is corpses, and in particular “Critical Race Theory,” which is nothing but old-fashioned racism re-heated and re-packaged after sitting open overnight in Woolworth’s Ptomaine Tavern.

James Lindsay of NewDiscourses.com give the Eight Unproven Assumptions of “Critical Race Theory” as well as cites the sourses of “Critical Race Theory” on his Web Site:

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Basically, “Critical Race Theory” is the doctrine of Original Sin applied to one group of people…and without even a chance at Redemption.  Small wonder it has also grown in popularity in the established Churches, including even Unitarian-Universalism.

 

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

Excellent and true quotes from Thomas Paine on both Theology and Religion vis-a-vis slavery.

The only thing is, Deists such as himself were still believers in a Deity, albeit their belief was not as obnoxious as other systems of belief, so really, Deists also believed in nothing.  So it’s Larry David’s Seinfeld all the way down.

Deists are reminiscent of the joke about the drunk in the pub who is staggering to the exit.  Just when he’s at the threshold, he turns around and says: “I just can’t quite get there!” 😁

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Italics

[Davis]

And, yes, Davis, if Philosophy is to be any better than Theology, it needs to come correct with something better than “Critical Theory” which is re-heated, re-packaged Marxism, a worldview whose stock in trade is corpses, and in particular “Critical Race Theory,” which is nothing but old-fashioned racism re-heated and re-packaged after sitting open overnight in Woolworth’s Ptomaine Tavern.

Sometimes…reading your text Eco, sometimes, is like watching a headless chicken flail around with blood spurting everywhere and feathers flying all over the place. It’s confusing, one can make little sense of what is happening and not predict the nonsense about to come and yet it is oddly and eerily entertaining.

[jakelafort]

Davis that was purdy good.

[Author]

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