A talented propagandist takes a kernel of truth and cultures it into a mountain of lies. By denying the kernel of truth, his opponents effectively do his job for him by destroying their own credibility and thereby implicitly validating his mountain of lies.
Christopher Rufo is a champion propagandist and much of the Progressive Left his useful idiots. It’s just excruciating to watch him operate. Like a slow motion car wreck.
What is the antidote to the Rufo phenomenon? As you say, it is to cop to the kernel of truth and fight the exaggerations. If you look into the sources Rufo cites, they only rarely support his broad claims. People must scrutinize Rufo like the right wing did Gay. They will find much worse.
I think much can be attributed to the utter unsophistication and dogmatism of the Left. They have forgotten how to argue the facts. And they are so damn loud.
Thank you for being a voice of reason and fact. Maybe you are the first of many!
"By denying the kernel of truth, his opponents effectively do his job for him by destroying their own credibility and thereby implicitly validating his mountain of lies."
This whole comment is a fantastic breakdown of the situation. But I think the above is best of all.
Funnily enough, it reminds me of Gay's apology after her congressional hearing. She admitted that she'd gotten drawn into a combative stance where she refused to give ground instead of giving the obvious answer that of course calling for the genocide of Jews was absolutely unacceptable.
I feel like a lot of people on the Left are in the same bind. Instead of just giving the obvious answer that of course kids shouldn't be segregated by race, of course children shouldn't be having their breasts cut off or being given cross-sex hormones, of course societies need police, they argue these brain-dead points because they don't want to feel as if they're giving ground to the "enemy."
The Left continues to “argue these brain-dead points” NOT because “they don’t want to feel as if they are giving ground to the ‘enemy’”. It is not “the enemy” they are worried about, but rather their own kind.
They are terrified of being outed as not “pure” enough, or as being “disloyal.” Dogmatists are harshest on apostates. That is why change from within the Left is virtually impossible. They are banished to the cold with no clothes.
Thanks for your comment Steve. I always enjoy conversing with you.
Yes. The extent to which the “successor ideology” has percolated into the mainstream of everyday public school instruction around the country. Rufo will claim “it’s everywhere” in an essay and when you look up the cite it’s an isolated power point presentation at some irrelevant administrators conference. It’s laughable. I will go back and find specific examples for you.
In Canada where I live, I would say it has percolated into the mainstream of everyday public school instruction. It is even on the provincial ministry of education website (over 2 million students) with topics such as SEL. It is a "lens" through which topics are taught and that is how it is everywhere. Not all teachers subscribe to "successor ideology" and others to a lesser degree, but I personally know many teachers who do fully subscribe to it. I do not think it is a lie that he suggests it is everywhere in K-12 schools, at least not where I live.
That is very sad news and I have no reason to doubt it. I do believe that most teachers are still pretty sane and generally in control of their classrooms. But there are certainly a minority of teachers and administrators who spread this toxic nonsense.
Miguelito, I would like to ask 3 questions to explore this: more specifically what you believe about current prevalence, what direction you think the numbers are moving, and what evidence inspires your belief.
First let's explore the belief about today's prevalence; I hear you believe:
(1) more than 50% of teachers ("most") do not allow "the successor ideology" into their classroom (ie: are sane & in control), and
(2) less than 50% of teachers ("a minority") and administrators actively spread the successor ideology.
Would that be a fair approximate quantization of your beliefs, or would you like to tweak the (estimated, approximate) numbers, like 70% keep it out of the classroom while only 15% actively push it into the classroom? (The remainder perhaps not actively pushing it themselves, but not in control to keep it out either)
I fully recognize that you can't provide exact numbers, I just want to get a rough sense of how large or small your feel the proportions to be, since for example "a minority" could be 1% (very rare) or 49% (common but still a minority today), but you probably have in mind something between those.
Secondly: do you think the numbers are increasing or decreasing, as new teachers and administrators replace older ones in the system?
Thirdly: what evidence inspires your belief? Not asking you to "prove it", just what suggestive indications you have seen to form your beliefs on this.
Excellent questions. Here are the bases for my guesstimates, because that is the best we can do.
1. This new anti-racist, gender ideology, etc. actually hit the mainstream quite recently. If you go back 10 years, very few people talked like that. The gender stuff took off in earnest after SCOTUS legalized gay marriage and hit overdrive more recently. Anti racism gradually moved from the fringe and splattered onto the mainstream only in 2020 after the Floyd murder. So, all this is very recent, and it is top down, ie coming from elites into the culture. This takes time. So, what you see at the school board and administration level may or may not be reflected in everyday classrooms. I think the majority of everyday teachers are "normies" for the simple reason that they are probably only just a little left of center on average as the population at large.
Obviously, there are going to be regional, and especially class, variations. The percolation will be most complete in affluent, blue areas and especially private schools in places like NYC and my hometown of LA, many of which are thoroughly hopeless.
This process will happen much, much slower, ironically, in the 'hood. My daughter taught HS in West Newark and then in a really tough area in Irvington, NJ from about 2017 to 2022. This stuff was COMPLETELY absent there. Now she teaches in an affluent DC high school, and it is EVERYWHERE. Even though she is a Lefty, she hates it and the micro-managing that comes with it. She has been convicted of a "name-based microaggression." She is heading back to the 'Hood next year.
2. I made a habit of checking Rufo's sources. They did not reflect the pervasiveness he claims. A lot of times he would point to a power point at some conference and then the articvle he wrote made it seem like every teacher was a Red Guard or something. I;m not saying it's not around and influential, I just saying that he did not satisfy my burden of proof that it's "everywhere." Maybe soon, but not yet.
So, on these bases I think that a substantial minority of teachers in Canada and the US have drunk the Kool-Aid, but I believe a majority (over 50%) haven't. Hopefully the backlash we are seeing now will prevent its further spread.
That is the best I can do to answer your excellent question.
It's VERY hard to get a grasp on this. Not only is there no national survey, but if there were a lot of the infected schools would hide it, I believe. To get a firm answer, investigators would pretty near need to physically observe a representative national sample - which would be not even remotely possible. So the kind of thoughtful guesswork you present is nearly all we have.
I think we may need to be a bit more generous in interpreting "everywhere" tho. I think you are interpreting it as "in close to 100% of classrooms", which would not be true now (and might never be true).
I would take "everywhere" more like "it's widespread, with examples in every state, most large cities", many smaller cities, and even some rural areas". Like - most of the population lives within a short drive of an example, if not their own school district. Sort of like how ants are everywhere - not in every house, but in a substantial portion of houses in all parts of the country. Or the way that Covid infections were everywhere - but did not infect every person. And that lesser claim about CSJ ideology might be more true than false. It's quite compatible with your guestimate that less than 50% of classrooms have been captured - if the ones that have are widely distributed.
I appreciate your efforts to check Rufo's linked sources, and that gives me some pause if he's playing too fast and loose. But I also think that in part, you might be expecting him to prove "nearly 100% of classrooms" when all he's asserting is "extremely widely distributed". Remember that as described above - there will be no source which can factually assess the percentage of classrooms, so no commenter will have solid evidence of that - at most they can show that examples are widely distributed geographically (albeit not with a single link).
We just had an interaction with a professor of speech and debate at the local Jr College, who was very "woke". He got his PhD from Louisiana State, in a deep red state. (Just a suggestive datapoint, not proof of anything)
I was somewhat blindsided by the sudden widespread appearance of CSJ ideology, bursting into view relatively recently. But since then, I've been seeing information which makes me believe that there are deep and pervasive roots which have been widespread in higher education for quite a while. And from what I've heard, one of the first departments at many universities to adopt this ideology (besides the xxx studies ones) were the Schools of Education where K12 teachers are trained. After which, they migrate literally to every nook and cranny of the nation; if the local cultures isn't yet into it, they know to avoid attracting attention.
I can see how that might be a fertile breeding ground - with a lot of idealistic young teachers wanting to help improve society as well as educate kids. And it's heavily dominated by females (statistically more likely to adopt CSJ), and liberals (need I say more about the prime recruiting ground of the successor ideology?). And the following may be controversial - but I have been dismayed by the intellectually quality of a surprising number of teachers. It goes way back too; long ago I was a math major in college (before getting seduced away from theorems by those alluring computers), but I switched briefly to "Math Education" and the classes I took were atrocious; my fellow math ed students (& profs) were NOT actually *on average* very competent in mathematics; I got out quickly. (It was obvious that I would be evaluated on things other than merit, so I was not inspired to seek a career there in order to improve the average, but I respect the few who do). My point here is not to put down on teachers (despite my anecdotal experience), but to say that a combination of idealism and (possibly) limited reasoning power might provide fertile soil indeed for CSJ Ideology in the decades since.
By now, I'm seeing the recent upsurge in public profile more like the fruiting bodies of mushrooms (eg: mushroom caps), sprouting only after the forest is deeply saturated with underground filaments. The groundwork has been laid for decades, mostly out of sight of the public. I hear students who went to college in the 2000's saying it was already being widely taught in many classes on campus back then. And I've heard younger folks talk about how this was becoming evidence in a number of high schools long before George Floyd etc.
All that mostly stayed mostly in classrooms back then - but the hiring committees were in many cases already infested, and selectively hiring like minded folks over many decades (ie: who agreed in their analysis of society and concept of social justice as a primary value). University faculty is dramatically left of the population today.
So I am holding the hypothesis that it was for decades growing exponentially while staying on the down low.
One of the major factors in regard to the recent controversy over CSJ in K12 education was that during the lockdown and school closures/telelearning, many parents for the first time HEARD for themselves what had been taught for years in the local schools without coming to their attention.
Having been on the left for a lifetime, I was astounded by how quickly trans ideology became dominant in society- it did not take a decade or three of campaigning, as most of our issues had. Very suddenly anything labeled "transphobic" (using a wide and loose definition) became a cancellation target, and the Overton window shifted dramatically in a short time. I think that in large part that was because the field was already ripe with CSJ ideology, beneath the public surface - so to some degree it was more about reaching a critical point where it could flex and assert control, after spreading less publicly for literally decades (in growing strength).
I think that Rufo, if not interpreted as saying that nearly every teacher in the country is enrolled in CSJ ideology but only that it's widely distributed among a large minority around the country, has not been disproven any more than he can prove his case (given the limitations discussed above). It can be easy to discover anecdotal evidence either way (places that have been converted and places that have not), but the relative prevalence is, as I say, unknown and difficult to estimate solidly. (And will vary geographically and demographically as you note)
I suspect that it may indeed be very widespread, while still involving less than half of all classrooms in the country. So I think there is truth in both your well stated estimates, and in (my interpretation of) Rufo, and those two are not incompatible.
Rufo is of course more of a polemicist than neutral analyst, and I take that into account. I don't think he's implicitly trustworthy in his assessments, but I also have not yet seen evidence that the deserves the degree of scorn that Steve appears to feel towards him (in my understanding). More evidence might shift that, of course; Steve may be aware of more solid evidence that I am.
Anyway, it's a pleasure to engage with an active and thoughtful mind, so thank you Miguelito.
I think we met at the same place even if we came from somewhat different starting points. I agree with most of your articulate reply. And I like the quality of our back and forth--what a good dialectic ought to be.
Yes, schools of education have been repositories of fuzzy ideologies and even more fuzzy minds for decades. In the 80s, my first wife got her certificate at Cal State LA and a Masters in Education at UCLA. She was educated in India and then at Pomona College where we met and she was appalled at the claptrap and the dim people who espoused it nearly 40 years ago. Of course, in her decades of teaching in South Central LA she ignored all this junk. My guess is that many others also did. Like the ersatz “racial sensitivity training” of yore. Only dupes took it seriously.
Or maybe it's still only the dupes, but their number has multiplied.
I suspect that the kind of individual strength and clarity needed to stand up to a widespread moral ideology may not be widely cultivated in young folks before they go to colleges of education (or anything else). That is, to "ignore all this junk" and carry on.
While I'm alarmed at the effects of (mostly well meaning) CSJ ideology on our society, I'm more alarmed at what I'm hearing from teachers about the current K12 students who are not learning, not behaving, and causing chaos. There are many intertwined roots of this sea change, of course (and CSJ might be one of them). But I fear our society will crash before the saner fraction could have any chance to right the ship. When we have a generation coming up that is often not able to understand the outlines of the world they live in (eg: don't even know what state they live in, or whether Africa is a state, nation or continent), doesn't have the attention span for a 3 minute movie, cannot take even reasonable direction, and constantly expects immediate gratification - how can we build a more functional democracy on that base? The themes of resentment of "the system" and guilt for any success (underpinnings of CSJ) can still spread easily in an ignorant population with no attention span or self-regulation - but critical thinking to inhibit their passionate emotion drive excesses will not flourish.
I'm coming to question my own assumptions and beliefs about humans and society. A structure like a building can be much more complex and functional than it's components, like bricks. But the quality of the bricks also limits what kind of structures can be built and sustained. How many solid bricks does one need to sustain a tall building comprised of many dysfunctional ones - especially if the dysfunctional ones are constantly picking at the successful ones who keep the society functioning?
And atop that negative news, I recently read Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom", a collection of essays mostly from the 1990's by a British doctor working with the underclass in London. Whew, it's a pretty strong argument that the abstract theories of the progressive elites filter down to the underclass in ways that create more misery than liberation. And this was long before the current excesses of CSJ ("wokism").
My spouse and I have had a lively ongoing discussion and exploration of ideas for nearly half a century, each reading and watching many things which we bring to our search for truth. We had some idealistic concepts of how a society should be structured to create a more optimum balance of freedom and social harmony. (One root was the concept of a "partnership society" which first seeks a win/win, versus a "dominator society" which defaults to win/lose even when that's not necessary).
Alas, at some point we had to admit that we were thinking of a society in which people like ourselves would flourish - in cooperation with other people who would be acting from a similar level of reflection and understanding and self-regulation even when they had different ideas. What we had to face is that we are highly atypical. And our vision of a kinder gentler society (creating and fostering kinder and gentler citizens in a productive feedback loop) was not going to work for most of humanity, present or past.
The substance of your post deserves a far longer response than I should give here. My brand of liberalism has always been tempered by a respect for human agency. That implies a deep respect for individual potential and a deep suspicion of group identity. The State's role should be creating the conditions where individuals may thrive, creating accountability for the negative externalities of unbridled capitalism, and attempting to level the playing field by removing impediments to succeed for those who take the initiative to better themselves. While libertarianism is the default for me, life experience has taught me that there is still a robust role for state intervention, but it must be justified—e.g., I spent much of my legal career as a lawyer for environmental nonprofits.
In many ways, my brand of “classical liberalism” is what might now be called “conservative” in contrast to MAGA radicalism. Our society and polity will never be better than the sum of individual effort, so that the role of the state is to create conditions where such individual and group effort is incentivized and rewarded at all levels. The State should also foster "radical tolerance," where Christian cis-het people can live side by side with atheist trans pansexuals because they mutually agree on a regime which enables each to thrive within their respective private spheres.
To your point, a corollary of this view is that when a critical mass of individuals within a polity is unwilling or unable to make productive effort, or to tolerate difference, the whole edifice will eventually fail. Unwilling due to a culture that glorifies victimhood independent of effort. Unable because declining expectations and misallocated resources deny individuals the tools they need to make their effort worthwhile.
You are a fan of Theodore Dalrymple? I am a HUGE fan. I just love his writing, even if I agree with only most of his views.
The other thing aside from his deep literary and auto didactic education is his deep experience, much of which I identify with. He traveled and lived for years working and slumming in the poorest places in the world before his years as a prison psychiatrist in Manchester I believe. I did much the same, living for years in India and Mexico, as well as shorter times in Brazil and more recently in China—2002 to 2004. He has a deep understanding of humanity that is truly rare.
I will respond to the bulk of your excellent message in the next hours after giving it some thought, but I’m glad we share the liking for Anthony Daniels— Dalrymple’s real name. You might be amused to know that Dalrymple's father was a Communist. Figures.
"Voters don't care about Christopher Rufo, they care about sexually explicit content and racial segregation in classrooms. They care about their children's well-being at school. They care about the idiots campaigning to abolish the police in their neighbourhoods."
Just wanted to repeat this in case someone missed it the first time around.
These fringe issues may not be "mainstream left-wing policy" but unfortunately they are core policies of the very influential ultra-left-wing which is now much larger than you think, and these core policies have, judging from my friend group, been normalized to a certain extent throughout much of the mainstream left.
"but unfortunately they are core policies of the very influential ultra-left-wing which is now much larger than you think"
I'm not sure how large it is, but there's no doubt that it's enormously influential. That's not lost on me at all. As Ive said many times, the problem is that most sane people on the political left are too afraid to speak up against it. Which is why it's so easy for Rufo to present those fringe issues as mainstream. After all, if hardly anybody on the left dares to speak up about dildos and racial segregation in schools, why would anybody on the right believe they don't support it? I don't know a single person who, when they're not afraid of who might be listening, really thinks the insane stuff is okay.
Nobody is perfect, but some people are closer than others on the perfection scale (but even Jesus fucked up sometimes - he could have a bit of an anger management problem sometimes). I don't find Rufo to be the conservative demon others think he is, and Claudine Gay is no angel. As you point out, sometimes he gets it right, at other times....not so much. Even people who are faaaaar away from the end point on the Perfection Spectrum are right *sometimes*. One of my favourite quotes comes from a white supremacist (can't remember his name) who said if you want to know who rules you, look to whom you may not criticize. I'm sure he's an awful person in many ways, and wrong about soooooo, so many things but...he was right about this. And they who *we* may not criticize now is transactivists or transgenderism. But that's changing.
I don't agree with everything Jordan Peterson says, but I think he makes some good points about personal responsibility his young male fan base need to hear, even if I'm not fond of his Judaeo-Christian bent.
I can't stand Jessica Valenti, the uber-victimized babygirl feminist on Medium who so annoyed me with her fragile, women-are-above-reproach criticism, that I muted here there...didn't *block* her, because no one's wrong about *everything*. And once, she did write a good, strong, feminist article. I don't remember what it was about, it was so long ago. She's here on Substack writing only about abortion from what I see so I probably would hate her less. But I'll bet she's still a whiny little babygirl. Still, every once in awhile she gets it right....
"Even people who are faaaaar away from the end point on the Perfection Spectrum are right *sometimes*."
I really wish this idea wasn't so out of fashion pretty much all across the political spectrum. Like everybody else, I have my thoughts on who does better or worse on the perfection spectrum. But I still listen to people on the far end if I have any reason to believe what they say is true. And if they're right, I'll happily give credit where it's due. You have to reach Alex Jones levels before I'll just dismiss you out of hand.
One thing I've come around to with Trump on: Immigration. Yeah, Biden, Obama and other Democrats just don't grasp the concept of sane immigration. Even *I'm* wanting a wall now, and I don't even live next door to Mexico! I'm not going to vote for Trump of course (I'm going to vote indy if I can find someone who's not too much of a fuckwit on women's rights) but yeah...he's right about immigration *now*. I'm not at all sure he was when he was PRez. Now, something's gotta stem the Bidentide....I'm hoping it'll be someone other than Trump.
The "Don't Say Gay" thing is what finally made me give up on mainstream media as anything close to reliable journalism. Those three words appear in every headline in every article about that law. Occasionally, somewhere in the body of the article, there would be verbiage like "critics call it the 'Don't Say Gay' bill" but those critics were never named, and the reason for their criticism never explained.
It's one thing to mention a law's nickname in an article, but placing it in the headline is not journalism.
The devil himself can speak truth when it serves his purpose. #𝟏 Is it true? #𝟐 Are knee-jerk assumptions and accusations that the speaker's motivation is the ism of your perceived oppressor helpful or proof of falsehood? #𝟑 Does the purpose or motivation of the speaker make something that is true false?
After saying all that, do the results of something true or false being spoken matter? What is CRT really? My understanding of critical theory in general is a thorough examination of something, often specifically the conventional views of a subject. Honest history is a good goal since history is often biased to the point of falsehood by omission. We should know the truth. If the result is increased hostility, is it helpful in leading to a better society for all? That leads to the question, can honest discussion take place in the 21at century or is that now impossible?
I recently read an article where the idea that many on the right prefer a Trump victory to another Republican victory because if would cause more anguish, wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left. I think it is true. By the same token, many on the left vindictively wish to tear down all things precious to the right to inflict the same emotional anguish. Heavy sigh!
"Does the purpose or motivation of the speaker make something that is true false?"
This has become an impossible needle for a depressing number of people to thread. Some people simply can't appraise information on its merits anymore. Maybe because they're too lazy to do the legwork required to appraise *any* information. So they just check if the speaker is on "their side" or not and go from there.
"My understanding of critical theory in general is a thorough examination of something, often specifically the conventional views of a subject."
I think you're thinking of critical *thinking* here. Critical theory is kind of an umbrella term for a range of academic work analysing how different identities and societal constructs create or maintain power dynamics (I swear, I did my best to make that description sound as unpretentious as possible and I'm still slightly upset with my fingers for having typed it).
My first encounter with critical theory was the writings of Bart D. Ehrman. The key word critical in academic studies can be applied to a broader range than you mention. What you wrote is not so different from where I'm coming from. A sample:
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥-𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church.
The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can the Bible help make me closer to God? How does it help me to live?
The historical-critical approach has a different set of concerns and therefore poses a different set of questions. At the heart of this approach is the historical question (hence its name) of what the biblical writings meant in their original historical context. Who were the actual authors of the Bible? Is it possible (yes!) that some of the authors of some of the biblical books were not in fact who they claimed, or were claimed, to be—say, that 1 Timothy was not actually written by Paul, or that Genesis was not written by Moses? When did these authors live? What were the circumstances under which they wrote? What issues were they trying to address in their own day? How were they affected by the cultural and historical assumptions of their time? What sources did these authors use? When were these sources produced? Is it possible that the perspectives of these sources differed from one another? Is it possible that the authors who used these sources had different perspectives, both from their sources and from one another? Is it possible that the books of the Bible, based on a variety of sources, have internal contradictions? That there are irreconcilable differences among them?
Ehrman, Bart D.. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) (pp. 4-5). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[Clarification addition: Is critical theory pertaining to America's history "historical-critical" vs the history being challenged as devotional history?]
I respect Rufo. One thing that might help understanding him is that he was a Seattleite before he moved to Gig Harbor in 2020-ish. I was in a Seattle City Council District 6 race with him in 2019 before he withdrew because of threats to his family by the nihilist leftists here. The reason I say knowing that he was a Seattleite helps understand him better is because Seattle is rife with nihilist lefties. Until this last election in Nov 2023, the City Council had a socialist-communist-nihilist voting block. By nothing short of a miracle, we now have a moderate voting block on the council. Whew! Rufo actually picked up the baton that Conceptual James flailed with. James makes everything so damn hard to understand because he never boils it down to everyman speak. Instead it's always faculty lounge speak. I couldn't even finish his book. Other folks railing against CRT often made the same mistake. Rufo saw that and knew James (et al) weren't going to win anyone's mind and created different strategies. Strategies that work. Do I think Chris gets everything right? No. Do I think Chris is a positive force against the BS going down in our education system? Yes. I'm proud of his work even if he is to the right of me. Go Chris!
"Rufo didn't create the problem, he amplified how to counter it"
No, Rufo created the controversy about *critical race theory*.
Almost nobody who spent their time railing against CRT actually knew what it was. I bet only a handful of its critics could define it in anything even approaching precise terms today. As Rufo openly admits, he took an obscure legal theory from the 70s, and used its name as a collective term for all of the race-based insanity happening in schools.
But he (and others) then went on to conflate *all* race based education with the insane stuff by lumping it under the same "brand." This is what was dishonest and manipulative.
Of course, you're right, Rufo didn't *create* the crazy race-based stuff happening in schools. That's why he was able to so effectively generate headlines and outrage. I shared a lot of that outrage. And wouldn't have heard about some of it if not for him. As I say above, he was absolutely right about how insane some of the things happening in schools were. And the political Left made the mistake of denying this and attacking him instead of acknowledging the insanity and fixing it. This is a mistake the Left makes over and over again at the moment.
And yes, racial justice has been left-wing policy for a long time. The civil rights movement was driven almost entirely by the left and opposed almost entirely by the right (yes, I know that the segregationists called themselves Democrats at one point, but the political left/right split was the same). But the stuff we're seeing today is so far removed from those original aims, in many cases so directly opposed to those aims, that I don't think it's at all fair to say that it represents mainstream left-wing policy.
Both the political Left and the political Right have an extremist problem at the moment. But the real problem is that the sane people, on the left and the right, are too busy attacking each other to deal with the problem.
"Apologies for not agreeing with you this time but not for my knowledge of working the ground game against CRT before it was on the national stage. Because you didn't hear of it before Rufo took it national doesn't mean it wasn't already a problem on a national level."
😁 No worries, we don't have to agree every time. I love that you guys keep me honest. But what you're saying here just doesn't square with the facts.
First, you can literally see online interest in CRT (which was almost non-existent for decades) spike around June 2021 (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F06d76c). Rufo wrote his tweet in March 2021. The needle first started to move in late 2020, you guess it, around the time George Floyd was killed.
Second, I didn't claim *Rufo* said CRT was an obscure legal theory from the 70s, CRT *is* an obscure legal theory from the 70s. It was conceived as a tool for analysing how the legal system perpetuates racial inequality. There are a few schools of thought that have come from some of the scholars involved in that original work, Crenshaw's "whiteness studies" springs to mind, but they're not the same thing.
And third, and most relevant, Rufo's tweet spells out in so many words his plans to "put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category." That he has "decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans." If his own words about what he did don't convince you, I guess mine aren't likely to either.
To be absolutely clear, I’m not saying critical race theory is correct. All critical theories suffer from similar fundamental flaws. Sowell, who though wonderful isn’t infallible (while I'm not a conservative seeking a conservative audience, I have a pretty good knowledge of Sowell's work), may well have taken issue with some of Bell’s work. I've read some, but not enough to have a strong opinion. But it has nothing to do with the reintroduction of segregation in schools. It's not the 1619 project. It's not teachers asking kids to “confess their whiteness” in classrooms. It has nothing to do with BLM's disinformation about police brutality. And it's only tangentially related to DEI, which really has its roots in affirmative action.
Again, Rufo was extremely effective in convincing people that CRT was all of these things too. It appears he's convinced you. And as time went by, the term was applied to more and more things, even by people on the left, that were nothing to do with CRT.
But again, here we are arguing about what CRT is, instead of focusing on the "various cultural insanities" that Rufo "froze under its brand." Rufo did this so that it would be more difficult to talk about specifics, and instead, people would just react to all kinds of different issues as if they were the same. This is extremely beneficial for somebody trying to fight a culture war, but not for meaningful discourse.
No. People had been talking about white people or "the white race" long before CRT. In fact, the concept of "being white" stems all the way back to the 1800s. But "whiteness studies", the idea of "whiteness" as a form of identity, only appeared in the early 1980s. None of Bell's work included the term. It is, as I said, quite distinct from CRT.
The 1619 project focuses almost exclusively on slavery. So that kind of language isn't surprising. But again, the idea that slavery is foundational to America is far older than CRT or Nikole Hannah-Jones. Heck, read Alexander Stephens' 1861 Cornerstone speech.
And yes, there's a strong argument to be made that desegregation *did* fail. That's not to say that he wanted segregation to continue, but that he wanted desegregation to actual lead to an integrated America. If you were a black scholar in the 70s, you could very reasonably argue that this had failed. And that the powers that be were working very hard to ensure that black people didn't succeed. There's simply no way to pin the reintroduction of segregation in schools on his work.
So no, as this conversation is demonstrating, Rufo didn't make it easier to talk about the specifics. Because it made people think that a whole bunch of unrelated things were all "CRT." Again, he literally spells out that he's doing this. Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root.
"Dr. Bell did not share MLK's dream and neither do his ideological children."
Well, you're right about that. But let's be very clear, I'll bet he was a lot closer to MLK's vision than Rufo or, to be fair, most conservatives today. Yes, MLK believed in race blindness at the individual level. But he also believed in affirmative action and reparation for slavery. He also believed in Universal Basic Income for the poor (regardless of skin colour).
So let's be very clear about his too, if King were alive today, plenty of the people who just looove repeating his "content of their character" quote would treat him with just as much disdain as they treat Kendi. If not more.
Whiteness studies is not a "child" of CRT (Wikipedia is wonderful for many things, but not for use was an authoritative source on academic literature). It is a separate field of academia, devised by one of the people who contributed to the original body of work known as CRT.
CRT uses a racial lens because it was designed to look at how the legal system produced and sustained racial inequality. It was focused specifically on this narrow field. Again, I'm not arguing that CRT got all of its conclusions correct. But broadening that philosophy to encompass everything (I don't deny that some people have done this) isn't what the original work of CRT was about.
Finally, whether white flight and the closing of certain black schools led to a more tolerant society depends very much on where you live and what colour your skin is, no? It's easy to look at desegregation with 8- years of hindsight and say what was best. But at the time, it's easy to understand why some black people saw it as a failure. Again, depending on where you live, you could argue that it's been a failure today.
Marla, I think you've made an excellent summary, thank you.
One key problem with discussing what's been happening in our culture is legitimate as well as bad faith confusion of labels vs concepts. Rather than discuss the concepts, some folks prefer to attack the labels in what I perceive to be a diversion tactic.
After several attempts ("political correctness", "successor ideology", "intersectionalism", "identitarianism", "wokism", "neo-progressivism"), I believe the best term for the ideology in question today is "Critical Social Justice Ideology", which I will abbreviate CSJI. It's descriptive, non-pejorative, and becoming recognized by both sides. The battle over labels, however, is illustrative.
The manifestation CSJI in the area of race is an example. People who have bothered to read Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Delgado and Stefancic, the 1619 project, etc tend to perceive, correctly in my view, a general sociopolitical framing shared by these sources. But what can one call that common thread, without listing a 14 syllable compound collection every time?
Many parents and critics wound up using "CRT" as a label of convenience for that whole political ideology of race, which they perceived as emerging in schools, workplaces and society.
Then other people attacked that, pointing out correctly that while Robin DiAngelo's work, Kendi's work, the 1619 project's framing, and such might have been partly inspired by CRT, technically they are not CRT per se - GOTCHA!!!
In my view, that latter was both technically correct, but more importantly a bad faith attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. There is little real and honest confusion about the socio-political framing being referenced, but one side can pretend that there's nothing to discuss because the other side is using "CRT" too loosely.
It's like responding to a citizen objecting to having a smelly sewer plant put in their neighborhood by saying "well, technically it's a primary pre-colloidal treatment plant, so your complaint is ignorant and we don't need to listen to it" (even though the plant will be smelly just as you say). It's using technical terminology to prevent honest engagement, not to facilitate it.
Of course, Critical Race Theory is an expansion upon the earlier Critical Legal Studies, developed beyond a legal theory of interest to some lawyers, into a political theory about the general role of race in society whose concepts (albeit unlabeled as such) should be taught in elementary schools - but the same side that want to be persnickety about the technical definition of CRT sometimes still pretends that CRT today is still merely a legal theory.
In that (often deliberately) confused semantic space, there is a functional need for a common label for communication about the thematically connected set of political perspectives about race. Rufo chose to use "CRT" for that label, broadening its colloquial usage beyond academic precisions to include relevant contemporary themes derived from DiAngelo, Kendi, Hanna-Jones - as well as CRT per se.
If anybody has a better umbrella term than "CRT" to offer for those interwoven political threads, please do so. Until then, picking on the colloquial label for a real phenomenon for its academic imprecision serves largely to avoid engagement with the phenomenon itself.
If any readers think that having an umbrella terms makes it too difficult to discuss components of the asserted collection, please explain. I think we all know what's meant however, and can easily discuss Kendi per se within that umbrella when relevant.
If a parent at the podium says "I object to the way the school is teaching CRT as factual truth in classrooms", I think it's disingenuous to respond "You don't even understand the nuances of academic Critical Race Theory per se, so your critique can be dismissed as ignorance", rather than making a good faith attempt to address WHAT IS OBJECTIVELY BEING TAUGHT, regardless of the precision of the label.
If one wishes, more as a minor sidenote than as a core response, to note that "when teacher X taught Y to the kids as fact, they were actually presenting their interpretation of Kendi, which technically is not CRT per se", that's OK (if pedantic) - but using that tactic to avoid having the discussion about what the teacher was teaching is not OK.
In this context, I think that making a big deal of Rufo's openly stated desire to generalize the term "CRT" in the (colloquial) public mind to include related but technically distinguishable political racial perspectives, winds up being (accidentally or intentionally) yet another "look over there" distraction to unimportant things, distracting for the real issues at play.
Steve> "Rufo did this so that it would be more difficult to talk about specifics"
Marla> "Rufo made it EASIER to talk about specifics"
Steve, could you give a few examples of where you found it more difficult to talk about specifics?
I personally would have absolutely zero problem discussing, say, Ibram X Kendi's prescriptions of present and future discrimination to remedy past discrimination, because Rufo wanted to expand the colloquial term "CRT" to include related concepts like those of Kendi. Nor would I find it difficult to discuss differences between how DiAngelo, Kendi, and the general public conceive "racism".
The closest I can relate is that if I wanted to discuss Bell's concepts, I might need to identify them with Bell, or perhaps to say "CRT per se" in some sentences (to distinguish the academic from colloquial usages). But that's a small cost for me, hardly a major difficulty. Your experience may differ as a writer, and perhaps you have often had such difficulty.
Let's look at another area. Does the existence of an umbrella term like "feminism" make it more difficult for you to discuss specific elements thereof?
"Steve, could you give a few examples of where you found it more difficult to talk about specifics?"
I already did so in the conversation with Marla:
"Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root."
What ended up happening, and what still happens in some cases, is that a whole variety of topics, some good, some not, some necessary, some not, were all tarnished with this single label. All diversity initiatives and sensitivity trainings, all discussions of racism that went beyond KKK style racism, all discussions of slavery and its impact today, all of them were "turned toxic" to use Rufo's phrase, because most people aren't interested in picking apart the nuances of these topics.
As I've said many times, the Kendis and DiAngelos of the world have at least as much responsibility to bear for the racial exhaustion they created. But that doesn't mean Rufo wasn't transparently dishonest and that he didn't also create a worse discursive climate.
In human intellectual organization there is perpetual tension between the lumpers and the splitters. There is a positive role for each, if we avoid excesses which become illogical.
> "Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root."
OK, we have:
(1) whiteness studies
(2) racial affinity groups
(3) DEI
(4) desegregation
(5) racism
I would agree with you that it makes no logical sense to lump all of those as essentially the same thing.
However, in all my reading and watching, you are the first person I've ever seen lump those disparate things - seemingly only for the purpose of discrediting such a grab bag collection. Or to be more specific, I've never seen them all lumped under the label "CRT" - by Rufo or anybody else.
If you can reference any substantial body of thought (or an influential individual like Christopher Rufo) which considers "whiteness studies" to be pretty much the same thing as "desegregation", much less calls them both CRT, I will stand corrected. Otherwise it comes across as an argument which has not yet been fully thought out and needs some rethinking.
The concept of proper lumping is to collect things which share substantial commonalities together, and stop there - like squirrels of various species. The assertion behind having a grouping (or a common umbrella term) is in fact to illuminate the shared characteristics, not to pretend there are not also differences.
Somebody artificially throwing a snail species in with the squirrels in order to discredit the concept of squirrels is not illuminating what they think it is.
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But I honestly don't see how even that makes it more difficult to discuss; the observation that squirrels have some commonalities in no way prevents one from discussing characteristics of individual species or differences between them.
Likewise, I could easily write a critique of "whiteness studies" which is specific to that subset, distinct from my critique or approval of desegregation. What's the problem? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just honestly don't see the difficulty yet.
(For the record, I think that eliminating separate drinking fountains was a good thing, but vastly different in effect and dynamics than attributing "logical thinking" to whiteness; and I have zero difficulty distinguishing them)
Now, would I say that "whiteness studies" and "racial affinity groups" in the workplace are connected? Yes, I see a substantial interweaving on multiple levels (eg: philosophical connections as well as being promoted largely by the same DEI trainers). Given the degree of ideological and practical commonality between those sociopolitical themes, I think they can reasonably be discussed under a meaningful larger umbrella when discussing those commonalities; and discussed individually when focusing on distinctions.
I don't find doing that "difficult" in the least, but I'm willing to try to understand better if anybody wishes to elaborate on the perceived problem.
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In any further discussion, let's distinguish between a particular proposed grouping (or label) which we wish to assert is flawed, versus abandoning conceptual groupings (or labels) in general. So we could discuss whether there really are meaningful commonalities between whiteness studies and workplace racial affinity groups or not.
Or one might sometimes lump whiteness studies and racial affinity groups together (under the loose label of "CRT" or otherwise), but argue that Kendi's prescription of present and future discrimination as the cure for past discrimination is distinct and should not be grouped with the first two, because the latter has very different and distinct philosophical roots, operational dynamics, effects on society, or promoting advocates. (I would likely argue the opposite, but I'm happy to hear arguments for not grouping them). But I would argue that desegregation IS substantially different, and does not belong under a common label (including CRT).
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Another facet. Perhaps you can name a specific real world program which you think is producing good results, but which you have found to be difficult to discuss, because Rufo has asserted that it's the same as, or meaningfully derives from the same roots as, other programs which you find damaging to society. Say, a helpful pre-school literacy program which has been mistakenly lumped as "CRT" (and thus falsely accused of toxicity), when in practice it has no meaningful connection to the negative things also lumped as "CRT". I'm honestly casting about for real world examples of the deleterious effect you are attributing to Rufo, the difficulty in discussing topics.
"Perhaps you can name a specific real world program which you think is producing good results, but which you have found to be difficult to discuss, because Rufo has asserted that it's the same as, or meaningfully derives from the same roots as, other programs which you find damaging to society."
I think a consistent conceptual divide between us is that you seem to think things like this are the only standard by which a claim can be judged.
As you know, I've had countless conversations about race and racism. I've spent countless more hours reading articles and listening to conversations and various podcasts and videos. I've seen people describe all of these things and more as CRT countless times. I've seen school board meetings where enraged parents called all teaching about America's racial history CRT. And these misconceptions lead to policy in schools and laws like the "anti-CRT" bills, that don't actually mention CRT, but nonetheless became a culture war symbol for people both for and against tackling racial issues.
But how do I convey all of that to you? Especially in a comment?
It would take hours to put together enough "evidence" of all this to satisfy someone who was unaware of it. And even if I pointed to a specific real-world example, you would likely, quite reasonably, say, "well this is just one example."
It's like asking me to provide evidence to convince someone that racism exists with a Google search. I could point to various racial disparities, but how could I prove that they were caused by racism? I could highlight a few hate crimes, but how could I prove intent or pervasiveness? And how could I capture the millions of subtler issues that a Google search won't reveal?
I'm not advocating for a hearsay or "lived experience" approach to social issues, I hope I've made that clear enough in my various writings, but if you only accept straight-line "this incontrovertibly leads to that" connections, you'll miss countless meaningful societal effects. At least until it's far too late to do anything about them. The only solution to this, I think, is to be more directly hands-on.
This kind of goes back to our conversation on rationality. Rationality is important. We agree completely about that. But it's never going to give you a complete picture. Human beings and society in general are far messier than that.
Later: Second option, Steve: find an example where people are calling desegregation "CRT" as you assert.
That would indeed be uninformed and ironic, since CRT (colloquial usage or academic usage) is closer to the move towards resegregation.
Let me be clear that conceptually, it's quite possible for people to expand "CRT" to include not just fairly closely related framings like DiAngelo or Kendi or Hannah-Jones present, but also very different concepts [like desegregation] whose inclusion in that category would be meaningfully wrong and misleading, and if we find that to be happening I will join you in decrying such illogic. I'm just questioning whether that's happening often enough to have any importance; and examples could help shift my appraisal.
The kind of example I have in mind could include things like this: California, along with other states, has eliminated the funding disparity beween school districts based on differing local tax revenues (which depend on the local appraisals times the precentage tax rates which taxpayers are willing to shoulder for the value of education). The state adds more funds to see that all districts have the same base rate, and then adds 20% more to the budgets of underperforming districts. That's pretty much traditional liberalism at play, and should NOT be lumped in under any concept of CRT (colloquial or academic). Nor have I ever seen it so conflated, but if somebody could find such an unreasonable expansion of "CRT", I'll be glad to join in correcting it.
(Aside: Sadly, this policy of seeing that the poorest districts actually receive the highest per student funding, which I support and had much hope for, has not budged the needle much in terms of academic outcomes, so far. It appears that funding differences were not as large a causative factor for the disparities as imagined and hoped.).
Steve, I understand and sympathize with the difficulty of organizing a solid presentation. I will work with you to ease that burden, and to the degree that it makes sense, share it.
How about a simpler starting point:
> "I've seen school board meetings where enraged parents called all teaching about America's racial history CRT"
Great, could you provide a link to one such of the multiple such recording which you have watched? Multiple would be better, but let's start with one.
I've watched some videos too (obviously not all of the hundreds or thousands online), and I've never actually seen parents object to all teaching of America's racial history, or call all of it CRT. What I HAVE encountered is progressives impute that to them. But I'm sure that we have watched different videos (ie: you've seen some I haven't), and I'm very willing to learn, so I'd like to see an example which fits your quoted words above.
If it's common enough to have a meaningful effect on the national discourse (rather than a rare anomaly with little societal effect), such examples should be easy to find. I'm not asking you to do my work for me - I HAVE already watched a number of videos, I just didn't find any matching your characterization yet, but I can't prove a negative. If you have found such videos, then please share.
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Let me give you an example of the distortion which I do find, nearly every time I explore some CSJ issue in detail. The progressive press was all atwitter with characterizations of Florida as forcing teachers to justify slavery, since it was actually good for the slaves because they learned skills. So I read through the entire Florida curriculum guidance on the subject for K12 (ie: the specific source cited by the activists). It was actually pretty comprehensive (in line with their guideline for other subjects). It was FAR from suppressing teaching about slavery or Jim Crow, more the opposite. Critics mined it for ONE sentence, a minor clarification note rather than direct guidance. The critics were, in my best intellectual honestly, grossly distorting the Black History curriculum, with extreme out-of-context cherry picking, omitting the much stronger counterpoint to their characterization. I'll be glad to go through the Fla Black history curriculum guidance with you (it's a few pages out of a document covering many subjects), to see if you believe it's lumping all "racial history" as CRT or prohibiting the teaching of it. After we deal with this.
I mention this, which is distinct from parents at school board meetings, just as an easily evidenced example of the kind of misrepresentation I have also found dismayingly common in progressive characterizations of such objections at school board meetings.
I see very related misrepresentations and strawman arguments presented about things like the teaching of Black history in other places than Florida of course. If I read the progressive press accounts, and then watch the hearing for myself, I often find the former to be a seriously biased "interpretation" rather than a fair account. For example, a parent will say something about wanting history taught accurately and neutrally rather than from an ideological viewpoint - and the commenter will interpret that as the parent really wanting the school to omit slavery from the curriculum. The parent didn't actually say that - but the activist just conveniently knows that's what's really in their hearts.
(By the way, I think that legislatively trying to prevent CRT from being taught is likely a bad idea - this discussion is not about that, tho, but about the assertion quoted above regarding parents at school board meetings)
But - the presence of misrepresentation in some (or even many) cases doesn't mean that there are no other cases where parents really are calling *all* teaching of Black history (or racial history) in schools "CRT" - rather than calling out only the subset of such teaching which they feel is biased by CRT. So I'm willing to explore that.
So the first step is finding one good example. A second step would be trying to cooperatively assess the prevalence. If it takes a lot of work to find such a single example, the cases which fit your characterization quoted above may be rare; if it's easy to find multiple examples, they may be common.
I'm open to anybody else also finding examples of parents at school boards who consider all forms of teaching Black/racial history to be "CRT" (distinct from saying asserting that the way it's being taught at a particular school is framed by CRT like ideologies).
My prediction is that people who search for examples of that may find that the videos they do discover are not nearly so cut and dried as they remembered them, and some biased interpretation is required to make them fit the characterization - like imputing unknowable motive to the parents, projecting what the parents *really* want (in one's imagining). If that's the best people can find, let's examine those videos together. But I'm hoping for a more solid example(s) where it would be clear to a neutral observer that the parents consider all teaching of Black/racial history to be "CRT".
Also - if anybody does start searching, and discovers that they cannot actually find any good examples, I would expect silence, but I can hope that they would report back on their lack of success.
A talented propagandist takes a kernel of truth and cultures it into a mountain of lies. By denying the kernel of truth, his opponents effectively do his job for him by destroying their own credibility and thereby implicitly validating his mountain of lies.
Christopher Rufo is a champion propagandist and much of the Progressive Left his useful idiots. It’s just excruciating to watch him operate. Like a slow motion car wreck.
What is the antidote to the Rufo phenomenon? As you say, it is to cop to the kernel of truth and fight the exaggerations. If you look into the sources Rufo cites, they only rarely support his broad claims. People must scrutinize Rufo like the right wing did Gay. They will find much worse.
I think much can be attributed to the utter unsophistication and dogmatism of the Left. They have forgotten how to argue the facts. And they are so damn loud.
Thank you for being a voice of reason and fact. Maybe you are the first of many!
"By denying the kernel of truth, his opponents effectively do his job for him by destroying their own credibility and thereby implicitly validating his mountain of lies."
This whole comment is a fantastic breakdown of the situation. But I think the above is best of all.
Funnily enough, it reminds me of Gay's apology after her congressional hearing. She admitted that she'd gotten drawn into a combative stance where she refused to give ground instead of giving the obvious answer that of course calling for the genocide of Jews was absolutely unacceptable.
I feel like a lot of people on the Left are in the same bind. Instead of just giving the obvious answer that of course kids shouldn't be segregated by race, of course children shouldn't be having their breasts cut off or being given cross-sex hormones, of course societies need police, they argue these brain-dead points because they don't want to feel as if they're giving ground to the "enemy."
The Left continues to “argue these brain-dead points” NOT because “they don’t want to feel as if they are giving ground to the ‘enemy’”. It is not “the enemy” they are worried about, but rather their own kind.
They are terrified of being outed as not “pure” enough, or as being “disloyal.” Dogmatists are harshest on apostates. That is why change from within the Left is virtually impossible. They are banished to the cold with no clothes.
Thanks for your comment Steve. I always enjoy conversing with you.
OK. So if there is such a mountain of lies coming from Rufo, can you name one ?
Yes. The extent to which the “successor ideology” has percolated into the mainstream of everyday public school instruction around the country. Rufo will claim “it’s everywhere” in an essay and when you look up the cite it’s an isolated power point presentation at some irrelevant administrators conference. It’s laughable. I will go back and find specific examples for you.
In Canada where I live, I would say it has percolated into the mainstream of everyday public school instruction. It is even on the provincial ministry of education website (over 2 million students) with topics such as SEL. It is a "lens" through which topics are taught and that is how it is everywhere. Not all teachers subscribe to "successor ideology" and others to a lesser degree, but I personally know many teachers who do fully subscribe to it. I do not think it is a lie that he suggests it is everywhere in K-12 schools, at least not where I live.
That is very sad news and I have no reason to doubt it. I do believe that most teachers are still pretty sane and generally in control of their classrooms. But there are certainly a minority of teachers and administrators who spread this toxic nonsense.
Miguelito, I would like to ask 3 questions to explore this: more specifically what you believe about current prevalence, what direction you think the numbers are moving, and what evidence inspires your belief.
First let's explore the belief about today's prevalence; I hear you believe:
(1) more than 50% of teachers ("most") do not allow "the successor ideology" into their classroom (ie: are sane & in control), and
(2) less than 50% of teachers ("a minority") and administrators actively spread the successor ideology.
Would that be a fair approximate quantization of your beliefs, or would you like to tweak the (estimated, approximate) numbers, like 70% keep it out of the classroom while only 15% actively push it into the classroom? (The remainder perhaps not actively pushing it themselves, but not in control to keep it out either)
I fully recognize that you can't provide exact numbers, I just want to get a rough sense of how large or small your feel the proportions to be, since for example "a minority" could be 1% (very rare) or 49% (common but still a minority today), but you probably have in mind something between those.
Secondly: do you think the numbers are increasing or decreasing, as new teachers and administrators replace older ones in the system?
Thirdly: what evidence inspires your belief? Not asking you to "prove it", just what suggestive indications you have seen to form your beliefs on this.
Excellent questions. Here are the bases for my guesstimates, because that is the best we can do.
1. This new anti-racist, gender ideology, etc. actually hit the mainstream quite recently. If you go back 10 years, very few people talked like that. The gender stuff took off in earnest after SCOTUS legalized gay marriage and hit overdrive more recently. Anti racism gradually moved from the fringe and splattered onto the mainstream only in 2020 after the Floyd murder. So, all this is very recent, and it is top down, ie coming from elites into the culture. This takes time. So, what you see at the school board and administration level may or may not be reflected in everyday classrooms. I think the majority of everyday teachers are "normies" for the simple reason that they are probably only just a little left of center on average as the population at large.
Obviously, there are going to be regional, and especially class, variations. The percolation will be most complete in affluent, blue areas and especially private schools in places like NYC and my hometown of LA, many of which are thoroughly hopeless.
This process will happen much, much slower, ironically, in the 'hood. My daughter taught HS in West Newark and then in a really tough area in Irvington, NJ from about 2017 to 2022. This stuff was COMPLETELY absent there. Now she teaches in an affluent DC high school, and it is EVERYWHERE. Even though she is a Lefty, she hates it and the micro-managing that comes with it. She has been convicted of a "name-based microaggression." She is heading back to the 'Hood next year.
2. I made a habit of checking Rufo's sources. They did not reflect the pervasiveness he claims. A lot of times he would point to a power point at some conference and then the articvle he wrote made it seem like every teacher was a Red Guard or something. I;m not saying it's not around and influential, I just saying that he did not satisfy my burden of proof that it's "everywhere." Maybe soon, but not yet.
So, on these bases I think that a substantial minority of teachers in Canada and the US have drunk the Kool-Aid, but I believe a majority (over 50%) haven't. Hopefully the backlash we are seeing now will prevent its further spread.
That is the best I can do to answer your excellent question.
Thanks for a very balanced answer.
It's VERY hard to get a grasp on this. Not only is there no national survey, but if there were a lot of the infected schools would hide it, I believe. To get a firm answer, investigators would pretty near need to physically observe a representative national sample - which would be not even remotely possible. So the kind of thoughtful guesswork you present is nearly all we have.
I think we may need to be a bit more generous in interpreting "everywhere" tho. I think you are interpreting it as "in close to 100% of classrooms", which would not be true now (and might never be true).
I would take "everywhere" more like "it's widespread, with examples in every state, most large cities", many smaller cities, and even some rural areas". Like - most of the population lives within a short drive of an example, if not their own school district. Sort of like how ants are everywhere - not in every house, but in a substantial portion of houses in all parts of the country. Or the way that Covid infections were everywhere - but did not infect every person. And that lesser claim about CSJ ideology might be more true than false. It's quite compatible with your guestimate that less than 50% of classrooms have been captured - if the ones that have are widely distributed.
I appreciate your efforts to check Rufo's linked sources, and that gives me some pause if he's playing too fast and loose. But I also think that in part, you might be expecting him to prove "nearly 100% of classrooms" when all he's asserting is "extremely widely distributed". Remember that as described above - there will be no source which can factually assess the percentage of classrooms, so no commenter will have solid evidence of that - at most they can show that examples are widely distributed geographically (albeit not with a single link).
We just had an interaction with a professor of speech and debate at the local Jr College, who was very "woke". He got his PhD from Louisiana State, in a deep red state. (Just a suggestive datapoint, not proof of anything)
I was somewhat blindsided by the sudden widespread appearance of CSJ ideology, bursting into view relatively recently. But since then, I've been seeing information which makes me believe that there are deep and pervasive roots which have been widespread in higher education for quite a while. And from what I've heard, one of the first departments at many universities to adopt this ideology (besides the xxx studies ones) were the Schools of Education where K12 teachers are trained. After which, they migrate literally to every nook and cranny of the nation; if the local cultures isn't yet into it, they know to avoid attracting attention.
I can see how that might be a fertile breeding ground - with a lot of idealistic young teachers wanting to help improve society as well as educate kids. And it's heavily dominated by females (statistically more likely to adopt CSJ), and liberals (need I say more about the prime recruiting ground of the successor ideology?). And the following may be controversial - but I have been dismayed by the intellectually quality of a surprising number of teachers. It goes way back too; long ago I was a math major in college (before getting seduced away from theorems by those alluring computers), but I switched briefly to "Math Education" and the classes I took were atrocious; my fellow math ed students (& profs) were NOT actually *on average* very competent in mathematics; I got out quickly. (It was obvious that I would be evaluated on things other than merit, so I was not inspired to seek a career there in order to improve the average, but I respect the few who do). My point here is not to put down on teachers (despite my anecdotal experience), but to say that a combination of idealism and (possibly) limited reasoning power might provide fertile soil indeed for CSJ Ideology in the decades since.
By now, I'm seeing the recent upsurge in public profile more like the fruiting bodies of mushrooms (eg: mushroom caps), sprouting only after the forest is deeply saturated with underground filaments. The groundwork has been laid for decades, mostly out of sight of the public. I hear students who went to college in the 2000's saying it was already being widely taught in many classes on campus back then. And I've heard younger folks talk about how this was becoming evidence in a number of high schools long before George Floyd etc.
All that mostly stayed mostly in classrooms back then - but the hiring committees were in many cases already infested, and selectively hiring like minded folks over many decades (ie: who agreed in their analysis of society and concept of social justice as a primary value). University faculty is dramatically left of the population today.
So I am holding the hypothesis that it was for decades growing exponentially while staying on the down low.
One of the major factors in regard to the recent controversy over CSJ in K12 education was that during the lockdown and school closures/telelearning, many parents for the first time HEARD for themselves what had been taught for years in the local schools without coming to their attention.
Having been on the left for a lifetime, I was astounded by how quickly trans ideology became dominant in society- it did not take a decade or three of campaigning, as most of our issues had. Very suddenly anything labeled "transphobic" (using a wide and loose definition) became a cancellation target, and the Overton window shifted dramatically in a short time. I think that in large part that was because the field was already ripe with CSJ ideology, beneath the public surface - so to some degree it was more about reaching a critical point where it could flex and assert control, after spreading less publicly for literally decades (in growing strength).
I think that Rufo, if not interpreted as saying that nearly every teacher in the country is enrolled in CSJ ideology but only that it's widely distributed among a large minority around the country, has not been disproven any more than he can prove his case (given the limitations discussed above). It can be easy to discover anecdotal evidence either way (places that have been converted and places that have not), but the relative prevalence is, as I say, unknown and difficult to estimate solidly. (And will vary geographically and demographically as you note)
I suspect that it may indeed be very widespread, while still involving less than half of all classrooms in the country. So I think there is truth in both your well stated estimates, and in (my interpretation of) Rufo, and those two are not incompatible.
Rufo is of course more of a polemicist than neutral analyst, and I take that into account. I don't think he's implicitly trustworthy in his assessments, but I also have not yet seen evidence that the deserves the degree of scorn that Steve appears to feel towards him (in my understanding). More evidence might shift that, of course; Steve may be aware of more solid evidence that I am.
Anyway, it's a pleasure to engage with an active and thoughtful mind, so thank you Miguelito.
I think we met at the same place even if we came from somewhat different starting points. I agree with most of your articulate reply. And I like the quality of our back and forth--what a good dialectic ought to be.
Yes, schools of education have been repositories of fuzzy ideologies and even more fuzzy minds for decades. In the 80s, my first wife got her certificate at Cal State LA and a Masters in Education at UCLA. She was educated in India and then at Pomona College where we met and she was appalled at the claptrap and the dim people who espoused it nearly 40 years ago. Of course, in her decades of teaching in South Central LA she ignored all this junk. My guess is that many others also did. Like the ersatz “racial sensitivity training” of yore. Only dupes took it seriously.
Until more recently as it spread more widely.
Or maybe it's still only the dupes, but their number has multiplied.
I suspect that the kind of individual strength and clarity needed to stand up to a widespread moral ideology may not be widely cultivated in young folks before they go to colleges of education (or anything else). That is, to "ignore all this junk" and carry on.
While I'm alarmed at the effects of (mostly well meaning) CSJ ideology on our society, I'm more alarmed at what I'm hearing from teachers about the current K12 students who are not learning, not behaving, and causing chaos. There are many intertwined roots of this sea change, of course (and CSJ might be one of them). But I fear our society will crash before the saner fraction could have any chance to right the ship. When we have a generation coming up that is often not able to understand the outlines of the world they live in (eg: don't even know what state they live in, or whether Africa is a state, nation or continent), doesn't have the attention span for a 3 minute movie, cannot take even reasonable direction, and constantly expects immediate gratification - how can we build a more functional democracy on that base? The themes of resentment of "the system" and guilt for any success (underpinnings of CSJ) can still spread easily in an ignorant population with no attention span or self-regulation - but critical thinking to inhibit their passionate emotion drive excesses will not flourish.
I'm coming to question my own assumptions and beliefs about humans and society. A structure like a building can be much more complex and functional than it's components, like bricks. But the quality of the bricks also limits what kind of structures can be built and sustained. How many solid bricks does one need to sustain a tall building comprised of many dysfunctional ones - especially if the dysfunctional ones are constantly picking at the successful ones who keep the society functioning?
And atop that negative news, I recently read Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom", a collection of essays mostly from the 1990's by a British doctor working with the underclass in London. Whew, it's a pretty strong argument that the abstract theories of the progressive elites filter down to the underclass in ways that create more misery than liberation. And this was long before the current excesses of CSJ ("wokism").
My spouse and I have had a lively ongoing discussion and exploration of ideas for nearly half a century, each reading and watching many things which we bring to our search for truth. We had some idealistic concepts of how a society should be structured to create a more optimum balance of freedom and social harmony. (One root was the concept of a "partnership society" which first seeks a win/win, versus a "dominator society" which defaults to win/lose even when that's not necessary).
Alas, at some point we had to admit that we were thinking of a society in which people like ourselves would flourish - in cooperation with other people who would be acting from a similar level of reflection and understanding and self-regulation even when they had different ideas. What we had to face is that we are highly atypical. And our vision of a kinder gentler society (creating and fostering kinder and gentler citizens in a productive feedback loop) was not going to work for most of humanity, present or past.
The substance of your post deserves a far longer response than I should give here. My brand of liberalism has always been tempered by a respect for human agency. That implies a deep respect for individual potential and a deep suspicion of group identity. The State's role should be creating the conditions where individuals may thrive, creating accountability for the negative externalities of unbridled capitalism, and attempting to level the playing field by removing impediments to succeed for those who take the initiative to better themselves. While libertarianism is the default for me, life experience has taught me that there is still a robust role for state intervention, but it must be justified—e.g., I spent much of my legal career as a lawyer for environmental nonprofits.
In many ways, my brand of “classical liberalism” is what might now be called “conservative” in contrast to MAGA radicalism. Our society and polity will never be better than the sum of individual effort, so that the role of the state is to create conditions where such individual and group effort is incentivized and rewarded at all levels. The State should also foster "radical tolerance," where Christian cis-het people can live side by side with atheist trans pansexuals because they mutually agree on a regime which enables each to thrive within their respective private spheres.
To your point, a corollary of this view is that when a critical mass of individuals within a polity is unwilling or unable to make productive effort, or to tolerate difference, the whole edifice will eventually fail. Unwilling due to a culture that glorifies victimhood independent of effort. Unable because declining expectations and misallocated resources deny individuals the tools they need to make their effort worthwhile.
You are a fan of Theodore Dalrymple? I am a HUGE fan. I just love his writing, even if I agree with only most of his views.
The other thing aside from his deep literary and auto didactic education is his deep experience, much of which I identify with. He traveled and lived for years working and slumming in the poorest places in the world before his years as a prison psychiatrist in Manchester I believe. I did much the same, living for years in India and Mexico, as well as shorter times in Brazil and more recently in China—2002 to 2004. He has a deep understanding of humanity that is truly rare.
I will respond to the bulk of your excellent message in the next hours after giving it some thought, but I’m glad we share the liking for Anthony Daniels— Dalrymple’s real name. You might be amused to know that Dalrymple's father was a Communist. Figures.
"Voters don't care about Christopher Rufo, they care about sexually explicit content and racial segregation in classrooms. They care about their children's well-being at school. They care about the idiots campaigning to abolish the police in their neighbourhoods."
Just wanted to repeat this in case someone missed it the first time around.
True enough, but Rufo has been pretty effective at creating a moral panic on outlets such as Fox News.
These fringe issues may not be "mainstream left-wing policy" but unfortunately they are core policies of the very influential ultra-left-wing which is now much larger than you think, and these core policies have, judging from my friend group, been normalized to a certain extent throughout much of the mainstream left.
"but unfortunately they are core policies of the very influential ultra-left-wing which is now much larger than you think"
I'm not sure how large it is, but there's no doubt that it's enormously influential. That's not lost on me at all. As Ive said many times, the problem is that most sane people on the political left are too afraid to speak up against it. Which is why it's so easy for Rufo to present those fringe issues as mainstream. After all, if hardly anybody on the left dares to speak up about dildos and racial segregation in schools, why would anybody on the right believe they don't support it? I don't know a single person who, when they're not afraid of who might be listening, really thinks the insane stuff is okay.
But by letting the radicals be the standard bearer of the party they set it as the definition of the party.
Nobody is perfect, but some people are closer than others on the perfection scale (but even Jesus fucked up sometimes - he could have a bit of an anger management problem sometimes). I don't find Rufo to be the conservative demon others think he is, and Claudine Gay is no angel. As you point out, sometimes he gets it right, at other times....not so much. Even people who are faaaaar away from the end point on the Perfection Spectrum are right *sometimes*. One of my favourite quotes comes from a white supremacist (can't remember his name) who said if you want to know who rules you, look to whom you may not criticize. I'm sure he's an awful person in many ways, and wrong about soooooo, so many things but...he was right about this. And they who *we* may not criticize now is transactivists or transgenderism. But that's changing.
I don't agree with everything Jordan Peterson says, but I think he makes some good points about personal responsibility his young male fan base need to hear, even if I'm not fond of his Judaeo-Christian bent.
I can't stand Jessica Valenti, the uber-victimized babygirl feminist on Medium who so annoyed me with her fragile, women-are-above-reproach criticism, that I muted here there...didn't *block* her, because no one's wrong about *everything*. And once, she did write a good, strong, feminist article. I don't remember what it was about, it was so long ago. She's here on Substack writing only about abortion from what I see so I probably would hate her less. But I'll bet she's still a whiny little babygirl. Still, every once in awhile she gets it right....
"Even people who are faaaaar away from the end point on the Perfection Spectrum are right *sometimes*."
I really wish this idea wasn't so out of fashion pretty much all across the political spectrum. Like everybody else, I have my thoughts on who does better or worse on the perfection spectrum. But I still listen to people on the far end if I have any reason to believe what they say is true. And if they're right, I'll happily give credit where it's due. You have to reach Alex Jones levels before I'll just dismiss you out of hand.
One thing I've come around to with Trump on: Immigration. Yeah, Biden, Obama and other Democrats just don't grasp the concept of sane immigration. Even *I'm* wanting a wall now, and I don't even live next door to Mexico! I'm not going to vote for Trump of course (I'm going to vote indy if I can find someone who's not too much of a fuckwit on women's rights) but yeah...he's right about immigration *now*. I'm not at all sure he was when he was PRez. Now, something's gotta stem the Bidentide....I'm hoping it'll be someone other than Trump.
I’m just here to say I really like your writing Steve, thank you for sharing it.
absolutely
The "Don't Say Gay" thing is what finally made me give up on mainstream media as anything close to reliable journalism. Those three words appear in every headline in every article about that law. Occasionally, somewhere in the body of the article, there would be verbiage like "critics call it the 'Don't Say Gay' bill" but those critics were never named, and the reason for their criticism never explained.
It's one thing to mention a law's nickname in an article, but placing it in the headline is not journalism.
"𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘰. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐’𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦, 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘥, 𝘐 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘙𝘶𝘧𝘰, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭."
The devil himself can speak truth when it serves his purpose. #𝟏 Is it true? #𝟐 Are knee-jerk assumptions and accusations that the speaker's motivation is the ism of your perceived oppressor helpful or proof of falsehood? #𝟑 Does the purpose or motivation of the speaker make something that is true false?
After saying all that, do the results of something true or false being spoken matter? What is CRT really? My understanding of critical theory in general is a thorough examination of something, often specifically the conventional views of a subject. Honest history is a good goal since history is often biased to the point of falsehood by omission. We should know the truth. If the result is increased hostility, is it helpful in leading to a better society for all? That leads to the question, can honest discussion take place in the 21at century or is that now impossible?
I recently read an article where the idea that many on the right prefer a Trump victory to another Republican victory because if would cause more anguish, wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left. I think it is true. By the same token, many on the left vindictively wish to tear down all things precious to the right to inflict the same emotional anguish. Heavy sigh!
"Does the purpose or motivation of the speaker make something that is true false?"
This has become an impossible needle for a depressing number of people to thread. Some people simply can't appraise information on its merits anymore. Maybe because they're too lazy to do the legwork required to appraise *any* information. So they just check if the speaker is on "their side" or not and go from there.
"My understanding of critical theory in general is a thorough examination of something, often specifically the conventional views of a subject."
I think you're thinking of critical *thinking* here. Critical theory is kind of an umbrella term for a range of academic work analysing how different identities and societal constructs create or maintain power dynamics (I swear, I did my best to make that description sound as unpretentious as possible and I'm still slightly upset with my fingers for having typed it).
My first encounter with critical theory was the writings of Bart D. Ehrman. The key word critical in academic studies can be applied to a broader range than you mention. What you wrote is not so different from where I'm coming from. A sample:
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥-𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church.
The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can the Bible help make me closer to God? How does it help me to live?
The historical-critical approach has a different set of concerns and therefore poses a different set of questions. At the heart of this approach is the historical question (hence its name) of what the biblical writings meant in their original historical context. Who were the actual authors of the Bible? Is it possible (yes!) that some of the authors of some of the biblical books were not in fact who they claimed, or were claimed, to be—say, that 1 Timothy was not actually written by Paul, or that Genesis was not written by Moses? When did these authors live? What were the circumstances under which they wrote? What issues were they trying to address in their own day? How were they affected by the cultural and historical assumptions of their time? What sources did these authors use? When were these sources produced? Is it possible that the perspectives of these sources differed from one another? Is it possible that the authors who used these sources had different perspectives, both from their sources and from one another? Is it possible that the books of the Bible, based on a variety of sources, have internal contradictions? That there are irreconcilable differences among them?
Ehrman, Bart D.. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) (pp. 4-5). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[Clarification addition: Is critical theory pertaining to America's history "historical-critical" vs the history being challenged as devotional history?]
I respect Rufo. One thing that might help understanding him is that he was a Seattleite before he moved to Gig Harbor in 2020-ish. I was in a Seattle City Council District 6 race with him in 2019 before he withdrew because of threats to his family by the nihilist leftists here. The reason I say knowing that he was a Seattleite helps understand him better is because Seattle is rife with nihilist lefties. Until this last election in Nov 2023, the City Council had a socialist-communist-nihilist voting block. By nothing short of a miracle, we now have a moderate voting block on the council. Whew! Rufo actually picked up the baton that Conceptual James flailed with. James makes everything so damn hard to understand because he never boils it down to everyman speak. Instead it's always faculty lounge speak. I couldn't even finish his book. Other folks railing against CRT often made the same mistake. Rufo saw that and knew James (et al) weren't going to win anyone's mind and created different strategies. Strategies that work. Do I think Chris gets everything right? No. Do I think Chris is a positive force against the BS going down in our education system? Yes. I'm proud of his work even if he is to the right of me. Go Chris!
"Rufo didn't create the problem, he amplified how to counter it"
No, Rufo created the controversy about *critical race theory*.
Almost nobody who spent their time railing against CRT actually knew what it was. I bet only a handful of its critics could define it in anything even approaching precise terms today. As Rufo openly admits, he took an obscure legal theory from the 70s, and used its name as a collective term for all of the race-based insanity happening in schools.
But he (and others) then went on to conflate *all* race based education with the insane stuff by lumping it under the same "brand." This is what was dishonest and manipulative.
Of course, you're right, Rufo didn't *create* the crazy race-based stuff happening in schools. That's why he was able to so effectively generate headlines and outrage. I shared a lot of that outrage. And wouldn't have heard about some of it if not for him. As I say above, he was absolutely right about how insane some of the things happening in schools were. And the political Left made the mistake of denying this and attacking him instead of acknowledging the insanity and fixing it. This is a mistake the Left makes over and over again at the moment.
And yes, racial justice has been left-wing policy for a long time. The civil rights movement was driven almost entirely by the left and opposed almost entirely by the right (yes, I know that the segregationists called themselves Democrats at one point, but the political left/right split was the same). But the stuff we're seeing today is so far removed from those original aims, in many cases so directly opposed to those aims, that I don't think it's at all fair to say that it represents mainstream left-wing policy.
Both the political Left and the political Right have an extremist problem at the moment. But the real problem is that the sane people, on the left and the right, are too busy attacking each other to deal with the problem.
"Apologies for not agreeing with you this time but not for my knowledge of working the ground game against CRT before it was on the national stage. Because you didn't hear of it before Rufo took it national doesn't mean it wasn't already a problem on a national level."
😁 No worries, we don't have to agree every time. I love that you guys keep me honest. But what you're saying here just doesn't square with the facts.
First, you can literally see online interest in CRT (which was almost non-existent for decades) spike around June 2021 (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F06d76c). Rufo wrote his tweet in March 2021. The needle first started to move in late 2020, you guess it, around the time George Floyd was killed.
Second, I didn't claim *Rufo* said CRT was an obscure legal theory from the 70s, CRT *is* an obscure legal theory from the 70s. It was conceived as a tool for analysing how the legal system perpetuates racial inequality. There are a few schools of thought that have come from some of the scholars involved in that original work, Crenshaw's "whiteness studies" springs to mind, but they're not the same thing.
And third, and most relevant, Rufo's tweet spells out in so many words his plans to "put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category." That he has "decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans." If his own words about what he did don't convince you, I guess mine aren't likely to either.
To be absolutely clear, I’m not saying critical race theory is correct. All critical theories suffer from similar fundamental flaws. Sowell, who though wonderful isn’t infallible (while I'm not a conservative seeking a conservative audience, I have a pretty good knowledge of Sowell's work), may well have taken issue with some of Bell’s work. I've read some, but not enough to have a strong opinion. But it has nothing to do with the reintroduction of segregation in schools. It's not the 1619 project. It's not teachers asking kids to “confess their whiteness” in classrooms. It has nothing to do with BLM's disinformation about police brutality. And it's only tangentially related to DEI, which really has its roots in affirmative action.
Again, Rufo was extremely effective in convincing people that CRT was all of these things too. It appears he's convinced you. And as time went by, the term was applied to more and more things, even by people on the left, that were nothing to do with CRT.
But again, here we are arguing about what CRT is, instead of focusing on the "various cultural insanities" that Rufo "froze under its brand." Rufo did this so that it would be more difficult to talk about specifics, and instead, people would just react to all kinds of different issues as if they were the same. This is extremely beneficial for somebody trying to fight a culture war, but not for meaningful discourse.
"Where does the term 'whiteness' come from? CRT."
No. People had been talking about white people or "the white race" long before CRT. In fact, the concept of "being white" stems all the way back to the 1800s. But "whiteness studies", the idea of "whiteness" as a form of identity, only appeared in the early 1980s. None of Bell's work included the term. It is, as I said, quite distinct from CRT.
The 1619 project focuses almost exclusively on slavery. So that kind of language isn't surprising. But again, the idea that slavery is foundational to America is far older than CRT or Nikole Hannah-Jones. Heck, read Alexander Stephens' 1861 Cornerstone speech.
And yes, there's a strong argument to be made that desegregation *did* fail. That's not to say that he wanted segregation to continue, but that he wanted desegregation to actual lead to an integrated America. If you were a black scholar in the 70s, you could very reasonably argue that this had failed. And that the powers that be were working very hard to ensure that black people didn't succeed. There's simply no way to pin the reintroduction of segregation in schools on his work.
So no, as this conversation is demonstrating, Rufo didn't make it easier to talk about the specifics. Because it made people think that a whole bunch of unrelated things were all "CRT." Again, he literally spells out that he's doing this. Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root.
"Dr. Bell did not share MLK's dream and neither do his ideological children."
Well, you're right about that. But let's be very clear, I'll bet he was a lot closer to MLK's vision than Rufo or, to be fair, most conservatives today. Yes, MLK believed in race blindness at the individual level. But he also believed in affirmative action and reparation for slavery. He also believed in Universal Basic Income for the poor (regardless of skin colour).
So let's be very clear about his too, if King were alive today, plenty of the people who just looove repeating his "content of their character" quote would treat him with just as much disdain as they treat Kendi. If not more.
Whiteness studies is not a "child" of CRT (Wikipedia is wonderful for many things, but not for use was an authoritative source on academic literature). It is a separate field of academia, devised by one of the people who contributed to the original body of work known as CRT.
CRT uses a racial lens because it was designed to look at how the legal system produced and sustained racial inequality. It was focused specifically on this narrow field. Again, I'm not arguing that CRT got all of its conclusions correct. But broadening that philosophy to encompass everything (I don't deny that some people have done this) isn't what the original work of CRT was about.
Finally, whether white flight and the closing of certain black schools led to a more tolerant society depends very much on where you live and what colour your skin is, no? It's easy to look at desegregation with 8- years of hindsight and say what was best. But at the time, it's easy to understand why some black people saw it as a failure. Again, depending on where you live, you could argue that it's been a failure today.
Marla, I think you've made an excellent summary, thank you.
One key problem with discussing what's been happening in our culture is legitimate as well as bad faith confusion of labels vs concepts. Rather than discuss the concepts, some folks prefer to attack the labels in what I perceive to be a diversion tactic.
After several attempts ("political correctness", "successor ideology", "intersectionalism", "identitarianism", "wokism", "neo-progressivism"), I believe the best term for the ideology in question today is "Critical Social Justice Ideology", which I will abbreviate CSJI. It's descriptive, non-pejorative, and becoming recognized by both sides. The battle over labels, however, is illustrative.
The manifestation CSJI in the area of race is an example. People who have bothered to read Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Delgado and Stefancic, the 1619 project, etc tend to perceive, correctly in my view, a general sociopolitical framing shared by these sources. But what can one call that common thread, without listing a 14 syllable compound collection every time?
Many parents and critics wound up using "CRT" as a label of convenience for that whole political ideology of race, which they perceived as emerging in schools, workplaces and society.
Then other people attacked that, pointing out correctly that while Robin DiAngelo's work, Kendi's work, the 1619 project's framing, and such might have been partly inspired by CRT, technically they are not CRT per se - GOTCHA!!!
In my view, that latter was both technically correct, but more importantly a bad faith attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. There is little real and honest confusion about the socio-political framing being referenced, but one side can pretend that there's nothing to discuss because the other side is using "CRT" too loosely.
It's like responding to a citizen objecting to having a smelly sewer plant put in their neighborhood by saying "well, technically it's a primary pre-colloidal treatment plant, so your complaint is ignorant and we don't need to listen to it" (even though the plant will be smelly just as you say). It's using technical terminology to prevent honest engagement, not to facilitate it.
Of course, Critical Race Theory is an expansion upon the earlier Critical Legal Studies, developed beyond a legal theory of interest to some lawyers, into a political theory about the general role of race in society whose concepts (albeit unlabeled as such) should be taught in elementary schools - but the same side that want to be persnickety about the technical definition of CRT sometimes still pretends that CRT today is still merely a legal theory.
In that (often deliberately) confused semantic space, there is a functional need for a common label for communication about the thematically connected set of political perspectives about race. Rufo chose to use "CRT" for that label, broadening its colloquial usage beyond academic precisions to include relevant contemporary themes derived from DiAngelo, Kendi, Hanna-Jones - as well as CRT per se.
If anybody has a better umbrella term than "CRT" to offer for those interwoven political threads, please do so. Until then, picking on the colloquial label for a real phenomenon for its academic imprecision serves largely to avoid engagement with the phenomenon itself.
If any readers think that having an umbrella terms makes it too difficult to discuss components of the asserted collection, please explain. I think we all know what's meant however, and can easily discuss Kendi per se within that umbrella when relevant.
If a parent at the podium says "I object to the way the school is teaching CRT as factual truth in classrooms", I think it's disingenuous to respond "You don't even understand the nuances of academic Critical Race Theory per se, so your critique can be dismissed as ignorance", rather than making a good faith attempt to address WHAT IS OBJECTIVELY BEING TAUGHT, regardless of the precision of the label.
If one wishes, more as a minor sidenote than as a core response, to note that "when teacher X taught Y to the kids as fact, they were actually presenting their interpretation of Kendi, which technically is not CRT per se", that's OK (if pedantic) - but using that tactic to avoid having the discussion about what the teacher was teaching is not OK.
In this context, I think that making a big deal of Rufo's openly stated desire to generalize the term "CRT" in the (colloquial) public mind to include related but technically distinguishable political racial perspectives, winds up being (accidentally or intentionally) yet another "look over there" distraction to unimportant things, distracting for the real issues at play.
Steve> "Rufo did this so that it would be more difficult to talk about specifics"
Marla> "Rufo made it EASIER to talk about specifics"
Steve, could you give a few examples of where you found it more difficult to talk about specifics?
I personally would have absolutely zero problem discussing, say, Ibram X Kendi's prescriptions of present and future discrimination to remedy past discrimination, because Rufo wanted to expand the colloquial term "CRT" to include related concepts like those of Kendi. Nor would I find it difficult to discuss differences between how DiAngelo, Kendi, and the general public conceive "racism".
The closest I can relate is that if I wanted to discuss Bell's concepts, I might need to identify them with Bell, or perhaps to say "CRT per se" in some sentences (to distinguish the academic from colloquial usages). But that's a small cost for me, hardly a major difficulty. Your experience may differ as a writer, and perhaps you have often had such difficulty.
Let's look at another area. Does the existence of an umbrella term like "feminism" make it more difficult for you to discuss specific elements thereof?
"Steve, could you give a few examples of where you found it more difficult to talk about specifics?"
I already did so in the conversation with Marla:
"Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root."
What ended up happening, and what still happens in some cases, is that a whole variety of topics, some good, some not, some necessary, some not, were all tarnished with this single label. All diversity initiatives and sensitivity trainings, all discussions of racism that went beyond KKK style racism, all discussions of slavery and its impact today, all of them were "turned toxic" to use Rufo's phrase, because most people aren't interested in picking apart the nuances of these topics.
As I've said many times, the Kendis and DiAngelos of the world have at least as much responsibility to bear for the racial exhaustion they created. But that doesn't mean Rufo wasn't transparently dishonest and that he didn't also create a worse discursive climate.
In human intellectual organization there is perpetual tension between the lumpers and the splitters. There is a positive role for each, if we avoid excesses which become illogical.
> "Specifics like whiteness studies and racial affinity groups and and DEI and desegregation and especially racism, are much harder to talk about if they're all believed to be the same thing or even coming from the same root."
OK, we have:
(1) whiteness studies
(2) racial affinity groups
(3) DEI
(4) desegregation
(5) racism
I would agree with you that it makes no logical sense to lump all of those as essentially the same thing.
However, in all my reading and watching, you are the first person I've ever seen lump those disparate things - seemingly only for the purpose of discrediting such a grab bag collection. Or to be more specific, I've never seen them all lumped under the label "CRT" - by Rufo or anybody else.
If you can reference any substantial body of thought (or an influential individual like Christopher Rufo) which considers "whiteness studies" to be pretty much the same thing as "desegregation", much less calls them both CRT, I will stand corrected. Otherwise it comes across as an argument which has not yet been fully thought out and needs some rethinking.
The concept of proper lumping is to collect things which share substantial commonalities together, and stop there - like squirrels of various species. The assertion behind having a grouping (or a common umbrella term) is in fact to illuminate the shared characteristics, not to pretend there are not also differences.
Somebody artificially throwing a snail species in with the squirrels in order to discredit the concept of squirrels is not illuminating what they think it is.
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But I honestly don't see how even that makes it more difficult to discuss; the observation that squirrels have some commonalities in no way prevents one from discussing characteristics of individual species or differences between them.
Likewise, I could easily write a critique of "whiteness studies" which is specific to that subset, distinct from my critique or approval of desegregation. What's the problem? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just honestly don't see the difficulty yet.
(For the record, I think that eliminating separate drinking fountains was a good thing, but vastly different in effect and dynamics than attributing "logical thinking" to whiteness; and I have zero difficulty distinguishing them)
Now, would I say that "whiteness studies" and "racial affinity groups" in the workplace are connected? Yes, I see a substantial interweaving on multiple levels (eg: philosophical connections as well as being promoted largely by the same DEI trainers). Given the degree of ideological and practical commonality between those sociopolitical themes, I think they can reasonably be discussed under a meaningful larger umbrella when discussing those commonalities; and discussed individually when focusing on distinctions.
I don't find doing that "difficult" in the least, but I'm willing to try to understand better if anybody wishes to elaborate on the perceived problem.
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In any further discussion, let's distinguish between a particular proposed grouping (or label) which we wish to assert is flawed, versus abandoning conceptual groupings (or labels) in general. So we could discuss whether there really are meaningful commonalities between whiteness studies and workplace racial affinity groups or not.
Or one might sometimes lump whiteness studies and racial affinity groups together (under the loose label of "CRT" or otherwise), but argue that Kendi's prescription of present and future discrimination as the cure for past discrimination is distinct and should not be grouped with the first two, because the latter has very different and distinct philosophical roots, operational dynamics, effects on society, or promoting advocates. (I would likely argue the opposite, but I'm happy to hear arguments for not grouping them). But I would argue that desegregation IS substantially different, and does not belong under a common label (including CRT).
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Another facet. Perhaps you can name a specific real world program which you think is producing good results, but which you have found to be difficult to discuss, because Rufo has asserted that it's the same as, or meaningfully derives from the same roots as, other programs which you find damaging to society. Say, a helpful pre-school literacy program which has been mistakenly lumped as "CRT" (and thus falsely accused of toxicity), when in practice it has no meaningful connection to the negative things also lumped as "CRT". I'm honestly casting about for real world examples of the deleterious effect you are attributing to Rufo, the difficulty in discussing topics.
"Perhaps you can name a specific real world program which you think is producing good results, but which you have found to be difficult to discuss, because Rufo has asserted that it's the same as, or meaningfully derives from the same roots as, other programs which you find damaging to society."
I think a consistent conceptual divide between us is that you seem to think things like this are the only standard by which a claim can be judged.
As you know, I've had countless conversations about race and racism. I've spent countless more hours reading articles and listening to conversations and various podcasts and videos. I've seen people describe all of these things and more as CRT countless times. I've seen school board meetings where enraged parents called all teaching about America's racial history CRT. And these misconceptions lead to policy in schools and laws like the "anti-CRT" bills, that don't actually mention CRT, but nonetheless became a culture war symbol for people both for and against tackling racial issues.
But how do I convey all of that to you? Especially in a comment?
It would take hours to put together enough "evidence" of all this to satisfy someone who was unaware of it. And even if I pointed to a specific real-world example, you would likely, quite reasonably, say, "well this is just one example."
It's like asking me to provide evidence to convince someone that racism exists with a Google search. I could point to various racial disparities, but how could I prove that they were caused by racism? I could highlight a few hate crimes, but how could I prove intent or pervasiveness? And how could I capture the millions of subtler issues that a Google search won't reveal?
I'm not advocating for a hearsay or "lived experience" approach to social issues, I hope I've made that clear enough in my various writings, but if you only accept straight-line "this incontrovertibly leads to that" connections, you'll miss countless meaningful societal effects. At least until it's far too late to do anything about them. The only solution to this, I think, is to be more directly hands-on.
This kind of goes back to our conversation on rationality. Rationality is important. We agree completely about that. But it's never going to give you a complete picture. Human beings and society in general are far messier than that.
Later: Second option, Steve: find an example where people are calling desegregation "CRT" as you assert.
That would indeed be uninformed and ironic, since CRT (colloquial usage or academic usage) is closer to the move towards resegregation.
Let me be clear that conceptually, it's quite possible for people to expand "CRT" to include not just fairly closely related framings like DiAngelo or Kendi or Hannah-Jones present, but also very different concepts [like desegregation] whose inclusion in that category would be meaningfully wrong and misleading, and if we find that to be happening I will join you in decrying such illogic. I'm just questioning whether that's happening often enough to have any importance; and examples could help shift my appraisal.
The kind of example I have in mind could include things like this: California, along with other states, has eliminated the funding disparity beween school districts based on differing local tax revenues (which depend on the local appraisals times the precentage tax rates which taxpayers are willing to shoulder for the value of education). The state adds more funds to see that all districts have the same base rate, and then adds 20% more to the budgets of underperforming districts. That's pretty much traditional liberalism at play, and should NOT be lumped in under any concept of CRT (colloquial or academic). Nor have I ever seen it so conflated, but if somebody could find such an unreasonable expansion of "CRT", I'll be glad to join in correcting it.
(Aside: Sadly, this policy of seeing that the poorest districts actually receive the highest per student funding, which I support and had much hope for, has not budged the needle much in terms of academic outcomes, so far. It appears that funding differences were not as large a causative factor for the disparities as imagined and hoped.).
Steve, I understand and sympathize with the difficulty of organizing a solid presentation. I will work with you to ease that burden, and to the degree that it makes sense, share it.
How about a simpler starting point:
> "I've seen school board meetings where enraged parents called all teaching about America's racial history CRT"
Great, could you provide a link to one such of the multiple such recording which you have watched? Multiple would be better, but let's start with one.
I've watched some videos too (obviously not all of the hundreds or thousands online), and I've never actually seen parents object to all teaching of America's racial history, or call all of it CRT. What I HAVE encountered is progressives impute that to them. But I'm sure that we have watched different videos (ie: you've seen some I haven't), and I'm very willing to learn, so I'd like to see an example which fits your quoted words above.
If it's common enough to have a meaningful effect on the national discourse (rather than a rare anomaly with little societal effect), such examples should be easy to find. I'm not asking you to do my work for me - I HAVE already watched a number of videos, I just didn't find any matching your characterization yet, but I can't prove a negative. If you have found such videos, then please share.
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Let me give you an example of the distortion which I do find, nearly every time I explore some CSJ issue in detail. The progressive press was all atwitter with characterizations of Florida as forcing teachers to justify slavery, since it was actually good for the slaves because they learned skills. So I read through the entire Florida curriculum guidance on the subject for K12 (ie: the specific source cited by the activists). It was actually pretty comprehensive (in line with their guideline for other subjects). It was FAR from suppressing teaching about slavery or Jim Crow, more the opposite. Critics mined it for ONE sentence, a minor clarification note rather than direct guidance. The critics were, in my best intellectual honestly, grossly distorting the Black History curriculum, with extreme out-of-context cherry picking, omitting the much stronger counterpoint to their characterization. I'll be glad to go through the Fla Black history curriculum guidance with you (it's a few pages out of a document covering many subjects), to see if you believe it's lumping all "racial history" as CRT or prohibiting the teaching of it. After we deal with this.
I mention this, which is distinct from parents at school board meetings, just as an easily evidenced example of the kind of misrepresentation I have also found dismayingly common in progressive characterizations of such objections at school board meetings.
I see very related misrepresentations and strawman arguments presented about things like the teaching of Black history in other places than Florida of course. If I read the progressive press accounts, and then watch the hearing for myself, I often find the former to be a seriously biased "interpretation" rather than a fair account. For example, a parent will say something about wanting history taught accurately and neutrally rather than from an ideological viewpoint - and the commenter will interpret that as the parent really wanting the school to omit slavery from the curriculum. The parent didn't actually say that - but the activist just conveniently knows that's what's really in their hearts.
(By the way, I think that legislatively trying to prevent CRT from being taught is likely a bad idea - this discussion is not about that, tho, but about the assertion quoted above regarding parents at school board meetings)
But - the presence of misrepresentation in some (or even many) cases doesn't mean that there are no other cases where parents really are calling *all* teaching of Black history (or racial history) in schools "CRT" - rather than calling out only the subset of such teaching which they feel is biased by CRT. So I'm willing to explore that.
So the first step is finding one good example. A second step would be trying to cooperatively assess the prevalence. If it takes a lot of work to find such a single example, the cases which fit your characterization quoted above may be rare; if it's easy to find multiple examples, they may be common.
I'm open to anybody else also finding examples of parents at school boards who consider all forms of teaching Black/racial history to be "CRT" (distinct from saying asserting that the way it's being taught at a particular school is framed by CRT like ideologies).
My prediction is that people who search for examples of that may find that the videos they do discover are not nearly so cut and dried as they remembered them, and some biased interpretation is required to make them fit the characterization - like imputing unknowable motive to the parents, projecting what the parents *really* want (in one's imagining). If that's the best people can find, let's examine those videos together. But I'm hoping for a more solid example(s) where it would be clear to a neutral observer that the parents consider all teaching of Black/racial history to be "CRT".
Also - if anybody does start searching, and discovers that they cannot actually find any good examples, I would expect silence, but I can hope that they would report back on their lack of success.