One of the problems I see happening on the left (there are many problems on the right, but that is a different subject) is a kind of rhetorical intoxication coming from reliance on free floating argumentation techniques which are untethered to the substance of an issue under dispute. That's a bit abstract so I'll be more concrete.
One of the problems I see happening on the left (there are many problems on the right, but that is a different subject) is a kind of rhetorical intoxication coming from reliance on free floating argumentation techniques which are untethered to the substance of an issue under dispute. That's a bit abstract so I'll be more concrete.
If a group is widely allowed to "win" arguments not by countering facts and evidence, but by sanctified use of tactics like stereotyping or ad hominem attacks, they cease to be accountable and then there is no corrective feedback left to keep them more or less "on the rails".
This can come from the normalizing of double standards. In many contexts, people from, or nominally speaking for, a designated marginalized group are not held to the same standard as others. They may be allowed to engage without pushback in rampant negative stereotyping (eg: making broad statements about "whites" or "heterosexuals" or "cisgendered people" etc. which would clearly be seen as absurd and unacceptable if another target was substituted), or engage in essentially ad hominem attacks (invalidating an argument based on who made it rather than on its logic or evidence). The nominal original purpose of this asymmetry was to invite new voices to the table, but the license it gives has been weaponized to allow poor logic and lack of evidence to become unchallengeable in much of the culture.
If you can make nearly any statement you want, without defensible reasoning to support it, and be exempted from any rigor, then going off the rails is pretty much to be expected. If anybody points out problems with it, call them a phobe or bigot or supremacist (which will also not be challenged by your supporters) and you won't need to engage in reasoning.
Let me be clear that I think any population would tend to abuse this privilege of exemption from intellectual accountability, and verge off the rails.
I like to say that even a vehement moral justification does not magically convert a dysfunctional and counter-productive policy into a functional and constructive one.
If something is actually increasing racial problems (as many DEI trainings do), a ringing indictment of the evils of racial bias isn't going to make it suddenly decrease problems, it just causes some people to "look over there" or disconnect their critical thinking so the problems with that thing are covered up. Or no matter how morally justified you are in shooting yourself in the foot, you are still causing harm not benefit by doing so.
Yep.
One of the problems I see happening on the left (there are many problems on the right, but that is a different subject) is a kind of rhetorical intoxication coming from reliance on free floating argumentation techniques which are untethered to the substance of an issue under dispute. That's a bit abstract so I'll be more concrete.
If a group is widely allowed to "win" arguments not by countering facts and evidence, but by sanctified use of tactics like stereotyping or ad hominem attacks, they cease to be accountable and then there is no corrective feedback left to keep them more or less "on the rails".
This can come from the normalizing of double standards. In many contexts, people from, or nominally speaking for, a designated marginalized group are not held to the same standard as others. They may be allowed to engage without pushback in rampant negative stereotyping (eg: making broad statements about "whites" or "heterosexuals" or "cisgendered people" etc. which would clearly be seen as absurd and unacceptable if another target was substituted), or engage in essentially ad hominem attacks (invalidating an argument based on who made it rather than on its logic or evidence). The nominal original purpose of this asymmetry was to invite new voices to the table, but the license it gives has been weaponized to allow poor logic and lack of evidence to become unchallengeable in much of the culture.
If you can make nearly any statement you want, without defensible reasoning to support it, and be exempted from any rigor, then going off the rails is pretty much to be expected. If anybody points out problems with it, call them a phobe or bigot or supremacist (which will also not be challenged by your supporters) and you won't need to engage in reasoning.
Let me be clear that I think any population would tend to abuse this privilege of exemption from intellectual accountability, and verge off the rails.
I like to say that even a vehement moral justification does not magically convert a dysfunctional and counter-productive policy into a functional and constructive one.
If something is actually increasing racial problems (as many DEI trainings do), a ringing indictment of the evils of racial bias isn't going to make it suddenly decrease problems, it just causes some people to "look over there" or disconnect their critical thinking so the problems with that thing are covered up. Or no matter how morally justified you are in shooting yourself in the foot, you are still causing harm not benefit by doing so.