In Gratitude for the Executive Order on Critical Race Theory – Merion West
Posted: September 12, 2020 at 3:51 am
The Melting Pot is a quaint notion now perhaps (and no longer widely taught to curious young boys and girls), but I find it useful as a basic counterimage to the sophisticated, academic concept of Critical Race Theory now being taught.
Sometime during my elementary school education in rural Pennsylvania, I was introduced to the then-common concept of the United States as the Melting Pot. In my innocent farm boy imagination, I saw people from all over the world jumping into the type of big, black belly pot hung over a wood fire that was used by cannibals in cartoons and occasionally by Bugs Bunny to cook Elmer Fudd. I saw all of the many different types of people in the worldfarmers, elementary school teachers, and county sheriffsbeing melted together like my toy soldiers and emerging as shiny, new Americans.
The idea made me proud. It made me happy. It made me feel that I lived in a happy place, where everybody in the world wanted to all jump into the pot and become an American. It assured me beyond my understanding that I lived in an important and proud society where everyone voluntarily surrendered their differences in the common pursuit of happiness.
The Melting Pot is a quaint notion now perhaps (and no longer widely taught to curious young boys and girls), but I find it useful as a basic counterimage to the sophisticated, academic concept of Critical Race Theory (CRT) now being taught. Where the Melting Pot proposes a unified and cooperative America, CRT proposes a divided and competitive one.
It is said that bad news can run around the world while good news is still putting its pants on. This certainly seems true for CRT, the child of postmodernism. And this is where the trouble starts. CRTs parent philosophy of postmodernism ran around the world from Paris in the 1960s while the good news of capitalisms superiority over communism was still looking for its pants. While the world had begun joining together for nuclear non-proliferation, postmodernism arrived to divide the world back into warring tribes.
Postmodernism is a philosophy based on nihilismthe belief that human life is meaningless, truth is unknowable, and morality is relative. Postmodernist pioneer Jacques Derrida said that what was real could never be known because we all have different ideas about reality. Perhaps because Friedrich Nietzsche had pronounced God dead, Foucault panicked and claimed then that all bets were off and everyone would have to become their own bermensch (Nietzsches term): a higher overman that provided his or her own values. It was nonsense, of course, but Derrida dined out on this idea for decades. Here he is responding to an interviewers question about his theory of postmodernism that was leading to the deconstruction of traditional Western values. This new word deconstruction meant the same thing as the old, shorter worddestructionbut indicated that the postmodernists need to destroy the common language as well as truth, morality, and values:
Before responding to this question, I want to make a preliminary remark on the completely artificial nature of this situationI want to underline rather than efface our surrounding technical conditions, and not feign a naturality that doesnt exist.
Naturality? This gibberish goes onseemingly for several weeksand gets much worse. I will spare you. Feminist scholar Camille Paglia described this as thrashing the language and concluded that the postmodernists she had known were frauds. Yet, this was the bad news that quickly ran around the world. There was no more realityonly my reality, no more truth only my truth. There were no more Melting Pot Americans unified in the pursuit of happiness, only nihilistic tribes of strangers competing for the American Dream.
Into this jolly mix arrived the squalling newborn of CRT. In the early 1980s, the high holy days of postmodernism at Harvard University when whiteness was identified as the original and irredeemable sin, CRT was immaculately conceived in a conference of law professors and students as a perfect mimic of Orwells newspeak and groupthink and born of a woman: Kimberl Williams Crenshaw, Harvard Law School class of 1984.
Shazam! Crenshaw created categories of oppressed people (by race and sex) and theorized that a white, male supremacist patriarchy existed to maintain this oppression. The academy looked on in awe at this young, black woman who had uncovered the Rosetta Stone of the oppression they all knew existed. Then, Crenshaw imagined an even finer interpretation and coined the impressively thrashed term of intersectionality. This was essentially a cumulative point system of oppression with unlimited categories including gender, class, religion, disability, physical appearance, and its sub-category: height. Yes, people are oppressed if they are too short or tall. Aside from instantly destroyingor, rather, deconstructingalmost all forms of comedy and ridicule that were thrashed into micro-aggressions, it was a stroke of postmodern genius. Everyone was oppressed, even though nothing was real and nothing was true.
Of course, intersectionality as the cornerstone of CRT took off running and quickly outpaced postmodernism in the race of bad news around the world. By the early 2000s, law schools began featuring CRT courses. Today, CRT and intersectionality are essential parts of hundreds of university courses in education, political science, womens studies, ethnic studies, communication, sociology, and American studies.
CRT enthusiasts have expanded their truth(s)(?) to include the thoroughly thrashed conceptual triad of diversity, inclusion, and equityreferred to in the hushed tones of micro-aggressors appropriately as D.I.E. This toxic soup cooked up by academic court jesters has now even invaded the sciences and the federal government of the United States.
Reporter Christopher Rufo of the Discovery Institute and City Journal recently spoke about his investigation into CRT and the federal government. Appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonightat the beginning of the month, Rufo explained:
I broke the story on the Treasury Department which held a seminar earlier this year from a man named Howard Ross, a diversity trainer who has billed the federal government more than $5 million over the past 15 years conducting seminars on Critical Race Theory.
He told Treasury employees essentially that America was a fundamentally a white supremacist country and I quote, Virtually all white people uphold the system of racism and white superiority and [Ross] was essentially denouncing the country and asking white employees at the Treasury Department and affiliated organizations to accept their white privilege, accept their white racial superiority, and accept essentially all of the baggage that comes with this reducible essence of whiteness.
Second, this is not by any means limited to the Treasury Department. Critical Race Theory has actually now infiltrated our criminal justice system. Just this week, I released a story that the FBI is now holding weekly seminars on intersectionality, which is a hard left academic theory that reduces people to a network of racial, gender, and sexual orientation identities that intersect in complex ways and determine whether you are an oppressor or oppressed.
Oppressor or oppressed, that old chestnut of Karl Marxoppressed workers against oppressive capitalists. Crenshaws Rosetta Stone of oppression was really just a postmodern thrashing of Marxs old Communist Manifesto. Of course, everyone present at the time knew this was true, but the truth being what it wasor maybe was notthey were happy to overlook Crenshaws cribbing without public credit being paid to the originator: old Karl Marx.
But it seems to me to go back even further, even before God was found dead. Isnt it all just a retelling of the jealousy of Cain for his brother Abel? Wasnt Cains killing of his favored and therefore oppressive brother simply the attempted overthrow of Gods patriarchy? Havent we all seen this movie before, back when there was truth and before reality was cancelled? Does this mean that Harvard and dozens of other institutions of higher education offering CRT are neither higher nor education?
Recently a presidential executive order was issued through the Office of Management and Budget in response to Rufos public challenge to end the flow of taxpayer dollars to CRT trainers teaching inclusion and diversity to scientists, soldiers, and executives working in the federal government. In summary, the order concludes:
The President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States. The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed. The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government..
Jim Proser is the author of Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization and No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Life of General James Mattis.
More here:
In Gratitude for the Executive Order on Critical Race Theory - Merion West
- Arknights Lore: The Birth of Tragedy and Requiem - GamePress - January 9th, 2021
- Want to improve focus and productivity? Do one thing at a time - The Guardian - January 9th, 2021
- Theatre of the absurd - Economic Times - January 9th, 2021
- Darwinism as the Root Problem of Modernity - Discovery Institute - January 9th, 2021
- Past in Perspective - The Nation - January 9th, 2021
- Shaw, Scientism, and Darwinism - Discovery Institute - January 9th, 2021
- Asking Ourselves What is truth in a Post-COVID World? - The Nanjinger - December 21st, 2020
- In defence of egoism - TheArticle - December 21st, 2020
- The Telos Press Podcast: Robert Miner on the Division of Work and Play in Adorno's Minima Moralia - Telos Press - December 21st, 2020
- Assassin's Creed: after 13 years, 12 games and a ton of sales, what's the secret to the franchise's success? - The Conversation AU - December 21st, 2020
- Covid and the Winter of Our Discontent - AlleyWatch - December 21st, 2020
- The songs of David Bowie album Hunky Dory ranked in order of greatness - Far Out Magazine - December 21st, 2020
- Totally Not Fake News: The Latest Texans Fan - Battle Red Blog - December 3rd, 2020
- The Prom review is Ryan Murphy's musical the first film of the Biden era? - The Guardian - December 3rd, 2020
- Friedrich Nietzsche Birth Anniversary: Top 10 relatable love quotes by the philosopher - Newsd.in - October 16th, 2020
- Gazing into the abyss | Opinion | dchieftain.com - El Defensor Chieftain - October 16th, 2020
- Schadenfreude over Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis was more about cosmic justice than joy in anothers pain - Jacksonville Journal-Courier - October 16th, 2020
- 5-at-10 on fall break, Day 4: Fab 4 picks, Never picking against Saban, Braves are fine - Chattanooga Times Free Press - October 16th, 2020
- On Face Masks, God, Baseball, Kidneys and Cancer InsideSources - InsideSources - October 16th, 2020
- Artica makes its 'Eternal Return' October 10 and 11: 'Annual celebration of creativity, innovation, and exploration' on North Riverfront - St. Louis... - October 16th, 2020
- Behavioral Psychology and its Practical Implications - The Great Courses Daily News - October 16th, 2020
- Liberalism will remain vulnerable unless it can speak to our need for emotional storytelling - New Statesman - October 16th, 2020
- Lockdown read: The Unbearable Lightness of Being - The Mancunion - October 16th, 2020
- The Wild and the Disaffected: A Conversation with Reinaldo Iturriza (Part I) - Venezuelanalysis.com - October 16th, 2020
- Say yes to the world: On Nietzsche and affirmation - Big Think - September 12th, 2020
- Nietzsche and his wizards - The Rocky Mountain Goat - September 12th, 2020
- An augmented reality art exhibition will debut on the University of Chicago campus - Time Out Chicago - September 12th, 2020
- Ressentiment: He Hates, Therefore He Is | Chronicles - A Magazine of American Culture - September 12th, 2020
- Dangerous Intimacies: Racism, Risk, and Recovery - Psychotherapy.net - September 12th, 2020
- Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music by Alex Ross review - The Guardian - September 12th, 2020
- Is 'cultural Marxism' really taking over universities? I crunched some numbers to find out - The Conversation AU - September 12th, 2020
- Lol nothing matters. Or does it? - The Week - September 12th, 2020
- Nietzsche's superman, Islam, and Covid-19 ( Part III) - Daily Times - August 22nd, 2020
- Nietzsche's superman, Islam, and Covid-19 ( Part I) - Daily Times - August 22nd, 2020
- Nietzsche's superman, Islam, and Covid-19 ( Part II) - Daily Times - August 22nd, 2020
- Leprosy of the soul? A brief history of boredom - The Conversation UK - August 22nd, 2020
- Free Will Astrology: August 19, 2020 - River Cities Reader - August 22nd, 2020
- Free Will AstrologyWeek of August 20 | Advice & Fun | Bend - The Source Weekly - August 22nd, 2020
- Don't misrepresent Atheism - The Shillong Times - August 22nd, 2020
- National Couple's Day 2020: Quotes About Love To Share With Your Partner - International Business Times - August 22nd, 2020
- Cold Chain Tracking And Monitoring Market 2020 | Coronavirus Impact Analysis | Trends, Innovation, Growth Opportunities, Demand, Application, Top... - August 22nd, 2020
- David Gilbert on John Hughes and Being Seventeen - The New Yorker - August 22nd, 2020
- On Faith: Individualism is America's religion | Perspective - Rutland Herald - August 22nd, 2020
- We are back in the culture wars, reversed - Las Cruces Sun-News - August 16th, 2020
- The Base: Exporting Accelerationist Terror - Southern Poverty Law Center - August 16th, 2020
- The Spiritual Work of a Worldly Life - Tricycle - August 16th, 2020
- Cold Chain Monitoring Market Research Report 2020 Covering Industry Size, Key Players Profiles, Trends and Forecast 2026 | Sensitech, Inc., NXP... - August 16th, 2020
- DODD COLUMN: Bubble gum came with laughs | Opinion - Evening News and Tribune - June 21st, 2020
- The Triumph of the Social Scientific Method | Carl R. Trueman - First Things - June 21st, 2020
- World Sauntering Day 2020: These 10 Quotes Will Remind You to Slow Down And Enjoy Life - India.com - June 21st, 2020
- Listen to them & understand them' - Ahmedabad Mirror - June 21st, 2020
- The new normal in education - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post - June 21st, 2020
- Telling the truth in a post-truth world - The Brussels Times - June 21st, 2020
- When Tribal Journalists Try to 'Cancel' Ayn Rand (Part 2) - New Ideal - June 21st, 2020
- Nihilism - Wikipedia - May 22nd, 2020
- Nietzsches Eternal Return | The New Yorker - May 22nd, 2020
- Best Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes | List of Famous Friedrich ... - May 22nd, 2020
- Graduation in the Times of COVID-19 | Schools Paid - Fallon County Extra - May 22nd, 2020
- Cold Chain Tracking and Monitoring Market Top Manufacturers, Consumption, Sales, Revenue & Trend For Next 5 Years - Cole of Duty - May 22nd, 2020
- These commencement speakers have wise words for these times - erienewsnow.com - May 22nd, 2020
- Gaze in Wonder at This Porsche 917/30 Flat-12 Fresh out of Canepas Shop - Autoweek - May 22nd, 2020
- Coronavirus: The Collapse of Higher Education -Or its Revolution? - Modern Diplomacy - May 22nd, 2020
- 'Outer Banks' co-creators talk Netflix, the UNC-Duke rivalry and the ferry to Chapel Hill - The Daily Tar Heel - May 22nd, 2020
- COVID-19 is a cruel reminder of the human condition - MinnPost - May 13th, 2020
- Your firm and the pandemic: Better after broken - Accounting Today - May 13th, 2020
- The Streets Ponders a Universal Question With New COVID-19 Track - Rolling Stone - May 10th, 2020
- Colby Cosh: Doing 'Houelle' in isolation France's sage transmits to the world - National Post - May 10th, 2020
- The one who integrates is lost - Daily Times - May 10th, 2020
- Global Temperature Data Logger Market Key Players, Application and Business Analysis over Distributed Regions Global Forecast to 2025. - Cole of Duty - May 10th, 2020
- Matters of laugh and death: Imagining 'The Good Place' [column] - LancasterOnline - May 4th, 2020
- Why Indians Need To Be More Rational Than Emotional When It Comes To Politics - Youth Ki Awaaz - May 4th, 2020
- Impact of Covid-19 on Cold Chain Tracking and Monitoring Systems Market Research Report 2020, Thrives the Global Industry Growth at Impressive CAGR... - May 4th, 2020
- Inside the Core this Week - Seton Hall University News & Events - April 30th, 2020
- The Mother Lode: Coronavirus carries unknowns, so does its recovery - CT Insider - April 30th, 2020
- The art of walking | Opinion - Murray Ledger and Times - April 3rd, 2020
- This is why youre bored in quarantine - TRT World - April 3rd, 2020
- Holocaust survivor's book applies in these times | Opinion - westvalleyview.com - April 3rd, 2020
- Cold Chain Tracking and Monitoring Devices Market Report by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application Forecast 2019 2025 - Science In Me - April 3rd, 2020
- Covid-19 life lessons from some of history's greatest thinkers - TheArticle - April 3rd, 2020
- Tech companies making the people dance to their tune in India - H2S Media - April 3rd, 2020