Nov 17, 2021 | Philosophy
Princeton University professor Allen C. Guelzo, comments on the foundations of CRT in an AEI podcast: as a “reaction against the Enlightenment and against the confidence that scientific reason could discover the answers to things”:
….Kant was appalled at the irreligious conclusions to which reason had driven the Enlightenment. He was determined to find a way around Enlightenment religious lack of faith. So he says, what can we know for certain? Well, if we rely strictly on reason, we discover that reason only works on what our physical senses tell us, and that’s not much. Reason can’t penetrate into the essence of things. Some other tool was needed to reach what he called the thing in itself. So, to brush back the influence of reason, Kant develops a critique of reason, a critical theory, if you will.
….when you see how little reason can penetrate to the real lessons of things and you awake to a new reality. And that reality is that reason has blinded you. That is critical theory…
… critical theory set off a chain reaction of romantic investigations for non-rational explanations of reality.
….some of those non-rational explanations took a form of nationalism. That’s what you find in the philosophy of Georg Hegel. Some of them took the form of out-and-out racism. … Above all, you find non-rational explanations of reality based on economic class, and that is Karl Marx.
…And you might think that economics functions as what Adam Smith called a natural instinct to truck and barter. But in reality, it’s governed by the oppressive relations of class. Especially in the hands of Marx, critical theory uncovers the activity, not of employers and employees, but of an oppressor class and an oppressed class.
And the payoff?
…it promises an emotional burst of revelation and indignation. It allows you not so much to understand because remember, understanding is a function of reason, it allows you to denounce. It allows you to replace the question, is what I know true with a different question, whose interests does this question serve?
…. If the only purpose of questions is to serve the interests of a dominant or oppressive class, then no question that you ask about the truth of a situation or the truth of an event or the truth of a proposition, none of that kind of questioning about truth has any meaning. And any answer you come up with, which doesn’t speak in terms of some hidden structure of oppression, can simply be dismissed as part of the structure of oppression.
Read the rest.
Marc A. Thiessen writes in the Washington Post on “The danger of critical race theory”:
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, authors of “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,” state that “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”
….Ibram X. Kendi, one of CRT’s leading advocates, openly declares: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
This is the opposite of what the civil rights movement stood for. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did not argue that America was systemically racist; he argued that racism was un-American.
By dispensing with the reason the only solution is violence:
“… If your critical race theory is impervious to questioning and evidence, then fine: I will retreat into my critical race theory and it too will be impervious to evidence and the questioning. At which point then the only solution becomes violence.”
Sep 10, 2021 | Philosophy
What explains the rise of statism in America, a nation founded on laissez-faire capitalist principles? Leonard Peikoff takes up this question in this 1980 lecture to a group of businessmen. After considering popular yet insufficient explanations, Peikoff identifies the ideas dominating Western philosophy as the crucial determinant.
Jul 29, 2021 | Philosophy
Kerrington Powell and Vinay Prasad make some important points on Fauci and the government’s “Noble Lies” surrounding COVID-19:
“When experts or agencies deliver information to the public that they consider possibly or definitively false to further a larger, often well-meaning agenda, they are telling what is called a noble lie. Although the teller’s intentions may be pure—for example, a feeling of urgency that behavioral change is needed among the lay public—the consequences can undermine not only those intentions but also public trust in experts and science.”
[…]
“Experts on infectious diseases are not necessarily experts on social behavior. Even if we accept Fauci’s claim that he downplayed the importance of wearing masks because he didn’t want to unleash a run on masks, we might wonder how he knew that his noble lie would be more effective than simply being honest and explaining to people why it was important to assure an adequate supply of masks for medical workers.”
[…]
“We worry that vaccine policy among supporters of vaccines is increasingly anchored to the irrational views of those who oppose them—by always pursuing the opposite. Exaggerating the risk of the virus in the moment and failing to explore middle ground positions appear to be the antithesis of the anti-vax movement, which is an extremist effort to refuse vaccination. This seems a reflexive attempt to vaccinate at all costs—by creating fear in the public (despite falling adolescent rates) and pushing the notion that two doses of mRNA at the current dose level or nothing at all are the only two choices—a logical error called the fallacy of the excluded middle.”
[…]
“Public health messaging is predicated on trust, which overcomes the enormous complexity of the scientific literature, creating an opportunity to communicate initiatives effectively. Still, violation of this trust renders the communication unreliable. When trust is shattered, messaging is no longer clear and straightforward, and instead results in the audience trying to reverse-engineer the statement based on their view of the speaker’s intent. Simply put, noble lies can rob confidence from the public, leading to confusion, a loss of credibility, conspiracy theories, and obfuscated policy.” [The Noble Lies of COVID-19, Slate, July 28, 2021.]
Such lies, no matter the motive for them, always come back to bite you, as reality is a whole. “All facts are interconnected.” To cover up one lie, one must create another, or reveal the truth one should have made in the first place.
Apr 26, 2021 | Philosophy
From the Ayn Rand Institute:
In the legendary 1984 debate against socialists Jill Vickers and Gerald Caplan, the team of Leonard Peikoff and John Ridpath defended capitalism against their opponents’ criticisms and roundly refuted the socialists. ARI is delighted to showcase this illuminating debate on YouTube and to bring it to the attention of a new generation of viewers. The remastered video will be premiered this Friday and hosted on ARI’s YouTube channel by permission of the copyright holder, Sandra Shaw.
Apr 20, 2021 | Philosophy
Philosophers Ben Bayer Ph.D. and Onkar Ghate Ph.D. discuss Sam Harris’s argument against the existence of free will.
The dynamic duo discusses: “Harris’s Humean argument equating causality with causation by prior events; Why free will doesn’t mean self-creation out of nothing; Harris’s argument for why we have no introspective experience of free will; How Harris’s thought experiment involves superficial attention to our experience of freedom; Why Harris can’t explain why his argument isn’t self-refuting; Rand’s view of why man is a being of self-made soul; Whether individuals with certain psychiatric conditions have volition; The issue of soft determinism (compatibilism).”
A fantastic discussion on an important topic.
Jan 15, 2021 | Philosophy
On Jan. 6 a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol Building because they were upset with the results of the presidential election. How did this happen — in America? What, fundamentally, enabled this shameful event? What philosophic ideas and trends brought us here? And, what do they portend for the future of freedom? Join Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo as they analyze the moral meaning, the implications and the consequences of the attack.
