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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31397 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Clarence Thomas is a perfect argument against affirmative action. He presents one with a dilemma, which either way proves that affirmative action is bad.

Is Clarence Thomas a brilliant jurist?

-- Yes. Then one should take his arguments against affirmative action, which are cogent and well argued, seriously and realize that affirmative action is bad.

-- No. That's why affirmative action is bad, it leads to the appointment of mediocre minds like Clarence Thomas to important positions.

Yes. Then one should take his arguments against affirmative action, which are cogent and well argued, seriously and realize that affirmative action is bad.

This argument doesn't follow. Even if one assumes that Thomas is a brilliant jurist, and we take his arguments seriously, that does not mean we will necessarily agree with his arguments. Brilliant people can be wrong too.

Brilliant people can be wrong

This isn't compatible with the form of credentialism that people who support affirmative action mostly subscribe to. Diversity, equity and inclusion is a package deal with Trust The Experts. In practice if not in theory.

Which is why the attack isn't that he's wrong, but that he's corrupt.

Trust The Experts

'Trust the Experts' is usually said in relation to descriptive statements, not normative ones. So you should 'trust the experts' to work out whether and by how much affirmative actions improves minority economic outcomes/affects levels of competence in an organisation, but that doesn't imply any particular position on affirmative actions.

'Trust the Experts' is usually said in relation to descriptive statements

Nonsense. Whether vaccines or lockdowns are effective is a descriptive matter, and yet people who were making ethical objections to either on moral grounds were routinely admonished with this mantra, because in its rote scientism it smuggles in materialist utilitarian ethics under the guise of descriptive inquiry.

Science is about descriptive claims. The Science is a justification for normative ones.

In this case, as anyone who has seen the last half century, the benefits of affirmative action have never materialized and the sounds the Experts are making about why we should do it have not had anything to do with effectiveness for about as long as people stopped debating Thomas Sowell about it.

Yet the legitimacy of it is still grounded in this same elitism. AA has never worked, but DEI experts tell me that the best way to run my company is according to the latest principles of race Marxism draped in sociology's clothing.

Ah, that makes more sense. I initially thought you meant he was an affirmative action appointment and was therefore the most persuasive example against affirmative action because he sucked. I didn’t pick up on the fact that you were establishing a dilemma.

Edit: On rereading, I think if you didn’t intend the message to be “Clarence Thomas sucks,” you rather muddied the waters by mentioning his name immediately after saying, “Nowhere can a black person rise farther with less talent than by claiming to be a Republican.”

Should have clarified by linking to Candace Owens and Mark Robinson but I was lazy at that point.

Candace Owens yes, but wasn't Mark Robinson genuinely popular before it came out that he was regularly posting pro-Hitler comments on pornsites?

His genuine popularity seems like the problem in my mind. Republican orgs and voters get psyched to have a token black and don't check the details before promoting him past his competency.

Before the pornsites, he was already an off the wall candidate. Honestly, if somebody normal like Rubio had those comments come out no one would believe it anyway.

I think the grassroots liked the off the wall stuff before it was about Hitler and porn.

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