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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Robinson's insistence on only having that argument after establishing linguistically favorable footing makes Robinson seem unreasonable here. What's wrong with arguing whether a man who owned slaves and helped found America was a good person without having to use one of the most mind-killing words in all of discourse?

The reason they even got into this argument in the first place was prompted by this question from Robinson:

One of the things that struck me about your book is that you spent a lot of time talking about these radical theorists: here's who they are, here is the influence they've had. And then you say we need a counter-revolution. But I would have liked to see more evidence that they were wrong. Because a lot of the times when you cite something that you say is some crazy critical race theory thing, I find my reaction to be "Well, sounds like they kind of have a point." For example, you say the National Credit Union Administration told the employees America was "founded on white supremacy"; "Critical race theorists argue that America was founded on racism, slavery, white supremacy"; or Derrick Bell "attacked Thomas Jefferson and George Washington as racist hypocrites." But they were. It was founded on racism. They were racist hypocrites.

I didn't point this out but it adds another explanation for why Rufo is so motivated to avoid conceding the "Jefferson was a racist" position, because then it would necessarily follow that "maybe some CRT advocates might have a point". Now, normally this shouldn't be such a cataclysmic event but it is for Rufo because he's an activist who has seen a significant rise in his national profile precisely from speaking in absolutes like this. He can't deploy nuance and so it has to be all-out total war and CRT advocates are not just wrong, but wrong about everything.

Perception is everything in the year of 2023, Rufo conceding is the point.

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