It’s not to say everything’s going to be fine and peaceful - South Africa surely isn’t - but it’s to say we’re not going to turn into the post-Yugoslavia Balkans, either.
Jul 24, 2023·edited Jul 24, 2023Liked by Max Remington
You're correct that true fascism is antithetical to the American tradition. But postmodernism's denial of reality is too, yet reality-denial is all the rage among our elites. You pointed out the number of things we're "not allowed to notice". That's reality-denial.
I worry about a far-Right reaction only in response to the Left. Outside a few Southern states, mainstream American whites do not have racial solidarity; we bought MLK's colorblindness completely. That won't change. But can't you see a white, blue collar, former-union man looking at his choices and saying: "well, that Republican guy has said some pretty racist stuff, but my kid has decent grades, and I don't want him penalized for being white." Now multiply that by 10 or 20 million and see what you get. In the end, people vote their (and their kids') self-interest. They will overlook a lot of bad philosophy to make sure their kids don't get screwed.
The Left's biggest problem is believing their own agitprop. It's fine to call your opponents Nazis -- name-calling is firmly part of the American tradition -- as long as you remember it's just campaign-talk. The Democratic Party establishment appears to have actually convinced themselves that half the country really is Nazis though, which makes ANYTHING acceptable. It's fine if the plebes believe that, but the Party elites (of both parties) need to keep their heads.
Since you asked, Max, I'll speculate that the current devolution will result in a "reset" where we must begin all over again. Segregationist impulses from left-wing whites and radical blacks is leading toward a resumption of ghettoization.
When we review Curry's polemics, taking his words out of context is tempting when his overarching theme is to reject the relevance of all sociological conceptualization beyond critical theory. Nevertheless, it is advisable to understand the milieu.
The quotation that brought him into the public eye was “In order to be equal, in order to be liberated, some white people might have to die.” Stop for a moment and consider the lens through which he views the treatment of black people. Disparate impact and sentencing is central, and he's not entirely wrong in his observation, however myopic it may be to ascribe univariate causality to a multivariate paradigm.
I.H.E. has this comment to share:
"Curry isn’t exactly misquoted, but his statement was part of a larger point about how, in his view, questions about violence against whites need to be addressed through a historical lens and how blacks need to reclaim conversations about the Second Amendment to highlight their own concerns about protection from race-based violence."
It's quite the slanted viewpoint, but there's a deeper point. Take away "race-based" and re-read the quotation. It's worth reviewing the actions of the NFAC a few years ago. Their armed marches were the right of free American citizens. If their factionalized racial separatism weren't an issue (and if some of their members hadn't stooped to grifting,) what's left is a very simple advocacy of the right to armed self-defense.
Prejudice is only one factor among many that determine disparate impact. There are a host of confounding factors, not the least being ubiquitous noncompliance with the lawful orders of peace officers. Add the relentless attacks on the right of every citizen to self-defense and militarization of domestic law enforcement activities, and it becomes even more complex.
Phenotypic self-sorting into demographic enclaves, which is the essence of ghettoization, is a primary factor in all of this, and it's getting worse. Cultural advocacy of gratuitous violence compounds the problem, and it's not restricted to one ethic group. American culture had a standard of "don't start trouble, but defend the weak from it." Thanks to several different cultural influences, the "don't start trouble" part of that cultural ethos has been overshadowed by the malign influences of activists and agitators.
One wishes that we could resume our progress by turning the clock back to just before the Obama years and continue with making improvements from that point, but that period in our history appears to have erased several decades of hard-won improvements in seeking even-handed enforcement under the rule of just law.
You're correct that true fascism is antithetical to the American tradition. But postmodernism's denial of reality is too, yet reality-denial is all the rage among our elites. You pointed out the number of things we're "not allowed to notice". That's reality-denial.
I worry about a far-Right reaction only in response to the Left. Outside a few Southern states, mainstream American whites do not have racial solidarity; we bought MLK's colorblindness completely. That won't change. But can't you see a white, blue collar, former-union man looking at his choices and saying: "well, that Republican guy has said some pretty racist stuff, but my kid has decent grades, and I don't want him penalized for being white." Now multiply that by 10 or 20 million and see what you get. In the end, people vote their (and their kids') self-interest. They will overlook a lot of bad philosophy to make sure their kids don't get screwed.
The Left's biggest problem is believing their own agitprop. It's fine to call your opponents Nazis -- name-calling is firmly part of the American tradition -- as long as you remember it's just campaign-talk. The Democratic Party establishment appears to have actually convinced themselves that half the country really is Nazis though, which makes ANYTHING acceptable. It's fine if the plebes believe that, but the Party elites (of both parties) need to keep their heads.
Since you asked, Max, I'll speculate that the current devolution will result in a "reset" where we must begin all over again. Segregationist impulses from left-wing whites and radical blacks is leading toward a resumption of ghettoization.
When we review Curry's polemics, taking his words out of context is tempting when his overarching theme is to reject the relevance of all sociological conceptualization beyond critical theory. Nevertheless, it is advisable to understand the milieu.
The quotation that brought him into the public eye was “In order to be equal, in order to be liberated, some white people might have to die.” Stop for a moment and consider the lens through which he views the treatment of black people. Disparate impact and sentencing is central, and he's not entirely wrong in his observation, however myopic it may be to ascribe univariate causality to a multivariate paradigm.
I.H.E. has this comment to share:
"Curry isn’t exactly misquoted, but his statement was part of a larger point about how, in his view, questions about violence against whites need to be addressed through a historical lens and how blacks need to reclaim conversations about the Second Amendment to highlight their own concerns about protection from race-based violence."
(https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/11/furor-over-texas-am-philosophers-comments-violence-against-white-people)
It's quite the slanted viewpoint, but there's a deeper point. Take away "race-based" and re-read the quotation. It's worth reviewing the actions of the NFAC a few years ago. Their armed marches were the right of free American citizens. If their factionalized racial separatism weren't an issue (and if some of their members hadn't stooped to grifting,) what's left is a very simple advocacy of the right to armed self-defense.
Prejudice is only one factor among many that determine disparate impact. There are a host of confounding factors, not the least being ubiquitous noncompliance with the lawful orders of peace officers. Add the relentless attacks on the right of every citizen to self-defense and militarization of domestic law enforcement activities, and it becomes even more complex.
Phenotypic self-sorting into demographic enclaves, which is the essence of ghettoization, is a primary factor in all of this, and it's getting worse. Cultural advocacy of gratuitous violence compounds the problem, and it's not restricted to one ethic group. American culture had a standard of "don't start trouble, but defend the weak from it." Thanks to several different cultural influences, the "don't start trouble" part of that cultural ethos has been overshadowed by the malign influences of activists and agitators.
One wishes that we could resume our progress by turning the clock back to just before the Obama years and continue with making improvements from that point, but that period in our history appears to have erased several decades of hard-won improvements in seeking even-handed enforcement under the rule of just law.
The Big Sort taken to it's logical conclusion. (Good book if you haven't read it.)
Nice commentary!
So many choose to be ignorant of the true difference between the Left and the alt-Right which is probably why name calling is so inane.
The 13% are merely tools - but dangerous tools.