Critical Race Theory

Perhaps the biggest threat to the United States (and the Western World as a whole) is the internal threat of Critical Race Theory (CRT). One needs to understand that all of the usual arguments made by traditional American thinking are useless against CRT. In particular, any reference to the Bill of Rights is futile. CRT rejects the notion of rights. In fact, it has been constructed to reject every possible traditional argument against it because it does not accept any axioms used by western cultures. Its intent is to destroy western society at its core. It turns neighbors against each other. Only by understanding the twisted thinking behind it can it be defeated.

Although its proponents generally only acknowledge it is derived from Critical Legal Theory (CLT), it is also derived from the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory (CT). At their core, all three “theories” are a “westernized” version of Marxism. At its core, CRT has replaced class warfare with race warfare. Instead of attempting to divide Americans by class, CRT divides Americans by race. Class warfare was unsuccessful in igniting the dialectic process in the United States because everyone knew there was the potential for seamless upward mobility. No one felt oppressed by class. On the other hand, Critical Theorist Herbert Marcuse recognized the potential to divide Americans by race as a result of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Dividing black and white was obvious, but he also recognized that more categories would need to be contrived to create enough division. The CLT advocates were able to make that a reality with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) recognizing racial categories in 1977.

All three Critical theories have some common assumptions:

• A Marxist view of society divided into oppressors and the oppressed.
• The oppressed who impede revolution must be re-educated (punished).
• Denial of objective reality – everything is relative.
• Strive to dismantle all societal norms through relentless criticism.
• Seek to replace all systems of power by a dialectic process. Once the attack has gained a foothold, society gets no time for healing.

As pointed out in part one of this series, all flavors of Marxism are based upon Hegel’s dialectic, but the dialectic requires social division. He and Engels promised constant revolution by pitting one class against another. Society would be in a perpetual state of upheaval. Adherents to Marxism overlook this destabilization in day-to-day life, believing in a promised Utopia at the end of the process. The realization that that end will likely never come is ignored.

Foundations of Critical Race Theory

CRT adds the following assertions on top of classic Marxism:

• Everything is about race.
• It rejects abstraction.
• It rejects universal truths.

Critical Race Theory replaces Marx’s class struggle with a race struggle for the dividing line between oppressor and oppressed, but it has gone further than classic Marxism in its quest to divide society.

One of the more pernicious axioms of CRT is that it rejects abstraction. This has ultimately led to a refutation that “2 + 2 = 4” is racist (which means it should be condemned).  We do not think about it, but the concept of “two” is an abstraction. Humans would still be living in caves if they could not abstract ideas and turn them into realities. This is a key point to recognize when trying to counter CRT arguments.  The assault on abstraction is an assault on accepting logic and mathematics and the honest application of STEM.

By rejecting universal truths, CRT advocates can constantly move the goal posts. It leads to a rejection of the Bill of Rights and equal protection under the law. That is, CRT rejects the very foundation of the United States Constitution.

Jefferson warned against having the government involved in education.   Americans have long forgotten that there was no government-directed workplace training prior to the advent of Critical Legal Theory in 1977. At this point, we need to ask, “How is it that the government  has bought into CRT and is promoting CRT education both in the educational system and workplace training?”

Aesopian Dialect

CRT has developed its own Aesopian dialect. Its use as a weapon has escalated, and new terms are constantly added by CRT “academics.” Not only are they designed to divide society,  they are designed to get society to accept a world that lacks a basis in reality. Some of the key phrases are:

• “Racist” means it must be condemned and destroyed. Without the anchor of universal protection and rights, accusation is all that matters. History tells us time and again what the results of this are.
• “White supremacy” is a systemic power structure. Although CRT denies abstraction, it creates these vague notions of bad things.
• “Intersectionality” creates a point system where each victimhood class gets victimhood credits. With intersectionality, the theory has been expanded to allow virtually any class of victimhood imaginable – not just race. We might consider this a new superset theory – perhaps “Critical Victimhood Theory.”

The list will continue to grow as long as CRT “academics” practice their craft of division.

All these terms are designed to confuse and put traditionalists on the defensive. To CRT adherents, they know they are simply weapons that can be used arbitrarily because accusation is all that matters. No proof is required.

The Assault on Social Cohesion

Since their inception in 1935, the critical schools have focused on dividing western societies. To divide a society, one attacks it at its foundation – its cohesion. Robert Cialdini’s compliance practices also identify the voluntary practices that lead to social cohesion:[1]

• Reciprocation: The strongest principle. It is universal to human nature.
• Consistency: Once a commitment is made, keeping to it.
• Social Proof: People take reinforcement from others.
• Liking: There are natural affinities that occur among people.
• Authority: Leadership is important. Associated symbolism is unifying.
• Scarcity: Managing scarce resources can be unifying or divisive.

The relentless criticism assaults these principles in subtle ways. At the same time CRT is tearing down western culture, it is recruiting new believers. Each principle is attacked or used in a different way. A few examples follow.

First, reciprocation in the exchange of ideas is turned into a one-way exchange. CRT attacks traditional thought and demands traditionalists concede that their implementations are imperfect, though there is complete denial of imperfection from the Marxists. The asymmetric nature of the exchange is caused by the traditional adherence to universal truths, while CRT proponents can deflect its imperfections by invoking relativism. Pointing out a double standard falls on deaf ears. This is the nature of appeasement, and Americans have been appeasing the critical schools since 1977. The attack could have been defeated early on by sticking to the reality that universal truth and absolutes are imperfectly implemented but necessary for cohesion. However, once ground has been yielded, CRT uses traditionalists’ practice of consistency against them for further assaults. This undermines traditional authority and shifts it toward CRT.

A vivid example of this asymmetry is the CRT redefinition of racism. Prior to CRT, discrimination or prejudice against any race by any other race was the accepted definition of racism. Although historically there have been more cases of whites discriminating against blacks, the other possibility was acknowledged as both possible and occurring. Since the emergence of Critical Race Theory in 1989, adherents to CRT only accept that whites can be guilty of racism. Overcoming this redefinition of racism is critical to successfully combating CRT.

From day one of its assault, the critical schools have used social proof to erode republican principles out of the American culture. The most notable dynamic is the switch from equal protection under the law to the biased notion of “social justice.” In reality, acceptance of social justice is a lever of division. As Bastiat put it, true justice is an unattainable absence of injustice; however, injustice can only be minimized by striving for it. The instant a qualifying adjective (like “social”) is used, it creates another form of injustice. Social justice is injustice, and it promotes continuance of the dialectic process.

All of the practices above are cynically employed to divide and conquer. Cialdini’s book has excellent coverage of experiences with the Chinese during the Korean War that should be used for further understanding of CRT techniques inherited from Marxism. During the Cold War, the Air Force SERE program was created to assist air crews who might be captured in understanding and resisting the techniques.

The Path of Critical Race Theory

How has CRT gained its footing? Once the dividing lines were defined, all the minorities needed to be “educated” about their oppression (victimhood). First, the education system had to be conquered. Next, CRT had to take over the media and entertainment (communications). This was facilitated by generation turns as young journalists and performers  came out of the education system. The final nail was conquering the workplace. Today’s managers are a product of the same schools that swayed the media, and Human Resources has been the weapon to enforce the takeover. The general approach has been to first infiltrate the government itself, then infiltrate private enterprises.

As with all Marxist dialectic processes, there is no time for healing. Once “progress” has been made, it’s on to the next destructive cycle. Society is never stable. Whereas Marx theorized that the emergence of Bolshevik Man would halt the dialectic process, CRT has no halting criterion. The destructive process will never end because social victimhood will shift like grains of sand in a desert.

Like all strains of Marxism, CRT is based upon a social group that has an axe to grind with some other group in society. Rather than a focus on personal autonomy, the focus is oppression of one group over another. But CRT has convinced young adherents from the majority group that their group is indeed oppressors, so the only way to correct the situation is with extreme overcompensation that is enforced by peer pressure. Note that CLT uses government, but CRT is using society first. In doing this, it has created a point system, which embraces intersectionality. All oppressed groups are not equal. The more victimized, the more points they get. Those of mixed origins and perceived oppressions get the benefit of aggregated victimhood. An individual’s behavior never matters. It’s all about victimhood scoring for a group, and those with more points get to speak over those with lower scores. There is no free speech.

Putting CRT into Context

As with all flavors of Marxism, CRT thrives on defeating rational thought by creating divisions that are fueled by emotional excesses. Dissatisfaction is emphasized to the point of outrage and hatred. Quelling these emotions becomes insurmountable as more recruits enter the force of CRT advocates. The only hope at reversing the tide is to awaken those within the movement who can see the peril it presents to their own freedom and happiness. The CRT target of today may not concern them, but the target of tomorrow will. No one is immune. The “central committee” will purge itself until it gets to its ultimate goal of oppressing society as a whole.

Dennis Prager provides another useful view of understanding the erosion of American society caused by the Critical Theories in general. He observes that the moral compass of right and wrong has been replaced by three other compasses:

1. The power compass
2. The race compass
3. The class compass

It should be apparent that the first and third compasses are common to Marxism in general. CRT has contributed the race compass. As Prager concludes, as these compasses displace a moral compass of good and evil, the world will get more evil and more hatred of the good.[2]

CRT is a cancer within US society. It started in academia at the collegiate level, but has spread down all the way to Kindergarten. That has led to infiltration into every aspect of American life. It is why it is now impossible to watch sporting events without some form of political message. Of perhaps more concern is the symbiotic spread of Critical Legal Theory that has accompanied the spread of CRT. Starting a decade earlier, most lawyers today have been inculcated in the underpinnings of CLT. Like CRT, CLT embraces that all laws have a racial bias. CLT leads to “legislating from the bench” because they do not view the laws as valid. CRT leads to sentencing that is inconsistent  with Prager’s moral compass. . As a result of this, we now see many district attorneys in the country that choose to prosecute law-abiding citizens while refusing to enforce laws against even violent criminals. Likewise, since many in Congress have law degrees, a significant number in Congress embrace CLT and CRT.

Like any cancer, whether American society can be cured from these critical theories (or as James Lindsay calls them “cynical theories”) is dependent upon two things:

1. The stage of cancer
2. How good are the means of curing the cancer

The injection of politics into the military is perhaps the most concerning metric of all. The primary mission of the military is to defend the nation. Historically, the military is to be apolitical. CRT has injected political calculus into military priorities. There is no real refuge from CRT’s onslaught. It seems like we have the essence of stage 4 cancer. That should alarm us all. How good are our means of cure? Well, like all cancers, it depends upon the thoroughness of finding and cutting out the disease. This means enlightening those infected by it one at a time. The good news is that the infection is not binary. There are degrees of infection. Most people don’t even know they have it. The way CRT invades the psyche is by using the natural empathy of the American people to invade, then twist the individual’s foundational thinking. The wrong way to untwist the disease is to talk about the Bill of Rights or double standards. Continuing to use logical arguments based upon a moral compass will continue to be ineffective. Perhaps the way to the cure is through the same empathetic characteristic. An empathetic person does not want to be a bully.

[1] Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: Science and Practice. Pearson Education, 2009.

[2] “How the Left Sees the World: Power, Race, and Class.” PragerU, www.prageru.com/video/how-the-left-sees-the-world-power-race-and-class/?utm_source=Main%2BMailing%2BList&utm_campaign=5a7931696f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_09_06_29_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f90832343d-5a7931696f-164214113.