> I've never thought that a black or a Hispanic should be treated or thought of badly because of his or her race. Nor do I think that my thoughts and experience

> I've never thought that a black or a Hispanic should be treated or thought of badly because of his or her race. Nor do I think that my thoughts and experiences should be discounted because I am a white male. Everyone should just be treated as an individual. Is that so controversial or retrograde? I'm with you on this. I don't think it is controversial. On the other hand, your sweeping comment on "young people" being "insane", seems to do a categorical kind of "discounting" based on their age (as opposed to race). As if they haven't "grown up enough" to shed bad ideas. Which is by definition an shifting of the goalpoasts because by the fact of life, the cohort of "younger people than you" will always keep growing in size and there's no mobility: there's nothing a younger person can do to be older than you. A fair comment to call "younger folks" "insane" then? I found it unfair, even if our political ideologies align. This is an example of a lack of self-awareness that I meant to capture by saying "critical theory rotting out the internet". I'm not claiming you're a part of this group, by the way, for all I know you may change your mind or reinforce the deliberate nature of your comment. I appreciate you giving me a concrete example, though. From my point of view, people are too free to be critical of the ideas they want at any time, courtesy of the internet, without actually having an in-person, stimulating, and productive discussion with real human beings that share a different view, and therefore do not learn how to adapt themselves to new ideas, and therefore have a stunted/warped/non-existent way to introspect, and therefore are free to shout out products of criticality theory (which can be for any ideology, conservative or liberal[0]) without the feedback and nurturing of personal growth through genuine intellectual humility (it is performative intellectual humility[1]). So here I am, challenging you, hopefully in a positive way, as you've challenged me (perhaps less explicitly and more gracefully). In my personal experience it happens in "all sides"'s internet communities based on politics or political philosophy. Which is expected since the largest participants are not there to have their minds changed, and this hard-headedness then becomes this mirror which is what people model themselves to become. And cannot recognize this cycle for what it is. Huge net negative all around. [0] Note I don't use "criticality theory" as a politicized term like Jordan Peterson and other right-leaning folks like to use it, for reasons I don't care to discuss here. [1] This blur between genuine and performative can get into some weird postmodern ideas, but again, even exploring ideas like that has become politicized by the Peterson camp, so I don't care to discuss here.