4 ms·

I don't understand. Is that good or bad? Is critical race theory the pseudoscience it sounds like it is? Wikipedia page did not help me. (am from EU)

newacct583 6y ago
Wikipedia didn't help you because it describes actual CRT, which is a somewhat bland academic field that, like seemingly all humanities work, tends to be heavy on jargon and pomp and a little light on genuine insight. But none of its contentions are really that controversial. Broadly it's the recognition that "race is real" and that injustices colored by the history of racial politics persist in modern society. What actually got banned is "boogeyman CRT", which is a caricature of the field propagated among the partisan press for use as an "enemy". And of course it's bad. You don't ban ideas with which you disagree, even (especially) if you think they're factually wrong.
- choko 6y ago
  The field isn't banned. It's just not being funded by taxpayers. You are being intentionally dramatic and misleading.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Read the EO. It goes much farther than banning funding for research, it's a muzzle on all federal decisionmaking and the behavior of all federal contractors. If you're a federal contractor and you tell your employees "I think racism is real", it seems like you'd fall afoul of this language and lose your contract.
    - choko 6y ago
      I read the EO and the article. Your analysis is flawed and grossly oversimplified. I suspect you know this and are trying to stir up emotional sentiment because you dislike the current administration.
    - jwond 6y ago
      Can you quote the part of the executive order that you believe would bar a federal contractor from telling its employees “I think racism is real”?
- true_religion 6y ago
  We regularly do ban ideas which we disagree with. For example.... The federal government will not fund research into the idea that women are sub human, and will certainly fire any manager who tries to include female inferiority training as a requirement for their employees. Banning this sexist idea is a good thing. The idea itself is poison and has no place in common government. If some people think it is merely controversial, then they should build credibility outside of government then ask for the rules to be relaxed.
kangnkodos 6y ago
Is critical race theory pseudoscience? This is off topic, but I'll bite anyway. Like all broad ideas, there is no one canonical definition of Critical Race Theory that everyone agrees with. Some serious takes on Critical Race Theory have ideas that explain why science is not always correct. Some professors who support CRT explain that Storytelling is superior in certain ways, and in certain situations to scientific gathering information. In other spots, professors claim that since science, reason and mathematics are white Western ideas, they are part of the oppressive system. I don't really understand those two ideas very well, so I probably misstated them in some form. But if you dive into the details you'll find those ideas or similar ideas. If you're coming from a mindset where science is the ultimate source of truth, you will be surprised to find that Critical Race Theory says that there are other routes which are better. I would not say CRT is pseudoscience. I would place it alongside other philosophical theories which support or deny the ideas which form the basis of science.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Is critical race theory the pseudoscience it sounds like it is? It's worse, it's social science - not falsifiable, so you can build careers upon a foundation of nonsense. The definitions section of the wikipedia page are clear on what the goals are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory Some more background: US universities today are heavily indoctrinated with variations on Marxism, communism and Maoism. Academic (radical) feminism has deliberately incorporated from those ideologies. An example of what this means is that the Hoover Institution is based at Stanford University, but most of their world-reknowned think-tank members would be shouted down if they tried to actually teach in a school classroom. https://www.hoover.org/ https://www.hoover.org/ All of the -isms are tools to seize power at the expense of the current holders, without actually building anything first. The "BLM rioters" belong to Marxist organizations, with funding likely traceable back to the CCP and Russia. Besides the ideological appeal of communism to the left, the current generation of US students hope that electing a communist candidate will forgive their student loans, which are typically in the $100,000 range and non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Some BLM protesters demanded that homeowners hand over their houses.

newacct583 6y ago

Wikipedia didn't help you because it describes actual CRT, which is a somewhat bland academic field that, like seemingly all humanities work, tends to be heavy on jargon and pomp and a little light on genuine insight. But none of its contentions are really that controversial. Broadly it's the recognition that "race is real" and that injustices colored by the history of racial politics persist in modern society. What actually got banned is "boogeyman CRT", which is a caricature of the field propagated among the partisan press for use as an "enemy". And of course it's bad. You don't ban ideas with which you disagree, even (especially) if you think they're factually wrong.

choko 6y ago
The field isn't banned. It's just not being funded by taxpayers. You are being intentionally dramatic and misleading.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Read the EO. It goes much farther than banning funding for research, it's a muzzle on all federal decisionmaking and the behavior of all federal contractors. If you're a federal contractor and you tell your employees "I think racism is real", it seems like you'd fall afoul of this language and lose your contract.
  - choko 6y ago
    I read the EO and the article. Your analysis is flawed and grossly oversimplified. I suspect you know this and are trying to stir up emotional sentiment because you dislike the current administration.
  - jwond 6y ago
    Can you quote the part of the executive order that you believe would bar a federal contractor from telling its employees “I think racism is real”?
true_religion 6y ago
We regularly do ban ideas which we disagree with. For example.... The federal government will not fund research into the idea that women are sub human, and will certainly fire any manager who tries to include female inferiority training as a requirement for their employees. Banning this sexist idea is a good thing. The idea itself is poison and has no place in common government. If some people think it is merely controversial, then they should build credibility outside of government then ask for the rules to be relaxed.

kangnkodos 6y ago

Is critical race theory pseudoscience? This is off topic, but I'll bite anyway. Like all broad ideas, there is no one canonical definition of Critical Race Theory that everyone agrees with. Some serious takes on Critical Race Theory have ideas that explain why science is not always correct. Some professors who support CRT explain that Storytelling is superior in certain ways, and in certain situations to scientific gathering information. In other spots, professors claim that since science, reason and mathematics are white Western ideas, they are part of the oppressive system. I don't really understand those two ideas very well, so I probably misstated them in some form. But if you dive into the details you'll find those ideas or similar ideas. If you're coming from a mindset where science is the ultimate source of truth, you will be surprised to find that Critical Race Theory says that there are other routes which are better. I would not say CRT is pseudoscience. I would place it alongside other philosophical theories which support or deny the ideas which form the basis of science.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> Is critical race theory the pseudoscience it sounds like it is? It's worse, it's social science - not falsifiable, so you can build careers upon a foundation of nonsense. The definitions section of the wikipedia page are clear on what the goals are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory Some more background: US universities today are heavily indoctrinated with variations on Marxism, communism and Maoism. Academic (radical) feminism has deliberately incorporated from those ideologies. An example of what this means is that the Hoover Institution is based at Stanford University, but most of their world-reknowned think-tank members would be shouted down if they tried to actually teach in a school classroom. https://www.hoover.org/ https://www.hoover.org/ All of the -isms are tools to seize power at the expense of the current holders, without actually building anything first. The "BLM rioters" belong to Marxist organizations, with funding likely traceable back to the CCP and Russia. Besides the ideological appeal of communism to the left, the current generation of US students hope that electing a communist candidate will forgive their student loans, which are typically in the $100,000 range and non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Some BLM protesters demanded that homeowners hand over their houses.