What’s the opposite of ad hominem?

You might be thinking about “controlling with the instrumentality of glad thoughts”, although I have no idea what the Latin translation would be…

This is more than a little irksome in light of Chait’s (and especially his employers’) looseness with a certain bad motive accusation. You know the one.

Uh, sorry if I’m mistaking your jocularity for a serious question and stating the obvious, but what’s wrong with simply ad rem?

Ah, the ablative of place from which.

Should this be ‘ex homine‘, though?

It confuses your Dutch readers, who take that as a compliment of being quickwitted/witty.

especially because for many young people thinking about education racism is by far the most stinging accusation they could receive

In the fight over this that consumed the literary-science-fiction community last year, it seemed to be more the opposite. Older participants, say Baby-Boom-to-Gen-X aged, were extremely defensive about charges of racism precisely because they identified it as the worst character flaw one could be accused of, a property of, say, Klan members; whereas the younger cohorts were more likely to think of racism as a product of social conditioning that everyone harbored to some extent, and that needed to be pointed out if we were to make any further progress in fighting it.

Chait’s position of having to be oh so careful before “we” accuse people of racism is of course purely motived by the simple fact that it’s largely/almost exclusively his side who engages in that sort of dogwhistle, not quite open racism but we know what you mean speech. It’s therefore even worse than just making racist motivations behind dodgy remarks look unlikely; it benefits one party much more than the other.

There already is a climate in which complaining about dodgy remarks is belittled , no matter how obvious it is that these are motivated by racism, there is no need to make it even more difficult to point them out. ( For proof, use your search engine and look for threads about the backlash against Obamacare.)

I don’t have time to listen to the debate right now, but how about we just hold all the TNR writers to this – but your own guy Chait says to be deeply reluctant to attribute racist motives! This may end up being the most bookmarked bloggingheads ever. I suspect the counter argument will involve putting antisemitism in another category than other sorts of racism, but maybe they’ll be more creative than that.

The problem with discussing racism is that racists have succeeded in making the discussion toxic. Peretz, for example, is a pretty straightforward, textbook racist, but by flinging the charge of racism around heedlessly himself, he and others like him make it very difficult to have a genuine conversation about race.

It is possible, of course, to point out that a person said or did something racist without actually accusing the person of having intrinsically racist underlying motivations. Difficult, certainly, since people usually assume you’re talking about intentions, or intrinsic leanings; but racist words can be measured and judged solely by the effect they have on their audience, rather than by some hypothetical intention-to-perpetrate-real-racism by the speaker.

I’m in favor of just calling racists racists. If they wail about how unfair it is that you’ve called them a racist, then they’re exposed as a whiner as well as a racist. And the people looking on who gasp about how uncivil you’re being for calling them a racist are themselves exposed as whining, feebleminded, Broderite twits.

If they aren’t a racist, they can make an actual argument about why what they’ve said or done isn’t racist. If they don’t think it’s arguable, but instead just gasp that oh my god you just called them a racist, then see above.

And, by the way, saying that people dealing with GOP racism in the U.S. are just being arrogant? Also see above.

It’s possible that the generational change mentioned in @12 is a result of the overcoming of overt racism, so that younger people never happen to meet people who are overt and unpersuasively annoying in their racism. But it’s also possible that the cultural change has rather been in the frequency with which those racists openly express their racist ideas.

I try not to read Peretz. There is certainly a Herderian strand to some of the ideas behind Zionism (as behind pan-Arabism): that diverse societies cannot work and that history moves towards national states. And although there were certainly socialists among the founders of the Israeli state, and 19th century Zionism as an ideology can probably be considered a kind of leftism, it was a distinct movement to which people might choose to devote their time: in other words, they may have been untouched by the hard left’s taking up of causes like, for example, the Scottsboro boys.

As for John H.’s suggestion, I haven’t had a chance to listen to the bloggingheads yet, but it sounds good to me.

Oh, well, it was worth a try. Didn’t realize that backslash would get eaten, though I should have.

All ‘nationalists’ of any kind are pretty close to being racists by definition. Unless your ‘nationalism’ is such weak stuff that it doesn’t actually embrace the idea that your ‘nation’ is better than others [and in that case, what funny kind of ‘nationalist’ are you?], you’re making a basically racist claim. That it’s trivially stupid oughtn’t to obscure the problematic implications.

Discussing racism is fraught because the charge is so inflammatory and the subject matter is so ambiguous, there’s a lot of opportunity for a person of goodwill to be wrong, and for that error to be intrinsically racist.

If I’m wrong about a matter related to science or economics, well then, I’m just wrong. But if I attempt, for example, to say that black insults of white people are racist in the same way that white insults of black people are, then I’m not merely a bit of a dope, I’m a racist dope.

So I have some seemingly contradictory beliefs on the subject of invoking racism. Like Chait, I think it should be avoided wherever possible, but like Rich P., I think it’s frequently unavoidable.

Unless your ‘nationalism’ is such weak stuff that it doesn’t actually embrace the idea that your ‘nation’ is better than others [and in that case, what funny kind of ‘nationalist’ are you?],

How about a form of nationalism where you believe your nation is better at sport (any that is well funded/taken seriously, naturally, although that all too easily becomes a bit of a “no true scotsman” fallacy), but average otherwise?

Or how about a form of nationalism that says all members of all nations, or at least all members of decent ones, should care more about their nation than about others? That’s a perfectly common form of nationalism, allows lots of extra attachment to your own nation, and is nothing at all like racism.

Should I now say that the charge that all nationalism is racist is itself obviously racist?

I laughed.

I am completely mystified by an apparent acceptance that ad hominem is ever proper, whether attributed hastily or only after deliberation. It is always improper in intellectual discourse. Once a statement leaves your mouth, it is no longer yours. The statement is either well substantiated or not. If, in the course of a discussion, someone asserts that all blacks are stupid, they have asserted something that is not supported by the evidence. Whether they asserted it because of animosity toward the group or because they either are ignorant of the evidence or have misinterpreted it is completely irrelevant. In all cases the assertion should be refuted on its merits. If a person repeatedly makes assertions that are not supported by the evidence don’t engage them. Their arguments are not worth your attention and why that is so is not important unless you are their therapist or are entertaining the notion of befriending them.

In the context of evaluating the logic of an argument, accusing someone of racism is normally a fallacy even if true.

In the context of speculating about motives, which is what Yglesias and Chait are discussing, it’s simply a possibility (the notion of fallacy has nothing to do with this).

Accusing someone of racism, absent strong evidence, is frowned upon because it immediately transforms the discussion into an informal trial as to whether the accused is guilty. And since it is a charge that is incredibly difficult to disprove (“I think you secretly harbor bad beliefs x, y, and z. Prove me wrong!”), the resulting trial is usually inconclusive at best.

The idea that we are somehow serving the cause of equality by allowing debates about any racially related subject to devolve, again without strong evidence, into accusations of racism, is unsupported at best.

Ben Alpers at 21 highlights one of the key issues: People who make racist comments often try to derail complaints into a “But you called me a raaaaacist!” whines rather than acknowledge that what they said was racist, and their intent is in some key respects irrelevant.

A recent Stuff White People Do post is apropos. The issue is why white people often shy away from using the term racist, even to describe explicitly racist acts or statements.

In my experience, arguing about whether something is “really” racist is rarely a good-faith discussion. Instead, it’s overwhelmingly used as a shutdown tactic. It’s used against people of color to say that their impressions and experiences aren’t valid (“I know better than you, and I know he/she didn’t really mean to be racist”), and it’s used against white people to try to impose social conformity (“Why do you have to be so humorless?”).

I say all this even though I have observed Henry’s 5.3 to be a real problem, albeit in relatively narrow circumstances.

rather than acknowledge that what they said was racist

It seems there’s a three-month cycle, which isn’t consistent from place to place, regarding whether we’re going to use the word ‘racist’ to signify “an expressed belief in the inferiority of another race to one’s own” or to mean “intended to be exploitative of stereotypes regarding racial inferiority” or to mean “could be sensibly interpreted as exploitative of stereotypes of any category” or to mean “implicitly expressive of white privilege,” and about 2/3 of Internet fights revolve around competing definitions.

As someone who interprets the word “racist” in the first sense above, it’s usually best to keep my head down. But that SWPL article irks. In the case of Sambo’s, why not use the word “exploitative” instead of racist? If you feel there’s something wrong with their choice of restaurant name, you feel that way because it’s exploitative, not because it’s marking out Indians as categorically inferior to other folk.

The taboo is interesting, though.

Example: I remarked of an acquaintance (in a contextually sensible response to a query about something), “She’s racist.” (Mild disapproval and discomfort.) “Well, the thought of a black man being President is horrifying to her.” (Nods of ready agreement.) To me, that’s bewildering, but it’s because the folks I was talking to interpreted “racist” to mean something more like “explicitly expressive of white privilege” and would respond defensively with, “it’s not that she hates black people, it’s that they make her uncomfortable.” And I guess she doesn’t feel black people are inherently inferior, she just doesn’t like being around people with black skin. She doesn’t feel that black people ought to be lynched, she just feels that black people ought not be too nearby her, in work or neighborhood (unless they’re in service positions). She (according to her) doesn’t mind if black people get insurance or charity (welfare), so long as she doesn’t have to contribute financially to it — specifically, she asserted her tax money should not be spent in this way, but black people’s tax money could be spent in this way “if it suits them.”

Is she, based on the characterization above, a racist? I would say so, despite having an aversion to the word that’s almost as strong as Harry’s, but most of my more Southern-fried colleagues would disagree. To them, ‘racist’ means you’re active in the KKK or similar (not just a member, but one who participates), and you actively perceive yourself as a soldier in a race war, and you express this perception vocally, and you would probably lynch a black person if you could get away with it. Anything short of this is not racist (in their view), because ‘racist’ literally means what I just typed out there, no less.

about 2/3 of Internet fights revolve around competing definitions.

Maybe this is true online. This is one area, though, where I think the Internet and real life are pretty distinct. The awful, vicious interactions I see in daily life are generally not about having competing definitions. They’re about seeing how far you can push the line in expressing hatred without being called out on it.

In the case of Sambo’s, why not use the word “exploitative” instead of racist? If you feel there’s something wrong with their choice of restaurant name, you feel that way because it’s exploitative, not because it’s marking out Indians as categorically inferior to other folk.

What? No, I think their restaurant name is wrong precisely because it insists on using a term that is widely understood to evoke a racist stereotype. And because that stereotype absolutely does “mark out ___ as categorically inferior to other folk,” and allowing it to continue in common usage is a slap in the face.

Either I’m misunderstanding you, or we totally disagree. In my mind, exploitation is something like not paying someone the legal wage, or using them as a political prop without their permission, or coerced to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise be willing to do.

Hi,

Couldn’t we just agree that “racism” is a sub-category of “stupidity”, or is it necessary to parse it further into specific classes, genres, and degrees of stupidity? After all, when we know that stupid is stupid, and ugly is ugly, what more do we need?

Now about “sexism”, I would be more interested in the dialog.

Have a nice day,
Antti

They’re about seeing how far you can push the line in expressing hatred without being called out on it.

See, that’s exactly what I was trying to address. If you would prefer that no blacks exist because they make you uncomfortable, but don’t want to actively kill or harm them, but do disapprove of any attempt to provide assistance to blacks again because they make you uncomfortable, is that racism (I would say yes), is that hatred (I would say no), or is that conservative and normal (which is what my Southern-fried white colleagues would assert)?

Hatred is, in its way, an even stronger word than racism. I guess I’ve been learning that, and learning to interpret “hatred” of X as nothing short of “would be thrilled and elated to cause bodily harm to X, and would enjoy the experience.”

Either I’m misunderstanding you, or we totally disagree.

Nah, it’s a third option — I’m ignorant. I was a bit bewildered by your interpretation, but it’s probably because I’m young and from Wisconsin and really blessedly/blastedly ignorant of a lot of these associations. I have since wiki’d Sambo, and… oh wow.

Originally I thought the concern was that the restaurant’s logo of Sambo with his tiger is rather stereotypical of Indians, what with the turban and all. I think the hard part for me is remembering Sambo as the clever, quick-thinking kid who outsmarted the tigers, just one of those countless campfire-category stories I’ve heard third-hand. Heck, I distinctly remember pretending to be Sambo one day in the park.

The fact SWPD noted, that a book existed with a horrible picaninny jacket cover, didn’t surprise me; probably countless old books of fairy-tales have similarly offensive illustrations. (Note the irony in my awareness of what a “picaninny” is and my total ignorance of what’s apparently the canonical historical example in Sambo. Topsy was my canonical example.) It had never occurred to me to interpret the character himself in a generally derogatory way, much less as a buffoon, because in the story I recall Sambo being so quick-witted and admirable. Anyway, I didn’t know that “Sambo” had long been a slur. Now I feel as uncomfortable typing the name as I do typing buckwheat.

Of course, there’s still the issue of whether it’s appropriate (in the technical sense of which-adjectives-apply-to-which-nouns) to call a speech act, even a slur, racist, which gets back to act-vs-belief-vs-lifestyle.

“If, in the course of a discussion, someone asserts that all blacks are stupid, they have asserted something that is not supported by the evidence. Whether they asserted it because of animosity toward the group or because they either are ignorant of the evidence or have misinterpreted it is completely irrelevant.”

But this isn’t the kind of thing we are typically talking about is it? I see it more in an insinuation of racism when one talks for example about believing there should be more policing in areas with high murder rates. Or when one suggests that there should be standards for teachers in schools that haven’t been doing well. Or something like that. Diverting those types of discussions with charges of racism is both common and unproductive.

What exactly is your angle here, John? Does this have something to do with cartoons?

You think that not calling someone who says that there should be more policing in areas with high murder rates a racist doesn’t really make sense?

56 seems to be correct. Homo is in the third declension, but adding the diminutive ending apparently shifts it into the second. Though I can’t find a source that says so explicitly.

Latin diminutives are a good deal more complex than early/late (even remembering that “late” usually covers the popular/subliterary undergrowth that was always there and that Latin was historically spoken by millions whose native language was something else). The high end literary authors (Virgil and Cicero) use them very sparingly, and almost always for precise and significant effect. If you look at a writer like Catullus who writes in at least three generic ranges you’ll see that in some of them diminutives are all over the place and in others are avoided.

Glad to see that someone else got to correcting homuncule before I yielded to the temptation. Oh, and what is the thing with “ex homine?” a/ab/abs is set in an awful lot of phrases, my favorite being the cabinet positions like ab epistulis, and ab homine is one of them.

Agree with the preference for ab rather that ex, although I wondered about de in context. Pedantically, the full opposite of ad hominem should presumably be ab australopitheco.

Michael Ferguson: “I am completely mystified by an apparent acceptance that ad hominem is ever proper, whether attributed hastily or only after deliberation. It is always improper in intellectual discourse.”

Meanwhile, in the real world, most of us do not have an unlimited amount of time on our hands. We are not all Renaissance scholars, well-versed in all fields of endeavor. That being the case, we must resort to various heuristics to try to figure out what is true and what is false. Calling these heuristics “logical fallacies” is pointless.

If someone has told a thousand lies, common sense tells us that their 1001st statement is also likely to be untrue. No, it doesn’t logically follow that it *must* be, but it’s the safe way to bet. Life is too short to debunk every lie in the world one at a time. Call that ad hominem if you want; I call it common sense.

If I want to know about chemistry, I’ll ask a chemist, not a theologian. Is that an “argument from authority”? Or is it just common sense? Much of the worst pseudoscience happens when people with some scientific training step outside their fields and try to meddle with things they don’t understand. Linus Pauling and W.M. Shockley are two examples that come to mind immediately.

Someone tells me “X says: ‘A,B, and C, therefore D.'” Either my interlocutor and I can independently evaluate the truth of A,B, and C and determine whether, if true, D follows, or we can’t. In the first case any qualities of X are irrelevant, and we should proceed to evaluate the argument. Slagging X is a classic ad hominem argument and — as long as the topic of discussion is the truth of D rather than the character of X — improper.
If, on the other hand, neither of us can evaluate the argument independently, then the statement is the functional equivalent of “X says ‘D.'” In that case, or in the case where the statement actually is “X says ‘D,'” the person pushing X’s view is relying on X’s authority</I, not his argument. In such a case, an ad hominem “argument,” if empirically sound, is a perfectly reasonable basis for, tentatively, rejecting “D.” It might still be the case that “D,” but just because a stopped clock is right twice a day, that’s no reason to rely on it as a timepiece.

Obviously, there should have been a “not X’s” between “authority” and “argument.”

Michael Ferguson 03.25.10 at 9:45 pm

“I am completely mystified by an apparent acceptance that ad hominem is ever proper, whether attributed hastily or only after deliberation. It is always improper in intellectual discourse. ”

Bull; intellectuals do that a lot – whose arguments are to be considered true until proven false, whose are to be considered false until proven true, and whose are debatable. Whose writings are worth their time and effort, which go on the ‘if I am ever laid up for a month’ reading pile, and which are discarded without a moment’s thought.

what you think the conversation GAINS by having a norm where being quick to accuse someone of racism is fine

I know you aren’t asking me, but off the top of my head, in addition to the obvious costs, there are important potential gains:

1. Other participants in the conversation, and witnesses to it, are put on notice that arguably racist statements are going to be called out by at least one person. This is important because absent that, there is immense social pressure not to name racism. Overlooking or tacitly endorsing it can have a powerful silencing effect on people who might otherwise want to participate in the conversation.

2. The person who made the racist statement is put on notice that coded language is not OK — they’re either going to have to straightforwardly defend their racism (which will probably lose them allies) or make a convincing case as far as what they said was not racist.

There are others, but my lunch break is over so I’ll have to come back to this thread later if it’s still going on.

I guess I have a problem with the “coded language” formulation.

Yes, some people at some times have used discussions about school standards as racist codes to suggest that black people can’t learn. But so what? Many people at many times have used socialism as an excuse to be totalitarian, but that doesn’t mean that it is appropriate to force someone who is defending the idea of extending health care to the uninsured into a long discussion about gulags, Mao’s famines, and the evils of secret police.

And yes I’m aware that some people do that. But we normally recognize them as 1) not productive to the discussion, 2) nasty people who are engaging in smears, and 3) not very good intellectuals.

“There are so many other things you could accuse your opponent of – being stupid, having missed something completely obvious, an insufficient love of liberty – that are also likely to annoy him so much that he will stop listening to you. But we don’t feel that making those charges is sort of taboo, just because it’s bad Dale Carnegie practice”

It is because calling some a racist is a lot closer to calling someone a pedophile than it is to saying that he has bad hair. There are a range of potential bad things to say about someone, and the worse the thing is, the surer you should think that you are right. I wouldn’t insinuate someone was a pedophile in a typical conversation unless I had VERY strong proof. It is just really vicious, nasty, and (obviously) not usually helpful.

The taboo isn’t against calling pedophiles what they are. The taboo is against calling random people whom you are having other disagreements with pedophiles and forcing them to defend themselves against the charge. [Well you’ve been seen talking to children…. But that was innocent…. Of course you want us to think so…etc.]

Henri Vieuxtemps @82: Matt didn’t call this person racist. He said that she was a hypocrite because she objects to “socialized medicine” while herself being a beneficiary of it.

But it is a quite common right-wing talking point that social welfare programs have more support in (e.g.) Sweden than in the US because Sweden is a “homogeneous society.” If that is not an admission that support for such programs among lower-class whites in the US is eroded by their perception that black people are the intended beneficiaries, then what is it?

Another answer to what you can get out of such an accusation, even knowing that it’s likely to end a conversation: sometimes it’s an effective and honest way of explaining why you are ending a conversation that you believe will never be productive. It all depends on what kind of conversation you’re having. I think some people in this discussion are implicitly imagining a one-on-one discussion of some abstract technical assertion; it’s good to make that context explicit, if it’s what you have in mind, and also to think about alternative contexts.

So yes, arguing that someone has bad motives isn’t a good way of refuting an argument according to the scholastic standards of deductive reasoning, but in some contexts that’s not the point. Sometimes what you’re doing isn’t a one-on-one academic discussion, but something more like a group discussion or a negotiation. Sometimes it’s more important to realize that one of the participants in a negotiation is not negotiating in good faith and that there is no reason to continue pretending that what you’re doing is abstract reasoning, and sometimes it’s important to make other people realize that too. And sometimes the relevant form of bad faith is indeed racism.

For a non-racism example, consider the Senate health care negotiations that took up most of 2009. I think it’s pretty clear that the Senate Republicans were not negotiating in good faith. You could (and people did) refute their arguments, but to some extent refutation missed the point. What would have been more useful was to explain why even the people making those arguments couldn’t have believed them, that the arguments were excuses rather than reasons, and that continuing to let the process drag on, pretending that it was a real negotiation, was a bad idea.

Thank you to Matt Austern for saying more clearly what I was trying to get at. Certainly the context I was imagining was not limited to one-on-one abstract debates.

Most people do not understand the ad hominem fallacy. It is only a fallacy when it is applied to argument. It is not a fallacy when it is applied to evidence.

So the argument Dick Cheney claims that coal is black, Cheney is a proven liar, therefore coal is white is a fallacy.

So the argument Dick Cheney claims that coal is black, Cheney is a proven liar, therefore without further evidence from a trustworthy source we are unable to state whether coal is white or black, is not a fallacy.

In many political arguments, it is the conclusion that is to the man, and that is again perfectly valid. If Glen Beck is making one of his weird arguments that don’t make any logical sense but ‘just happen’ to arrive at the type of conclusions you might expect of a racist, I don’t see how it is a fallacy or unreasonable to conclude that the most likely explanation is that Beck is a not-so-closet racist.

But do you casually toss around the accusation of being a pedophile? A rapist? What about a charge that someone lusts after his own daughter? Why or why not? I’m not asking to be rude. I’m asking because I wonder why you might think it would or wouldn’t be ok to do so, and then wonder how it connects back.

See also this old discussion. “Ad homonym” was probably not the greatest name, but it worked as a joke (not original to me).

Oh, I dunno; I haven’t read that book, but judging by the description on Amazon it might be bullshit. They talk about something they call “ethnocentric attitudes”, which sounds exactly like racism (and Yglesias interprets it as such), but according to Amazon it’s about

Ethnocentrism—our tendency to partition the human world into in-groups and out-groups—pervades societies around the world. Surprisingly, though, few scholars have explored its role in political life.

It doesn’t sound like this is about racism, does it?

Is that what it sounds like? Damn. I better shut up, then.

phil, i don’t have a lot of problems with that stance, and could live with it. we differ in that i’m inclined to preserve the descriptive employments of “racist” even if that means reducing its emotivist impact, whereas you want to keep it in reserve in the emotivist toolbox for special occasions, even if that means forgoing it’s application when it would be an accurate descriptor. i think lots of folks would agree that it would be nice to have three or four words to do better what “racist” does badly. (eg one for the pik botha/ jeff davis style of political ideologue who wants to implement discriminatory policy; one for lincoln in the period in which he sincerely loathed the racial policies of slavery but liked a good coon joke and believed in racial inferiority; one for granny who is glad that jim crow isn’t law but still doesn’t like to be around those people; one for the black professor of af-am studies who still, to his embarrassment, finds that he trusts doctors more if they are white; and so on).

so long as we only have one word, it’s going to be hard to make those clear distinctions along a continuum, i think. i like your examples, by the way, but in each case i’d say: what’s the best hypothesis? what best explains the author’s contrasting “mexicans” with “people”? what best explains the divergent reactions about crowd control?

Hi,

How can anyone who really understands what goes on in this world be concerned about the so-called “race” of any person or group? Take a look, for example, at the “Genocides in History” entry in Wikipedia. If any significant ethnic group or culture has not yet been guilty of some kind of atrocity, it’s only a matter of time, and an accident of lack of means and opportunity.

As for me, I deny that I’m a racist in any way. I’m absolutely an equal-opportunity misanthrope. Until you prove otherwise, you can ALL go screw yourselves. And that goes especially for you Republicans and Tea-Baggers recently.

Have a nice day!
Antti

Surely the real solution is for nobody to have any bad motives in the first place. Either that or ponies.

“The truth is is that any American conservative, and any member of the Republican Party, should be considered to be racist by default. And I don’t mean racist in the sense that everyone is supposed to unconsciously have racist assumptions. I mean racist in the sense that they believe in the superiority of white people and act to disenfranchise non-white people.”

Brilliant. Almost as smart as saying that all American liberals should be considered communist/totalitarian by default. And for like, the same reasons. [eyes roll]

“The truth is that liberals are not in fact communists or totalitarians”

I’m well aware. It would kind of defeat the point of my statement if they were. :)

“and that conservatives and the GOP generally have relied on race-based politics in the U.S. ”

this is only true for expansive values of ‘generally’ and ‘relied’. And certainly not enough to justify your ridiculous “any American conservative, and any member of the Republican Party, should be considered to be racist by default. And I don’t mean racist in the sense that everyone is supposed to unconsciously have racist assumptions. I mean racist in the sense that they believe in the superiority of white people and act to disenfranchise non-white people.”

And just for the record, in case you weren’t paying attention, the “Obama is a Muslim” meme was spread by Democrats during the Democratic primaries. Which is a data point on racism you might want to keep in mind.

I mean you can think want you want. People do all the time. If you believe your thinking is improved by ridiculously broad stereotypes, I can’t stop you. But I wouldn’t talk to many California Democrats about Mexican people if you don’t want your stereotypes to be problematized.

What an extraordinary historical text this thread will prove in decades to come. So many highly educated people fertilizing such a profoundly disturbing narrative. The problem starts with the initial premise: there is a “social norm against accusing people of one sin in particular” – racism.

To anybody who leaves their house more than once a week, or consumes the MSM, or habits the blogosphere, or has been to college, or works in a corporation, or works at all, this premise is at least problematic, and more likely completely silly.

What is going on here? A quick 2 step social deconstruction will help:

Step 1: How sincere are these narrators in their premise?
Step 2: Who are the narrators?

Step 1: There are two options as to why this narrative is so premised:

(i) The narrators are disingenuous, building a strawman in order to attack the particular people involved in the narrative’s engine room.
(ii) The narrators are sincere, and are reporting on their experiences in the world.

Now, these two might not be mutually exclusive, and might rationally co-exist.

Step 2: So, who are the narrators?

From the links to John Holbo’s post, and the subsequent CT posts, we can say this about the social context of the narrative. Its narrators are:

(i) Males of a certain age – 30 to 50 or so.
(ii) White
(iii) Upper-middle to Upper Class, prep and Ivy educated.

As some on this thread have noted, Step 2 on its own might be ad hominem. So let’s work a bit harder, and tie Step 2 to Step 1. We can show that 1 (i) and 1 (ii) are not mutually exclusive, and indeed in the context of the narrators (Step. 2), they are both true.

Upper and Upper Middle Class people are drilled from a very young age about how crucial one’s reputation is, and that you do not slight a man’s honor frivolously. White Upper Middle to Upper Class prep school and Ivy kids have mixed with scholarship and AA racial ‘others’ since infancy. They know the drill very well. To call one of their own a ‘racist’ is almost as bad as calling him a ‘welcher’, a ‘fraud’, or a ‘cad.’ The latter insults are aimed at the the insultee’s ungentlemanly, common, lower-class behaviour.

So, to the Upper Middle to Upper Class White Male prep school or Ivy student, what are the features of these lower class oiks upon whom their privileged life is built? Well, they are rednecks to be sure, oh and bridge and tunnel, fly-overs, evangelical home-schoolers, truck-driving, Joe Six Pack. And what are the discursive signifiers for these knuckle-draggers? Why racist of course.

So what we have here, is a highly nuanced discourse of extreme class privilege wielded to assert class belonging and representation over their foe. You’re a racist is substituted for you’re a welcher, fraud, or cad.

And thus, we now understand why such naice haute bourgeois types are loathe to drop the “R” bomb. The consequences for elite class belonging are far too great, and so all players lock and load at their peril. It is this sequestration, both geographically and discursively, that explains their belief that explains their ignorance of the ubiquity of accusations of ‘racism’ in not only the US, but throughout the elite Anglosphere.

These guys simply do not move in the less stitched-up circles that constitute 95% of the Anglosphere. If they did, they would realize that accusations of being not only a “racist” but a “minger”, a “fat slag”, a “fag”, a “skanky ho”, a “Nazi”, a “redneck”, a “terrorist raghead” are used just as much as punctuation as they themselves use “narrative”, “discourse”, “othering”, “misogyny”, and “white people”.

CT’s picking up this moronic, clueless, onanistic preppy/Ivy discourse created by the children of the white elite, has made the discourse somewhat more inclusive, so that we can revisit Step 2:

Inclusive Step 2: The people who believe honest and sincere dialogue is ruined by an insidious social norm against accusing people of one sin in particular- racism are:

(i) Males aged 30 to 55 + one woman (we know of).
(ii) Still White people
(iii) People with PhDs, who only attended magnet schools dammit.

In other words, this thread points us to only one ethical response. When a middle to upper-class white person pretends to “principle” when “calling out” their interlocutor for “racism”, we know that there is no dialogue. In fact, we have found ourselves the unwilling voyeur of the ignorant, argument-bereft, angst-ridden bed wetter, whom we should by rights spit at, before moving on to some more productive use of our time, such as clipping our nails.