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Man is not affected by events but by the view he takes of them. Epictetus
It is simply not a winning recipe anymore to use Reason as a tool to counter the irrationality inherent in modern discourses on race. It is as if the methods of the natural sciences – and positivism in the social sciences – have become all but redundant.
For example, the use of statistical analysis to prove that black-on-white crime is vastly more prevalent than white-on-black crime has proven to be ineffective when it comes to calling for even-handedness in academic debates, good faith in politics and legal justice for white individuals and their communities. Similarly, (most) white liberals and their black disciples have no problem acknowledging the scientific validity of IQ test scores when it suits their purposes. Yet when it does not, they deny its validity. This is completely irrational, for the litmus test of rationality demands that one cannot hold A and non-A simultaneously.
Even the utilisation of precise scientific measurements leading to empirically-valid facts are denied by (most) liberals. For example, the average male body has ten times more testosterone than the average female body. Testosterone plays a huge role in behaviour, as any expert in physiology and human behaviour would readily attest to. Meaning that it is simply false to believe that gender is a social construct, because the amount of testosterone in the human body hugely impacts average gender – ergo, role – behaviour.
The above-mentioned examples, and numerous others, proves that traditional forms of truth-validation do not hold sway anymore in the irrational universe of modern discourses on race. Meaning that we are, literally, back in the days of Galileo and the Inquisition… where even 100% proof of heliocentricity could not negate the dogma underpinning geocentricity.
It is therefore imperative that conservatives devise new forms of critique – hence, a new methodology – in order to regain their foothold in the narrative on/of race in the academic and public spheres.
In order to do so, it is necessary to isolate and examine the core rationale, the thesis, holding the (still dominant) liberal race-narrative together. Once this has been done, one only needs to define its antithesis and, if present, exploit the synthesis.
The two most salient characteristics of the liberal race narrative are individual agency and emotionality. The former flows (mostly) from the aestheticism of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida. The latter obviously flows from Freud.
Both the above-mentioned are, generally, present in academic discourses in the form of interpretivist theory. This theory is, in very basic terms, underpinned by epistemological assumptions that hold that the “truth” is in man. This is obviously the dialectical opposite (the antithesis) of the classic modernist view that the “truth” is out there somewhere. In short; man creates knowledge, s/he does not discover it… in the Cartesian sense.
These two theoretical perspectives were the main combatants in the so-called Paradigm Wars, as initiated by Thomas Kuhn – in lieu of his relativization of (a single) Truth. It suffices to say that a compromise, a synthesis, has been found after the fog of battle has cleared, namely, sociocultural theory. This theory, albeit a synthesis, is inherently antithetical (to the liberal race narrative) because it emphasises collective agency. Meaning that conservative thinkers would be well-advised to use it as a truth-validating method/ology to counter the emphasis on individual agency, as espoused by liberals. In short; sociocultural theory has the potential to become a marvellous instrument of/for exposing “untruths” in the irrational universe of liberal discourses on race.
To the trickier one, emotionality: what is the antithesis of emotionality? As mentioned in the introductory paragraphs of this column, cold hard scientific facts are unable to function as untruths in the wacky irrational universe inhabited by (most) white liberals. Could indifference be the antithesis of emotionality? This seems to be happening in the public sphere… where the normal white conservative citizenry is becoming increasingly immune to the incessant screams of “Racist, Hater, and Nazi baby-seal clubber!” by bleeding-heart white liberals.
It is as if indifference has become a potent weapon in the fight against the emotion-laden zealotry of the white liberal establishment in the public sphere. But now the question obviously is; how does one colloquialize indifference into solid academic theory with which to counter the still dominant left-wing narrative on race-related issues?
I can only think of one school of (Western) philosophy that was passionate about indifference (pun intended): Stoicism. Maybe therefore a re-evaluation of Stoicism could assist in developing the necessary theoretical foundations from which to utilise indifference as weapon – alongside sociocultual theory – with which to expose untruths in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Stoicism was, after all, the moral backbone of the old British Empire… which, as we know, was very successful. So why not try a winning recipe…?
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