I recently encountered one of the worst cases of ideological capture I’ve ever seen. It’s fairly sad for me because the person in question is smart and experienced and I’ve spent a great deal of time with him (although I haven’t seen him in the past decade).

He truly believes that the debate about CRT is driven, on the Republican side, by racism. He believes that the purpose of the anti-CRT bills in Florida (and elsewhere) is to reduce the amount of time spent on teaching black American history or to reduce the focus on racism. HB-7 is the recent notable education policy bill passed in the Florida legislature. Keep in mind: he believes that the goal of reducing the teaching of black history is attractive to Florida Republicans. On the bill’s official summary page we see this concluding paragraph:

“The bill expands required instruction in the history of African-Americans. For example, the bill requires that African-American history instruction develop in students an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms, and examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purpose of encouraging tolerance of diversity and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.”

So… Republicans want to limit the teaching of black history and this is popular with Republican voters, yet the bill is advertising that it expands the teaching of this subject? If you read the bill in full (as I did yesterday) you will find that the ENTIRE TEXT of the bill relates to the negative aspects of CRT. In this bill educators are not allowed to make racial generalizations (to label ‘whiteness’ evil, for instance) or promote group responsibility or imply the guilt of any students or people based purely on their race. The fact that we even need such a bill says a great deal about the poisonous influence of CRT in our educational institutions.

As to CRT, he truly believes that CRT is just the teaching of negative events in the racial saga of America. I’ve explained what CRT is and I’ve sent him YouTube videos of esteemed liberal black historians saying what it is (a social worldview that is committed to ending the American practices of free speech, meritocracy, and color-blindness because of their supposed white supremacist natures) but he refuses to listen.

I have spent years studying Critical Theory. It is one of the few subjects in which I’d call myself an expert. Let me be very clear: CRT is against the teaching of black history. They are against the objectivity and ethics of the professional historian altogether, which is why when they try their hand at historical writing (The 1619 Project, for instance) it’s revealed to be full of fabricated and manipulated source material and dishonest conclusions. Their goal is the construction of lurid and emotional narratives (i.e., the Revolutionary War was driven by a desire to protect slavery) which no historians endorse.

There is NO critical theory school in historical academia (as there is in Law, and Race Studies, and Queer Studies, and Women’s Studies, and Pedagogy) because the ideology is very much concerned with the future and not the past. The first duty of all those with critical consciousness is to be activists for the deconstruction of American institutions, as they openly state.

Finding exact quotes from the critical theorists is very difficult. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours (possibly thousands) reading them at this point. I literally just opened to the last document I was reading, scrolled to a spot AT RANDOM, and this is what you find:

Here is how Lukács summarizes his theory. “What is important is to recognize clearly that all human relations (viewed as the objects of social activity) assume increasingly the form of objectivity of the abstract elements of the conceptual systems of natural science and of the abstract substrata of the laws of nature. And also, the subject of this ‘action’ likewise assumes increasingly the attitude of the pure observer of these—artificially abstract—processes, the attitude of the experimenter.” Reification is thus the principle of intelligibility of capitalism. It is not a simple prejudice or belief, but the constructive basis of a social world. Writing at a time when invasive social rationalization threatened to overwhelm Europe, Lukács interpreted Marx’s analysis of capitalist economic rationality as the paradigm and source of the modern conception of science and technology. The economic limitations of capitalism show up as limitations of rationality in every sphere. These limitations have to do with what Lukács calls “formalism.” The problem, Lukács argues, is not with this formalistic scientific reason per se, but with its application beyond the bounds of nature, its appropriate object, to society

Orwell pointed out that those who write in intentionally dense and technical manners are often trying to hide or dissemble and that is certainly the case here. Sometimes I fear that my writing style, and indeed the very textures of my thought, have been irreparably harmed by the ingestion of too much of this material.

The bottom line, though, is that Critical Race Theory has absolutely nothing to do with the teaching of any history (black or other) and is consistently against the teaching of history (or math, or art…) unless it would increase the student’s appetite for radical activism.

Here’s Paolo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), the most cited pedagogical theorist in history and a Critical Theorist (and an especially lucid writer, but one who hides behind generalities):

"Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future."

"Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information"

"The educator with a democratic vision or posture cannot avoid in his teaching praxis insisting on the critical capacity, curiosity, and autonomy of the learner."

“There’s no such thing as neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.”

“Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”

“It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.”

“To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie.”

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.”

CRITICAL RACE THEORY IS AGAINST THE TEACHING OF BLACK HISTORY.

Lastly, I will focus on the most troubling aspect of this man’s derangement, and the source of many of the other distortions. He has completely failed to seek out the perspective of the other side on any issue which he’s passionate about. Not only that, he has either listened to their most malicious critics or has assumed the worst possible motivations for their goals.

For example, when it came to recent budget cuts supported by Republicans he didn’t know why they would support such things and hadn’t read any of their ideas (about the heavy cost to societies of funding social programs, half of the reason why Venezuela has lost a greater share of its wealth in the last decade than any country on Earth, and the ENTIRE reason why Europe has spent 20 years in economic doldrums). He seems to simply believe that the GOP wants to hurt veterans and the poor.

Concerning inflation, he believes that it’s caused by corporate greed… even though I have found not ONE economist who takes this idea seriously (there are basic theoretical reasons why it fails, and I’m writing about this and other examples of economic fallacy elsewhere).

…and on the subject of CRT education he believes, as I already said, that Republicans are motivated by racism and a public desire to limit the educational focus on black history (although there is not a single quote or tweet or polling number to support such a crazy assertion).

In fact, when it comes to the importance of such education, Republicans and Democrats are fairly similar. A party in which a significant share of the membership wanted to whitewash the history of Jim Crow would show appalling attitudes toward race but about 35% of Republicans want MORE focus on racism and its history with about 20% undecided. That is NOT a group of people who are trying to drastically reduce the teaching of black history. The truly ironic thing is that he believes that data is of supreme importance in formulating beliefs-which shows the biased way that we apply such heuristics to attack ideas we oppose and avoid doing so to ideas we favor.

In fact, ANY reference to the polling data will show some sharp divisions but virtually NO ONE is in favor of discrimination or racism or bears any hostility to other groups. Nearly everyone in America wants freedom and happiness and wealth for all… the only disagreements are about how we get there.

I’ve asked him for evidence, some evidence, of Republicans being racist in public or stating that they want to silence black voices or handicap the teaching of black history. In response he will provide ambiguous policies. Some examples are gerrymandering and the limiting of polling stations in black areas during elections. The former is purely due to political considerations. Both sides do it and it is to privilege their VOTERS, not a certain race. Republicans would much rather have black Republicans (and there are millions) voting than white Democrats so race is not the operative factor. The same goes for the polling places, but I also know that in the past 2 elections in Georgia the state provided funding to the districts (controlled by Democrats) which was lost or mismanaged. These are complex events and you can never assume racist intent based on such multivariant outcomes. You must find evidence about intent to prove intent.

Similar case: the opposition of Gov. DeSantis and his ilk to the new AP Black History course. If you only listened to especially dishonest opponents of DeSantis you could believe that the governor opposed the course because it was black history. Instead, he wanted the course changed because of its absurd inclusion of units about Queer Theory (a frankly crazy subset of Critical Theory) and factually dubious materials concerning BLM and recent events.

To anyone thinking clearly it would be obvious that if Republicans wanted to limit the teaching of black history as such (rather than those examples infected by propaganda or falsehood) then there would be many cases of notable Republicans saying so, and I have never encountered such a thing.

Here are some counter-examples: teachers’ unions oppose the imposition of quality standards for teachers and therefore hurt education quality. This disproportionately hurts black students (who rely more than most for public educational resources for their education). Minimum wage laws disproportionately hurt the employment rate of black men. By his logic, Democrats (the party who support the unions and minimum wage legislation) are clearly motivated by racism. It’s obvious.

…except that it’s obviously not, and all that’s required to understand that is to listen to what the Democrats have to say for THEMSELVES.

I post this as a warning to all subscribers: if you think a politician or a political party is motivated by a negative (that they want to hurt or silence or impoverish another group) rather than a positive you need to be especially careful to seek out their opponents and listen to what THEY have to say for themselves.

If you don’t you may find yourself misinterpreting statements and legislation and assuming the bigotry and, frankly, evil of tens of millions of your fellow Americans… without any evidence whatsoever.