Critical Race Theory (CRT) and it's place in American race-relations.

Thought I'd cook up a thread to open some dialogue on a subject we're all very comfortable talking about. Yes, you guessed it right; Critical Race Theory. For this thread, I'll try to keep the OP intentional somewhat vague, but I'll provide additional resources are the bottom of the OP for additional research on the topic. This is can be a very complicated and nuanced topic that will cover things such as culture, empirical research, BLM, economics and philosophy. If any of these topics offend you, or you are not well-researched on the topic; I would ask you from refraining in discussion.

Why is this topical?

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President Trump signed an executive order expanding a ban on government agencies receiving sensitivity training involving critical race theory to federal contractors. [Source: NYP]

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What is CRT?

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Critical race theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power. [Source: Wikipedia]

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I'll keep the prompt very open:

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Do you believe removing these trainings to be helpful in the long term? What are your thoughts on CRT as a whole? Do you believe it is unifying or divisive?

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Links for:
Dr. Keith Stanley Brooks "Critical Race Theory - Fact vs. Feeling"
Professor Donald Jones: Critical Race Theory and Constitutional Law
Dr. Christine Sleeter: Why Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory Matter for Education

Links against:
Christopher Rufo: What You Need To Know About Critical Race Theory
Coleman Hughes: Coleman Hughes | Racism & The Wealth Gap
YoungRippa59: Black Civil Rights Leaders, White Leftists & The Black Struggle

Keep it civil or the thread will be nuked; Let me know if you'd like any additional resources posted to the OP; Most importantly, have an open mind!

A team of Renegade academics a couple of years back conducted a study/practical joke (depending on how you see it) on what they called ‘grievance studies’. This also included race theory. BTW, they got several papers published even though they were... physicists, philosophers, etc, in other words: They literally had nothing to do with the field they published in, and they deliberately tried to make their papers as absurd as possible, and yet they still got published. This to me shows that race theory and other similar things should a) not be taught, and b) should be called out for the anti-intellectualism they promote.

I have a simple view on this: it's a fake field based on the artificial consideration of socio-economic situations to be essential (which means they would be inherent to the "races"), while they are accidentally caused by the way history played out.

Note that "essential" and "accidental" are here taken in their strict meaning in logic.

Yes, exactly, it’s fake. It’s Marxism except it replaced class struggle with race struggle.

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Originally Posted by Oberon

Yes, exactly, it’s fake. It’s Marxism except it replaced class struggle with race struggle.

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Marxism already makes more sense lol; the idea of class struggle is not wrong imo, it just really, really shouldn't be generalized and should only happen in critical situations; "class tension" is something that will probably be maintained as long as (free) society exists, though.

Buuut that's off-topic :D

Im not going to take sides without reading into the issue but I would say "Critical race theory" should have some level of clinical proof before being funded.

I will also say I have been watching the first link referencing Dr. Keith Stanley Brooks and I have a little bit of trouble believing this guy is actually a doctor. I have never seen an intellectual with a that level of education promote racism so hard. Regardless of the rest of this issue before I look at it this guy is pushing racism...

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Originally Posted by Helz

Im not going to take sides without reading into the issue but I would say "Critical race theory" should have some level of clinical proof before being funded.

I will also say I have been watching the first link referencing Dr. Keith Stanley Brooks and I have a little bit of trouble believing this guy is actually a doctor. I have never seen an intellectual with a that level of education promote racism so hard. Regardless of the rest of this issue before I look at it this guy is pushing racism...

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Don't you need funding into research in order to find proof tho or you strictly talking about government funding not any academic research

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Originally Posted by Oberon

A team of Renegade academics a couple of years back conducted a study/practical joke (depending on how you see it) on what they called ‘grievance studies’. This also included race theory. BTW, they got several papers published even though they were... physicists, philosophers, etc, in other words: They literally had nothing to do with the field they published in, and they deliberately tried to make their papers as absurd as possible, and yet they still got published. This to me shows that race theory and other similar things should a) not be taught, and b) should be called out for the anti-intellectualism they promote.

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This same problem exists in every academic field, it's just that these people chose to do it for cultural studies. Idk why, probably because of "muh anti-social sciences circlejerk lmao xD". Nobody verifies experiments and if you falsify data you can get published in whatever journal you want. I've personally seen this happen in hard sciences. Unless you think all of science should not be taught and called out for anti-intellectualism, then you're making a pretty bad point.

That being said I have no idea what Critical Race Theory is so I won't comment lmao.

Knowing how cultural issues manifest themselves and how they interact with other cultures is good to know, no? This ban just seems like a political move to "unite the right" against "communism".

Same ol shit again and again but hey if it works it works.

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Originally Posted by Helz

Im not going to take sides without reading into the issue but I would say "Critical race theory" should have some level of clinical proof before being funded.

I will also say I have been watching the first link referencing Dr. Keith Stanley Brooks and I have a little bit of trouble believing this guy is actually a doctor. I have never seen an intellectual with a that level of education promote racism so hard. Regardless of the rest of this issue before I look at it this guy is pushing racism...

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I wanted to submit decently reputable arguments as additional sources, but they're hard to come by in concise form. Perhaps you can find another. CRT does have issues with objectivity. The extension of the ban was to Government contractors in this situation.

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Originally Posted by Firebringer

Don't you need funding into research in order to find proof tho or you strictly talking about government funding not any academic research

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These are sensitivity trainings that focus on CRT; which is a theory -- not a scientific theory (a la the Big Bang) but much more social. It's one of the largest topics in English academia.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

This same problem exists in every academic field, it's just that these people chose to do it for cultural studies. Idk why, probably because of "muh anti-social sciences circlejerk lmao xD". Nobody verifies experiments and if you falsify data you can get published in whatever journal you want. I've personally seen this happen in hard sciences. Unless you think all of science should not be taught and called out for anti-intellectualism, then you're making a pretty bad point.

That being said I have no idea what Critical Race Theory is so I won't comment lmao.

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It's honestly something we're all very familiar with, at least from the media. It's be concepts like White Fragility, White Privilege, Micro-aggressions, Victimization etc. The general idea of it is there is the Oppressor, and the Oppressed. Of course I would encourage you to look into it yourself.

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Originally Posted by rumox

Knowing how cultural issues manifest themselves and how they interact with other cultures is good to know, no? This ban just seems like a political move to "unite the right" against "communism".

Same ol shit again and again but hey if it works it works.

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Well, certainly yes I'd say to your first question. The problem could be how CRT approaches it, methodology-wise. In many ways it can oversimplify more nuanced and complex issues and it's extremely difficult to prove empirically.

And yes, I think you might be correct about anti-communism. It borrows heavily from Critical Theory, which also lends itself to Marxism and has roots in Frankfurt during WW2. Ganelon isn't necessarily wrong with his Marxism reference.

I mean I guess the extended ban makes sense if they are worried it would inspire future communists since it goes against the status quo. But what is this training that got banned? What did the program entail? Is it really as simple as "this is how whites keep themselves in power over other races"?

I think there are barriers non-white races have to "get on the same level" as white people in America due to the past, but I don't think it's a coordinated effort to propel the white race forward. At least not to the extent this theory seems to suggest.

I had no idea of crt until this thread was posted so I am reading little pits and pieces of it.

I'm not sure if I've researched enough, so you'll have to forgive me.

Even though this is part of the left, most of us nominally on the left don't seem to know much about it. I hadn't heard of "CRT" until I saw this thread. Though, judging by the wikipedia page, that's due to us being ignorant rather than this topic being obscure. When I think of prominent scholars on race relations, I think "Cornel West" rather than "Derrick Bell".

Personally, I always felt microaggressions, white fragility, and terms like that were silly and gained more traction due to their divisiveness than their merit. But that might be my white fragility! =P

I know you wanted to remain semi-neutral, but I'd love to read your unabashed take on it, given you appear to have much more knowledge/thoughts on this than the rest of us, and would probably have much more developed views lol.

what I don’t understand is why people focus on race specifically when there are many other more significant ways in which people differ... a black guy who works at NASA is more similar to a white guy who works at NASA than to a black guy who works at Walmart.

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Marxism already makes more sense lol; the idea of class struggle is not wrong imo, it just really, really shouldn't be generalized and should only happen in critical situations; "class tension" is something that will probably be maintained as long as (free) society exists, though.

Buuut that's off-topic :D

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I don’t believe in class struggle.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

This same problem exists in every academic field, it's just that these people chose to do it for cultural studies. Idk why, probably because of "muh anti-social sciences circlejerk lmao xD". Nobody verifies experiments and if you falsify data you can get published in whatever journal you want. I've personally seen this happen in hard sciences. Unless you think all of science should not be taught and called out for anti-intellectualism, then you're making a pretty bad point.

That being said I have no idea what Critical Race Theory is so I won't comment lmao.

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I very strongly doubt it exists to the same degree as in grievance studies, because our factories, aircraft, spaceships and various science experiments are still being carried out and science is progressing. Try submitting an article to a physics journal without even having a PhD and see what happens.

Note that they didn’t rail against the entirety of the social sciences, only against ‘cultural’ studies. IMO good work is still being done in psychology and shit.

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Originally Posted by Oberon

I very strongly doubt it exists to the same degree as in grievance studies, because our factories, aircraft, spaceships and various science experiments are still being carried out and science is progressing. Try submitting an article to a physics journal without even having a PhD and see what happens.

Note that they didn’t rail against the entirety of the social sciences, only against ‘cultural’ studies. IMO good work is still being done in psychology and shit.

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Four fraudulent papers being accepted across a number of journals is evidence of dishonesty being widespread in cultural studies? I've personally seen and worked with more than four papers in hard sciences with my own eyes that had dubious or outright fraudulent results, or were unreproducible.

Funny you bring up psychology, because over half of psychology papers can't be reproduced: https://www.nature.com/news/over-hal...y-test-1.18248

This is an issue with academia, not with cultural studies in particular. Granted, I have no idea how widespread it is in different fields. Take a look for yourself though, in the past 2 months there were at least eight hard science papers that got retracted: https://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx

I also think it's kinda funny that you brought up physics, because basically the same thing happened in the field of physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair

It’s not really a huge revelation that some journals are shit. It is however very interesting that an entire field is corrupt enough that some of the most prestigious academic journals publishing findings in said field can publish absurd papers.

The two aren’t comparable.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

Four fraudulent papers being accepted across a number of journals is evidence of dishonesty being widespread in cultural studies? I've personally seen and worked with more than four papers in hard sciences with my own eyes that had dubious or outright fraudulent results, or were unreproducible.

Funny you bring up psychology, because over half of psychology papers can't be reproduced: https://www.nature.com/news/over-hal...y-test-1.18248

This is an issue with academia, not with cultural studies in particular. Granted, I have no idea how widespread it is in different fields. Take a look for yourself though, in the past 2 months there were at least eight hard science papers that got retracted: https://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx

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No lol, the issue in academia is separate because cultural studies have nothing to do with academia and everything to do with politics. Cultural studies trains activists, not scientists.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

Four fraudulent papers being accepted across a number of journals is evidence of dishonesty being widespread in cultural studies? I've personally seen and worked with more than four papers in hard sciences with my own eyes that had dubious or outright fraudulent results, or were unreproducible.

Funny you bring up psychology, because over half of psychology papers can't be reproduced: https://www.nature.com/news/over-hal...y-test-1.18248

This is an issue with academia, not with cultural studies in particular. Granted, I have no idea how widespread it is in different fields. Take a look for yourself though, in the past 2 months there were at least eight hard science papers that got retracted: https://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx

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‘Over half of psychology papers can’t be reproduced’
Indeed but psychology has a rich literature and has produced numerous valuable and valid findings. It’s also spawned new fields and influenced existing ones.

How many cultural studies papers can be reproduced? Probably none or almost none.

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Originally Posted by yzb25

I'm not sure if I've researched enough, so you'll have to forgive me.

Even though this is part of the left, most of us nominally on the left don't seem to know much about it. I hadn't heard of "CRT" until I saw this thread. Though, judging by the wikipedia page, that's due to us being ignorant rather than this topic being obscure. When I think of prominent scholars on race relations, I think "Cornel West" rather than "Derrick Bell".

Personally, I always felt microaggressions, white fragility, and terms like that were silly and gained more traction due to their divisiveness than their merit. But that might be my white fragility! =P

I know you wanted to remain semi-neutral, but I'd love to read your unabashed take on it, given you appear to have much more knowledge/thoughts on this than the rest of us, and would probably have much more developed views lol.

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So, this is obviously a pretty complicated topic. I'll try my best to explain my stances on subjects where I see CRT applied and give a bit of my own anecdotes. In short, no I don't support CRT: I believe it is flawed, divisive and racist.

I'll start with my primary concern. CRT seeks to establish a framework explaining racism as it applies to different topics but ultimately removes accountability. Personally, Accountability is one of the most important things to me as it protects the individual and separates them from being generalized.

When we apply constructs in CRT to race, we lose that. You're no longer racist because of your actions, you're racist because of your skin color. You're no longer a victim because you were wronged, you're a victim because of your skin color. You are in every way controlled by factors like microaggressions that control you in ways you cannot know, cannot be proven and cannot be understood. Free will and accountability go right out the window. I could go on about this (specifics in regard to race) for hours honestly, but this is generally my stance on it. Most ironically, we ignore MLK's words and judge based on skin, rather than character.

This is something that has exploded in the past 8 years, especially from the left and it's prevalent in collegiate English departments. I've seen this first hand and my English professor who became a good friend of mine retweeted this (from someone else) the other day. It was extremely interesting how entwined CRT has become in politics. To reject something makes you racist, and aligns you politically. Hell, you can check #whiteprivilege on twitter yourself to see.

Maybe it'll be gone after the election, I'd like to think that. But how dangerous does this become when we're conflating race with politics? If I needed a disclaimer, I'm pretty close to the center politically but I really don't think it's a good look for leftists who support this kind of thing. It's become extremely hard to have a discussion with people who truly believe they're doing the right thing. Who think this is shit is doing anything but dividing people.

But I guess even if I didn't care about accountability, I'd have to ask -- does it work? And the only way I can answer that is by staring at the color of my hand as I type this.

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Originally Posted by Oberon

No lol, the issue in academia is separate because cultural studies have nothing to do with academia and everything to do with politics. Cultural studies trains activists, not scientists.

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What? It's a field of academia. Things don't stop being academic because you don't like them.

I don't even give a fuck about cultural studies but it's overly pretentious and frankly really cringey and pseudo-intellectual to disregard entire fields because you disagree with the people practising them.

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Originally Posted by Oberon

‘Over half of psychology papers can’t be reproduced’
Indeed but psychology has a rich literature and has produced numerous valuable and valid findings. It’s also spawned new fields and influenced existing ones.

How many cultural studies papers can be reproduced? Probably none or almost none.

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Can you provide evidence of that?

I don't know why you're arguing this. I've literally shown you direct evidence of the exact same thing happening in natural sciences and you're plugging your ears and saying "wahh wahh i don't believe you wahh wahh". This is a quantifiable and objective problem that exists in all of academia regardless of how much the existence of cultural studies hurts your feelings. Stop being ignorant and acknowledge the evidence I posted and maybe then you can finally start formulating a cohesive point.

So crt can be summed up as skewing data to project an ideology forward? If the methodology of what they are doing with the information is cooked then the ban is justifiable and I think any logical person will agree with that. Is there a paper from a crt researcher I can read?

It sounds like the left version of "majority of violent crimes are committed by blacks therefore blacks are the problem" type of thing.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

What? It's a field of academia. Things don't stop being academic because you don't like them.

I don't even give a fuck about cultural studies but it's overly pretentious and frankly really cringey and pseudo-intellectual to disregard entire fields because you disagree with the people practising them.



Can you provide evidence of that?

I don't know why you're arguing this. I've literally shown you direct evidence of the exact same thing happening in natural sciences and you're plugging your ears and saying "wahh wahh i don't believe you wahh wahh". This is a quantifiable and objective problem that exists in all of academia regardless of how much the existence of cultural studies hurts your feelings. Stop being ignorant and acknowledge the evidence I posted and maybe then you can finally start formulating a cohesive point.

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No dude, that shit aha nothing to do with academia because it is political, and its sole reason to even exist is to ‘fight against racism’ or whatever other new age bullshit the postmodernists toy around with.

‘Quantifiable problem and exists in all other academic fields’
Yes, but nowhere near to the same extent. In fact they aren’t comparable. In one scenario you have academics submitting to shit journals and/or conducting shit experiments because they don’t understand how statistics works, or how their field works. No other field is as politicized as cultural studies. BTW, there’s a serious conflict of interest in cultural studies due to its political nature, and in fact if any science is done at all, it is buried beneath heaps of politics-laden essays.

‘Direct evidence’
No, the link showed a scandal where two physicists published bad science. Bad science happens in every field. However, politics is distinct from bad science. Bad science at least purports to be scientific.

‘Hurts your feelings’
You seem to be taking this quite personally :)

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Originally Posted by Oberon

No dude, that shit aha nothing to do with academia because it is political, and its sole reason to even exist is to ‘fight against racism’ or whatever other new age bullshit the postmodernists toy around with.

‘Quantifiable problem and exists in all other academic fields’
Yes, but nowhere near to the same extent. In fact they aren’t comparable. In one scenario you have academics submitting to shit journals and/or conducting shit experiments because they don’t understand how statistics works, or how their field works. No other field is as politicized as cultural studies. BTW, there’s a serious conflict of interest in cultural studies due to its political nature, and in fact if any science is done at all, it is buried beneath heaps of politics-laden essays.

‘Direct evidence’
No, the link showed a scandal where two physicists published bad science. Bad science happens in every field. However, politics is distinct from bad science. Bad science at least purports to be scientific.

‘Hurts your feelings’
You seem to be taking this quite personally :)

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Regardless of what you think about cultural studies, it's something that is studied in an academic context in post-secondary institutions. That qualifies it as academia, your revisionist definitions notwithstanding.

"nowhere near to the same extent"
I have seen enormous amounts of fraud in hard sciences. This happens not just in "shit journals" but in rather prestigious journals like Nature, and it isn't about shit experiments but actively committing fraud and misrepresenting results to further their own careers.

You also have to understand hard sciences are also very politicized. Research is led by where the funding is, and money (especially government funding which is where a lot of grants come from) directly follows politics. Nowadays, for instance, it's very difficult to get funding for any sort of project in biology or biochemistry unless it relates to COVID-19. I'd definitely call that political.

The scandal wasn't about two physicists publishing bad science. Their PhDs themselves were borderline fraudulent, and they got papers full of buzzwords and bullshit published in prestigious journals. It's hardly bad science, more people making up bullshit and getting published anyway.

The thing is, I don't even care about cultural studies. I just think that taking a couple of hoax papers being published once with no control group in other fields as a reason for why the entire field is bullshit is extremely fucking dumb, when it's an issue with academia as a whole. I hate the arrogant "muh STEM is the best thing ever" attitude, it's straight up neckbeardy and cringe. And that's coming from someone who only ever studied and made a career out of STEM.

‘It’s something that gets studied in academic institutions’
Exactly, and that’s what’s so horrifying about it. It purports to be scientific and yet all it does is rob children or any opportunity to actually learn anything. They just get indoctrinated! It’s bloody useless and even worse, dangerous.

‘Enormous amounts of fraud occur’
Again, fraud is very different from the kind of ... I won’t even call it anti-intellectualism because it has nothing to do with intellectualism. It is very different from the dishonest politically-laden bs that fields like gender studies or racial studies push. At least frauds purport to do science, if only solely for their own benefit.

‘Politicized’
The only thing that’s political is military shit, and that obviously has to be of a high standard because otherwise the government won’t pay for it (talking about physics). I can believe that biochemistry has recently become more political though that is most likely a temporary state of affairs (until the world stops caring about covid).

I’d say two bad physicists publishing basically pseudoscience in a less well known academic journal isn’t ry the same as several people over the years publishing papers that they deliberately tried to make as absurd as possible.

‘STEM is the best thing ever’
It IS the best thing ever. That’s why you have a 32 GB computer, and all those wonderful things that make your life way easier. I’m not discounting the humanities, in spite of the claim you have made. I have literally mentioned psychology as a better field, and anybody with any sense would know psychology is a mess rn (though ‘good’ science still gets published from time to time).

‘Neckbeardy artitude’
Your cause would be better served if you didn’t engage in ad hominems :-)
You seem to be having an emotional response to this discussion.

"They just get indoctrinated!"
Sounds like full-blown alarmism to me. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it's indoctrination. One might say teaching evolution is indoctrination as well, in fact, many do. You just seem to deny it because you personally disagree with it, which isn't very academically honest.

"politically-laden"
Lots of things are politically-laden. Do you think all of political science, economics, and law are also completely dishonest and non-academic because they're even more politically-laden than cultural studies?

"The only thing that’s political is military shit"
You're straight up wrong about this lmao. Politics being involved in science has been a thing for centuries, and will continue to be. It isn't just COVID, that's an example. Once again, you have absolutely no experience in the field or in academia, whereas I do, and I can tell you this same thing happens and has happened since before you were born. It was the same with Zika and Ebola, where those were hot topics in science during their own times. Stem cell research remains extremely politically controversial and stem cell researchers have to play political games and even become activists.

"less well known academic journal"
They weren't less well-known journals? You're literally making shit up here. The Bogdanovs published their papers in journals with significantly higher impact factors than what the Grievance Studies Affairs people managed to get published in. Why do you insist on talking about things you have no idea about?

"ad hominems"
I have not made a single ad-hom argument. If you think "ad hominem" is a synonym for personal attack I suggest you re-learn what an ad-hom fallacy is.

I feel bad at this point, because it seems like I'm arguing with someone woefully full of themselves yet who has no idea what they're talking about. Your arrogance in subjects that others are experienced about, that you think you know everything about because you read some dumbass blogger cry about them, really shows when you talk so assuredly about academia despite barely being out of high school. I recommend you gain some humbleness before you try to talk about this kind of stuff, because you're really far less knowledgeable than you think you are and your discussions on academia are akin to listening to these same types of cultural studies people you despise so much trying to talk about STEM topics and falling flat on their face. You talk about these fields being damaging, but your stubbornness is just as damaging if not more so.

Again, you’re comparing stem cell research to gender studies and the like. No shit its controversial, there are many potential lawsuits and legally/morally grey scenarios resulting from genetic research. This isn’t comparable to being taught we live in an oppressive white cisgender male patriarchy. How about you actually address what gets taught in those classes instead of going on personal attacks? :)

The problem is that the entire field is rotten to the core. There is nothing scientific about it, and those hoax papers showed that. Let me repeat that. There is NOTHING scientific coming from oppression studies, the very name is as political as it gets. Fact of the matter is that I could literally publish a paper and get a PHD in one of those fields even though I’ve not even written my thesis yet. I seriously thought of doing that as a meme...

Lemme ask you something. I’m willing to bet a colossal amount of money that you do not know ANYONE who has both a degree in oppression studies and a paying job. Because employers see that degree as actually been worse than useless... nobody wants someone who complains about the printer being sexist or people ‘manspreading’.

This is indoctrination, and there is absolutely no going past this. A class that teaches oppression studies and refuses to allow dissenting voices to be heard is not academic. It goes against the principles of academia, really. If you can’t have a discussion about an issue, you can’t think. This has happened to many professors (some of whom are even on the left btw), and even to some on the right (there aren’t many of them anyways). Also, many universities, in their infinite wisdom, now have... and I’m not making this up, social justice tribunals. Essentially kangaroo trials.

Its extremely dishonest what’s happening right now in academia. Those two hoax papers aren’t even cutting it. It’s not just that the field itself is bogus: it’s evil. It doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all the people it is claimed to be intended to help.

I'm going to ignore your entire post because you're arguing against a point I never made. I don't care about cultural studies and I said nothing about whether the field is beneficial or not or even if it contains more bullshit than other fields (it probably does). All I talked about was the disingenuous study you posted attributing a problem with all of academia to one field and discrediting that field based on that.

I actually do have a friend who got a degree in cultural anthropology I believe it was, and now he works at a decently paying job, probably gets paid more than you. How much can I expect you to pay me, can I just PM you my paypal? I'll also accept Steam credit if you're on Steam.

Do you mean a course on oppression studies, or a full fledged degree? I can find individual courses somewhat related to "oppression studies" but not a full fledged degree.

Youth justice case manager, community engagement officer, not-for-profit campaign organiser, program manager for community-based not-for-profit organisations, social research officer, human rights worker, and aid worker/humanitarian worker all seem like fine jobs according to some university here that offers a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Social Justice.

I get shitting on social justice is a meme, but there are practical fields where education on legitimate social justice is good.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

I'm going to ignore your entire post because you're arguing against a point I never made. I don't care about cultural studies and I said nothing about whether the field is beneficial or not or even if it contains more bullshit than other fields (it probably does). All I talked about was the disingenuous study you posted attributing a problem with all of academia to one field and discrediting that field based on that.

I actually do have a friend who got a degree in cultural anthropology I believe it was, and now he works at a decently paying job, probably gets paid more than you. How much can I expect you to pay me, can I just PM you my paypal? I'll also accept Steam credit if you're on Steam.

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1. I did not attribute 'a problem with all of academia to one field'. I said that the field in question isn't even academic, and it is entirely (or almost entirely) corrupt. Even its intellectual underpinnings are very flimsy.
2. Cultural anthropology is not an oppression study, is it now? It's a humanities degree. Also, I haven't even finished my studies... it's not hard for someone to make more money than me xD

My point still stands. Show up to an employer with a degree in Gender Studies and see how quickly you'll be ushered out the door.

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Originally Posted by rumox

I get shitting on social justice is a meme, but there are practical fields where education on legitimate social justice is good.

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What is 'legitimate social justice'?
Why does justice have to be social in the first place?

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

Four fraudulent papers being accepted across a number of journals is evidence of dishonesty being widespread in cultural studies? I've personally seen and worked with more than four papers in hard sciences with my own eyes that had dubious or outright fraudulent results, or were unreproducible.

Funny you bring up psychology, because over half of psychology papers can't be reproduced: https://www.nature.com/news/over-hal...y-test-1.18248

This is an issue with academia, not with cultural studies in particular. Granted, I have no idea how widespread it is in different fields. Take a look for yourself though, in the past 2 months there were at least eight hard science papers that got retracted: https://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx

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You literally argued against my point that the anti-intellectualism in those studies did not exist in any other field to the same degree... RIGHT HERE.

And then later you say that "there probably is more bullshit in grievance studies than in other fields"?
Which is it?

You're dismissing the entire field because you don't agree with the conclusions politically, which is rather anti-intellectual in and of itself. Stop pretending that it's due to anything else. If cultural studies had a more right-wing lean you would not be making these arguments against it.

Feel free to go on Linkedin and search "gender studies", and you can find many people with such degrees that have jobs. My Steam name is oops_ur_bread if you want to send me the colossal amount of money, how much do you owe me?

I literally don't understand your last post. I was challenging your suggestion that cultural studies are completely un-scientific and anti-intellectual because of the grievance studies affair, while also stating that I personally think the field has some (though I have no idea how much) politicization and overall BS. I have given you ample evidence that this kind of stuff exists in other academic fields, even "objective" physical sciences like physics. You've chosen to ignore it.

Also, the people that conducted the grievance studies affair had 10 papers get rejected. If the field was as bullshit as you suggest it is, surely none of the papers would get rejected because you allege that there are no academic standards for cultural studies?

Did you actually read the papers in question? One of the papers submitted was a rewritten version of Mein Kampf (!), and it got accepted. The other ones were absurd, but rewriting a section of Mein Kampf and getting it PUBLISHED just by rewriting the racial shit in it to intersectional feminism is absurd. One of the papers purported that men could reduce their homophobia by anally penetrating themselves with toys... I mean. This stuff is so absurd that you don't even need a degree to see how absurd it is.

"If cultural studies had a more right lean you would not be attacking it"
First of all, they're not merely "left-leaning" as your comments suggest. They're radically left in a manner that is quite destructive; in fact, the very fact that they got a section of Mein Kampf successfully published (btw, one other outrageous paper - cuz that isn't the only one - was the dog rape one, where they actually concluded that men should be put on a leash (!) in order to deal with toxic masculinity; you cannot make this shit up) proves how radical and how destructive the ideology behind it is.
Second of all, all of the humanities (except perhaps economics) are left leaning and this is fairly well known. I am not attacking them because I think there is legitimate research being done in fields such as psychology, sociology and so on (even though the quality of the research has diminished, precisely due to them allowing grievance academics into their fold).
Thirdly, the academics who published those papers were themselves left leaning. And this isn't the first time this has happened: back in 1997 (I believe), a physicist named Sokol published an equally absurd paper that proved that "quantum gravity was a social construct", as a hoax. Dude's stated purpose was to "save the left from itself" (IMO a good reason).

If the field had been worth anything, those 4 papers (plus 3? that had been accepted but not yet published) would not have been published at all. The only reason they got caught was because journalists realized the alias they were publishing the papers under was fake.

Also, you need to define "cultural studies" lol. If the cultural studies in question posit that the West is a tyrannical patriarchy or that whites are systematically oppressing other races (something which is unscientific to assert at the very least, because there is little proof that this is the case), then yes, they are just as corrupt as the things I'm talking about. It's literally outrage culture but in academia.

"This happens in other academic fields"
No other academic field has published Mein Kampf in one of their journals.
No other academic field is as politicized as this one. In fact, this isn't an academic field. It's a political circlejerk designed to train activists, and it seriously boggles my mind that you would chase this... whatever it is, into the rabbit hole and refuse to admit this when its.... so glaringly obvious that the field is incredibly unscientific.

It's not as if I'm the only one claiming as such. Many highly-respected scientists find this field worthless or nearly-worthless (Steven Pinker, who btw is a psychologist at Harvard, probably can't get more left-wing than that). Richard Dawkins, too. Many people hate this field, many people even on the moderate left, because they hate what it does to their field, and academics hate it because it's ridiculously unscientific. It does not even have a methodology.

I've told you exactly what my point is like 5 times and you still aren't arguing my point itself and just sobbing about an alarmist point you want to make, one which I never even brought up or disputed because I don't care about it. I'm not going to keep arguing with you, I suggest you learn how to read, and learn some basic debate and logic skills.

I'm still waiting for my colossal amounts of money. You wouldn't go back on your word, would you?

Your point being that 'it's not completely unscientific'? Okay, give me an example.
Give me an example of something scientific that the grievance studies people have come up with.

Edit: Actually the only thing you've been arguing is that this problem exists in every academic field, and then I stated that it isn't even an academic field because it is solely political and its purpose is to indoctrinate. This is the same point. If its purpose is to indoctrinate and it isn't even academic, then we have an even bigger problem on our hands than people faking data. Because the field doesn't even purport to be academic (it doesn't even believe in consensus or scientific theory because as far as postmodernists are concerned, rationality and logical consistency are just tools the White Man has used to oppress others), it is incredibly anti-intellectual; in fact, I'm not sure if it can be described as such, because it doesn't exist on the same plane as intellectualism.

This problem, this particular problem, does NOT occur in every academic field. There is a huge difference between faking data and writing opinionated essays that have literally zero methodology behind them to push an ideology.

Also, you are talking about two physicists publishing extremely poor papers and then getting heavily discredited for pushing pseudo-science. The point is that these people were OUT in the open. Whereas the two attempts at publishing hoax papers in Grievance Studies journals were conducted by academics who ended up revealing their hoax or getting outed for completely unrelated reasons (the pseudonym they used was eventually described to be fake). Those are the ones we know about. How many bullshit papers get published however that we do not hear about?

Well for example the voting shenanigans in USA is a social justice issue. Then there's racism, refugees, poverty and equality to name a few more.

I get you are terrified by the world social lol.

And how does 'social justice' help solve them?

It's a subset of justice issues.

It's simple. Anything that Faux News doesn't agree with is extreme-left communist policy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oberon

And how does 'social justice' help solve them?

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I'm here talking about REAL social justice, not "noone may offend anyone", which is a wrongly extended meaning of the term.

Racism: uh if everyone in society is treated equally then there's no racism... that should be obvious; there's an actual social issue here
Refugees: Is that really a social justice issue? I don't see it, unless you're talking about discrimination, which I throw into racism
Poverty: For example, helping people born and stuck in a city's bad place to get out of misery
Equality: Well that's literally what social justice is about, so it's more like the general principle that leads people to stop racism and to help the poor
Voting shenanigans: I wouldn't put that into social justice. It's purely and simply a democratic issue: democracy is threatened.

"That an actual social issue"
It is, but I'm not sure to what extent it really exists.
"Refugees"
Not really a social issue but it is definitely an issue.
"Poverty"
I don't really agree with the idea that this is a social issue. People are poor because they're uneducated/can't get jobs/don't have useful skills. This isn't always people's fault (e.g. some people have mental disabilities that preclude the idea of being able to attain gainful employment), and insofar as it isn't, I suppose that's "unjust" though it is also fair because people who can and who will do get rich (which is meritocratic and fair, if a bit unfortunate). I suppose (and this is the extent to which I do support social programs) that it would be nice to legit help those who can't work (for legit reasons),
Equality: I don't think this is necessary, its only when too much inequality exists that it becomes a problem. That's why many are against immigration, because (especially) illegal immigrants, and legal ones to a (far?) lesser extent contribute to inequality. That's why you filter out immigrants based on skill/education/wealth, so you reduce inequality.
Voting shenanigans: This is more of a constitutional issue and a democratic issue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frinckles

So, this is obviously a pretty complicated topic. I'll try my best to explain my stances on subjects where I see CRT applied and give a bit of my own anecdotes. In short, no I don't support CRT: I believe it is flawed, divisive and racist.

I'll start with my primary concern. CRT seeks to establish a framework explaining racism as it applies to different topics but ultimately removes accountability. Personally, Accountability is one of the most important things to me as it protects the individual and separates them from being generalized.

When we apply constructs in CRT to race, we lose that. You're no longer racist because of your actions, you're racist because of your skin color. You're no longer a victim because you were wronged, you're a victim because of your skin color. You are in every way controlled by factors like microaggressions that control you in ways you cannot know, cannot be proven and cannot be understood. Free will and accountability go right out the window. I could go on about this (specifics in regard to race) for hours honestly, but this is generally my stance on it. Most ironically, we ignore MLK's words and judge based on skin, rather than character.

This is something that has exploded in the past 8 years, especially from the left and it's prevalent in collegiate English departments. I've seen this first hand and my English professor who became a good friend of mine retweeted this (from someone else) the other day. It was extremely interesting how entwined CRT has become in politics. To reject something makes you racist, and aligns you politically. Hell, you can check #whiteprivilege on twitter yourself to see.

Maybe it'll be gone after the election, I'd like to think that. But how dangerous does this become when we're conflating race with politics? If I needed a disclaimer, I'm pretty close to the center politically but I really don't think it's a good look for leftists who support this kind of thing. It's become extremely hard to have a discussion with people who truly believe they're doing the right thing. Who think this is shit is doing anything but dividing people.

But I guess even if I didn't care about accountability, I'd have to ask -- does it work? And the only way I can answer that is by staring at the color of my hand as I type this.

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Thanks for writing this. Working from the assumption that racism is intrinsic to America and cannot be overcome does not seem like a productive approach. It kind of spits in the face of efforts to reduce it through education and integration and such.

My natural instinct is to trust that if something in academia seem wrong to me, that's just because I'm not clever enough to understand it. But, even with that caveat, it's clear that they're at the very least suffering from a severe communication issue. But hey, that's also nothing new in academia heheh.

w.r.t. the OP, based on the knowledge I have, stopping these "training sessions" could be justified. But signing an executive order to have them banned appears to me to be intentionally stirring the pot. That's nothing new in US politics though I guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yzb25

Thanks for writing this. Working from the assumption that racism is intrinsic to America and cannot be overcome does not seem like a productive approach. It kind of spits in the face of efforts to reduce it through education and integration and such.

My natural instinct is to trust that if something in academia seem wrong to me, that's just because I'm not clever enough to understand it. But, even with that caveat, it's clear that they're at the very least suffering from a severe communication issue. But hey, that's also nothing new in academia heheh.

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It certainly does. Like I said, it ironically goes against one of the most recognized civil rights leader's messages and the entire civil rights movement.

CRT isn't an easy concept to understand and I'm not going to be proport myself as an expert or anything. It's most oftentimes bundled into little critiques about supposed racism without people fully understanding it. This video does a good job of explaining some basic problems with it's assertions (even though the guy sounds like he's chewing gum.) There are others that talk more about how scientific it is and fundamental problems with it and things like Critical Theory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yzb25

w.r.t. the OP, based on the knowledge I have, stopping these "training sessions" could be justified. But signing an executive order to have them banned appears to me to be intentionally stirring the pot. That's nothing new in US politics though I guess.

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It's definitely a reaction to current evens, regardless of whether it's justified. I thought it was funny that when I observed a popular reddit thread about it (a mostly left website) the order was reigned in overwhelmingly as a good thing, of course with plenty of jabs at Trump anyway.

So it took me a very long time to really dig into this subject and I kinda have split feelings on it. I do feel that raising awareness against discrimination is a very positive thing as well as spreading understanding, consideration, and tolerance for cultures and their predominate races which seems to be the overall objective of this 'practice.' So for the concept and what is trying to be accomplished I feel like its a good thing that could be implemented into education to tear down bias and promote equality.

At the same time though its implementation feels very racist to me. The majority of the speakers I saw giving talks on the subject seemed to promote a narrative of 'White people are ignorant, hateful, and racist' followed by arguments that entangle socio-economic status with racism (inappropriately). The latter is totally a thing but its one hell of a complicated subject I dont want to poke here.

This line of thinking I believe is a form of racism in itself I have been seeing spread around media. I had a conversation a week or two back about John Oliver on the subject. He seems to push the same narrative attributing all inequality and hate twards white people and even has started throwing the statement "Fucking white people" into his shows (The last statement in his bit on African American Hair and midway though his recent piece on Asians.) The people I talked about it with took the conversation a little sideways (and one of them reacted saying "White people can take it") but my point was that if you swapped out 'White' with any other race people would loose their minds. Its an overt attempt to spread a very derogatory racial stereotype and then flatly pushing an unambiguous racial statement that speaks to an effort to 'shift hate' instead of eliminating it.

I bring this up simply because this is what I see CRT being used to do. I feel like the concept is good but its being used for evil in a sense. The objective should not be to focus blame and justify a new and acceptable form of racism. Its been very interesting to me how blatant these racist arguments are and how difficult it has been to even talk about them.

All that said, I do not feel society can handle CRT appropriately yet and I think a portion of how society is discussing racism in general is creating a very toxic and racist narrative. Hate can not be cured with more hate and it was mildly upsetting to me seeing how many educated scholars on the subject were spreading such a toxic message under the guise of pushing for acceptance and equality.

A part of me is very curious to hear what some of you think about that message being pushed or how to even approach talking about it.