Cultural Marxists would argue that cisgendered “white” heterosexual males have, at least in the Western world (and for heterosexual males, the entire world), been the group that has oppressed all others, those who identify with groups such as women, “people of color”, homosexuals, and transgenders. Seems inarguable as we survey the history of the West, does it not? And as oppressors, they have enjoyed political and legal privileges not afforded these other groups. This also seems inarguable as we survey history. But there seems to me to be something wrong with this so-called “critical theory” approach to topics of oppression and privilege.
Tag: history
Making History
Every day you are making history. Think that way. Act that way. Remember what’s happening when it’s happening, because someday it will be part of the grand narrative of your life, and the world at large.
Impatience
I am extremely impatient for humankind to start using their brains, and consequently the gift of logic, to end behavior such as war, greed, and territoriality. But now I am reading a book that is making me take a much longer view. The book is titled This Will Make You Smarter, edited by John Brockman.
North Korea: Pelosi versus Peace
In her official statement on Trump’s Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi makes it clear that a few million incinerated human beings a small price to pay to keep the 68-year-old Korean War going. Maybe not forever, but at least until there’s a Democrat in the White House.
Let’s Call the Farm Bill What it is: Corporate Welfare
The rawboned, overall-clad man driving a tractor 12 hours a day, calling the cows in for their evening milking, slopping the hogs, and sitting down for an evening pipe on the front porch before bed was once my grandfather. Now he’s a carefully cultivated image of the past, used by organizations like Duvall’s to propagandize for the transfer of billions dollars every year from your pockets to theirs via the political process, on top of what you spend in honest exchange for their livestock and crops.
State Capacity is Sleight of Hand
While good social outcomes all tend to go together, the state capacity literature fails to show that government is the crucial factor that makes all the others possible. Indeed, as far as I can tell, existing empirics are quite consistent with Sutton’s Law that people rob banks because “that’s where the money is.”
“Progressives” Against (Economic) Progress
Most opponents of the sharing economy, the gig economy, the cryptocurrency economy, etc., posture as “progressives” even as they openly side with corporate dinosaurs and parasitic bureaucrats and against workers and the entrepreneurs who empower those workers. Let’s call these self-styled “progressives” what they really are: Reactionaries.
Lesson from the NBA Playoffs: You Can’t Help Out by Holding Back
Don’t confuse “giving back” with “holding back” and don’t equate “helping out” with “sitting out.” You can’t truly be generous if you suppress your talents and stifle your potential because of misdirected pity towards those who have bad luck. Helping people who are losing the game isn’t the same thing as mentally checking yourself out of the game.
Credentialed Experts: Protectors of the Sacred Dogma
Credentialed Experts are not at the forefront of innovation and discovery, driving truth forward. Their job is to tell a story about the past that doesn’t threaten the present and stymies the future. The process of winning the credential itself is a trial intended to prove how effectively you imbibe and re-enforce the dominant dogma of the academy, or “The Republic of Science”.
Rubio and Warren Join Forces Against Working Folks
In April, a year after its introduction in the US Senate by Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the US House of Representatives passed the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act, “an act to increase the role of the financial industry in combating human trafficking.”