A nominal "left libertarian" on my friend's list asserted that libertarian critiques of Critical Race Theory (CRT) are "bizarre".
This is why I think many libertarians oppose CRT and its advocates, at least in its current form.
First, let's get the motte out of the way. Many CRT advocates like to pretend that those hostile to CRT are opposed because they don't want racist aspects of US history to be revealed.
And it's true that the way history is taught in the US is often bowdlerized and incomplete. For example, here's a few things I didn't learn until relatively late in life:
* the bombings of Tulsa, Oklahoma
* the MOVE bombings in Philadelphia
* the death of ~20 million Chinese citizens in WWII
* the self-interested reasons that drove George Washington to prosecute the Revolutionary War (largely to protect and expand his land holdings)
It seems reasonable to me to try to a better job to fill in the gaps in our historical understanding. To the extent that CRT advocates push for a fuller, fairer coverage of history, I support it.
However, that's not all that CRT advocates believe. Take a look at the wikipedia article on CRT theory, cited below. (I realize that wikipedia is not a scholarly source, but I believe that it's a fair summary of the CRT ideology (by their own lights), given the bias of Wikipedia's editors. )
As illustrated below, CRT advocates typically oppose:
* rationality,
* legal equality,
* meritocracy,
* constitutional neutrality,
* and individual rights.
CRT advocates typically support:
* racial discrimination ("affirmative action")
* government coercion (aka "political organizing")
* nationalism
* racial separatism
* collective guilt
* and racial essentialism (ie, the idea that your ideas, values, and character are fundamentally determined by your race).
CRT advocates are also often hostile to free speech. They heckle, shout down, censor, and commit violence ("punch a nazi") in order to silence those they disagree with.
Marxist theory and values are also heavily intertwined into CRT. Many of the people who looted and burned dozens of cities across the US in the summer of 2020 self-identify as CRT believers and Marxists.
Given that Marxist-influenced ideologues murdered somewhere between 60 - 120 million people in the 20th Century, and impoverished (and continue to impoverish) hundreds of millions more, I'm quite alarmed that CRT advocates and their fellow travelers appear to have a large and growing influence in schools and politics.
So it's not "bizarre" for libertarians to be opposed to violent, racist, authoritarian, censorship-prone Marxists who deny the possibility of rationality. I wish I could ignore them, but they're certainly not going to leave me alone, and the more power they acquire the greater the danger they represent.
-----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
"Common themes that are characteristic of work in critical race theory, as documented by such scholars as Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, include:
Critique of liberalism: Critical race theory scholars question foundational liberal concepts such as Enlightenment rationalism, legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality, and challenge the incrementalist approach of traditional civil-rights discourse.[25] They favor a race-conscious approach to social transformation, critiquing liberal ideas such as affirmative action, color blindness, role modeling, or the merit principle[42] with an approach that relies more on political organizing, in contrast to liberalism's reliance on rights-based remedies.
Storytelling, counter-storytelling, and "naming one's own reality": The use of narrative (storytelling) to illuminate and explore lived experiences of racial oppression.[43] Bryan Brayboy has emphasized the epistemic importance of storytelling in Indigenous-American communities as superseding that of theory, and has proposed a Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribCrit).[44]
Revisionist interpretations of American civil rights law and progress: Criticism of civil-rights scholarship and anti-discrimination law, such as Brown v. Board of Education. Derrick Bell, one of CRT's founders, argues that civil-rights advances for black people coincided with the self-interest of white elitists. Likewise, Mary L. Dudziak performed extensive archival research in the U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice and concluded that U.S. government support for civil-rights legislation "was motivated in part by the concern that racial discrimination harmed the United States' foreign relations".[45]
Intersectional theory: The examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination (i.e., their intersections) plays out in various settings, e.g., how the needs of a Latina female are different from those of a black male and whose needs are the ones promoted.[46]
Standpoint epistemology: The view that a member of a minority has an authority and ability to speak about racism that members of other racial groups do not have, and that this can expose the racial neutrality of law as false.[1]
Essentialism vs. anti-essentialism: Delgado and Stefancic write, "Scholars who write about these issues are concerned with the appropriate unit for analysis: Is the black community one, or many, communities? Do middle- and working-class African-Americans have different interests and needs? Do all oppressed peoples have something in common?" This is a look at the ways that oppressed groups may share in their oppression but also have different needs and values that need to be looked at differently. It is a question of how groups can be essentialized or are unable to be essentialized.[47]
Structural determinism: Exploration of how "the structure of legal thought or culture influences its content", whereby a particular mode of thought or widely shared practice determines significant social outcomes, usually occurring without conscious knowledge. As such, theorists posit that our system cannot redress certain kinds of wrongs.[48]
Empathetic fallacy: Believing that one can change a narrative by offering an alternative narrative in hopes that the listener's empathy will quickly and reliably take over. Empathy is not enough to change racism as most people are not exposed to many people different from themselves and people mostly seek out information about their own culture and group.[49]
Non-white cultural nationalism/separatism: The exploration of more radical views that argue for separation and reparations as a form of foreign aid (including black nationalism)."
This is why I think many libertarians oppose CRT and its advocates, at least in its current form.
First, let's get the motte out of the way. Many CRT advocates like to pretend that those hostile to CRT are opposed because they don't want racist aspects of US history to be revealed.
And it's true that the way history is taught in the US is often bowdlerized and incomplete. For example, here's a few things I didn't learn until relatively late in life:
* the bombings of Tulsa, Oklahoma
* the MOVE bombings in Philadelphia
* the death of ~20 million Chinese citizens in WWII
* the self-interested reasons that drove George Washington to prosecute the Revolutionary War (largely to protect and expand his land holdings)
It seems reasonable to me to try to a better job to fill in the gaps in our historical understanding. To the extent that CRT advocates push for a fuller, fairer coverage of history, I support it.
However, that's not all that CRT advocates believe. Take a look at the wikipedia article on CRT theory, cited below. (I realize that wikipedia is not a scholarly source, but I believe that it's a fair summary of the CRT ideology (by their own lights), given the bias of Wikipedia's editors. )
As illustrated below, CRT advocates typically oppose:
* rationality,
* legal equality,
* meritocracy,
* constitutional neutrality,
* and individual rights.
CRT advocates typically support:
* racial discrimination ("affirmative action")
* government coercion (aka "political organizing")
* nationalism
* racial separatism
* collective guilt
* and racial essentialism (ie, the idea that your ideas, values, and character are fundamentally determined by your race).
CRT advocates are also often hostile to free speech. They heckle, shout down, censor, and commit violence ("punch a nazi") in order to silence those they disagree with.
Marxist theory and values are also heavily intertwined into CRT. Many of the people who looted and burned dozens of cities across the US in the summer of 2020 self-identify as CRT believers and Marxists.
Given that Marxist-influenced ideologues murdered somewhere between 60 - 120 million people in the 20th Century, and impoverished (and continue to impoverish) hundreds of millions more, I'm quite alarmed that CRT advocates and their fellow travelers appear to have a large and growing influence in schools and politics.
So it's not "bizarre" for libertarians to be opposed to violent, racist, authoritarian, censorship-prone Marxists who deny the possibility of rationality. I wish I could ignore them, but they're certainly not going to leave me alone, and the more power they acquire the greater the danger they represent.
-----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
"Common themes that are characteristic of work in critical race theory, as documented by such scholars as Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, include:
Critique of liberalism: Critical race theory scholars question foundational liberal concepts such as Enlightenment rationalism, legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality, and challenge the incrementalist approach of traditional civil-rights discourse.[25] They favor a race-conscious approach to social transformation, critiquing liberal ideas such as affirmative action, color blindness, role modeling, or the merit principle[42] with an approach that relies more on political organizing, in contrast to liberalism's reliance on rights-based remedies.
Storytelling, counter-storytelling, and "naming one's own reality": The use of narrative (storytelling) to illuminate and explore lived experiences of racial oppression.[43] Bryan Brayboy has emphasized the epistemic importance of storytelling in Indigenous-American communities as superseding that of theory, and has proposed a Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribCrit).[44]
Revisionist interpretations of American civil rights law and progress: Criticism of civil-rights scholarship and anti-discrimination law, such as Brown v. Board of Education. Derrick Bell, one of CRT's founders, argues that civil-rights advances for black people coincided with the self-interest of white elitists. Likewise, Mary L. Dudziak performed extensive archival research in the U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice and concluded that U.S. government support for civil-rights legislation "was motivated in part by the concern that racial discrimination harmed the United States' foreign relations".[45]
Intersectional theory: The examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination (i.e., their intersections) plays out in various settings, e.g., how the needs of a Latina female are different from those of a black male and whose needs are the ones promoted.[46]
Standpoint epistemology: The view that a member of a minority has an authority and ability to speak about racism that members of other racial groups do not have, and that this can expose the racial neutrality of law as false.[1]
Essentialism vs. anti-essentialism: Delgado and Stefancic write, "Scholars who write about these issues are concerned with the appropriate unit for analysis: Is the black community one, or many, communities? Do middle- and working-class African-Americans have different interests and needs? Do all oppressed peoples have something in common?" This is a look at the ways that oppressed groups may share in their oppression but also have different needs and values that need to be looked at differently. It is a question of how groups can be essentialized or are unable to be essentialized.[47]
Structural determinism: Exploration of how "the structure of legal thought or culture influences its content", whereby a particular mode of thought or widely shared practice determines significant social outcomes, usually occurring without conscious knowledge. As such, theorists posit that our system cannot redress certain kinds of wrongs.[48]
Empathetic fallacy: Believing that one can change a narrative by offering an alternative narrative in hopes that the listener's empathy will quickly and reliably take over. Empathy is not enough to change racism as most people are not exposed to many people different from themselves and people mostly seek out information about their own culture and group.[49]
Non-white cultural nationalism/separatism: The exploration of more radical views that argue for separation and reparations as a form of foreign aid (including black nationalism)."