May 17
To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman for the citation about CRT Clark uses from Trueman's article about how we can learn more from the Psalms than from CRT for our current problems. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Trueman, like other Reformed Theology commentators on Critical Race Theory (CRT), are exhibiting a phobic reaction to it. What is key to a phobic reaction is the fear that one cannot distinguish between a what is potentially harmful and dangerous from that which is not potentially harmful or dangerous. In this case, anything associate with CRT must be avoided because even though there is the recognition that CRT can point out some problems with the Western world, we can't afford to get those points from CRT because there are Trojan Horse viruses that come with its valid points. In addition, there is no need to go to CRT because the valid points it makes can be gleaned elsewhere. Thus, we must avoid all of CRT even when it makes valid points. And that is a phobic reaction.
Certainly CRT does employ some all-or-nothing thinking and thus sometimes overstates its case and needs to be modified. But that is true with most perspectives or movements that attempt to undo longstanding social injustices. And so the solution is not to imitate those perspectives or movements by employing one's own all-or-nothing thinking. That amounts to nothing more than becoming the pot after calling the kettle black. Rather, the solution is to take the tenets and claims of CRT on a case by case basis and show not whether they are right or wrong, but to what degree can one assess that each tenet is right or wrong.
My own theory as to why CRT and related viewpoints like Critical Theory have stirred the ire of Reformed Theology commentators is because these theories have challenged the legitimacy of Western Civilization that has been heavily influenced by Christianity. Here we should note that being influenced by Christianity can mean that something is influenced by Christians or influenced by what Christianity is suppose to teach. I believe that the former applies here to what heavily influenced Western Civilization. And because Western Civilization is being thoroughly examined and found wanting, Christianity, because of its influence on Western Civilization, is also receiving some closer examination and found wanting. This is why it is important to distinguish the influence of Christianity where Christianity refers to the influence of Christians vs the influence of what Christianity is suppose to teach.
In the end, Christianity can lose some of its credibility because it is being deemed guilty by association with Western Civilization. And if Christianity loses some of its credibility, then so too does its current teachers, like those following Reformed Theology. And in authoritarian cultures, like ones that exists in religiously conservative Christian circles, that which challenges the credentials of its teachers becomes kryptonite to those those teachers and their circles.
Finally, what needs to be addressed right here is whether the oppressed know more about their suffering than others do. I would take that to be generally true. Why? It is like what the late Chilean economist Manfred Max-Kneef discovered about poverty. He was teaching economics at a prestigious university and realized that the language used to describe an economy meant nothing to the poor. So he left teaching and eventually joined the ranks of the poor and learned first hand what poverty was like. Who knows more what it is like to suffer from poverty than the poor? So too, who knows more about what it is like to suffer from racial, gender, or religious discrimination than those who suffer from it? Or, to use the example Max-Kneef has used to illustrate this principle, what does one who has never fallen in love know what it is like to fall in love?
As an extension of the religiously conservative Christian initiated culture war, its constant haranguing of CRT is not just a phobic reaction, it also bears the marks of a turf war over who gets to authoritatively interpret reality. And rather than recognize that we have more to learn from CRT than we may want to admit, these religiously conservative Christian teachers are fighting tooth and nail to persuade their audiences that they alone have a monopoly on what can be learned about the suffering and oppression that was perpetrated by Western Civilization over the centuries?
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May 18
To Nate Hochman and his blogpost that claims that America has, generally speaking, always pursued a policy of pursuing liberal principles of freedom and democracy. He used Bush's invasion of Iraq as an example. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
The great error made in the above article is to assume that the stated purpose for a Presidential policy is also the actual purpose. And that especially applies to Bush's stated reason for invading Iraq. We should note that bringing democracy to the Middle East was not the initial stated purpose for the invasion; the elimination of WMDs was. And it was only when Bush could no longer operate under the pretense of eliminating WMDs in Iraq that he said bringing democracy was the reason for the invasion.
When we go back in a time from the Iraq War, we find that the US has a sufficient history of replacing democratic regimes brutal dictatorships because the US did not care for the economic direction being pursued by certain governments. And when we look at the fact that full equality has yet to set foot on American soil, we find that like Bush's sequel stated purpose for invading Iraq, the above essay that claims that America is dedicated to liberal principles of democracy is nothing more than camouflage for reasons not so honorable as to bring freedom to the oppressed. Even our own behavior in Iraq has shown that.
Finally since the fatal flaw for conservatives is to rely too heavily on the past to understand and try to solve the problems of the present, Hochman should consider adding the Russell-Einstein Manifesto to his use of the Just War Theory to ascertain which interventions are acceptable. He should be relieved to know that though it is more recent than Just War Theory, that the Russell-Einstein Manifesto is also old enough to be regarded as being from the past.
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