CRT: Self-Absorption as a Virtue

 

We seem to live in an age when an alarming number of people are horribly bad at math. How else to explain the rampaging enthusiasm for generalizing our understanding of humanity merely on the basis of one’s own “lived experience”? However much we are naturally affected by our own lived experiences, our experiences are nothing more than anecdotes in the larger scheme of things. “Lived experiences” are subject to all of the normal limitations of logic that attend a hasty generalization. And that remains true, even when one’s interpretation of lived experience is actually correct – which is by no means always guaranteed.

I object to CRT, and its toxic sidekicks as a matter of principle, out of compassion for those whose lives would be wasted by it. My compassion is directed at all of those who are being encouraged to anchor their sense of themselves in the poisoned sands of victimhood, mistreatment, and oppression.

I was asked by a friend recently what, given my objections to CRT, I would say to a young black man who felt that he had been mistreated because he was black. My response to my friend was along the same lines of what I have always told my multi-racial children, and what I’ll tell all of my multi-racial grandchildren when it comes to it.

First, I would tell his friend not to over-generalize from his own experience. It may be that he had indeed encountered someone or some situation in which his dark skin was leveraged as a vantage point for his mistreatment. But that doesn’t mean that everyone he encounters will treat him that way. So he should be very cautious about over-generalizing from his own experience.

The second thing I would tell him is that if he hadn’t been mistreated for his skin color, he would inevitably be mistreated for something else. Indeed, he’s almost certain to be mistreated again, and repeatedly, before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but everyone is mistreated for something. Everyone. Like it or not, that’s the nature of the world we live in. No one gets through the gauntlet of life unscathed. It’s wrong and it’s bad but we don’t do ourselves any favors by deciding that our own well-being can only be established by insisting that everyone else to conform to our desires. All that such a sense of aggrievement accomplishes is to empower the very people who mistreated us in the first place. Anyone who adopts that point of view is weakened, not strengthened, by it.

Focusing on our mistreatment also causes us to put our emotional well-being into the hands of others. I would tell the mistreated young man to toughen up emotionally and intellectually, recognize that his skin color was just the excuse of the moment, and recognize that people of all races are mistreated for one reason or another.

I would also tell him that he needs to think far less about his mistreatment and far more about what he intends to accomplish with his short life. His family and his friends need him to be useful, productive, and beneficial. Allowing slights and mistreatment to occupy his thought life, and coopt otherwise productive pursuits, accomplishes nothing but robbing him of precious and valuable time for really doing something with his short life. Build something. Create something. Grow something. Be a benefit to the people he actually knows and cares about.

This is in contrast to the approach to life encouraged by the CRT stooges, who recommend a life of aggrievement, and the paralysis and excuse-making that always attend resentment.

Self-absorption is destructive a trap, but it is being sold as a virtue by the CRT crowd. I don’t entirely understand why so many, especially some highly visible Christian leaders, seem not to understand this (That is, if we take their public statements at face value. It could be they do understand it, but are just being cowardly and hoping the crocodile will eat them last. Hard to tell.)

This, then, is just one of the practical and logical reasons to reject CRT: friends don’t encourage friends to be more self-absorbed.

For more of a biblical reflection on the problems with CRT, and its toxic train of co-morbidities, you can go here (I’ve shared this before.):

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  1. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Keith Lowery: I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but everyone is mistreated for something. Everyone. Like it or not, that’s the nature of the world we live in. No one gets through the gauntlet of life unscathed. It’s wrong and it’s bad but we don’t do ourselves any favors by deciding that our own well-being can only be established by insisting that everyone else to conform to our desires. All that such a sense of aggrievement accomplishes is to empower the very people who mistreated us in the first place. Anyone who adopts that point of view is weakened, not strengthened, by it.

    I have long been bothered by the focus on “micro-aggressions.” Whether based on race, some other personal characteristic, culture, or whatever, you are going to get bumped around in life. If you can’t figure out how to deal with the minor bumps and bruises that come with life, you are going to have trouble accomplishing much.

    Many decades ago while living for a year in Naples, Italy my physically small mother learned to wear a heavy wool coat when she went to the local farmers’ market. Otherwise she would come back to our apartment all bruised and battered by the local women (who were generally larger than my mother) jockeying for the best produce and the best deals. The local women had no intention of being mean to my mother. They were just accustomed to a more aggressive shopping experience than my California-based mother was. So my mother learned how to adapt. 

    • #1
  2. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    I was tutoring math to jr high and high school aged kids in Lake County Ca.

    There were two types of kids I was tutoring:

    1.  Kids who were already quite good at math, but wanted to ace the SATs
    2.  Kids who were half way through HS and were getting D’s or gentleman C’s in math

    Kids in group 2 had one thing in common: total inability to handle fractions.

    They don’t know 50 cent piece is one  half of a dollar. Or that four quarters make a dollar.

    No teacher has ever brought two pies to school and given each kid one twelfth of a pie.

    How can any student handle algebra even at a beginning level if they do not know fractions?

    Of course if you examine the rest of the educational system, there is little in the way of classes in logic. I don’t even know if basic syllogism theory is taught. I had one year of poetics, one year of rhetoric, one year of dialectics in HS, with senior year being a study of how to unify.

    This lack of ability to teach children such basics needs to be changed. But I suspect that little will change, except within five years it is possible math classes will be discontinued, due to the “inherent whiteness of math.”

     

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  3. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    I was tutoring math to jr high and high school aged kids in Lake County Ca.

    There were two types of kids I was tutoring:

    1. Kids who were already quite good at math, but wanted to ace the SATs
    2. Kids who were half way through HS and were getting D’s or gentleman C’s in math

    Kids in group 2 had one thing in common: total inability to handle fractions.

    They don’t know 50 cent piece in half of a dollar. Or that four quarters make a dollar.

    No teacher has ever brought two pies to school and given each kid one twelfth of a pie.

    How can any student handle algebra even at a beginning level if they do not know fractions?

    Of course if you examine the rest of the educational system, there is little in the way of classes in logic. I don’t even know if basic syllogism theory is taught. I had one year of poetics, one year of rhetoric, one year of dialectics in HS, with senior year being a study of how to unify.

    This lack of ability to teach children such basics needs to be changed. But I suspect that little will change, except within five years it is possible math classes will be discontinued, due to the “inherent whiteness of math.”

     

    Your last paragraph is absolutely correct.  Two generations ago, when a student was horrible at math he/she had one choice:  buckle down and do better.

    Now, when a student is horrible at math, it can’t be his or her fault.  It’s either the fault of the “system” or, as you pointed out, “a construct of the white hierarchy”.

    Can’t have the precious little things failing, you know.

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  4. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Good post, Keith. It reminds me of Daniel Goleman’s work on Emotional Intelligence. One factor he shared was how people responded to setbacks. Those who were “emotionally intelligent” thought of setbacks as learning experiences: what could they have done better? What blocked the way to their success? They saw those situations as motivators to try harder and do better. And of course, those who felt disempowered had lots of excuses, blamed others, and saw setbacks as just further validation that the world presented insurmountable difficulties.

    As my husband likes to say (and I might be tempted to say to the young man), Suck it up, buttercup!

    • #4
  5. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Good post, Keith. It reminds me of Daniel Goleman’s work on Emotional Intelligence. One factor he shared was how people responded to setbacks. Those who were “emotionally intelligent” thought of setbacks as learning experiences: what could they have done better? What blocked the way to their success? They saw those situations as motivators to try harder and do better. And of course, those who felt disempowered had lots of excuses, blamed others, and saw setbacks as just further validation that the world presented insurmountable difficulties.

    As my husband likes to say (and I might be tempted to say to the young man), Suck it up, buttercup!

    And you have two generations of Americans who are completely unable to take that advice.

    I have a friend who’s a Resource Office at my old high school.  Two years ago (before COVID) he had a senior male student acting out in class.  My friend jerked the kid out into the hallway and read him the riot act.  The little troublemaker broke out in tears.  My friend was surprised that the kid’s mother didn’t complain to the principle.

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  6. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    I wish I could count all the black lives I have saved/improved by feeling ever-so guilty in my spare time.  I don’t expect or need a lot of credit or congratulations. The boost to my self-esteem from Doing The Work is reward enough.

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  7. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    I wish I could count all the black lives I have saved/improved by feeling ever-so guilty in my spare time. I don’t expect or need a lot of credit or congratulations. The boost to my self-esteem from Doig The Work is reward enough.

    Your comment shows just how shallow and clueless I am, @oldbathos. I haven’t given it a thought. 

    • #7
  8. Keith Lowery Coolidge
    Keith Lowery
    @keithlowery

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    I wish I could count all the black lives I have saved/improved by feeling ever-so guilty in my spare time. I don’t expect or need a lot of credit or congratulations. The boost to my self-esteem from Doig The Work is reward enough.

    This comment really made me laugh.

    • #8
  9. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    gentleman C’s in math

    Is such a thing anymore as a gentleman’s C in the age of grade inflation? Everyone gets an A-plus, or perhaps an A-double-plus.

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  10. CuriousKevmo Inactive
    CuriousKevmo
    @CuriousKevmo

    drlorentz (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    gentleman C’s in math

    Is such a thing anymore as a gentleman’s C in the age of grade inflation? Everyone gets an A-plus, or perhaps an A-double-plus.

    Indeed, I learned recently from a teacher friend that it’s possible now to get well over a 4.0 GPA.  I guess if you “give 110%”.

     

    • #10
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