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Why has Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a color-blind society suffered so many recent setbacks? Classical philosopher Andre Archie argues that we need to bring back King’s vision, and points to the ways that the Classical ideas of virtues can inform our modern understanding of virtue as separate from race. Along the way, the conversation covers recent events such as Claudine Gay’s dismissal from Harvard, diversity training and DEI, and the ways in which the Black tradition is an integral part of the Western Tradition.
Dr. Andre Archie is an associate Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy at Colorado State University, who specializes in the History of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Ancient Greek Political Philosophy. He is the author of The Virtue of Color-Blindness (Regnery Publishing, 2024). His op-eds include “We should fight for a color-blind society — not one separated by race” and “What Makes the Classics Worth Studying,” referenced at the end of the episode as responding to concerns about ridding the Classics of ‘white-ness.’
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Thank you both for an excellent discussion. I was born in 1957 and remember MLK and his call for a color-blind society. In the decades since, it has been so disillusioning to see the left denigrate his philosophy and get away with it. They have done incalculable damage in dividing us.
I especially liked the way the professor ties in the notion of color blindness beyond just MLK but to the classics and to Frederick Douglass. I am reminded of W.E.B. DuBois: “I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil.”
Quite the contrast to Jesse Jackson: “Hey, hey, ho, ho — Western Civ has got to go!”
I will be buying Prof. Archie’s book and look forward to hearing more from him in the future.
what makes it worse is we are having an influx of immigrants which are being told America is a horrible country. Instead of the melting pot which was part of the last large immigration (late 1800s/early 1900s) where immigrants assimilated in one generation, the “elites” are pushing that your “tribe” is the most important attribute.