Anti-Visions

Following up from last week's "Crash Course in Critical Race Theory" this episode focuses in on Critical Theory's animosity towards Math and Science.

Cynical Theories:  How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity -- and Why This Harms Everybody by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose

1619 Project

Historians Clash with the 1619 Project:  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/

#Science Must Fall:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14

To Decolonize Maths, Stand Up to Its False History:  https://thewire.in/history/to-decolonise-maths-stand-up-to-its-false-history

Decolonizing Mathematics https://undark.org/2018/12/31/in-south-africa-decolonizing-mathematics/

Decolonize the School Curriculum:  https://ncte.org/blog/2019/04/decolonizing-the-classroom/

Seattle Schools Lead Controversial Push to "Rehumanize" Math:  https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/10/11/seattle-schools-lead-controversial-push-to-rehumanize.html

______________________________

antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions

It's starting to heat up, friends.  You don't want to miss this episode.  It just gets better and better.  I'm estimating that this series will end up being about 17 episodes long by the time I'm done.

With permission from Encounter books I am reading through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

________________________________
antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivisions

With permission from Encounter books I am reading through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

________________________________
antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivisions

This episode picks out 10 points from Critical Race Theory.  I quickly run through them without commentary and then come back and cover most of them with some commentary.

Friday, September 4th, POTUS put out a letter banning Critical Race Theory in federal training of employees.  This made some waves by issuing a ban on all federal training that involves Critical Race Theory.  That covers almost every sector of our government as this theory is so entrenched in our system now.  No longer will the government allow tax dollars to be spent on training that undermines the very existence of our nation.  Of course, there is an uproar and there will be major backlash because as the hard left would say, this is just another example of fascism, white supremacy, and abuse of power at work.  It’s cancelling free speech they say.  Well, no one is saying that there isn’t freedom to publish and talk about CRT.  We don’t allow Sharia law or the Bible to be used as the basis to train our federal employees, and yet there is absolute freedom for Americans to practice and openly speak about their religions nonetheless. The contention of the letter is that CRT is not only divisive and not only does it undermine the core values of our nation, but that it discriminates against and demeans certain individuals while promoting inequality.
 
If you'd like to know more about the letter from POTUS check out this post on the AntiVisions blog.

Topics covered in the podcast:

• Racism is the "ordinary" state of affairs in society and its interactions. 
• Systemic Racism.
• “White Privilege.”  
• "Interest convergence"
• Racism is "permanent.” 
• All whites are racist and all whites are white supremacists.
• Whiteness as Property. 
• Classical Liberalism is problematic.
• Science, reason, rationality, and evidence are "cultural products" of white Western men and thus carry biases that favor those groups.
• White Silence is Violence.

________________________________________
For further study on Critical Race Theory this is an excellent resource:  https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/beginners-curriculum-critical-race-theory/

________________________________________

Also, in last week's podcast started to talk about disparities and intended to scratch the surface on disparities in Policing.  I probably won't get to do a podcast on that topic for awhile so I have posted an article I wrote on the AntiVisions blog.  I intend to post more articles about policing and statistics as I find time.
_______________________________________

antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivisions

With permission from Encounter books I am reading through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

________________________________
antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivisions

With permission from Encounter books I read through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

________________________________
antivisions.com
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivisions

In this episode I explore what Ibram X. Kendi means by "Antiracist." as outlined in his book, "How to be an Antiracist."  I contend that the the antiracist theory that Kendi espouses is a binary construct much like the very system he purports to oppose.

I also seek to understand what particular "policies" he is talking about in his book and I conclude that although he doesn't spell it out, if you can discover the disparities in society then you can bet that these are the areas of policy he is most concerned with.  But the question is wether these disparities exist solely because of racism.

This discussion leads to some data discussions on the wealth gap and some bones to pick with educational disparities.

For more check out: 

antivisions.com
I recently posted an entry about police brutality and statistics if you like that sort of thing.  Either way I would love to hear from you and the website is a way that we can get a conversation going.
twitter.com/antivisions
facebook.com/antivsions

References:
"How to Be An Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi

"The Quest for Cosmic Justice" by Thomas Sowell

https://youtu.be/KCrg1VCjZgw Kendi on reparations

Kendi on Capitalism:  https://www.nfg.org/news/capitalism-and-racism-conjoined-twins

https://youtu.be/yDWjr7oFVgc White folks are reading, but are they learning? with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi

Disparity Does Not Mean Discrimination (Youtube interview with Thomas Sowell)

With permission from Encounter books I read through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell (Encounter Books)
https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

____________________________________

antivisions.com

In this episode I synthesize some of the prior podcasts and I even rehash the Matrix movie as a parable of postmodern theory and the unlimited vision.  But the meat of the discussion is about the early roots of the unlimited vision going all the way back to the French revolution where we explore a fascinating man named Francois-Noël Babeuf. 

I explore the antithetical vision of equality vs. equity especially through Babeuf's "Conspiracy of the Equals," which is the fascinating primordial soup of Marx and Engel's writings.

Source Cited:
"Heaven on Earth:  The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism" by Joshua Muravchik

______________________________________________

antivisions.com/

Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell (Encounter Books)
https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/black-rednecks-white-liberals-paperback/

With permission from Encounter books I read through Thomas Sowell's essay, "The Real History of Slavery" as printed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.   Each "Fact or Fiction" podcast segment is approximately 10 minutes.

Thomas Sowell bio:

Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.

He writes on economics, history, social policy, ethnicity, and the history of ideas. His book, Discrimination and Disparities (2018), gathers a wide array of empirical evidence to challenge the idea that different economic outcomes can be explained by any one factor, be it discrimination, exploitation or genetics. His books on economics include Housing Boom and Bust (2009), Intellectuals and Society (2009), Applied Economics (2009), Economic Facts and Fallacies (2008), Basic Economics (2007), and Affirmative Action Around the World (2004). Other books on economics he has written include Classical Economics Reconsidered (1974), Say’s Law (1972), and Economics: Analysis and Issues (1971). On social policy, he has written Knowledge and Decisions (1980), Preferential Policies (1989), Inside American Education (1993), The Vision of the Anointed (1995), Barbarians Inside the Gates (1999), and The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999). On the history of ideas he has written Marxism (1985) and Conflict of Vision (1987). Sowell also wrote Late-Talking Children (1997). He has also written a monograph on law titled Judicial Activism Reconsidered, published by the Hoover Institution Press in 1989. His writings have also appeared in scholarly journals in economics, law, and other fields.

Sowell’s current research focuses on cultural history in a world perspective, a subject on which he began to write a trilogy in 1982. The trilogy includes Race and Culture (1994), Migrations and Cultures (1996), and Conquests and Cultures (1998).

Sowell's journalistic writings include a nationally syndicated column that appears in more than 150 newspapers from Boston to Honolulu. Some of these essays have been collected in book form, most recently in Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays published by the Hoover Institution Press in 2006.

Over the past three decades, Sowell has taught economics at various colleges and universities, including Cornell, Amherst, and the University of California at Los Angeles, as well as the history of ideas at Brandeis University. He has also been associated with three other research centers, in addition to the Hoover Institution. He was project director at the Urban Institute, 1972-1974, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, 1976–77, and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, 1975-76.

Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 2003, Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958, his master’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.
-https://www.hoover.org/profiles/thomas-sowell
__