#venezuela – @religion-is-a-mental-illness on Tumblr

Actual image from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Yet reads like something from the KKK.

Things that are “white” apparently include:

science
planning for the future
showing up on time
politeness
individualism
self-reliance
objective and rational thinking
merit
hard work
writing skills
Xtianity - despite higher religious affiliation per capita and higher individual religiosity among black Xtians.

Are we to conclude that the opposite of these things is “non-white” culture?

This is what they actually mean when they say that asking students to “show their work” is an aspect of “white supremacy.”

Imagine what a non-white kid who’s interested in science and works hard to earn good grades learns about themselves. Imagine what a white kid learns to expect - or not expect - from non-white kids.

This is the neoracist form of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: it’s both racist and abusive, in pursuit of their own virtue.

gaelicfalcon

I’m disappointed in you @sagansense because I thought you had better reading comprehension than this. Nowhere in the graphic is it stated that ONLY white people have these traits or that other cultures are therefore opposite of these. The graphic is a bit clumsy in its execution, but it is trying to make a point about hegemony in Western cultures, mainly US culture, which takes characteristics and viewpoints VALUED by white men and holds them up as the ideal society or the way things should be.

White Americans do tend to value the nuclear family over larger, multi generation families. They do tend to form national holidays around Xtianity and avoid accomodating other religions’ holidays despite claiming to be secular in government (when was the last time you saw a federal holiday mandated for Yom Kippur or for any of the month of Ramadan?) “Showing up on time” isn’t even mentioned in the graphic; instead it states that in US culture time is a commodity and we adhere to a rigid time structure. This isn’t a judgement of other cultures, but many (Ecuador springs to mind) have a more free kind of culture around clocks and time in general.

You are both deliberately misreading the graphic in order to be outraged. Sure, it could have made its point better. But the conclusions you draw here have no basis in the actual text of the image.

religion-is-a-mental-illness

Let’s try something for a moment, shall we?

Nowhere in the graphic is it stated that ONLY atheist people have these traits or that other people are therefore opposite of these.

And yet, what are we to conclude here? How annoyed should atheists be about this characterization? (Hopefully not very, as we should be more self-possessed than Xtians who are “nothing without Jesus/their god”)

Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture in the United States

This is the exact title of the graphic. It is clear up front about what it is saying: how to identify “whiteness.”

"White dominant culture, or whiteness, refers to the ways white people and their traditions, attitudes and ways of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United States. And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America, we have all internalized some aspects of white culture -- including people of color."

This is the graphic’s explanation, which you possibly missed, which explains what it thinks about this “whiteness” property.

With this in mind, the notion that the list that follows is not warnings of the signs of the Original Sin of “whiteness” - either because whypeepo control everything or because non-white people have “internalized” these traits - is a rather astonishing claim.

“Whiteness” is clearly identified as a problem. It makes assumptions. It has been normalized, It’s now “standard practices”, etc, etc. These are the graphic’s own words.

Robin DiAngelo, author of the racist confessional screed White Fragility co-produced the above graphic. This is from the Foreword said book, written by Michael Eric Dyson:

“To be sure, like the rest of race, whiteness is a fiction, what in the jargon of the academy is termed a social construct, an agreed-on myth that has empirical grit because of its effect, not its essence. But whiteness goes even one better: it is a category of identity that is most useful when its very existence is denied. That’s its twisted genius. Whiteness embodies Charles Baudelaire’s admonition that “the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” Or, as an alter ego of the character Keyser Söze says in the film The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.” The Devil. Racism. Another metaphor. Same difference.”

Didn’t you know “whiteness” is bad? Well, now you know how to identify it.

Same book:

“For sociologists and those involved in current racial justice movements, however, white supremacy is a descriptive and useful term to capture the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white and the practices based on this assumption.”

Let’s rewrite the title with this in mind.

Aspects and Assumptions of White Supremacy in the United States

By inventing definitions to suit the story they want to tell - the uncontroversial and boring recognition that white people have historically been numerous in the USA and its political, economic and social machinery is descendant from European antecedents... and then label it the incendiary “supremacy” - they don’t have to overtly tell people to do the opposite. Hence the “?” marks in my original post which you clearly seem to have missed. They are simply telling you what’s “white” and that “whiteness” is bad.

Hence the NMAAHC’s lame statements when they retracted it.

"We're trying to talk about ideology, not about people," he said, according to the Post. "We are encouraging people to think about the world they live in and how they navigate it. It's important to talk about it to grow and get better."

So “whiteness” - demonstrable in the above list - is an ideology (their word). It’s not just a good idea to be on time, use science, use logical, rational thinking, but a full-blown ideology. One we should “get better” than.

VALUED by white men

Let’s leave aside the fact that men aren’t even mentioned in the graphic. You added this yourself, thereby making science, planning for the future, politeness, etc, not just white hegemony but male hegemony.

The traits I highlighted are valued by prosperous, free Liberal societies, no matter the color of the citizens’ skin (or their gender), as they are how these societies came to be what they are: embracing science, objectivity, rationality, a stable family whatever its composition (as opposed to group collectivism), good communication skills in written and spoken format, individual agency, work ethic, rewarding merit, social cohesion (politeness)... They’re good ideas because we learned that they work. They helped identity and get rid of centuries of bad ideas, even if some of those things are ongoing projects. Which is the reason you have the privilege, capability and right to whine about and misrepresent successful social values as “white men” “values” online at all.

All of it through the emergence and growth of Liberalism, the Enlightenment and the Modern Era over the last 500 years or so, which has produced countries that have continuously identified and addressed problems faster than any other social dynamic. As with evolution, this remains ongoing. Like science, Liberalism is never done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free markets, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

(It’s remarkable that when I talk about the demonstrable effectiveness of the scientific method over creationist superstitions, this gets general approval from my audience, yet talking about the demonstrable effectiveness of Liberalism, which is essentially the counterpart of science in social principles, this is framed as “white men values”.)

To then call these aspects of “whiteness” and indicators of “white supremacy” is to make it clear that these ways of achieving personal, societal and cultural success are tainted with nefarious agenda that must be overcome.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that these values, such as individualism are not already actively being undermined, or that the opposite - such as subjective narrative and storytelling, aka “lived experience” and “other ways of knowing”, over rational objectivity, science, reason and neutral laws - is not actively being pursued and forwarded by these ideologues.

From: Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (Delgado/Stefancic).

“It should come as no surprise, then, that critical race theory, which endeavors to change the reigning para- digm of civil rights thought, has sparked stubborn resistance. For the first few years of its existence, the media treated critical race theory relatively gently. As the movement matured, however, critics felt freer to speak out. Some of the areas that drew attention are storytelling, the critique of merit, truth and objectivity, and the matter of voice.“

[..]

“A perhaps more likely outcome is that some of critical race theory will be accepted by society’s mainstream and halls of power, while other parts of it will continue to meet resistance. The narrative turn and storytelling scholarship seem well on their way toward acceptance, as does the critique of merit. More radical features, such as recognition that the status quo is inherently racist, rather than merely sporadically and accidentally so, seem less likely to win out. The need for regulation of hate crime and speech will probably eventually become evident, as it has to dozens of Euro- pean and Commonwealth nations.“

The idea that I’ve conjured “outrage” from nowhere, when the ideologues themselves pat themselves on the back for their progress in forwarding “opposite” values (”non-white”) is rather hard to swallow. This isn’t even controversial in Critical Theory circles, so attempting to contradict it here seems rather strange. It is, after all, what “dismantle X” is about in CSJ activism.

In science alone, we find: a deranged activist insist science no more valid than the tribal belief that you can summon lightning to strike your enemies; ideologues demanding “are you teaching the white man’s science?” as if it belongs only to white people; demands to recognize the belief “that semen from multiple men can contribute to the formation of the embryo“ is no less true than scientific understanding of embryology; that the belief of indigenous cultures originating from buffalo people emerging from the Earth after spirits prepared the world is on par with the scientific understanding of the Bering Strait Migration - which is only a “theory” anyway. Because that’s the “white” way of looking at things.

From: Ozlem Sensoy. “Is Everyone Really Equal?”:

“Many of these movements initially advocated for a type of liberal humanism (individualism, freedom, and peace) but quickly turned to a rejection of liberal humanism. The logic of individual autonomy that underlies liberal humanism (the idea that people are free to make independent rational decisions that determine their own fate) was viewed as a mechanism for keeping the marginalized in their place by obscuring larger structural systems of inequality. In other words, it fooled people into believing that they had more freedom and choice than societal structures actually allow.”

That is, CRT views Liberalism itself as a racist conspiracy theory.

This is thoroughly unsurprising given Critical Theory’s position on Liberalism

Again, Delgado/Stefancic:

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transform- ing the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the lib- eral order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Let it not escape anyone that it contests “neutral principles of constitutional law.” Which is why Henry Rogers (aka “Ibram X. Kendi”) wants to be an extra-constitutional authority to enforce his ideology’s will.

The entire underlying foundation of Critical Theory is social constructivism, and that everything is an assertion of (political) power. This is tacitly stated in the introduction of the infographic. To act like undermining and disrupting these values - again, imbued with “white” political power - isn’t an objective of the neoracist Woke Elect, is to fail to understand the ideology, while invalidating any reason for them to post it at all.

But most of all, it rings of the same apologetics as the religious who insist that what their scripture clearly says isn’t actually what it really means. Rather than making excuses for the immorality of religious doctrine, it makes excuses for the blatant racism - against everybody - in the articles of Woke faith.

#liberalism #liberal ethics #neoracism #critical theory #critical race theory #religion is a mental illness #bering strait #buffalo people #Bari tribe #Venezuela

religion-is-a-mental-illness

How “Indigenous Ways of Knowing” Works In Venezuela

The concept of “indigenous ways of knowing” is increasingly popular in North American universities.

newdiscourses.com

The concept of “indigenous ways of knowing” is increasingly popular in North American universities.

However, this enthusiasm is largely abstract, for educational institutions have not yet processed the implications. In Venezuela, my experience as an educator has been different.

Members of the Bari tribe believe that the semen of multiple men can contribute to the formation of the embryo. Should this be respected as an “indigenous way of knowing”? I posit that it should not, and I urge North American institutions to take note.

In 2005, Richard Dawkins proposed to teach the stork theory of conception in public schools. When I first learned about this, I was baffled. How on Earth could Dawkins, the brilliant scientist, make such an outrageous proposal? I soon came to realize that this was typical Dawkins sarcasm. At the time, those pushing the Intelligent Design agenda were requesting educational reforms, so as to introduce new creationist theories in school curricula. According to the argument advanced by the Discovery Institute, to live in a truly democratic society, schools would have to “teach the controversy” and so, Darwinism would have to be taught alongside Intelligent Design. Dawkins then weighed in on this issue, arguing that, if we are to teach such “controversies,” then we ought to teach an alternative to the conventional theory of human reproduction; schools should include the stork theory.

Dawkins won the day. With his stingy yet effective reductio ad absurdum, he made a point: not every topic is open to “teaching the controversy.” For his illustrative purposes, Dawkins chose a cartoonish example. Nobody actually believes storks deliver babies. In fact, although the image of the stork carrying the baby wrapped in diapers has powerful appeal in a variety of cultures, it is rather doubtful that anybody ever held such a belief. For that very reason, this colorful theory served as a perfect example for Dawkins’ affront against the new versions of creationism.

Yet, as an educator in Venezuela, I have encountered students who do have strange theories about human reproduction. The Bari Natives of Zulia State in Western Venezuela are a case in point. Members of this tribe believe that semen from multiple men can contribute to the formation of the embryo. In fact, it is common for Bari women to have multiple partners, and all of them play the role of father to the child the woman may conceive. This works to the advantage of such a child, to the extent that he or she may be nourished and protected by many men. This particular custom can only take place if, indeed, the whole community accepts that all those men have equally contributed their semen to the biological formation of that child.

The Bari are amongst a few other tribes (mostly in South America) who adhere to the concept of “partible paternity”. Anthropologists have long been fascinated by this concept, because they see great functionality in this particular belief. For the case of the Bari, anthropologist Stephen Beckerman has closely studied this phenomenon. Over the years, Beckerman discovered that the belief in multiple paternity is very useful for the Bari, and it is an optimate cultural adaptation that serves the purpose of protecting children in a very hostile environment, such as the Perija mountains of Venezuela.

As an educator, I perfectly understand that. But my role is to teach science and to train students in the quest for truth. The Bari belief in partible paternity may be functional, but it is not any closer to truth than the stork theory of conception. Some philosophers with pragmatist inclinations might believe that truths ought to be defined in terms of utility. By that standard, if a particular belief is useful for the Bari, then it is true. But, that is sloppy thinking. A statement is true if and only if it corresponds with facts.

Over the years, I have had Bari students argue with me whenever I lay the basic facts about human reproduction. I listen to what they have to say, and I give them every opportunity to explain why their belief in partible paternity serves a purpose in particular tribal settings. But, I do not give in. I present facts, and that is that. In exams, if such students answer that more than one man can contribute semen to the formation of an embryo, they get zero marks. Just as we all agree that to “teach the controversy” regarding the stork theory of reproduction is ridiculous, it seems to me that it would be equally risible to “teach the controversy” about partible paternity.

Until recently, I never had problems with this uncompromising stance. But now, things are beginning to change throughout educational institutions in Latin America. For years, governments in the region have promoted multicultural education, on account of Latin America’s traumatic colonial history. The argument is straight forward: colonialism has inflicted massive damage on the psyche of indigenous peoples, and that needs to change. Justice must be done, and this needs to be reflected in education. This implies decolonizing the curriculum, by focusing less on the Western canon, and giving more educational space to indigenous oral literature, arts, and so on.

This is all great. But, the push to decolonize the curriculum goes much further than that. Just as Canada, Australia, and other Western nations are now doing, this decolonizing of the curriculum also implies the acceptance and recognition of so-called “indigenous ways of knowing.” Such efforts would serve the purpose of doing what postcolonialist scholar Vish Visvanathan calls “cognitive justice”, i.e., the recognition of the right for different forms of knowledge to co-exist.

As far as I can see, in countries such as Canada, this movement in favor of “indigenous ways of knowing” still remains on a more abstract level. As Josh Dehaas describes it, there may be some veneer of magical thinking and new spirituality in Canadian universities as a result of this push to decolonize the curriculum. But so far, in the North American educational scene, there has been no real clash on the ground between science and “indigenous ways of knowing.”

In Venezuela, I have encountered this clash on a far more concrete level. A few Bari students have protested my “stubborn” adherence to the conventional theory of human reproduction, and school administrators are now feeling the heat of bureaucrats who want educators to accommodate indigenous religious beliefs, even if they directly clash with science. This implies giving marks to Bari students who answer in exams that two or more men can contribute semen to the formation of an embryo. It is one thing to enact religious rituals in class so as to make indigenous students feel welcome in seminars (as some Canadian universities now do); it is quite another to accept that folk theories of reproduction are as valid as scientific theories.

The concept of “cognitive justice” flies in the face of a fundamental principle of logic: Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction. Two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time. And yet, this is what “cognitive justice” amounts to. The Bari and the scientific theories of reproduction contradict each other; therefore, it is logically impossible to accept both of them as true. On an epistemological level, they cannot coexist, but somehow, school administrators want them to coexist.

The Bari belief is clearly false, and for that very reason, it cannot be called “knowledge.” This also applies to the wide array of beliefs that in North American academia, are beginning to be honored as “indigenous ways of knowing.” The word “knowledge” has a very specific philosophical definition, as laid out by Plato in the Theaetetus: justified true belief. Many of the alleged “indigenous ways of knowing” are either not true beliefs (they are demonstrably false, such as the Bari belief in partible paternity), or they are not justified (such beliefs are arrived at, not by way of empirical finding or reasoning, but by way of mysticism).

Now, of course anthropologists such as Beckerman have a point when they argue that concepts of partible paternity have an inner logic, and have been a useful adaptation for many indigenous tribes. But, I am afraid that education is about the quest for truth wherever it leads. Anything short of that would be a hypocritical disservice to students themselves. Indeed, I have had brilliant Bari students who are eager to continue on to medical school. Would I be helping their cause by telling them that their traditional theory of reproduction is as true as the scientific one? How is that going to help them when, as doctors, they investigate genetic diseases in their own communities? To erroneously believe that multiple men contribute genetic material for the formation of embryos, will certainly not help in treating disorders such as Huntington’s, which at some point was rampant in Western Venezuela.

So far, my colleagues and I have been able to resist, but I do not know if educators in Venezuela (and Latin America at large) will be able to do so for much longer. Ever more, populist politicians in the region appeal to indigenismo, and we have to come to feel the heat of this in classrooms. The same politicians who once laughed at the gringos for having even considered allowing religious fanatics teach that the Earth is 6,000 years old and humans coexisted with dinosaurs, now toy with the idea that, all in the name of postcolonialism, educators ought to accept indigenous beliefs as epistemologically on par with scientific theories.

This should be a cautionary tale for North American educators. Few school administrators have actually given enough thought to what the push for “indigenous ways of knowing” really implies. So far, North American educators pay lip service more than anything else. But, inevitably, if the current trend continues, the time will come when administrators will have to put to test all that lip service, and consider whether or not they are willing to accept the teaching of flat out wrong theories in classrooms. I hope they make the right decision on time.

“Other ways of knowing” in practice.

Source: newdiscourses.com