Chapter 3: The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a Battle between Good people and Evil people
“There is a moral dualism that sees good and evil as instincts within us between which we must choose. But there is also what I will call pathological dualism that sees humanity itself as radically…divided into the unimpeachably good and the irredeemably bad. You are either one or the other” (Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name).
-a protest is always a claim that injustice is being done
-when a group forms to protest together, they jointly construct a narrative about what is wrong, who is to blame, and what must be done to make things right
-reality is always more complicated than the narrative, so the result is people are demonized or lionized often unfairly
Ex. Claremont McKenna College, October 2015
-student wrote an essay about here feelings of marginalization and exclusive
-she wrote that she felt like she had been admitted to fill a racial quota
“Our campus climate and institutional culture are primarily grounded in western, white, cisheteronormative upper to upper middle class values.”
“Cisheteronormative describes a society in which people assume that other people are not transgender and not gay, unless there is information to the contrary.”
Dean Spellman responded with an invite to meet with students to discuss her concerns, but used the line, “we can better serve students, especially those who don’t fit our CMC model.”
-upon reading the Dean’s response she seemed to be showing concern and reaching out to listen and help
-the student chose to interpret the Dean’s response in the least generous way (she assumed the intent was to be cruel and unkind)
-the word “mold” was offensive, discriminatory, and hateful
-the student claimed the Dean’s response implied she and other students of color did not belong at CMC
-the Dean tried to explain that she used the term “mold” to show empathy with the student but her explanation was rejected because other students had used that term in previous conversations to describe feeling like they didn’t fit in
So:
-any student reading this conversation who had felt they didn’t fit in might well have a negative response upon reading the word “mold”
***There is a principle in philosophy and rhetoric called the principle of charity:
-one should interpret other people’s statements in their best, most reasonable form, not the worst or most offensive way possible
-Had the student been taught to judge people primarily on their intentions?
-the student could have learned the habit of questioning her initial reactions, looking for evidence, and giving people primarily on their intentions
-she could have used the principle of charity in this situation
-she could have used the habit of questioning her initial reactions, looking for evidence, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, then she may have been able to overcome her initial flash of emotion
-she could have accepted the invitation from the dean who wanted to know what she could do to address the student’s concerns
That is not what happened:
-the student took her flash of emotion to social media
-the student posted on the Dean’s Facebook, “I just don’t fit that wonderful CMC mold! Feel free to share.”
-Her friends then shared her response to the Dean’s invitation
-this spread throughout the campus that erupted in protests, marches, demonstrations, demands given to the president for mandatory diversity training, and demands that the Dean resign
-two students went on a hunger strike
-students formed a circle for the news and spent over an hour airing their grievances through bullhorns
-the Dean tried to apologize for the email being “poorly worded” and told the crowd that her “intention was to affirm the feelings and experiences expressed in the article and to provide support.”
-the students did not accept her apology
-the university did not fire Spellman, but neither did its leaders publicly express any support for her
-faced with the escalating anger of students amplified by social media and then by national coverage Spellman resigned
Silliman College (Yale’s residential college): Racist Costumes
-administration wanted to give guidance to students about appropriate and inappropriate Halloween costumes
-Erika Christakis, lecturer, wrote an email that praised the “spirit of avoiding hurt and offense,” but expressed concern about the institutional “exercise of implied control over college students.”
-Christakis reflected that as adults students should be able to set norms for themselves, handle disagreements interpersonally by “talking to each other,” and “free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.”
-the email sparked angry responses from students who claimed Christakis’ email was in favor of racist costumes
-a group of 150 students went to Christakis’s home writing statements in chalk “We know where you live”
-Erika’s husband was the head of college tried to go out in the courtyard to speak to the crown surrounding their home
-the students demanded an apology and for him to renounce his wife’s email
-Nicholas listened, engaged in dialogue, and apologized several times, but he refused to denounce his wife’s email
-students accused both of them as being “racist” and “offensive”
-they accused Christakis of “stripping people of their humanity,” “creating an unsafe space,” and “creating an unsafe space”
-the students swore at him and criticized him of not listening, they told him not to smile, lean down, or gesticulate
-the students told him they wanted him to lose his job
-the president of the university sent out an email acknowledging the students’ pain and committing to take action after the courtyard incident
-the president didn’t did not mention any support for the Christakises
-attitudes against the couple were entrenched amid ongoing demands that they be fired
-Erika resigned her position
-Nicholas took a sabbatical from teaching for the rest of the school year
-at the end of the school year both resigned their position in the residential college
-many professors supported them privately, but unwilling to defend or support the Christakises publicly because they through it was too “risky” and they feared retribution
**what intended to be helpful to students, but students interpreted the emails as so offensive so grave that they justified calls for their authors to be fired
Groups and Tribes: Minimal group paradigm
-pioneered by Polish psychologist Henri Taijfel, who served in the French army during WWII and became a prisoner of war in Germany
-he was affected by his experiences as a Jew during the period in Europe, including having his entire family in Poland murdered by the Nazis
-Taijfel wanted to understand the conditions under which people would discriminate against member of an outgroup
He found:
-we just don’t feel as much empathy for those we see as “other”
-the human mind is prepared for tribalism
-human evolution is not just the story of groups competing with other individuals within each group
-it is the story of groups competing with other groups–sometimes violently
-tribalism is our evolutionary endowment for banding together to prepare for intergroup conflict
-when the “tribe switch” is activated, we bind ourselves more tightly to the group
-we embrace and defend the group’s moral matrix, and we stop thinking for ourselves
-a basic principle of moral psychology is that “morality binds and blinds”
-it gears up a group for battle between “us” and “them”
-in tribal mode, we seem to go blind to arguments and information that challenge our team’s narrative
-being prepared for tribalism doesn’t mean we have to live in tribal ways
***the human mind contains many evolved cognitive “tools”
-local conditions can turn the tribalism up, down, or off
-the signs that reveal which team another persian is on where traitors are punished and fraternizing with the enemy
-conditions of peace and prosperity, in contrast, generally turn down the tribalism
-when a community succeeds in turning down everyone’s tribal circuits, there is more room for ****individuals to construct lives of their own choosing where there is more freedom for a creative mixing of people and ideas
Lens of today:
-when distinctions between groups are emphasized rather than downplayed you train students to see others and themselves as members of a distinct groups defined by race, gender, and other significant factors
-all groups are eternally engaged in a zero sum conflict over status and resources
Two Kinds of Identity Politics:
“Identity politics” is a contentious term
-it is defined as “political mobilization organized around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or pecuniary interest.”
“In America, this sort of mobilization is not new, unusual, un-American, illegitimate, nefarious, or particularly leftwing.”
-politics is all about groups forming coalitions to achieve their goals
How identity is mobilized makes an enormous difference:
-for the group’s odds of success, for the welfare of the people who join the movement, and for the country
-identity can be mobilized in ways that emphasize an overarching common humanity while making the case that some fellow human beings denied dignity and rights because they belong to a particular group
-it can be mobilized in ways that amplify our ancient tribalism and bind people together in shared hatred of a group that serves as the unifying common enemy
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Common-Humanity Identity Politics
-he tried to fix a gaping wound
-centuries of racism that had been codified into law in southern states and into customs, habits, and institutions across the country
-the civil rights movement was a political movement led by African Americans and joined by others
-together, they engaged in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience, boycotts, and public relation strategies to apply political pressure on lawmakers and working on changing the hearts and minds in the country at large
-he used the metaphor of family, referring to people of all races as “brothers” and “sisters”
-he spoke often of the need for love and forgiveness
-his used the words of Jesus and echoed the ancient wisdom from many cultures
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
-King’s famous speech drew on the language of the American civil religion
-the language that speak about our country’s founding documents and founding fathers
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” he proclaimed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, “they were signing a promissory note.”
-King turned the full moral force of the American civil religion toward the goals of the civil rights movement
***King’s approach made it clear that his movement would not destroy America; it would repair and reunite it
-this common-humanity approach played a major role in the movement that won marriage equality for gay people in several states in 2021
-this paved a way for the Supreme court to rule that gay marriage would become law of the land
-2012 campaign’s used King’s techniques of appealing to love and shared moral values
***the emotion of moral elevation
-this is the way to win hearts, minds, and votes by appealing to the intuitive and emotional processes
-instead of shaming or demonizing their opponents, they humanized them and then relentlessly appealed to their humanity
Common-Enemy Identity Politics:
-an effort to unite and mobilize multiple groups to fight against a common enemy
-it activates a powerful social-psychological mechanism embodied in an old Bedouin proverb: “I against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.”
-identifying a common enemy is an effective way to enlarge and motivate your tribe
Identity politics of the campus left:
-the right is just as committed to identity politics but provocations are usually off campus
-Adolf Hitler used common-enemy identity politics, the Jews< to unify and expand his Third Reich
-the new-Nazis and other white nationalist groups rally around a shared hatred not just of Jews, but also of blacks, feminists, and social justice warriors
-these extremist groups didn’t play any significant roles on college campus politics before 2016
-in 2017, the identity politics originating from left-leaning on-campus
-in 2017, a Latino student at Texas State University wrote an opinion essay that was published in the student-run independent newspaper:
Your DNA is an Abomination
“When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered–whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friends, police officers, etcetera—there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider “decent.”
-the student argued that “whiteness” is “a construct used to perpetuate a system of racist power.”
-the student asserted that “through a constant ideological struggle in which we aim to deconstruct ‘whiteness’ and everything attached to it, we will win.”
“Ontologiically speaking, white death will mean liberation for all…..Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die.”
-right-wing sites interpreted the essay as a call for actual genocide against white people
-But, the author seems to have been calling for cultural genocide
-the end of white domination and the culture of “whiteness”
-in calling for the dismantling of power structures, the author was using a set of terms and concepts commonly used in academic departments:
1-the main line of argumentation fell squarely within the large family of Marxist approaches to social and political analysis
2-it is a set of approaches in which things are analyzed primarily in terms of power
3-groups struggle with power
4-within the paradigm, when power is perceived to be held by one group over others
5-there is a moral polarity
6-the group seen as powerful are bad
7-while the groups seen as oppressed are good
8-it’s a variant of the pathological dualism of Marxism that focuses on conflict between economic classes
Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse:
-the Marxist approach is being used to interpret any struggle between groups
-Herbert Marcuse’s writings were very influential in the 1960s-1970s
-the American left transitioned away from its prior focus of workers versus capital to become the “New Left”
-the “new left” focused on civil rights, women’s rights, and other social movements promoting equality and justice
-progressives wanted progress and conservatives wanted to conserve the existing order
-Marcuse analyzed the conflict between the left and the right in Marxist terms
1965 essay: Repressive Tolerance
-Marcuse argued the tolerance and free speech confer benefits on society only under special conditions that almost never exist: absolute equality
-he believed that when power differentials between groups exist
-tolerance only empowers the already powerful and makes it easier for them to dominate institutions like education, media, and most channels of communication
-indiscriminate tolerance is “repressive”
-he argued that it blocks the political agenda and suppresses the voices of the less powerful
-indiscriminate tolerance is unfair so what is needed is a form of tolerance that discriminates
***A truly “liberating tolerance.” claimed Marcuse, is one that favors the weak and restrains the strong.
-the weak was the political left and the strong was the political right
-Marcuse associated the right with the business community, the military, and other vested interests that he saw as wielding power, hoarding wealth, and working to block social change
-the left referred to students, intellectuals, and minorities of all kinds
-Marcuse: there was no moral equivalence between the two sides
-in his view, the right pushed for war
-in his view, the left stood for peace
-in his view, the right was the party of “hate”
-in his view, the left was the party of “humanity”
-the right is powerful so they are oppressive
-the left is weak, so they are the oppressed
-therefore, indiscriminate tolerance is bad
-liberating tolerance “would mean intolerance against movements from the right, and toleration of movements from the left.”
***Marcuse recognized that what he was advocating seemed to violate both the spirit of democracy and the liberal tradition of nondiscrimination
-he argued that when the majority of a society is being repressed, it is justifiable to use “repression and indoctrination” to allow the “subversive majority” to achieve the power that it deserves
-Marcuse argued that true democracy might require denying basic rights to people who advocate for conservative causes, or for policies he viewed as aggressive or discriminatory
-that true freedom of thought might require professors to indoctrinate their students
“They would include the withdrawal of tolerance of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race, and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc…”
-the end goal of a Marcusean revolution is not equality by a reversal of power
“Repressive Tolerance,” has continued to flourish fifty years after its publication in a country that has made enormous progress in extending civil rights to groups that did not have them in 1965, and in an education system that cannot be said to be controlled by the right
Modern Marcuseanism:
-decades after “Repressive Tolerance” was published, a variety of theories and approaches flourished on campus in humanities and social science departments that offered ways of analyzing society through the lens of power relationships among groups
Ex. deconstructionism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and critical theory
Intersectionality:
-advanced by Kimberle Williams Chrenshaw, a law professor at UCLA (director of the Center on Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies
-in 1989, Crenshaw noted that the black experience in America is not captured by the summation of the black experience and female experience
Ex. General Motors
-Crenshaw analyzed a legal case in which black women were victims of discrimination
-the company showed that it did hire plenty of black people (factory jobs were dominated by men)
-GM was found not to have discriminated against black people or women
-so not look as how many black people were hired but now need to
-Crenshaw points out that you now have to look at interactions, or “intersections”
“Intersectionality as an analytic tool examines how power relations are intertwined and mutually constructing. Race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, ethnicity, nation, religion, and age are categories of analysis, terms that reference important social divisions. But they are also categories that gain meaning from power relations of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and class exploitation.”
Intersectionality:
-is a theory based on several insights that we believe are valid and useful
-power matters
-members of groups sometimes act cruelly or unjustly to preserve their power
-people who are members of multiple identity groups can face various forms of disadvantage in ways that are often invisible to others
-the point of using the terminology of "intersectionalism"
“Where there’s no name for a problem, you can’t see a problem, and when you can’t see a problem, you pretty much can solve it.”
Effects:
-the human mind is prepared for tribalism
-these interpretations of intersectionality have the potential to turn tribalism way up
-these interpretations of intersectionality teach people to see bipolar dimensions of privilege and oppression as ubiquitous in social interactions
Privilege: able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual, white, male, upper class, fertile
Oppression: disabled, transgender, gay/lesbian, non-white, female, poor, infertile
-privilege involves the power to dominate in systemic ways
-oppression involves the lived, systemic experience of being dominated by virtue of one’s position on various particular axes
Ex. race and gender interact to structure schools in ways that privilege the ideas and perspectives of white males
Ex. girls and women are effectively a “colonized population”
-they make up a majority of all students but are forced to live and earn within ideas and institutions structured by white men
-truth: mostly white males who set up the education system and founded nearly all the universities in the United States
-truth: at one time those schools excluded women and people of color
But
1-Does that mean that women and people of color should think of themselves as “colonized populations” today?
2-Would it make them more or less likely to engage with their teachers and readings, work hard, and benefit from their time in school?
3-what will happen to the thinking of students who are trained to see everything in terms of intersecting bipolar axis where one end of each axis is marked “privilege” and the other is “oppression”
***these are inherently moral dimensions of people on top are bad and people below the line are good
***this sort of teaching seems likely to encode the us verses them directly into student’s cognitive schemas
Life is a battle between good people and evil people
-there is no escaping the conclusion as to who the evil people are
-the axes of oppression usually point to one interactional address: straight white males
Ex. Brown University 2015
-students recorded themselves storming the president’s office and presented here with a list of demands to her and the provost
-the provost, a white man, says, “can we just have a conversation about—-?
-being cut off, students’ shout “no” and start snapping their fingers
-One protestor states, “ The problem they are having is that heterosexual white males have always dominated the space.”
-the Provost points out that he himself is gay
-even though the university was led by a woman and a gay man didn’t deter these students from continuing to point out that white males are at the top of the hierarchy
***universities are hyperactivating this us vs. them tribal competition
-truth: some individuals truly are racist, sexist, or homophobic, and some institutions are too
-we favor teaching students to recognize a variety of kinds of bigotry and bias as an essential step toward reducing them
***intersectionality can be taught skillfully
“It can be used to promote compassion and reveal injustices not previously seen. Yet, somehow, many college students today seem to be adopting a different version of intersectional thinking and are embracing the untruth of us versus them.”
Why Common-Enemy Identity Politics is Bad for Students:
-compassion versus intersectional thinking
-students enter college and are trained in intersectional thinking and how to spot microaggressions
-by the end of their 1st week on campus, students have learned to score their own and others levels of privilege, identity more distinct identity groups, and see more differences between people
-they have learned to interpret more words and social behaviors as acts of aggression
-they have learned to associate aggression, domination, and oppression with privileged groups
-they have learned to focus only on perceived impact and ignore intent
***The Call Out Culture***
-the combination of common-enemy identity politics and microaggression training creates an environment highly conducive to the development of a “call-out culture”
-students gain prestige for identifying small offenses committed by members of their community and then “calling out” the offenders
-one gets no points, no credit, for speaking privately and gently with an offender—it could be interpreted as colluding with the enemy
-call-out culture requires an easy way to reach an audience that can award status to people who shame or punish alleged offenders
-this is one reason social media has been so transformative
-there is always an audience that is eager to watch people being shamed especially since it is easy for spectators to join in and pile on
-call-out culture requires constant vigilance, fear, and self-censorship
-many in the audience may feel sympathy for the person being shamed but are afraid to speak up, yielding the false impression that the audience is unanimous in its condemnation
Ex. Smith College 2014 describes her induction
-one person telling the other that their opinion was wrong in many conversations
-the word “offensive” was almost always included in the reasoning
-freshman had quickly assimilated to this new way of non-thinking
-they could soon soon detect a politically incorrect view and call the person out on their “mistake”
-the student also began to voice her opinion less often to avoid being berated and judged by a community that claims to represent the free expression of ideas
-she had learned to walk on eggshells for fear she may say something “offensive”
-this included saying the wrong thing, coming to the defense of someone whom they know is innocent, out of fear that they themselves will be called out by the mob on social media
***That became the Social Norm
-another student admitted to holding back 90% of the things he wanted to say for fear of being called out
-people do not call you out because your opinion is wrong
-people call you out for literally anything
-social media amplifies cruelty
-”virtue-signaling” are recurrent features of call-out culture
-virtue signaling refers to the things people say and do to advertise that they are virtuous to help them stay in the good graces of their team
-mobs can rob good people of their conscience like participants were masks (in a real mob)
-they are hiding behind an alias or avatar (online mob)
-anonymity fosters deindividuation-the loss of an individual sense of self
-this lessons self-restraint and increases one’s willingness to go along with the mob
-the intellectual devastation is wrought by this way of thinking
Ex. Trent Eady, a young Canadian queer activist
-he escaped from this mindset in 2014
-he wrote an essay titled, “Everything is Problematic’: My Journey Into the Centre of a Political World, and How I Escaped”
-he identifies four features of the culture:
1-dogmatism
2-groupthink
3-a crusader mentality
4-anti-intellectualism
“Thinking this way quickly divides the world into an ingroup and an outgroup—believers and heathens, the righteous and the righteous….every minor heresy inches you further way from the group. When I was part of groups like this, everyone was on exactly the same page about a suspiciously large range of issues. Internal disagreement was rare.”
-it is difficult to imagine a culture that is more antithetical to the mission of a university
The Power of Common Humanity Today:
-Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, illustrates what happens to the millions of black men dragged into the criminal justice system
-often for possession or use of small amounts of marijuana
-they are released into society where they struggle to find jobs, are disqualified from state benefits, and lose the right to vote
-this leads to an “undercaste” in society that is in reminiscent of the Jim Crow South
-the book has had a powerful impact on the political left
Both:
-libertarians have expressed opposition to both overpolicing and the excesses of war on drugs
-conservative groups
-conservatives have opposed overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and the drug way
***there are opportunities for real cooperation on serious but potentially solvable issues
-finding common ground doesn’t win you election
-the movement of the politics of identity
-politics of identity movement goal is to lose a sense of what we share as citizens and what binds us as a nation
Ex. Picture of Rousevelt liberalism and unions
-it is an image of identity liberalism
-there is a prism refracting a single beam of light into its constituent colors, producing a rainbow
Ex. Trump rally, National Mall in Washington, on Sept. 16, 2017
-counterprotestors from Black Lives Matters (BLM) showed up and shouted at the Trump supporters
-Trump supporters shouted back
-instead of continuing a counterprotestor was allowed on stage for 2 minutes to speak
The mic was handed over after this was said:
“Now, whether they disagree or agree with your message is irrelevant. It’s the fact that you have the right to have the message.”
-the crowd cheered the counterprotestor when he announced, “I am an American”
-he lost the crowd when he started talking black men being killed by police
-he stated, “We are not anti-cop” that helped calm the crowd
-he then tried, “We don’t want anything that is yours. We want our God-given to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
-the crowd shouted, “All lives Matter”
-this is usually intended as a rebuke to BLM
-the counterprotestor agreed with the crowd that all lives matter, but then pointed out that when a black life is lost, we get no justice
-so giving that reason as to why they use “Black Lives Matter” was received with the crowd chanting USA
-instead of an us versus them but had an interaction between fellow human beings and fellow Americans
“Two sides that never listen to each other actually made progress today.”
-One of the bikers for Trump and BLM member shook hands and even posed in a photo together
***in the middle cradled was the young son between them (humanity)
In Sum:
-human minds evolved for living in tribes that have engaged in frequent (often violent) conflict
-modern-day minds readily divide the world into “us” and “them” even on trivial or arbitrary criteria
-identity politics takes many forms
-there is common-humanity identity politics: humanize their opponents and appeal to their humanity
-common-enemy identity politics: unite a coalition against the other side
-intersectionality is a popular intellectual framework that teaches students to see multiple axes of privilege and oppression that intersect
-intersectionality amplifies tribal thinking and encourages students to endorse the Untruth of US vs. THEM: Life is a battle between good people and evil people
-common-enemy identity politics when combined with microaggression theory that produces a call-out culture
-the result is public-shaming
-this forces students to “walk on eggshells” and teaches them to self-censor
-call-out cultures are detrimental to students’ education and bad for mental health
-call-out cultures and us-versus-them thinking is incompatible with the educational and research mission of universities who are supposed to require free inquiry, dissent, evidence-based argument, and intellectual honesty.