Eric's Beijing Diary

Context: Trump was asked if he thought White nationalism was on the rise around the world. He said that he didn't think so. So AOC concluded that this response meant that he would turn a blind eye to acts of terrorism. I was arrested by her bizarre conclusion, because I myself would have responded pretty much the way Trump did, and that doesn't mean I like terrorism.

This is a big subject. Hard to talk about it without bringing in so many side issues. It's very involved. To get the history, it may be to your advantage to give a listen to my podcast on the American Civil War, but you don't necessarily need to do it first.

Although I have been interested and concerned about this issue since I was a kid reading about the Underground Railroad, the thing that set me off this time was the media reaction to Trump's statement to the "Squad:"

[So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world, now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.]

Now as I explain in the podcast, Trump applied this statement too broadly. For three of the four people, it doesn't fit. I don't want to elaborate here, because I explain it in detail in the podcast. But for one of them (Ilhan Omar), it fits perfectly. It is not racist, and is entirely appropriate. So let me edit the above statement to make it apply to one person:

[So interesting to see a ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswoman, who originally came from a country whose government is a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world, now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why doesn't she go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested place from which she came. Then come back and show us how it is done.]

As you can see, the only thing I have changed is the reference (from three persons to one person). There is nothing racist about that statement. It is a very appropriate and needed exhortation. I certainly do not deny that Trump has said things with which I do not agree. But I could not agree with this one more. But it happens to be a criticism of a person of color, so to the media, it is automatically regarded as racist. That's stupid and dishonest. When you define racism as disagreeing with a Black person, you have robbed it of any significant meaning.

But, as I mentioned in the podcast, the thing that really set me off was watching a CNN "journalist" who was interviewing some folks about racism. She read a definition of racism from a dictionary, by which definition Trump was clearly not a racist. She then looked triumphantly at them as if she had just proven that Trump was a racist. This made me realize that I had to come up with a definition for racism that is so simple that even a CNN journalist can understand it. So here it is: A racist is someone who believes that moral qualities are genetically derived. That's it. Very simple. Even a CNN journalist could figure it out. I am not a racist. I do not believe it is right to present someone's ethic grouping as being morally inferiur. Genes are morally neutral. But I am a critic of culture. Culture is not morally neutral. As Frances Schaeffer said, "If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, society is absolute." I have been a student of culture since I moved to America when I was thirteen years old. I do believe that people of conscience should stand in judgment of culture when it strays from the moral standard God has written on our hearts--such as Confucius (孔子) in The Analects, which I read from in this podcast. So I guess you could say I am a culturist. Here then are the definitions we are going to be using in our discussion of this subject:

racism the belief that moral qualities are genetically derived

culturism the belief that some cultures are morally superior to others, or more precisely, that certain aspects of some cultures are morally superior to certain aspects of other cultures

If you don't like my definitions, you can throw them away when you finish listening to this podcast. But if you listen carefully, I hope you won't want to.

The video below contains a discussion about Kanye West. In the video, Bakari Sellers says "This is what happens when Negroes don't read." This is a reference to a Chris Rock comedy routine from the nineties. You don't need to watch all of that comedy routine, but if you can manage to endure the first three-and-a-half minutes, you will hear the statement that Bakari Sellers paraphrases in the video below. Clearly, Sellers is saying that Kanye West belongs to the category of Black people to whom Chris Rock is referring. That is unfair and disgusting. Listen yourself and see what you think.

Book List:

The Warmth of Other Suns

Gone With the Wind

Movie List:

Green Book

Mississippi Burning

Comments

Labels: American Society, Philosophy, Racism

In the scientific community today, there are the "new atheists," such as Richard Dawkins, there are the Christians, such as John Lennox from Oxford and Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, and there are also the agnostics, who do not number themselves among the believers, but look with disdain on the new atheists, who always seem so sure of themselves in their assertion that there is no God.

I suppose you could say that the agnostics are taking the easy way out. They don't have to commit themselves to anything. They can just attack. But it is interesting to me that the agnostics tend to get along better with Christians than with atheists. I suppose I should add that among the atheists, there are the cordial atheists and the angry atheists. I am making up these categories as I am pounding this out on my laptop in the old, old factory (since made in to a youth hostel) which is my home when I am in Shanghai. So you can debate them if you like--I won't be offended. In fact, after I have had time to think about it, I may debate them myself.

But they are not pulled out of thin air, either. I have given this matter some thought, and I have engaged with a number of thinkers down through the years. Years ago, I was chatting with a colleague of mine at the university where I was teaching in Tempe Arizona. He was talking about how he would never think of driving on the freeways in the Phoenix area. He always took the streets. He was deathly afraid of freeways.

I said to him, "No, you can't live that way. You just have to get out there and do it. You'll get used to it."

He said, "That's easy for you to say. You have God on your side. You have to remember I'm an atheist."

He was never cantankerous, like Dawkins, who is the first person to come to people's minds when they think about "new atheists" since Christopher Hitchens died. But he was not a believer, either, and he did not call himself an agnostic. So I don't believe, and do not want to imply, that all atheists are ill-tempered and angry. George Will, for example, calls himself a "low voltage" atheist.

David Berlinski is a mathematician, but he also has considerable background in philosophy, and he has written several novels. In this lecture, given in 2012 as an episode of Socrates in the City, he attacks both Darwinism and atheism. Perhaps I should have featured this video before the previous one, because this lecture predates that interview by several years. In some ways, though, that one is more important, because it shows how scientists one by one are being won over to the belief that Darwin's idea just are not scientifically viable.

So keep this in mind when you are watching this video. David Berlinski does not qualify as one of these new converts. He has been a Darwin doubter for a long time. But he is important, because he and others like him are part of the reason some of these world renowned scientists are being won over. David Gelernter specifically mentions him in telling of his own conversion. And I should emphasize that this is not a religious conversion. David Gelernter did not become a Christian. He does not even say that he has been won over to the idea of Intelligent Design. His conversion, if you want to call it that, is an acceptance of the growing belief in the scientific community that Darwin's ideas just could not have happened.

Darwin doubting isn't new. There have always been people like me who, while accepting Darwin's observations of micro-evolutionary changes, do not believe that those observations justify the grandiose macro-evolutionary changes that Darwin assumes. People like me acknowledge change in nature. We just don't believe that Darwin's beliefs about single-celled organisms mutating into highly developed creatures can be justified by his observations.

But the Intelligent Design folks are going further than this. They are saying they can prove that Darwin's ideas couldn't have happened. And they are winning converts. You see, the reason Darwin is dying isn't because of a few religious people on the fringes. Darwin is dying because the scientific community is starting to reject Darwin's explanations. It will be a slow death. There are still plenty of diehards who will continue to maintain their belief in Darwinian evolution (by carefully shielding their eyes from the math). But I personally believe it is only a matter of time.

At the very end of the Q and A there was a question about Richard Weikart, and his idea that Darwin lead to Hitler. Berlinski endorsed it wholeheartedly. I have heard those kinds of ideas before, but I have no idea who Richard Weikart is, so I will do some more research before commenting on that, except to pose one question: Do you think Darwin was a racist? Look up the full title of his book and tell me what you think. You'll enjoy this lecture. David Berlinski is an engaging speaker.

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Labels: Evolution, Philosophy