Sun Tzu also noted that one can expect an opponent to choose ground which is to their advantage, the counter is to then choose a different ground upon which to engage this opponent.
Yes, in which neutral ground is an alternative, or finally just the awareness that you are moving onto ground chosen by your opponent - so perhaps look for other possible advantages you might gain.
> Kendi calls his version of equitism “antiracism,” allowing his enthusiasts to declare that if one is not antiracist, then logic dictates that one must be proracist.
It's very easy to grasp logically if you understand the characteristics of antimatter. According to physicists, antimatter is exactly like matter in every way, except for a few specific characteristics, in which it's exactly like matter in every way *except for being oriented in the precise opposite direction.*
When you understand antimatter, you understand so-called "anti-racism" and "anti-fascism."
Precisely! But then there's the issue of parity/symmetry. :) ... Given your interests, you likely know of Madame Chien-Shiung Wu. Nearly four decades back, she was a sweet lady who always made nice comments about our baby in the elevator of our apartment building. We knew she was a physicist, though we didn't realize how important she was until decades later. I wrote about her here. https://graboyes.substack.com/p/the-worried-well
The exclusion of Wu from the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics is probably the outstanding example of what came to be called sexism in the award of the prize, and was loudly protested even at the time even by the winners, C.N. Yang and T.D. Lee.
However, the Madame Curie of Physics was Madame Curie. Also of chemistry, but not less of physics for that.
Figured you'd know her. She was one of the sweetest people we ever met, but a physicist told me that physicists were terrified of her. And, yes on Curie.
Bob, Check out Kendi's attempt to define antiracism........it begins at 34 min into the obsequious, milquetoast interview by a fawning Jemele Hill who acted like a star-struck teenager.
Somewhere along the long and winding American road from Thomas Jefferson of Virginia to Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia We the People were detoured into this current ditch. It’s not likely that We will successfully climb out to again see that universal way through the woods of our future. 😢
A brilliant Asian-American friend with brilliant kids in the Fairfax school system told me that an earnest white parent was waxing enthusiastic about some protest marches in 2020 or 2021 and asked her whether Asian kids participate in the marches. She responded, "Yes. They're the ones selling water bottles to the marchers walking by."
Had to stop and comment after two paragraphs -- I hope I'm not repeating a point you made.
"Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome." That is quite simply a restatement of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." And we know where THAT came from.
Acts 4:32-35 is where it came from. This is a repeating theme in Leftist thought, the idea that they can achieve the highest blessings of Christian civilization through mechanical means, without having to pay the price of Christian virtue.
G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy" (1908): "The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful."
I can’t grant that label. One of the biggest problems with “equity” is precisely that it is not equitable. Let no nomenclature be accepted which tacitly agrees that it is.
I further dispute that the problem that the DEIsts have no accepted label—if it really is a problem—can be solved by their opponents trying to stick one on them. It might work if we controlled the meaning-creating institutions of the culture; but they do.
I'm so sorry sir, but the "Equity" train has already left the station. I'd suggest that you speak with the ticket agent to explore alternatives.
"Meaning-creating institutions" are, indeed, dominated by the equitist side in the debate, but dominated does not imply monopoly. This locution, at the very least, could simplify conversations among egalitarians. In the previous sentence, I said "the equitist side" and didn't have to say "the people who pursue an 'equity' agenda, antiracism, anticolonialism, etc. etc. etc."
Plus, there is some evidence that a sizable swath of the left is growing uncomfortable with DEI/CRT/Kendi/etc. and the whole abuse-of-language thing.
I love this post. I am new subscriber. I learned about this post becuase of the organization FAIR. I just happen to see the title of the email that was updating me on FAIR's substack recap. I don't always open that email but was intrigued by the title based on the meeting I just walked out of at my kids school.
I happen to walk out of a meeting at my kids school where I was trying to explain why I don't use the word "woke" to describe the framework that was used in a recent conversation. It was fascinating to have the gentleman trying to frame my words back into a conversation about being "woke" or "not woke". I told him "woke" carries with it too much baggage and it is too broad and I want to talk in terms of specific framing. I had to stop the conversation several times when he would reinterpret what I said by saying "You mean woke." I would literally say no and then have to pull us out of that language. He was surprised to hear me use terminology that was precise in language that explained CRT in a practical way. It was a fascinating conversation and at one point I shared that I avoid some of those buzzwords because I'm trying to move the conversation forward here and I don't need people getting hung up on the individual trees when we need to be deeply concerned about the forest (the ideological framework that has taken over the conversation about Race in unhealthy and unhelpful). Then I read this post and I am saying "yes!" Great job trying to make sense of the nonsense. I told the guy it was intentional that movement has words that are elusive. I am hoping that he considers it because he is in an influential post and has no idea that he walks and talks in the frame that is destructive.
Welcome to the club! Your reaction is PRECISELY what I was seeking. A terse, intuitive, self-evident, flexible term that catches attention. Your conversation at the school is a great story. By all means, share my essay with him, if you like.
We've got a name, and so do they. Our name is one word, and so is theirs. Our name is relatively clear and intuitive and unambiguous, and so is theirs.
The issue is that you're trying to nail down something that specifically doesn't want to be nailed down. Take one of the quotes that you provided:
“Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
This wasn't written by some uncharitable critic, but rather a proponent of equity. In fact, I believe that this link made its rounds at my own school back in 2020. However, if I were to feed the quote directly back to people I work with today they would take issue with it, specifically with the word "exact".
Recently we re-wrote our faculty hiring policy to suggest that equal representation is a goal. Since our student population is 80% hispanic, I asked, "so what's the goal, here? Does that mean that we should expect our faculty to be 80% hispanic?" The answer wasn't yes, but rather, "do you think the current distribution is acceptable? We may never have 80% hispanic faculty, but shouldn't we have more than we do right now?"
The point being, they probably do want 80% hispanic faculty, but even though that goal is obvious it's never explicitly stated, and if you do explicitly state it or try to get them to, they'll say that they never said that, and they'll turn it around on you and suggest that you're against their "modest" ask of considering, in a general and squishy manner, of "just having a little more hispanic faculty, and really what's the problem with that?"
The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing isn't that bad ideas are being pushed in the name of equity, but when the ideas don't work out they're not only quietly abandoned, but those pushing relentlessly for them five minutes ago act as though they never believed those things, and it's usually hard to catch them because their statements are sufficiently sloppy and vague that you can't show without a doubt that they were pushing for that, even when they obviously were.
Great post. The illustration in your Lagniappe section always gives me a few thoughts: (1) Is the point that stealing should be made equitable? and (2) What should we do about basketball, or (my sport) shot-putting (or, really, any sport where certain physical attributes contribute to success)?
Another thoughtful and well reasoned piece. I like the search for simplicity, and all the points made about the opposition. Your solution works, but equitism doesn’t roll off my tongue easily - perhaps with mor practice it will. Using your three prongs, all I can come up with is the aspiration is uniformity, the advocate would be a dullard and the philosophy is stasis, which is far too complicated.
Sun Tzu also noted that one can expect an opponent to choose ground which is to their advantage, the counter is to then choose a different ground upon which to engage this opponent.
He would have been alive to the unfortunate fact that one does not always have that option.
Yes, in which neutral ground is an alternative, or finally just the awareness that you are moving onto ground chosen by your opponent - so perhaps look for other possible advantages you might gain.
In the case at hand, I don’t think we have the option of naming the DEIsts.
I almost wrote that, but thought I would be too obscure. :)
> Kendi calls his version of equitism “antiracism,” allowing his enthusiasts to declare that if one is not antiracist, then logic dictates that one must be proracist.
It's very easy to grasp logically if you understand the characteristics of antimatter. According to physicists, antimatter is exactly like matter in every way, except for a few specific characteristics, in which it's exactly like matter in every way *except for being oriented in the precise opposite direction.*
When you understand antimatter, you understand so-called "anti-racism" and "anti-fascism."
I am *so* stealing this... Thanks!
Really? When a “proracist” and an “antiracist” meet, they disappear into a cloud of gamma rays and neutrinos, extremely exothermically?
So what you're saying is, when the two meet and interact physically, a violent explosion occurs spontaneously?
...yup, the theory still holds.
Precisely! But then there's the issue of parity/symmetry. :) ... Given your interests, you likely know of Madame Chien-Shiung Wu. Nearly four decades back, she was a sweet lady who always made nice comments about our baby in the elevator of our apartment building. We knew she was a physicist, though we didn't realize how important she was until decades later. I wrote about her here. https://graboyes.substack.com/p/the-worried-well
The exclusion of Wu from the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics is probably the outstanding example of what came to be called sexism in the award of the prize, and was loudly protested even at the time even by the winners, C.N. Yang and T.D. Lee.
However, the Madame Curie of Physics was Madame Curie. Also of chemistry, but not less of physics for that.
Figured you'd know her. She was one of the sweetest people we ever met, but a physicist told me that physicists were terrified of her. And, yes on Curie.
Alas, I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance.
Bob, Check out Kendi's attempt to define antiracism........it begins at 34 min into the obsequious, milquetoast interview by a fawning Jemele Hill who acted like a star-struck teenager.
https://youtu.be/TzuOlyyQlug
I'll have a look! Thanks.
Somewhere along the long and winding American road from Thomas Jefferson of Virginia to Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia We the People were detoured into this current ditch. It’s not likely that We will successfully climb out to again see that universal way through the woods of our future. 😢
Interesting that you mention TJ Sci-Tech. My wife worked for that school system and saw this stuff emerging just before she retired.
👍😢
A brilliant Asian-American friend with brilliant kids in the Fairfax school system told me that an earnest white parent was waxing enthusiastic about some protest marches in 2020 or 2021 and asked her whether Asian kids participate in the marches. She responded, "Yes. They're the ones selling water bottles to the marchers walking by."
Had to stop and comment after two paragraphs -- I hope I'm not repeating a point you made.
"Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome." That is quite simply a restatement of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." And we know where THAT came from.
Now back to the scheduled programming...
> And we know where THAT came from.
Acts 4:32-35 is where it came from. This is a repeating theme in Leftist thought, the idea that they can achieve the highest blessings of Christian civilization through mechanical means, without having to pay the price of Christian virtue.
Yeah, I wasn't reaching that far back. (I had Karl Marx in mind, as I suspect did the equitists.)
I must investigate your Stack, or whatever one calls these sites.
G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy" (1908): "The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful."
I have, indeed, made that same comparison.
I can’t grant that label. One of the biggest problems with “equity” is precisely that it is not equitable. Let no nomenclature be accepted which tacitly agrees that it is.
I further dispute that the problem that the DEIsts have no accepted label—if it really is a problem—can be solved by their opponents trying to stick one on them. It might work if we controlled the meaning-creating institutions of the culture; but they do.
I'm so sorry sir, but the "Equity" train has already left the station. I'd suggest that you speak with the ticket agent to explore alternatives.
"Meaning-creating institutions" are, indeed, dominated by the equitist side in the debate, but dominated does not imply monopoly. This locution, at the very least, could simplify conversations among egalitarians. In the previous sentence, I said "the equitist side" and didn't have to say "the people who pursue an 'equity' agenda, antiracism, anticolonialism, etc. etc. etc."
Plus, there is some evidence that a sizable swath of the left is growing uncomfortable with DEI/CRT/Kendi/etc. and the whole abuse-of-language thing.
We shall see how well “equitist” travels. I shall be waiting expectantly down the line.
I love this post. I am new subscriber. I learned about this post becuase of the organization FAIR. I just happen to see the title of the email that was updating me on FAIR's substack recap. I don't always open that email but was intrigued by the title based on the meeting I just walked out of at my kids school.
I happen to walk out of a meeting at my kids school where I was trying to explain why I don't use the word "woke" to describe the framework that was used in a recent conversation. It was fascinating to have the gentleman trying to frame my words back into a conversation about being "woke" or "not woke". I told him "woke" carries with it too much baggage and it is too broad and I want to talk in terms of specific framing. I had to stop the conversation several times when he would reinterpret what I said by saying "You mean woke." I would literally say no and then have to pull us out of that language. He was surprised to hear me use terminology that was precise in language that explained CRT in a practical way. It was a fascinating conversation and at one point I shared that I avoid some of those buzzwords because I'm trying to move the conversation forward here and I don't need people getting hung up on the individual trees when we need to be deeply concerned about the forest (the ideological framework that has taken over the conversation about Race in unhealthy and unhelpful). Then I read this post and I am saying "yes!" Great job trying to make sense of the nonsense. I told the guy it was intentional that movement has words that are elusive. I am hoping that he considers it because he is in an influential post and has no idea that he walks and talks in the frame that is destructive.
Welcome to the club! Your reaction is PRECISELY what I was seeking. A terse, intuitive, self-evident, flexible term that catches attention. Your conversation at the school is a great story. By all means, share my essay with him, if you like.
This is exactly what I've been looking for - I can't ever find the right way to describe the "everything is racist" crowd, and equitist is perfect.
Use it and spread it. :)
I still like shitlib but the meme is great. You may want to add "stochastic", you stochasticerer.
Ah yes! "Stochastic." I did leave that one out.
Great post Mr. Graboyes.
Thanks!
What's wrong with "Post Modern Nihilism", "Cultural Marxism", or "Chemical determinism"?
Too long. Too academic. Too obscure. Too grammatically inflexible. Too deniable.
Bob,
Excellent essay, as usual. I am sharing and adopting this into my personal lexicon immediately. I hope it catches on.
Rick
Thanks, Rick! Until it catches on, just append a link to my piece. :)
Done! Will be posting the link on my substack and on FB and X. Rick
Fantastic! Thanks.
‘Til then.
https://youtu.be/I8iIplONQ-s?si=8sp5D_hRxpc_BTi1
:)
Whatever do you mean by "level ground"?
We've got a name, and so do they. Our name is one word, and so is theirs. Our name is relatively clear and intuitive and unambiguous, and so is theirs.
The issue is that you're trying to nail down something that specifically doesn't want to be nailed down. Take one of the quotes that you provided:
“Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
This wasn't written by some uncharitable critic, but rather a proponent of equity. In fact, I believe that this link made its rounds at my own school back in 2020. However, if I were to feed the quote directly back to people I work with today they would take issue with it, specifically with the word "exact".
Recently we re-wrote our faculty hiring policy to suggest that equal representation is a goal. Since our student population is 80% hispanic, I asked, "so what's the goal, here? Does that mean that we should expect our faculty to be 80% hispanic?" The answer wasn't yes, but rather, "do you think the current distribution is acceptable? We may never have 80% hispanic faculty, but shouldn't we have more than we do right now?"
The point being, they probably do want 80% hispanic faculty, but even though that goal is obvious it's never explicitly stated, and if you do explicitly state it or try to get them to, they'll say that they never said that, and they'll turn it around on you and suggest that you're against their "modest" ask of considering, in a general and squishy manner, of "just having a little more hispanic faculty, and really what's the problem with that?"
The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing isn't that bad ideas are being pushed in the name of equity, but when the ideas don't work out they're not only quietly abandoned, but those pushing relentlessly for them five minutes ago act as though they never believed those things, and it's usually hard to catch them because their statements are sufficiently sloppy and vague that you can't show without a doubt that they were pushing for that, even when they obviously were.
Yup!
Great post. The illustration in your Lagniappe section always gives me a few thoughts: (1) Is the point that stealing should be made equitable? and (2) What should we do about basketball, or (my sport) shot-putting (or, really, any sport where certain physical attributes contribute to success)?
Great questions!
Another thoughtful and well reasoned piece. I like the search for simplicity, and all the points made about the opposition. Your solution works, but equitism doesn’t roll off my tongue easily - perhaps with mor practice it will. Using your three prongs, all I can come up with is the aspiration is uniformity, the advocate would be a dullard and the philosophy is stasis, which is far too complicated.
I'd say the aspiration is (with some equitists) more about vengeance than about uniformity.