Comment by mullingitover
6 days ago
> Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that.
Au contraire, the idea that racism is a problem is now labeled "critical race theory" and it's a crime to spread this knowledge to students in multiple states.
Teachers in Oklahoma can't teach students the fact that the Tulsa Massacre was race-driven.
So Paul himself, it appears, has given himself over to the wokeness by acknowledging that racism is a genuine problem.
This is a dishonest argument. Paul can oppose an ideology without agreeing with everyone and especially extremists who also oppose that same ideology.
I dont think wokeness or paul graham are communist or fascist respectively so forgive the hysterical sound of the analogy im going to make here, but i think your argument is similar in reasoning to this one:
You oppose fascism? Well, fascism opposed gulags. If you oppose gulags I guess you were a fascist after all."
> Paul can oppose an ideology without agreeing with everyone and especially extremists who also oppose that same ideology.
He's doing it by conflating 'priggishness' (puritanical moral conservatism) with a movement that's advocating for equity and trying to dismantle structural oppression. He's deftly sidestepping the power dynamics at play, which fundamentally distinguish these two things. It just so happens that he's in a class of people who sit at the top of a tower of structural advantages benefitting him as he tut-tuts people who are pointing out that they're oppressive to some groups.
Ultimately he's just building a massive wall of text strawman for things he doesn't grasp and attacking it. We're fully in the era of this lazy take, like a dam breaking loose, lots of people who have been threatened by those movements are finally feeling free to attack them en masse.
>a movement thats advocating for equity and trying to dismantle structural oppression.
Well, for years those advocates did so with censorship, gaslighting, destruction of property, threats and calls for violence, etc. They had a hysterical fervor and lack of rationality that did often seem quasi religious. I dont think Paul's understanding is perfect but the parallels to religious puritanism are quite obviously there.
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