I think it everyone with a basic understanding of social psychology can see that the anti-racism doesn't help. This is fairly obvious from theory: in-group versus out-group dynamics are well established and have evolutionary precursors. Modern anti-racist theory, grounded in identity politics, focuses on group identity, and is therefore destined to strengthen in-group/out-group effects rather than reduce them.
At this stage, it's worth applying Littlefinger's test from Game of Thrones: "Sometimes I play a little game. What's the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?" Here, it isn't difficult. The anti-racist framework provides an enormous amount of power to whoever wields it. We see this in the case of Jason Arday: question the grading of an assignment, and the response is to examine your white privilege; question the sourcing of an interview quote, and the response is that your time would be better spent fighting racism and ableism in academia.
Maybe it didn't start out that cynical, but once implemented, Skinner is enough to explain why it keeps growing. Now, it's simply a useful stick to wield.
Yes, and yes again. @Matthew Yglesias pointed out in the beginning of the 2020s that elevating the salience of racial identify among whites would not make them feel less racist against others. Fostering feelings of group identity weaponizes human nature, and the consequences were predictable.
This is a really interesting perspective. If the messaging backfired, why did it take 15 years to notice it? I believe the challenge in this particular scenario has been that the reactance you describe was, for a long time, largely suppressed (or at least not publicly acknowledged) due to social factors (such as social fear and peer pressure), so it was easy to underestimate it and to continue to use the same type of interventions.
Then once that particular form of social control starts to "fail", it can feel (at least to those of us who have been primarily surrounded by progressive discourse) like a sudden outpouring of grievances coming out of nowhere. But the reality, I suspect, is that the reactance existed all along, it just was not socially acceptable to mention it. The "backlash" is really an accumulation of frustrations that people. as the public mood changes. feel able to acknowledge out loud. It reminds me of Kuran's work on preference falsification and unanticipated revolutions: private views can diverge from public expression without anyone noticing, until it all suddenly collapses.
The question is how can we do a better job at identifying reactance even when people are not willing to report it openly.
I think the surprise victory of Trump in 2016 may have been a first sign of backlash. Pundits at the time struggled to explain it. The economic anxiety hypothesis didn’t fully withstand scrutiny.
It's worth looking to well known political thinkers like Vaclav Havel and how simmering resentment rapidly escalated into overthrow of the system
The parallels between Havel's description of post-totalitarian methods and the methods adopted by the anti-racism movement are clear and should be obvious. The resulting resentment should have been equally obvious but like those regimes in Eastern Europe the social control gave the appearance of working even while it brewed the resentment that would replace it.
But the heady taste of power was too tempting. They didn't do it because there was any evidence of these methods working - they did it because it gave them power over other people who feared them
Great essay as always! I think you’re right that reactance is the reason we people don’t change their minds when they’re scolded. However, I get the impression that reactance is more about status management than about freedom directly, though I am aware that this has been a contested issue in social psychology. On that reading it makes sense why large segments of the population dig in their heels when educated elites tell them that they know better.
You write “For reasons unknown to me, practitioners of anti-racism adopted a coercive, heavy-handed approach.” This, too, makes sense when the actual goal is status optimization via in-group signaling and out-group domination and not actually changing anybody’s mind on racism (supposed or actual).
Likewise, the exaggerated steps the department took make sense as a reputation management move. Actually addressing the question whether Kanye West is a bad example for hubristic pride (lol, who in their right mind would doubt that?) or treating their staff fairly are incentives that pale in comparison.
In short, I think your analysis is on point, coercive anti-racism is counterproductive. I would propose though that it is always about status and social justice is merely the coincidental topic du jour, the set of social norms I can follow and on whose basis I can scold others that I can use as the means to optimize status. What do you think? Looking forward to more essays! Best wishes
It’s like I told my wife: if there is more than one way to interpret anything I say, you are obligated to assume the best possible interpretation.
As to the Tyler Harper article, there is a different aspect to this- the assumption in some quarters that the rest of the world is comprised of racist crackers that is endemic in Brooklyn and Beverly Hills, Georgetown and every University campus.
Stepping back a bit, I think much discussion of racism in the United States [1] these past few decades essentially boils down to "who is to blame for all this?" I think what undelies much of our failure as a society to continue to address racism post-Reconstruction is our inability to cope with the fact that this question is ill-posed. I mean this in the following sense: if we are looking to blame, we should be asking "what," not "who." [2] The issue with racism is not that there are bad people out in the world whose mindsets need to be corrected, but that we all participate in systems that perpetuate racism: the school, the university, the corporation, the club, the church, the state. People do not like being told that the institutions that act as the foundations for their lives are racist: they're smart enough to realize that this would imply that they are complicit in racism themselves, and no one wants to "be racist," as that's synonymous with being a bad person. So, they lash out: they find people in their institutions to blame, they implement non-systemic solutions like diversity trainings and diversity hires to save face, or they deny that their institutions are vehicles for racism outright. [3] Much of this, unfortunately, is to the benefit of people profit who socially and financially from racism.
I think one way to boil down the above is the following: we, as a society, have made the mistake of applying systemic language to things at the wrong level of abstraction. Kendi says this well in the revised paperback edition of "Anti-Racist": people are not racist or anti-racist. These are labels that we should instead be applying to their *actions*. We do racist *and* anti-racist things all the time in our day-to-day lives. The goal, if one takes on a deontological view, is to definitely do less racist stuff and try to do more anti-racist stuff. In my view, that second part should look less like pulling your friend aside when he makes a weird remark and more like writing to your representatives about abolishing the death penalty or raising the minimum wage.
Perhaps if we finally got our act together, there would be more than one black professor in my college's computer science department [edit: an exaggeration, but only a light one], and there'd be a reasonable chance of me getting lectured by one before I graduate. Instead, our cognitive biases and inability to engineer better social norms has led to a near-complete loss of the civil rights my elders fought and died for in the 70s. C'est la vie. I hope the social sciences can one day have something substantive to say about how to overcome these problems; I'll keep reading philosophy in the meantime.
[1]: I'm sure what I have to say here applies to many perspectives in the global north, and can be generalized beyond race, but I'll write what I know.
[3]: I ought to investigate the science of blame and responsibility at some point; it would be great if we could develop laws of mass action regarding this stuff.
“Kendi says this well in the revised paperback edition of "Anti-Racist": people are not racist or anti-racist. These are labels that we should instead be applying to their *actions*. We do racist *and* anti-racist things all the time in our day-to-day lives.”
This seems like a distinction without a difference.
Beyond that I don’t know how many people would understand or agree with Kendis definition of a racist action
I love how you have this whole thing about how racism isn’t a property of individuals and then one of them shows up for the comments. And by love I mean hate it I guess but you have to appreciate the comedy of it all.
Not a science guy, huh? Well, I suppose we need a certain number of starry-eyed mystics spouting nonsense to balance out the ruthless and uncomfortable truth produced by the heartlessness of nerd-villains.
Thanks for the article. As someone who was originally trained in anti-racism, I see many problems. One particular unhealthy evolution has been hyper-intellectualism coupled with moral certainty. The results: rigidity and the fear of expressing dissenting views.
I went to a Catholic boarding school. One typical reaction by proctors and prefects to real or perceived offenses by a pupil was the admonition to “say you are sorry,” inevitably followed by: “Now make it sound like you mean it!” It taught performative dishonesty as a virtue and left me with a deeply ingrained reactance to being told what I am supposed to think or feel. Galileo's "And yet it moves" comes to mind.
"The core insights behind anti-racism have some merit. I’m convinced that forms of racism are embedded in some institutions and policies."
Start with the wrong premise, you're bound to end up with incorrect conclusions. You leftists are forever recoiling from and vehemently denying fundamental truths governing human behavior. Fear of the abyss then leads you to destroy those unafraid to observe, learn, and accept what lies within. The "Conflict of Visions" Sowell explored long ago deserves your (re-)consideration.
If, when you speak to fundamental truths, you are saying that humans are inherently resistant to following rules, I would ask you reconsider that truth after reflecting on the existence and clear success of societal norms.
If you are instead speaking to the idea that humans engaging in harmful discriminantory behavior is fundamental, and that there exists no set of societal norms and circumstances can overcome this nature, then I find myself much more concerned. Given that I believe in the existence of the moral law, and that we ought to hold ourselves to that law regardless of whether we believe ourselves capable of following it or not, then perhaps we ought to seriously reconsider whether we should organize ourselves into large societies.
Not following rules, feeling “controlled “ and freedom of action restricted. That could be “following rules” but it could also be a dirty look for smoking on the front step or other sorts of social control.
Everyone has their own beef with a social norm or two. For example, I groan at dress codes of all kinds because I feel they're arbitrary, at times force me to spend money I don't have in order to socialize, and are at other times quite sexist. And further still, there are norms I positively despise and wish would disappear instantly, like tolerance of tabloid journalism. But this ultimately doesn't detract much from the fact that most people follow most social norms of their communities, and so to some extent consent to having their freedom partially taken away from them. Yes, people do resist being controlled, but they at other times go right along with it; it's not quite black and white.
If you truly believe that anyone should be able to do whatever they want for any reason (assuming of course that they follow the moral law, as that can never really be ignored), the only way that's possible is for us to all live alone, which then brings me back to my second paragraph above. The purpose of norms is that they make us accountable to one another, that they smooth out the differences between us. [1] Can't have your cake and eat it, too.
This isn’t about my preferences, it’s about how people react to various messages and forms of suasion. Damage the university set, has explained in the Harper article, lockdown on the masses. Not only that, they tend to cast dispersions on their motives and assume the worst about them. Naturally, the great unwashed citizens pick up on these attitudes. So perhaps it’s not that surprising if they react poorly two messages that they mean their character.
A couple of points - it has long been recognised that fighting fire with fire can be dysfunctional. 'Beware who you choose as your enemy, as it is they you will come to resemble'. Or as Epictetus wrote 2,000 years ago:
"One of the signs of the dawning of moral progress is the extinguishing of blame. We see the futility of finger pointing. The more we examine our attitudes and work on ourselves, the less we are apt to be swept away by stormy emotional reactions in which we seek easy explanations for unbidden events. These simply are what they are. Other people think what they will think; it is of no concern to us. No shame. No blame."
I can see this in any week in my relationship - moral blame mindset, leads to chastisement, and then dysfunction (sadness and anger, distrust).
Secondly, what if some of those apparently 'trying to fight racism', are actually doing something else - acting out as a social justice hero, 'for the likes' (without bothering to consider their motivation, effects etc); or for the money (many of the leading SJWs are doing rather well); or for the power (promotion, licence to use the bully pulpit).....? It's a standard feature in research to announce conflicts of interest - I have yet to see a SJW preface their writings with 'I have received millions of dollars to advocate this position, which is essentially a maximalist stance in favour of my identity group'.
You say that in the US “systemic racism is real and persistent.”
Except it’s not. If you think otherwise, make the case for it in this space rather than please your fellow academics, by asserting as fact here and now the default assumption of the faculty lounge.
Fascinating research. Do you have citations / references? It’s clear that anti racism is Orwellian doublespeak (to me) — and your conclusion is intuitive. Just interesting in the data and if any other work replicate the results.
You assume a lot in your methods and explanations. You could have tested for people's opinions about whether anti-Black prejudice is over-exaggerated or that Black people are demanding too much without describing them as "subtle modern prejudices". They might well be. But I'm glad you've settled it for us all.
I think it everyone with a basic understanding of social psychology can see that the anti-racism doesn't help. This is fairly obvious from theory: in-group versus out-group dynamics are well established and have evolutionary precursors. Modern anti-racist theory, grounded in identity politics, focuses on group identity, and is therefore destined to strengthen in-group/out-group effects rather than reduce them.
At this stage, it's worth applying Littlefinger's test from Game of Thrones: "Sometimes I play a little game. What's the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?" Here, it isn't difficult. The anti-racist framework provides an enormous amount of power to whoever wields it. We see this in the case of Jason Arday: question the grading of an assignment, and the response is to examine your white privilege; question the sourcing of an interview quote, and the response is that your time would be better spent fighting racism and ableism in academia.
Maybe it didn't start out that cynical, but once implemented, Skinner is enough to explain why it keeps growing. Now, it's simply a useful stick to wield.
Yes, and yes again. @Matthew Yglesias pointed out in the beginning of the 2020s that elevating the salience of racial identify among whites would not make them feel less racist against others. Fostering feelings of group identity weaponizes human nature, and the consequences were predictable.
This is a really interesting perspective. If the messaging backfired, why did it take 15 years to notice it? I believe the challenge in this particular scenario has been that the reactance you describe was, for a long time, largely suppressed (or at least not publicly acknowledged) due to social factors (such as social fear and peer pressure), so it was easy to underestimate it and to continue to use the same type of interventions.
Then once that particular form of social control starts to "fail", it can feel (at least to those of us who have been primarily surrounded by progressive discourse) like a sudden outpouring of grievances coming out of nowhere. But the reality, I suspect, is that the reactance existed all along, it just was not socially acceptable to mention it. The "backlash" is really an accumulation of frustrations that people. as the public mood changes. feel able to acknowledge out loud. It reminds me of Kuran's work on preference falsification and unanticipated revolutions: private views can diverge from public expression without anyone noticing, until it all suddenly collapses.
The question is how can we do a better job at identifying reactance even when people are not willing to report it openly.
I think the surprise victory of Trump in 2016 may have been a first sign of backlash. Pundits at the time struggled to explain it. The economic anxiety hypothesis didn’t fully withstand scrutiny.
It's worth looking to well known political thinkers like Vaclav Havel and how simmering resentment rapidly escalated into overthrow of the system
The parallels between Havel's description of post-totalitarian methods and the methods adopted by the anti-racism movement are clear and should be obvious. The resulting resentment should have been equally obvious but like those regimes in Eastern Europe the social control gave the appearance of working even while it brewed the resentment that would replace it.
But the heady taste of power was too tempting. They didn't do it because there was any evidence of these methods working - they did it because it gave them power over other people who feared them
Shoving lies down the throats of people at the point of a gun produces "reactance"? Who knew?
Great essay as always! I think you’re right that reactance is the reason we people don’t change their minds when they’re scolded. However, I get the impression that reactance is more about status management than about freedom directly, though I am aware that this has been a contested issue in social psychology. On that reading it makes sense why large segments of the population dig in their heels when educated elites tell them that they know better.
You write “For reasons unknown to me, practitioners of anti-racism adopted a coercive, heavy-handed approach.” This, too, makes sense when the actual goal is status optimization via in-group signaling and out-group domination and not actually changing anybody’s mind on racism (supposed or actual).
Likewise, the exaggerated steps the department took make sense as a reputation management move. Actually addressing the question whether Kanye West is a bad example for hubristic pride (lol, who in their right mind would doubt that?) or treating their staff fairly are incentives that pale in comparison.
In short, I think your analysis is on point, coercive anti-racism is counterproductive. I would propose though that it is always about status and social justice is merely the coincidental topic du jour, the set of social norms I can follow and on whose basis I can scold others that I can use as the means to optimize status. What do you think? Looking forward to more essays! Best wishes
It’s like I told my wife: if there is more than one way to interpret anything I say, you are obligated to assume the best possible interpretation.
As to the Tyler Harper article, there is a different aspect to this- the assumption in some quarters that the rest of the world is comprised of racist crackers that is endemic in Brooklyn and Beverly Hills, Georgetown and every University campus.
Stepping back a bit, I think much discussion of racism in the United States [1] these past few decades essentially boils down to "who is to blame for all this?" I think what undelies much of our failure as a society to continue to address racism post-Reconstruction is our inability to cope with the fact that this question is ill-posed. I mean this in the following sense: if we are looking to blame, we should be asking "what," not "who." [2] The issue with racism is not that there are bad people out in the world whose mindsets need to be corrected, but that we all participate in systems that perpetuate racism: the school, the university, the corporation, the club, the church, the state. People do not like being told that the institutions that act as the foundations for their lives are racist: they're smart enough to realize that this would imply that they are complicit in racism themselves, and no one wants to "be racist," as that's synonymous with being a bad person. So, they lash out: they find people in their institutions to blame, they implement non-systemic solutions like diversity trainings and diversity hires to save face, or they deny that their institutions are vehicles for racism outright. [3] Much of this, unfortunately, is to the benefit of people profit who socially and financially from racism.
I think one way to boil down the above is the following: we, as a society, have made the mistake of applying systemic language to things at the wrong level of abstraction. Kendi says this well in the revised paperback edition of "Anti-Racist": people are not racist or anti-racist. These are labels that we should instead be applying to their *actions*. We do racist *and* anti-racist things all the time in our day-to-day lives. The goal, if one takes on a deontological view, is to definitely do less racist stuff and try to do more anti-racist stuff. In my view, that second part should look less like pulling your friend aside when he makes a weird remark and more like writing to your representatives about abolishing the death penalty or raising the minimum wage.
Perhaps if we finally got our act together, there would be more than one black professor in my college's computer science department [edit: an exaggeration, but only a light one], and there'd be a reasonable chance of me getting lectured by one before I graduate. Instead, our cognitive biases and inability to engineer better social norms has led to a near-complete loss of the civil rights my elders fought and died for in the 70s. C'est la vie. I hope the social sciences can one day have something substantive to say about how to overcome these problems; I'll keep reading philosophy in the meantime.
[1]: I'm sure what I have to say here applies to many perspectives in the global north, and can be generalized beyond race, but I'll write what I know.
[2]: https://academic.oup.com/book/4381/chapter/146333966
[3]: I ought to investigate the science of blame and responsibility at some point; it would be great if we could develop laws of mass action regarding this stuff.
“Kendi says this well in the revised paperback edition of "Anti-Racist": people are not racist or anti-racist. These are labels that we should instead be applying to their *actions*. We do racist *and* anti-racist things all the time in our day-to-day lives.”
This seems like a distinction without a difference.
Beyond that I don’t know how many people would understand or agree with Kendis definition of a racist action
Suggest you read less Kendi and more Cofnas (there would be NO black professors, warning: math involved).
Thank you for suggesting that I read someone who espouses scientific racism; point not taken.
I love how you have this whole thing about how racism isn’t a property of individuals and then one of them shows up for the comments. And by love I mean hate it I guess but you have to appreciate the comedy of it all.
Not a science guy, huh? Well, I suppose we need a certain number of starry-eyed mystics spouting nonsense to balance out the ruthless and uncomfortable truth produced by the heartlessness of nerd-villains.
We made the perfect the enemy of the good.
Thanks for the article. As someone who was originally trained in anti-racism, I see many problems. One particular unhealthy evolution has been hyper-intellectualism coupled with moral certainty. The results: rigidity and the fear of expressing dissenting views.
I went to a Catholic boarding school. One typical reaction by proctors and prefects to real or perceived offenses by a pupil was the admonition to “say you are sorry,” inevitably followed by: “Now make it sound like you mean it!” It taught performative dishonesty as a virtue and left me with a deeply ingrained reactance to being told what I am supposed to think or feel. Galileo's "And yet it moves" comes to mind.
"The core insights behind anti-racism have some merit. I’m convinced that forms of racism are embedded in some institutions and policies."
Start with the wrong premise, you're bound to end up with incorrect conclusions. You leftists are forever recoiling from and vehemently denying fundamental truths governing human behavior. Fear of the abyss then leads you to destroy those unafraid to observe, learn, and accept what lies within. The "Conflict of Visions" Sowell explored long ago deserves your (re-)consideration.
If, when you speak to fundamental truths, you are saying that humans are inherently resistant to following rules, I would ask you reconsider that truth after reflecting on the existence and clear success of societal norms.
If you are instead speaking to the idea that humans engaging in harmful discriminantory behavior is fundamental, and that there exists no set of societal norms and circumstances can overcome this nature, then I find myself much more concerned. Given that I believe in the existence of the moral law, and that we ought to hold ourselves to that law regardless of whether we believe ourselves capable of following it or not, then perhaps we ought to seriously reconsider whether we should organize ourselves into large societies.
Not following rules, feeling “controlled “ and freedom of action restricted. That could be “following rules” but it could also be a dirty look for smoking on the front step or other sorts of social control.
Everyone has their own beef with a social norm or two. For example, I groan at dress codes of all kinds because I feel they're arbitrary, at times force me to spend money I don't have in order to socialize, and are at other times quite sexist. And further still, there are norms I positively despise and wish would disappear instantly, like tolerance of tabloid journalism. But this ultimately doesn't detract much from the fact that most people follow most social norms of their communities, and so to some extent consent to having their freedom partially taken away from them. Yes, people do resist being controlled, but they at other times go right along with it; it's not quite black and white.
If you truly believe that anyone should be able to do whatever they want for any reason (assuming of course that they follow the moral law, as that can never really be ignored), the only way that's possible is for us to all live alone, which then brings me back to my second paragraph above. The purpose of norms is that they make us accountable to one another, that they smooth out the differences between us. [1] Can't have your cake and eat it, too.
[1]: https://academic.oup.com/book/2050/chapter/141940527
This isn’t about my preferences, it’s about how people react to various messages and forms of suasion. Damage the university set, has explained in the Harper article, lockdown on the masses. Not only that, they tend to cast dispersions on their motives and assume the worst about them. Naturally, the great unwashed citizens pick up on these attitudes. So perhaps it’s not that surprising if they react poorly two messages that they mean their character.
"What if trying to fight racism made it worse?"
A couple of points - it has long been recognised that fighting fire with fire can be dysfunctional. 'Beware who you choose as your enemy, as it is they you will come to resemble'. Or as Epictetus wrote 2,000 years ago:
"One of the signs of the dawning of moral progress is the extinguishing of blame. We see the futility of finger pointing. The more we examine our attitudes and work on ourselves, the less we are apt to be swept away by stormy emotional reactions in which we seek easy explanations for unbidden events. These simply are what they are. Other people think what they will think; it is of no concern to us. No shame. No blame."
I can see this in any week in my relationship - moral blame mindset, leads to chastisement, and then dysfunction (sadness and anger, distrust).
Secondly, what if some of those apparently 'trying to fight racism', are actually doing something else - acting out as a social justice hero, 'for the likes' (without bothering to consider their motivation, effects etc); or for the money (many of the leading SJWs are doing rather well); or for the power (promotion, licence to use the bully pulpit).....? It's a standard feature in research to announce conflicts of interest - I have yet to see a SJW preface their writings with 'I have received millions of dollars to advocate this position, which is essentially a maximalist stance in favour of my identity group'.
Simply put, when has one ever been able to resolve problems between groups by emphasising or exaggerating their differences?
Yet this is the premise underlying Critical Theory and DEI.
Fine sounding theories that fail when applied to immutable characteristics by fallible humans with questionable epistemic humility.
You say that in the US “systemic racism is real and persistent.”
Except it’s not. If you think otherwise, make the case for it in this space rather than please your fellow academics, by asserting as fact here and now the default assumption of the faculty lounge.
Some people got into anti-racism out of sincere desire to combat racism.
They were the dupes.
Fascinating research. Do you have citations / references? It’s clear that anti racism is Orwellian doublespeak (to me) — and your conclusion is intuitive. Just interesting in the data and if any other work replicate the results.
You assume a lot in your methods and explanations. You could have tested for people's opinions about whether anti-Black prejudice is over-exaggerated or that Black people are demanding too much without describing them as "subtle modern prejudices". They might well be. But I'm glad you've settled it for us all.