Hope it passes
Missouri lawmaker files bill to ban CRT from being taught in public schools | 93.9 The Eagle
Submitted 2 years ago by PureBloodMasculine@wolfballs.com to freeforum@wolfballs.com
https://939theeagle.com/missouri-lawmaker-files-bill-to-ban-crt-from-being-taught-in-public-schools/
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I have a mild criticism of such a bill.
That being that CRT is a flawed methodology, but the people being taught CRT usually aren't the kids.
Critical theory starts out with a conclusion and works its way backwards. For example, if you're analyzing a work using critical feminist theory, you assume that even if the work was produced before feminism became a movement that it has messages that are relevant to feminism and view it that way anyway.
You have to be careful (and critical theory is generally an advanced technique used by grad students rather than something they'll teach in a 101 class for this reason) because it is essentially a logical fallacy used as a tool: Starting with a conclusion and working your way backwards is a logical fallacy called "begging the question" and it leads to fallacious arguments. On the other hand, dangerous tools are sometimes useful. Every day explosives are used in mining or road construction despite how dangerous they are, because if you use them properly they are useful. If you beg the question and get some good data out of it and you've got the high level skill to meaningfully separate the wheat from the chaff, then you can get some new insights into a work that would otherwise have much less to say.
Obviously, problems can occur when you apply a dangerous tool to the wrong thing, or if you apply a dangerous tool without understanding how to use the tool (or you apply that tool understanding how to use the tool and use it wrong to intentionally produce a fallacious end). Applying an explosive to mining or road construction might be helpful, but generally speaking explosives are a poor tool to use on traffic jams, and doing that isn't going to work out well. Moreover, applying an explosion even to mining or road construction but doing it wrong can result in harming the mining or road construction rather than helping, for example if you cause an explosion so big you end up with a giant crater you can't build a road over.
Critical Race Theory makes some sense applied to literary works. You can read something produced long before the modern conception of race and see if there's meaning to be pulled from that viewpoint. You can end up with absurdities which is why you need to apply it carefully. For example, I've seen people from a number of viewpoints try to analyze ancient egyptian texts from a modern racial lens which results in some absurdities because the modern conception of race didn't exist thousands of years ago.
I'd argue that applying critical theory of any kind to everything on earth is dangerous, particularly when done haphazardly. The absurd conclusions we've seen in the past few years including "nature is white supremacist" "milk is white supremacist" "board games are white supremacist" "Roads are white supremacist" all start with the conclusion and work its way backwards. Naïve individuals (to be charitable) apply this tool to anything and manage to work their way backwards and think "Aha! I've found something!" then head out and ring the bells that they've found another racist thing (because that's what the tool is saying). It's the equivalent of the dad joke where you make the stud finder (for finding wooden studs in walls) beep when it touches you and going "Yep, it found the stud". Very funny, but that's not what it's doing.
In reality, sometimes the output of CRT is more a reflection of the racist attitudes of the person employing the technique rather than a reflection of the racism of the thing being analyzed. "Nature is racist because all people of color are fucking losers who can't make their way to a forest or a beach" oh, is it now? You sure it's nature that's racist? Because it sort of sounds like you're the racist one.
On the other hand, this is why it's difficult to just say "don't teach CRT" -- because overwhelmingly they don't teach CRT, they teach the output of CRT. This semantic difference is why some leftists can honestly say CRT isn't taught in schools, because the CRT is used by people who are much higher up the food chain to develop curriculum which itself doesn't contain CRT, and instead contains the conclusions reached using CRT.
There are parallels elsewhere. For example, abstinence-only sex ed does (often) come from religion, but the idea of abstinence-only sex ed isn't teaching religion in schools per se.
This fact makes it really difficult to ban the results of CRT, because if one output of the tool is banned, they can just run the tool again to get new results. "Oh, we can't teach that milk is racist? Ok, we'll just teach that snow is racist. What, we can't teach that snow is racist? Ok, we'll teach that the sun is racist."