CxD #165: Can We Pull Back from the Brink II
In CxD#164, I suggested you listen to a podcast in which the host, Sam Harris, was presenting the argument that racial and systemic inequalities obviously exist and must be dismantled. But that they are not as all-encompassing as the reactions of many anti-racial activists would have us believe, and that a kind of over-reaction and misappropriation of data to its own “woke” ends of protest causes as many problems as it tries to solve.
The transcript for the full podcast is here if you care to read it rather than listen to it: https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/
The questions for me, Character-wise, are multiple.
If the data Harris presents is accurate, what is the appropriate conclusion to draw, logistically?
If we hear data that is inconvenient for our ideological view, what is our reaction to it?
What happens when what appears reasonable is not consistent with what is ideal?
Is it possible to be hugely intolerant on the side of the “good” or for “justice” when that very kind of intolerance leads to a distortion of what’s happening on the ground, as the facts suggest?
Is Sam Harris manipulating or decontextualizing the facts and misunderstanding racial complexity to a far greater degree than his data suggest?
How important is the question of timing: is data that is “correct” manipulative if it is evoked during a period in which what matters more than data is the spirit and action of protest?
Unfortunately I don’t have any answers to these complex questions, since I’m not an expert on race relations or criminality or police reform. So what I have left at this moment is confusion and a desire to see through any biases I might be holding.
Character, from this view, is that which allows us to not attach to any view, however temporarily, and to work towards intelligent problem solving that doesn’t fall back on ideologies that have the power to blind, no matter how well intentioned.
This is extremely hard to do as you might have noticed in your own reactions to this podcast and maybe to this newsletter.
I also suspect that I’m making many errors in my own thinking and that Harris’s data points aren’t the full story and are being misused. So instead of weighing in and pontificating about things I don’t yet fully understand, I will ask for your patience while I try to delve deeper into this inflammatory but important subject.
So maybe I’ll have more to say about all this next week.
Until then, here’s a capybara taking a bath of tranquility:
