LET'S MAKE THEM TEST THEIR THEORIES.

At Minding The Campus, W. Alexander Bell wonders whether woke theory might be reinforcing any Tuskegee effects on the slow diffusion of vaccination in black communities.

Different strains of this critical theory have gained significant momentum on campuses and over social media, and they all promote very cynical views of Western society, science, and enlightenment thinking in general.

For example, both CRT and Intersectionality (a closely related ideology that combines different identities to form a gradient of oppression) teach that racism is the status quo, and that the scientific method is just a white, Western, male way of knowing. They also reject the possibility of attaining objective knowledge and put emphasis on lived experience and “counter narratives” instead. Over the years, the disciples of these theories have called for the “decolonization” of the sciences, and most recently, have even advocated for a more “equitable” (thus less white supremacist) form of mathematics that would put emphasis on effort rather than accuracy. 2 + 2 = 5? Why not?

But if accurate math is racist and the scientific method is just a “product of Western modernity,” then wouldn’t it stand to reason that anything produced using math or science might also be racist? Following this line of thinking, why would any person of color allow a chemical concoction in their body that was created using the so-called master’s tools?

I'm not sure whether the flap over "inclusive" mathematics is relevant, although it's likely we'd be at such a pass, at least in the workshops and common rooms, as soon as Sondra Harding went after Principia Mathematica as a rape manual.  That such nonsense has gotten into popular use is depressing, although the sooner the population, viewed generally, sees that incoherence comes in the train of denying coherent beliefs (which is what this reification of "narrative" without respect to observed reality is), the sooner the madness will pass.