Try Reductio ad Absurdum
Good medicine for the too clever.
Before getting into this blog, can I call your attention to the last blog I published and the two comments (so far). You can find the blog by clicking on my name and then the comments by clicking on the rectangle. Jamie, Marc, Skip and Daryl, please join the discussion. Now to today’s blog.
Wait a second. I usually find myself in lockstep with Paul Krugman. But today I think he got caught up in too clever a bit of analysis. He suggested that when those on the Right talk about “freedom,” they really mean “white privilege.”
I think this is a common mistake of the “left.” It implies what is, at best, a partial explanation (perhaps some do see freedom as letting white males do as they please). Most people, however, who talk about freedom, are valuing one value, the right of personal choice, against other values, such as community responsibility, and rightly look carefully at the circumstances that condition the choices. No one value is an absolute. It is the peculiar nature of our humanness that we cherish many values and find to our dismay that they are often in conflict.
This should not be too hard to recognize and not too hard to correct in our own reasoning and in the thoughts of others. The full extension of any value is absurd. We need “reductio ad absurdum” fairly often if we want to hold on to our sanity. I.e we need to extend the argument to its extreme, describing what should be done as if it is the only value, worth considering. Then we see the absurdity of absolutizing one value over all others.
Examples: museums should not keep collections of Indian arrowheads, because they suggest a “savage” nature for original Americans, nor should arrowheads be holders for Boy Scout neck scarfs. In fact, all museum collections are the result of an alien interpretation of “the other,” and serve to “control” their identity. Put them all out of sight. Those with special permission can view them. “Reductio ad absurdum.”
All historical markers should be retained as they tell the story of how partisans told the story, which is part of history. If the tobacco merchants of London placed a tribute to the Slave Trade in a public place, it must be preserved as part of history. And if a presently unknown (by almost everyone) former notable is taking up space in the Capital Rotunda, he must not be replaced by a now far better known and more celebrated and appropriate State representative, because that would be “cancel culture.” “Reductio ad absurdum.”
Paul, you know as well as I that for the majority of Republicans freedom is more than an idea of White privilege. We don’t help diminish absolutist thinking, when we on the left decide to use it ourselves
It does seem like much of the impetus for the "freedom"/"my rights" movement does have an origin in movements that were and are primarily white. This is perhaps because the privileges being challenged were never generally part of non-white communities. The ideology, as I see it, can be found in the posse comitatus movement and the Christian Identity Movement. Today, the ideology is preached from white evangelical pulpits.
The message is clearly anti-American, or should I say anti-American Constitution. A sitting member of congress just said we don't need a government, the American people can do everything at home. A coworker of mine says he never signed a social contract. When they talk about their rights and freedoms, they mean theirs are unlimited and the rest of us have none.