More on racism

Racism, sexism, homophobia, and a host of other related injustices are, of course, prevalent in Western society[1]. Any person of good character has a positive duty to support justice and oppose injustice and oppression, and I'm willing to do my bit as an ethical member of a civilized society.

Because I personally am not being oppressed, I have to defer to a great extent to those who are being oppressed. I have no objection to such deference; if I were the one being oppressed, I would expect the same. If you're being oppressed, you name the remedy. If you want affirmative action, I'll vote for it. If you want legal marriage, I'll sign the petition. If you want equal pay, I'll pay you equally.

Socially speaking, I'm equally flexible. I treat people as individuals, and within reason I give them the emotional and social interaction they ask for. If you ask for my outrage at your injustice and oppression, I'm outraged. If you ask to be treated as an equal, I'll treat you as an equal. If you ask for my pity, you've got it; if you don't want my pity, I won't pity you. Simple as that.

But what I am not willing to do is feel any sort of systemic guilt or shame. Outrage, yes. Ordinary human sympathy, of course. But systemic guilt and shame? Never.

Guilt and shame are, at best, transient emotions. If I make a mistake—I'm only human—my feelings of guilt and shame motivate me to correct the errors in my thinking that led to the mistake and prompt me to make amends. Once the underlying error has been corrected and amends made, the guilt evaporates: It has done its job.

And, on the whole, I corrected the fundamental errors in my thinking decades ago; it's really not that difficult. I treat people as individuals, I don't make insulting generalizations or particularizations, and I offer and demand nothing more or less than ordinary civilized justice and civilized behavior.

I am white, I'm a man, and I'm straight. Because I live in a society where straight white men are not typically oppressed or discriminated against, I unsurprisingly have not often been unjustly oppressed. But I reject the notion that this lack of oppression constitutes some sort of "privilege" or injustice for which I should be ashamed.

"Privilege" has as its etymological root "private law". But I don't consider "private" the sort of law and standards by which I am typically treated: I consider these laws and standards universal. As far as my own person goes—and it is only regarding my own person that I take positive responsibility—I offer these universal standards to everyone on the basis of our common humanity. I am not going to detail the steps I take; If you don't take me at my word, then I cannot convince you at all.

I am not Mr. Pink; I am not going to act in a racist manner simply because I'm in a racist society. I will personally resist these forms of injustice as a matter of ethical duty, not legal duty.

Arthur Silber has not yet responded to my rebuttal to his criticism. If I am truly in error in my thinking, I do want to know about it. But, as I said, I'm at a loss to understand precisely where I have gone so "badly astray". But I honestly don't think I have gone astray at all.

I am certainly outraged at the injustices that Moore and Silber describe. As a citizen of a civilized democracy, I'm willing to take reasonable steps to correct this sort of injustice and make amends to its victims. As a citizen, they have my vote. As a human being, they have my outrage. As a business executive, they have influence on my policies.

But there's no good way to interpret Moore's conclusions. Taken literally, they're irrational and indefensible; taken metaphorically I find them clumsy and personally insulting. I'm not going to start being a racist just because Moore has said something I disagree with, but bullshit is bullshit and I call it when I see it; and the color, sex, race, or religion of the speaker simply doesn't enter into it.


[1] Racism, etc. are prevalent in all societies and cultures; Western society is typical in this regard, neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad; we are exceptional only in the amount of power we have. I typically focus on Western civilization only because I am a member of one, with a specific democratic duty to participate in the construction of my own society's ethical and legal standards.