The Left's Master Argument At Work: Your Theory Is Racist

   Even the most relativistic versions of critical theory have to worry about being sunk by the left's master argument: that's racist. 

   Theories are like people in that, with enough ingenuity, you can always interpret them as racist. And (by postmodernism) any interpretation is as good as any other. And if x denies that x is racist, that shows that x is double-racist. And being racist means being unpersoned (or untheoried, I guess). Truth and falsehood, of course, aren't at issue...so it's not that it's false...it's just cast into the outer darkness or something. (Which metaphor itself is...well...you know...)

   All that happens on the left now is jockeying for victim status. Which includes: painting any opponent, personal or theoretical, as racist. Lesser kinds of prejudice matter, too--"transphobic" would be good, of course. But 'misogynistic' doesn't matter much on the left anymore because women don't matter much. 'Sexist' is quaint not only because there's no such thing as sex, but because it leaves open the now-laughable idea that it's possible to be prejudiced against men. 

   The left now is basically just a bunch of people standing around shrieking RACIST! at each other. Usually they're more or less in chorus, pointing rightward. But every now and then internecine spats break out--e.g. battles for status within the group--and they start pointing and shrieking at someone else in the group. "I'm not racist" ==> double-racist... So unless the target can think up some snappy way to accuse its accuser of racism, it's sunk. So the winning strategy is always to launch a first strike. Defense is a losing strategy. The best way to show you weren't a witch was to accuse others of witchcraft. And so it is with racism on the left.

   This lunatic accusation game is self-destroying...from the perspective of reason and the search for truth...which are themselves failures from the perspective of the accusation game, given that it's possible to accuse them of racism. As for whether the game and its devotees and the political faction they constitute can survive and flourish--i.e. win--as a practical matter in a (for the present, anyway) liberal democracy, I suppose time will tell. One might have thought not--but then one wouldn't have thought they could be as successful as they've been. And now giant corporations have joined the fray--on the side of the players of the accusation game. Thus showing, among other things, that the people who have been poo-pooing it all and refusing to view it as a serious threat were wrong. Accusationism has now co-opted the most powerful players who might have been expected to have been its opponents. They did the calculations and realized that joining the accusers was a winning move from the perspective of pure self-interest. Corporations get to ride the fad--which, to them, is, like any other fad, an opportunity to make money. And, in this case: avoid opportunities to be on the receiving end of costly accusations. And, as more and more people and institutions join up, the cost of resistance increases. 

   If you think these people and their mad ideology are doomed to fail--and within a few years or even your lifetime--I'm afraid you're fooling yourself.