Your First Dialectical Line Of Defense Against CRT and Related Lefty Crazy: They Have The Burden Of Proof

New theories have the burden of proof.

If you've got a new theory, you have to prove it in order to obligate the rest of us to accept it. 

CRT is, obviously, the new theory here (it's 40 years old, but that is new; and it's just been introduced to like 99% of Americans--despite everyone on the left pretending to already understand it.)

I think it's shown itself to be of enough interest to warrant admission to the public discussion. 

Ergo, to repeat: CRT advocates have the burden of proof.

But now comes the really hard part (for CRT): 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. 

And CRT is not just an extraordinary claim--CRT is a very large collection of extremely extraordinary claims and whole component theories--e.g. social constructionism and standpoint epistemology. 

Both of which are themselves whole new theories--i.e. whole clusters of claims.

And these claims-ergo these theories--are mostly themselves extraordinary.

Ergo they all require extraordinary proof.

And we haven't yet even mentioned the undefended assumptions of CRT--e.g. that every "inequity" in outcomes can only be caused by discrimination/oppression...  

(While we're on that one: not only is it a pure assumption in CRT, it's known to be false.

That alone sinks the theory. But that would take us into the realm of criticism. And my main point here is that we currently have no obligation to criticize CRT. So just move along--nothing to see here...)

And so, before we can even think about accepting CRT as a serious set of policy proposals for completely remaking the country, there are about ten or twenty or fifty other extraordinary, unproven, implausible claims and theories that are presupposed by CRT--many of which are already either known to be false, or known to be unjustified, or known to be untestable ergo unscientific. 

(In fact, CRT is basically a pseudo-(social-)scientific theory--that bit's pretty obvious to anyone who understands it, and understands what makes a theory pseudoscientific.) 

Furthermore, since CRT is so radical, and recommends such a radical, anti-liberal re-engineering of America...that is: because it recommends such radical (alleged) remedies, and because there is so much at stake if it's wrong...the theory requires a truly extraordinary degree of justification. A few squabbles on the Tweeter where progressives say some words they don't understand will not come anywhere close to doing the trick.

So...since people like me are willing to agree that CRT is worth discussing...and sense it's clear that it has the burden of proof...and since it's clear that it can almost certainly not carry that burden...and since its so radical, and since it can do so much damage if it's wrong....well...if you want CRT to be accepted as a serious policy proposal in your lifetime, you'd better start nailing down the vast number of arguments and refutations and the vast amount of evidence that it's going to take just to even defend its presuppositions and component theories. That is, just to get the thing off the ground--before we have any obligation whatsoever to try to shoot it down.

Until that's done, no one who isn't an advocate of CRT has to do anything. We have no obligation to produce counterarguments until its advocates produce arguments--lots and lots of arguments. Good arguments. Much better than any they've now publicly produced. Enough and good enough arguments to carry the almost absurdly heavy burden of proof that must be carried merely in order to obligate us to argue against it.

As of now: the needle's at zero. CRT hasn't even been able to taxi onto the runway yet. No one, anywhere, is obligated to take CRT seriously. The burden, at this point is 100% on its advocates--and they simply have not produced.