Your Daily Facepalm: "Is It Woke To Teach Kindness?"

facepalm

   I'm just going to ignore everything else about this and point out: sanctimony provokes ridicule.

   Almost no matter how good an idea might be in its better forms, it becomes repulsive when it devolves into cartoonish, sanctimonious monomania. 

   Like every other reasonable person, I'm appalled by racism, and always have been. I fought constantly with one of my close relatives about it when I was a kid. But the left's unhinged, counterfactual, hysterical, unctuous bullshit about race has actually managed to take the edge off my angry, incredulous opposition to racism. (Note that I can't even bear to say "anti-racism" now that's another progressive shibboleth, another bit of lefty Newspeak.) To some extent, it's actually caused a rational reassessment, and I now am more inclined to see racism, in many or most of its forms, as just another human foible that, in its weaker manifestations, is probably inevitable and largely harmless. Also: largely a matter of induction. And I'm not sure how often it even appears in its cartoonish, Klannish forms. The progressive dogma that American is currently made of it--in its "institutional" form--is clearly false. As is the view that it is everywhere--in its "systemic" form. 

   I'm opposed to the "beat 'em at their own game" strategy in many such cases because it requires us to play their--twisted, irrational--game. I mean, this is true: currently, the most racist faction in American politics is the progressive left. Hands down. No contest. So, well, ok. But it's important not to help them ensconce the game. Currently, left almost has no argument other than: you're a racist. That's a joke, of course. Because it's not an argument. Not because it's not the left's only one... And, given the crazy (generally ant-white, but also anti-Asian and antisemitic) racism permeating the progressive left, it's damned hard not to leverage that fact rhetorically. But doing so comes at the cost of making dueling accusations of racism seem like a legit debate. So they rather have us in a bind here. Not an unwinnable position by any stretch of the imagination--but an irritating one.

   (Actually, they have a lot of bad arguments, pseudoarguments and quasi-arguments. One is: Historically, idea x can be traced back to something racist*[*]. Another is: Watch me make up a fake history in which x is traced back to something racist*. Another is: Advocating or even debating x constitutes violence against some left-preferred group. Then there's the all-purpose x is socially constructed, which basically means x stands in some relation or other to something or other social. Basically: x exists in the same universe as human beings.)

   But, anyway. You know why those kids laugh when the teacher in question mentions blacks? Because he won't shut up about it. That's just progressivism writ small. You say enough sanctimonious, idiotic things about anything you make it ridiculous. Idiotic sanctimony is ridiculous, and it prompts anyone with a functioning bullshit-detector to ridicule. Eventually, if not immediately. And teenagers are on a hair trigger with respect to ridicule, anyway.

   So here's an idea: stop being unhinged and sanctimonious. See if that solves the problem. Prediction: it will.

[*] As always, 'racist*' means: racist or some variation on the theme: misogynist, anti-homosexual, "transphobic," etc.