Such vague language might be used to ban an almost limitless swath of theory, philosophy, history, and even poetry, to say nothing of the enormous sociological literature on stigma and privilege with which some critical race theory is aligned. Here, for instance, is Erving Goffman on identity, privilege, and stigma, from 1963: “There is only one complete unblushing male in America: young, married, white, urban, northern, of good complexion, weight and height, and a recent record in sports. Every American male tends to look out upon the world from this perspective. Any male who fails to qualify in any of these ways is likely to view himself — during moments at least — as unworthy, incomplete, and inferior."
Or James Baldwin on racism: "White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want."
Or Simone de Beauvoir, on the uneven relationship between the sexes: "Men profit in many other more subtle ways from woman's alterity."
Or, for that matter, Freud, who, in an essay titled "Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes," insists that "for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men. Their super-ego is never so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we require it to be in men." (Indeed, the list of male thinkers convinced that "an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by … sex" is more or less endless.)
The point is not that any of these authors are right. But if the humanities and social sciences were stripped of them, it's hard to know who would be left.
I'm grateful to my colleague Emma Pettit for bringing me up to speed on recent developments in the political controversies around curricula.
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The Review: Critical Race Theory Redux - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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