Want to see how ‘progressives’ reason and debate? Want to see what happens when their absolute certainty about the universal truth and righteousness of the generic concepts they parrot is challenged with basic logic? Well have a look at my brief interaction with Lawlor, below, concerning the bizarre issue of race being a determining factor for hiring a professor to teach a course in history at university.
Lawlor: There may come a point when it will not matter but when we still operate a colonial state in Canada, this unfortunately aint it.
Going to Getugly: Is that point the moment when adults regain the capacity to distinguish between parroting ideological group-think and reason?
Lawlor: Yes, we have to break through the colonial group think. So what I meant was simply that when we, the descendants of European colonizers come to grips with our oppressive colonial relationship with Indigenous people and work with them to dismantle it, then we will be able to dispense with this kind of conversation.
Going to Getugly: Sorry Lawlor, when you parrot the generic ideological conceptions of “colonialism” you don’t get to pretend it’s everyone who is still thinking for themselves who are the group-thinkers.
Lawlor: We differ in our views. Colonialism is not discussed nearly enough, it seems to make people uncomfortable.
Going to Getugly: It doesn’t make anybody “uncomfortable”. The problem is that too many people want the ‘discussion’ to be restricted to their chosen ideological narrative.
Lawlor: I disagree and agree with you. Facing up to our colonial, and thus oppressive relationships clearly makes many people uncomfortable, if not downright angry, I know this because I read A variety of papers and magazines and observing fb responses to the original post here. On the other hand I have to agree that we need to be prepared to move out of our ideological comfort zones. That’s why I read widely. I does however require us to deal with the issue, for example Canada’s colonial history and present, and not revert to a default, but perhaps comfortable, assumption that because I are someone else uses a term that they are “parroting”, etc.
Going to Getugly: This is precisely the problem Lawlor. What does emotional, guilt-laden language like “facing up to” mean? And what does the word “our” mean in this context? That use of language indicates that the judgments and conclusions have already been made… we’re all ‘oppressive colonialists’. So what is the point of having ‘discussions’ with people who hold your views on this?
This is a classic example of an ideologue’s concept of ‘discussing’ an issue. You take a very complex subject for which there are multiple valid perspectives…. and you say, “Let’s discuss it. But first, I insist that we dismiss all of that complexity and reduce the entire issue to the one perspective generated by my ideological commitments and which is designed to produce the interpretation and conclusions preferred by me and my fellow ideologues.”
And Lawlor, you can’t mimic the specific language of a particular social and political ideology and then take umbrage at having been identified as ‘parroting’.
Lawlor: ok, you won’t give up, I get it, and I do. Getting into an insult match is simply not worth my, or anyone else’s time.
Going to Getugly: Right… so now a detailed critique of your argument is an “insult match” and the expectation of the person advocating ‘discussion’ is for anyone who disagrees with him to “give up”.
You could not have proved my point more effectively if you had been consciously trying to do so.
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