Matt Kibbe is joined by Phil Magness, senior research faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research, to discuss critical race theory, with specific reference to the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The 1619 Project is an effort to frame all of American history as a story of oppression and slavery, yet it’s a mess of sloppy research, poor scholarship, and intellectual dishonesty more concerned with pushing a political agenda than with uncovering the true facts about our nation’s history. The Times has even sunk so low as to alter articles without issuing retraction notices to cover up factual inaccuracies or to remove citations of “problematic” scholars, including Magness’ own work on Abraham Lincoln.
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I would attack CRT by focusing on its unspoken moral superiority. It is immoral to assume the means is justified by the end. The means determines the end. For example, it is immoral to use psychological tricks, e.g., emotional appeals to love of family, in place of facts, to convince, even if the end is to instill a true belief. The belief would not be rooted by facts that could be used to argue, leaving the believer ignorant, weak, when the facts, if known, would have made the believer strong. The believer would be correct, but unable to defend the belief. Therefore, it’s not enough to know, it’s necessary to know why you know.