I Want a New Left

Another Challenge for the Critical-Race Theorists

Recently, I issued a challenge (here) to the critical-race theorists to explain how a procedure that is obviously racially neutral – having applicants for symphony orchestras audition behind a screen – is somehow part of systemic racism. No one has bothered to explain, of course. And now here is another challenge: explain what evidence there is that mathematics is racist. This is the claim of the Mathematical Association of America. See here. It is one thing to claim that books, especially textbooks, on math are racist, or that teachers of math are racist. It is quite another to insist that math itself is racist. If so, then that is sad news for non-whites because there is nothing we can do about it.

Or is there? Here we get into what is perhaps the nerdiest of nerdy topics, not just math, but the philosophy of math. For those who don’t know about this, there are at least three possible positions on the status of number, and they correspond to the three positions on the existence of universals.

There is the Platonic, or realist, position that numbers exist independently of us.

There is the conceptualist position that numbers are invented or created by us.

And then there is the nominalist position that numbers don’t exist at all and that “mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.” That’s a quote from the mathematician David Hilbert.

Virtually no one really cared about any of this until the current madness settled upon us, and now we have people insisting that math is racist because “mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases.” This isn’t very persuasive. First, we have to assume that it is created rather than discovered, and second, we have to assume that human biases get in the way, somehow. But even if math is created rather than discovered, how do biases creep in? This isn’t really explained. If I say that the derivative of 2x is 2 or that of sin x is cos x, am I somehow biased? Are these statements somehow biased? These are about as far from anything related to skin color or ethnicity that I can imagine. I don’t see any reason for believing that the truths of calculus would be any different if “created” by non-whites rather than by Newton and Leibniz since it’s reasonable to think that they would create calculus in the same way Newton and Leibniz did. For that matter, think of how poorer the world would be if the French had reacted to the invention of calculus by saying it was an Anglo-German plot against the French? We would have missed out on Legendre, Lagrange, L’Hopital, Laplace, Cauchy, Fourier, Poincare, and so on.

Anyway, those who assert that math is racist claim that mathematical entities are invented and not discovered, so they take the conceptualist position. Not many actual mathematicians believe this, since they are realists. They believe that they are discovering truths about independently existing entities, not about human inventions. But the mathematician Leopold Kronecker declared that God made the integers and all else is the work of man (as it’s usually quoted). Of course, we can declare that fractions and irrational numbers and imaginary numbers are all somehow invented, but it’s hard to detect any difference here between integers and any of these others. They are all abstract entities. And if real numbers are real entities that we discover, then why not other entities, such as vectors, tensors, fields, rings, groups, and topologies?

Kronecker’s quote, incidentally, is repeated by a character in Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night (p. 34 in my edition). I have never understood what it is doing there since it seems to have no relationship to what was being talked about. Anyone?

Anyway, what are we supposed to do if math is racist? If the realist view of numbers is correct, then there is nothing we can do. Bad luck for those of the wrong race, but they will just have to live with it. Suppose, then, that numbers are invented. Are we supposed to invent non-racist math? And what would that be like? Will the proofs be less rigorous? Will they come up with different results for derivatives or maybe even dispense with the concept altogether? Well, I for one don’t want to drive across bridges designed by engineers using some crazy, nonstandard math.

All of this seems like it is poorly thought out. I say, stick to saying that maybe some math books or teachers are racist and be done with it. Oh, and why not just admit that some ethnic groups in America don’t do well on math tests for no reason other than they aren’t interested in the subject?

Protest at CNN Headquarters: THIS IS MORE LIKE IT

Incredibly enough, there was a protest outside of CNN headquarters by former leftists who now support Trump. See here. Wish I had been there. And see this, too. It is a column by someone named Loyd Pettegrew concerning what people on the right can do to change things. The suggestions are to stop using social media, and so on. These are good suggestions, but really, they were needed back in 2008. Of course, some of them didn’t apply back then, since I’m pretty sure social media back then was rather harmless. Still, the problem with our colleges and universities is a longstanding one. And while all of these are nice, we really need more. And that protest at CNN headquarters might really change things because it may shock those working at the MSM into thinking about why they feel they have to be so partisan.

Joyce Carol Oates: Clueless Oldster

Joyce Carol Oates came to my attention because she made some outrageously stupid remark about the Wuhan virus and the Holocaust. See here, if you’re interested. What interested me is that she is a professor at Berkeley, even though she is 82. It is true that she is part-time, but she retired from a full-time position at Princeton in 2014, when she was 76. What is it with these oldsters who don’t know that there are loads of young people who want to be professors but can’t because the oldsters are staying in their jobs too long?

Protest Art

The above is an example of protest art by Zhao Mengfu, who was born in 1254. My wife taught this to her students the other day, and they were bewildered. How do a sheep and a goat make for protest art? The poor dears are familiar only with protest art in free societies, not that in societies in which to protest means a death sentence. In such societies, one must be extremely subtle, so that the authorities don't get it, but others do (which I guess is what the term dogwhistle refers to). Anyway, maybe some of them will start to understand that the claims that our democracy is under threat because of Donald Trump are wildly exaggerated.

More on Afghanistan

What kind of idiot thinks that the only way to prevent terror here is by fighting in Afghanistan (and Iraq)? Anyone who has looked closely at these things knows perfectly well that terrorist groups can spring up almost anywhere that there are large numbers of Muslims. That can happen in the Middle East, but also other places, too. Moreover, the current groups have not been around that long, yet there was Islamic terrorism before they came along. For example, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was not the result of either al-Qaeda or the Taliban or ISIS. Likewise, the book Purifying the Land of the Pure, by Farahnaz Ispahani, shows clearly that in Pakistan, right from its founding in 1947, there were problems with terrorists who thought that other people in the country should be forced to adopt their version of Islam or else be killed. Their victims included Christians, Hindus, and those from the Ahmadi sect of Islam. This, of course, was long before al-Qaeda emerged.

No, the source of the problem here isn’t to be found in one particular group coming from one particular country. It is a mindset among many Muslims scattered throughout the world. These Muslims are supremacists in that they think of their religion and their way of life as superior to everyone else’s. They further think that they are allowed to use violence to force it on everyone else. And it is this use of violence which distinguishes them from, say, the Amish, who no doubt have supremacist views about their religion and their way of life. I prefer to call these people Islamo-fascists, but that went out of fashion fairly quickly (and I still don’t know why). But call them Islamists.

The second source of the problem is the fact that the West has been weakened by many decades of verbal attacks on us by leftists. This weakness has been noticed by the Islamists, who will attack us frequently because they know that our elites, who are mostly on the left, will not do much of anything (unlike those in China, who throw Muslims into concentration camps without any stirrings of conscience whatsoever). This is because our elites have a certain narrative about the world, and part of that narrative is that Muslims are oppressed people who need our help and are not our would-be oppressors. It has been impossible to get through to them that there are plenty of Muslims who are vicious reactionaries who want to impose their reactionary lifestyle on everyone. I’ve talked about this endlessly, so I won’t bother to say anything more on this topic.

Anyway, getting through to our elites is more important than fighting in Afghanistan. Once our elites figure out what is going on – and Macron in France seems to have figured things out – then things should be much easier because we can avoid doing the many stupid things we have been doing over the past twenty years. And that will mean a reduction in terrorist attacks.

What’s Going on in Ethiopia? Plus, Some Thoughts on Afghanistan

For the last few days, the main headline in BBCArabic.com has been about a civil war in Ethiopia. See here for some info. Notice that no one seems to be blaming the U.S. for this spat. And this is as it should be. We don’t need to get involved in everything. The same was true of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Let Russia, Iran and others nearby get involved. We don’t have to.

Similary, there is no reason for us to remain in Afghanistan. Mitt Romney disagrees. See here. Romney says:

Decisions regarding troops levels in Afghanistan and Iraq should be based on our national security interests, not politics.

And:

Similarly, with continued security challenges in the Middle East, an arbitrary withdrawal from Iraq risks alienating our allies and emboldening our enemies. At a time when our adversaries are looking for every opportunity to exploit our weaknesses, the Administration should reconsider and reverse this politically-motivated decision and avoid worsening our national security challenges.

Our national security challenges can be best dealt with by controlling our borders and acknowledging what our elites don’t want to acknowledge, namely that the Islamists are our era’s Nazis, and we need to treat them accordingly instead of acting as though it is our fault. So what if some dreadful group emerges in Afghanistan? Just keep them out of our country. Of course, that means that embassies and ships at sea might be vulnerable, but with fracking we have less need for embassies everywhere and for ships in dangerous areas.

Now naturally, controlling our borders means that it would help if we could count on the media’s support, but of course we can’t count on that. And we can’t count on their support for doing anything that would actually help us win in Afghanistan, either. Accordingly, we send our kids – mostly from Red states? – over there so they can be cannon fodder for a pointless cause.

As for alienating our allies, we can’t even prevent our own fellow Americans from being beaten by Antifa thugs, and we should be worrying about them first.

Actually, the easy way to deal with any emerging terrorist groups is to point out to them that their real enemy is China with its concentration camps for Uighurs. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

This Is Exactly Why I Am Against Open Borders

Instapundit has a few links here about Latinos who hate Black Lives Matter, and Latinos and Asians who don’t like affirmative action. The point is that those promoting open borders have no real idea what the politics are of the people streaming in. They somehow think that every foreigner, especially those from the Third World or from non-Western cultures, are exactly like them. But they aren't, and it should be assumed that they have the same range of political beliefs that we do. That means that if you are Jewish, you should assume there are plenty of anti-Semites out there. If you are homosexual, you should assume there are plenty of homophobes out there. If you are female, you should assume there are plenty of sexists out there who want women to be second-class citizens. And if you are secular, you should assume there are plenty of religious fanatics out there who want to impose their religion on everyone. Open borders are a really bad idea. They are so obviously bad that I shouldn’t even have to argue for it.

Taxes: Whose Ridiculous Idea Was This?

Unemployment benefits get taxed. Incredible, but true. How dumb, and even cruel, can our government be? Long-time readers here know that one of the themes of this blog is that it is more important to lower taxes on the poor than to raise them on the rich. (See here for my last post on the subject.) This is because it gives poor people money directly instead of making them wait for a redistribution, which may never come and which anyway is only given to certain poor people and not others. Accordingly, I have advocated for the lowering of the lowest tax rate from 10% to 2%, and I have urged that interest be taxed in the same way that dividends are. I have also pointed out that someone more familiar with the tax code than I am could probably find oodles of ways to help the poor, if they were so inclined. Taxing unemployment benefits is one such way, one that I happened to stumble upon today.

We have to ask why unemployment benefits get taxed. People who are getting unemployment benefits are hardly people who are raking it in. Who are these benefits for, after all, the rich or the poor? The poor, obviously. The rich don’t need them because they are assumed to have large quantities of cash stashed away that would allow them to weather any period of unemployment easily. Generally, unemployment benefits are for people who are desperately looking for new employment and need something to tide them over till they get a new job. So, why would anyone want to tax the meager amounts they are getting while they are unemployed? Nevertheless, it is almost a sure bet that no Democrat will do anything to change this, because this has been around for years, and they haven’t done anything so far.

Is This a Win for the Trump Haters?

Some big diplomat has admitting lying to Trump concerning how many troops are in the Middle East, in order to prevent him from bringing too many of them home. Is this a win for the Trump haters? I suppose for the Republican never-Trumpers, it probably is. But what about your average peacenik on the left who hates America’s “Empire?” Isn’t bringing the troops home their goal? Isn’t destroying our Empire one of their fondest desires? Or has Trump Derangement Syndrome so gotten to them that they can’t figure out that actually Trump was a pretty good president for them?

Was There Fraud?

First, see here. A number of people who work with fraud were asked, “Have you ever seen this many red flags without there being fraud?” The answers were always no. On the other hand, here is someone who has taken the claims seriously but who dismantles them. He may be right. Back in 2004, the Dems here in Ohio were absolutely convinced there was fraud, and pointed to a number of suspicious things, but eventually they were persuaded that nothing was illegitimate.

Still, I don’t know that he’s covered everything. (He doesn’t mention Benford’s Law, for example.) Plus, why are Biden supporters so anxious to insist there was no fraud if in fact there wasn’t? Why not say, “We ran a squeaky clean election. Go ahead and investigate as much as you like.” The fact that they insist there was no fraud and the fact that they want to silence people who suggest there was fraud just reaffirm in people’s minds that they have something to hide.

Finally, this analyst insists that it is not odd that Biden won even though lots of other Republicans won. He insists that there were lots of Republicans who didn’t like Trump and voted for Biden, but otherwise voted Republican. From what I’ve gathered, though, almost every Republican was a Trump supporter. It is true that one of our neighbors had a “Republicans against Trump” sign. But I never saw or heard of any others. Add to that the fact that Trump actually added blacks and Latinos suggests that this doesn’t make any sense.

What makes more sense is that the ones who split their tickets were Democrats. They hated Trump so they voted for Biden, but at the same time they didn’t like what was happening with all of the riots and destruction and the calls for defunding the police, so they voted Republican. After all, we pretty much know that something similar to this happened in liberal California with the rejection of affirmative action. It wasn’t Republicans that defeated that, but liberal Democrats (Asians and maybe Latinos) who didn’t like it.

Anyway, was there fraud? I don’t know, but I think it should be investigated.