‘Whack A Woke’ —Easter Monday Edition
Why changing the topic of an argument mid-stream will get you short shrift from Penguins
I would love to give you both halves of this discussion, but I can’t. The reason, the author blocked me and I can’t remember his name. As an argumentative penguin, I get blocked a lot.
I don’t mind, it’s all part of the fun of being me.
Today I took exception to an article I read. It was along the lines of ‘it’s always white people who commit mass shootings’ and a lengthy diatribe about why white people are the root of all evil.
Everyone is entitled to say what they want. I’m a liberal after all…. but if you’re going to say things, you have to be able to defend them. You have to deal with the consequences of what you say.
So here is half of the discussion, summarised for brevity.
The vast majority of mass shootings are committed by white people
Yes, for the same reason that most people who commit fraud in China are Asian. White is the most populous demographic. When you correct for population percentage there is no correlation between race and mass shooting.
This isn’t a White supremacist argument, this is a statistical truth. See my article ‘mass shootings aren’t about racism’ for more.
At which point, I was accused of being a white supremacist and delusional because white people storm government buildings without being shot
That is a wholly separate issue — I didn’t say white supremacy didn’t exist and nobody mentioned storming the government. All I’ve stated is the link between race and mass shootings is statistically not relevant.
This is not delusion, it is discourse. There is a statistical link between being male and being a mass shooter — that may be worth discussing, but ‘mass shootings are a white person thing’ is disingenuous as an argument.
This is all about how the police treat white incels. Am I so stupid to think that it’s not white people who do most of the killing?
Yes. The vast majority of the time it is white people (see my first comment). The treatment of people after they’re arrested is a different matter — those can be discussed as part of a separate argument. What you’ve done is drawn a causal link that suggests race plays a part in mass shooting. It doesn’t.
The conflation of other aspects of mass shootings and the inclusion of Incels (hitherto unmentioned and irrelevant) suggests that you’d prefer there to be a link. It is intuitive and biased thinking that is fuelling your rhetoric — that is problematic. Not only because your initial argument is wrong — but when you make such an argument and attempt to obfuscate it with further irrelevant points, you leave yourself wide open to counter-arguments.
White supremacy is a thing. White people commit mass shootings more often (because there are more of them). They are treated differently after arrest because of systemic racism prevalent in the police force. These are all legitimate arguments and I would agree with your assessment.
White people are more likely to commit acts of mass shooting because they are white. That is not a valid argument and isn’t supported by the maths. When you make bad faith arguments you skew the discourse and display a bias that allows those who oppose you to use your words against you.
No response and blocked
So why did I bother putting this all in a handy little bite-sized article for everyone? Simple.Words matter. Being able to see the strength and weaknesses in arguments you’re presented also matters.
If the sole strength of your argument is a fallacious belief that white people are inherently evil. If you can’t be bothered to throw out anything other than rhetoric based on your own intuitive and biased reading (if any was done) — you deserve to be called out.
It’s important to be called out by your own side too. In this case, me, a fellow liberal. The author and I probably share political positions and have more in common than he thinks.
If the left can’t keep its biases in check, it will get mown over by the right-wing demagogues pointing at ‘hysteria’ — in this case they’d be right.
The argument is a non-starter and even a basic search of the statistical information will demonstrate why. The response? This writer has deleted the comments. I feel like Trotsky. It’s like I was never there and we never talked. Like our conversation didn’t happen.
He thinks he’s fighting for justice and in his own way he is. When you’re kitted up like an ideological commando you’ll sail through the basic training provided by an echo chamber. When you emerge into the real world, you’re more often than not likely to shoot your own side.
If your reaction to debate is to block and stay in your echo chamber, there’s very little chance you’ve got anything useful to add into the mix. As a law graduate told me this morning, critical and reasoned debate isn’t being taught very well any more. Feelings trounce arguments at every turn.
I’m inclined to agree. Sometimes on this platform it feels like I’m debating articulate toddlers. There’s nothing wrong with writing whatever you want, but you don’t get a free pass from team Penguin and you should do better than throwing a strop and hitting the block button.
If you come across his article then link him back to my ‘Mass shootings aren’t about racism’ article to continue his fieldwork training
Want something a bit longer in the same sort of vein? I can provide you with just the thing.