Critical Condition

It's odd how the United States is supposed to be exceptional, a bastion of what is good and right in the world; a shining city on a hill. But being secure enough in that sense of the nation that one doesn't feel the need to repeat it at every opportunity is nearly akin to treason in some circles. It's like the trope of the person to goes to great lengths to describe something worthy or enviable about themselves to another person, only for that other person to respond "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

The campaign against [Critical race theory] has turned out to be remarkably sticky. “It is putting a name or acronym on a broad set of ambiguous anxieties around changing conversations on race, gender, woke,” says [Sarah] Longwell, [a Republican strategist,] drawing conclusions from her focus groups. “CRT has become a catch-all for that.”
“Critical race theory” is being weaponised. What’s the fuss about?

The central irony of the United States is that its runaway success has created tens of millions of people who can only feel secure in themselves so long as nothing can challenge them. Confidence has been replaced with a sort of incoherent bluster that papers over a continuous need for affirmation.

And that's the problem with Critical race theory. Or at least what many political Conservatives label as Critical race theory. At its core, CRT refuses to affirm the heroic narrative that many people in the United States have 1) built up around themselves and 2) demand that others uncritically accept as true. Because what is CRT, if not critical?

Of course, the United States is not alone in this, although to say so comes at the risk of denying that the nation is somehow an exception to the factors that display themselves throughout the remainder of the species. But the anxieties and worries of Americans are the ones most evident to me on a day-to-day basis, because I am, well, Just Another Random American, and these are the people I most often encounter in the course of my life. Like most of my countrymen, I'm not particularly well traveled, having been to Europe twice and Asia once. So most of what I "know" about the rest of world comes from books, television and the Internet.

Millions of Americans led the lives they did, not because it was somehow an objectively better way to live, but simply because it worked for them. And for much of American history, most people didn't care if it worked for them mainly because others were bearing the costs, or had borne the costs in the past. It simply wasn't a concern for them. But just as importantly, it conflicted with their sense of who they were. I'm just old enough to remember a time when open racial discrimination was acceptable. Whether it was legal was a different story; but something with enough public support (even if only by looking the other way) is difficult to prosecute. The people who benefited from others being locked out of the labor market didn't see themselves as having been unjustly freed from having to compete for the jobs that sustained their standards of living; they saw themselves as reaping the rewards of their own hard work and ethical living. The early settlers of North America who decided that forcing others into slave labor was legitimate didn't see themselves as valuing inexpensive labor above human freedom. They saw themselves as objectively chosen to lord over lesser peoples. Generations of Americans did not see themselves as thieves. Because for that, they would have needed to see the lands and resources they took as being someone else's rightful property. And that would have cast them in a light that they found unfriendly.

Critical race theory, says, in effect, that Americans have been more interested in protecting a status quo that benefited them than they were in their stated ideals, which were always matters of convenience. And that many people in the modern United States still benefit from rules that are designed to protect and buttress social hierarchies than to promote equality and justice. But what I think that many people hear from it is "You don't deserve what you have, as it rightfully belongs to others." And if there is one thing that the insecurely affluent feel most keenly, it's fear of loss.

Being recognized as a victim carries with it a certain level of privilege. The wronged are entitled to redress at the expense of others; and not always simply those who wronged them. CRT declares that wrongs have been done; and the implication that follows from that is not, for many, an opportunity, but a threat. Because with all of the things that people have, few of them ever feel they have enough.