Fallacy within fallacy within fallacy
"Observe the plans within plans within plans." - Baron Vladimir Harkonnen to Feud-Rautha Harkonnen, "Dune" by Frank Herbert
Triangle of Cognitive Hell (with a Circle Inscribed)
Now that DEI is supposedly on life support, a long-suppressed urge bubbles up: to finally, finally make sense of the Social Justice Warriors' arguments in its favor. That nagging confusion still haunts us. It's time to exorcise it.
Let’s draw some closure. You’re not crazy. And neither are they: they just play crazy on TV. Buckle up.
From a recent Boston Globe piece:
Memo to President Trump: Women and people of color aren’t taking over America.
Maybe someday, but not anytime soon. Yet Trump is clearly worried, signing a series of executive orders starting on Inauguration Day to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the federal government.
-“Trump has declared war on DEI - but why? Women and people of color aren’t taking over America,” Boston Globe, Jan 27, 2025.
Welcome to the Triangle of Cognitive Hell.
Corner #1: “Does DEI reverse-discriminate or not?”
Pick a lane. It’s a simple binary choice: If it does discriminate, why are its fans crying when it’s called out? If it doesn’t, then gender and racial gaps don’t prove anything sinister. There might be other factors.
Maybe women, on average, aren’t that into Engineering or particle physics. Maybe majority-black underfunded schools matter: in Milwaukee, only 2% of black eighth graders are proficient in math, and teachers in some districts need to show up drunk no less than five times before they’re fired. That might explain a few things.
Corner #2: “Is equity about equal access or equal outcomes?”
Depends who’s watching. There’s the good ol’ motte and bailey: When no one’s looking, equity is the lush green bailey of reverse discrimination. When challenged, SJWs retreat to the cold, narrow motte of “equal access.” There, they mumble about investing real money into public schools-blech, boring.
Back in the bailey? Toss the SATs. Burn the GREs. Social justice on the cheap! And in between the motte and bailey? Freudian slips. (See: Kamala Harris spilling the real tea, 2021.)
Corner #3: “DEI broadens the talent pool!”
Sure, says Jon Stewart. But if we’re so into fairness and competition, why are we abolishing every objective measure of competence - SATs, GREs, Bar exams, MCATs, LSATs, SHSATs, and soon, perhaps, the ABCs?
All three corners are contradictory. That’s why it’s hell.
Now, inside the triangle lies a circle: “Black schools are great; if you think otherwise, you’re racist.”
Strangely, this circle is an improvement. Fewer contradictions! Finally, a stable delusion. Enter Melissa Dancy and Apriel Hodari, physics education researchers who interviewed 27 “self-identified progressive white male physics faculty and grad students” and concluded:
… by focusing on problems in the K12 system our interviewees maintain their ignorance of the racism and sexism in their local environment and justify not taking action.
— “How well-intentioned white male physicists maintain ignorance of inequity and justify inaction,” by Melissa Dancy and Apriel Hodari, arXiv:2210.03522 (2022) (final version published in IJ STEM Ed 10, 45 (2023)).
Also in that paper:
The idea that poverty and race are so closely associated is a figment of mainstream media more than of reality… Recent census data indicate that the vast majority of Black people (80%) are not poor.
— ibid.
Progress! Equity has arrived, access is equal. Disparities must now be purely due to discrimination.
Just one teensy question remains: Where is said discrimination?
- Q: Do you know any qualified Black scientist today who, simply because of discrimination, could not enter STEM?
- A: … systemic … systemic … systemic …
— MIT Free Speech Alliance Debate: Is STEM Systemically Racist? November 2, 2023.
Inside the circle, a gaping hole:
Every so often, someone says the quiet part out loud, and the birds of logic begin to chirp (followed shortly by gunshots). Behold: the Big Plan, well balanced and self-consistent, like a Big Crunch, laid bare.
The closest call for such a revelation is an interview that Michelle Adams, the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, gave to New Yorker in 2021 where she all but said the quiet part out loud.
Interviewer: I asked her why, if the central goal is helping Black people who are in real need, affirmative action in admissions to élite universities is so important.
Michelle Adams: “The answer is, you get people like me… White supremacy is operating in many ways simultaneously… You do all those things simultaneously, to try to change the culture and to change the society.”
There it is, the cat is out of the bag: suspend merit, elevate the oppressed, seize power, and watch the system reorganize beautifully. It’s not about fairness - it’s about revolution.
At last, the gaslighting ends. Reverse discrimination is real. The war on merit is real. But don’t worry - it’s for the common good.
Now sleep tight.
Oh, and by the way? This plan was also tried once before - in October 1917. In Russia.
Somebody bring me my Valium.
I’m all for laying road spikes in the path of the Long March of the Institutions. A few landmines wouldn’t hurt 😇