White guy here. I mean, this is relentlessly accurate. The only thing that’s wrong is saying that this is true all the time for every single white person.
As Robert Anton Wilson pointed out, no general statements about human groups are true for all members! He proposed the word “sombunall” — “some but not all” — and says that it has to be put in every single sentence about humans.
Most white people I know see themselves just as people, not just white. Heck, most men I know see themselves as people, not men. Simone de Beauvoir nailed this a very long time ago: “Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”
Non-white people are constantly reminded of their non-whiteness by other people. Non-males, ditto. Many white males are oblivious — sombunall.
You don’t actually refute this in your article at all. You simply throw your hands up and declare it ridiculous! I read your links — as a mathematician who studied logic at a graduate level, I wasn’t really so impressed. Seems like you guys looked up “affirming the consequent” and then just cut-and-paste it into your articles. But it’s not actually a refutation to the original argument in this case.
If I present a possible explanation to a phenomenon, and then describe examples where I feel this happens, which appears to be the original paper, this is certainly not a proof. I’m sure we can all agree on that. But it isn’t affirming the consequent either.
More, even if it were true, affirming the consequent does not prove the results false like you seem to think it does. All it shows that that argument does not prove the results true.
What’s particularly dull is that you never really address any of the arguments. (It might be that some of the links go further but I got a little tired of reading cryptofascist screeds, to be honest.) You identify what you feel is a logical flaw that refutes the paper, but does not, and then dust off your hands. Victory!
I have to say that writing out the statement of affirming the consequent was charming, with the (1)s and the (2)s, because you’re trying to show off and failing. There’s no point pasting in that chunk of attempted logic whatsoever. If someone actually understands logic already, they won’t need your naïve explanation; if they don’t, it will just make things murkier.
I checked your website. I did laugh out loud when I found out that it’s not much more than a picture of Machiavelli, a man whose very name is a synonym for cynical amorality and compassionless, secret action for one’s own self-interest.
And of course, the rest of your Medium writing is the usual tedious far-right/libertarian explanation of how a better world will never be possible. To be fair, some of it seemed better worked out than others, but I’m out of time for talking to Machiavellian rightists for one day.
