Name Calling: The Charge of Sexism, Racism, or Homophobia

What if all straight white males became gay? Well, then they would be able to short-circuit many criticisms by resorting to name-calling (and becoming gay is the easiest option).  Otherwise, straight white males must bow to just about any and all criticisms (with one exception mentioned below).  You see, name calling is what we do in the United States these days when someone has the temerity to disagree with us.  It is utterly relevant that someone should actually have good reasons for disagreeing with us.  For in a world without objective moral values, all it takes in order to be right is that we feel something deeply and strongly enough.  Let me illustrate these remarks with a few examples.

Suppose that a black person says that black people have no business marrying white people, and a white person asks the following sensible question: “What on earth does race have to do with love and marriage?”  Well, in order to silence the white person all the black person needs to do is call the white person a racist, at which point the only thing left for the white person to do is to lie prostrate on the floor.  Each ethnic group can make this move.  So if I a black man should criticize an Asian student, then what could be more obvious than that I am racist towards Asians.  As far as I can tell, the only way for me not to be racist towards Asians is to regard as wonderful and good all that Asians do.

Or suppose that a gay person says that being a gay parent has no bearing whatsoever on how a child develops and a straight person asks: “How do you know that?”  Once more, it suffices that the gay person calls the straight person a despicable homophobe for even asking the question.  Case closed.

Or, finally, imagine a man thinking that it would be a good thing for the mother to stay at home and nurse a newborn child thereby forging a most majestic bond between the mother and the child.  Needless to say, no feminist will be taken in by the rhapsodic language of a “majestic bond between mother and child”.  She will see right away the oppressive nature of things, it being utterly irrelevant that women have breasts which (when they give birth to a child typically) produce milk, whereas men do not have breasts that do such a thing.  We even have a term for the milk: breast milk.  Any man who might dare suggest that there is reason for a woman to stay at home and nurse the newborn is a shameless sexist—an utter moral scumbag.  After all, so the argument would go: no man would think to suggest that a man should stay home and nurse a child, so it is woefully inappropriate even to entertain the thought that a woman should do so.  The fact that only women can produce breast milk is seen as a morally irrelevant fact.  One of great mysteries of life is that “gay genes” can determine gay behavior, whereas the genes that differentiate between females and males have little to no bearing upon behavior ! ! !

Even though I am black I can still be a sexist and I can still be a racist against other non-white groups: Native Americans; Asians; Arabs; Latinos.  And so forth.  And I can still be homophobic.  In fact, homophobia is particularly strong among blacks.  So surely I am homophobic whether I realize it or not.

The point, in any event, is that straight white men are at the bottom of the social totem pole.  For it is said that they have oppressed everyone and, therefore, are morally wrong whenever they disagree with a woman or a black or a gay person.  So strategically all straight white men have to do is claim that they are gay and they would thereby gain some moral leverage.  They wouldn’t have to do anything: Claiming it would suffice.  They could even go on chasing women and simply claim that this is due to their having internalized the oppressiveness of heterosexuality.  So straight white men can be gay-at-heart if not gay-by-deed.  The mere claim yields the leverage.  

Of course, if straight white males could become a women or a minority person, they could obtain the same leverage.  As I trust one can readily see, this is slightly more difficult to accomplish.  

Now, as far as I can tell there is only one exception to this nonsense: Jews.  Vis-à-vis any other group that is sanctified as a victim, Jews are always wrong.  So if a Jew says charges a black or an Asian or a gay of having robbed her or him, the only appropriate response is: “Well, the person must have had a good reason for doing so.  Surely, it is because of all the wrong that your people, the Jews, must have done to the people of the group to which the robber belongs”.  Even straight white males seem to have some leverage against Jews.  

The Pope has lifted the ex-communication of a white priest who has denied the existence of gas chambers during the Holocaust and who has not recanted that denial.  It is next to inconceivable that the Pope would do the same in the case of a white priest who had denied the existence of American Slavery and never recanted that denial.  And, of course, we know that the President of Iran has questioned the existence of the Holocaust, and the nations of the earth have barely blinked.  Again, I cannot imagine a like reaction were the President of Iran to question the reality of American Slavery.  So in the end it does seem as if the moral status of Jews is even below that of white males.  Not easy to do, trust me.

Now, we can perhaps make some sense of this nonsense.  What we know to be true is that all sorts of horrendous things have been done in the name of reason.  Women have been and are circumcised in the name of reason.  The Nazis killed Jews in the name of reason.  Painfully and regrettably, there is no shortage of examples of this sort.  

The proper inference to make, in view of these horrors, is that (1) people were tremendously mistaken—and not that (2) the very idea of reason itself is a bankrupt notion.  This brings us to the irony of things.  For if we embrace (2)—that is, if we embrace the view that the very idea of reason itself is a bankrupt notion, then we effectively set the stage for yet another set of horrors to be committed.  For if we reject reason, then all that we are left with are strong feelings; and it is the reliance upon strong feelings that has given rise to the horrors that blight the history of humankind.  

What is more, we do not respect people simply by cowering to their feelings.  Indeed, if all we do is cower in order to avoid trouble, then what we have is not respect but simple intimidation.  And intimidation is now and shall always be the handmaiden of evil rather than justice.  

Of course, no morally decent person can deny that there are sexists and racists and homophobes.  Indeed, no morally decent person can deny that there are antisemites.  But when individuals who make charges of X-ism (sexism, racism, and homophobia) are more interested in silencing those who ask honest and searching questions than proffering an illuminating response or showing why the question misses the mark, it can be said that there is no substantive difference between such individuals and folks who were Nazis.  

“Shut your damn mouth you X-ist, you” is not an argument.  Neither the decibels with which this utterance is spoken nor the passage of time will make it so.  This utterance is, however, a form of intimidation.  And social progress that rests simply upon intimidation is not progress at all.  Rather, it is evil masquerading as good, as the case of Nazi Germany makes abundantly clear.