“That Conversation about Race” category archive

Joe Pierre, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, looks at dis coarse discourse and argues that attributing belief in political or scientific fairy tales to “mass delusion” or “mass psychosis” is, as my old boss used to say, “in error.” Rather, he suggests that such beliefs are symptomatic of a sick society, not of sick individuals.

Here’s a bit of his piece (emphasis added); follow the link for the complete article.

Although there’s a long history of misusing psychiatric terminology more loosely as a pejorative, this hardly justifies the act today in responsible journalism, politics, or civil public discourse. Besides being technically inaccurate, using terms like “delusion” and “psychosis” to “other” those whose beliefs we find objectionable or unfathomable unfairly stigmatizes those who suffer from actual mental illness. Furthermore, invoking clinical terms to dismiss our ideological opponents does us all a disservice by steering away from understanding and addressing the real root causes of false beliefs related to politics and scientific matters that have become politicized which are more appropriately categorized as conspiracy theories.

Aside:

I would argue that the ultimate “real root cause”–to use his term–of our present poisonous politics is America’s original sin of chattel slavery and the racist ideology created to justify and excuse it, which is perpetually promoted by political actors for power and profit.

But that’s just me.

Robert Reich argues that the self-styled Constitutional “originalists” would have to find that the filibuster is contrary to the original intent of the Founders. Here’s a bit of his argument; follow the link for the full article, in which Reich delves into the racist origin and evolution of the filibuster.

The Framers went to great lengths to ensure that a minority of senators could not thwart the wishes of the majority. After all, a major reason they convened the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was because the Articles of Confederation (the precursor to the Constitution) required a super-majority vote of nine of the thirteen states, making the government weak and ineffective.

This led James Madison to argue against any super-majority requirement in the Constitution the Framers were then designing, writing that otherwise “the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed,“ and “It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.” And it led Alexander Hamilton to note “how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced” if a minority in either house of Congress had “the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary.”The Framers went to great lengths to ensure that a minority of senators could not thwart the wishes of the majority. After all, a major reason they convened the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was because the Articles of Confederation (the precursor to the Constitution) required a super-majority vote of nine of the thirteen states, making the government weak and ineffective.

Methinks he makes his case.

Nevertheless, I think Reich’s argument will fall on deaf ears from the “originialists,” who show great ingenuity in redefining the Founders’ “original intent” when it suits their ends. Indeed, one can make a strong argument that the only bit of “original intent” to which “originalists” are truly committed is the 3/5s clause.

Christopher Dale is less than optimistic, and I fear he has reason.