Jake 🇺🇸 Profile picture
Feb 13, 2023 18 tweets 8 min read Read on X
New theory: "The virtuous lie"

A virtuous lie is a falsehood that's promulgated & not corrected despite known falsity b/c it serves an "emancipatory" end.

#1619Project, New History of Capitalism, Hawaiian indigeneity: lies that're "good" b/c they free us of an oppressive past.
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We quite literally live by these lies. At my college, you see signs that say "This is Tongva land." No one cares that before the Tongva got here, the Hokan were here. The Tongva, an Uto-Aztecan people, replaced the Hokan, as Uto-Aztecan peoples did across western N. America.
3/

We live by these lies b/c to do so makes us good people. To question them is to align oneself w/ evil. Famous author addressed a local HS with a talk straight out of New History of Capitalism. He painted American slavery in the most gruesome colors. So far so good. However...
4/

...he lied that cotton made up 50% of the US economy and that cotton's increasing productivity resulted from increasing torture.

Logic of the virtuous lie: nobody wants to be the one who points out that this is contradicted by the best research. What, you support slavery?
5/

The author's lies were virtuous. Slavery is a moral abyss: one can never overdo one's condemnation of it...even if one lies. Such lies are virtuous, serving noble goals like reparations, as was explicit in the author's talk. To correct the lies is to oppose the noble goals.
6/

Virtuous lies (VL) differ from Plato's Noble Lie (NL) & @robkhenderson's Luxury Belief.

(1) NL promotes positive self-conception; VL, self-criticism. (2) NL reconciles us to social inequality; VL aims to dismantle inequality. (3) NL is metaphysical; VL is historiographical.
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Like Luxury Beliefs (LB), virtuous lies (VL) are both emancipatory & signal moral goodness. However, LB are prescriptive, e.g., "defund the police." VL, in contrast, are descriptive, e.g., "cops are more likely to kill black people." Thus, VLs provide "factual" basis for LBs.
8/

I'll update this 🧵 with examples of "virtuous lies."

From Isabel Wilkerson's book "Caste." The lie is subtle: You're invited to believe that 1/1000 black men & boys are currently being killed by the cops while unarmed. That'd be genocide! Truth here: freeblackthought.substack.com/p/what-the-dat… Image
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"Virtuous lies" underlie many communications at elite institutions. This talk announcement simply *presupposes* that "unkindness" is a distinctive characteristic of "our post-1492 era."

Almost every utterance on campus invites us to see the US as implicated in unique evils. Image
10/

Virtuous lie: inflating mass shooting stats.

Fact: "mass shooting" is defined by federal gov't: 3+ killed in public rampage.

There've been 141 since 1982. 3.53/yr: Far too many, but not what's claimed.

Accurate stats here (& see next Tweet):
motherjones.com/politics/2012/… Image
11/

Inflating mass shootings is a virtuous lie. It's morally "good" to inflate. It signals that you take the problem seriously. Insisting on the true number is to "minimize" & thus "bad."

Yet getting it wrong matters, b/c it impedes effective responses:

motherjones.com/politics/2015/…
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"Implicit bias, attitudes or internalized stereotypes that affect our perceptions, actions, & decisions in an unconscious manner, exists, & often contributes to unequal treatment of people based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, etc." Image
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CA's Assembly Bill 241 (quoted prev Twt), mandating "implicit bias" education for MDs and nurses, is wholly based on the "virtuous lie" that we understand what we mean when we say "implicit bias" and that whatever it is, it influences behavior. This is an outright falsehood.
14/

The truth about implicit bias is:

"it's not clear precisely what is being measured on implicit attitude tests; implicit attitudes do not effectively predict actual discriminatory behavior; most interventions [such as CA's new law] are ineffective."

musaalgharbi.com/2020/09/16/div…
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CA's Assembly Bill 241, mandating "implicit bias" education for MDs: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billText…

Support for implicit bias being a "virtuous lie" that we believe because it makes us "good":

1. dailynous.com/2017/01/12/rec…

2. freedomcast.us/iopod/episode1

3. psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rabble…
16/

"Implicit bias" is a "virtuous lie" we live by.

It even informs law now, like CA's Bill 241, which says "Implicit bias...exists, and often contributes to unequal treatment..."

Two more sources on implicit bias, both by @jessesingal:

1. thecut.com/2017/01/psycho…

2. Ch. 6: Image
17/

It's a "virtuous lie" that for gender dysphoria, science is settled on (1) "puberty blockers for adolescents going through early stages of natural puberty," followed by, for "older teens," (2) "cross sex hormones, essentially avoiding natal puberty."

18/

Virtuous lies about puberty blockers, hormones & suicidality for kids w/ gender dysphoria are repeated w/ uncritical certainty by media elites.

@TheBARPod's @jessesingal & @kittypurrzog take @jonstewart & @LastWeekTonight to task for their untruths:
blockedandreported.org/p/episode-138-…

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My college's Board of Trustees rejected a request by SJP/JVP to divest from Boeing, Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, and Lockheed Martin.

Student paper reached out for comment. Here's what I said.

"I endorse the decision of the Board of Trustees regarding the divestment proposal.🧵
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"The Board gave several reasons for their decision, the most important of which is, in my view, the consideration that 'taking a position on a complex geopolitical situation would potentially chill the expression of diverse opinions, undermine the expression of pluralism, ...
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"...and alienate members of our community.' The Board’s decision is very much in line with the stance of 'institutional neutrality' recommended in the well-known 1967 Kalven Committee 'Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action.'

provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/…
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"wokeness is not the cause of the collapse of the humanities. It’s a symptom of it"

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Were I most deeply disagree with @Tyler_A_Harper is that I think wokeness in the Humanities is largely endogenous. It arose organically out of the pursuit of "the next new theory." The professional life and death of Humanists depends on their ability to find a new theory. ...
@Tyler_A_Harper 3/

I've watched this dynamic for over 40 years now. My dad was an academic. He embraced Deconstruction in the '70s. No admin made him do it. He found the theory truly compelling but also the theory set him apart, made him avant-garde, helped him in his competition w/ his peers.
Read 25 tweets

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