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The Psychology of Critical Race Theory

Psychologist Dr Carole Sherwood analyses Critical Race Theory—and finds it wanting:

Critical Race Theory does not provide the best tools to tackle racism. Blaming others, rather than taking responsibility for your actions, leads to a culture of victimhood and division. Always trusting your feelings to tell you what is ‘true’ produces mental health problems. But, if you can develop a
resilient attitude towards the world, rather than constantly looking for evidence of hostility and prejudice, you will do well. If you can be charitable and forgiving rather than accusatory and angry, social cohesion will follow. If you are flexible in your thinking and open to alternative perspectives, you will flourish.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.

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Critical Race Theory: helpful or harmful?

“What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves but the way in which we think about them”.

Epictetus

Imagine, while out walking, you see a friend across the road. You wave but she doesn’t wave back. She passes by, ignoring you completely. What would go through your mind? “What have I done to offend her?” “How dare she ignore me!” What would you feel? Angry, sad? What would you do? Dwell on what happened until you felt thoroughly miserable, or call your friend to find out what was wrong? Suppose you discovered she had just been diagnosed with a serious illness. How would you feel then? Would it change your view of what had happened?

This scenario introduces people to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. It demonstrates how the same event can be interpreted in different ways and encourages people to consider how best to respond, rather than jump to the wrong conclusions or react purely on the basis of their feelings.

But what happens if someone is encouraged to do the opposite? Suppose, for example, they are taught to look for evidence of racism everywhere and to interpret all encounters as potential ‘microaggressions’? Over time, through a process of confirmation bias, they will indeed learn to ‘see’ racism everywhere, becoming increasingly angry and resentful, viewing themselves as a victim, others as prejudiced and the world as hostile. Their belief that racism is everywhere becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Critical Race Theory encourages people to adopt this way of thinking. It underpins books such as White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. However, Gregg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt refer to these negative thinking styles as ‘reverse cognitive behaviour therapy’, pointing out that they are associated with depression and anxiety.

Aaron Beck, one of the founders of CBT, describes them as ‘cognitive distortions’ which lead people to perceive reality in a biased and inaccurate way.

Here are some examples of the cognitive distortions that can be found in Critical Race Theory:

Emotional Reasoning and Catastrophising

“You’ve made me feel bad, so you are a racist”

“I am traumatised by your words”

Critical Race Theory rejects the idea of objective reality and teaches that only subjective experience can be trusted to tell the ‘truth’. Yet, as we saw from the ‘walking down the street’ example, you cannot always trust your feelings to tell you what is actually happening.

Believing you will be ‘traumatised’ by words is an example of catastrophising’ – overestimating the likelihood that something awful will happen and underestimating your ability to cope. Rather than get caught in a spiral of threat-detection and catastrophising, CBT encourages you to pause and ask whether you’re over-reacting. Did your friend really mean to hurt you with their words? Can you give them the benefit of the doubt on this occasion? Learn how to cope with your feelings and develop resilience rather than allowing yourself to feel overwhelmed.

All or Nothing Thinking and Labelling/Blaming

“I am a victim and you oppress me”

“You are a white supremacist”

‘All or Nothing’ thinking cultivates a ‘them-and-us’ view of the world that fosters division. Being labelled a ‘white supremacist’ and blamed for something, simply on the basis of your skin colour, leads to anger and resentment or shame and guilt. People from ethnic minorities who disagree with anti-racist ideas promoted by Critical Race Theory, are cruelly labelled ‘coconuts’ or other derogatory names.

CBT suggests that you learn to take a wider overview of what is happening around you. Look for the ‘shades of grey’, and alternative perspectives. Flexibility of thought is an important skill to develop as it helps human beings adapt. Rather than lash out at others, consider how it would feel if you or someone you loved was unfairly labelled or blamed.

Overgeneralisation and Discounting Positives

“All white people are racists”

“The UK is a racist country”

These statements make the assumption that millions of people hold exactly the same opinions and prejudices, based on the colour of their skin. This is quite an assumption to make without any evidence to support it. Human beings are complex. Does it make sense to assume people hold certain views simply on the basis of their skin colour? Is it right that your ethnicity or skin colour determine what you think?

Don’t discount the positives. Look for objective evidence of progress made in society to overcome racism. What do British Attitude Surveys indicate about racial prejudice? Is it growing or declining?

Critical Race Theory does not provide the best tools to tackle racism. Blaming others, rather than taking responsibility for your actions, leads to a culture of victimhood and division. Always trusting your feelings to tell you what is ‘true’ produces mental health problems. But, if you can develop a resilient attitude towards the world, rather than constantly looking for evidence of hostility and prejudice, you will do well. If you can be charitable and forgiving rather than accusatory and angry, social cohesion will follow. If you are flexible in your thinking and open to alternative perspectives, you will flourish.

In the words of Paul Gilbert, “Be helpful not harmful”.

Dr Carole Sherwood, Psychologist

Further Reading:

‘The Coddling of the American Mind‘, Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
‘Cynical Theories‘, Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay
‘The Compassionate Mind‘, Paul Gilbert

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Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.

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Modern Day Witchfinders Won’t End Hate By Pulling Down Statues – They’ll Only Fuel It

It’s one thing to provide a reasoned case for removing the Rhodes statue at Oriel College, but the current demands are based on historical illiteracy and censoriousness, and can only fuel resentment argues Inaya Folarin at the Daily Mail:

Those who now see our past as nothing but a tale of ignominy should recognise that it was Britain that invented parliamentary democracy, pioneered the concept of equality before the law through Magna Carta – and abolished the slave trade.

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“Black Lives Matter: A Guide to Teaching Sixth Formers about Racism and Inequality”

The Free Speech Union has published a guide written and sent to them by a teacher.

Teaching schoolchildren about these politically-charged issues in a balanced, fair-minded way is hard, not least because if you depart from the orthodoxies of the BLM movement you risk losing your job. To cite just one example, a headteacher at a school in Vermont called Tiffany Riley was removed from her job after she questioned some of the tactics of BLM activists on Facebook. Yet it is important to try and be balanced nonetheless.

By that, we don’t mean presenting schoolchildren with the case for and against racism, obviously. Rather, presenting them a range of views about the prevalence of racism in contemporary Britain and America, about how racist those countries are compared to their past, about how racist they are compared to other countries, and the extent to which racism is responsible for racial outcome discrepancies. Children should be encouraged to think critically about these complicated issues and not succumb to group-think or, worse, publicly shame those who refuse to go along with the crowd.

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John McWhorter on why academics fear for their freedom

A national reckoning on race, John McWorther writes, has brought to the fore a loose but committed assemblage of people given to the idea that social justice must be pursued via attempts to banish from the public sphere, as much as possible, all opinions that they interpret as insufficiently opposed to power differentials.

This episode represents a pattern in the letters, wherein it is white students who are “woker” than their Black classmates, neatly demonstrating the degree to which this new religion is more about virtue signaling than social justice. From the same well is this same professor finding that the gay men in his class had no problem with his assigning a book with a gay slur in its title, a layered, ironic title for a book taking issue with traditional concepts of masculinity—but that a group of straight white women did, and reported him to his superiors.

Overall I found it alarming how many of the letters sound as if they were written from Stalinist Russia or Maoist China. A history professor reports that at his school, the administration is seriously considering setting up an anonymous reporting system for students and professors to report “bias” that they have perceived. One professor committed the sin of “privileging the white male perspective” in giving a lecture on the philosophy of one of the Founding Fathers, even though Frederick Douglass sang that Founder’s praises. The administration tried to make him sit in a “listening circle,” in which his job was to stay silent while students explained how he had hurt them—in other words, a 21st-century-American version of a struggle session straight out of the Cultural Revolution.

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The University of Edinburgh’s crusade against the Enlightenment

Edinburgh University takes yet another step to distance itself from its most important intellectual legacy – the Scottish Enlightenment – as it has decided to rename its David Hume Tower after some students claim that the 18th-century philosopher’s views on race cause them distress.

There is little that is exceptional about Hume’s views on race. Like the vast majority of people living in the 18th century, he interpreted human and social differences through the prism of race. But the fact that Hume had racist views is one of the least interesting and least important things about him. He was an energetic foe of the dogmas and conventions of his era. His philosophical scepticism and atheism were frequently denounced by those who upheld the prevailing moral order.

It is unlikely that those who claim to be ‘distressed’ by Hume have actually bothered to study his work. If they had, they would realise that the writings of this remarkably sceptical philosopher are an important intellectual resource that those opposed to prejudice can draw upon. He may have been a prejudiced man, but his writings were animated by a critical spirit that challenged prevailing dogmas. That is why those of us who are committed to free thinking continue to regard him as an intellectual giant.

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Kirsty Miller on her now cancelled resignation letter to the British Psychology Society

Psychologist Kirsty Miller found the organisation’s behaviour deeply concerning, and after deliberating for a substantial amount of time, decided to resign. She also wrote a letter explaining her decision to leave — feeling it may be useful for ‘the powers that be’ in the BPS to understand why a member of several decades felt she could no longer face being associated with the organisation. The letter was published, the editor then added an addendum, and then it was removed.

Read the full letter here
 

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The Tyranny of Groupthink

“Call it ‘Wokeness’ or ‘Groupthink'”, what we are seeing the spread of a “virus of ideological conformity”, says Josef Joffe.

“Goodthink,” to recall Orwell, is the project of a passionate minority privileged not by birth and station, but by achievement, acquired status, and job security afforded by their place in the knowledge economy and the public sector. The task of “Goodthink,” Orwell explained, was “to make all other modes of thought impossible.”

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The threat to civil liberties goes way beyond ‘cancel culture’

We are facing a “historic disaster”, argues Leigh Phillips writing in Jacobin. Today’s so-called progressives “have become indifferent to free speech, or, worse, come to view the defense of free speech as something foreign to the Left and a weapon of oppression”.

One might expect the liberal-left to be among the strongest defenders of free speech at work, and of the right of workers to say what they wish, but too many have enthusiastically called upon employers to fire workers for alleged reactionary speech outside of the workplace, in effect cheering on at-will termination of employment, and embraced the multibillion-dollar human resources department–organized and employer-supervised “sensitivity training” industry, imposing top-down workshops, where workers are petrified they might say the wrong thing.

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We’re facing a tsunami of censorship

“The authoritarian tide is rising”, warns Toby Young. It’s now “open season on mavericks and dissenters”. How can we push back?

If you publicly challenge any of the sacred nostrums of the social justice left and you work in a school, a college, a university, an arts company, a public broadcasting organisation, a tech company, a charity, a local authority or, indeed, Whitehall, you are at risk of being cancelled. How do I know? Because in February I set up the Free Speech Union to protect those being targeted in this way and in the past month we’ve been contacted by people in all of these fields who have either been fired, suspended or are ‘under investigation’ for having said or done something controversial, usually on Facebook or Twitter.

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