Dennis Prager says what I’ve been saying for years (or) The left’s intellectual solipsism

Phew.

Kudos to Dennis Prager for saying what I have been saying for years. Not that he got it from me at all. But that someone has expressed publicly and well something that has been on my mind for a long time.

I call it intellectual solipsism.

It is the idea that you must belong to group x to have an opinion about an issue that affects group x.

One hears this line all the time from the left.

You cannot have an opinion about gay rights unless you are gay. About abortion unless you are a woman. About immigration unless you are an immigrant. About affirmative action unless you are a member of a an historically disadvantaged minority group. About poverty unless you are poor. About marriage unless you are married. About Christianity unless you are a Christian. About Wall Street unless you are a wealthy Wall Street financier. About the Tea Party movement unless you are a member of the Tea Party movement. And so on.

Hey wait a minute.

I have for years found this a wretched and offensive piece of anti-intellectualism. In a nutshell this attitude means that we do not decide issues on the basis of their merits. And if a particular principle of justice is inconvenient to my group then we can challenge it solely on the basis of experience.

Let me illustrate.

Let us assume the principle that stealing is wrong. I need a new starter for my car. I do not have the money for a new starter. So it is fine for me to steal one from the auto parts store up the road.

That’s silly some might respond.

It is no less silly than saying one believes an unborn human being deserves legal protection. And all that goes out the window when your child becomes pregnant in high school. 

“You can’t have an opinion unless you’ve been there”. Really? Why exactly? Am I supposed to change my opinion about sexual expression in the Christian life just because I have a relative who experiences same-sex attraction? just because someone is single and has strong physical desires? Am I supposed to change my opinion about civil rights just because it might take away some advantage that white people have?

“You can’t know unless you’ve been there”. Then explain it to me. Using language. That is the whole purpose of language is it not? To be able to share and communicate ideas and experiences? Why can you explain to me your views on p q and r but not what it is like to be a member of group x? Yes I am aware that someone who is not a member of group x or has never experienced y can never fully understand to the same degree. But if your position is correct then surely you can justify it on its own merits in a way that is persuasive to people who are not members of your group or who have not had the same experience.

Dennis Prager touches on this in his recent piece “Why the Left talks about ‘White’ Tea Parties”:

The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong.

One of the more dangerous features of the Left has been its replacement of moral categories of right and wrong, and good and evil with three other categories: black and white (race), male and female (gender) and rich and poor (class).

Therefore the Left pays attention to the skin color — and gender (not just “whites” but “white males”) — of the tea partiers rather than to their ideas.

One would hope that all people would assess ideas by their moral rightness or wrongness, not by the race, gender or class of those who hold them. But in the world of the Left, people are taught not to assess ideas but to identify the race, class and gender of those who espouse those ideas. This helps explain the widespread use of ad hominem attacks by the Left: Rather than argue against their opponents’ ideas, the Left usually dismisses those making the argument disagreed with as “racist,” “intolerant,” “bigoted,” “sexist,” “homophobic” and/or “xenophobic.”

For the record I think Prager overstates his case and would be better off emphasizing how people think in general rather than how the left thinks in certain narrow categories.

What to me is even more offensive than the poverty of the above mindset is its dishonesty and hypocrisy.

Okay. You say I am not allowed to have an opinion about issue x’ unless I am a member of group x. Well guess what? I am a member of group x. And I have a different opinion about issue x’.

We have black conservatives. Pro-life women. Gays against same-sex marriage. And so on.

If those on the left who advocate group solipsism were being intellectually honest then they would pause and say “oh my a African-American gay immigrant woman who thinks for herself I had better take her seriously and listen carefully to what she has to say even if I still disagree with her“.

But what is the response?

This is why, to cite another example, men are dismissed when they oppose abortion. The idea is far less significant than the sex of the advocate. As for women who oppose abortion on demand, they are either not authentically female or simply traitors to their sex. Just as the Left depicts blacks who oppose race-based affirmative action as not authentic blacks or are traitors to their race.

They are traitors. They loathe themselves. They have been brainwashed. They are tools. They are not real members of group x. They do not even exist.

Can the left debate the issues? on their own merits? is that too much to ask?

Unfortunately, however, no real exploration of almost any important issue in American life is possible as long as the Left focuses on the race, gender and class of those who hold differing positions. And that will not happen. For when the Left stops attacking people and starts arguing positions, we will see what the Left most fears: blacks and Hispanics at tea parties.

Why is it when we want to talk about liberty economics and constitutional principles all some on the left want to talk about is race? And why do they have the nerve to think this reflects poorly on me rather than?