Allegations of Thread Hijacks

The Warning in that thread is not for discussing CRT, but for “rehashing an old and tired pet issue in a thread not for it.” @What_Exit specifically says that ZS needs to “change [his] behavior in CRT threads going forward.” So he’s saying “don’t discuss CRT.”

I agree that the mod post could have been more clear about what exactly was the problematic “old and tired issue” that was “in a place not for it.” But, if you read the post that caused the Warning, I think it’s fairly obvious, especially if you’ve read a lot of ZS’s posts.

He goes on at length about “racial quotas,” a topic that has little to nothing to do with CRT, with no attempt to even try and argue how the framework he was talking about earlier would correlate with it. If you know he has a habit of bringing that up in tangentially related threads even before CRT became a buzzword, then it makes more sense why he’d be told to stop.

He also loves to talk about the idea of “constant segregation at gatherings.” Sure, there is the argument about safe spaces and such, but there’s no reality to the claim that this sort of thing is constant. Classes that discuss CRT are not separated by race.

And finally, he argues that everyone else knows these are actually what CRT actually means, saying that the other arguments are “disingenuously defended in fantasy land.”

The latter is what he returns to in the Virginia thread, just worse. The post that gets him modded has him accusing everyone of knowing that CRT is what he claims it is, and that he doesn’t have to back up any of his claims about that topic.

Rather than debate in good faith about CRT, he chooses to redefine it in a way that is contrary to how most of us understand it, and then accuse us all of being disingenuous when we disagree, even though, when asked, he can’t back up the claim that this is what CRT is, or that the issues are related.

Yes, I would prefer if @What_Exit would spell out exactly what is that people do wrong. I did so with a mod note and later a Warning he gave me, and I never got an answer on either one. He seems to act like what he’s saying is obvious, when it isn’t.

But I do think he usually has a good instinct for the actual problems are. He’s just not the greatest at articulating them.

This is the most ouroborous snake-eating-its-tail nonsense I’ve seen on the board in a very long time. Do you ever characterize a position–even a position that you mischaracterize positions–without mischaracterizing that position?

Which of these premises do you disagree with, and why?

*I received a warning that contained no explanation besides “this is a caricature of CRT”

*There is no rule against using “caricatures” of CRT or anything else as a rhetorical tactic, nor a rule defining what a “caricature” is, as opposed to “a definition that a moderator disagrees with” or in any other way

*The definition of a particular CRT belief I put forth was one of the issues under discussion in that thread, and the conclusion that I was making a “caricature” as opposed to genuinely sharing my opinion as to what CRT is, is unwarranted by anyone who does not purport to be able to read minds

If you do not disagree with any of the above, then what “position” am I “mischaracterizing” and how?

What I said was pretty clear; I quoted the part that was absurd. When folks ask for clarification in a way that indicates they’re likely to read the clarification carefully and consider it honestly, I am happy to provide that clarification.

In this case, I’ll decline.

It’s not at all clear why you think my description of that warning is in any way disingenuous, especially since the warning was five words long and I directly quoted it. Your canned rant about “misrepresenting positions” doesn’t apply in any way here and seems like something you could have just as irrelevantly deployed towards any kind of objection to any moderating decision at all.

The only way that “misrepresenting positions” enters into this at all is if, in a discussion in the debate forum entirely about questions such as “what is CRT” and “why do CRT proponents believe what they do,” a moderator had decided that that there is one correct answer to those questions and sanctioned people providing different answers for the act of providing them. Which, of course, is exactly what happened, exactly why the debate fora on this board are on death’s door., exactly what Hari Seldon and What Exit do all the time, and what presumably anyone defending those warnings should be explaining that they were somehow not doing.

I have made peace with the idea that you’re not understanding the positions of those you disagree with. I have tried in the past, with no success, to alter that, as have others. I’m no longer interested.

Of course you don’t. Because the sequence of events was farcical.