Why you can’t win arguments against intersectionality — and shouldn’t try

Two claims.

1) “The sky is red.”

2) “The sky is red because the atmosphere is full of quintillions of microscopic organisms that grow and multiply every night, and then during the day, the sunlight slowly kills most of them and they begin emitting a florescent reddish glow. This red color is apparent to most animals, with the exception of human beings, whose eyes have no receptor for the exact wavelength of red emitted, so our brains interpret this unidentifiable color as blue, except at such times as we inhale trace amounts of Ozone, which allows us to see the red in the sky once in a while. And this is also strongly supported by my experience — I’ve personally seen red in the sky, so if you think the sky is blue, you’re invalidating my experience and questioning my reality, and that makes you a horrible human being who doesn’t deserve to speak in a civilized society.”

As before, the first statement is a single assertion that can be proved or disproved using any number of objective measurements.

But the second is rendered nearly impervious to attack, once again by volume. In order to argue that the sky isn’t red, you have to deny the existence of these microbes, the effect of sunlight on some similar microorganisms, clearly observable examples of bioluminescence elsewhere in nature, as well as brazenly calling into question someone’s lived experience.

And all the while you’re on the clock, because in taking the contrary position and working to disprove the various claims, you’re cementing the final claim — that you’re a horrible human being.

Any opponent starts out in the defensive position and must produce copious amounts of research and expertise to substantiate all claims to the contrary, since the original claim, though utterly ridiculous, is extremely cohesive — it exists within its own stitched and armored mythological framework, whereby a challenge to any one point is dispersed across the entirety of the ideological fabric, and resisted equally by all.

This is the endgame of intersectionality.

And it’s why conservative arguments against it fall flat.

Not because they’re factually wrong, but because it’s just one piece of a postmodern mythology that we have failed to effectively understand and combat in its more nascent and manageable stages.

Now the mythology is mature, and has become a religion that demands unquestioning loyalty and unflinching sacrifice.

And we have no answer for it, because it’s a hydra — for each head you cut off, two more take its place.

Each part makes sense to adherents, not because of externally-substantiated fact or logical flow, but because of the self-referencing nature of its claims.

It is *designed* to be insular, to shed attacks, and to ultimately define all who oppose it as heretics and enemies of the common good.

Now let’s try two final statements.

1) “George Floyd’s death was immoral and criminal, and his killers should face justice.”

2) “George Floyd’s death immoral and criminal, and was the inevitable result of systemic racism in law enforcement, which itself an expression of rampant racism in broader American society, and that’s due to longstanding white privilege shown in everything from economic inequality to life expectancy. Plus, I and people I know have personally experienced this, so if you try to tell me that it’s not due to systemic racism, you’re invalidating my personal experiences, and that means you’re probably a racist too.”

If you have been engaged in this debate lately and feel frustrated that facts and figures bounce off of the social justice crowd, don’t be discouraged. You’re not just challenging a media narrative or a faulty assumption. You’re calling into question an entire worldview, and leaving the other person without a frame of reference through which to understand the world. And when you challenge someone’s innermost worldview, you’re not just questioning their understanding of politics or current events, you’re challenging their identity, their character, their priorities, and their morality.

RTWT.