Dinesh D'Souza on Hypocrisy on the left

[JollyRoger]

D'Souza is pretty much known as a lightweight, with these highlights on his track record:

The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11 ... the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the non-profit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.

— Dinesh D'Souza, quoted in "How the left caused 9/11, by Dinesh D’Souza"

At the conclusion of a September 2010 opinion article in Forbes about President Barack Obama, titled "How Obama Thinks", D'Souza wrote:


[T]rapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.

On July 7, 2015 D'Souza circulated a photoshopped image of Hillary Clinton, purporting that it showed her with a confederate flag in the background. The original image had no such flag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza

If he posted here, we would think he was a 14 year old that just read Atlas Shrugged instead of Lord of the Rings.

 

[Atticus]

The Indian guy is just plain wrong: The student gave away his "white privilege" by tutoring low income students. Free work is giving away too. He could've earned some money instead.

He's also wrong making the sharp distinction between affirmative action and equality of opportunity. Does he think that orphaned handicapped kids should have the equal opportunity too, but not getting any extra support? Do poor and discriminated people have anything like equality of opportunity?

Tutoring poor and minorities should be one of the best ways to advance their equality, since that way it's still they themselves that will earn their possible future success. Going to a fine college may be the best way this guy can help the minorities, depending on what his future actions will be.

There is considerable amount of hypocrisy in the left, I think, but my method of detecting it is evaluating the effectiveness of the methods used: when an angry 23 year old teen sprays "meat is murder" on the wall, he's not doing anything to advance his cause, probably the other way around. So the real motivation behind it is probably to promote his own identity.

 

[Cutlass]

Well, I'd say if you truly think that you don't deserve what you have because you are privileged to have the parents, grand-parents etc. that you have, then you should donate everything you don't need to live the minimum life that you'd ideally want everyone else to live. Some exceptions of course if you need to keep a certain standard for your job, but other than that? Big-Screen TV? Nope. Big house? Nope.

But I agree (and have already stated) that it is not a counter-argument. Still, it shows that the person is not willing to follow what they're advocating for unless the whole of society does the same. This whole concept of "I acknowledge my privilege so it's okay." is bogus. Just another way of saying: "Yeah, under the system I'm advocating for I'm the bad guy, but I speak out against the system, so I'm actually a good guy."

If you're going to talk about privilege in the job market, then that's even more of a society issue than poverty is. It cannot be addressed through individual action. It can only be addressed through systemic change.

 

[Gary Childress]

Well, I'd say if you truly think that you don't deserve what you have because you are privileged to have the parents, grand-parents etc. that you have, then you should donate everything you don't need to live the minimum life that you'd ideally want everyone else to live. Some exceptions of course if you need to keep a certain standard for your job, but other than that? Big-Screen TV? Nope. Big house? Nope.

But I agree (and have already stated) that it is not a counter-argument. Still, it shows that the person is not willing to follow what they're advocating for unless the whole of society does the same. This whole concept of "I acknowledge my privilege so it's okay." is bogus. Just another way of saying: "Yeah, under the system I'm advocating for I'm the bad guy, but I speak out against the system, so I'm actually a good guy."


Having ones voice heard more than others is by definition a privilege though. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but even if we assume that a person does all of this just to help the underprivileged, that person themselves is still getting into a privileged position when they climb the ladder.

So, Ryika, would you prefer that privileged people simply believed they are better than everyone else because they just are and not acknowledge that they are fortunate to have benefited off historical circumstances (or whatever they may have benefited from) or would you prefer that the privileged acknowledge their privilege and perhaps feel the compulsion to help others who are less privileged? In other words, which is better (or worse perhaps), a privileged person who acknowledges that they are privileged or one who doesn't?

 

[JollyRoger]

I think D'Souza is angling for a CEO job.

 

[Gary Childress]

I think D'Souza is angling for a CEO job.

Or perhaps trolling for one...

Trolling: fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat.

[EDIT: sorry couldn't resist]

 

[BvBPL]

So here's a question: if I were a white guy working at a fortune 500 company and I truly believe in social justice, even advocate it, should I be the first one to go to the HR department and give my job up to a minority? If I didn't, would that make me a hypocrite?

No, because our individual moral responsibilities to others, particularly strangers, generally does not extend to depriving ourselves of our own livelihoods. Instead, moral responsibility to strangers is generally limited to giving of our own resources incrementally and in a manner that enables us, as individuals, to continue to thrive. We don't need to commit ourselves to a self-destructive potlatch for the benefit of strangers in order to be moral.

In the clip you provided, I think D'Souza places too much emphasis on dismissing the student's argument based upon hypocrisy. That a speaker may be hypocritical does not automatically invalidate that speaker's statements.

 

[Gary Childress]

In the clip you provided, I think D'Souza places too much emphasis on dismissing the student's argument based upon hypocrisy. That a speaker may be hypocritical does not automatically invalidate that speaker's statements.

Excellent point. I was going to bring that up too but didn't. The argument is essentially an ad hominem.

 

[BvBPL]

So I saw this posted on another forum I visit (the one in my sig) and thought it interesting so I am posting it here because I think it raises an objection that may be an uncomfortable one, at least to me--the idea of putting one's money where one's mouth is.

To get to the question of putting one's money where one's mouth is, yes, people should do this. People should speak to moral responsibilities and they should put those responsibilities into practice through giving of themselves. However, such responsibilities do not generally extend to demanding the impoverishment of the giver.

For example, if you see a shirtless man freezing in the December cold then you should help him. That might me buying him a shirt. It might mean giving him the shirt off your back. But it does not mean giving him the shirt off your back if it is your only shirt. The first two options impose an inconvenient duty upon you, but one whose inconvenience does not materially threaten your own well being, whereas the third threatens your own health in a manner that you may not be able to recover from.

What you are morally obliged to give is not measured only by the suffering of others, but also whether or not you yourself will be placed in a state of suffering through your giving. There is an upper limit to the state of poverty one places oneself into for the benefit of a stranger beyond which no further moral obligation can be imposed.

 

[aelf]

Sounds to me like the same logic that is used so often - "As long as I advocate against the system I'm one of the good guys, even if I continue to benefit from the system and use it to generate wealth for myself."

I wouldn't exactly call it hypocrisy though, after all that kind of behavior does not change anything about the goal of societal change, it's not like he wants everyone else to give and keep his stuff for himself - he just doesn't want to give while everybody else keeps their stuff.

It's just a human flaw - only very few are willing to give up benefits even if they perceive something as unfair, unless everyone else is dragged down with them.

Still, it shows that the person is not willing to follow what they're advocating for unless the whole of society does the same. This whole concept of "I acknowledge my privilege so it's okay." is bogus. Just another way of saying: "Yeah, under the system I'm advocating for I'm the bad guy, but I speak out against the system, so I'm actually a good guy."

The tricky thing about this sort of argument is the salient question: So which kind of person are you? Are you the kind who will put all your wealth where your mouth is or are you the kind who would rather 'unhypocritically' not advocate for social justice because you want to maintain your lifestyle?

You can pontificate about the fact that what other people are doing is not enough as long as they are not giving up all that is unnecessary. But since the argument relies so much on the moral high ground and who has the right to occupy it, the ethos of the argumentator comes into question.

 

[Gary Childress]

For example, if you see a shirtless man freezing in the December cold then you should help him. That might me buying him a shirt. It might mean giving him the shirt off your back. But it does not mean giving him the shirt off your back if it is your only shirt. The first two options impose an inconvenient duty upon you, but one whose inconvenience does not materially threaten your own well being, whereas the third threatens your own health in a manner that you may not be able to recover from.

Totally agree. We must take care of ourselves first before we are even able to help others.

 

[BvBPL]

Totally agree. We must take care of ourselves first before we are even able to help others.

Yes, and that, combined with the ad hominem element, was why D'Souza's response to the student's question was invalid. The student asked what we as a collective should do to address injustices against blacks as to the GI Bill and such. Implicit within the collective response was the notion that the individual commitment on any given party would not be overly burdensome. D'Souza's reply presumed that anyone who advocated such a collective response must also give of themselves in such a manner that the individual is himself impoverished in order to have the moral authority to call for collective action. He changed the inquiry from being one of what the collective should do to what the individual should do, and he placed too high a burden upon the individual as a test to determine the moral authority to raise such an argument. The moral calculus in determining a course of action differs from the collective to the individual, so D'Souza essentially addressed a different question than the student asked.

 

[Farm Boy]

For example, if you see a shirtless man freezing in the December cold then you should help him. That might me buying him a shirt. It might mean giving him the shirt off your back. But it does not mean giving him the shirt off your back if it is your only shirt. The first two options impose an inconvenient duty upon you, but one whose inconvenience does not materially threaten your own well being, whereas the third threatens your own health in a manner that you may not be able to recover from.

Yet it seems to me, and I think I've read some actual study things that bear this out(not remembering very well), that as people go up in prosperity they generally go down in generosity. Like, the less shirts you have access to yourself the more likely you are to give one away. I don't think lots of people making the effort of voting every 4th year in a manner which they think will force the redistribution of shirts takes care of this.

 

[BvBPL]

The question of how much individuals should give to others does not lend itself to easy answers. I would suggest there is a continuum of responses running from not giving at all to giving wholly and totally of one's self. I think that the far bounds of that continuum are unacceptable answers. D'Souza jumped right to one of those far ends. Where, exactly, an individual's responsibility does fall is much harder to determine. Equally, my statement doesn't presume to answer other questions about giving, like the one Farmboy raised about the relationship between prosperity and generosity. One thing to consider would be how we judge prosperity and generosity. For example, Zuckerberg is giving 99% of his Facebook stock to charity. He will still be far, far wealthier than any of us after this grant. Do we measure his charity by the absolute amount of money he gave away, by what relative amount of money he gave away, or by how much he has left?

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, we can sort of cobble up perspective questions, I think? Are we better served by having a few ultra wealthy benefactors with spare capacity to dedicate towards do-gooding or are we better served by asking for more distributed altruistic instinct? Lions Clubs and the like just seem so out of vogue these days.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

So here's a question: if I were a white guy working at a fortune 500 company and I truly believe in social justice, even advocate it, should I be the first one to go to the HR department and give my job up to a minority? If I didn't, would that make me a hypocrite?

And herein lies the problem with reducing things down to skin colour alone (used to be called "being racist" in my day). Did this hypothetical white guy get the position because he was born into a rich family, attended all the right schools, joined all the right clubs and was given the position because his Daddy knew the CEO? Or is he a second generation Polish immigrant who studied hard, worked hard, and got the job entirely as a result of his own hard work? Is the "minority" employee he gives his job to (assuming such a thing could be done) a kid from a poor family in the ghetto who managed to get a scholarship on the basis of his talent and hard work, or is HE/SHE the child of some rich and well-connected businessman?

The skin colour is 100% irrelevant in weighing up the pros and cons of the situations, and yet it's the only bit of information included in the question. Madness.

 

[BvBPL]

Are we better served by having a few ultra wealthy benefactors with spare capacity to dedicate towards do-gooding or are we better served by asking for more distributed altruistic instinct?

That seems like a false dichotomy. There doesn't seem to be any reason why we can't have both. The altruism of a wealthy few is commendable, and it does not absolve us of our own charitable responsibility as private parties.

 

[Ryika]

So, Ryika, would you prefer that privileged people simply believed they are better than everyone else because they just are and not acknowledge that they are fortunate to have benefited off historical circumstances (or whatever they may have benefited from) or would you prefer that the privileged acknowledge their privilege and perhaps feel the compulsion to help others who are less privileged? In other words, which is better (or worse perhaps), a privileged person who acknowledges that they are privileged or one who doesn't?

Obviously I am for "acknowledging ones privilege", I'm just against this "Oh, I don't deserve anything of this, woe me! Well, I'll keep it anyway."-nonsense. He himself said that he acknowledges that everyone in that room is somewhat of a hypocrite, so for the sake of the argument alone it would make sense to stop being hypocrites. Especially if he thinks he isn't where he is now because of the hard work of his family and instead only because his family was lucky enough to be white.

That is of course still not an argument against advocating for equal opportunity. I'd rather have them be hypocrites and argue for sensible changes (which "Your grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-parents got something unfairly, so we will now take something from you." is not in my opinion.) instead of them being silent hypocrites, but that does not mean that I will not leave their hypocrisy uncommented.

(Funfact: In my first post I stated that I wouldn't call them hypocrites, now I'm using the word all over the place. Guess I've changed my opinion. )

 

[Farm Boy]

That seems like a false dichotomy. There doesn't seem to be any reason why we can't have both. The altruism of a wealthy few is commendable, and it does not absolve us of our own charitable responsibility as private parties.

Well, right! But if we know which one works better we can try to emphasize it? Or is that sort of fine tuning well beyond our ability to social engineer? I think it might be.

 

[JollyRoger]

A fat man should certainly not advocate subsidizing farmers.