Critical Dilemma - Woke in Church and Society - Interview with Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer

[@RealKeriSmith]

Hey Folks, Pat Sawyer wanted to piggyback on his answer about "privilege as collective." He was going to add this but was concerned about time. Very grateful for the added explanation. I hope you find it useful! "The notion of privilege as collective underscores critical social theory's view that privilege is a relative property of groups and not an absolute property of individuals. Which is a flawed and insufficient way to think about privilege. When critical social theory compares a poverty-stricken white man in Appalachia to Oprah Winfrey it contends with a straight face that the Appalachian white man is genuinely more relatively privileged than Oprah, a rich black woman. While Oprah is up one on the Appalachian man with regards to class, she is down two with regards to race and gender. Critical social theory would contend that Oprah is genuinely and meaningfully oppressed relative to her race and gender and that the Appalachian man is genuinely and meaningfully privileged relative to his race and gender and that this would be meaningful to their existences. But this is radically absurd. Oprah's class (her extreme wealth) overrides, negates, and abolishes any actual oppression for her and guarantees she has extreme privilege. What also exacerbates critical social theory's spurious view of privilege and oppression is that it operates as if the historical marginalization of Blacks and women (per our example) has been permanetized when the reality is that dramatic improvements of equality, equity, and agency have been made. Intersectionality wants to co-opt and appropriate past oppression from a past iteration of a group and apply it to the current iteration of the group. In many ways, this is a deceit and a fraud".

[@DanHowardMtl]

Thanks for this! I got the book.

[@thethriftychickadee7245]

Keri, I totally agree with what you said at 1:20:45!! I came into recovery, although brought up in Christian schools, totally not believing in God due to various bad experiences in my life. When I HAD to find a God of my understanding, that's basically how I started out ... with a prayer of basically "I don't even think I believe in you, but if you're there, please reveal yourself to me." All I can say is that I started to see co-incidences as God-incidences, and when I started LOOKING for God, I began to FIND God, and my faith just grew and grew. So thankful to whoever it was that gave me the advice of just starting with ANY prayer, even if it was just "God, thank you", or "God, please help me to believe". Yes, what Pat said ... I was being disciplined, and called back ... thank God.

[@anotherfolksingr]

Loved this episode. Bless these guys for speaking and writing on this topic so productively. Thanks for hosting them, Keri 😊

[@RealKeriSmith]

Thanks so much! I hope everyone reads this one!

[@aaronwilliams464]

Great conversation

[@Beard_Hood]

"Right side of history" when I hear it all i hear is, "I want to be on the winning side".

[@OkTxSheepLady]

The desire to be on the “winning side” is why some people watch the early voting results and then vote for whom they think will win. There should be NO reporting until all the polls are closed across the nation, New England to Hawaii!

[@persnipoles]

I hear: "I intend to write yours," with the understanding that it is malicious.

[@desertrose0601]

I think it’s very important not to change terms just so we don’t get accused of conspiracy theories or whatever. Changing terms muddies the waters about what we’re talking about and leads people to think the old problems have been solved because we’re not hearing about them anymore. Of course being called Marxist is charged. It should be. But stopping calling it that just lets it slide under the radar so people stop noticing it anymore.

[@mark-be9mq]

Having groups feel & be separated & unfamiliar w/ each other is dangerous. All media highlight extremes we get drawn into & feel alienated grom one another. But talk w/98% of folks & find we generally care abt same things & can respect & get along fine. Our different views, are much easir to work around & find rational common ground once we know each. Maybe then the vocal minority will lose influence. God is Unity/communion. The devil wants division. Once devided its easy to move us around like checkers to attack each other.

[@rodjacksn]

59 watching, 49 likes (thumbs up icon) If you're watching & appreciate Keri, & want more Keri, please hit that "thumbs up" (like) icon 👍 !!!

[@wjeffreyrankin]

The conversation goes a bit off the rails around 22:00 and stays off them for some time, with admonitions of racism bad mkay and claims of some kind of out-sized white nationalism/white supremacy problem. I'm going to need to see the data on the latter. I'm not an academic, but I'd suggest that modifying the definition of white supremacy to include things like going to work early or even going to work on time (both of which were done) might lead to a significant uptick in "white supremacy." I'm glad Keri had these guys on. But, my dudes, _we_ already know racism is bad. We're waiting for the academy to correct itself.

[@OmegaMan999]

I noticed. Yikes.

[@RealKeriSmith]

If you imagine people you know who are in the woke world listening to this though - do you not see the value in finding that common ground with them? About historical racism? In my experience it's the foundation necessary for them to consider what I am saying.

[@wjeffreyrankin]

@@RealKeriSmith In terms of historical racism, yes. Although, unless I misunderstood, your guests were talking about current trends in so-called white supremacy - trends I believe are baseless, and not just historical facts.

[@Beard_Hood]

They only named some examples. From what ive seen you have to name all your examples and then keep adding on new examples. B/c people that buy into this are not willing to admit they are wacked untill they have an undeniable tidel wave of evidence. They have this amazing ability to wave away anything.

[@ghfudrs93uuu]

"The struggle for power between identity groups" this is just nkaed Schmittianism

[@OkTxSheepLady]

Don’t accept second hand beliefs. Read the whole Book for yourself and test everything you’re told by others. Compare all teaching to the plumb line of the Scriptures as instructed by Jesus when he said, “Have you not read….”

[@RealKeriSmith]

Yes yes yes

[@softlycrumblingcastle1820]

Remaining neutral is not a way to be against critical theory. As you stand, the left has anything to win and the right nothing to lose; when, in reality, the right loses and you are seeing half of the equation. Multiculturalism and forced social integration has been a disaster, not only in the US, but everywhere. There is a graduation of being, being this Aquina's first justification, and certain people cannot bear the responsability of living among the civilized. If you mix people that have not developed, (let's say) even the wheel, with people that are more capable of doing complex things: you will see a miriad of problems. Your position is the one that the managerial elite likes most, because it offers no resistance and gives all of itself to the obligations that come from taking care of not suitable people for any normal society; as well as pretends that people that are not willing to ammount to anything considerable take advantage of the virtuous. There is a reason why some get most of the gubernamental benefits from taxes and other people pay for them, and for (e. g.) their own medical care. White and black Yankees are not the same, and of the most problematic of those two groups everywhere they cause the same problems. I have no problem in principle with someone like Obama being president, but if his kind does not know how to behave on a proportion that is absurdly astonishing then they should accept better terms. You cannot cooperate with robbers, bankers, rioters, unions, and so on. What you are is blind, and that is wrong still. Not knowing what to do is the same or worse as doing wrong.

[@aucourant9998]

All a bit too evangelical Christian for me.

[@RealKeriSmith]

Our conversation or the book? I am curious what non-believers would think of the book. I loved it and think it's very accessible to non-believers, but my "lived experience" (haha) as a Christian now might be coloring my perception.

[@aucourant9998]

@@RealKeriSmith The conversation. I love your show, Keri, so you're not going to lose me as a subscriber, but I just need to pick the ones that really interest me. I'm not a religious person myself, and I have absolutely nothing against people who are. In fact, in this day and age I think it is a positive thing as it creates strong boundaries(apart from Islam). I didn't read the book I'm afraid. I do think Christians when they get together can become a bit........ cultish is not the word (too strong), smug neither (but nearer), not quite self-satisfied.... something more along the lines of ' how jolly and cheery we are, and oh, how we can laugh at ourselves being so outrageously open'. I can't quite find the exact word I'm looking for. But I find myself gagging a bit after five minutes. I love you though, Keri.

[@OkTxSheepLady]

MAP to hell?

[@RealKeriSmith]

Exactly