Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Critical Lizard Theory Sweeps Nation

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by

Peter Galuszka
in , , ,

By Peter GaluszkaBacon’s Rebellion

has been filled with many thumbsuckers about how “Critical Race Theory” is an existential threat to Western Civilization.

But now there is a new theory of concern that makes the racial considerations seem, well, so 2020.

It is called “Critical Lizard Theory” and it actually exists.

According to NBC News, investigators are probing possible links between Nashville suicide bomber Anthony Quinn Warner and the conspiracy idea that many prominent people in the world such as Queen Elizabeth, the Clintons, Barack Obama, Madonna, Paul McCartney and even Bob Hope are or were lizard-like aliens who arrived on Earth and assumed human characteristics.

There seems to be evidence that Warner made trips to an undisclosed spot in Tennessee to check into aliens, NBC reports. Warner is believed to have constructed a bomb at his suburban Nashville home and placed it in a recreational vehicle before setting it off in the city’s downtown.

According to Vox, Critical Lizard Theory has been around for at least 1998. In 2008, the words “lizard people” found their way onto a midterm election ballot in Minnesota.

Vox provides a checklist for the theory. It reports that Lizard People tend to have red hair, good eyesight, low blood pressure and have unexplained scars on their bodies.

They are believed to be from the constellation Draco or maybe from Sirius or Orion. They arrived on Earth long ago and have bred with humans. They have one goal: world domination, Vox reports.

I realize that believing this is a stretch, but then, for me, it is a stretch envisioning Critical Race Theory as such a threat to justice and world order. Isn’t it really about doing some serious thinking about the enduring problems of racism? Why do people always slap up pictures of Karl Marx with their blog posts?

Is it really socialist or communist? I lived and worked in Moscow for six years and I found the Russian people to be openly racist. I won’t tell you what they called Blacks, Ukrainians, Georgians, Chechens or anyone from Central Asia.

Back in the Cold War, the Soviets set up a school called Patrice Lumumba University, named after the socialist head of the Belgian Congo who was assassinated. The idea was to bring in and educate people from the Third World and bring them into the Soviet sphere. Many hitch-hiked around the city only to be beaten up badly by Moscovites who picked them up.

Why concentrate so much on criticizing Critical Race Theory when there are so many bigger concerns such as global warming, a global virus pandemic and finally getting rid of the most incompetent president in U.S. history?

In any event, you read it here. Critical Lizard Theory is a new conspiracy concept for a new year and a new decade.

Happy New Year!

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35 responses to “Critical Lizard Theory Sweeps Nation”

  1. sherlockj Avatar
    sherlockj

    As Jeffrey J. Pyle wrote in the Boston College Law Review:

    “Critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the [classical] liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law. These liberal values, they allege, have no enduring basis in principle, but are mere social constructs calculated to legitimate white supremacy. The rule of law, according to critical race theorists, is a false promise of principled government, and they have lost patience with false promises.”

    So a brave new world without legal order and rational thought. Seems a perfect fit, Peter.

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Your chemicals are imbalanced. A blush of guilt, and here coes the blame.

      1. sherlockj Avatar
        sherlockj

        Pithy, but as usual meaningless to the debate. Which part of Mr. Pyle’s critique do you find incorrect?

  2. sherlockj Avatar
    sherlockj

    Critical theory traces its roots to Karl Marx though Western Marxist philosophers centered in Frankfurt in the 1930’s.

    “Critical Theory” means the Western-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, developed in Germany in the 1930s and drawing on the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.”

    Frankfurt School theoreticians included Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Later Jürgen Habermas.

    Those of us that write of critical theory post pictures of Marx because those philosophers would have.

  3. Matt Adams Avatar
    Matt Adams

    The Sleestak people would take exception to your article, they first appeared in 1974.

  4. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    Going all the way back to Psych 101 and way too much Freud in my reading list, aren’t the two “theories” pretty much the same? Aren’t desperate, neurotic people looking for someone to blame and scapegoat? Some way to look and see an evil conspiracy set on doing them harm to filter their world view? We’ve lost The Gods, and many have no belief in any One God, so somebody else may be out to get us. Most religions have a devil, too.

    But this pathetic nut job probably just wanted to go out with a bang, and at least had the decency to try to warn people and limit casualties. The simple explanation is usually the right one.

    1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
      Reed Fawell 3rd

      “Aren’t desperate, neurotic people looking for someone to blame and scapegoat?”

      Exactly, desperate, neurotic people project their own failings onto Others. This projection relieves them temporarily of their feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy that, working in groups, will typically inflate those groups into mob hysteria, as demagogues rise to direct and magnify these highly charged groups driven by their own inflated negative feelings of repression, rage and liberation.

      We have been increasingly seeing these dynamics in play since the spring and summer in Charlottesville in 2017. Here now, the demagogues, seeking ever more private advantage and control of the disadvantaged, are targeting ever more aggressively white people and white culture as the scapegoated oppressors.

      And now too, to our great misfortune, our Republic that was intentionally designed and built by the founders to thwart these naturally occurring hate group dynamics, has been severely and increasingly breached, perhaps irreparable, into an increasingly pure and angry democracy.

      In these circumstances, our evolving democracy is feeding, empowering, and magnifying these awful group dynamics that far too often lead to collapse of cultures and nations. Think ancient Greece. Think French Revolution. Think Russian Revolution. Think Germany between 1919 and 1939. Here the middle classes, losing power and morale, typically collapse into lower classes. Then society’s anchor is gone. If we are lucky, our stable democracy that is already morphing into a tyranny by majority will not fall into a rabble majority controlled by Oligarchy. If we are unlucky, our nation will instead descend into mob rule that requires an absolute tyrant to restore order by force and maintain it by constant coercion, until that tyrant overthrown. It took nearly two thousand three hundred years for Greek democracy to recover, and they were lucky. China now is waiting hungerly in the wings.

  5. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Capt. Jim,
    I tried to look up Pyle’s article. I couldn’t get to it, but I noticed he wrote it in 1999. A question. Why are conservative commentators so concerned about race theory now? In fact, the only places you read about it are the op ed pages of the WSJ. What is the timeline? Why is it of such concern now?

    1. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      Because we see it in action.

      Take but one example that I have illuminated in this space – the dogma that merit is racist has led to the active successes of movements against testing and grading in Virginia. See Albemarle County’s new grading system that eliminates use of test scores, attendance and homework completion as elements of grading. See the Northam Administration’s attack on testing and measured achievements (required prerequisite courses) as a gatekeepers for Governor’s schools, magnet schools and even AP classes.

      See the Democratic party platform (https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-07-31-Democratic-Party-Platform-For-Distribution.pdf ) that doesn’t want parents to know where the educations of their children stand:

      “The evidence from nearly two decades of education reforms that hinge on standardized test scores shows clearly that high-stakes testing has not led to enough improvement in outcomes for students.… Democrats will work to end the use of such high-stakes tests and encourage states to … rely on multiple and holistic measures that better represent student achievement.”

      Eliminate the evidence of inferior educations and eliminate the pressures to improve them.

      That is critical race theory in action. Instead of raising the performance of the poor, lower the bar. You might say that is not what you mean by critical race theory but that is how it plays out in practice.

      I have a very hard time seeing how those changes are in the best interests of children but a very easy time seeing how they are in the interests of critical race theorists and teachers unions.

      I await your ideas on this.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        A lot of research has shown that standardized tests are indeed biased against students from poor families and students of color. Furthermore, they do not do a good job of predicting future student achievement. https://otherwords.org/standardized-tests-are-biased-and-unhelpful/

        What is wrong with relying on “multiple and holistic measures that better represent student achievement”? Nobody is advocating giving students a free pass, just figuring out the best ways of evaluating their abilities and achievement.

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Peter, Why is CRT such a concern now? Perhaps you notice that almost everyone of our posts mentioning it, we link to something going on in Virginia that either mentions CRT explicitly or reflects CRT thinking. Loudoun. Fairfax. Albemarle. VCU. UVa. Virginia Department of Education. Perhaps we should just keep our heads in the sand and pretend none of this is happening.

  6. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Peter, let’s see where the application of Critical Race Theory in Virginia’s public schools takes us. There’s a simple metric to see if it accomplishes what it is supposed to: the narrowing of the educational achievement gap between the major racial/ethnic groups as seen in standardized test scores. If the scores narrow when the SOL tests are administered this spring, then maybe the combination of more money (I won’t say “mo’ money” because you find the term to be a racist cultural appropriation of a phrase coined by an African-American rapper) and CRT indoctrination over the past two years has had a beneficial effect (although we’ll still have to figure out if it’s the money or the CRT that made the difference). If the gap widens, then reasonable people will conclude that CRT is a failure.

    1. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      The Democratic platform promised to eliminate tests to cover up the evidence of the educational system failing the poor. That will eliminate the pressure to do better.

    2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Jim, in devising your “test”, you are conflating CRT, standardized testing, and levels of funding for education. I do not see where those components are necessarily correlated.

  7. Emilio Jaksetic Avatar
    Emilio Jaksetic

    Rather than express my personal opinion about critical race theory, I’ll note some books that might be worth looking at to get some perspective.

    A sympathetic presentation about critical theory is Stephen Eric Bonner, Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Second Edition (Oxford University Press, 2017).

    A sympathetic presentation about critical race theory is Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, Third Edition (New York University Press, 2017).

    Some critiques of critical theory and critical race theory are Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019) and Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity — And Why This Harms Everybody (Pitchstone Publishing, 2020).

    In addition to these books, there are others available for anyone interested in exploring the origins, nature, and pros and cons of critical theory and critical race theory.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Thanks for this positive contribution to the discussion.

  8. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    I could not open the Pyle essay so I could not read it

    1. Emilio Jaksetic Avatar
      Emilio Jaksetic

      Try looking at the Pyle article at https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2124&context=bclr

  9. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    Peter –

    “Is it really socialist or communist? I lived and worked in Moscow for six years and I found the Russian people to be openly racist. I won’t tell you what they called Blacks, Ukrainians, Georgians, Chechens or anyone from Central Asia.”

    Oh, come on, Peter, you can tell us. After all the names you’ve call us, surely you can fess up about “what Russians’ call Blacks, Ukrainians, Georgians, Chechens or anyone from Central Asia.” We’re all big boy and girl grown ups here on Bacon’s Rebellion.

  10. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Reed. Since you are so interested, it is “chorni zhapi”” or “black assholes.”

    1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
      Reed Fawell 3rd

      How about Americans? And Chinese? Whatta the Ruskies call them folks?

  11. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    racism, classism, and related is NOT just an American thing.

    What’s different is that up until this point, we considered ourselves “better” on these issues and it turns out – we’re a lot like other countries where people hate those that are different from themselves.

    Outlandish conspiracy theories? Beyond that, people believing what they want to believe no matter the evidence, i.e. the evidence itself is fake?

  12. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    CRT and global reset will go hand in hand down the yellow brick road.

  13. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    Critical Race Theory? White privilege? Meh. I can throw a number on my advantages and white privilege is a very minor contributor.

    Neglecting luck, and admitting to an enjoyment of working hard to solve problems at work, I have no problem enumering and describing the other elements that have contibuted to a so-far successful life.

    They are those attributes of which “personal whiteness” is just one. Just back of the envelope stuff here, not going to do the n-dimensional integration of distributions for this.

    1) Smart — always scored in the top 5% on every standardized aptitude test starting in junior high school right on through to the GREs, so already knocked out 95% of you guys right there.

    2) Tall — 6’3″+, that put me at another advantage, as compared to the Napoleonic personalities out there. Here, while way up on you white guys, it’s a bit of a mediocre measure against the black population. Probably a 70% advantage overall.

    3) Combine (2) with a trim 175 lbs, rakish good looks, and that left me with a scorecard at 25 that would make Bill Clinton blush. That kind of confidence always comes through in the job interviews. Did for him, eh?

    So, if whiteness played a role, well, it would’ve been to eliminate a tall Denzel Washingtons who were capable with a slide rule and a graduate degree. Maybe, what, 10,000 competitors?

    Now, societal white privilege?

    Well, unlike you other white guys, I didn’t go to a college that was built by slaves, but I did do my undergraduate studies at a college that was built in 1961 on a vacant lot amid a white affluent neighborhood when the all-white City Council made a quick deal with a State college that WAS built by slaves in order to prevent the feds from building Section 8 housing. So, yeah, there’s some white privilege. A middle class white guy got an education and a lot of poor black kids didn’t get a place to live.

    Wow, that was waaaay too long for so little snark.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Messy Snark!

      The one thing that amazes me about CRT is that there seems to almost no middle ground. The two sides have staked out positions and there is no-mans-land in between.

      And I’d bet if you asked about removing statues – the differences between the two would be stark.

      1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
        Nancy_Naive

        Oh, stark. I thought you said, “snark”. Yeah, they’re quibbling over meaninglessly little just to feel smart.. and political.

      2. Nancy_Naive Avatar
        Nancy_Naive

        No worries, Larry. All these white guys will solve the problems of the minorities just as soon as they eliminate any solutions that the minorities think could work first.

    2. Matt Adams Avatar
      Matt Adams

      William & Mary was most assuredly built and maintained by Slaves.

      https://www.wm.edu/sites/enslavedmemorial/slavery-at-wm/index.php

      1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
        Nancy_Naive

        As was UVa. But read it again. Just the last paragraph. And 1961 is not a typo. It rambles, but I did not have time to make it shorter.

        W&M was grad school.

  14. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Emilio,
    Thanks for the Boston College Law article. I have skimmed it but need to spend more time with it. It did note this:

    “No single manifesto defines critical race theory. Attempts at synthesizing its variations are rare, and ultimately prove more elusive than
    enlightening.’”
    My guess is that this is another iteration of the debate over affirmative action dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. I have followed this for years going back to LBJ and the Great Society, court decisions like Charlotte-Mecklenburg and then Judge Garrity’s controversial ruling in Boston. J. Harvie Wilkinson, whom I knew when he was editorial editor of the Pilot, wrote a book on Bakke.
    It will be interesting to try to fit this complex topic in a timeline although I still don’t understand what is making this so important right now and why you only read about in conservative publications.

    I’m only willing to go so far. I really don’t want to go through Marcuse again.

  15. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Reed, I can’t answer all your questions but the Russians call Ukrainians “hok Lee” because if what Russians consider their stuttering accent. They call Mongolians “tegs” after their currency and Italians “macaronies”

  16. warrenhollowbooks Avatar
    warrenhollowbooks

    “Why concentrate so much on criticizing Critical Race Theory when there are so many bigger concerns such as global warming, a global virus pandemic and finally getting rid of the most incompetent president in U.S. history?”

    Ah yes, why be concerned about a far Left, racially eliminationist theory that dominates the educational establishment that teaches our young when we can be concerned about important things . . . like hundred year old statues?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      why, I haven’t heard such talk since:

      https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/ff/35/62ff3598ec416d4df2c78b3a7ecc3985.jpg

      Seriously, some of what is going on right now has an eerie similarity to what was going on when the schools were integrated.

  17. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Snore

  18. TBill Avatar
    TBill

    Bacon’s Rebellion scope?

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