This is a great insight, I'm impressed. I would like to elaborate with some of my own thoughts. I'm going to use Hughes, Kendi, and Cofnas as stand-ins for the three approaches.
1. Kendi "beats" Hughes in the sense that he makes claims about the world and Hughes has to respond by refuting them. This means Hughes is playing an ongoing game…
This is a great insight, I'm impressed. I would like to elaborate with some of my own thoughts. I'm going to use Hughes, Kendi, and Cofnas as stand-ins for the three approaches.
1. Kendi "beats" Hughes in the sense that he makes claims about the world and Hughes has to respond by refuting them. This means Hughes is playing an ongoing game of whack-a-mole. Kendi can also claim to be pursuing a better world while Hughes seems to be supporting the status quo, and the former is more emotionally compelling.
2. Cofnas beating Kendi is similar in the sense that Cofnas is playing offense and Kendi is playing defense. Cofnas makes arguments for his position and it's difficult for Kendi to refute them. Kendi has to either engage in a debate he cannot win or refuse to debate. He can try to shut down Cofnas with stigma, but this isn't going to work on every "race realist" all the time - there will always be people making claims that are difficult for Kendi to respond to.
3. Hughes has a valuable weapon against Cofnas - pragmatism. Rather than addressing the arguments themselves, he can point out that Cofnas' ideas are impractical as a path forward for society overall and for the anti-woke movement.
I think individualism is the best approach, but if Kendism has enough power it's a tough opponent to deal with.
This is a great insight, I'm impressed. I would like to elaborate with some of my own thoughts. I'm going to use Hughes, Kendi, and Cofnas as stand-ins for the three approaches.
1. Kendi "beats" Hughes in the sense that he makes claims about the world and Hughes has to respond by refuting them. This means Hughes is playing an ongoing game of whack-a-mole. Kendi can also claim to be pursuing a better world while Hughes seems to be supporting the status quo, and the former is more emotionally compelling.
2. Cofnas beating Kendi is similar in the sense that Cofnas is playing offense and Kendi is playing defense. Cofnas makes arguments for his position and it's difficult for Kendi to refute them. Kendi has to either engage in a debate he cannot win or refuse to debate. He can try to shut down Cofnas with stigma, but this isn't going to work on every "race realist" all the time - there will always be people making claims that are difficult for Kendi to respond to.
3. Hughes has a valuable weapon against Cofnas - pragmatism. Rather than addressing the arguments themselves, he can point out that Cofnas' ideas are impractical as a path forward for society overall and for the anti-woke movement.
I think individualism is the best approach, but if Kendism has enough power it's a tough opponent to deal with.