The circular argumentation and evidence-free “qualitative” claims drawn from “stories” or other “narratives” exacerbate our epistemic crisis and further thicken the postmodern miasma in which we find ourselves today. Whatever its effects on race relations, and they are decidedly negative, CRT can be dismissed on academic and scholarly grounds alone. It’s well past time that the halls of academe were emptied of such rhetorical rubbish.

Although sometimes dubbed “the ivory tower,” the academy is anything but a quaint exception to or ancillary adjunct of the real world. Quite otherwise, academia is an ideological state apparatus. I maintain that the academy is the dominant ideological state apparatus. Or, to borrow a more recent formulation, the academy is best understood as “the cathedral,” as the contemporary equivalent of the medieval papacy in our “progressive,” postmodern times.
The received notion of the academy’s irrelevance is a guise that has allowed the institution to hide its ideological role in plain sight. Yet the cathedral does generate dominant ideologies, although time is required for its products to be disseminated across the broader social body after they have been digested and excreted by the media, the interchange between the cathedral and the unwashed. However, the time lapse has decreased in the digital age, when academics can speak directly to the public on social media, and when their publications are accessible to the layperson in digital formats—although in jargon laden and often incoherent prose.
Nevertheless, if the primary means of ideological production is the academy, and if academics are the primary owners of the means of ideological production, then the pronouncements that come from academics are significant.
 ““Dead Honky”—against Technologies of (White) Violence”
It may take time for academia’s ideological work to affect the social body, but the effect is sure to be felt. That’s why a recent article, published in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, should be a cause for concern. Titled “‘Dead Honky’—against Technologies of (White) Violence,” it not only “performs violence” against “whiteness” but also represents an extreme case of academic malfeasance and fraudulence. The article has been making the rounds in conservative media, with implicit outcries over its racist language. With calls for “the death of whiteness” and “to let whiteness bleed out,” the piece contributes to the already incendiary and ludicrous field of critical race theory (CRT).
Had this essay applied its violent rhetoric and imagery to any other racial or ethnic category, its barely concealed homicidal ideation would have had its author, D.-L. Stewart, dubbed a “Nazi” and relegated to a figurative gulag in academic Siberia. Instead, the article will, no doubt, be cited favorably in future “scholarship,” by some equally or even more unhinged academic fraudsters.
Others have written at great lengths about the racist implications of such CRT texts and their corrosive effects on race relations. I will point instead to the intellectual damage it does the academy and society at large.
“Whiteness,” Stewart declares, “is itself violence.” As evidence that whiteness is violence, Stewart simply appends a footnote to the claim. The footnote baldly asserts: “Over the last 2 years, I have seen this said with a specificity and clarity by Black people on Twitter in a way I have not so readily seen in academia.” That is, the evidence that whiteness is violence can be found in unspecified tweets by unspecified black people who say so. But Stewart’s article is rife with citations to previous books and articles that also make the assertion without evidence or reasoning. Such self-referentiality has become the hallmark of academic discourse in the humanities and social sciences, and especially in CRT.
Other CRT “scholars,” Stewart also notes, have suggested that the term “whiteness” should not be used in lieu of “white people” because such usage “may deflect assigning operative agency and responsibility to white people for their white supremacist beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.”
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Morality cannot be simply part of our biology. It doesn’t deal with material reality. Morality has to do with people and relationships and fair treatment of each other. So if moral reality is all about people and their relationships, what should we conclude about where it came from? 

Dear J,
To take your objections to my last letter in order, they seem to be:

What I am calling morality is just self-preservation, an instinct for survival.
The so-called “Bigger Rule”, where we expect or demand certain behaviour from others is the same instinct, enlarged and modified for a group, or a herd. Our supposed primate ancestors travelled in troops, and this means we evolved instincts that protect the group, which in turn protects the individual. We “expect” behaviour from others because we evolved to expect protection from the herd.
None of this proves a personal universe.

All right, let’s suppose that the morality of the Golden Rule is a kind of biological instinct. When we speak of instinct in animals, we mean an impulse in them which they always obey. Birds always migrate, they don’t need to be trained to do so. They do not freely choose their instincts; they merely follow them.
But this lack of freedom in instinct is very problematic for the theory that morality is a mere instinct. If right and wrong is really just a hard-wired, biological instinct, why do we need to be told to obey it? Why are we always exhorted to do the ‘right thing’, if, in fact, the right thing is a natural survival instinct?
Indeed, we are told we ought to obey this inner morality, which you call instinct. Being told we ought to do something is itself a value judgement. Why ought we to obey the survival instinct? It’s one thing to have the sense that drinking water is needful to stay alive. This is the instinct – you feel thirsty. But why I ought to obey that instinct, why I ought to want to listen to its promptings to keep me alive is something else. Being thirsty is one thing, wanting to keep living is another. Does blind instinct tell me it is better to live than to die? Does instinct give me the value of living?
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If we act in a wrong spirit—we shall bring little glory to God; do little good to our fellow creatures; and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves! If you can be content with showing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side—you have an easy task! But I hope you have a far nobler aim; and that, sensible of the solemn importance of gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands! 

A pastor wrote to John Newton about a public letter he was planning to write to a fellow pastor confronting him a aberrant doctrinal views. Newton took the opportunity to send back a letter full of gospel wisdom about the proper way an evangelical Christian should engage in correction and controversy. In our harsh, reactionary social media age Newton’s letter may be more applicable to our context than it was his context. Nevertheless, the biblical wisdom in his letter is applicable in any age.
I thought about simple providing a few excerpts from Newton’s letter but decided even though fewer people may read it they will benefit to a greater degree (C’mon, it is only 2,100 words). Other than adding some additional headings I have not made any changes to Newton’s letter.
A Guide to Godly Disputationby John Newton
Dear Sir,As you are likely to be engaged in controversy, and your love of truth is joined with natural warmth of temper, my friendship makes me solicitous on your behalf. You are of the strongest side; for truth is great, and must prevail; so that a person of abilities inferior to yours might take the field with a confidence of victory. I am not therefore anxious for the outcome of the battle; but I would have you more than a conqueror, and to triumph, not only over your adversary, but also over yourself. If you cannot be vanquished, you may be wounded. To preserve you from such wounds as might give you cause of weeping over your conquests, I would present you with some considerations, which, if duly attended to, will do you the service of a great coat of armor; such armor, that you need not complain, as David did of Saul’s, that it will be more cumbersome than useful; for you will easily perceive that it is taken from that great armory provided for the Christian soldier—the Word of God. I take it for granted that you will not expect any apology for my freedom, and therefore I shall not offer one. For methods sake, I may reduce my advice to three heads, respecting your opponent, the public, and yourself.
Respecting You Opponent
As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.
If You Consider Your Opponent to be a Believer
If you account him as a believer, though greatly mistaken in the subject of debate between you, the words of David to Joab concerning Absalom, are very applicable: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him, or treat him harshly! The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should show tenderness to others—from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven—he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now! Anticipate that period in your thoughts, and though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.
If You Consider Your Opponent to be an Unbeliever
But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger! Alas! “He knows not what he does!” But you know who has made you to differ from him. If God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now; and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel! You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes—and not his!
Calvinists Should be the Most Gentle and Compassionate to Opponents
Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles, to the exercise of gentleness and compassion. If, indeed, those who differ from us have a power of changing themselves, if they can open their own eyes, and soften their own hearts—then we might with less inconsistency be offended at their obstinacy! But if we believe the very contrary to this, our part is not to argue, but in meekness to “gently teach those who oppose the truth—if perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.”
If you write with a desire of being an instrument of correcting mistakes, you will of course be cautious of laying stumbling blocks in the way of the blind, or of using any expressions which may exasperate their passions, or confirm them in their false principles, (humanly speaking).
Considering the Public as You Engage in Controversy
By printing your article, you will appeal to the public—where your readers may be ranged under three divisions:
Consider those with Whom You Differ in Principle
First, such as differ from you in principle. Concerning these I may refer you to what I have already said.
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