Prometheus 6   

You should understand that in this context, I am writing about conservatives who truly desire a color-blind society. I am specifically not writing about those who want to use rhetoric about a color-blind society to further a racist agenda.

Standing on the Shoulders of Your Opponents

In the last year, I have quite possibly spent too much time arguing with people on the internet. While it has been great fun, there are a number of argumentation difficulties which I see again and again. A particular mode of discussion bothered me, but I couldn't identify why it annoyed me so much.

I recently saw a reference to the fairy tale about the farmer who killed the goose that laid golden eggs. That fairy tale gave an excellent framework for the idea that was bouncing around in my head. It involves arguments in which you stand on the shoulders of your opponent by relying on his accomplishments (or the accomplishments of his group) in order to advance your own. What you often don't see is that your own arguments undercut the giant you are standing on. It as if, in an attempt to reach higher, you diminish the reach of the ladder you are standing on. The idea isn't fully formed, so I'll give examples.

Standing on your opponent's shoulders doesn't automatically invalidate your argument. It merely means that you should be extra careful about how you proceed. If you don't, you may well kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Modern conservatives and race: This isn't the example which first caught my eye, but it is one of the clearest ones, so I'm putting it first. You should understand that in this context, I am writing about conservatives who truly desire a color-blind society. I am specifically not writing about those who want to use rhetoric about a color-blind society to further a racist agenda.

Most modern conservatives whole-heartedly agree with Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. A generation of people have worked toward that goal, many of them American liberals. Even if you disagree with the specific set of policies which are currently suggested by American liberals, it is very important to be aware of the advances which have been made in the recent past. It is not acceptable to risk these advances in your opposition to the proposed policies. Conservatives need to remind themselves that these advances did not just happen. The advances in racial understanding have been gained by hard work and vigilant enforcement. When arguing about specific programs, it is important to be certain that you are not doing damage to the whole project. By way of example, if you want to argue against racial preferences in college entry decisions, you need to work twice as hard to make good education available at the elementary school level. If you fail to improve such access, then you are guilty of standing on the shoulders of the civil rights movement but reaching for the goal of a color-blind society while undercutting your ability to actually get there. A society can't be color-blind if black people have access to an inferior education