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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
I have a very-limited understanding based on cursory perusal of some CRT articles and one book. This post won't explain it to you. I will provide here a few links to things written by CRT partisans and some quotations from those sources.
First up, a 'Splainer from the splainiest splainers of the progressive left, Vox. They lament the fact that CRT has morphed into a catchall category, one used by Republicans who want to ban anti-racist teachings and trainings in classrooms and workplaces across the country.
Critical race theory emerged in law schools in the 1970s and ’80s as an alternative to the mainstream discourse and classes on civil rights law, many of which held that the best way to fight racial discrimination was to enact legal reforms.The Vox article tracks with the book, Critical Race Theory, An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. From the book:
Critical race theorists...posited that racism is endemic and institutionalized in the United States.
The group was skeptical of legal theories that supported colorblindness, objectivity, and neutrality
Every analysis of the law should be grounded in historical context, arguing that “racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage along racial lines, including differences in income, imprisonment, health, housing, education, political representation, and military service.”
Critical race theory acknowledges, values, and centers the knowledge of people of color who experience racism daily.
Critical race theory is “interdisciplinary and eclectic,” meaning it borrowed from a number of traditions like feminism, Marxism, and critical legal theory.
“The interests of all people of color necessarily require not just adjustments within the established hierarchies, but a challenge to hierarchy itself.”
The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.The book's introduction lists several CRT propositions:
Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.
It also draws from certain European philosophers and theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Jacques Derrida, as well as from the American radical tradition exemplified by such figures as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Power and Chicano movements of the sixties and early seventies.
Racism is ordinary, not aberrational—“normal science,” the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country.
Most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material.
Race and races are products of social thought and relations. Not objective, inherent, or fixed, they correspond to no biological or genetic reality; rather, races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient.
IntersectionalityThe voice-of-color thesis holds that because of their different histories and experiences with oppression, black, Indian, Asian, and Latino/a writers and thinkers may be able to communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know. Minority status, in other words, brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism.
I'd better look at it before commenting.
ReplyDeleteI rather enjoyed this interview with Akala. I don't know if he considers himself a proponent of CRT and I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that I agree with him particularly, but he has a lot more history at his disposal than I do and I think he's interesting.
I have come to the conclusion that what everyone is railing against is not stricly CRT. Rather, the crap being taught in government, corporation training sessions and our schools is the rotten fruit of CRT, dumbed down and injected with tautological and logically incoherent propaganda.
DeleteRobin DiAngelo is a modern day P.T. Barnum
DeleteThis is the part that many of us zero in on:
ReplyDelete"critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law."
They believe equality will never work within our existing framework.
The question to them should be, What would your ideal system look like?
You can't legislate "trust".
Delete...and if you could, you'd most certainly compromise the most important value contributing to it..."justice".
DeleteSome among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.” ― Isaiah Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind
Now let's just all get "theoretically critical" of those irreparable losses suffered from the trade-off...
DeleteCan you successfully simply command a person to think a certain thing? Or must you go about giving them reasons to think that thing and allow them to think that thing because it makes sense to them to think it?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that all these "identies" are not interested in proving their equality by performing equally or by means of accomplishments, but rather simply by edict. That method doesn't seem to be working well. Probably less due to any inequality than due to the failure of commanding the thoughts of other people.
So we can obviously conclude that CRT isn’t easily defined so perhaps we can look at what it is not. It isn’t a concrete theory about society or racism, and has no policy agenda that’s agreeable to all CRT theorists as it consist of a variety concepts and views. Not all agree on every aspect of sociology or the social construction of race.
ReplyDeleteAnd because CRT is so complexed, it is easy to be exploited in an era of white anger by Carson Tucker and the GOP propaganda machine to be made to believe it is about virtually anything.
Again, the attacks on CRT is no more than a new form of Willy Horton or bitherism, simply because it’s politically advantageous. And it’s pretty much all they have.
Reparations is not among the academic concepts involved in CRT but rather a boogie man scare word tossed out by the propagandist in hopes that the basket of gullibles will quickly abet them in their efforts.
DeleteYes, it's a boogieman with no real basis in black expectations... lol!
DeleteCRT is meanly a "part" of the reparations desired.
DeleteHe believes the new reparations are Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education, COVID-19 relief solely for black farmers, local reparations for housing in Evanston, Illinois and pledges from corporations the past year, following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
"Restorative justice" is the Left's new "cause celebre".
DeleteJC, perhaps consuming hyper partisan media such as The Daily Caller is the reason for your misunderstanding of CRT. Even if the Carson Tucker co-founded DC had an iota of credence, it’s a grasp to accept a lone wolf black billionaire advocating reparations as a deductive argument of linking it to CRT.
DeleteTo be clear, CRT was never considered by any numbers to be taught at an elementary level. It’s done more so in law schools as portions of it pertains to arguments of systemic or institutional racism and if it ties to legal structures.
The “howl” from the right over CRT started when Donald Trump railed against the NYT 1619 Project and made comparisons to CRT. Suddenly, this appeal to the rabid base went viral. It was the perfect “abstract” and “decoding” from the Lee Atwater Southern Strategy playbook, that unlike the 50s, you could just say “nigger nigger nigger” to appease the white base but those days are gone due to the “backlash”.
This is why you’re seeing so-called conservative states passing laws and Fox and the other misinformation propaganda outlets blaring it nonstop. They’ve gone from dog whistle to bullhorn because they know they can sell the basket of gullibles literally anything and they’ll swallow it whole.
So, CRT has nothing whatsoever and is completely divorced from Critical Theory's concept of "Restorative Justice"... is THAT you contention? Cuz only a complete fool would believe THAT.
DeleteCRT is not the black man coming after the white man’s assets, which it appears to be the decoding and boogie man strategy I referenced.
Delete...which is the "restorative justice" field of critical theory.
DeleteActually, well, no.
Deletehttps://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/61-2-5.pdf 553 through 556 might give you a better understanding.
...and page 559 might help yours... In this way, Restorative Justice programs represent a real-life implementation of a very important maxim in CRT: the need to “look to the bottom.”266 In a groundbreaking article published in 1987, Mari Matsuda pro posed “that those who have experienced discrimination speak with a special voice to which we should listen.”267 Restorative Justice programs, through their focus on dialogue, open discussion, sharing of multiple viewpoints, and collaborative integration, provide a forum for the “special voice to which we should listen” and incorporate it into mutually agreeable solutions to instances of conflict.268 This represents a productive approach to resolve difficult issues caused by the long history of racial bias in the United States. Certainly, it is a more productive approach than current punitive policies.
DeletePerhaps you can elaborate on what you’re reading to translate precisely how the black man is coming for the white man’s wealth.
Delete
DeleteDavid Simson, "Exclusion, Punishment, Racism and Our Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective on School Discipline"
CONCLUSION
Punitive approaches to school discipline such as zero tolerance policies have failed America’s youth. They are robbing students of needed educational opportunities and are contributing to a wide variety of social problems. Not only that, but racial minorities—especially African Americans—who are already the most vulnerable to societal maltreatment, are hit hardest by such policies. This is not surprising given the long history of stigmatization, dehumanization, and prejudice that American society has directed toward such minorities. Improper racial stereotypes and implicit bias continue to distort our perception and evaluation of others’ behaviors, and thus negatively affect our decisionmaking regarding how to respond to instances of what the majority considers inappropriate behavior. Such processes seem to be at work in disciplinary decisionmaking in this country’s primary and secondary schools, and have led to serious negative and disproportionate treatment of African American youth, kicking them out of schools as if they do not belong there in the first place. This needs to change. One way it could change is through the implementation of Restorative Justice principles into the ways in which schools administer their disciplinary codes. Restorative Justice has shown promise not only in reducing the overt manifestations of punitive policies, such as suspension numbers, but also in exhibiting conceptual strengths that can counter the processes underlying racial discrimination in the United States more broadly. Restorative Justice deserves a chance to help remediate the damage caused by zero tolerance policies and to undermine the sources of racial conflict that have plagued this nation for too long.
Restorative Justice is a child of critical theory, just as Critical Race Theory is. It is seen as the "solution" for the "problems" CRT was developed for to "solve". Social justice is NOT justice.
DeleteJustice means giving each individual his "due". And giving African-American children a "break" because of the skin colour and the suffering of ancestors flies in the face of giving every individual his "due". They personally did "nothing" to earn any such a "break". CRT can shove their SoJus where the sun don't shine.
DeleteRestorative Justice... an eye for an eye... is as ancient as dirt.
Delete...as are its' modern variants than claim that since I poked your eye out, I need to give you one of mine for transplanting into your empty socket.
DeleteFruits of the bluebird of CRT....
DeleteRestorative justice is not an “eye for an eye” concept nor is it reparations. It means to restore justice. Reparations is the repairing of injuries caused by the injustice.
DeleteIn cases such as the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres, we need to acknowledge the injustice.
Now for any survivors or heirs of the properties who were driven from their land, whoever is residing on that confiscated land likely owes them a check.
We do acknowledge the injustice. But you'll be hard pressed to find the perpetrators of the 1920 atrocity (Tulsa) from whom to "take life" and pump it into the "dead bodies" of those killed instead of turning their children into the victims of modern day zombies and vampyres that suck their life earnings.
DeleteActually, we didn’t acknowledge Tulsa or Rosewood FL.
DeleteWe hid them.
Joe Biden didn't acknowledge them? LOL!
Delete...and so why "insist" we continue to "acknowledge" Tulsa? The victims and perpetrators are dead. No "Restorative" justice is possible. Frankenstein cannot be re-animated.
DeleteIf Blacks want restitution, let them sue the DNC.
DeleteTHEY are the one's who "hid it all".
DeleteYou’ve unfortunately gone from not making sense to full blown Trump cultist batshit crazy.
Delete...after all, the much advertised "wealth gap"... Within the lower 50% of households, the gap between Black and white households is only 3%.
DeleteWe're not all that different.
The Noble Lies of the "race obsessed".
DeleteJoe,
DeletePlease, slow down. You are humiliating our left-indoctrinated guest, Ronald.
Poor Ronald. Joe makes you look probably dumber than you are. He brought it chapter and verse; Ronald didn't.
Critical race theory is the new explicit lyrics warning sticker on music recordings to make them sell better. Cancel culture vs. Eminem... Eminem won.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that while not everyone will understand, or agree on what CRT is, we are moving to ban even considering it in schools.
ReplyDeleteIt was just a few days ago that we were decrying how the ideologues came after Winston Marshall of Mumford & Sons. Here's what you said...
"Ideologues want all of you: Heart and soul, body and mind, and you must recite all the right words. No nuance."
Might we be able to level the same criticism at the critics of CRT? 5 states, Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma have already passed laws restricting what can now be taught in the classroom, specifically targeting CRT.
But as part of that movement, 4 of those 5 state laws prohibit any curriculum or activitie that would cause “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”
Now I'll admit sometimes I'm about as smart as a country hayseed, but it seems like that statement falls into snowflakelandia.
Since when have conservatives supported not saying things, or teaching things that might cause someone anguish, distress or hurt their feelings?
CRT asserts a conclusion that is an assertion. Hell yes we have a right, indeed a duty, to reject this ideology.
DeleteWe here agree we need to teach some unvarnished history. What CRT (or whatever the hell it is) teaches is racial determinism: White = oppressor, POC = victim. That is destructive to everyone and to our society.
But Silver, there are now laws on the books in states that essentially preclude teaching, for example the role of the state in what happened in the Tulsa massacre, or even teaching about it at all if that teaching would cause distress for students.
DeleteThese laws are being passed now based on abjections to a theory. While we may agree that we need to teach the unvarnished history, if that history now upsets students, it is illegal in some states to be taught.
Those are not snowflake laws by lefties, those are laws written by conservative legislators and signed by conservative governors that effectively bar teaching about any history that might upset people.
How do we deal with that?
Simple. Why'd DOMA get passed? Because of crazy Lefty demands for policy changes vis "marriage". Why'd these laws get passed? Because of crazy Lefty demands for policy changes.
DeleteBad policy change proposals result in bad laws. So stop with the crazy policy change proposals to grants "justice" to those 100 years in the grave or to allow paedophiles to act out their fantasies with our kids.
@SF: Where can I find this racial determinism? Is there any in Delgado and Stefancic's book? (not read much of it yet)
DeleteJez, As I have previously stated, and I provide the book for everyone, I don't think what we are fighting is strictly CRT. Rather, we are fighting CRT's pop psychology crack baby as propounded by P.T. Barnums like Prof Kendi and whatshername DiAngelo. They blatantly state that white = oppressor, POC = oppressed.
DeleteThere's certainly a lot in Kay & Peele's comedy
DeleteWhere do you suppose this kynicism comes from?
DeleteThis is the most damning piece of CRT, IMO:
Delete"critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law."
Followed up by their nods to Gramsci and Derrida, it is clear they are all about tearing down a system where in the span of 160 years, black people have gone from the chains of slavery to university graduates, professors, doctors, decorated soldiers, generals, CEOs of major corporations, etc. Most importantly when judging this society and its institutions, POC sit equally beside "white" students, POC enjoy equal status, and supervision over, "white" people in workplaces all over America, and POC are fully embedded in our military, and most importantly in our de-segregated neighborhoods. "White" people and people of color enjoy parties in each others homes, BBQs and sporting events together.
This is the system the carnival barkers, grifters, charlatans, latte leftists and Che Guevara wannabes want to tear down.
Fie on them all.
* - And those of you who know me know "Fie on" is my substitute for a more infamous word that starts with F.
Dave Miller,
DeletePlease provide a link and a quote for the law that prohibits teaching about the Tulsa riots.
Weren't Gramsci and Derrida wypipo?
Deletelol!
DeleteI'm going to hell for that ;)
DeleteBut seriously, isn't CRT inherently tainted by its foundations in the thoughts of old white guys?
Isn't all "culture". The British Raj invented Indian culture. Post-colonial studies of Homi Bhabha proved it.
DeleteMalcom X was an 'X' because his ideas of black culture had been influenced by Western ideas.
DeleteThe Hybridity that have rise to Intersectionality...
DeleteIf you are asking me for a direct line that says "You cannot teach about the Tulsa Race Riots and their cause, it does not exist. But given the line about causing someone discomfort or distress, it is easy to see that happening.
ReplyDeleteAnd that line is in multiple state laws, almost word for word as detailed in the Guardian article.
At the end of the day, if a student feels guilty during the teaching about what happened in Tulsa, or Rosewood, or the New York slave market, in those states, the teacher is prohibited from teaching about those events.
The Texas Law
The Ohio Law
An overview from The Guardian
The NY Times on Memory Laws
Dave, Your intellectual dishonesty disappoints me. Please, don't link, provide a citation.
DeleteThe Texas link looks like a great guide. Tell me where it is wrong.
Dave,'
DeletePlease tell us what is wrong with this:
"No state agency, school district, or school shall teach, instruct, or train any administrator, teacher, staff, member, or employee to adopt or believe any of the following:
– An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex"
Getting upset about the Three-Fifths Compromise in the US Constitution?
DeleteThe "cure" may be worse than the "disease."
DeleteOur schools should not be teaching anyone that they should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of their race or sex.
DeleteYou can teach the history of racism and slavery all day long without demeaning the students in the classroom.
So when a school brings in Jane Elliott to harass and humiliate white students will they be protected in their free speech to call her an effin moron?
DeleteI hope so!
DeleteCan schools teach about IQ and AQ? Because if they can't they should be barred from collecting data on student performance or discipline by race.
DeleteSilver... here's some of the Ohio text...
ReplyDeleteSec. 3313.6028. (A) No state agency, school district , or school shall teach, instruct, or train any administrator, teacher, staff, member, or employee to adopt or believe any of the following concepts:
Fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to a race or sex or to members of that race or sex because of their race or sex;
Let's assume a kid decides to ask if white people in the founding of the US are at all, even partly responsible for slavery...
How should the teacher answer that question without running afoul of the law?
An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's race or sex;
Now let's assume the teacher answers that question as yes, the people primarily responsible for slavery in the early years of the US were white people.
Now let assume that little Johnny, a white kid, is distressed because he has always been taught by his parents that slavery was part of God's plan and was necessary to complete our Manifest Destiny. He's confused, anguished and uncomfortable.
The teacher is now in violation of the law.
How on earth can anyone teach the horrors of slavery and assign responsibility for that heinous practice and make sure no one feels discomfort or distress?
Hell, some of the stuff I read makes me uncomfortable and feel distress and my connection to our founding runs through Thomas Paine, one of the group of founders who did not own slaves.
See Jayhawk's common sense answer below. "
Delete"White people did bad things" does not equal "I am white so I am guilty"
:P :)
DeleteI love Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. I just found Prof Loury last year, but I have been a fan of McWhorter for years. My IQ gets a boost every time I listen to them.
DeleteProgressives hate truth tellers.
"Let's assume a kid decides to ask if white people in the founding of the US are at all, even partly responsible for slavery...
ReplyDeleteHow should the teacher answer that question without running afoul of the law?"
The right answer, and an easy one, is, "White people as a whole? No." SOME white people were responsible, SOME white people were partly responsible, and SOME white people opposed it at the time and bear no responsibility whatever. At the same time Some black people owned slaves at the time and were responsible for slavery themselves.
The point is, you cannot assign blame based on the color of one's skin.
DeleteTC: What about it? You teach it as history teachers teach it. You place it in historical context. This was a document written by men of the time. Obviously, we don't talk about Native Americans that way now.
DeleteWe have progressed, which is the logical outcome of a Christian, enlightenment society based upon rationality, equality and the rule of law.
DeleteThese are the fights that will happen under these new regulations. These laws may be steering against the skid. Conservatives should get back to abolishing the Department of Education instead of trying to polish the turd.
Delete@ ""Conservatives should get back to abolishing the Department of Education instead of trying to polish the turd."
DeleteAmen ++
Any statement starting with "all (fill in the blank) people... is suspect and has no business in the classroom.
Delete...except when used intentionally to EVADE responsibility and spread the blame around. Three Dixiecrats turning Republican in the '68 election doesn't prove that America was founded on racism in 1619 or that it's systemically racist today. It's time to share who was "really" to blame.
DeleteEvil today is just as banal as evil was in 1861. Identifying the real villain so that we can disempower its' erstwhile supporters sometimes requires an "heroic" and "radical" act.
Delete"For they know not what they do".
Lincoln and the Republican Party were heroes. They don't deserve the "racist smears" they've be attacked with.
THAT is how one reclaims the morality ceded to government "others".
Deleteand stops being a "rag"...
DeleteIsaiah Berlin, "Letter to George Kennan" (1951)
What else horrifies us about unscrupulousness if not this? Why is the thought of someone twisting someone else round his little finger, even in innocent contexts, so beastly (for instance in Dostoevsky's Dyadyushkin son [Uncle's Dream, a novella published in 1859], which the Moscow Arts Theatre used to act so well and so cruelly)? After all, the victim may prefer to have no responsibility; the slave be happier in his slavery. Certainly we do not detest this kind of destruction of liberty merely because it denies liberty of action; there is a far greater horror in depriving men of the very capacity for freedom--that is the real sin against the Holy Ghost. Everything else is bearable so long as the possibility of goodness--of a state of affairs in which men freely choose, disinterestedly seek ends for their own sake--is still open, however much suffering they may have gone through. Their souls are destroyed only when this is no longer possible. It is when the desire for choice is broken that what men do thereby loses all moral value, and actions lose all significance (in terms of good and evil) in their own eyes; that is what is meant by destroying people's self-respect, by turning them, in your words, into rags. This is the ultimate horror because in such a situation there are no worthwhile motives left: nothing is worth doing or avoiding, the reasons for existing are gone. We admire Don Quixote, if we do, because he has a pure-hearted desire to do what is good, and he is pathetic because he is mad and his attempts are ludicrous.
DeleteFor Hegel and for Marx (and possibly for Bentham, although he would have been horrified by the juxtaposition) Don Quixote is not merely absurd but immoral. Morality consists in doing what is good. Goodness is that which will satisfy one's nature. Only that will satisfy one's nature which is part of the historical stream along which one is carried willy-nilly, i.e. that which "the future" in any case holds in store. In some ultimate sense, failure is proof of a misunderstanding of history, of having chosen what is doomed to destruction, in preference to that which is destined to succeed. But to choose the former is "irrational," and since morality is rational choice, to seek that which will not come off is immoral. This doctrine that the moral and the good is the successful, and that failure is not only unfortunate but wicked, is at the heart of all that is most horrifying both in utilitarianism and in "historicism" of the Hegelian, Marxist type. For if only that were best which made one happiest in the long run, or that which accorded with some mysterious plan of history, there really would be no reason to "return the ticket." Provided that there was a reasonable probability that the new Soviet man might either be happier, even in some very long run, than his predecessors, or that history would be bound sooner or later to produce someone like him whether we liked it or not, to protest against him would be mere silly romanticism, "subjective," "idealistic," ultimately irresponsible. At most we would argue that the Russians were factually wrong and the Soviet method not the best for producing this desirable or inevitable type of man. But of course what we violently reject is not these questions of fact, but the very idea that there are any circumstances in which one has a right to get at, and shape, the characters and souls of other men for purposes which these men, if they realised what we were doing, might reject.
We distinguish to this extent between factual and value judgement--that we deny the right to tamper with human beings to an unlimited extent, whatever the truth about the laws of history; we might go further and deny the notion that "history" in some mysterious way "confers" upon us "rights" to do this or that; that some men or bodies of men can morally claim a right to our obedience because they, in some sense, carry out the behests of "history," are its chosen instrument, its medicine or scourge or in some important sense "Welthistorisch"--great, irresistible, riding the waves of the future, beyond our petty, subjective, not rationally bolsterable ideas of right and wrong. Many a German and I daresay many a Russian or Mongol or Chinese today feels that it is more adult to recognise the sheer immensity of the great events that shake the world, and play a part in history worthy of men by abandoning themselves to them, than by praising or damning and indulging in bourgeois moralisings: the notion that history must be applauded as such is the horrible German way out of the burden of moral choice.
Delete- Sir Isaiah Berlin, "Letter to George Kennan" (2/13/51)
My take on this, which is based on too much bias and not enough data, is that the "all whites are racist" statements are making a point about complicity rather than culpability (I'm confident you can find quotes which artlessly mess that up, but how representative or influential are those instances?). Also I see decent people who cherish the narrative that their country is not racist to the point that they take offence at claims that their country is racist. It reflects well on us on a personal level that we're so attached to that narrative, but on a practical level, if we do in fact live in racist countries, it's not very helpful to resist that claim so hard.
ReplyDeleteWell stated. Of course, the most outrageous statements and acts from the extremes get the most coverage, but it all goes into the societal bloodstream.
DeleteIts a very small number of people denying our racist past, and it is taught in schools. Many of us smell an agenda, and that is what has everyone's hackles up.
Then they should make their point by including the rest of humanity, and not just whites, in that complicity. For to do otherwise IS to attribute culpability, and not mere complicity.
DeleteThe banality of evil does not preclude evil's former victims from becoming its' most ardent and righteous advocates once the demographic fortunes of power in a democratic society have shifted.
Delete