I suspect you have heard about Scott Adams’ cancellation resulting from what many see as a racist rant on his podcast “Coffee with Scott Adams.”

Karen wrote about the kerfuffle the other day, and I have been trying to figure out what I think about it.

Here is a clip from the video that started it all:

This is the absolute truth what @ScottAdamsSays is saying here. He had to have known that all the coward newspapers would drop his Dilbert comic strip. I admire Scott Adams for doing it anyway. pic.twitter.com/sy0vhHutV2

— Jesse Lee Peterson (@JLPtalk) February 25, 2023

Adams is responding to a Rasmussen poll that found that almost half of all Black people either don’t think or aren’t sure that “it’s OK to be White.”

BLACK AMERICANS ONLY:
"It's okay to be white."
53% agree, 26% disagree, 21% not sure

"Black people can be racist, too"
76% of agree, 27% disagree, 8% not sure. https://t.co/5pYBvT00qn

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) February 22, 2023

The particular deficits of the poll are only marginally relevant here, as the issue I want to talk about is Adams’ response. But it should be noted that the sample size was minuscule–only about 130 Black people because this was a subsample of a larger poll–so the numbers presented have a fake precision. The margin of error is huge. Jeff Charles addresses the poll in a long thread:

For those who missed it, Rasmussen published the results of a survey in which it asked white and black respondents if they agreed with the statemnt: "It's OK to be white."

According to the poll, supposedly 53% of black Americans "somewhat" or "strongly" agreed with the statement

— Jeff Charles, A Respectful Anarchist🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) February 27, 2023

But taken on its face, that almost half of Black people question whether “it is OK to be White,” is what triggered Adams’ comments.

Adams is well aware that the particular phrase “it’s OK to be White” isn’t a neutral statement–it became a counterpoint to the whole Black Lives Matter movement and hence has a meaning to many Black people that extends beyond the plain meaning. It is a slogan some use as a refutation of a political movement.

Again, that matters, and I am sure Adams knows that. He has said as much in a (long) interview he did. Again, though, that is almost beside the point because the phrase and the poll were simply excuses to drop his rhetorical bomb.

I'm accepting criticism from anyone who has seen the full context here.

The rest of you are in a fake news bubble but I trust you suspected that.

Scott Adams Interview – It's Okay to Be White https://t.co/yP6rNiOXnS via @YouTube

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 26, 2023

I actually watched the interview, in which Adams discusses why he said what he said, and I think I understand why he said it.

Adams knew what he was doing: he wanted to be canceled. He chose his approach with forethought. You may think his cancelation is wrong, but it certainly was expected by him. As a rich guy he decided he could do this and be fine, and so he did it.

So…did he have a good point?

His point: to get attention to what he sees as an enormous problem. Knowing that he would become the focal point of controversy, he dropped his bomb on the target.

His target was racial essentialism, and the growing argument in the DEI and CRT movements that it is, in fact, not OK to be White. CRT is based upon the idea that Whites are essentially–and by that I mean at their core–oppressors and no matter what an individual believes or how they act they by their nature oppress non-Whites.

Adams’ argument is simple: this is toxic, and White people shouldn’t tolerate being treated as if this is true. And if it continues Whites should simply refuse to live with it.

He’s right, of course, about that. The argument is profoundly illiberal and is fundamentally no different than any tribalistic ideology that has driven genocides, whether it is Nazis vs Jews and Slavs or Hutus vs. Tutsis. Assigning the worth of individuals based on their membership in a race or ethnic group is toxic and leads to social strife and violence.

We see the results all around us. Segregation is on the rise and the assignment of social benefits is becoming dependent upon group identities. The justification of privileges based not upon individual merit but upon accidents of birth is becoming common–precisely the problems that our society has spent decades trying to eradicate.

If the benefits of society should be distributed based on race, then the justifications for that are up for debate. Why not give Whites privilege? If the concept of privilege based on race is reasonable, what is essentially wrong with White privilege? Whites are the majority, so taking the goods of society by the force of law just makes sense if the principle itself is justified.

In other words: be careful what you wish for.

Ironically I have been waiting for this argument to be made because the proper answer is that it violates the basic principle that we are all the children of God and of equal moral worth inherently. It is our actions, not the accidents of birth, that determine our just desserts. Once you go down the path of racial essentialism, life becomes a war between different races. And if that is the case, the majority will win.

Racial essentialism has had a devastating impact on race relations, which Adams noted. In 20 years the belief that race relations are good has dropped by half:

Worse than I thought. https://t.co/3quXjn6bf1

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 26, 2023

It is this point that I believe Adams was trying to make, as became clear in his interview with Hotup Jesus in the above tweet.

This brings me to the question: is Adams accomplishing what he set out to do: drop a bomb and start a conversation?

Short answer: I don’t know. The cancelation itself is obviously not a problem for Adams, as he anticipated it and chose to accept it. His $75 million nest egg will serve him well and cushion the blow if a blow it is to him at all. He chose to do this and knew that the cancelation would ensure that the discussion take place.

What is a problem is that it is impossible to know whether he will achieve what he set out to achieve, or whether this will just be yet another in a long line of controversies that erupt and go away within days. And if that is the case, will it just harden the opinions of the people who cared enough to react, making things worse?

Fair https://t.co/1v9LHU0JYf

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 27, 2023

I suspect it is the latter.

In either case, Adams will be fine. Whether the cancelation of his career as a cartoonist is fair or not clearly doesn’t matter to him. As with J.K. Rowling, his wealth gave him the luxury to do this so he decided to.

Adams, though, doesn’t have the cultural clout that Rowling does, and the issue he is addressing is if anything a tougher nut to crack than transgender ideology, which eventually will implode because it has far shallower cultural roots.

I certainly wouldn’t have chosen this path. But I am not Scott Adams.