On Racism, Virtue & Vice

A Second Offering after the tragedy in Buffalo. What is a spiritual and philosophical approach to Racism? What is the root and what is the cure? This talk is equally applicable to conflicts in religion or politics and how to bridge the human divide.

Transcript

The nature of racism,

Virtue,

And vice.

This talk is meant to illustrate the root causes of racism,

How it relates to virtue.

I will go over vice since it's kind of related,

And then how to fix it,

And why some of the current methods used in the world are probably not helpful.

So what is racism?

And how would philosophers or people of spiritual background look at racism?

So Socrates at one point in the Plato dialogue,

Phaedo,

He talks about misanthropy and he labels it too much confidence of inexperience.

Too much confidence of inexperience.

This might also be under the label of a pretense of wisdom.

Pretending you know something that you don't know.

Too much confidence of inexperience.

So he explains that the way misanthropy or hatred of men develops is that a man meets someone who he believes to be a friend,

And his friend does something bad to him.

He betrays him,

Or some sort of negative interaction,

And it happens again a second time,

Or it happens again a third or fourth,

And now jaded by these experiences,

He hates all men.

But he says that this whole viewpoint is discreditable because it is not the experience of mankind in general.

So Socrates actually goes on to describe what we now talk of as the bell curve,

The bell curve,

And he says something like just as you look at big and small,

You can look at evil and good.

So just as you look at there are not so the amount of tall people,

Really really tall people you run into,

And the amount of short people,

Really really short people that you run into,

Is not very high.

The vast majority are between the extremes,

Between very very tall and very very short.

And in the same way between very very good and truly good people and truly evil people,

These numbers are also very few.

And the vast majority of people are somewhere in between.

And so your belief that all people are evil lies in too much confidence in inexperience,

Meaning you do not know how people really are,

And you are confident in your limited view.

This is why I would fit this in the category of the pretense of knowledge.

So Socrates,

As I mentioned in previous talk,

Talks about death,

Fear of death,

As the pretense of knowledge.

Pretending you know something that you do not know.

Since you do not know if death is good or bad,

You assume it's bad,

And you fear it,

But you don't really know,

Because you don't really know what happens after.

In the same way,

I would just add that I would I feel that atheism is also a pretense of knowledge,

Meaning you deny the existence and possibility of God when there's no way you can possibly know that.

Meaning there is no scientific proof that has come about that disproves some sort of universal being or universal force or the presence of God.

There is no proof of that.

But if you already believe that's not possible,

Or it could not be,

That is also a pretense of knowledge.

So if you look at misanthropy in this way,

Then you would also look at racism in this way,

Meaning racism would be considered a state of ignorance,

Often mixed with fear and anger.

So you don't know what a certain group of people is like,

So you fear them,

And because you are fearing them,

You are angry at them.

There was a dialogue in Plato where Socrates was disputing with someone,

And this person didn't like Socrates,

And so he said,

Well,

I don't want to argue with you if I don't have to,

But if we're going to argue,

I want you to be punished if I win.

And so what kind of punishment do you offer me for me to engage in this argument with you?

And Socrates replies,

There is only one suitable punishment for people who are ignorant,

And that is to learn.

And the man was not happy with that sort of reply.

He said,

No,

No,

It's not just you can learn,

There should be some financial punishment as well.

And Socrates,

Of course,

Replies to that,

Well,

I'm poor,

So I can't give you any money.

But then at that moment,

All his students chime in,

Because there's an audience around him,

And they say,

We will vouch for his money,

Because if you actually beat Socrates in an argument,

We will all shell out money for you to compensate you.

And of course,

Socrates never loses any of these type of arguments.

He always kind of mops the floor with everyone.

But basically,

In summary,

Racism is a state of ignorance.

If you wish to have an appropriate treatment of racism,

It's basically to teach them.

And so now we approach the nature of vice and virtue.

I have to insert this in between,

Because otherwise the treatment of how to fix racism will not be as easily understood,

And you may get offended at it.

So virtue,

What is the nature of virtue?

Both sides of the political spectrum,

Probably not just here in the United States,

But probably everywhere,

Believe that virtue consists of having right views.

So when you vote for someone for political office,

You look at what they believe in,

And you say,

That's what I believe in.

And I think I like that guy.

Or you look at someone who says things that you don't believe in,

And that you don't like,

And you say,

We don't like that person,

Because they believe in things that we don't believe.

And so people think that virtue consists of having right views.

So we will turn to the philosopher Aristotle,

Who says that virtue,

He debates it very differently in the Nicomean Ethics.

That's the book he wrote.

But he debates,

You know,

Is virtue a state which you kind of achieve?

Is it a state where you're constantly kind of struggling and trying to preserve?

And what does that kind of consist of?

What do you do to achieve and preserve that state?

And he states,

And very convincingly,

In my opinion,

That virtue is a set of behaviors done with a proper mindset.

Meaning virtue fundamentally consists of behavior.

So how you act and how and what kind of things you do,

And not just the things you do,

But are they done with a proper mindset?

Meaning,

If you help an old lady across the street,

And help her with her groceries,

That would count as virtuous behavior.

But if I point a gun at you,

And I say help that lady across the street,

And help her with her groceries,

And you don't want to do it,

But you do it anyways,

Because I'm pointing a gun at you.

Then,

Even though you are performing a virtuous act,

You do not have virtue in you,

Because you are performing this act unwillingly.

And so if you substitute gun for the opinions of other people,

Meaning,

What do you do virtuously when other people are watching?

And therefore,

The corollary to that is,

Do you continue virtuous behavior when no one is watching?

So in my opinion,

He makes a very good case that virtue is really behavior,

Repeated behavior done in a natural way with the proper mindset.

Meaning you continually do good acts,

Helping people,

Honoring your parents,

Being true to your friends,

Being a good citizen,

Obeying the law,

All these sort of different things that we find in virtuous people.

You are doing it out of habit,

And you are doing it with the proper mindset,

Meaning no one is forcing you to do it.

One very interesting side of virtue,

Which when I first read this,

It was shocking because of how many implications it had,

Was that Aristotle says that virtue is unconnected with opinion.

It is not connected with what you believe,

Meaning you could be ignorant of something and still be virtuous,

Meaning what you believed did not necessarily match your virtue,

Or it wasn't required.

To start with,

To help you understand,

Let's go back,

You know,

Four or five hundred years ago,

And back then people used to believe that the sun circled around the earth,

And at some point people believed that the earth was flat.

Could you hold this belief,

Which was ignorant by today's standards and wrong opinion,

Could you hold this belief 500 years ago and still be virtuous?

And according to Aristotle's philosophy,

The answer is yes.

If your behavior was good,

If you treated people the right way and you did the right virtuous behavior,

Even though your opinion was wrong,

You would still be considered a virtuous person.

If you now look at racism as a form of ignorance and a form of wrong opinion,

Then theoretically you could be an ignorant person,

A racist person,

And still be virtuous.

What a big shocking thing to say.

You could be a virtuous racist,

With the caveat,

However,

That your behavior is good,

Meaning you are treating people in a fair way and your racism does not impact the way you treat others.

So long as you are treating people in a fair way and your actions have not gone from virtuous to viceful,

They have not been harmful to anyone,

As long as your views did not impact other people in any way,

You could be a virtuous racist.

Not a very politically correct thing to say.

I will also look at some of the criticisms of Stoics.

So the Stoic philosophers lived in a time of slavery,

And the philosophers felt that slavery was an abomination,

That a man should not own another man.

And the Stoics are criticized for not trying to abolish slavery,

Did not try to overturn the system.

And one reason is because the Stoics felt that philosophy would emancipate you from slavery.

You're welcome to look at the talks on freedom and suffering,

The first talk that kind of discusses why that works.

But the idea was that even they held that view that it was wrong,

They felt that,

And virtue was the highlight of what they proposed.

They were still okay with these things,

These two things did not clash.

If you extend this concept out further,

Then two people who are on opposite sides,

Whether it's on the political spectrum,

Or a country's going to war,

Or whatever people are arguing about,

Even if it's not racism,

It could be any sort of political discourse.

Two people are on opposite sides,

And they hold opposing views,

And yet both may be virtuous people.

So ironically,

When Trump said after the neo-Nazi rally,

That there were virtuous people on both sides,

It is a distinct possibility according to this philosophy that may be correct.

Meaning if someone who is marching on the neo-Nazi side,

Did only virtuous behavior,

Never said anything or acted on his prejudice,

And behaved in a virtuous way,

It is possible that yes,

He was a virtuous person,

But only that he suffered from ignorance.

And on the other side,

There were people who had a corrective view,

Or correct opinion on the nature of racism,

And yet they were engaging in bad behavior,

Which means that despite their correct views,

They were not virtuous people.

There's an interesting quote,

I believe it comes from the Bhagavad Gita,

Where it talks,

It says something like,

Two sides go to war,

But God is on both sides.

Two sides go to war,

But God is on both sides,

Rooting for every individual to be a virtuous person,

And to fulfill their duty,

And fulfill their obligations,

And fulfill their responsibilities in the proper way,

For everyone to be just,

Even if they are on opposite sides.

And so if you look at the Ukraine war right now,

That's kind of going on,

You know,

Everyone says Ukraine is good,

And Russia is bad,

But would you say the case for all the soldiers?

And would you say God's only on one side,

Or God's on both sides?

So I saw this story on the Russian side,

Where it talked about a man in South Ossetia,

Which is sort of one of Russia's sort of independent territories,

Where it said basically in the Russian side,

They're all conscripts,

Meaning there's a lot of people who are conscripted,

And forced to kind of participate,

And they are not really given a choice,

Because all young people,

When they're 17,

18,

Or whatever,

They have to serve in the military.

So there was a story of,

You know,

This small kind of village in South Ossetia,

Where the young men were called up,

And all these,

You know,

17,

18 year old kids,

They were all kind of scared.

And there was this older man who had already done his military service,

And he was sort of seeing them off.

And,

You know,

He saw these kids,

And they were all frightened,

And they're afraid to go to war.

They're only,

You know,

17 or 18.

And he said,

All right,

I'll ride on the truck with you until you get there.

And then,

You know,

This kind of helped him,

Because he was kind of a comforting presence.

And then when he got there,

And he was going to leave to come back home,

They all kind of became anxious again.

So he said,

All right,

I'll stay with you guys,

And I'll,

Even though it's not really my fight,

And I've done my service already for the country,

I will stay with you guys,

And we will try to make it through this war together.

And it's a very touching story that someone fighting on the wrongs,

What's considered the wrong side,

May still yet be a virtuous person.

So what is the nature of vice?

Well,

Basically,

It's the same thing.

It is a set of behaviors along with the mindset.

Aristotle adds an additional concept of continence versus incontinence.

Sort of,

We look at continence today and incontinence.

Incontinence in the medical field is where your bladder kind of leaks.

And in the area of vice,

Continence and incontinence is sort of looked at in the same way.

You couldn't control it,

And it leaked out.

So an example of continence and incontinence,

We can look at the most simple one and look at food.

So you know better,

But you couldn't control your appetite,

And so you ate too much cake,

Or you ate too many cookies.

And so even though you knew what healthy diet was,

When you walked by the cookies,

And you were tempted by the smell,

And everyone's saying,

You got to have a cookie,

You lacked continence,

And so you ate the cookie.

And that's compared to someone who knows better,

Knows that the cookies are bad,

And says,

It doesn't matter.

It's not a matter of control.

I'm planning to eat 50 cookies,

No matter what,

How bad it is for me.

Meaning you know better,

And yet you still plan to do it.

And supposedly,

This is worse than if you knew better,

But somehow you were overpowered by your appetites.

In the case of law,

It's overcome by passion,

Meaning the difference between first degree murder and second degree murder,

Where the worst kind of murder is where you plan to kill someone,

And you planned a long time in advance,

And you planned how you were going to do it,

And you knew it was bad,

But you were going to do it anyways.

And then there's the sort of murder that happens by accident,

Meaning a husband comes across his wife cheating on him with somebody,

Or something like that happens,

And he murders him on the spot,

Because he was overcome by his passion.

And so that's considered not as bad as the first one,

Because you were sort of incontinent.

The most common excuse is the idea of love.

So the idea is when you're in love,

Or when you're affected by it,

Basically you can't control your actions.

And in Greek times,

This was considered a widely acceptable excuse,

Even by Socrates,

Because he talks about love as a divine madness,

Meaning you knew it was a bad thing to do.

You knew it was – sometimes you knew loving that person was a wrong person,

But you couldn't control it,

And you suffered so greatly because you couldn't control it.

You knew that it was not wise for you to do a certain action,

To spend this much time,

Or to sacrifice this,

Or to sacrifice that.

You knew better,

And yet this thing took a hold of you,

And it forced you to kind of do it.

That's a nuance compared to the Socratic view.

This was described,

I believe,

In the Plato Dialogue Protagoras,

Where Socrates says that passion could never overcome knowledge.

And it's a nuanced view.

I'm not sure it's described actually when I read the comparison,

But basically Socrates says that passion never overcomes knowledge,

Because it's the knowledge of measuring,

Which is kind of what determines what people choose.

Meaning people always – there's a maximum in both Socratic and Stoic philosophy that people always choose what is best for them,

And the problem lies in the measuring.

So if the pain,

If the overall pleasure,

If the overall good outweighs the pain,

You accept it.

Meaning you might eat bitter medicine because it helps your body get better.

You might undergo exercise,

Which is unpleasant,

Because overall it makes you better.

Or some people will engage in crime because they think the benefits of the crime outweigh the possible punishment.

And so the idea was that all people did some sort of measuring,

But not all people possess the knowledge of how to measure.

And in that instance,

When people are incontinent and they say passion overwhelms them,

Socrates is sort of arguing instead that their measurement is not accurate.

So it's not so much that their passion overcomes knowledge,

It is more that they do not possess true knowledge.

Because if they possess true knowledge,

They would be able to measure the risks of engaging in a passion versus the benefits of abstaining from it.

So true knowledge would have correct measurement,

And because it was correct measurement,

It would measure that correctly and it would not be overcome by sort of incontinence.

The next question is that is the question of whether virtue can be taught.

So in the dialogue Protagoras,

This is a very,

Very long dialogue where Socrates talks with Protagoras,

Who is a sophist,

On whether virtue is something that can be taught.

And Socrates actually argues that it cannot be taught.

Protagoras is a sophist who teaches people for a living,

And supposedly he teaches people how to be virtuous.

And so Socrates confronts him,

Has this long argument on whether or not virtue can really be taught.

One of the arguments Socrates uses is that he could name many people who were virtuous fathers.

The fathers were very virtuous people upstanding,

And yet their sons turned out to not be virtuous.

And the fathers spent all sorts of money and education and all this time and effort in order to teach virtue to their sons,

And they could not,

No matter what,

Be successful.

And there were people's sons who had,

You know,

Unvirtuous fathers who became virtuous.

And how could you explain that?

And then he further argues that you look at the sophists who teach for money,

And how many of them complain about their peoples not paying them or not doing right by them or becoming unjust or misusing what they have learned.

And so Socrates says,

If sophists are able to impart virtue and they can teach it to their students,

How come we're always hearing about their students doing bad things?

And so Socrates actually makes a theory that virtue is a divine gift,

That not everyone can kind of get virtuous.

It's just kind of,

For some people,

It's a divine gift.

You somehow manage to achieve it.

In Asian philosophy,

Mencius talks about the innate seed of virtue that all people he feels are born with.

He cites the idea that if you were a person,

A stranger,

And you saw a child walking toward an open well,

You would go and rush to stop the child from falling in the well.

And you didn't do this out of a sense of,

You know,

Wanting to get the good grace of the parents or wanting some sort of reward or wanting anything in return.

But there was something within you that felt compassion for that child,

Which would lead you towards this action.

And he talks about the four seeds,

That these things are seeded within you in some certain amount,

And it was up to you to sort of develop them.

So compassion would lead to benevolence,

The virtue of benevolence.

Shame would lead to the virtue of dutifulness.

I believe a Greek equivalent would be sort of like courage and justice.

The seed of modesty would lead to propriety,

Which I would also believe concurred with justice in the Greek side.

And then the seed of right and wrong would lead to wisdom,

Which would match wisdom on the Greek side.

My personal view after reading both is that virtue probably can be taught.

So the question is how?

And how to teach people virtue?

Meaning we teach people math by having them do 3 plus 3.

We have them,

You know,

Draw figures.

We have the abacus.

We have,

You know,

All sorts of,

You know,

Colored dots and measure,

Subtraction,

Addition,

Multiplication.

We teach geometry by drawing figures.

We teach spelling by,

You know,

Spelling out words.

We teach algebra with,

You know,

Different types of methods.

We teach art by having people try drawing.

We teach people how to ride a bike by,

You know,

Certain movements.

And so how do you teach virtue?

And perhaps virtue cannot be taught by reading books.

Virtue cannot be taught didactically,

Meaning you can't just say to someone,

Be virtuous,

And suddenly they'll be virtuous.

In the same way,

You can't say to someone,

Do this,

And then suddenly they'll do it.

But perhaps there are different pathways to virtue.

And I would argue that your development of virtue is part of your spiritual pathway.

And if development of virtue is part of the spiritual pathway,

Then I would say that what the Hindus said about the spiritual pathway is the same pathway to virtue.

So in the Hindu pathway,

They talk about the four pathways to spiritual development.

There was wisdom,

Meditation,

There was good works,

And there was a devotion or love.

And so you had these four pathways where people could spiritually develop.

And I would argue that these four pathways are the same way to develop virtue.

So in the Bhagavad Gita,

The Hindu holy text,

Krishna talks about love as being the fast pathway.

This is the fastest way to virtue,

Love or devotion.

And I would argue that this is probably true.

So if you've ever seen the movie Unforgiven,

I felt that this illustrated it the most.

So in the movie Unforgiven,

It starts with Clint Eastwood.

His wife has died and he's sort of raising these two kids,

Two or three kids,

And they're not doing well financially.

And he's trying to move them out west so they can be with the aunt and have more help kind of raising them.

And so he embarks on this adventure with a friend to sort of collect a bounty on people.

Because once he collects the bounty,

Then he'll have enough money where he can move out west and kind of give his family a new start.

And what's said revealed along the way is that the character of Clint Eastwood used to be a really bad person.

He used to be a drunk,

He used to be a gunfighter,

He's killed many,

Many people and done many,

Many terrible things.

But now he's been molded into this kind of mellow,

Soft person.

And he stopped drinking and he gave up cursing and all his bad habits.

And then as the movie progresses,

Clint Eastwood loses his best friend.

His best friend is a black man and he's killed.

And as soon as he gets hit with his terrible sorrow,

He starts drinking.

And as soon as he starts drinking,

That old person comes back,

That vicious killer person comes back.

He starts cursing and he walks into the bar where his friend is displayed outside.

And he executes the bartender right on the spot.

And this bar is full entirely of the 10 or 15 posse of sheriffs and deputies who are all armed to the teeth.

And he walks in there by himself,

He just kills the guy.

And then he points the gun at the sheriff and the sheriff says,

As soon as he shoots me,

Everyone just gunned him down.

And Clint Eastwood shoots him.

And then he pulls his other guns and he shoots and kills 10 people.

And he survives the encounter.

And on his way out,

He threatens everyone saying,

You better take care of my friend.

I've killed people.

I've killed men.

I've killed women.

I've killed children.

If you don't do right by him,

I'll come back and I'll kill everybody.

And the end of the movie,

He collects the bounty and he moves off.

And there's a small kind of phrase at the end where it says,

No one ever understood why this young woman who was from a good family,

Who was a good background,

A virtuous woman,

No one ever understood why this woman would go against her family's wishes and marry this terrible person.

And you can see that's what the effect of love is.

So the transformation of love.

So the idea is that this person loved Clint,

This character of Clint Eastwood loved this woman.

And he was able through that love to transcend his previous self,

That he became such a better person after loving this woman.

You can look at your own personal experience and this experience with others,

That when someone falls in love,

You can see changes and sometimes instantly changes you had never seen before and changes in such a rapid manner.

Whereas before they were like this,

Suddenly they've changed and they're doing this and that and they're acting a different way and they've completely shifted due to love.

Socrates,

When he talks about love,

He talks about love as showing you divine beauty.

So he says you see beauty when you see love and as part of beauty,

Some people will see divine and absolute beauty.

And as you are lifted upwards in your trajectory by love and you somehow are able to peek above where you were able to look before,

You get a glimpse of absolute beauty.

And as you rise up,

Love sort of brings you up like a cloud.

And as you glimpse divine beauty,

Some people are so affected by that divinity that their inner nature rises upwards and they are elevated by it.

And even though love fades,

The elevation remains and they reach a higher plane.

And this is why I believe that love,

They say,

Is the fastest pathway.

I told this to someone and they said,

Well,

You can't just make everyone fall in love,

Which is why Socrates calls it the divine madness.

You can throw two people together and they don't just necessarily fall in love.

It's a divine kind of inspiration.

It doesn't just happen,

But if it happens,

Sometimes you can change people immensely for a better way.

I would also mention the example of the Spartan Lycurgus and the youth.

So in Spartan society,

Lycurgus was considered a founder who created their constitution and kind of gave them their harsh and disciplined ways.

And there's a story that at one point when Lycurgus was trying to institute these reforms to create a new constitution,

There was a small group that opposed them and a youth attacked him and basically blinded his eye.

And once his reforms were accepted and everyone felt bad that this youth did something terrible to him,

Even though Lycurgus was trying to do a good thing and he was hurt by it.

So they bound the youth and they gave them to him and they said,

You can do whatever you like with him.

If you wish to punish or kill him,

We will accept whatever you deal with him,

However you deal with him.

And so what Lycurgus did was he took him under his wing and he showed him love and he taught him and he kind of helped him do good works and he had him follow him around.

And one day when the young man was ready,

Lycurgus assembled everyone and he said,

I sacrificed my eye,

But here I present to you this good citizen of Sparta.

So I've sacrificed my eye in order to make this young man a good citizen because he showed him and he helped him become virtuous.

There is a concept in Confucius that in order to make other people virtuous,

You had to develop your individual virtue first.

You could not light the candle of other people without lighting that candle in yourself,

But if you did develop virtue,

Your influence could be enormous.

And so the question that we return to now is the question of racism.

How do you fix racism in the same way and how do you teach virtue?

Both these things are connected.

You cannot cancel and you cannot scold someone to become virtuous in the same way you cannot cancel someone and scold someone to renounce their ignorance.

So how do you truly fix ignorance?

I'll tell you the story of one of my friends from meditation group.

He told a very funny story at a dinner one time about how he was when he was young.

So when he was young,

He was raised in a white neighborhood and didn't really come into contact with people of other races.

And one day he was hurt as a child and he was brought to the emergency room.

And in the emergency room,

The doctor who was treating him was Sikh.

So he looked differently.

His skin was brown and he had a turban.

He had long hair and he was afraid of him.

And as a young child,

He refused to be treated by him.

He was so petrified and afraid that he refused to allow the doctor to touch him.

And he told the story,

You know,

Laughingly because as an adult,

He's not at all racist.

He's traveled around the world.

He's lived natively in many different countries.

He speaks multiple different languages.

And now he's kind of the epitome of someone who is not racist.

But as a child,

He behaved that way.

And that's partly because he didn't have other people around that were unfamiliar.

And so the question is,

If you did what we do today to racists,

Would it have fixed his racism?

If you tried to cancel him or scold him or upbraid him or do any of the things that we are trying to do to racists today,

Would it have fixed his racism?

And so the question is,

How do you fix it?

So what matters most,

I think,

Is to fix someone's racism is that you have to see that whatever truth you're holding is not entirely true.

Meaning if you hold a truth that the other people are bad,

Something has to develop where you no longer,

Which challenges that truth you hold,

So it can be replaced by a different truth.

It is not enough to just mix people together.

Meaning you can't just shove people of different races together and expect racism to be solved.

It requires a certain type of encounter.

It requires an encounter between people of two races or people of two different ideologies,

But a very specific type of encounter,

One that is,

You might say,

Noble,

Benevolent,

And positive.

Meaning if you hold a truth that a certain type of race is stupid,

You have to have an encounter with someone of that race who is very intelligent.

If you hold a truth of someone that this whole race is lazy or something,

You have to come into contact with someone of that race who is very hardworking.

Whatever falsehood you have or wrong opinion,

You have to come into someone who exposes that as a falsehood.

And undoes your wrong opinion.

And sometimes these have to be accompanied by love.

There's a dictum in the first line of the Dhammapada,

One of the Buddhist texts,

Which states that hatred never ceases by hatred alone.

By love alone does it cease.

Hatred never ceases by hatred alone.

By love alone does it cease.

Meaning this encounter has to be accompanied by some sort of love and forgiveness.

There's a maximum philosophy that,

I forget if it was Stoics or Socrates,

But basically no person ever denies themselves the truth when they come to realize it is the truth.

Meaning you may deny it until you know,

But once you know,

You cannot deny it.

And you will never deny yourself anymore.

And you will never deny it to yourself.

You could think about an example that might be when you suspect your partner's cheating,

But you don't know for sure.

But the minute you know,

You never deny it again.

You never say it's not that case anymore.

Once you know,

You realize it and you know it's true.

And you never deny it to yourself again.

You never have that operation way.

Another example I like to give is Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Empire Strikes Back,

Where Darth Vader says to him,

Luke,

I am your father.

And Luke says,

No,

You're not my father.

You're not my father.

You're not my father.

And then five minutes later,

He's like,

Okay,

I guess you're my father.

Because once he realized the truth,

He will not ever deny it again.

Some real life examples where I feel this kind of happened.

There was an episode,

It was last year or a few years ago,

Where there was some sort of comedian,

There was some sort of racist critic of a comedian.

He was a comedian or he was an actor.

And he said all sorts of nasty things to him.

But then this comedian looked at his website and looked at his stuff.

And he saw that this critic's mother was in hospital and was having some problems.

And so what this comedian did was he sent money to this young man so that he could help his mother.

And as soon as he did that,

There was some sort of changes young man where he refused to ever speak ill of this comedian again.

And he said,

Well,

I was probably wrong.

This guy is actually a good guy.

There was a case last year,

I believe this was in the UK,

Where there was a white supremacy rally.

And it was really hot outside.

And there was one of the men passed out.

And there was the image of a black man who saw this happen.

And he went to go help him.

And the man passed out,

This black man picked him up and carried him.

And he brought him to the ambulance where he could be treated.

And so these are the sort of actions which sort of undo racism,

Meaning it's not something that can be taught didactically in a book.

It has to require this sort of action,

Where people can kind of learn.

Another example of something I saw recently was the movie West Side Story.

So you have the jets and the sharks.

But at the end of the movie,

The two races kind of come together.

And they are brought together by the love and loss of this young woman.

So this young woman mourns her lover who is of the opposite race.

And she's screaming and yelling and then she picks up the gun,

Gets the gun from him.

And she points the gun at all these other people,

The two groups surrounding her.

And she says,

How many bullets are there?

How many bullets are there that I can kill?

How many people can I kill?

And can I save one bullet for myself?

Because I know I can kill now,

Because I now have hatred inside me.

And it's such a moving scene where to see this innocent young woman filled with such hatred because of the loss of her love,

That all these people are shamed.

They're shamed and they come together and they help carry him away.

These are the sort of things that sort of undo racism.

There's also the movies,

You know,

Some other movies that I suggest.

Gran Torino,

Where Clint Eastwood plays a man who hates all the Asian people until he gets involved in their lives and he sees the positive side of them.

There's a movie,

Three Billboards at Ebbing,

Where there's a racist man whose racism is undone after the man he does something terrible to forgives him and helps him out.

And suddenly his racism is cured.

There's also the movie Green Book,

Which I thought was a very good film,

Where you have this racist white man who's a driver,

Takes his very talented genius black musician around.

And suddenly as he sees this genius,

You know,

Rich black man mistreated and sort of,

You know,

Bearing the racism in a very noble way,

He is touched by it.

And he renounces his own racism after that.

The idea is we are,

If you wish to eliminate racism,

The idea isn't to remove and kill all the racists or sequester them or cancel them or try to eliminate them.

The idea is to bring them to your side.

So in The Art of War,

Sun Tzu says,

The greatest general is the one that wins without fighting.

Only secondary is the general who fights all the battles.

So if you bring a racist from the racist side to your side,

Their numbers decrease at the same time your numbers increase.

So you want to engage people who are racists and you want them to bring them to your side.

It isn't just you knock on their doors or call them after dinner in that sort of way.

But you need a specific type of interaction,

One of the ones I described above,

To cure them of their racism.

There is an idea in Mencius where he said,

If you wish to be successful ruler of the empire,

You must first get the most difficult noble families to submit.

If you concentrate on those who are the most difficult and you get them to submit,

All others will see these people submitting to you and the entire empire will submit in turn.

Meaning if you get these,

The most difficult,

Raucous,

Racist people to submit and undo their racism,

How much more will it be helping?

If you bring their leaders onto your pathway,

The followers will follow.

I would note that the same sort of tactic is used for people with drugs and also people in dealing with crime.

So in dealing with drugs or alcohol or substance abuse,

You have people who had a problem with substance abuse who are very good at coaching people who are currently struggling with drugs or alcohol.

In people dealing with gang violence,

You have people who are former gang members who have a very good ability to help persuade young men to stay away from gangs and to renounce this type of life.

In the same way,

That is how I would approach racists.

If you can recruit from racist people people to convert them into non-racist,

Then these are the most effective people who can help cure the other racists of their racism.

There was a movie,

American History X,

Which I saw a long time ago,

But I remembered it had this sort of theme where this racist man was eventually cured of his racism after becoming friends with a man in prison,

A black man.

And afterwards,

He tried to kind of cure other people of the racism,

Seeing that it was leading to a very dark pathway.

You have to,

In a political sense,

Bring them back into the fold of acceptable behavior rather than pushing them to the margins of society,

Which is what the current strategy seems to be.

I would note that this is necessary in all sorts of fields where you are trying to make peace with opposing parties.

And what will be necessary is compromise and tolerating things you don't really want to tolerate.

So if you ever look at where groups or places or incidences where peace was made,

So you look at Sinn Féin in Ireland,

The FARC in Colombia,

The ANC in South Africa,

Or even in the future,

Possibly,

Palestine and Israel,

Hamas and these kinds of other organizations in Lebanon,

Hezbollah.

The idea is you have to sort of bring them into the fold,

And you may have to compromise to do that.

But the idea is if you bring them into the fold,

They can sort of become normalized and no longer engage in violence.

In some cases,

As in the bubble that I named,

It has been successful.

In some cases,

Not yet.

There's that great phrase.

When I looked up,

It was either Desmond Tutu or some other,

And it said,

I don't make peace with my friends.

I make peace with my enemies.

And that is the way you should kind of look at how you are going to approach racism or any sort of ism.

I would add as a sort of last sort of topic,

The idea of self-examination.

So as I mentioned above,

In order to help other people with their virtue,

You had to develop your own virtue.

Self-examination is going to be a part of this process,

Meaning,

Do you have racism in yourself?

And if not overt racism,

Do you hold prejudice?

You may even have prejudice when you look at your own people.

What kind of characteristics does my own race have?

And so there are comedians who always crack jokes against the shortcomings of their own people.

But if they did that to other people,

It might be considered racist.

There was an article in The Economist about a comedian in the United Kingdom who said something like,

You could only mock the accents of countries that held empire.

You couldn't mock the accents of people who are from poor countries and the idea that it was unfair to be picking on people who are marginalized.

And is that fair?

Is that kind of just?

In the US,

There's a thing where if a white person uses the N-word,

It's considered absolutely unacceptable.

But if a person of color uses it,

And only black people,

If they use the N-word,

It's seen as kind of a normal thing.

And is that sort of a just thing?

Meaning if these are bad words,

Should we not all abstain from using them?

Now,

What kind of example does it set if you use it,

But then say other people can't use it?

Have you examined your own kind of role in perpetuating this?

Have you examined your own role in your own anger,

In your own attitudes?

There are many people who spend too much time demanding virtue of others,

But are never asking it of themselves.

I will end with the Gandhi candy story.

I always like this story because it sort of embodies something about how you should be kind of dealing with these sort of things.

There's a story where a man brought his son to Gandhi and asked Gandhi to tell his son to stop eating candy.

The son was eating too much candy,

And he said,

My son respects you so much,

Gandhi,

That if you tell him to stop eating candy,

He will stop eating candy.

And so Gandhi says to him,

All right,

I will tell your son to stop eating candy.

Come back in two weeks.

And so two weeks later,

The man comes back and brings his son to Gandhi.

And Gandhi says to him,

Stop eating candy.

And then man says to him,

Oh,

That was easy.

Why didn't you do this two weeks ago?

Why did you make me come back?

And Gandhi says,

Before I could tell your son to stop eating candy,

I had to stop eating candy myself,

Meaning I had to figure out my own virtue before I could help you with yours.

So to look at your own hatred,

Your own ignorance,

Your own prejudice,

And say,

How much of this is in me compared to someone I do not like?

And is that just a difference of degree?

Am I really superior just because I have less racism or less prejudice or less anger than someone else?

And you realize the answer is no.

It's just a matter of degree.

It's only ego.

Suggested reading,

One is Plato's Protagoras,

Aristotle's The Nicomian Ethics,

Plato's Thedo,

The Book of Mencius,

And films which I thought are helpful for racism,

American History X,

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,

Though that's not necessarily a racism one,

But more just prejudice.

And then the movie Green Book,

Which is really good.

Unforgiven,

It's kind of violent,

But it's still very good.

And Gran Torino,

Another clean,

Tasteful movie.

This will conclude my talk.

I thank you for listening,

If you actually listened all the way.

If this talk was helpful to you,

I ask that you do one good deed in return.

The deed is not bound by size,

Only by sincerity.

Thank you.