Black people don’t like Kanye West
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Original Question
I have a far left Black friend who told me that, “Black people don’t like Kanye West”. There are a lot of things wrong with this sentence, such as the fact that one far left Black person does not speak for all Black people, but I wanted to focus on what I think is a moralistic fallacy. The main reason my friend said that is because Kanye is a Black conservative Trump supporter and from my friend’s far left point of view no Black people should be Trump supporters to such an extent that if a Black person supports Trump then said Black personal is not really Black. Again, there are a lot of things wrong with that line of reasoning. I want to focus on one line of reasoning. I think my far left friend thinks that…
Black people ought not to be Trump supporters, therefore they are not Trump supporters.
Is this a moralistic fallacy?
Comments on Question
I am curious to know what you mean by the "far left." I come across this phrase many times but I don't know what it is referring to. Even the terms "left" and "right" are now antiquated. They are not descriptive terms but are used more as insults or putdowns.
As for the comment “Black people don’t like Kanye West” coming from one person, that is anecdotal evidence at best and one cannot make any conclusion based on such flimsy evidence (although many people do). I suspect as any performer would, West has his fans and detractors.
Answers
4Your friend's statement contains several errors. It is racist in that it asserts what people think is defined by their race, not their cognitive ability. In the famous words of Biden, "If you don't vote for me, then you ain't black."
Among the fallacies I see are Faulty generalization, Truth Claim, and (one you named) Moralistic Fallacy.
It is important to keep definitions clear. Racism is the belief ascribing intellectual, moral, social or political significance to a person’s genetic lineage. So restated, racism holds parents transmit their intellectual and character traits to their children.
Because racism contends the content of the mind (not the cognitive apparatus, but the content) is inherited, it logically follows that any individual’s convictions, values and character are determined before birth by physical forces beyond the control of the individual. Thus, racism negates two aspects of human life: reason and choice. It replaces those qualities with predestination. (Predestination, also known as determinism, is beyond the scope of this discussion, is self-contradictory.)
The effect of racism is to judge a person by the character and actions of a collective of ancestors and not by the individual’s own character and actions.
Even though I have disagreements with Ayn Rand, she wrote an excellent essay on the subject. It was initially published in the September 1963 issue of “The Objectivist Newsletter,” and included as chapter seventeen of the book “The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism.”
moralistic fallacy no true scotsman appeal to common belief argument from hearsay
He's probably basing his opinion off of anecdotal evidence within his leftwing bubble.
It is yet another example of my favorite fallacy where we confuse classifications with entities. Races are classifications (ablait dubious ones), that a large number of individual entities independently possess.
As Black people are politically organised in the USA, in that sense we could say that Black People are an Entity rather than simply a Classification. However even here the two remain separate, Black People as Entity is not the same thing as black person as Classification.
What your friend is actually saying is Kanye Went and those who like him may be black people (the classification) but they are not part of Black People (the entity).
“Black people don’t like Kanye West”
This reads more like someone trying to express their own opinion, but have phrased it as if most black people are in agreement.
no Black people should be Trump supporters to such an extent that if a Black person supports Trump then said Black personal is not really Black.
This can be rewritten as: "Black people shouldn't support Trump. If they support him, they are not really black." We'll call it 1). But that's not the same as:
Black people ought not to be Trump supporters, therefore they are not Trump supporters.
Which we will call 2). And yes, saying "X ought to be Y, therefore X is Y" (or the inverse) is a moralistic fallacy. But observe that 1) and 2) are a little different:
1) is not denying that black people support Trump, it's just saying they aren't 'really black' if they do.
2) is denying that black people support Trump in the first place.
This gets tricky though, because your friend is treating the definition of black like an exclusive club reserved only for those who share their views (no true scotsman). This isn't how words are used; black refers to race/ethnicity and has nothing to do with political views. However, I think the point they are trying to make is that black Trump supporters are problematic for one reason or another (they're 'race traitors' effectively).
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Thanks for that. It is not all that helpful, especially when it says: "The definition of the far-left varies in the literature and there is not a general agreement on what it entails or consensus on the core characteristics that constitute the far-left, other than being to the left of the political left."
Having studied political theories in university, I do realize how vague and imprecise some of these labels can be and I personally like to avoid them.