Uncanny Valley

by Anna Wiener

“As an example, think of the abolitionists,” she said. I asked what the abolitionists had to do with libertarian contrarianism. “Well,” she said, “sometimes minority opinions lead to positive and widespread adoption, and are good.” As a neutral statement, this was hard to disagree with. Some minority opinions did lead to positive change. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But we weren’t talking about a neutral statement. We were talking about history. I took a sip of red wine from a glass that I hoped was mine, and ventured that the abolition of slavery was perhaps not a minority position. Slaves themselves were surely abolitionists, I said. Just because no one was polling them didn’t mean they did not exist. I was trying to be lighthearted. I was trying to be kind. I was trying not to embarrass both of us, though that ship might have already sailed. The rationalist turned to look wistfully at the other partygoers, now gathered in the living room and happily instructing a virtual-assistant speaker to play workout music. She sighed. “Okay,” she said. “But, for the sake of argument, what if we limit our sample to white people?”