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Cynical Theories: Difference between revisions
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The “lived experience of the marginalised”, by contrast, is “reified”, rather abstractly, into a kind of transcendent truth, without the need for the dirty work of gathering evidence of what this lived experience of oppression actually ''is''. These academics just seem to ''know''. It is not clear how. You would think the daily grind of a tenured professor, however intersecting that individual’s collection of minorityships — talk about a “victim complex”! — would be rather atypical in its experience of “oppression”. Yet these people still manage to draw canonical archetypes of the “lived experience of the oppressed”, with which all members of the minority group are invited to identify, without gathering any ''evidence'' of what that “lived experience of oppression” might actually be. The justification for that: to have gather evidence is ''in itself an oppression'': it is to be subjugated before the Western power structure — the scientific method, right? — that’s doing the oppressing in the first place. | The “lived experience of the marginalised”, by contrast, is “reified”, rather abstractly, into a kind of transcendent truth, without the need for the dirty work of gathering evidence of what this lived experience of oppression actually ''is''. These academics just seem to ''know''. It is not clear how. You would think the daily grind of a tenured professor, however intersecting that individual’s collection of minorityships — talk about a “victim complex”! — would be rather atypical in its experience of “oppression”. Yet these people still manage to draw canonical archetypes of the “lived experience of the oppressed”, with which all members of the minority group are invited to identify, without gathering any ''evidence'' of what that “lived experience of oppression” might actually be. The justification for that: to have gather evidence is ''in itself an oppression'': it is to be subjugated before the Western power structure — the scientific method, right? — that’s doing the oppressing in the first place. | ||
But it is time for another irony: if to “live an experience” is ''to interact with a pervasive language game'', it is interesting to see who is making up the rules of this game. To be sure, that’s a neat card trick, but that doesn’t stop it from being utterly preposterous. But to apply even ''that'' level of syllogism, to expose its simple-mindedness, is Western, ergo oppressive, ergo | But it is time for another irony: if to “live an experience” is ''to interact with a pervasive language game'', it is interesting to see who is making up the rules of this game. To be sure, that’s a neat card trick, but that doesn’t stop it from being utterly preposterous. But to apply even ''that'' level of syllogism, to expose its simple-mindedness, is Western, ergo oppressive, ergo illegitimate. Checkmate, in the hermeneutic game. | ||
====But what about the ''actually'' marginalised?==== | ====But what about the ''actually'' marginalised?==== | ||
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In any case ''you can’t make an ought out of an is'', as {{author|David Hume}} told us (before he was — ahh — cancelled), and that ought to be the overriding lesson of [[post-modernism]]: there is no legitimate way of moving from ''de''scription to ''pre''scription. | In any case ''you can’t make an ought out of an is'', as {{author|David Hume}} told us (before he was — ahh — cancelled), and that ought to be the overriding lesson of [[post-modernism]]: there is no legitimate way of moving from ''de''scription to ''pre''scription. | ||
We should not get stuck at a place of maximum plurality, where there are no rules and structures which can arbitrate on competing views; instead, we must resort to pragmatic [[heuristic]] | We should not get stuck at a place of maximum plurality, where there are no rules and structures which can arbitrate on competing views; instead, we must resort to pragmatic [[heuristic]]s: “do what seems to work best” without getting ideologically fixated on it. [[Iterate]]. Adapt. Test. Trial, and embrace error. But that requires field-work. You have to be out there, working at it; making steps forward, back and sideways. The reason the rest of us accept Newtonian mechanics is not that it is ''true'' — as it turns out, it is not — but because ''it does the job well enough''. | ||
This is a brave book. It is thorough, careful, compelling — at times horrifying, at others tremendously funny. | This is a brave book. It is thorough, careful, compelling — at times horrifying, at others tremendously funny. | ||