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A brave book in our polarised times, in {{br|Cynical Theories}}, {{author|Helen Pluckrose}} and {{author|James Lindsay}} take on the intellectual foundations of the current strain of militant leftist “critical” thought. Brave because the received wisdom piped into our liberal echo chambers declares that the intolerant ''right'' is the problem. Brave, because of the repercussions — mass shaming, mob rule cancellation, livelihood ruination — that sometimes rains down on those who transgress its principles, even inadvertently. It’s somewhat bracing even writing a favourable book review. | A brave book in our polarised times, in {{br|Cynical Theories}}, {{author|Helen Pluckrose}} and {{author|James Lindsay}} take on the intellectual foundations of the current strain of militant leftist “critical” thought. Brave because the received wisdom piped into our liberal echo chambers declares that the intolerant ''right'' is the problem. Brave, because of the repercussions — mass shaming, mob rule cancellation, livelihood ruination — that sometimes rains down on those who transgress its principles, even inadvertently. It’s somewhat bracing even writing a favourable book review. | ||
So I wouldn’t fancy {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s mentions right now. (There’s a simple answer to dealing with crappy mentions, by the way, folks: | So I wouldn’t fancy {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s mentions right now. (There’s a simple answer to dealing with crappy mentions, by the way, folks: [[get off Twitter]].) | ||
====The [[Theory]] of [[Theory]]==== | ====The [[Theory]] of [[Theory]]==== | ||
Anyway. Call it what you will: critical [[theory]], social justice [[theory]], applied (''post''?) [[post-modernism]], “[[Theory]]” with a capital “T” or just raving bonkers wokeness — it is a movement that tactically defies categorisation, and therefore critical appraisal by deliberate design. In {{br|Cynical Theories}} Pluckrose and Lindsay wilfully transgress those [[Hermeneutic|hermeneutical]] boundaries and pin it down, articulating, examining and shining an unflattering light on it and the ways it subverts traditional liberal values of openness, enquiry and reasoned debate — liberal values that, they cogently argue, have delivered most of the social progress of the past half-century. | Anyway. Call it what you will: critical [[theory]], social justice [[theory]], applied (''post''?) [[post-modernism]], “[[Theory]]” with a capital “T” or just raving bonkers wokeness — it is a movement that tactically defies categorisation, and therefore critical appraisal by deliberate design. In {{br|Cynical Theories}} Pluckrose and Lindsay wilfully transgress those [[Hermeneutic|hermeneutical]] boundaries and pin it down, articulating, examining and shining an unflattering light on it and the ways it subverts traditional liberal values of openness, enquiry and reasoned debate — liberal values that, they cogently argue, have delivered most of the social progress of the past half-century. | ||
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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. | ||
People should read it, especially since [[Theory]] has escaped its academic confines in the last few years and begun to infuse corporate life. | People should read it, especially since [[Theory]] has escaped its academic confines in the last few years and begun to infuse corporate life. | ||
{{Book Club Wednesday|13/1/21}} | |||