Imposters
In my last post, I argued that academia is beset by anti-intellectualism from without. I now wish to talk about the anti-intellectualism that threatens it from within.
The twenty-first century has been heretofore an epoch of disruption. The removal of almost all barriers to mass communication has radically transformed how we access information, how we reflect on it and, most importantly, how we position our own views to others. Far from McLuhan’s image of the ‘global village’, new media technologies and the hyper-personalisation of anything have rendered us more atomic than ever, motes floating on the stagnant pool of digital discourse.
That is one story I could tell. There is another story, of how the internet has made it easier than ever for marginalised groups to find solidarity, confidence and most of all each other. This story is no less true, but it is certainly shadowed by the parallel consolidation of regressive groups, radicalising themselves deeper and deeper. In this cacophony, communication has become both a risk and a saving power. In this environment, the duty of an academic is to stand for truth and empowerment through education. Sadly, there is money to be made in doing the opposite.
It was once thought that the greatest enemy of philosophy, and indeed all expertise, was the sophist. But the sophist at least was motivated by empowerment, both of themselves and others. Not so the pseudo-intellectual. Like the sophist, they seem like the true intellectual. They are eloquent, intelligent, and can sway minds. The sophists, however, were first and foremost teachers. For a fee, they taught others their techniques of influence. The pseudo-intellectual, however, seeks only to be an influencer, not to raise up others. They have no interest in truth, only themselves, their impact, their following, and their reputation. The pseudo-intellectual does not even care about their own argument, only on being seen to be stronger than the other. This false equation of intellect with strength-of-intelligence makes the pseudointellectual so dangerous to the academy, since they not only attack the intellect but drag the institution of which they are a part into disrepute. They are not merely a false academic, but truly pseudo-, not just standing in the place of the true academic but salting the earth, making it harder for them to even exist.
We are beset with pseudo-intellectuals, who, by their nature, ply themselves to many positions and many debates, following the tides of ‘discourse’. They also thrive on pivoting and abandoning positions, so there is no point even trying to critique individuals or bodies of thought. The pseudo-intellectual cannot be defeated by ‘facts and logic’, since they care about neither. Indeed, despite their weaponisation of rationalist and critical rhetoric, it is they, not their victims, who have fallen into orthodoxy and superstition. Adopting the airs of champions of knowledge, all they really do is assert dogma, projecting that behaviour onto straw men. So-called gender critical ideology, which is neither critical nor about gender, gleefully negates science, reality and reason, cherry-picking only what can be hurled, out of context, at its supposed opponents. In fact, all it ever asks us to do is stop thinking and fall into our instinct and predjudice, the absolute opposite of the rationality it claims to defend.
Rather than imply that such expressions of power are in any way intellectually valid or to fall into the trap of engaging in debate with an interlocutor who has no investment in the truth, it’s better then to talk about movements and currents in their pseudosphere. Of all these currents, none is more harmful, more vicious, and dangerous than anti-trans ideology, the anti-science, anti-rational, anti-speech, anti-truth toxin that wreaks devastating harm upon the most vulnerable whilst stripping everyone of human rights.
The shocking and rampant spread of this ideology over the past decade is in part a failure of the academy, and most especially of philosophy. In spite of the laudable efforts of individuals, there has been a collective failure to defend our institutions from charlatans, to call out their abuse of their station, and properly equip the public to see through their dissembling. This failure especially belongs to philosophy, since that discipline which is least doctrinal has proved to be least flexible. We, who are supposed to, first and foremost, dismantle bullshit, have allowed those among our number to build a sleuce. I will now continue to rant about this for several more paragraphs.
The history of philosophy is hardly replete with political saviours. Philosophers have tended to be privileged, and have therefore, with some remarkable exceptions, tended towards social conservatism. However, there is no doubt that the political failures of our tradition have also been philosophical failures. To take a clear example, Immanuel Kant’s racism, sexism, and colonialism are clearly failures to properly abide by and understand his own arguments. In a similar way, the radical revolutions in philosophy of the twenty-first century provide us with the very tools to meet the rightful demand by trans people that we challenge our dominant conception of gender. In both continental and analytic philosophy, the twentieth century was a golden age of the destruction of idols and of essentialisms, culminating in the post-structuralism and post-modernism that aids third-wave feminism. And yet, many of our philosophers today would actually like us to stop thinking now and to consider our understanding of the body and human nature complete. This is not merely “bullshit”, to use Harry G. Frankfurt’s popular coinage, it is total bollocks.
The modern conception of gender, with its nuanced relation to biological sex, is one of the greatest gifts to humanity. We are all hamstrung by traditional gender roles. We are all liberated by their deconstruction, and cis people owe a great debt to the contribution trans people make to human self-understanding simply by being themselves. The only intellectual response, the only rational response, the only academic response is to respond to trans people with open minds and open hearts. We are all thus liberated because patriarchy and traditional gender roles are deadly, and more deadly for trans people than anyone else.
If, in response to this great challenge and opportunity, existentialists suddenly become essentialist, logicians abandon reason, and feminists become obsessed with genitals, it is not because they speak from the great intellectual traditions we inherit and guard. It is because they only enjoy challenge when it does not require them to change, and only enjoy freedom of speech when it does not demand of them their freedom to think. This is not only a grievous wrong, it is anathema to the role of the academic.