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[this comment was written in response to the parent, which was [flagged] while I was typing] I find the backlash Joscha receives (also in this talk) from the S

[this comment was written in response to the parent, which was [flagged] while I was typing] I find the backlash Joscha receives (also in this talk) from the Social Justice community surprising, given that afaik he never took a stand on the issue. Let me attempt an explanation, using ideas from this talk. If a god is a virtual entity that 'runs' next to your consciousness with properties of being omnipotent (knows all your thoughts) and that it judges you for your behavior, you can also have a Beelzebub as a virtual entity that is not quite as omnipotent, but tries to inject 'bad' thoughts into your brain. But since it is not omnipotent, you can fight it. Now for these kind of entities to be successful they need to have additional properties to protect themselves, similar to biological organisms. Any thought questioning it is a threat to such virtual entity and therefore for such entity to be successful, it must have the property that any thought questioning it must be evil. They also need additional properties to encourage spreading and to avoid mutations. Rationality has proven to be a good antidote to such entities, so it's just natural that new entities will evolve that have developed properties that give them immunity to that. I think 'patriarchy' is such a Beelzebub. To simplify it: Rationalist arguments were mostly developed by white men, and thus are thoughts connected to the Beelzebub.

claudiawerner 8y ago
Either your view of patriarchy is misconstrued, or you've heard about it from a source unfamiliar to me or indeed social science researchers who take the concept very seriously. Before talking about it being an idea which cannot be challenged, I'd also draw your attention to the very challenging debates in social science and philosophy which do question it. Their inaccessibility to laypeople (including me) is something to be improved on, perhaps, but I don't think we can say it's such a concept as you are describing it to me, short of a mass academic conspiracy. The understanding of this current rationality as purely an antidote to pernicious ideas and mysticism is a relatively new one; in fact, in the 60s and 70s a big argument in critical theory was that by deplacing religion as a bearer of objective rationality, science took up a semi-religious role itself, and questions of morality or things that natural science (as opposed to the science of philosophy) could not answer were brushed aside as too mystical to be worthy of consideration, and consigned to the same dustbin us 'rational' people dumped religion in. This is also shown in the anti-positivism controversy, that is to say to what extent we can apply the methods of natural science to the social sciences. Your characterisation of patriarchy (which seems to stem from positivist ideology) seems incomplete in the face of the debate. Are there any scientists who agree with your characterisation? I hadn't even heard of Joscha Bach before viewing the link, so I can't comment on his case in particular.
- leereeves 8y ago
  "A mass academic conspiracy" is precisely what we see in the social sciences. Any social scientist who publishes a heretical view is excommunicated. The evidence is never considered; the mere idea, indeed merely a few heretical words, is enough to end a career. I could name a number of examples but I'm confident you're familiar with a few of them.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    Does this conspiracy exist despite the fact that there are both more libertarian and more Marxist philosophers than you can shake a stick at? And are you sure that you intended to say a conspiracy (as in, a coordinated movement among researchers) rather than peer pressure against challenging prevailing orthodoxies? Either way, the "orthodoxy" of patriarchy isn't one of them. In fact, the presence of positivist and liberal philosophers in academic philosophy is far, far greater than the presence of heterodox economists (think Marxians, neo-Ricardians post-Keynesians and Sraffians) in economics. The rejection of certain ideas actually seems to be much more of a problem in public media in which figures such as Slavoj Zizek can no longer write for papers like The Guardian.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      I was referring to "patriarchy" and related ideas, where political pressure trumps science and ends academic careers if anyone expresses unpopular ideas. And you claim "the orthodoxy of patriarchy is not one of them"? I find it hard to believe you aren't familiar with stories from Google, CERN, Harvard, etc, etc where people were driven out for questioning the theory that patriarchy is solely responsible for the differences in careers between men and women.
      - claudiawerner 8y ago
        People being kicked out from their jobs for questioning orthodoxies in society isn't nearly the same problem as philosophers being ejected from the field for questioning it. I'd also be cautious about saying the stories from Google for instance (all I can think of is Damore) were simply trying to spark genuine debate on the matter. Phrasing is, of course, also important, just as a professor saying "I'll give you an A if you sleep with me" to a student is different from him saying (in a news op-ed or such) "I don't think it's wrong to sleep with students in exchange for grades". Even most libertarians draw some line between locutionary and illocutionary freedoms of speech. So while it may be a problem (though I'm skeptical), it's not the problem I was discussing. Academia rightfully tries to hold itself to the standard of free inquiry (if in good faith), but Google and Harvard have no such obligation, even to themselves. I think we probably disagree on whether there should be such an obligation.

claudiawerner 8y ago

Either your view of patriarchy is misconstrued, or you've heard about it from a source unfamiliar to me or indeed social science researchers who take the concept very seriously. Before talking about it being an idea which cannot be challenged, I'd also draw your attention to the very challenging debates in social science and philosophy which do question it. Their inaccessibility to laypeople (including me) is something to be improved on, perhaps, but I don't think we can say it's such a concept as you are describing it to me, short of a mass academic conspiracy. The understanding of this current rationality as purely an antidote to pernicious ideas and mysticism is a relatively new one; in fact, in the 60s and 70s a big argument in critical theory was that by deplacing religion as a bearer of objective rationality, science took up a semi-religious role itself, and questions of morality or things that natural science (as opposed to the science of philosophy) could not answer were brushed aside as too mystical to be worthy of consideration, and consigned to the same dustbin us 'rational' people dumped religion in. This is also shown in the anti-positivism controversy, that is to say to what extent we can apply the methods of natural science to the social sciences. Your characterisation of patriarchy (which seems to stem from positivist ideology) seems incomplete in the face of the debate. Are there any scientists who agree with your characterisation? I hadn't even heard of Joscha Bach before viewing the link, so I can't comment on his case in particular.

leereeves 8y ago
"A mass academic conspiracy" is precisely what we see in the social sciences. Any social scientist who publishes a heretical view is excommunicated. The evidence is never considered; the mere idea, indeed merely a few heretical words, is enough to end a career. I could name a number of examples but I'm confident you're familiar with a few of them.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  Does this conspiracy exist despite the fact that there are both more libertarian and more Marxist philosophers than you can shake a stick at? And are you sure that you intended to say a conspiracy (as in, a coordinated movement among researchers) rather than peer pressure against challenging prevailing orthodoxies? Either way, the "orthodoxy" of patriarchy isn't one of them. In fact, the presence of positivist and liberal philosophers in academic philosophy is far, far greater than the presence of heterodox economists (think Marxians, neo-Ricardians post-Keynesians and Sraffians) in economics. The rejection of certain ideas actually seems to be much more of a problem in public media in which figures such as Slavoj Zizek can no longer write for papers like The Guardian.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    I was referring to "patriarchy" and related ideas, where political pressure trumps science and ends academic careers if anyone expresses unpopular ideas. And you claim "the orthodoxy of patriarchy is not one of them"? I find it hard to believe you aren't familiar with stories from Google, CERN, Harvard, etc, etc where people were driven out for questioning the theory that patriarchy is solely responsible for the differences in careers between men and women.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      People being kicked out from their jobs for questioning orthodoxies in society isn't nearly the same problem as philosophers being ejected from the field for questioning it. I'd also be cautious about saying the stories from Google for instance (all I can think of is Damore) were simply trying to spark genuine debate on the matter. Phrasing is, of course, also important, just as a professor saying "I'll give you an A if you sleep with me" to a student is different from him saying (in a news op-ed or such) "I don't think it's wrong to sleep with students in exchange for grades". Even most libertarians draw some line between locutionary and illocutionary freedoms of speech. So while it may be a problem (though I'm skeptical), it's not the problem I was discussing. Academia rightfully tries to hold itself to the standard of free inquiry (if in good faith), but Google and Harvard have no such obligation, even to themselves. I think we probably disagree on whether there should be such an obligation.