> very valid from an epistemological point of view Philosophers can be dangerous creatures (if unwittingly), perhaps some of the most dangerous. It's incredibl

> very valid from an epistemological point of view Philosophers can be dangerous creatures (if unwittingly), perhaps some of the most dangerous. It's incredible how you can draw a straight line from many of the most destructive political narratives (across the spectrum) to reasonable seeming scholarly papers and debates. There's a near universal consensus today regarding the horrible, unacceptable presumptions behind Social Darwinism and related theories from the turn of the 20th century. Mid-century philosophers, particularly structuralists and post-structuralists, led the charge in attacking those earlier theories. (By first identifying the underlying cultural presumptions, and then "deconstructing" them.) And yet you can draw a straight line from, say, Putin's whataboutism and ethnoreligious rhetoric--not to mention all the culture war narratives (from both the left and right)--straight to those philosophical ideas and debates--i.e. structuralism, post-structuralism, etc. I mean, Putin's rhetoric has always existed in some form, but those and other philosophical schools absolutely supercharged the rhetoric and its intellectual resilience. If there is no objective truth, and if even older moral pillars of Western philosophy, like the exaltation of individual dignity, can be just as illegitimate as any other principle, then Putin supporters can argue the legitimacy of his viewpoint and it would be dishonest to outright reject absolutely everything about it. (There are obvious and time-tested counterarguments, but they're in tension with favored moral norms in the West, such as victim culture. The left birthed victim culture, linking moral worth to membership of a persecuted minority, but the right has embraced it for all its worth.)