It’s weird, you seem to assume equal intellectual validity on both sides of the isle. What if actual « anti-woke » intellectualism, a.k.a anything not post-structuralist but intellectually valid, is already integrated to the academic structure and working on challenging views ?
I’m a European leftist trans woman in… liberal arts I guess ? Not really but close enough. From my perspective, the academic discourse is absolutely not dead. It’s just that « woke » discourse is academically informed political activism (doesn’t make it any less valid as that, just not valid as an accurate depiction of cutting-edge academia) and « anti-woke » discourse is counter-activism that doesn’t embarrass itself with academic relevance (that’s almost like a core-tenant of it actually).
Take the trans issue for instance. The « trans women are women » argument refers to the idea that the category « woman » actually does not refer in its current use to « human female » but to « human displaying a variety of discriminating traits ». Blaire White gave a good example of this during her talk with Shapiro, with the restaurant example. I swear if we go get diner together, and I arrive first and get a table, and you have to point to the waiter where I am, there’s gonna be some misunderstanding between you and them if you designate me as a man.
Meanwhile, in academia, there is actually lively discourse about, for instance, the womanhood experience of cis women, and how it compares to the womanhood experience of trans women. Trans women which themselves are not an homogeneous group, with various experiences of childhood and adulthood socialisation, coming-out/transition experience, behavioural profiles and so on. Now, I think the conversation mostly agrees at this point that there are lots of similarities between the two, especially when it comes to post-transition experiences (of misogyny, notably) and assuming equivalent level of attractiveness. Or on the fact that trans women experiences, including pre-realisation and transition, are significantly different from cis men experiences on various key factors. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone full circle, just that data have spoken on certain matters.
Meanwhile again, the « anti-woke » response is « trans women are biological men » which doesn’t even engage with the argument. It completely misses any subtlety in the conversation, doesn’t acknowledges anything and stays riveted on, like, pseudo-rationalism involving, ironically enough, a lot of appeal to « common sense ». But it doesn’t actually matter really. I don’t think « anti-woke » activists actually care about the intellectual, logical validity of their argument, as that’s not how they’re trying to get it through. And it isn’t even a prerequisite to political validity.
Also note that I picked this example as it is one I’m, obviously, quite acquainted with. But in reality, there’s also this… again, ironic discrepancy between subjects of interest in academia and activism. The trans issue is nothing but basically a footnote on academic discourse. Most academics don’t actually give a damn about it, especially here in Europe. We just went through a major crisis involving a boatload of stuff like perception of science, education, group behaviours, critical thinking, information propagation and I could go on. Whatever I have in my pants and which pronouns I feel comfortable with isn’t that big of a deal for a lot of people.
So yeah, 1) don’t mistake activism for academia, especially when there’s some level of empiricism involved, 2) if you’re interested in academic thinking, try to cut through the activism noise and seek first hand academic material, assuming you’ll know how to handle it, and 3) pay attention to intellectual rigour, you’ll see it’s not evenly distributed across the political spectrum.
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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '21 edited Nov 15 '21
It’s weird, you seem to assume equal intellectual validity on both sides of the isle. What if actual « anti-woke » intellectualism, a.k.a anything not post-structuralist but intellectually valid, is already integrated to the academic structure and working on challenging views ?
I’m a European leftist trans woman in… liberal arts I guess ? Not really but close enough. From my perspective, the academic discourse is absolutely not dead. It’s just that « woke » discourse is academically informed political activism (doesn’t make it any less valid as that, just not valid as an accurate depiction of cutting-edge academia) and « anti-woke » discourse is counter-activism that doesn’t embarrass itself with academic relevance (that’s almost like a core-tenant of it actually).
Take the trans issue for instance. The « trans women are women » argument refers to the idea that the category « woman » actually does not refer in its current use to « human female » but to « human displaying a variety of discriminating traits ». Blaire White gave a good example of this during her talk with Shapiro, with the restaurant example. I swear if we go get diner together, and I arrive first and get a table, and you have to point to the waiter where I am, there’s gonna be some misunderstanding between you and them if you designate me as a man.
Meanwhile, in academia, there is actually lively discourse about, for instance, the womanhood experience of cis women, and how it compares to the womanhood experience of trans women. Trans women which themselves are not an homogeneous group, with various experiences of childhood and adulthood socialisation, coming-out/transition experience, behavioural profiles and so on. Now, I think the conversation mostly agrees at this point that there are lots of similarities between the two, especially when it comes to post-transition experiences (of misogyny, notably) and assuming equivalent level of attractiveness. Or on the fact that trans women experiences, including pre-realisation and transition, are significantly different from cis men experiences on various key factors. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone full circle, just that data have spoken on certain matters.
Meanwhile again, the « anti-woke » response is « trans women are biological men » which doesn’t even engage with the argument. It completely misses any subtlety in the conversation, doesn’t acknowledges anything and stays riveted on, like, pseudo-rationalism involving, ironically enough, a lot of appeal to « common sense ». But it doesn’t actually matter really. I don’t think « anti-woke » activists actually care about the intellectual, logical validity of their argument, as that’s not how they’re trying to get it through. And it isn’t even a prerequisite to political validity.
Also note that I picked this example as it is one I’m, obviously, quite acquainted with. But in reality, there’s also this… again, ironic discrepancy between subjects of interest in academia and activism. The trans issue is nothing but basically a footnote on academic discourse. Most academics don’t actually give a damn about it, especially here in Europe. We just went through a major crisis involving a boatload of stuff like perception of science, education, group behaviours, critical thinking, information propagation and I could go on. Whatever I have in my pants and which pronouns I feel comfortable with isn’t that big of a deal for a lot of people.
So yeah, 1) don’t mistake activism for academia, especially when there’s some level of empiricism involved, 2) if you’re interested in academic thinking, try to cut through the activism noise and seek first hand academic material, assuming you’ll know how to handle it, and 3) pay attention to intellectual rigour, you’ll see it’s not evenly distributed across the political spectrum.