this post is going to be overwhelmingly complaining. complaining about what? well, about a certain tendency i've been observing in leftist-liberal-queer circles for a longer time now. it's a tendency to depreciate things that are intellectual, biological, or objective, and always without fail put them below things are that emotional, moral, political and cultural, thus giving all the field in the former to the political right. being a homosexual and transsexual most of my life, i've necessarily spent a fair amount of time hanging out in these circles; while i have my grievances with multiple things, i also do notice that most of them can be boiled down to this allergy to anything that isn't uncritically affirmative, and especially anything that is unaffirmative on intellectual or substantive basis rather than basis of self-affirmation of the person that's being critical, i.e. their morals and politics.
while weird al yankovic did say it's ok to dare to be stupid sometimes, i feel many have been taking it overboard; particularly when it stops being an individual's personal idiocy and becomes politicised anti-intellectualism. would i say there's an anti-intellectual agenda within hyperliberal circles, as well as self declared 'leftist' ones? yes. does it annoy me? also yes.
when talking about 'politicised anti-intellectualism', i mean a particular set of tendencies; the most important one is the assumption that an individual's feelings and personal outlook are to always be put above material things and data, and another important being that substantive aspects actually don't matter as long as one believes and feels the right things, and that actually, analysis, criticism or pursuit of some kind of standards is suspicious activity in itself and probably dubious morally. as many may know, i don't care about morality much, but i - being a member of multiple minority groups - have an interest in discussion about minority rights being intellectually adequate, and i have some political standings, more or less relevant to this text, which i would like accurately represented. alas, that's not happening. what's politicised anti-intellectualism aside from what i mentioned? well, it's often focused on particular things; i would like to discuss these, but not before a little introduction on why - according to me - the state of so called-discourse in these circles is as it is. something i was happily free of most of my life but encountered in the last few years, as i was exploring the western internet.
a lot of modern 'leftist' thought is rooted in more beneficial thought of the 20th century, such as marxism and postmodernism. what is postmodernism? it's a thought current opposed to certain enlightenment ideas focused around 'objective' nature, science and even morality, and it's not inherently negative; mainly, it would combat the ideas of objective, material and unquestionable truth in all context, and return honour to the importance of an individual's interpretation of their reality. granted, i have my own gripes with it, especially lately i've been more critical of it, but contributed in positive ways to philosophy and culture. while i myself don't identify with this current - it would be very weird as someone living in 21st century, anyways - i do see its positive impact on contemporary thought.
i myself don't really believe in objective 'truth' in most cases - i believe reality is fabricated significantly by the brain from impulses (stimuli) that don't make much sense on their own - and i don't believe in objective morality or objective values; in fact, i would say a lot of my philosophy is highly individualist and subjectivist. i would assume i carry some of the heritage of postmodernists myself; obviously, as do most thinkers shaped by contemporary reality. i don't believe in 'bare' data - all data relies on interpretation; all research itself is done in context, and the methodology depends on the aims of the researcher at least to some extent. thus i'm hardly here right now to discuss something was proven or disproven; though myself, i put the data to my own logic - biased as much as everyone else's - when i interact with a study, and then i check how much i see it coherent with what i know as real. i'm hardly here to completely slag off the postmodernists. some impact of postmodernism is intellectually valuable.
unfortunately, though, people are stupid, as i routinely keep saying, and there's also various sociopolitical factors at play, so some have taken the postmodernism to weird places; including a somewhat radical place that states that it's not just that the individual's experience and interpretation impacts and contextualises any data, it's that any 'objective' data isn't necessary at all because it can be replaced by the indiviudal's feelings and desires. frankly, i kinda think it can't, or if it can then the results will be as we see - stupid. unfortunately, this is tempting for people who weren't not gifted with talent or charisma and are too lazy to develop skills: resorting to wishful thinking as the universal solution, and keeping things in the abstract. i am well aware i'm bitching right now; i've warned that would be the case. stating more clearly: there are people online and elsewhere who build a reputation on arguing against the need for proof.
this is all also grounded in a flawed interpretation of marxist materialism - the one that bred interesting monsters such as lysenkoism in the ussr. the marxist dialectics state that there's mutual impact, and the culture shapes a developing individual as much as individuals shape culture; it allowed to deconstruct certain things such as gender or class as non-inherent, circumstantial social constructs, but it unfortunately also planted the idea in some people's heads that anything and everything can be boiled down to circumstances, and nothing about an individual is inherent or even possible to describe as a biological phenomenon and measurable. it reignited the old hypothesis of tabula rasa - 'empty card of paper'. this comes from fundamental over-simplification of marx. ironically, this mentality - attributing nothing to the individual and everything to circumstances - also excludes putting individual feelings above all material circumstances; it's contradictory. the modern 'leftist' mentality is unfortunately to a significant extent a hybrid between bastardised postmodernism and misunderstood marxism.
the outcome is highly anti-intellectual: its basic assumption is that holding individuals to standards is immoral because nothing about their lives depends on them, however they go about their lives is not to be questioned because nothing depends on them anyway, and any standards are either way constructed and thus upholding them is politically counter-revolutionary and harmful. these standards are often connected to capitalism et cetera, as if not accounting for the fact that literally everything created within a capitalist culture carries traits of capitalism-as-defualt, including this very philosophy which rejects the ideas of improvement or productivity outside of purely capitalist contexts. blanket type rejection of these ideas altogether, as well as entire fields of science under the accusation of being 'infected' by capitalism, does not leave space for the individual themselves to question and pick what they consider valuable of them; it's all rejected with no proposed ideas of replacing them, a lot of the time. alternatively, the substitute is just political and moral ideas and categories; the idea that being right or wrong does not count as long as one has 'their heart in the right place'.
there's a lot of factors at play, but some of the main ones i would name are historic; the way nazism would incorporate science into its propaganda and position itself as scientific, as well as the extent to which science ended up impacted by bigotries and oppressive systems in 19th and 20th century in general, has generated a need on the left to suggest an alternative to this, and either develop a science of their own or find a worthy replacement. significantly, 'de-cluttering' science from harmful thought has proven itself challenging, and science itself has shown how prone to bias and subjective interpretation it can be; the 19th-century idealised myths surrounding it have fallen, which especially goes for natural sciences. it's been proven that science is not objective, and may validate destruction if the scientists happen to have certain kind of beliefs; thus leftist disappointment in science so far.
for some, the solution for that has been uplifting and validating moral and political virtues; especially as the right would use appeal to naturalism to paint itself and its narrative as scientific again, even after the nazis have fallen. some would point to class-based difficulties in accessing higher education and thus deem any kind of intellectual effort or uphold meritocracy 'elitist', and then seemingly decided working to make education more accessible is less realistic or less worthy of effort than is just depreciating academia and even intellectualism outside of academia. the need for 'safe spaces' increased as the alt-right somehow won itself a monopoly on 'transgressive' expressions.
the answer to the right's claims of biological basics to bigotry (usually misinterpreted and/or selective data) was rejecting data and embracing the moral higher ground, and obsessive antagonism towards anything that could have a biological or inherent element and positioned humans as unequal - such as intelligence or sexual attractiveness. while there is a lot of constructed elements to these, especially as concepts and definitions, the left became obsessed with proving that they were fully constructed and anything that's socially constructed needs to be abolished, because it's in nature capitalist. very black-and-white reasoning; most importantly, though, it aims to discredit both the 'natural' and 'inherent' things - as nonexistant or morally wrong to speak of - and 'societal', 'constructed' things, as good arguments in discussions as to why everything is constructed, but also meant to be abolished, leaving nothing worth salvaging of what the contemporary reality consists of. if nothing deserves to be considered as data because inherent things aren't real or are immoral to bring up and constructed things are capitalist, then you can hail whatever you want and invent the only reality worth considering, and it can't be verified; for many, that only thing worth considering is their desires and values, and their morals.
it doesn't expect the individual to attempt any change or improvement as long as they exist at odds with the system, therefore: when they have the right morals, politics and values.
what am i calling stupid here? i have some specific things that annoy me more than most, and that i'm able to point out - so to say, the basic principles of politicised anti-intellectualism.
it's something i've expressed having a gripe with before; the liberal left has a terminal allergy to negativity. all negativity. it makes no effort to sort negativity into solicited and unsolicited - like between some internet rando and a critic asked for a review; it doesn't sort it into warranted and unwarranted either. it doesn't separate unsolicited criticism on art coming from someone who isn't the intended audience, or criticism on something which doesn't bear it because it was made by a child or otherwise in a context which makes it exempt from proper judgement, from criticism on things that seek wider acclaim or aspire to be something and are thus criticised on failure at fulfilling the criteria. it doesn't separate malicious criticism - 'hating' - from non-malicious negative opinions either (hint: the former is meant to upset or mock the creator, the latter may or may not upset the creator, but it's not the goal), and categorises all negativity as 'hating'. it doesn't separate constructive criticism from non-constructive. it doesn't let people hold negative opinions and express them in private towards their friends or in their private spaces, where it doesn't get to the ears of the creator and therefore doesn't harm them - it polices having negative thought in itself rather than just inappropriate vocalisation on it. it focuses on thought or feeling, not action - once again, element of the post-postmodernist (lol) obsession with identity. the liberal left as a whole does not accept disliking things for no reason, or for personal reasons, or for intellectual reasons; therefore, in fandom spaces there's an obsession with proving things morally or politically unworthy, to justify disliking them.
meanwhile, criticism is necessary for thought to develop, necessary for skills to improve, and a mature adult individual should be able to deal with criticism - one of these social skills i consider necessary for an adult and i'm myself in process of learning is separating negativity that's malicious and only meant to upset the individual from negativity that's rising worthwhile points, and also being able to process unclear cases where someone is being malicious, but their criticism is still worth considering for any reason. criticism and even rivalry is generally good for intellectual matters, and beneficial for academia. rivalry between philosophers sometimes served as inspiration to put more effort into whatever they were writing; humans are naturally competitive, and negativity is part of healthy, happy human behaviour as much as positivity is - a person who forces themself to never feel negatively about anything is in fact deeply disturbed. this is an unproductive approach which tries to erase a human experience instead of finding a productive outlet, one i compare to how morality works in regards to aggressive and sadistic human instincts - which i've discussed in several of my essays about immoralism. it also leaves the leftists open and vulnerable to any kind of offence coming from the right, as they've never learnt to deal with negativity - that leads to the 'snowflake' mentality, mocked by the right.
circles that block free flow of thought, including rivalry, debate et cetera, quickly come to stagnation, and become echo-chambers. they also push people who were negatively impacted by this pattern into radicalisation - and the ones who radicalise are normally the more aggressive and confrontational individuals, whose confrontational nature wasn't tolerated - that nature is then aimed and used against the same circles, who could have had it on their side. it also hardly produces new thought that isn't just a rewording of pre-existing ideas.
another grievance i hold is related to the disdain and ignorance for science, especially statistics and natural sciences: among that, biology. this very much includes evolutionary biology and sociobiology, and often i find leftists even proud of their ignorance on these topics - surely you would want to know your enemy, at least? a while ago i've had a slapfight with a communist who 'disliked the idea that intelligence was biological'. 'intelligence' as a concept, and what defined as such, is of course up for discussion; however, it is strongly proven that at least some cognitive skills are genetic. the more important part was the context, though: it was me discussing one of my favourite sociobiology theories, one stating that human abstract intelligence evolved via sexual selection in a good part. i love that one since it explains some questions that remained unexplained by survival-focused hypotheses; i also like the one that relates human intelligence to building a social network as a social species. my main point, however, is that if intelligence increased in process of evolution, then it had to both be biological and vary among individuals, since only then would it be subjected to natural selection. a trait that doesn't vary between individuals in a population can't undergo darwinist selection; and a trait that isn't biological can't increase via evolution process. thus, assuming humans are more intelligent than homo erectus, however that intelligence is defined, it becomes clear that there's at least some contexts where intelligence can be discussed as a biological trait. i was so irritated by that conversation i wrote an essay inspired by it.
i'm not writing this to gossip about someone; i have nothing against her. i know it's not her personally, anyways - it's a symptom of a wider mentality of refusing to even engage with natural sciences and scientific data. it's the assumption that disliking something on moral ground or running a risk that research may be utilised by the right in their argumentation means it can just be treated as nonexistant entirely. not to sound trad, but i believe children should be raised on philosophy and mathematics first and foremost. since the 1920s at least the right have been trying to lay claim to science and scientific research and results, and it appears the modern left is just letting them do that. no significant protest, just deem the whole area lost and abandon it - really?
i know i have said it, but it's to no one's benefit to just give the right a monopoly on biology, a monopoly on statistics... and then allow just any interpretation. that interpretation will always turn out bigoted and negative for minorities. it makes no sense to fight science as a concept instead of gathering data and correcting the biased reading of it. if we end up anti-intellectual we will lose, and it doesn't help the other side isn't very intellectual either - if they claim to be. not to mention no sensible ideology can develop without a scientific basis these days, as an individual's convictions not reflected in something material can only last as far as the individual is willing to go - which is not much for most. being in denial instead of analysis and finding answers to pseudo-scientific arguments just leaves the left looking like ignorant, irrational idiots. now i'm sorry for the language, but having 'their own reality' where i.e. one can ignore intelligence as a biology-related concept because it's difficult to tackle poliitcally prevents any kind of meaningful activism. it's staying in one's comfort zone and will not get them far. it's part of why the modern left has significantly lost ability to change and adapt, and utilise the contemporary narratives for its own benefit. no effective politics can be done in this mindset - just twitter activism.
part of this section includes, of course, the way the liberal left tends to be about research over homo- and bisexuality, as well as transsexuality. there's solid proof of certain biological links, and they tend to be rejected since there's a desire to have sexuality be fully 'constructed' as well. even if they don't apply naturalism here and don't consider 'constructed' things inferior - thus having approaches that are still pro-lgbt - it's obscuring from gay people the information about our nature and origin, still. as if it wasn't enough that we have to combat the heteronormative bias in usually straight researchers if we want to learn something about ourselves. there's a lot of things of this kind notable and present in these circles.
this is related to what i described above: part of these complaints are warranted since there is a classism element in education gatekeeping - especially countries such as the us where one pays for education, but also in countries where one doesn't, but has to survive as a full time student somehow. again, though, this - for whatever reason - translates to disliking technical standars and requirements in any area; it tends to include requirements within a field one already obtained education for. i do understand the desire for formal education to not always be the requirement, but if it extends to rejecting whatever standards of knowledge, experience or skill for either acknowledgement or association, it's just depreciation of meritocratic approaches, under the guise of combating 'elitism' or 'gatekeeping'. particularly among anarchists there's often disdain towards any kind of hierarchy, including informal skill-based hierarchy necessary for learning and teaching.
it often comes down to a reasoning that states upholding any requirements for someone to belong to an association or even be described accurately with a word or label is inherently an opressive action - better, there's a special word for that; 'exclusionary'. how is 'inclusion' a marxist virtue? no one really knows, because it's not. it's a virtue of bastardised postmodernism - one that forbids disagreement with any individual's interpretation of their experience; very noble in nature, but overlooking the fact that appropriation exists as a method of capitalist exploitation, within the very same capitalism they hate so much.
therefore disdain for both professionals and oppressed groups stating and protecting their boundaries, and sometimes a perception of that as an inherently bigoted action even aside from the standards themselves; many would refuse to even examine these standards and inquire into whether or not they are bigoted or limit accessibility from the point of view of class, but instead will focus on the fact that there even exists a standard in the first place - which is a negative for this kind of person.
demanding that the person educates themself if they want to participate in discussion (even if one provides them with accessible sources) or to keep standards of politeness in conversation is often received with hostility. i was accused of 'tone policing' when i told someone i wouldn't tolerate insulting me in a conversation once. which, in turn, is a misuse of leftist theory word in order to draw impression of a moral point that wasn't there; again, there's a clear resignation on intellectual and substantive 'victory' in debate in favour of moral superiority. a lot of the time they do not aim to be right or find agreement - they aim to prove they're a better person. inherently!
another important aspect: if there's no standards to meet, then it tends to rely on the individual's character in a generalised way. these people often position themselves as politically 'revolutionary' by nature and thus everything they think and do is - in their head - an action against the system. the fixation on identity finds logical conclusion in the idea that the 'right', 'good' guys are good by nature, on an essential level, by the virtue of having the right feelings and beliefs, not because of their actions. worse, the reverse happens: a good 'essence' defined by the right emotional and political sentiment positions all actions as activism. of course, being preoccupied with that prevents any material activist involvement, and especially one focused on action that would have a chance at working.
this last - so far - complaint of mine is closely related to what i've just said about a pathological intolerance of any standards and requirements - there's also a similar, and in my opinion related, disdain for ambition and self improvement.
basically any standards one could aim for are automatically disregarded as 'societal' and therefore capitalist by these people - especially if they're related to autonomy of an adult, productivity, health or anything related. again, i do agree there's a lot of bias regarding these and capitalist pressure to follow certain standards; there also should be ability for critical analysis and deconstruction that separates aiming for improving one's physical and mental state or developing one's skills and potential from negative pressures that harm the individual, and there isn't.
uncritical affirmation of the individual and refusal to entertain criticism being a thing in these spaces - as well as the requirement for all spaces to be 'safe' and 'inclusive' - fosters intellectually lazy and mentally weak approaches that refuse and oppose change, challenge, conflict, confrontation and stepping outside of one's comfort zone. these who do actually aim to improve their lives - especially if that improvement overlaps anyhow with societal sentiments, which does happen at times since we live in a society, so wanting a better quality of life does have to do with adjusting better sometimes - get discouraged and accused of not wanting to stay visible and support the rest or whatever. some of these people really want to believe change isn't possible since allegedly nothing dependens on them, so seeing someone else get their life together shatters their worldview; it's not only learnt, but politicised, fostered and glorified helplessness.
one may find that some on the 'left' have even resorted to glorifying astrology, witchcraft and any other form of 'irrationality' (i have nothing against these as personal spirituality fyi, it's your business) actively to go against the alleged right wing rationalism, thus admitting that the bigots are being rational, and allowing anyone rational and potentially valuable for the case to slip away. great job!
okay, but is there a way to stop the surge of anti-intellectualism? i believe there's some things that can be done. in part it's certainly down to the form - it's more difficult for these who disagree to speak up on social media, where they can easily get banned from discussion or chased off. on that ground, more personal spaces such as a neocities website serve a better role.
it's necessary to promote and engage with science, including the bits one may not like - and teach oneself to engage with things they don't fully agree with, and to engage critically with things that might be biased, be careful to catch that bias; a good example of that is how many jewish professors have read and discussed 'mein kampf' with their students.
teaching children (and adults) to deal with criticism and not necessarily take it personally is also relevant, along with combating whenever possible mentalities that are anti-recovery, anti-curiosity, and uncondtionally affirmative. more oppressed people engaging with science would be a beneficial thing - i'm doing my part there.
banal advice, but critical thinking is good and more people should be doing it.
on top of that, i do think it's necessary to tackle the warranted worries of the left concerning accessibility of education, and focus on making it more accessible rather than depreciating its value. a lot is done in this aspect in terms of enabling accessing publications for free, et cetera. this is very useful work. keep your mind open, and leave the spaces where you feel like you're walking on eggshells constantly and can't safely voice your opinions, including where you differ from the rest of the group and where you feel negatively about something especially. it would do well for anyone's intellectual potential to not be suffocated like that. new spaces must be created and curated that allow and encourage a more varied discussion - here i've also done my part back in the past.
if the left wants to get anywhere, the right's claims to monopoly on science must be challenged - and perception of science as inherently rightist, oppressive et cetera must cease. negativity must be allowed and the air must be cleared. there must be willingness for critical engagement with things one doesn't like and ability to deconstruct them and still derive from them whatever is valuable. one must keep their mind open, and refrain from developing opinions before being decently informed on whatever the topic is. the left must start to demand from themselves and others meeting basic logical standards in debate for its clarity - i.e. identifying fallacies and unfair moves such as guilt tripping or sophistries, and pointing them out; it also concerns basic standards of politeness in discussion.
the last thing to be done is exactly what i'm doing here - identifying anti-intellectualism for what it is, and identifying it as counterproductive. i hope, and in some cases i know, that more people are noticing the same tendencies and are willing to point them out; and maybe with time there would be enough to break or circumvent the circlejerks and create something worthwhile.
dare to be smart and i will support you wherever you go.