Thank you Craig - as always your ability to navigate your vast reading with "integrative complexity" is a great asset to our community! Along these lines, a recent interview with Lionel Shriver is instructive: she points out that when certain social/intellectual manias end—like multiple personalities or the satanic panic—those who opposed them or raised questions do not gain any prestige or advantage from having been correct, because the culture moves on and won’t acknowledge that it went off the rails. There's also the risk of overcorrection, as we're seeing with the Trump Adminsitration's war on anything labelled as "DEI". Much better then to work to promote intellectual virtues in all manner of contexts (and with all audiences) rather than focusing one's energy on achieving specific political or ideological objectives. See https://youtu.be/5q3C-ukZZCU?si=6g2t5XBd6UZhHjTn
Thanks, Michael. This is encouraging, and I hope we all are able to work with a more truly "heterodox" mindset, as I tried to convey in this article. It's an evolving, probably still undefined idea, and librarians have an opportunity to contribute to it rather than, as you say, jumping on particular bandwagons of either Left or Right, or attaching ourselves to particular figures.
Monica Harris of FAIR wrote a very compelling piece the other day describing how she wants her organization to move forward in this new era. The bottom line, I think, is being willing to call out excesses of either side that gets caught up in moral purity and demands for conformity--and maybe schooling ourselves (more collectively) in the virtues you mention.
I hate to always be the one bringing up ever more complexity, but even "Satanic panic" was most likely a simplified version of the events that actually occurred. I read Chait's "The Witch Hunt Narrative," and the abuse cases that ignited the term were much more complex than portrayed by the Satanic Panic narrative.
These days I keep the "scout mindset" and wear all my beliefs lightly, as we discussed with Galef's book.
Because we need to be able to stand back from orthodoxies of left and right, we need guidelines for the pursuit of knowledge. Thanks for this sharp analysis of the dangers and promise of "heterodoxy."
More complicated (convoluted?) than I realized. I think a lot of these distinctions are collapsing. I consider myself anti-war, pro free speech (an absolutist after the past five years), pro intellectual freedom, skeptical of intelligence agencies, unaffiliated with any organized religion, not particularly traditional, and open to any "reconsiderations" of narratives that are presented with evidence to back them. So while I may not always be on the same page politically as someone like Candace Owens, I appreciate her research. I don't think I fit into any easy category, other than "Kurt Metzger is my id."
I think that trying to label certain people as the true heterodox thinkers because they will entertain these ideas but not those ideas, while excluding those who entertain a wider variety of ideas is inherently problematic.
I take it not that he's saying certain figures aren't "true" heterodox thinkers, only that there are better and worse ways to be heterodox: which is to say by orienting oneself to process and principle (i.e., intellectual virtues) over content (defined positions on issues) or tribe (those joined in agreement on those positions).
I found Claire Lehrmann's position on the Covid shots to be without intellectual virtue and to be entirely "defined" with no regard for competing evidence.
Sometimes I think the "heterodox" crowd falls into two types of people-- those who questioned lots of things before "woke" took over and those who didn't question much until "woke" became overbearing and they just want woke to go away so they can go back to trusting authority again. Two very different, perhaps irreconcilable outlooks.
I have some sense of where Lindsay is coming from in regard to the "woke right," but I think the more obvious analogy to wokeness would be the people on the right who do not think anyone should be allowed to criticize Israel. It feels like he is tying himself into intellectual knots to say that it's the people who are taking a critical look at Israel who are the the ones who are "woke." That seems like a very tangled argument.
This is behind a paywall but summarizes some of the woke right sentiment--https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/what-is-the-woke-right
Thank you Craig - as always your ability to navigate your vast reading with "integrative complexity" is a great asset to our community! Along these lines, a recent interview with Lionel Shriver is instructive: she points out that when certain social/intellectual manias end—like multiple personalities or the satanic panic—those who opposed them or raised questions do not gain any prestige or advantage from having been correct, because the culture moves on and won’t acknowledge that it went off the rails. There's also the risk of overcorrection, as we're seeing with the Trump Adminsitration's war on anything labelled as "DEI". Much better then to work to promote intellectual virtues in all manner of contexts (and with all audiences) rather than focusing one's energy on achieving specific political or ideological objectives. See https://youtu.be/5q3C-ukZZCU?si=6g2t5XBd6UZhHjTn
Thanks, Michael. This is encouraging, and I hope we all are able to work with a more truly "heterodox" mindset, as I tried to convey in this article. It's an evolving, probably still undefined idea, and librarians have an opportunity to contribute to it rather than, as you say, jumping on particular bandwagons of either Left or Right, or attaching ourselves to particular figures.
Monica Harris of FAIR wrote a very compelling piece the other day describing how she wants her organization to move forward in this new era. The bottom line, I think, is being willing to call out excesses of either side that gets caught up in moral purity and demands for conformity--and maybe schooling ourselves (more collectively) in the virtues you mention.
Monica's great article is here:
https://news.fairforall.org/p/standing-on-solid-ground-in-uncertain
I hate to always be the one bringing up ever more complexity, but even "Satanic panic" was most likely a simplified version of the events that actually occurred. I read Chait's "The Witch Hunt Narrative," and the abuse cases that ignited the term were much more complex than portrayed by the Satanic Panic narrative.
These days I keep the "scout mindset" and wear all my beliefs lightly, as we discussed with Galef's book.
Chait's work: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-witch-hunt-narrative-9780199931224?cc=us&lang=en&
I found Chait's work to be the opposite of sensationalism. Extremely methodical and evidence based, so dry it was a slog to get through.
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/entertainment/books/2014/04/27/20140427-book-review-a-scholarly-engaging-look-at-witch-hunt-narratives-ece/35360778007/
Because we need to be able to stand back from orthodoxies of left and right, we need guidelines for the pursuit of knowledge. Thanks for this sharp analysis of the dangers and promise of "heterodoxy."
I'm still confused as to what the "woke right" is. People who question Zionism? Or people who refuse to question Trump/Musk?
James Lindsay has a concise explanation. See https://youtu.be/IgneBMo1lxY?si=q9afVp_USli3rN-v
More complicated (convoluted?) than I realized. I think a lot of these distinctions are collapsing. I consider myself anti-war, pro free speech (an absolutist after the past five years), pro intellectual freedom, skeptical of intelligence agencies, unaffiliated with any organized religion, not particularly traditional, and open to any "reconsiderations" of narratives that are presented with evidence to back them. So while I may not always be on the same page politically as someone like Candace Owens, I appreciate her research. I don't think I fit into any easy category, other than "Kurt Metzger is my id."
I think that trying to label certain people as the true heterodox thinkers because they will entertain these ideas but not those ideas, while excluding those who entertain a wider variety of ideas is inherently problematic.
I take it not that he's saying certain figures aren't "true" heterodox thinkers, only that there are better and worse ways to be heterodox: which is to say by orienting oneself to process and principle (i.e., intellectual virtues) over content (defined positions on issues) or tribe (those joined in agreement on those positions).
Thanks for clarifying.
I found Claire Lehrmann's position on the Covid shots to be without intellectual virtue and to be entirely "defined" with no regard for competing evidence.
Sometimes I think the "heterodox" crowd falls into two types of people-- those who questioned lots of things before "woke" took over and those who didn't question much until "woke" became overbearing and they just want woke to go away so they can go back to trusting authority again. Two very different, perhaps irreconcilable outlooks.
I have some sense of where Lindsay is coming from in regard to the "woke right," but I think the more obvious analogy to wokeness would be the people on the right who do not think anyone should be allowed to criticize Israel. It feels like he is tying himself into intellectual knots to say that it's the people who are taking a critical look at Israel who are the the ones who are "woke." That seems like a very tangled argument.
This is behind a paywall but summarizes some of the woke right sentiment--https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/what-is-the-woke-right
Interestingly, Simon Elmer, a leftist/Marxist, has written some provocative pieces on The Great Replacement theory. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Great_Replacement.html?id=u7EI0QEACAAJ