Precipitated mainly by seeing James Lindsay slowly moving from “hur
dur grievance studies I am very smart” to saying that we should be
nuanced enough not to attribute all the comparative ills suffered by
black people to racism.
Pluckrose, for example, came to minor prominence before all this for
complaining that her (to my memory) Leavis-esque English Lit takes
weren’t well enough received
Course Pluckrose was also a minor figure in the New Atheist stuff
apparently long before, which I only found out about later
You’ve gotta remember that all of this stuff is happening in the
tradition of a so-called “Common Sense” - particularly one vallorised as
the height of especially English culture (not the “Common Sense of
Thomas Reid, which is a different beast).
Leavisites were “Common Sense” romanticists, who would analyse poetry
and novels and blah blah on the basis of the idea that there’s a shared
set of common sense values which are abjured by supposed dogmatists or
reformers or revolutionists
The imaginary of that intellectual world is that there’s a central
and fairly obvious truth to the facts of the matter, and layering other
stuff on top of that (be it religious, circumspectious, or
methodological-theoretical concerns) is just a sort of obfuscation of
this otherwise fairly plain truth.
It’s a long tradition, and to be honest I find it annoying that
people think the likes of this stuff is in any way new.
Of course, because of this vallorisation of a simplistic
common-sensical view on the world, it’s inherently contradictory just
for not really caring about the logic of the matter.
Take a fun example:
Is the work of Jane Austen a set of romantic expositions of
what-would-become Victorian mores which attempt to show how women
overcome emotional and institutional obstacles in order to find
love?
Is the work of Jane Austen a savage indictment of the dullness
and oppressive social mores of the early 19th century?
Trick question! There’s no common sense answer, but people with
Leavisite leanings will fall on either side of the question and insist
on one or the other.
James Lindsay wrote a bad book, Boghossian wrote a bad book, and
Pluckrose joined Aero, explicitly on the basis of insisting that there
was an easy common-sense answer to any one question you might choose to
ask.
It’s just boring people talking to each other a lot.
Insofar as I am familiar with them, they are third-string ratheist/"skeptic" celebs, which means they're more specifically committed to at least a soft form of biological determinism. It's pretty much built into that movement due to Dawkins and Dennett being veterans of the sociobiology and science wars. Not to mention the more direct connections like with Frank Miele, an editor of Skeptic, having co-authored a race science book himself and been a student of R. Travis Osborne, a former director of the Pioneer Fund.
>Insofar as I am familiar with them, they are third-string ratheist/"skeptic" celebs, which means they're more specifically committed to at least a soft form of biological determinism.
I agree with poptart's line of reasoning. They (the hoaxers at least) are just working backwards from whatever they intuit the answer 'should' be, in their particular contrarian corner of the world. I'm not sure the commitment is entirely intentional.
Relatedly, [here's a recent thread](https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1142053975589576704) of Lindsay getting mad at people suggesting causes for racial disparity other than biological determinism, then [talking himself in circles until he agrees with them.](https://twitter.com/jduffyrice/status/1142073906674753536) [[And again](https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1142087724821876737)], and then admits [he just doesn't like a specific term](https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1142088220756402176).
His twitter account is quite the follow.
I don't think it's intentional either -- I'm sure they see their stance as purely "scientific." My point was that they find that to be the intuitive or default explanation because of their conflation of science with the development of mechanistic and law-like explanations in combination with the popularity of bio-determinism in that sub-culture due to specific historical accidents.
Sure, but I'm saying the roots go deeper than that: it's just a standard element of what it means to be part of anglophone culture to have such people making statements which are rooted in this baffled sort of "common sense" ideal
Ok, so is this "common sense" approach the same thing as what people do when they reduce any behavior to "human nature"? And also, is it similar to what Peteeson does when he goes on about "archetypes"? Or am I just confusing everything?
The former. I don't think this group has even attempted to examine their "common sense" to the extent Peterson has. Dawkins at one point called a common moral sensibility "something in the air" and Lindsay+Bog ['solved' the trolley problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/badphilosophy/comments/9osw41/the_sokal%C2%B2_hoaxers_also_have_a_paper_where_they/) by referencing a survey of people's responses.
They're just allergic to taking their analysis a step further than 'it's human nature' or 'it's culture'. Of course, they'll critique the hell out of anyone who develops their own cultural theory for being 'unscientific'.
no. but you would expect that people who think everything is "just common sense" would find something reductive to say about anything
Peterson on the other hand is clearly just a bit mad
nah man, they’ve been doing that the whole time
Pluckrose, for example, came to minor prominence before all this for complaining that her (to my memory) Leavis-esque English Lit takes weren’t well enough received
Course Pluckrose was also a minor figure in the New Atheist stuff apparently long before, which I only found out about later
You’ve gotta remember that all of this stuff is happening in the tradition of a so-called “Common Sense” - particularly one vallorised as the height of especially English culture (not the “Common Sense of Thomas Reid, which is a different beast).
Leavisites were “Common Sense” romanticists, who would analyse poetry and novels and blah blah on the basis of the idea that there’s a shared set of common sense values which are abjured by supposed dogmatists or reformers or revolutionists
The imaginary of that intellectual world is that there’s a central and fairly obvious truth to the facts of the matter, and layering other stuff on top of that (be it religious, circumspectious, or methodological-theoretical concerns) is just a sort of obfuscation of this otherwise fairly plain truth.
It’s a long tradition, and to be honest I find it annoying that people think the likes of this stuff is in any way new.
Of course, because of this vallorisation of a simplistic common-sensical view on the world, it’s inherently contradictory just for not really caring about the logic of the matter.
Take a fun example:
Is the work of Jane Austen a set of romantic expositions of what-would-become Victorian mores which attempt to show how women overcome emotional and institutional obstacles in order to find love?
Is the work of Jane Austen a savage indictment of the dullness and oppressive social mores of the early 19th century?
Trick question! There’s no common sense answer, but people with Leavisite leanings will fall on either side of the question and insist on one or the other.
James Lindsay wrote a bad book, Boghossian wrote a bad book, and Pluckrose joined Aero, explicitly on the basis of insisting that there was an easy common-sense answer to any one question you might choose to ask.
It’s just boring people talking to each other a lot.
Good sneer. I was a huge fan of Sam Harris and the four horsemen until the eventual “liberal but” just became “racial IQ” differences
[deleted]
I still have hope for Mark Lilla