THREAD on @NewDiscourses & cynical interpretations.
I've got a critical essay about one particular chapter of Cynical Theories on the way. But since it won't be out for a bit, let's do a little teaser exposing some good old James Lindsay sophistry: newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-w… 1/n
I've got a critical essay about one particular chapter of Cynical Theories on the way. But since it won't be out for a bit, let's do a little teaser exposing some good old James Lindsay sophistry: newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-w… 1/n
This blog post by @ConceptualJames is supposed to explain why "the Woke" won't argue with you. He gives you 5 reasons. Let's take them one at a time. 2/n
Here, @ConceptualJames claims Dotson says we are incapable of knowing from the inside (i) that our culture’s dominant knowledge system privileges white Western “ways of knowing” at the expense of others & (ii) that we don't all have the same set of epistemic resources... 3/n 
Dotson calls this irreducible epistemic oppression––which, JL says, requires “a complete epistemic revolution that removes the old epistemologies and replaces them with new ones.” He thinks Dotson is arguing that this entails abandoning science, reason, etc. 4/n
But there is nothing in Dotson’s paper to support this. Addressing irreducible epistemic oppression *may* require abandoning an epistemological system, but it’s fundamentally about the ability to acknowledge one's system’s limitations & willingness to change as needed. 5/n
In the “epistemic oppression” entry on ND, @ConceptualJames says addressing 3rd-order epistemic oppression requires a revolution which would promote non-rigorous “ways of knowing,” including “superstitions.” But Dotson never comes anywhere close to saying anything like this. 6/n
Back to why the Woke won't debate you: He ties 3rd order EO to Bailey’s (2017) description of the standard critical thinking toolkit of philosophy as “the master’s tools.” Note the casual claim that Bailey and Dotson want to “dismantle liberal societies from within.” 7/n
Here’s further discussion of Bailey from the “master’s tools” entry on ND. But this is inconsistent with Bailey’s positive remarks on the critical thinking tradition. 8/n
James wraps up point 1 with this. (Second paragraph: nice bro😎) None of this is directly relevant to the Bailey/Dotson papers and, as is typical of his ND blog posts, all of the citations are self-referential. Same old shit, huh @ConceptualJames ? 9/n
The 2nd reason the Woke won't debate you is religious and fairly disturbing. No fucking clue where this came from. 10/n
Moving on to reason 3, disagreement: Dotson (2011) defines ‘pernicious ignorance’ merely as (contextually) harmful ignorance; nothing she says in that paper suggests she denies the possibility of legitimate disagreement. But give James credit: the DiAngelo claim is true. 11/n
However,Bailey clearly distinguishes disagreemt & priv-preserv epistemic pushback, and she explicitly distinguishes useful/productive criticism & shadow texts which follow but don’t engage. “The threat of rape and terrorism are not the same!” = neither PPEP nor shadow txt 12/n
Also, Applebaum (2010) takes pains to clarify that she does *not* preclude the possibility of legitimate disagreement either; @conceptualjames’ claim that she thinks engagement requires agreement with her is pure, uncharitable cynicism. 13/n
Reasons 4 and 5 -- @ConceptualJames must’ve just had too much whiskey at this point. Bedtime soon. 14/n
IN CONCLUSION: To get here, @ConceptualJames misread or misrepresented two of Dotson’s articles, ignored Bailey’s distinctions and positive comments about critical thinking, and decided these scholars clearly want to dismantle liberal society. Who’s the cynical theorist? 🤡15/15
