One of the worst aspects of Woke thought is its hostility to science (while claiming the mantle of science and appropriating sciency-looking things that support it). I don't really talk about this enough and need to put something together on it. It goes for law too.
Other than "reality exists and can be known about," probably the deepest axiom of both science and law is that we inhabit a shared reality objective to each of us. Woke thought is entirely hostile to this idea. Then it accepts what serves it and rejects what doesn't, always.
Much more specifically, Woke thought is hostile to science and law in that it's measurement of validity in both domains is whether or not it agrees with or supports Woke aims and beliefs. If it does, it's "valid" and "just," and if it doesn't, it's "invalid" and "injust."
Woke epistemology and legal theory need to be understood to be not one bit more complicated than that. All the theory and complexities are window dressing and, more importantly, the attempt to make that position look like a more sophisticated version of real science and law.
The problem ultimately stems from the fact that the Woke thought worldview (literally a weltanschuaang, in its own description) rejects the claim that we live in some shared reality that is objective in that it is independent of any of our perceptions of it.
In Woke thought, we live in our "historical conditions" or "cultural conditions," which are said to be contingent to our time and place in history, which are in turn intrinsically defined by the status of ongoing class conflicts in that time and place. They mean this profoundly.
Woke thought doesn't just mean some banal thing like that we live in a time and a place (motte), like normal people might interpret it. They mean that we are intrinsically the products of our time, place, and various class positionalities in that time and place.
It's difficult to grasp, but for Woke thought, what we call "the world" isn't "out there" objective to any of us. It's a matter of perception, and all perception is shaped, not just colored, by biases, and those biases are in turn formed by our (groups') relationships to power.
The world, like literally the world, is primarily a subjective state based on our relationships to prevailing class power dynamics. Thus, we don't inhabit a shared reality at all. We each inhabit our own realities contoured by intersectional power politics beliefs.
Each of these worlds has its own "truths" that are only shared by other members of the same group/class (thus making subjective and objective interrelated), and each of these "truths" fits into a broader web of intersectional oppression that grounds them more universally.
The measuring stick of these truths and these worlds is not external reality to which anyone can appeal but the subjective status of the "awakened" within those groups who are critically (like critical theory) aware of power and how it shapes reality. Everyone else is lost.
Therefore, in Woke thought, a scientific finding is "valid" (not true) if it agrees with Woke thought, and the only people who can determine this are those who are awakened to Woke thought. Conversely, it's "invalid" if it disagrees with Woke thought. It's that simple.
The same is true in law. A law, judicial ruling, etc., is "just" when it supports Woke thought, as determined by those who have awakened to Woke thought, and conversely it is "unjust" if it disagrees with Woke thought. It, again, is that simple.
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If you want to understand why Communists always end up killing so many people, aside from the fact that it's a personality disorder turned into a religion that takes over politics, you have to understand it as a fanatical religion that demands a "qualitative change" in humanity.
Lots of people apparently just want me to "say capitalism, James!" meaning they want me to "admit" that Communists hate private property and want to abolish it (which, I have pointed out, of course, hundreds of times with citation, including Ch. 2 of the Communist Manifesto).
Karl Marx himself was abundantly clear that's not what Communism is properly about, though, even though he wrote in the Manifesto (Ch 2): "Communism can be summarized in a single sentence: abolish private property." Marx actually meant for private property to be transcended.
Classical Liberalism fully embraces the concept of (scientific) universality, which I think is one of the most interesting and important ideas to repelling arbitrary power and thus unleashing peace and prosperity. It's important to understand this principle. 🧵
Classical Liberalism accept the realist axiom that the world exists independently of all observers, and the principle of universality rests upon that. The simplest expression of universality is "anyone can perform the test." That is a fantastically powerful, world-changing idea.
Because Classical Liberalism assumes realism, it assumes we have provisional and limited access to objectivity. This does not mean any given observer is objective. It means that no matter who the observer is, the facts of reality are the same and can be agreed upon.
1) Reality/Creation exists objectively, not subjectively, and separately from the divine; 2) It is rationally comprehensible; 3) None of us being divine, we only have political authority over others that we can earn w/o coercion.
(1) No matter how tough or privileged your life is, reality is objective. It's external to us all. Yes, we're part of reality, but it would carry on almost exactly like it is (and with the same physical laws) without us. Truth is not a subjective affair.
That is, reality is objective, and that means it is also universal. Though our faculties are limited, each one of us has the capacity to "do the experiment" to attempt to understand how reality works, and no one's theory, no matter how great, is right by dint of anything else.
A giveaway trait of the Woke Right is a victimhood-based identity politics, just like the Woke Left. The victim groups are whites, Christians, men, and straight people, and it's roughly intersectional in how it works. Woke Rights believe in leaning into identity politics.
Of course, another couple telltale signs you're dealing with the Woke Right is them blaming things on the Jews or doing edgy Nazi memes, but there are others too. The identity politics is probably one of the most important. Focusing on "anti-white racism" is a huge one.
Like their counterparts on the Woke Left, the Woke Right have accepted as fact that there's a conspiracy against people like them and that their only real hope is to lean into the identity grouping and advocate for collective power under that heading. It's a toxic approach.
Have you seen Beneath Sheep's Clothing yet? You need to. It's available now. People are saying it's a huge eye-opener. I'm going to tell you some about it.
Beneath Sheep's Clothing is a film we made to solve a particular problem: namely that Communism (in a new form) isn't just coming to American and the West, but it's already here, but people are struggling to see it. Books, articles, podcasts are great. We needed a film.
The film is the product of the admirable @JulieABehling, who traveled to Russia just after the collapse of Soviet Union and then studied Russian history and literature in order to make sense of uncanny observations she was making even back in the 90s about the US.
Given all the hate and excitement, I wasn't going to bother doing a thread tonight, but I'm procrastinating on real work I really don't want to do.
We need to talk about Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence or stupidity."
Hanlon's Razor is obviously a call to charity: it's a demand to think the best of people who are messing up. They're probably just ignorant, stupid, or incompetent. They're probably not intending to do bad things. Don't accuse them unnecessarily!
We should probably just put on the table where Hanlon's Razor comes from specifically before talking about where it comes from philosophically. It originates from a joke book, namely Murphy's Law, Book 2. You might want to keep that in mind when someone invokes it.