UPDATE<\/b> below.<\/p>\n
Robert Mathiesen makes a very important point in his comment on my Fundamentalism and Irrationality<\/a> post, one this blog The decline of confidence in reason and evidence as sources <\/p>\n <\/p>\n All these For at least a century a core Scientific knowledge requires us to For a long time the full implications of this view were moderated by But the liberal argument that First in As this Coming via a . . . that guys like me were ‘in what we call We see here the coming Academia
\nmight have failed to emphasize adequately because it’s complex and because the ‘Christian’ Right is louder right now. This mini-essay is an attempt to do the subject justice. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nfor eliminating error and approaching more reliable knowledge has not simply been
\namong the religious right, though it is more visible there and more immediately
\nthreatening. <\/span>It is a core
\nfeature of secular modernity. It is NOT confind to the religious right. And it is coming to a worrisome fruition from many directions.<\/p>\n
\nBeginning in the late 19th<\/sup> century some schools
\nof Marxism with their concept of “class consciousness” along with other
\ncollectivist philosophies with their views of racial or ethnic or national
\nconsciousness also began subordinating reason and evidence to ideological
\nagendas. <\/span>According to them the
\nEnlightenment confidence in reason and evidence simply obscured power relations
\nby which a dominant class, ethnic group, race, or nation ruled over
\nothers. <\/span>In the late 60s there was
\na resurgence of this stuff among some Black writers. <\/span>More recently, “post-modern” (actually hyper-modern)
\nscholarship has also sought to subordinate reason and evidence to the governing
\ncriteria of power. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n
\nexamples point to a long term decline in the standards of reason and evidence
\neven among secular moderns. <\/span>The
\nrise of the right has shunted these folks to the shadows, but should we be
\nblessed to defeat them, they will quickly emerge to prominence in the
\nuniversities where they are still found.
\n<\/span>The problem is not simply Fundamentalist irrationality – the secular
\nworld has serious problems of its own. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nassumption about the nature of knowledge, one shared by most secular moderns
\nand a great many Christians, has been slowly undermining the moral and rational
\nfoundations for a free society.
\n<\/span>This is the view that knowledge is power. <\/span>It’s most recent historical roots are in the work of Sir
\nFrancis Bacon<\/a>, a major influence on the development of modern science. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n
\nexercise power over what we study if we can. <\/span>Measurement, prediction, and most especially, experiment,
\neither facilitate power or are its exercise. <\/span>And many secularists say science is our only source of
\nknowledge.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\nWestern liberalism. <\/span>Liberals shared the
\nmodern view of knowledge – indeed early liberals contributed mightily to it – but
\nliberals exempted people<\/i> from that standard because people were different – we
\nhad moral standing. <\/span>We had human
\nrights. <\/span>We should not be subjected
\nto the power of others, such as being ruled against our will or being experimented
\nupon without our consent. <\/span><\/p>\n
\npeople are somehow exempted from the rest of nature has fallen on hard
\ntimes. <\/span>As it has weakened, bit by
\nbit the moral constraints on exercising power over people have withered. <\/span><\/p>\n
\neducated and often philosophical circles and by now down to the man and woman
\non the street, the power of moral reasoning as a check on power has withered – hence our national discussion of torture and a politics that no
\nlonger recognizes the rule of law. It is considered meaningless when applied to the
\npowerful. <\/span>This intellectual and
\nmoral rot has riddled many traditional secular institutions. <\/span>Winning is the only thing, winning by
\nany means possible. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n
\nattitude has spread, there was a fascinating shift in many academic circles
\nfrom reason and evidence being used to create power to power being used to
\ndetermine what counts as reason and evidence. <\/span>Starting with collectivists, who held that class, race, or
\nsome other collectivity determined our ability to understand the truth, with
\npost moderns there is no truth, nor any evidence or reason that can compel us
\nto abandon a position, only what can be enforced by power. <\/span><\/p>\n
\ndifferent route, secular modernity generated the same irrationality we see
\namong Fundamentalists. <\/a><\/span>A high
\nranking official in the Bush administration said to Ron Suskind<\/a>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that
\nsolutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded
\nand murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me
\noff. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re
\nan empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re
\nstudying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating
\nother new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort
\nout. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just
\nstudy what we do.’<\/span><\/em> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\ntogether of academic post modernist and Fundamentalist triumph of the
\nwill. <\/span>I can not tell from which
\ndirection this aide came to this conclusion, only that it fits perfectly with
\nboth. He could have been a student at Brown<\/a>, where Robert Matheisen taught, or he could have gone to Regent University<\/a>, academic home of so many Bushies. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nhas contributed <\/span>disproportionately to
\nthis process, although it’s mischief has been overshadowed by the lunacies
\nbeginning with the Bush years. <\/span>The
\nso-called “science wars” began in the 70s, and were played as much by the left
\nand academia as the right. <\/span>Science
\nsimply represented those with power at the moment. <\/span>Theories won out for political reasons, not the idealistic
\nreasons we had been led to believe made science different. <\/span>A wonderful account of all this is in
\nSteven Goldman’s audiobook Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How the Know
\nIt<\/a>. <\/p>\n