Anthropologist H. Sidky, writing in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer (March / April 2018, print only) in “The War on Science, Anti-intellectualism, and ‘Alternative Ways of Knowing’ in 21st-Century America,” points the finger of responsibility for those collectively best thought of as reality-deniers at … :
… postmodernists were able to launch an all-encompassing disinformation campaign to delegitimize science and rationality. The distressing effects of this campaign were painfully brought to light for many after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The assault on science centered on the idea of epistemological relativism. This entails the premise that conditions of knowledge are such that the truth and falsity of assertions are context-dependent, situated, and always relative to cultural and social backgrounds, political position, class, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion. Thus, the idea that scientific knowledge depends upon objective empirical evidence is false. Excluding the empirical dimension of the scientific enterprise, these writers misrepresented science as merely a “story” or narrative like any other that relies on rhetorical ornamentation and languages games to persuade people of its legitimacy and authority. Epistemological relativism dictates that no representations of reality or story can be privileged because there are multiple and equally valid realities and truths. Moreover, because all truths are relative, postmodernists asserted, who truth prevails is a coefficient of power and coercion [c.o.[1]]. The West is dominant and hegemonic, and hence its “truths” (i.e., science) are privileged. [Any typos mine – haw]
Which, suitably translated into everyday English, does sound an awful lot like we see a lot of these days, I’ll grant. However, Sidky attributes much of this to philosophers such as Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Foucalt, among others – and I have to admit that, not having read them myself, why should I think that the chief climate-deniers have read them, either? They’re high-falutin’ stuff, ya know?
Sidky continues,
To expose the exact nature of power relations, post-modern thinkers believed, one had to look at the linguistic context of truth claims because nothing exists apart from the discourse that constitutes them. In other words, apprehension of a reality outside the linguistic webs that entangle us is not possible, which is an assertion that goes against anthropological evidence, science, common sense, and everyday epistemology.
To my mind, it also present a chicken and egg problem. But to continue on to the definitive fingerpoint:
For forty years, the postmodern savants in universities across the country indoctrinated students with their antiscience message [c.o.]. The substitute they offered was epistemological relativism as the avenue to establish a genuinely just and tolerant society open to diverse viewpoints. …
Many of those indoctrinated in postmodern anti-science went on to become conservative political and religious leaders, policymakers, journalists, journal editors, judges, lawyers, and members of city councils and school boards. Sadly, they forgot the lofty ideals of their teachers, except that science is bogus [c.o.]. Thus, vast cadres of people with little interest in the message of multiculturalism and epistemological egalitarianism coopted the central lesson of postmodernism that truth is what one wants it to be to assert the legitimacy of their authoritarian dogma, irrationalism, and bunkum.
Given some of the madness that has come popping out, this makes some startling sense, although I wouldn’t expect the “conservative” right wingers to actually taken Kuhn, Focault, et al, seriously. What little I’ve read of them certainly had me shaking my head in disbelief.
And I’m not really sure how this all helps, either.
1c.o. – citation omitted. See the original article or email me for the citation, as I have no plans to reproduce Sidky’s citation list here.
