The Anti-Woke Case for Not Banning Gender Studies
A piece for Skeptic
“Among critics of “wokeness,” an increasingly heated debate has emerged about what should be done about university disciplines shaped by postmodern-derived Critical Social Justice theories—most notably Gender Studies. Some argue that these fields should be dismantled entirely. Others believe they should be reformed to operate under the normal standards of academic inquiry.”
For Skeptic, I argue that the best way to abolish bad ideas is not to ban them but open them up to genuine multidisciplinary critique.
Find the full essay here.
A commitment to a disciplined and broadly applied epistemological competence is essential. We do not learn epistemological competence from religious institutions or partisan politics. If we do not learn it from our schools or parents we become incompetent in general not only as individuals but as a culture, as a society, and as a nation.
I taught philosophy for over twenty years at a State University in California. We had a faculty member who taught feminism and gender studies, and an entire department devoted to gender studies. I often sat in on the feminism philosophy classes, and also had students in my other classes who would refer to what they learned in the gender studies classes. I never saw the kind of dogmatism that is described in this article. I would often disagree with some of the positions paraphrased by my students, and my students would respond by saying things like "oh I never thought of it that way". I would tell them they would have to respond to the objections I raised, and they usually did. If they did a good job of responding, I would give them a good grade, even if I didn't agree with their response.
I'm not disputing anything Ms. Pluckrose is saying here. I've read plenty of horror stories about this kind of fanaticism, and I don't doubt the truth of any of them. I'm just saying that that has not been my experience. However, seeing as the discussion here is over whether it is possible to deal with these issues in a rational way, with respect for rules of evidence and argument, my point is that it is possible, because at my school, it was actual. Of course, some of the student arguments I encountered were pretty lame, because they were students, but no one rejected the whole idea of argument as a principle. Perhaps that isn't the case at English universities, or at big American schools like Harvard or Columbia. But it was true at my little state school, and that means it could be true anywhere else.