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.
The devil is in being able to have scholars who would be able to "open up the discussion". I'm unclear where they are going to come from as they are not what's being churned out by so many institutions.
I think you see the same problem as with DEI, where those attracted to the "profession" or desipline have already confirmed their prejudices and want the ability to implement them. Why go into a field that has so much you'd have to fight against from the very beginning, and know the attacks you'd have to suffer? There are far easier ways to make a living in teaching.
I completely agree with the failure of authoritarian censorship and why open debate is the best way to confront bad thinking, but I have a hard time seeing this work out beyond the theory. I'm not so sure having it go "underground" presents that great a threat, or is even worse than what's going on right now. Is "gender studies" really of such consequence outside of the academy?
You have an ocean liner going at full speed with officers and crew who signed on precisely because of the direction it is headed and the speed it is moving. Now you have to attract new crew and officers , and attempt to change direction against the wishes of the original promoters. who will likely view it as mutiny. I just see this continuing to limp a long, with no resolution that pleases everyone , or maybe even anyone. I'm grateful I'm not involved. Good on 'ya for dealing with it.
Budget cuts will solve this problem. Gender Studies will be absorbed by Sociology, Psychology, and History, and Literature as well. Sorry if I left any departments out. Same with Black Studies. I think this is progress. I'm sure there will be growing pains.
I still don't understand *how* these disciplines are supposed to be opened up to proper inquiry.
"Either way, the result would be the same: ideas about sex and gender would be evaluated through evidence and argument rather than protected through ideological insulation. " - they have been. Not only in gender studies, but in many similar fields, the conclusions that they start from have long been disproved, sometimes after their delusions were published and sometimes before they ever learned to read.
You certainly know better than I do, and even say so in the text, that those fields do not use or care for evidence. If you take away the mechanisms that they use to cut off feedback from reality (which are not exclusive to the radical fields but a huge issue across the humanities), they can't exist.
I fail to see how suggesting open debate and evidence-based methodology and examining their ideas for what they really are is not exactly what you and others have been doing for years now.
I'm not even sure if falls under censorship. Maybe it just doesn't belong in universities because its important to have some criteria for what does. A bare minimum of caring about reality is a good start. Banning it from a place where it doesn't belong doesn't stop people from talking about it.
In principle I agree with you that reform would be best. But in practice I struggle with seeing any realistic way a field that's currently completely owned and controlled by authorian forces hellbent on framing any critique not as disagreement or as an alternative hypothesis, but instead as violence -- as if the very act of disagreeing is by itself a violent act and one that marks the disagreer as part of "the problem" -- can be reformed WITHOUT first more or less wholesale removal of the current power-holders in departments of gender-studies and similar fields.
But how does that happen WITHOUT a pretty complete dismantling of these organizations? Every single person with any power at all in gender-studies departments these days are part of the problem -- since the people who are not have long since been declared "problematic" and ejected.
And that process start early; even at undergraduate levels, if you're not on board with their framework, the study itself won't be friendly to you and you'll be systematically attacked throughout -- and your disagreement will be framed in terms of you "not getting it", i.e. as evidence of you being some combination of clueless and actively harmful -- and won't even be engaged with constructively.
You say "we" should not tolerate that -- but who is "we" here exactly? And how should our lack of acceptance prevent them from simply continuing as before? My lack of tolerance for the offensive nonsens currently happening in so-called gender-studies and similar places, has effectively zero impact on what goes on in there, and they're literally educating the next generation of professors themselves. (weeding out anyone who doesn't accept their one "allowed" framing ruthlessly in the process)
Of course you're right when you point out that sex and gender are valid topics of study, and as such that it's absurd to say universities shouldn't do it.
But there's more options than "keep gender studies departments" and "don't research these topics". The most obvious third option would be to do the worthwhile parts of this research in other existing departments, such as for example psychology and/or sociology.
I'm not saying not to dismantle anything. I'm saying to enable and require genuine critical inquiry. That would dismantle epistemological and political structures that don't do that. I've said that in practice, if held to this, I think most gender studies academics will leave but they won't be banned or pushed out and will be less convincing when they try to claim victimhood.
"We" is society. Whatever we do to address this problem - whether it is banning certain topics of study or banning the ability to claim them not up for debate and decline to do rigorous scholarship from a variety of disciplines - will require a concerted effort. We'd need public demand for that to happen so that there are politicians who see it as in their interests to make this part of their platform and institutional reformers who can actually implement that. You cannot do this on your own, of course, but you couldn't whether that's bringing about the banning of whole fields or the insistence on academic standards. I don't see that there is much difference in the power of the individual in either of those cases. I'm arguing that we should put our strength behind the second one.
Your departments argument isn't a third option. That's one way of organising the studies. You'd still need to decide whether to ban use of queer theory in any of them or make queer theory do battle with biology, psychology etc. there. I think it should probably be considered philosophy as that already has grounds for a wide range of ideas including scientific positivism and postmodernism.
Clearly "abolishing" academic subjects we don't like is absurd, and the idea is exactly the kind of thing that Social Justice ideologues would come up with. But I'm not convinced that trying to 'reform' those subjects is better. I don't think it's the job of externals - either from outside academia or from other subjects (e.g. the sciences) - to butt-in and try to change disciplines. I think it sets a bad precedent and is unlikely to work.
What society can do much better for academic subjects that are running contrary to the interests of the society that hosts it, is simply to withhold public funding. There is no reason why a society should fund a group of academics who despise it and are trying to dismantle it. There is no reason why a society should fund a subject that is corrosive to it - whether that corrosion is by design or a side-effect. If universities want to fund these subjects out of their own money, that's their own business decision; but they're not getting taxes to do so.
I do agree with the article on the question of censorship vs. reform. The one question I would raise is around the organisation of fields of study. For example, some elements of “gender studies” can be studied within biology departments, some within anthropology, others within sociology, etc. Simply by organising these elements in a department of gender studies are we not prejudicing the direction and outcomes of these studies, if only subtly? By setting up such a department within universities we are implicitly suggesting that they belong together in a way that is itself socially constructed. As I said at the outset, this is a question, not an assertion, but one I think deserves consideration within this debate.
Well said Helen. For those interested in a more detailed analysis of why Critical Theories must be reformed, I recommend Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay's book "Social (In)justice: Why Many Popular Answers to Important Questions on Race, Gender and Identity Are Wrong - and How to Know What's Right".
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.
Good point. I say, integrate them. Then let their ideas sink or swim.
The devil is in being able to have scholars who would be able to "open up the discussion". I'm unclear where they are going to come from as they are not what's being churned out by so many institutions.
I think you see the same problem as with DEI, where those attracted to the "profession" or desipline have already confirmed their prejudices and want the ability to implement them. Why go into a field that has so much you'd have to fight against from the very beginning, and know the attacks you'd have to suffer? There are far easier ways to make a living in teaching.
I completely agree with the failure of authoritarian censorship and why open debate is the best way to confront bad thinking, but I have a hard time seeing this work out beyond the theory. I'm not so sure having it go "underground" presents that great a threat, or is even worse than what's going on right now. Is "gender studies" really of such consequence outside of the academy?
You have an ocean liner going at full speed with officers and crew who signed on precisely because of the direction it is headed and the speed it is moving. Now you have to attract new crew and officers , and attempt to change direction against the wishes of the original promoters. who will likely view it as mutiny. I just see this continuing to limp a long, with no resolution that pleases everyone , or maybe even anyone. I'm grateful I'm not involved. Good on 'ya for dealing with it.
I believe there's a great deal that will stand up to the rigor
Budget cuts will solve this problem. Gender Studies will be absorbed by Sociology, Psychology, and History, and Literature as well. Sorry if I left any departments out. Same with Black Studies. I think this is progress. I'm sure there will be growing pains.
I think the budget cuts will force their hand in the matter. Some schools have like 10 Identity studies departments - seems a bit crazy to me.
I read your article in Skeptic. Good job - you go girl.
Hope it's ok to say that.
I still don't understand *how* these disciplines are supposed to be opened up to proper inquiry.
"Either way, the result would be the same: ideas about sex and gender would be evaluated through evidence and argument rather than protected through ideological insulation. " - they have been. Not only in gender studies, but in many similar fields, the conclusions that they start from have long been disproved, sometimes after their delusions were published and sometimes before they ever learned to read.
You certainly know better than I do, and even say so in the text, that those fields do not use or care for evidence. If you take away the mechanisms that they use to cut off feedback from reality (which are not exclusive to the radical fields but a huge issue across the humanities), they can't exist.
I fail to see how suggesting open debate and evidence-based methodology and examining their ideas for what they really are is not exactly what you and others have been doing for years now.
I'm not even sure if falls under censorship. Maybe it just doesn't belong in universities because its important to have some criteria for what does. A bare minimum of caring about reality is a good start. Banning it from a place where it doesn't belong doesn't stop people from talking about it.
How do you mean that they don't care for evidence?
Would it still be gender studies if they adopted your recommendations? 😆
In principle I agree with you that reform would be best. But in practice I struggle with seeing any realistic way a field that's currently completely owned and controlled by authorian forces hellbent on framing any critique not as disagreement or as an alternative hypothesis, but instead as violence -- as if the very act of disagreeing is by itself a violent act and one that marks the disagreer as part of "the problem" -- can be reformed WITHOUT first more or less wholesale removal of the current power-holders in departments of gender-studies and similar fields.
Yes, it won’t happen if people who insist it mustn’t happen get to veto it. I’m saying we should not tolerate that.
But how does that happen WITHOUT a pretty complete dismantling of these organizations? Every single person with any power at all in gender-studies departments these days are part of the problem -- since the people who are not have long since been declared "problematic" and ejected.
And that process start early; even at undergraduate levels, if you're not on board with their framework, the study itself won't be friendly to you and you'll be systematically attacked throughout -- and your disagreement will be framed in terms of you "not getting it", i.e. as evidence of you being some combination of clueless and actively harmful -- and won't even be engaged with constructively.
You say "we" should not tolerate that -- but who is "we" here exactly? And how should our lack of acceptance prevent them from simply continuing as before? My lack of tolerance for the offensive nonsens currently happening in so-called gender-studies and similar places, has effectively zero impact on what goes on in there, and they're literally educating the next generation of professors themselves. (weeding out anyone who doesn't accept their one "allowed" framing ruthlessly in the process)
Of course you're right when you point out that sex and gender are valid topics of study, and as such that it's absurd to say universities shouldn't do it.
But there's more options than "keep gender studies departments" and "don't research these topics". The most obvious third option would be to do the worthwhile parts of this research in other existing departments, such as for example psychology and/or sociology.
I'm not saying not to dismantle anything. I'm saying to enable and require genuine critical inquiry. That would dismantle epistemological and political structures that don't do that. I've said that in practice, if held to this, I think most gender studies academics will leave but they won't be banned or pushed out and will be less convincing when they try to claim victimhood.
"We" is society. Whatever we do to address this problem - whether it is banning certain topics of study or banning the ability to claim them not up for debate and decline to do rigorous scholarship from a variety of disciplines - will require a concerted effort. We'd need public demand for that to happen so that there are politicians who see it as in their interests to make this part of their platform and institutional reformers who can actually implement that. You cannot do this on your own, of course, but you couldn't whether that's bringing about the banning of whole fields or the insistence on academic standards. I don't see that there is much difference in the power of the individual in either of those cases. I'm arguing that we should put our strength behind the second one.
Your departments argument isn't a third option. That's one way of organising the studies. You'd still need to decide whether to ban use of queer theory in any of them or make queer theory do battle with biology, psychology etc. there. I think it should probably be considered philosophy as that already has grounds for a wide range of ideas including scientific positivism and postmodernism.
Clearly "abolishing" academic subjects we don't like is absurd, and the idea is exactly the kind of thing that Social Justice ideologues would come up with. But I'm not convinced that trying to 'reform' those subjects is better. I don't think it's the job of externals - either from outside academia or from other subjects (e.g. the sciences) - to butt-in and try to change disciplines. I think it sets a bad precedent and is unlikely to work.
What society can do much better for academic subjects that are running contrary to the interests of the society that hosts it, is simply to withhold public funding. There is no reason why a society should fund a group of academics who despise it and are trying to dismantle it. There is no reason why a society should fund a subject that is corrosive to it - whether that corrosion is by design or a side-effect. If universities want to fund these subjects out of their own money, that's their own business decision; but they're not getting taxes to do so.
I do agree with the article on the question of censorship vs. reform. The one question I would raise is around the organisation of fields of study. For example, some elements of “gender studies” can be studied within biology departments, some within anthropology, others within sociology, etc. Simply by organising these elements in a department of gender studies are we not prejudicing the direction and outcomes of these studies, if only subtly? By setting up such a department within universities we are implicitly suggesting that they belong together in a way that is itself socially constructed. As I said at the outset, this is a question, not an assertion, but one I think deserves consideration within this debate.
Well said Helen. For those interested in a more detailed analysis of why Critical Theories must be reformed, I recommend Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay's book "Social (In)justice: Why Many Popular Answers to Important Questions on Race, Gender and Identity Are Wrong - and How to Know What's Right".