Category: Class Minutes

The articles from this week’s discussion came from Bucknell’s Antiracism page and showcases how our own university deals with wokeism. There are two main aspects to woeksim that we tackled this week which include racism and the power of language. 

In the article “10 Ways to Tackle Linguistic Bias in Our Classrooms”  it addresses the prejudices that minority students face when they read and write in the classroom. This article is effective at tying together both racism and the power of language in through a wokeist perspective. We went on to talk about how our goal should be to listen to as many different voices and perspectives as possible. Yet this is very challenging to implement realistically in a society with multicultural beliefs. It is virtually impossible to get everyone to agree upon one thing and having so many competing viewpoints can lead to chaos and hinder our baility to successfully communicate with one another. 

Language can be used to unite society, but at the same time it can deepen divisions between social groups and even lead to violence. This made us think about: How can langugae have pyscholgical effects/harm on people? Should we limit our free speech to spare the feelings of others? This relates to our discussion with Gad Saad and seeking the truth. He argues that we should find the truth through the scientific method and incorporate evidence and facts into our language to support our arguments. There are wokesits that make factual claims which makes it more difficult to critique their arguments sucecsffuly. This directly contradicts spiritual relgions such as Christiianity which base their beliefs on faith vocabulary. They accept moral truths with no empirical evidence or science whatsoever. This leaves spiral religions more open to criticism that quasi-relgiions because they do not have data to base their claims on. 

The interpretation of language from Christians and Wokeists also relates to our discussions of truth relativism. According to Christians there is a mystical fact that informs them of what happened in the universse and what comes after that. They accept moral truths that comes from language in the Old Testament rather than the language of fact. Their viewpoints come from a faith program rather than an experiment. Wokeists on the other hand have their own language for looking at social justice issues.

The main social justice issue that we covered was the American social problem with police violence aagainst young black men. Kendi’s “Who Gets to Be Afriad in America?” covers the case of an unarmed black man, Arbery, who was fatally shot by two white men. The white men claim in their defense that they thought he was guilty of robbing the neighborhood and tried to detain him but he grabbed their gun. Yet it was a controversial case and the verdict found the white men guilty of murder and a hate crime. Kendi argues that  white supremacists are  inherent to american society and the result of such hate crimes is because of structural racism. We discussed the issues of making such a claim such as: how do you know the structure is the only thing producing the injustice? What is the social structure and how is it perpetuating this social injustice? We concluded that there needs to be support with scientific evidence to suppor tthi claim, but it is challenging to do with other confounding variables that cause hate crimes. If the only cause is structural racism then that would warrant that nothing else conceiveably could be going on to perpeturate these issues. Currently our social sciences are not developed enough because our tools are not sophisticated enough to fully understand or assign solutions to certain social justice issues like racism and hate crimes. Some issues are so complicated in human nature that we will never be able to sort out how much of each cause is producing each effect.

Additionally another common theme that came up during our conversation was police brutality against young black men. There are cases in whcih the driver is resistant or not compliant to the police’s orders which escalation points. Yet we must ask ourselves: are these police using self defense or unecessary violence? Somebl people would argue that black men are disproriotnately targeted by police officers which is an example of instiutionalized racism within the police system. This relates to Kendi’s claim that America is fundamentally a white supremacist nation. He claims that racism is still very much widespread today. Even though we do not have Jim Crow laws, racism in today’s society has become more insidious. He goes as far as to claim that the election of the first black president was evidence of how insidious racism has gotten because we have become so used to internalized racism. The fact that we had a black president to him was not a milestone in combating racism in America. Overall, a lot of the calims that Kendi make seem to falsifiable and open to critique due to his lack of evidencei n support of his argument. 

Overall our discussion of the power of language and racism can help us understand how wokeists approach such issues. They advocate for change and express frustration with the current and past administrations in America. Yet, the only way to make such arguments non-falsiafiable is to know the scientific facts and utilize empirical evidence in order to claim validity to the arguments that you are making. 

This class was similar to the previous ones we have had. During class on 10/5 we talked about a quasi-religion through the student movements. The student movements contributed potentially radical political ideas to the utopia. The ideas they proposed to the movement served as the building ground for wokeism. We started class off with some background history related to the chapters we read for class of “The New Student Left” and “The Berkeley Student Movement”. The Berkeley Student Movement can be referred to as the free speech movement. The author of these chapters was a faculty member at Berkeley in the 60s when this was occurring. 

            During the reading presentation, the question of is the Old Left similar to the current Right was addressed. It was answered that the Old Left were the political actors that came of age in the 20s,30s, and 40s. The political issues they fought on were not the same at the national or local level. Therefore, no cohesiveness. At the national level they addressed the conflict between Communism and fascism in Europe. Fascism would not have existed without global Communism. Fascism was a challenge to Communism. The Old Left was pro-Soviet and anti-fascist. However, the New Left had a different perspective as the global political situation changed. During the 40s and 50s the crimes that the Soviets committed were discovered. Therefore, people rethought their position on Communism. This brought up how after reading the chapters for class, the perspective of the Vietnam War was also changed. 

We discussed the Vietnam War. The purpose of giving details about the movements behind the war was to address many of the misconceptions that we had been taught in school previously or due to the media. It was originally thought that the hippies and peace-oriented groups were leading the anti-war movements. However, these individuals were the cultural part of the New Left. They had particular ideas about how to live one’s life and a certain value system. Overall, they did have a pacifist philosophy. However, they rejected the establishment of politics altogether.  

            The discussion of hippies brought on the 1968 Democratic Convention. During this convention, it was thought that the most anti-war candidate needed to be nominated. They were hostile to the cultural movement of the New Left. This was because the “hippies” were not cooperating with the ideals of the Democrats politically. They were thought to be getting in the way of their goals and contributing to the defeat of said goals. They Democrats thought that the enemies could point out what the hippies want as what they want. 

            Then the Vietnam War was further discussed on how there was substantial change between 1967 and 1968. In 1968 it was thought that fighting this war was defending freedom and defending capitalism. However, it was difficult to keep up this position within the United States. The movements at the time thought of capitalism as a produced inequality and created conflict in society. Thus, the movements made it hard to sustain the war effort. The New Left was discouraging to the political elites; thus, they gave up and left the Vietnamese on their own. 

            The New Student Movement became interested in the Vietnam War in the 60s. However, the war was not their main concern. Free speech was the central concern. They drew from their interest in the war, as they were interested in violence because they themselves wanted to be violent. This group viewed themselves as a defining change in society. They thought that they were going to be the generation to bring great change. In order to achieve this revolution, they were characterizing themselves through outrage and anger. 

            Overall, the demographics of this group was young people. They received criticism about being the great change makers. This was because they knew less about historical questions than the older generations. They were criticized for their competence and knowledge. Thus, it created a generational conflict. The young people thought that they could fix what their parents screwed up. They thought that they were the future. The students believed in a self-righteous position to solve the issues. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement, however, did not believe in free speech. They justified limiting discussion and debated, as they thought that only they had the calling. Free speech was limited to their side and they shut down positions they did not like. This position was similar to the ones voiced in the Russian Student Movement. 

            After identifying the position of the new student movement, we talked about their ironic issues that they were concerned with. How they thought of the student as a student was similar to the ways that intellects tried to identify themselves with the proletariat. The students of this movement felt they could identify with the poor southern black people living under the Jim Crow laws. This was ironic as these were college students from elite universities, most of whom came from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds. The students thought of themselves as unfree. They believe that the campus was a machine, and they were the raw materials. They believed that they were hapless victims of the system in the same way that the Jim Crow laws were crushing the black people in the South or the American War Machine was crushing the Vietnamese. This ironic position transitioned to the last theme of class. 

We ended class by discussing whether there was a legitimate reason for the formation of the New Student Left. From the beginning of the movement there was a propensity to authoritarianism. The individuals who made up the movement were skewed toward elite campuses such as those from the middle to upper middle class. Therefore, is there any way to justify the legitimacy of this movement’s claim? This group had support to back up their statements. On page 396, it was stated that there was suffering of society as a whole. This political and social movement was taking on a utopian complex. They recognized that the social and political conditions that we live in cannot be escaped. However, it was thought that the problems can be tolerated and be able to live with them. Overall, the goal was to get rid of the hierarchy in human society. 

Comparisons between the New Student Left and the quasi-Communist movement can be drawn. Both of these movements have the same criticism. Each group wanted to move the utopia into this world. The purpose was to expand the utopia to all of these movements. Although, the goals of the utopia were never realized. 

The criticism conversation transitioned us into the last topic of the night. The end of class we were talking about the “Weather Underground”. Both Ayers and Bourne understood the historical record and risks of a political movement. They were committed to the utopia and defeating the capitalists, and therefore became a spy. Ultimately, they were able to make a deal with the authorities and received light sentences. After serving their time, both became college professors and made justifications for what they did. They thought that it was so important to pursue a particular set of goals for the utopian movements, that the methods were justified. This highlights the vindication of the system. The system allowed them to engage in terrorist activities and then they were imprisoned. From there they bargained and were able to live normal lives. This shows that it is not a totalitarian regime, as they were suggesting. 

We wrapped up by starting to talk about the concept of participatory democracy. This type of system is neither participative or democratic in practice. It is a theory that was borrowed from Leninism. It suggested that political activity should be total equality, transparency, and freedom. However, in reality it is the complete opposite of it. This set up allows for a restricted viewpoint and to eliminate any inconvenient perspectives. Therefore, stopping opposition allowed the movement to flourish.

We started class by discussing Hagel’s view on his ghostly spiritual logic. Ghostly spiritual logic was not fully realized at the time that Hagel was writing, and wasn’t realized in the early time of history. This Rationality (with a capital R) or spirit is the force that organizes itself into the state of Logic (with a capital L). Human beings, through our own rational process, can bring order to a world. The world is not so hostile to rational organization. As a class, we discussed what this would look like, and shifted to the discussion of progressivism.

We shifted and started discussing progressivism and asked the question, “On what grounds does anyone want to criticize progressivism?” As a political movement, progressivism purports to advance the human condition through social reform based on advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization. The motor of history is driving in a certain direction. Progressivism is key to the survival of intellectuals. One of the large foes of progressivism is religion. We discussed how the biggest part about progressivism is advancement, and religion follows the logic of believing in past tradition and ideas that do not line up with advancement. Religion focuses on staying with old tradition.

We discussed for a while the question, “How do intellectuals fit into the utopian society?” We started the discussion by discussing what a utopian society would even look like, and if it was possible. Through coming to the conclusion that a utopian society is very hard to even imagine because of how impossible it is, we decided to shift back to how intellectuals fit into the utopian society. We talked about how since intellectuals are often focused on power, if intellectuals were in a utopian society, they wouldn’t be able to be corrupt anymore. This was a confusing topic, so we decided to break it down. We talked about how bad social institutions which lead to corruption are not the actual human beings doing, but the institutions themselves. If a utopian society existed, there would be no corrupt institutions and therefore intellectuals wouldn’t have the sway to gain power. This was definitely a controversial topic because it is hard to picture a world in which no human being is corrupt or evil. Even if there are no corrupt institutions, it is hard to believe a world where human beings are completely good. We talked about how wanting power could result in being corrupt, but wanting power isn’t necessarily an evil thing. It becomes evil when people want to use that power to do more harm than good.

We went back to the original idea of who an intellectual is. We talked about religious figures, especially those in power, and how they are considered to be intellectuals in their own respective field. We defined intellectuals as all pursing the realm of ideas as a profession or calling. Even though groups of intellectuals might be different, they all spend time in the abstract world of ideas. They focus on these ideas more than the typical human. This is interesting to think about because it connects the utopian society with religion. Religious institutions inherently can become corrupt, based on their traditionalist ideals. Conflict between religions is something that I do not see as completely disappearing, even if there is a utopian society. We talked about how as human beings, is there a way to judge our own actions? How would this work in a utopian society? It raises the question, in a utopian society how would there be a judge? Would everyone be on the same playing field?

We started out our class discussion by going back to the reading of Thesis 6 from Gouldner’s book from last week’s assigned reading (8/31). We started out by stating that intellectuals tend to skew the sacred object of truth and twist truth into satisfying good or justice. Intellectuals also tend to idealize their purpose in the world and alter their findings or ideas to accelerate through society and gain greater power.

We discussed an example which Professor Riley brought up about a paper that was written about a study done on Alzheimer’s Disease about 15 years ago or so. Only recently did it come out that the author or researcher, who was a well known and knowledgable expert in the field with a PhD and MD, altered images/scans of patients brains to further his research and conclude that his study found groundbreaking evidence for the cause of the disease. From this evidence, 15 years of money, time and research has gone into this finding that was faulty from the get-go and did not actually aid in the discovery of anything novel. From this example, we concluded that intellectuals are always trying to get ahead and increase their chances of receiving higher status within society.

From there we transitioned into discussing the CCD or the Culture of Critical Discourse. This new kind of discourse mainly seeks to use reason to justify claims and arguments. The CCD also aims to put all arguments under severe critique and no claim or argument is too small to be judged. However, no one should ever be forced to adhere to certain rules or arguments as it should always be voluntary, nor should claims ever be judged by an individuals character or status.

This brought us into the discussion of intellectuals idolizing certain figures. As we discussed in class, there are certain figures in history that hold a higher status than the average person within each discipline. As Professor Riley brought up, Pierre Bourdieu is an idolized figure within the sociology community of intellectuals in that anything he published people would immediately adhere to because he was deemed as a genius in the field. This same principle holds true for that of the biological community with Charles Darwin. If Charles Darwin were to still be alive and formulate some new idea or theory of evolution that clearly is not possibly true people would adhere to it and claim its the truth because it’s Charles Darwin, how could he be wrong about anything? By the standards of the CCD, intellectuals should not idolize figures in society as having supernatural powers. Those idolized figures should be held under the same scrutiny as every other person who makes a claim about a new idea. Artists and musicians are especially poor at holding other brilliant figures to the standard of the CCD. They often equate those who are especially good as just “gifted” creators or players, as though they have had those talents since birth and no amount of training would ever allow someone to get to that same level of expertise.

We even brought up the question of whether it is even possible to not idolize people or hold brilliant people to a higher standard? In essence, it is extremely difficult because human nature is such that individuals pursue those avenues that provide them a sense of authority.

We then transitioned into the readings for this week (9/7) with Thesis 11 from Gouldner’s book. We began our discussion by defining the term alienation. We defined alienation of the intellectual class in society as the separation/estrangement from other groups or classes. Intellectuals often have a feeling of elitism with a high self regard and believe others, who are not of the intellectual class, could never understand what it is they are doing for the world or themselves. We even went as far as to say the intellectual class has a sort of contempt toward the business class for their success in society as we know it.

Professor Riley gave an example of humanities or liberal arts related intellectuals or professors at universities often have contempt toward the business school at any university. They simply cannot understand the premise of what they are teaching and why they are viewed by society as most successful. We delved into the American view of the “self-made business man/woman” and the fact that Americans often equate self-made business people as more successful compared to a professor at a university. Americans perceive making something new and making a lot of money from that business venture as a more fruitful life than that of a professor, who probably had to do just as much work if not more to get to where they are.

To finish our discussion we briefly touched on the idea of gnosticism and the gnostic attitude. This idea dates back to Christianity and the individuals who practice this principle believe that the true God is hidden behind the false God of Christianity whom created this fallen and evil world. Followers of gnosticism are dissatisfied with their current state and believe that the world is intrinsically disorganized and that salvation of the world is possible. This principle is synonymous with the teachings of socialism and Marxian ideologies which we closed out our discussion on.

We started class by opening the discussion back up on readings from last week (8/24). We did a lengthy examination of Collins’ introductory definition of intellectuals as “people who produce decontextualized ideas.”

Most ideas most people, including intellectuals, have are contextualized, that is, they are closely connected to whatever is happening to us in a given situation or moment. The idea “The cat is hungry” is generally motivated by e.g., hearing the cat meow in a certain way.

Decontextualized ideas are disconnected from immediate situations and contexts and have to do with more abstract and generalized phenomena. A decontextualized idea about hungry cats is “Cats are carnivores that, in the wild, hunt prey.” Intellectuals are, far more often than non-intellectuals, concerned with such decontextualized ideas.

Another piece of this decontextualization is the intellectual search for ideas that are true regardless of context and situation. This gets to Collins’ argument (which is also made by Gouldner and Molnar) that Truth is often a central intellectual concern that motivates their efforts.

Collins also notes that Truth is viewed as a “sacred object” in such intellectual communities that is pursued in the same way that religious faithful pursue God. We talked a bit about what makes something sacred and how intellectuals can be understood as engaged in relationships with sacred objects. The sacred is defined by Emile Durkheim, a founder of sociology who wrote near the end of his life a monumental study of the origins of religious life, as that which is seen as transcendent of everyday life, which stands outside of and above the mundane, and which is recognized as having a certain power that can cause us to feel reverence and/or fear in its presence. Sacred things have to be secluded and protected from pollution by the profane or mundane, as they can lose their power if they are soiled by those everyday things. This is why sacred objects are surrounded by rituals of purification and taboos.

We talked about how sacredness can be seen in intellectual life in the way e.g., some figures are recognized almost as saints or holy figures. I gave the example of a talk in Berkeley by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Hundreds of people crammed into a smallish auditorium to hear him talk about his latest research and the attitude was of hushed reverence. When he appeared on the podium, he was applauded vigorously. In France, a saying humorously referred to his elevated status: “Après Dieu, Bourdieu/After God, Bourdieu.” People came up to him after the talk seeking his autograph on copies of his books, just as you would expect to see at a celebrity book-signing.

Sacredness was seen by Durkheim as a generalizable concept that can be found in numerous fields outside religion and intellectual life. We talked a bit about sports examples. I mentioned the example of the baseball player Reggie Jackson in my youth. He was widely recognized as a great player from early in his career, but perhaps the moment that raised him to sacred status was his hitting three home runs on three pitches in a World Series game in 1977.

We then moved to discussing the readings on the schedule for this week.

We spent most of our time on the Shils chapter “The Intellectuals and the Powers.” Shils, like Collins, begins by emphasizing the intellectual relationship to the sacred: “In every society, there are some persons with an unusual sensitivity to the sacred, an uncommon reflectiveness about the nature of their universe and the rules which govern their society…more than the ordinary run of their fellow men, [they] are inquiring, and desirous of being in frequent communion with symbols which are more general than the immediate concrete situations of everyday life and remote in their reference in both time and space [i.e., decontextualized ideas]. In this minority, there is a need to externalize this quest in oral and written discourse, in poetic or plastic expression, in historical reminiscence or writing, in ritual performance and acts of worship.”

Intellectuals are thus scholars, artists and performers of all sorts, and public figures who dedicate themselves to writing and reporting on decontextualized ideas. Their unique relationship to the sacred is better understood if we recognize that, historically, the intellectual class grew out of the priestly class. That is, the first intellectuals in all societies were religious intellectuals, who spent their time thinking about God/the gods and theorizing the relationship between the supernatural world and our world. Even when the modern intellectual class arose and some intellectuals separated themselves from religious institutions, that close relationship to sacredness remained. We can see the history of the relationship in the fact that the institution in which many (but not all) intellectuals operate–the university or college–was created in the West by the Christian church.

Shils argues that certain functions that intellectuals fill need to be met in any society, so there will always need to be intellectuals.

We then talked a bit about some of the “intellectual traditions” Shils presents, which give us neat ways of understanding how many intellectuals conceive of their identities and their relationship to the larger society.

The tradition of scientism rejects tradition as such as irrational and it embraces the pursuit of objective knowledge through rigorous testing and experimentation. Intellectuals in this tradition are often found among Gouldner’s technical intelligentsia and in universities.

The romantic tradition values originality, spontaneity, and creative individualism above all else. Not rigorous testing but the authentic expression of impulse and passion are important here for intellectual self-identification. Artists and performers are more common in this tradition.

We ended class by briefly introducing the revolutionary/apocalyptic tradition. This begins in religious intellectuals who reject the established faiths in which they were educated to embrace a morally binary vision of the world as it is as fallen and to anticipate the coming of a great cataclysm that will burn away all the fallenness of this world to create a perfect Utopia. Later, in modern secular intellectuals, this tradition lives on in forms of political Utopianism such as communism and Wokeism. We will have much more to say about this tradition in weeks to come, as it is of central importance for our investigation of Wokeism.