There’s little doubt that with age comes increasing skepticism. Think about it. Babies have to trust. With accumulating disappointments, they learn that they can’t always trust. That was you. That was me. So, where are we now? Do we agree with Ringo Starr, who sang that trust “don’t come easy”?
We could argue that a healthy skepticism equates to a healthy maturity and that only the foolish trust unconditionally. Skepticism is a defensive mechanism that keeps the charlatans at bay. But then, all of us have established trust here or there, in friends, loved ones, and some authorities. We might say that trust in loved ones is freely given and unconditional, but that trust in authorities is always conditional. Yet, we know that even loved ones can betray trust as evidenced by infidelities in both fiction and reality. Infidelity leading to a lack of trust is a theme in plays like Othello and in the tabloids that record this or that breakup among the rich and famous: Think Princess Diana.
Anyway, take the following skeptically. Because of ideology, we have a tendency to harbor unconditional trust and conditional skepticism. The former we give to our favored ideology; the latter, to any opposing one. A recent story from the halls of academia, for instance, illustrates what I mean.
We all realize that once a notion gets into the heads of academicians, they have a tendency to stick with it to the dismay of those who might challenge the intellectual status quo. Thus, we have had proponents of phrenology, a geocentric universe, a homuncular beginning, and a stable set of continents, all with devoted proponents who rejected antithetical thinking: Think Galileo and Alfred Wegener for examples.
So, the story of Peter Boghossian, a Portland State University professor shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It seems that the University officials are in a huff about what the professor and a couple of others recently did that reveals unconditional trust and conditional skepticism associated with ideologies. According to the report by Dave Urbanski (N.B., “according to”—that inspires trust in me because I’m revealing my source), “Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose wrote about as series of articles they implanted in journals to demonstrate bias in academia. Their USA opinion piece was entitled “From dog rape to white men in chains: We fooled the biased academic left with fake studies.”*
The motive for the project, according to the authors? “We did this as a part of a year-long probe to find out how much certain political biases have taken root within a small but powerful sector of academia…We succeeded [in getting the articles published] not so much because we tricked the journals, but because our papers fit in with what they consider scholarship.”**
Apparently, when supposed highly educated adults embrace an ideology, they embrace it unconditionally while rejecting any antithetical thought. In other words, academicians display a infantile trust once they accept a concept. The concepts in the articles Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose submitted were “toxic masculinity,” “white fragility,” “cultural appropriation,” and “microaggressions,” concepts so fully emplaced in contemporary culture that they have become “buzz words.” All the concepts derived from “grievance studies.” Lindsay says, “If our project shows anything, it’s that we have very little reason to trust the concepts coming out of grievance studies.” With regard to one of their article’s suggestion to put white men in chains to make them understand the plight of others, Lindsay says, “Currently, they [the buzz words and grievance articles] have come into our lives via a broken academic sector that doesn’t even know it’s not okay to put students in chains.”
Try it yourself. Find a widely accepted ideology in any field and suggest an absurd corollary or version that appears to be consistent with current thinking. If you stick to the buzz words, you’ll probably find a trusting audience, regardless of the absurdity of your thought. Unconditional trust pervades ideologies.
You shouldn’t be surprised that the American Psychological Association has taken a position against “traditional masculinity”—whatever that is. Well, here it is: “Thirteen years in the making, [the new guidelines] draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful….” Guys, get in touch with your sensitive side; obviously, “traditional masculinity” is bad for you because it makes you suppress your emotions. You should especially abandon that traditional masculinity in times of war, home invasions, and muggings. And think of what all that machismo is doing to the little ones, those boys who develop competitiveness, obviously, according to the APA, to their own detriment.
Now we have to wonder whether or not to trust APA articles that address the psychology of males. Do we put unconditional trust in the research? In the conclusions? Or should we apply some healthy skepticism that we learned along the way between infancy and adulthood?
*Online at https://www.theblaze.com/news/professor-who-exposed-biased-academic-left-with-fake-studies-is-in-trouble-with-his-college-over-it Accessed on January 9, 2019.
**The original article is Lindsay, James, et al., USA Today, Online at https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/10/10/grievance-studies-academia-fake-feminist-hypatia-mein-kampf-racism-column/1575219002/ Accessed January 9, 2019. The article was published on October 10, 2018 as an opinion piece in the newspaper.
We could argue that a healthy skepticism equates to a healthy maturity and that only the foolish trust unconditionally. Skepticism is a defensive mechanism that keeps the charlatans at bay. But then, all of us have established trust here or there, in friends, loved ones, and some authorities. We might say that trust in loved ones is freely given and unconditional, but that trust in authorities is always conditional. Yet, we know that even loved ones can betray trust as evidenced by infidelities in both fiction and reality. Infidelity leading to a lack of trust is a theme in plays like Othello and in the tabloids that record this or that breakup among the rich and famous: Think Princess Diana.
Anyway, take the following skeptically. Because of ideology, we have a tendency to harbor unconditional trust and conditional skepticism. The former we give to our favored ideology; the latter, to any opposing one. A recent story from the halls of academia, for instance, illustrates what I mean.
We all realize that once a notion gets into the heads of academicians, they have a tendency to stick with it to the dismay of those who might challenge the intellectual status quo. Thus, we have had proponents of phrenology, a geocentric universe, a homuncular beginning, and a stable set of continents, all with devoted proponents who rejected antithetical thinking: Think Galileo and Alfred Wegener for examples.
So, the story of Peter Boghossian, a Portland State University professor shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It seems that the University officials are in a huff about what the professor and a couple of others recently did that reveals unconditional trust and conditional skepticism associated with ideologies. According to the report by Dave Urbanski (N.B., “according to”—that inspires trust in me because I’m revealing my source), “Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose wrote about as series of articles they implanted in journals to demonstrate bias in academia. Their USA opinion piece was entitled “From dog rape to white men in chains: We fooled the biased academic left with fake studies.”*
The motive for the project, according to the authors? “We did this as a part of a year-long probe to find out how much certain political biases have taken root within a small but powerful sector of academia…We succeeded [in getting the articles published] not so much because we tricked the journals, but because our papers fit in with what they consider scholarship.”**
Apparently, when supposed highly educated adults embrace an ideology, they embrace it unconditionally while rejecting any antithetical thought. In other words, academicians display a infantile trust once they accept a concept. The concepts in the articles Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose submitted were “toxic masculinity,” “white fragility,” “cultural appropriation,” and “microaggressions,” concepts so fully emplaced in contemporary culture that they have become “buzz words.” All the concepts derived from “grievance studies.” Lindsay says, “If our project shows anything, it’s that we have very little reason to trust the concepts coming out of grievance studies.” With regard to one of their article’s suggestion to put white men in chains to make them understand the plight of others, Lindsay says, “Currently, they [the buzz words and grievance articles] have come into our lives via a broken academic sector that doesn’t even know it’s not okay to put students in chains.”
Try it yourself. Find a widely accepted ideology in any field and suggest an absurd corollary or version that appears to be consistent with current thinking. If you stick to the buzz words, you’ll probably find a trusting audience, regardless of the absurdity of your thought. Unconditional trust pervades ideologies.
You shouldn’t be surprised that the American Psychological Association has taken a position against “traditional masculinity”—whatever that is. Well, here it is: “Thirteen years in the making, [the new guidelines] draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful….” Guys, get in touch with your sensitive side; obviously, “traditional masculinity” is bad for you because it makes you suppress your emotions. You should especially abandon that traditional masculinity in times of war, home invasions, and muggings. And think of what all that machismo is doing to the little ones, those boys who develop competitiveness, obviously, according to the APA, to their own detriment.
Now we have to wonder whether or not to trust APA articles that address the psychology of males. Do we put unconditional trust in the research? In the conclusions? Or should we apply some healthy skepticism that we learned along the way between infancy and adulthood?
*Online at https://www.theblaze.com/news/professor-who-exposed-biased-academic-left-with-fake-studies-is-in-trouble-with-his-college-over-it Accessed on January 9, 2019.
**The original article is Lindsay, James, et al., USA Today, Online at https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/10/10/grievance-studies-academia-fake-feminist-hypatia-mein-kampf-racism-column/1575219002/ Accessed January 9, 2019. The article was published on October 10, 2018 as an opinion piece in the newspaper.
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