With regard to "Many people across the political spectrum began the book expecting it to be a culture war tract, and instead discovered a 100 year look at the history and political economy of the knowledge professions," I was the opposite.
I didn't buy the book at first because I thought it was another culture war tract (mainly because of "Woke" being in the title), and then I ordered your book after learning it was in fact a 100 year look at the history and political economy of the knowledge professions (by way of multiple podcast appearances and this Substack newsletter).
Well, I am glad you now agree with me that many video games are woke. And they are failing miserably in the market. Go woke go broke has never been truer that in the gaming industry.
And this right-wing symbolic capitalist was far from frustrated with the book 🤣🤣🤣.
There is no better example of the loss of trust in science than Covid. The list of lies is endless but here are a few highlights
1) Masks don't work then they do work.
2) You should never be around other people, even outside except when you are protesting racism. Then you are automatically immune. However, religious services are super-spreader events, even when outside and when people are in their cars.
3) Kids can learn on the internet just fine. And we need to close schools for years, despite the fact that flu kills more kids than Covid.
4) Natural immunity does not work
5) We didn't fund gain-of function work in China.
6) Covid could not have come from THE ONE lab in the country that was actively working on Covid viruses even though, no Covid virus has ever had a Furin Cleavage site before Covid-19 and the virus originated in the town where this lab was located.
7) To suggest that the virus was lab-created is racist.
The sad thing to come out of this is that despite the fact the mRNA vaccines actually worked in that they greatly reduced serious illness and death, particularly in my age group (over 65), there were so many obvious lies told by the symbolic capitalists in charge that now many (including our new HHS secretary) are skeptical not only of mRNA Covid vaccines but of all vaccines, including childhood vaccines such as those for mumps measles and polio. Mine is the last polio generation. A good friend of mine was permanently crippled in one arm since he was a toddler due to polio. It may now come back.
You can do politics, or you can do science. You cannot do both. Lysenko tried that in Russia and it has worked out worse for us that it did for him.
Trust walks slowly up the stairs, but it goes down in an elevator.
Musa, big fan of your work. I wanted to share some thoughts that might help you respond to people who want you to take more team-based approaches. These ideas relate to what I focus on: conflict dynamics. You reference these dynamics so they won't be foreign to you, but I thought the phrasings/angles could theoretically help you.
One point that I make in my book "How Contempt Destroys Democracy" (written for a liberal and/or anti-Trump audience) is that our social instincts for how to behave when in conflict our faulty. This relates to what you write, but I think having it spelled out directly might be useful. I write this: "Often, people’s instincts for how to deal with conflict — their instincts on how to fight 'the bad guys' and achieve peace — are entirely faulty. Their instincts lead them to behave in ways that increase the other side’s rage, thereby giving power to their most extreme opponents. They’re confident that they’re in the right; therefore, they think it’s the other side’s fault for taking offense at their actions. They don’t see that they’re accidentally helping create the very things that upset them." That's in the intro of the book and then I build on that throughout the book.
Another major point I focus on in my work is that, when in conflict, we often act in ways that help create the very things we dislike and are upset about. Seeing that aspect can help people see the importance, even for their own goals, of changing their approach. You reference that idea, so I know you see that, but in case you want more detail/writing on that, I was recently assembling various studies and examples to help people see that more clearly: https://defusingamericananger.substack.com/p/how-does-our-anger-at-them-create. In context of what you write about here, you might respond to critics like the ones you mention with something like "Even if I was tempted to focus more on combating Trump, I think such instincts, writ large across a society in conflict, are exactly what help Trump (or that help build support for one's adversaries in general). I think we all need to focus more on truth, as we see it, and not get bogged down in team-based, ends-justify-the-means ways of approaching politics and the world, as that will tend to only amplify conflict and toxicity." Something like that.
Fantastic post as usual. There is however a small undercurrent that strikes me as potentially misplaced.
There are a few rhetorical points that revolve around the "job" of a symbolic capitalist in general or perhaps a any given credentialed researcher. I think the ask of them is to humanize much more broadly, which is well taken. I think it is only fair to do the same for them given that "pluralistic ignorance" effectively has a mind of its own.
It is all too easy for any group of humans to signal more strongly than their felt convictions when they think their group is generally right or at least not as critically wrong as some other group, especially when feeling pressure to do so from that group. The trouble is, that very signaling, writ large, creates apparent pressures, assimilating narratives and performative signaling, which can become the motivational headwinds to do otherwise. Someone like Trump is an easy target of self-righteous revelry to kick such a human operation into overdrive.
The narratives of "following the truth wherever it may lead" and neatly parsing the epistemic from the political, and allowint others to come to to their own conclusions, are all themselves grandstanding narratives of old. The harder truth, which you readily adopt in your sober explication, is in the balance of privileges and responsibilities.
Perhaps go easy on those who can't help but panic, on account of the same humanity you'd have them see in their "others." They didn't fail their sacred duties, because there are none. There is also no clear amoral or apolitical highground that cannot itself become a new pole or tribe. I think you neither a magical nor apathetic middle grounded. But those are the camps that might better "weaponize" your words against those who cared too little or too much about the right or wrong set of things.
Cynicism is becoming the default endorsement. And though you have taken a light position against it, how sure are you that is sufficient for contributing to something better beyond simply "truer?"
With regard to "Many people across the political spectrum began the book expecting it to be a culture war tract, and instead discovered a 100 year look at the history and political economy of the knowledge professions," I was the opposite.
I didn't buy the book at first because I thought it was another culture war tract (mainly because of "Woke" being in the title), and then I ordered your book after learning it was in fact a 100 year look at the history and political economy of the knowledge professions (by way of multiple podcast appearances and this Substack newsletter).
Well, I am glad you now agree with me that many video games are woke. And they are failing miserably in the market. Go woke go broke has never been truer that in the gaming industry.
And this right-wing symbolic capitalist was far from frustrated with the book 🤣🤣🤣.
There is no better example of the loss of trust in science than Covid. The list of lies is endless but here are a few highlights
1) Masks don't work then they do work.
2) You should never be around other people, even outside except when you are protesting racism. Then you are automatically immune. However, religious services are super-spreader events, even when outside and when people are in their cars.
3) Kids can learn on the internet just fine. And we need to close schools for years, despite the fact that flu kills more kids than Covid.
4) Natural immunity does not work
5) We didn't fund gain-of function work in China.
6) Covid could not have come from THE ONE lab in the country that was actively working on Covid viruses even though, no Covid virus has ever had a Furin Cleavage site before Covid-19 and the virus originated in the town where this lab was located.
7) To suggest that the virus was lab-created is racist.
The sad thing to come out of this is that despite the fact the mRNA vaccines actually worked in that they greatly reduced serious illness and death, particularly in my age group (over 65), there were so many obvious lies told by the symbolic capitalists in charge that now many (including our new HHS secretary) are skeptical not only of mRNA Covid vaccines but of all vaccines, including childhood vaccines such as those for mumps measles and polio. Mine is the last polio generation. A good friend of mine was permanently crippled in one arm since he was a toddler due to polio. It may now come back.
You can do politics, or you can do science. You cannot do both. Lysenko tried that in Russia and it has worked out worse for us that it did for him.
Trust walks slowly up the stairs, but it goes down in an elevator.
"I produced a fair-minded and rigorous work of scholarship..."
It's distressing that some seem to think that this is not a worthwhile goal.
I'm halfway through the book and greatly appreciate the scholarship and objective tone, rare commodities these days.
Musa, big fan of your work. I wanted to share some thoughts that might help you respond to people who want you to take more team-based approaches. These ideas relate to what I focus on: conflict dynamics. You reference these dynamics so they won't be foreign to you, but I thought the phrasings/angles could theoretically help you.
One point that I make in my book "How Contempt Destroys Democracy" (written for a liberal and/or anti-Trump audience) is that our social instincts for how to behave when in conflict our faulty. This relates to what you write, but I think having it spelled out directly might be useful. I write this: "Often, people’s instincts for how to deal with conflict — their instincts on how to fight 'the bad guys' and achieve peace — are entirely faulty. Their instincts lead them to behave in ways that increase the other side’s rage, thereby giving power to their most extreme opponents. They’re confident that they’re in the right; therefore, they think it’s the other side’s fault for taking offense at their actions. They don’t see that they’re accidentally helping create the very things that upset them." That's in the intro of the book and then I build on that throughout the book.
Another major point I focus on in my work is that, when in conflict, we often act in ways that help create the very things we dislike and are upset about. Seeing that aspect can help people see the importance, even for their own goals, of changing their approach. You reference that idea, so I know you see that, but in case you want more detail/writing on that, I was recently assembling various studies and examples to help people see that more clearly: https://defusingamericananger.substack.com/p/how-does-our-anger-at-them-create. In context of what you write about here, you might respond to critics like the ones you mention with something like "Even if I was tempted to focus more on combating Trump, I think such instincts, writ large across a society in conflict, are exactly what help Trump (or that help build support for one's adversaries in general). I think we all need to focus more on truth, as we see it, and not get bogged down in team-based, ends-justify-the-means ways of approaching politics and the world, as that will tend to only amplify conflict and toxicity." Something like that.
Fantastic post as usual. There is however a small undercurrent that strikes me as potentially misplaced.
There are a few rhetorical points that revolve around the "job" of a symbolic capitalist in general or perhaps a any given credentialed researcher. I think the ask of them is to humanize much more broadly, which is well taken. I think it is only fair to do the same for them given that "pluralistic ignorance" effectively has a mind of its own.
It is all too easy for any group of humans to signal more strongly than their felt convictions when they think their group is generally right or at least not as critically wrong as some other group, especially when feeling pressure to do so from that group. The trouble is, that very signaling, writ large, creates apparent pressures, assimilating narratives and performative signaling, which can become the motivational headwinds to do otherwise. Someone like Trump is an easy target of self-righteous revelry to kick such a human operation into overdrive.
The narratives of "following the truth wherever it may lead" and neatly parsing the epistemic from the political, and allowint others to come to to their own conclusions, are all themselves grandstanding narratives of old. The harder truth, which you readily adopt in your sober explication, is in the balance of privileges and responsibilities.
Perhaps go easy on those who can't help but panic, on account of the same humanity you'd have them see in their "others." They didn't fail their sacred duties, because there are none. There is also no clear amoral or apolitical highground that cannot itself become a new pole or tribe. I think you neither a magical nor apathetic middle grounded. But those are the camps that might better "weaponize" your words against those who cared too little or too much about the right or wrong set of things.
Cynicism is becoming the default endorsement. And though you have taken a light position against it, how sure are you that is sufficient for contributing to something better beyond simply "truer?"
"'epistocrats' dictating to people what they should think or feel and how they should behave.'
I fell rolling on the floor laughing when I hit that one.