Why smart people virtue signal
It's so provocative that it ironclads the cultural economy it's practiced by
For some time I was subscribed to the ‘Archeology’ topic on Twitter to bulk up my timeline with a focused area of study. I expected interesting discoveries and theories that revealed the brilliance, ingenuity, and humanity of our ancestors. I instead sustained an unending series of posts from academics, both new and seasoned, who seemed far more interested in confirming that they were not, in fact, white supremacist colonizers who hated dark-skinned indigenous people of the world — but that their field was positively brimming with people like that, and that it was indeed motivated by and dependent on those things. One recent post from a swarm of many read:
“Dear archeologists. Our discipline really does have a problem with racism & with propping up racism. It’s a core problem from the foundation of the discipline. Addressing that is part of the job of any decent person working as an archeologist. It needs work every day…. If we work hard, I still hope we can overcome racist and colonialist foundations of the discipline so that it’s a useful and positive way for everyone to engage with the past, but until we’ve done that, countering racism is just part of the job.”
There are likely tens of thousands of tweets arguing the same thing by other academics, adjusted only for the field, and perhaps with the hostility dial turned up a touch.
I’m sure the author of this post is wonderful person — most people are. But she has no place in a field of serious inquiry — most people don’t. I’ll make that case, but first I need to convince you that the above really is just signaling, and not legitimate righteous indignation. For most people, it obviously appears to be the latter, but most people are good and “decent” folk who need a healthy dose of pessimism.
There are 2 good methods to distinguish good-faith criticism from a fashionable platitude:
1. by evaluating the power of the group that supports the criticism versus the group being criticized, and, following logically,
2. by evaluating whether the critic believes they are increasing their purchase in the culture’s dominant public square.
In the case of the first method, the answer is approximately 4 people away from being wholly self-evident: the group that would endorse this author is at the helm of the field of archeology, as well as the academy largely. This is clear — unequivocal. To suggest otherwise is to make a bad joke; but the joke has been made! Indeed, the entrenched, embedded, baked-in, systemic racism, colonialism, imperialism, whatever that these types of thinkers perennially describe is actually a phantasmic strawman of ages past that must be constantly reimagined to attract public sympathies, and therefore power. Strategically, they’re very bright individuals. They have adopted an ingenious tactic that percolates down the academic tree, from the most prestigious administrators and their imperceptibly narrow content guidelines, down to impressionable community college students who spend their time proudly attending antifascist rallies to defeat the scourge that is wh*teness. This system is a lot of things — but it ain’t dumb, even if/because it came about somewhat organically. Since everyone has a chance to be a good and virtuous person by endorsing and repeating the meme, by printing goodness and virtue out of thin air, the meme exponentially reproduces, petrifying into bedrock from its own pressure.
As for the second method, we must exercise some degree of discretion, and opinions will differ. But a general litmus test for authenticity here is of course anonymity: is the critic willing to make his or her criticism anonymously when appealing to dominant sensibilities? I don’t know this author, but my suspicion after having been around for some time is that, no, she wouldn’t do this anonymously, and her criticism is entirely self-benefitting.
Is that hugely unfair? I don’t mean it to be, and you’ll excuse me if it is. But I would ask: Has she said what has already been said innumerable times simply to ‘spread awareness’? All she’s done is send me some unfunny, overwrought meme that everyone saw 5 years ago.
(As a bonus method of determining authenticity, do you think we’re able to mind-read just enough to know where this complaint is coming from? Is it emotionally antagonistic or mathematically critical? It’s the former. That’s not actually something anyone disagrees with — different people just judge the rhetorical validity there differently.)
In dim hopes I’ve convinced you of the first bit, let me make the argument that this rhetorical mode should be thoroughly excised from our institutions of learning:
Signaling is so intoxicating that it replaces scientific thinking.
Drives for power are not limited to signaling, and they express themselves differently through time. But signaling happens to be how power is disproportionately expressed in 2021 in the West. It’s existed before, but usually it was subordinate to actual violence in its scope. One could argue there’s a good reason for signaling. It identifies us with a tribe, after all, and humans are tribal. And a lot of people want to be a part of the winning tribe.
But drives for power are at odds with the dispassionate realm of scientific inquiry, and will pervert it if given the opportunity. “Yes, except that science has never been about dispassionate inquiry. It is a tool for oppressive groups to exercise their power over marginalized ones, and it makes assumptions that are rooted in various -isms.” Though that claim can’t be completely written off, the degree to which it is improperly magnified and applied to the edifice of science is overwhelming in its insincerity. Terms like “rooted in” are incomplete, suggesting a certain immovable quality to society, as if it cannot rapidly change — and such that, even if it does, it is denied to have moved at all (resulting in the conclusion that, as the brilliant and sublime thinker Ibram X. Kendi reminds us, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination”).
But this isn’t a defense of bad science through the ages. It’s an identification of bad science now. So, let’s distill all this: our interest is not in thoughts and ideas that are inextricably attached to meaningless, ideological fashion, just like take-your-pick corrupt/bad/racist scientist of the past. Because they are scaffolded by bad thinking, challenging them is never met with acceptance or rebuttal — but attack.
This creates a challenging situation: how does one balance a) leaving academics alone who are uninterested in dealing with the complex nature of reality with b) ensuring that impressionable students are able to think broadly? If you can’t do a), you’ve got even more inflamed professors. If you can’t do b), you’ve got a misled and rather depressing batch of students. Right now, we’re not doing either.
This is a tension time will resolve, gracefully or some other way. But, meanwhile, it is possible to build centers of true intellectual greatness.