The Self-Satisfaction of the Epistemically Broken

[erudito]

Over forty years ago, in 1965, a case pursuing social justice for indigenous Australia was underway. It was the The Northern Territory Cattle Industry Case of 1965-6. The simple proposition, and surely unimpeachable, principle of equality before the law was to be applied to Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry

Comments

Blind Groupthink

[jordan179]

Yet if evidence is no basis for critical comment, and consequences are no basis for critical comment, that only leaves motive as the criteria for judgement. But raising problems of evidence implies a lack of appropriate motive, raising problems of consequences implies a lack of appropriate motive, so such critique fails the motive test. A self-insulating circularity.

This is also why ad hominem attacks, if originating from "virtuous" persons, have become seen as rational and acceptable practice in the current Left. Obviously, if motive is the only remaining source of criticism, then all criticisms must be on motive, and hence "to the man."

So we have a mindset which demonstrably dismissive of inconvenient evidence, dismissive of inconvenient worries about consequences, dismissive of those deemed to be the “wrong” voices: a self-referential mindset listening to its own echoes. One that acknowledges no authority, or possible authority, outside itself. It is epistemically broken.

This could be extended to all PC, or even groupthink, in general. An interesting analogy is with the Islamists, who have had a strong tendency to avoid learning from history, and in fact concoct and believe bizarre conspiracy theories to facilitate such avoidance.

Which, in various ways and to varying degrees, was the problem with all the other government interventions. They have all been based on theories of the Great and the Good, depending on the fashions of the day. They were not grounded in genuine knowledge (as distinct from faith parading as knowledge), not grounded in serious feedback - the decision-makers were particularly removed from indigenous Australia and the consequences of their decisions on such folk. They were just whatever was Ascendant at the time among those almost entirely removed from interaction with indigenous communities.

... and the faction Ascendant changes from time to time, which is why institutions dependent upon the virtue and good intentions of those Ascendent at any given time are weak and doomed to fail. The only policy that works, long-term, is one which harnesses the self-interests of the persons involved to good ends. They must, in short, be based on rights and responsibilities, rather than attempts to directly manage the lives of other people.

Again and again in history, one sees intellectual elites defending their intellectual capital in milieus where such beliefs only have social-status consequences. So they construe the issue in terms reassuring to them, rather than display any subversive humility to the evidence. Not a good place to be to deal with the difficult or the new.

... and disastrous, when the "difficult or the new" is in a position to bite back, as your Chinese example emphasizes.