Scepticism, Dogmatism, & _White Noise_ (was Re: 'Identity Politics')

Jim heartfield jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Sat Sep 18 08:18:26 PDT 1999


In message <v03130300b408a5ffda34@[140.254.113.119]>, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes
>One ought to avoid (a) being dogmatically sceptic (e.g. in a neo-Kantian
>postmodern fashion) and (b) using 'scepticism' in service of dogmatism
>(e.g. doubting the fact of evolution). One may even say dogmatism and
>scepticism, especially at their extreme ends, form a unity of opposites.
>
>Scepticism may be sometimes correct, but only situationally so. Leftists
>should not hold scepticism as an article of faith.

I like Francis Bacon's explanation of the difference between his own rational method and that of scepticism, which whilst at first appearing similar, differ in that the sceptics start with doubt and end with doubt, whereas Bacon begins with doubt in search of knowledge.

When I cited this aphorism at a Radical Philosophy conference a few years back, the speaker, Gayatri Charkravorty Spivak said that I was a racist for embracing Bacon's method, which was premissed upon the colonisation of nature. Taken aback I looked around, and all these philosophy students were nodding knowingly as if this was a thoroughly profound point. IT wasn't that they thought they should beat me up or throw me out for being a racist, it was just a way of identifying all rational thought with colonialism and putting me in a box.

Afterwards, a lecturer from Sussex (it might have been Peter Dews) sideld up to me and said that he applauded what I had said. So why didn't you stick up for me, I asked. 'It's not the right time' he said, as if dire results would follow.

So all in all, I'm not prepared to give up the properly pejorative meaning of the characterisation 'political correctness', which definitely describes Spivak, and her audience, very well indeed. -- Jim heartfield



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