From Marxism through “the New Critique” to Academic Nonsense, Part 1 (Column 178)
With God’s help
For a long time I have taken a firm stand regarding what I call "bogus disciplines". I mean the humanities and social "sciences", which piggyback on the aura of the natural sciences and, under the same heading, call themselves together with them "science", with no justification whatsoever. I already mentioned here what my sister, who studied criminology, told me: that almost every course there began by defining what science is. I told her that in physics, for some reason, nobody dealt with that…
I addressed this painful subject in Column 60, and I remember that Yishai once asked me to give examples of worthless studies in the bogus disciplines. It seems to me that, more than that, one ought to look for examples of what is not like this, but as we shall see in this series of columns, the question itself and the way to answer it require clarification. In any case, I assume that here too I will discharge my obligation to provide examples.
The background: nonsense articles
In recent days a case was publicized (for a short report see here. For details, see a Calcalist article, called—what else?—“The Bullshit Disciplines”) involving three researchers who sent about twenty nonsense articles for publication to respected venues in those various bogus disciplines, and many of them passed review and were accepted for publication. A colossal blunder on that scale would have been enough to shut down institutions, departments, and journals, dismiss and send packing everyone involved, and establish commissions of inquiry that would carry out a complete overhaul of the fields in question.
That, of course, is what would happen in civilized institutions and fields that are run properly. But you surely will not be surprised if I say that I am quite convinced no commission of inquiry will be established here, that no “researcher” or editor will be dismissed even after being exposed in full, and that no gender or critical-studies department or journal will be closed because of this scandal. On the contrary, those charlatans will continue to receive respectable academic salaries in order to spread their enlightened ideas under the guise of scientific research, “critique” everyone and everything under the sun, and demand commissions of inquiry, recognition of disadvantaged minorities, and the pushing aside of hegemonic groups and views in favor of the holy vacuum. The only thing sacred and beyond critique for them is “criticality” itself. Criticizing them is, by definition, a capitalist hegemonic plot of the ruling and privileged postcolonial and neo-Thatcherite/Reaganite narrative, serving the owners of capital in their war against the weak.
In the first two columns I will focus on providing historical-analytical background leading to postmodernism, which is what makes this whole chain of events possible. I will of course do so from my own (hegemonic-privileged) point of view, merely in order to offer some clarification of how we got here: how nonsense comes to pass the peer review of respected journals. In the following columns I will return to discuss the nonsense articles themselves and the meaning of experiments like those described above. But first, an important qualification.
Preliminary note
I must begin by saying that not all of these fields are alike. Almost nothing in the humanities and social sciences is science in the full sense, but there are certainly meaningful products there as well. Still, there is an inherent weakness in work in these areas, and that is what makes it possible for fairly wild edge cases to appear there, as we shall see below.
There are fields in which there is plainly almost nothing but sheer drivel, and the most prominent is gender studies, of course. But I also mean all of its cousins that deal in "the new critique". These are the fields that, ironically enough, call themselves "critical". Usually it is quite hard to distinguish among them, mainly because they say nothing. There is no real difference between saying nothing in history, psychology, law, art, literature and poetics, or sociology. Therefore it is usually not correct to speak here of different fields of knowledge; rather, this is more a certain methodology (or pseudo-methodology) applied across various disciplines, mainly in the social sciences and somewhat in the humanities.[1]
All of these approaches shelter under the postmodern umbrella, whose business is deconstructing accepted standards and undermining accepted approaches: searching for power plots beneath the foundational assumptions, conclusions, and findings accepted in a given discipline. It is important to note that deconstruction, critique, and change are welcome processes that exist in the various disciplines, and rightly so. What distinguishes the "critical" postmodern approaches is deconstruction (which usually does not really deconstruct, but at most exposes underlying assumptions)[2] without offering any real alternative. That is why I use the term "critique" here in quotation marks, to distinguish it from critique in its ordinary and positive sense.
In many cases you can identify them already from the title. The same old fields appear there with the addition of “new.” Thus there is “new history” (or “new historians”), “new sociology” (or “new sociologists”), and so on. Another indication is the term “critique,” or “a critical perspective.” A third term is “theory” (for the scrupulous: “critical theory”). But do not be confused; as I said, it is all the same thing. After the deconstruction of what exists, by exposing hidden assumptions—all supposedly the fruit of equally hidden plots—and subjective narratives presented as objective truth by a hegemonic group of chauvinist elders of history and sociology, we are left with the holy vacuum. All these fields and approaches drain into exactly the same place. Their whole business is critique, but in all their criticality they forgot a little about criteria, and so they are left with a resounding vacuum. The absence of history and the absence of sociology, as well as the absence of psychology or law, are in the end just absence, and therefore all the same. On this the Sages were already precise: the pit was empty; there was no water in it (“the pit was empty; there was no water in it”)—but there were snakes and scorpions in it.
Their journals are generally not devoted to a specific subject or field of knowledge, but rather deal with every field under the sun. Their titles are general and bland ("Theory and Criticism", "Social Sciences", and the like). What distinguishes them is “critical theory,” whose role is to deconstruct the chosen field, selected more or less at random. A critique of what? Less important. By what criteria? That does not exist at all. What is the alternative? At best, a subjective and tendentious perspective that fits political correctness, justified by the claim that in any case we are all doomed to subjective vision, so why should this particular subjectivity fare any worse? Does anyone here recall Rabbi Shagar’s “circle of differences”? That is no accident, of course.
In the upcoming posts I want to focus on these fields, but later I will argue that, to some extent, they are an extreme case that reflects the weakness of the humanities and social sciences as a whole.
The development of postmodernism as Marxist dialectic
It seems to me that this aberration, which developed gradually over the course of the twentieth century, is the fruit of a wondrous dialectical fusion of two parallel sources that, on the face of it, appear opposed: Marxism and deconstruction. These were the thesis and antithesis that produced the synthesis of nonsense familiar to us all today. It is this dialectical process on which I will focus in the first two columns.
Two characteristics of Marxism
Everything began with Marxism. For our purposes, the concept of Marxism appears in two senses—that is, it has two characteristics—and both are rooted in Karl Marx, of most sainted memory (1818-1883):
- The substantive context. In terms of content, Marxism is a dogmatic worldview and a belief in the one absolute value and nothing besides it (in Marx’s case—equality), that is, in advancing the productive working class (the proletariat), and of course an uncompromising struggle to achieve equality in the distribution of the means of production among all the world’s inhabitants. Capital (= money, property) is the mother of all sin, and its accumulation (especially unequal accumulation) is the ultimate source of impurity. Its accumulators are sentenced to burning and stoning, even without witnesses and prior warning.
- The methodological context. In methodological terms, Marxism is a kind of subversive thinking that examines events and opinions through the interests underlying them. It is always occupied with the subversive meta-level rather than with what appears to the ordinary naked eye. At the root of the matter is the Marxist conception of all history as a struggle between two demons (one positive and one negative): those with money and power (the oligarchs, the tycoons in today’s Marxist jargon) versus the exploited proletariat. Everything that happens in the world is understood as the fruit of plots by the ruling demon, the hegemonic class, against the deprived (the “marginalized”). All of history is the story of this struggle and nothing else. In the Marxist perspective, there is nothing that happens in the world that ought to be seen as it is. At the basis of every event, group, or phenomenon lies a power-driven plot and a cynical, cold interest—and, of course, always that of the upper class against the proletariat.
Even the theory of relativity is a skeptical plot (by Einstein, the degenerate capitalist) against absolute truth (that of Marx and Lenin). Quantum theory is a capitalist conspiracy whose purpose is to undermine the dialectical determinism of the Marxist school. Not to mention social and ideological phenomena, wars, and the like. Everything is a war of the progressives (the advanced) against the forces of reaction (the secular Antichrist).
As a result of this outlook, analysis of differing views is always conducted through hidden assumptions, with the aim of exposing the interests concealed at the root of every opinion, position, or move. All this, of course, only with respect to them (= our enemies). We have no interests; for us everything is truth and ideals, the aspiration for good and the bringing of final redemption to the entire universe.
Contemporary implications
I will already mention here two contemporary implications, so that you can see these things are not found only in the ivory towers of postmodern nonsense.
Political interpretation in our neck of the woods is to a large extent Marxist. At its root there is, of course, a kernel of truth, but the interpretation that sees every political step or statement as the expression of a hidden power interest is Marxism. Sometimes statements or actions are made on their merits—simply because the politician or that party believes in them and means them. Believe it or not, that too happens from time to time. But no: Marxists do not accept the very possibility of such a thing.
One of the interesting intellectual consequences of Marxist thinking for contemporary academic discourse is the rapidly developing field called "Law and Economics". This requires analysis, and the phenomenon is more complex than I will describe here in somewhat oversimplified fashion, but one of the foundations of what goes on there is the assumption that a legal position, and even an enacted law, always comes to achieve some economic benefit. The economic view of law is Marxist in essence, because beyond the law and its declared purposes it sees hidden motives and interests, usually from the economic sphere.[3]
Further examples
The source of this is probably Christian. Christian thought speaks of metaphysical forces battling one another on the stage of history. The Antichrist wears different guises in every generation, but it is always him—the one who tries to delay the eternal idea and pure truth. History is nothing but the story and transformations of the war against him. History will reach its culmination, or peak, in the war of Gog and Magog, Armageddon, the final apocalyptic reckoning in which evil will be destroyed by good.
Readers here are surely reminded of the phenomenon of Har HaMor and the “Kav” (see on this Column 19 and the discussions that followed it). If in various books of Jewish thought you can find the megalomaniacal approach according to which everything that happens in the world is because of Israel and for their sake, then among the people of the “Kav” everything that happens is a plot (of the Christ, who for them is of course the Antichrist) against the people and state of Israel—that is, against the deterministic and unavoidable process of redemption led by Israel’s chosenness and splendor. Israel are, of course, beings whose distance from ordinary human beings is like that between human beings and animals (cf. the Kuzari). We belong to a radiant yet persecuted elite group, which wages the heroic war and suffers on behalf of the whole world (after all, all this is taking place in the “Central World Yeshiva”) and its repair. It is a pity that the world does not understand this, but never mind—in the end the truth will come to light.
In the view of these Marxists, there is nothing that happens in the world that does not belong to the uncompromising war of those who obstruct redemption against it. Israel versus its enemies, headed of course by the New Israel Fund and the European Union.[4] There is no statement, decision, or event that is simply what it is. Every such event is always an expression of demonic and metaphysical forces seething beneath the surface, just as in Marx. The concrete phenomena in the world are transparent. These people do not see them at all. The truth is seen only by one whose crystal eyes have merited it, and this through apprenticeship to sages (like Marx and Lenin, and Trotsky too—until he lost favor in the eyes of the Council of Torah Sages), of course. Those crystal eyes teach us that what the ordinary eye sees here as prosaic events and motives and ideologies and historical processes is nothing but pure metaphysics. These events are not innocent. They are struggles among metaphysical forces and expressions of the interests of the demons that generate the phenomena. The worldview of the “Kav” is distinctly Marxist, at least in terms of the second characteristic (meta-analysis). But the first characteristic appears here too, except that the two forces (the battling ideas) are called by slightly different names.
By the way, contemporary Haredi thought is going through a similar Marxist process. If you ask today the guardians of the pure “outlook” in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, they will tell you that everything happening in the world is a reflection of the struggle of the “haters” versus the “terrorists.” Adam was a “hater,” whereas Esau was a “terrorist.” Nebuchadnezzar, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Louis XIV, Maimonides, the Baal Shem Tov, Mendelssohn, Spinoza, etc. etc. (not to mention Bibi, Obama, Trump, and Kim Jong-un), were all pieces on the board of the struggle between “haters” and “terrorists.” Anyone familiar with the new literary trend will recognize that this is exactly how all sorts of secret societies (Templars, Freemasons, and other seekers of the Holy Grail) function, so popular in contemporary literature. These societies wage a heroic metaphysical struggle to find the Holy Grail and pure truth, and see everything that happens in the world as part of that struggle (which will bring intergalactic and cosmic redemption or destruction. Apocalypse now).
These characteristics typify dogmatic worldviews that believe in one truth and nothing besides it, and see the world through their narrow, antlike prism (which is always presented as a deep, broad, exalted, and wondrous perspective, reserved only for those versed in esoteric lore). Thus the struggle is always between us—righteous, persecuted David, absolutely just, endowed with crystal eyes and true vision—and our enemies, the all-powerful Goliath (economically and militarily), the pursuer. This megalomania sees our group as the turtle carrying the entire universe on its back, and the struggle between us and the “bad guys” as the whole story.[5]
The connection between the characteristics
There is a deep connection between these two characteristics of Marxism. Belief in the one absolute truth and nothing besides it (the first context) gives rise to the analysis that sees every other worldview as a plot (the second context). After all, those standing opposite us are not merely fools. It is not very attractive to fight fools. The Antichrist is wicked, not stupid. So if the people on the other side are intelligent as well, then clearly they too understand the truth. So why do they say something different from us (and from the absolute truth that resides with us)? Because they have a hidden interest and power-hungry ambitions. Therefore we must expose these interests and plots and reveal them before all eyes (and besides, of course, kill them all while they are still small, or bring them to full repentance and enlist them in the forces of light).
The Marxist way of fighting views that oppose them is not by advancing arguments. For in truth there are no other views, and this is not about arguments. It is about interests hiding beneath an ideological-philosophical cloak. Therefore the recommended strategy is twofold: on the practical plane—an all-out war of force, to the bitter end and without compromise (because Satan is not simply going to surrender and give in. “Self-sacrifice, gentlemen!”…), and on the ideological-theoretical plane—exposing the interest that underlies those positions, thereby bringing about their collapse of their own accord (in the spirit of impose communal burdens upon them and they will waste away on their own—“lay public burdens on them and they will wear themselves out on their own”).
The conclusion is that Marxism views the world as a war between the children of light and the children of darkness, and its two assumptions presented above are simply the following two claims: we are the children of light (the possessors of absolute truth), and the others are the children of darkness (interest and wickedness are what underlie their pseudo-positions, not reasons and arguments, of course). The methodology of Marxist analysis, which exposes the hidden interest behind positions and ideologies, is in fact a kind of call for peace in the class war. Once we have exposed your wickedness and power politics, we call on you to make peace: now nothing remains for you but to repent fully and acknowledge the absolute truth (which resides with us), or accept the decree and die (as befits the Antichrist who clings to his wickedness). There is no room for compromise in so fateful a war.
[1] Some have applied them to the natural sciences as well, but there the attempt is of course laughable on its face. It is no accident that this is done mainly in the social sciences and the humanities.
[2] There is a strange assumption there, as though unbiased research ought to be conducted without any foundational assumptions, or alternatively that foundational assumptions are always arbitrary (and therefore that merely exposing them suffices to undermine research results or an accepted methodology). That is why you will hear loud fanfare from that camp whenever some postmodern essay exposes an implicit or explicit assumption in some study.
[3] After that it is applied to a broader domain, such as maximizing happiness and the like, and only the tools are economic. There are also approaches that see this merely as an analytic tool and not as an essential explanation of the legal layer. Many jurists work in this field, and a large proportion of them are not Marxist in the least. This is not the place to elaborate.
[4] I have already written that I am not a fan of either of these two institutions. Of course, there is substance to the claims against them, but the total conspiratorial outlook of the “Kav” sees them as the be-all and end-all.
[5] See the analytical versus synthetic distinction in my own doctrine—long may I live. J
Discussion
Entertaining and precise. I always had a hard time with this side of “children of light versus children of darkness” among some believers of various kinds, Marxists or Haredim.
I don’t think Judaism’s problem with postmodernism is its leftism, but the moral vacuum/emptiness it creates.
The far-right side of the map fights against the Jewish race; the far-left side of the map fights against Jewish faith and almost every other faith except those that lead to emptiness / a vacuum.
What remains for people of faith / values is to understand that there is a balanced place in the middle between totalitarian hierarchy (the children of light are better than the children of darkness) and total moral emptiness (everything is vanity of vanities, so let’s invent nonsense).
Amichai,
As for your question, I can speak only for myself. My remarks are not connected to the anti-Zionism or anti-Judaism of these groups. That bothers me not in the slightest. What bothers me is the vacuum, and it bothers me not as a Jew but mainly on the philosophical-intellectual plane. What mainly bothers me is the falsehood in it. I think that this is also what bothers Rabbis Kellner and Navon, but about that you would have to ask them.
All these are external expressions.
Philosophically, what they share is the assumption that the active subject is not individual human reason but some other external factor acting to realize itself in history (expressivism). That is, what moves human beings is not their reason but an external factor pushing them forward. In Rav Kook, for example, the pioneers did not act out of rational judgment that led them to settle the Land of Israel, but out of the non-rational drive of the nation’s revival.
In the final chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt characterizes these approaches as based on ideology, that is, on the movement of ideas in a logical way through history. There is an idea, such as the revival of the nation in its land in Rav Kook, or the rise of the proletariat in Marx. This idea realizes itself logically in history. In Rav Kook, first the revival of the nation appears in a material form through the pioneers and Zionism. After that, the revival of the nation must appear on its spiritual side. That is the role of Har Hamor. The one who leads the interpretation of the process is the one capable of reading the logic of the movement of the idea in history. In Har Hamor, that is Rav Tau. Around him there is a pioneering elite (vanguard) capable of understanding his interpretation and acting accordingly. In Har Hamor they are called a battalion of believers. The book series Le’emunat Iteinu is basically intended to train this pioneering elite (not to present Rav Tau’s theology, if he has one). According to Arendt, once such an elite is trained it ignores the data of reality in favor of the logical movement of the idea in history. Of course, historical dialectic summons forces that oppose the rise of the idea and work to overthrow it. These are the capitalists in Marx and the liberals in Har Hamor. One could go on and on, but at a certain point it becomes tedious. I’ll just say that although for Arendt totalitarianism is the conclusion of ideology, I’m not sure that is always the result. There is some unclear democratic core in Har Hamor, and one should judge them favorably before bringing out an evil report about them.
Heidegger generalized this departure from the individual subject into an overall claim about the historicity of the human condition. And it seems to me that his approach is what now rules the universities in all those departments.
A lot of what I wrote here is taken from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind and from Leo Strauss. Is the rabbi familiar with them?
I read Bloom many years ago. Very little Leo Strauss.
It דווקא seems to me that what you bring is the external side. Why should psychology matter when dealing with ideas and philosophy? That itself is a postmodern fallacy. I ask how a person explains his steps and his decisions and positions, not what motivates him. For that he should go to a psychologist.
Marx was much smarter than the Marxists, and therefore much of what you attribute to him would be better attributed to them and not to him.
I’m not versed in all the details, but I would estimate that attributing Marxism to Marx is roughly like attributing the Hardali-ism of Har Hamor to Rav Kook…
Possibly (I’m not that well versed either). But I think you’re exaggerating. Like many phenomena, this one’s end is rooted in its beginning. And like every phenomenon, it takes time to mature and bear fruit. By the way, this is also true to a large extent regarding Rav Kook and “the Kav.”
In addition, don’t forget that Marx had to persuade people. Marxism did not yet exist. So he was forced from time to time to raise arguments beyond conspiracies. His students already speak when Marxism exists. At that point persuasion and arguments are no longer needed, and they can go all the way.
I don’t know what I asked for, but I certainly didn’t mean postmodern gibberish. Most studies in the social sciences try to find a connection (and even causation) between different variables. Most studies in the humanities try to clarify facts and historical processes – what happened there, what someone thought, etc. Even within that there are of course quite a few poor products (and presumably there is some correlation between the journal in which it is published and the quality), but the engagement with pure theory, which is what you are referring to, is not large (perhaps influential, but I am not at all sure it is really the influential factor), and within it only part is “Theory and Criticism” and the like.
First, I wrote that I would get to that later. I too know that these are esoteric margins, but in my opinion they have broader significance, and I will explain this later.
Second, this reminds me of the excuses religious people give when a religious person is caught stealing. The claim is that there is no such thing as a religious thief, because if he is a thief then he is not religious. If nonsense articles in the social sciences and humanities don’t count because that is postmodern garbage, then by definition what is included in the humanities and social sciences is only what is not garbage. QED. The fact is that such wild growths did not spring up in the flowerbed of the natural sciences.
The question of who the subject is, is a philosophical question. Since you and they disagree on this question, you accuse each other of self-deception. You claim that they are rational individuals occupied with unimportant psychological questions, and they claim that you are a product of Western capitalist culture living in a rationalistic self-illusion.
This is of course connected to the dispute over whether there is synthetic cognition or not. Since they do not recognize syntheticity, the only thing left is an analytic analysis of the cultural assumptions that drive us. Each according to his method (what he calls an idea).
And by the way, this is exactly how they explain themselves. Everything I wrote is taken directly from Rav Tau’s Le’emunat Ateinu.
Completely incorrect. Wait for the next columns, where I will explain that there are two different sources for a subversive attitude toward positions. Some explain the other as driven by demons and interests because the absolute truth is with us. These are the Marxists and the Har Hamor people, and they do believe in syntheticity. On the contrary, it is the source of the absolute truth, and anyone who does not recognize it is an interested conspirator. In contrast are the postmodernists, who boast and say that they do not accept the very concept of truth (and syntheticity). They too engage in subversive analysis, but for the opposite reason: because there is no truth, only interest, including in their own case. Mark this well.
Two comments (I don’t have time for more right now…):
1. The possibility of producing “bogus stuff” and publishing it on respected platforms is not unique to the humanities and social sciences. In fact, the most famous scandal belongs to computer science (see SCIgen), and I now forget the name of the “professor” of biology who was forced to give up all his degrees, prizes, and other honors after it became clear that all his research was fraudulent in no less brazen a way (one of the biggest scandals in the history of science), and now I also remember the “Climategate” affair, and if I don’t stop here I’ll probably remember another dozen similar affairs (here—Trofim Lysenko). This teaches you, as Krylov wrote, that one should not judge the eagle by the bush on which it landed to rest, but by the highest point in the sky to which it rose. So too, one should not judge a discipline by the worst among those who engage in it (even if they have taken over the departments), but by the serious and great figures within it.
2. The connection between “law and economics” and Marxism is, at the very least, puzzling. The founders of the field and its great luminaries are graduates of the University of Chicago, piggishly capitalist with the strictest kosher certification, and far from Marxism. On the contrary, the field suffered harassment from leftists in American academia who demanded it be shut down on the claim that those engaged in it were “right-leaning,” Heaven forbid… True, the founder of the field in Israel (Uriel Procaccia) is a well-known leftist, but only in the political sphere (territories, religion and state, etc.). In the economic sphere, to the best of my knowledge, he is quite a piggish capitalist.
To Mordechai
What are you laughing about? You don’t distinguish between something that is nonsense, that is, meaningless, and something that is a forgery, that is, a lie? That is a first-rate lack of discernment. If you are somehow connected to the humanities, then your words here are yet more proof of the lack of self-criticism built into those fields (this is the weakness the rabbi is talking about). And a field is measured by all who engage in it, not only by the serious and great ones. And even by that standard, are you really comparing the great figures of the humanities with the great natural scientists? (Literary scholars, not writers. And even the latter do not compare with great physicists.)
Mordechai, thanks for the comments.
1. I think there is a big difference between the cases. The examples you brought are frauds that the system and the reviewers could not detect from the article itself. It is falsification of an experiment, which of course can always occur in any field. The examples brought here are “fake from within.” There is no report here of a falsified experiment conducted by the researcher himself, but empty verbiage that any reader should have detected. This points to a forest of missing quality criteria (and that is an understatement, since the problem here was not the quality of the article. It wasn’t an article at all). I now see that Eilon already wrote this.
Therefore I also do not agree with the rest of what you wrote (and I will explain this more later). The absence of criteria testifies not about the articles but about the fields and the journal systems (admittedly not the entire field and not all the journals. But there is no doubt that there are serious problems there that require sharp scrutiny).
2. I mentioned in my remarks that the situation is more complex. Beyond the motives of those who established the field and their views, you are talking about the methodology itself. I will add that the methodology itself is certainly not always Marxist. Sometimes it is only a form of analysis (and usually this does not involve suspicions of dark motives and the like). Still, in my opinion this field fell on fertile ground because of its Marxist foundation. We have grown used to thinking in a subversive way and examining positions and ideas through interests, and therefore it is so easy to absorb such a mode of thinking.
By the way, an economic-social right wing (liberalism) is not necessarily far from postmodern thinking. On the contrary, the modernist left sometimes attacks it precisely for that (individualism). It seems to me that here too it is important to distinguish between the two components I presented in my remarks (dogmatism and deconstructive, subversive thinking).
I didn’t say it isn’t part of the humanities. I said that isn’t what I meant (it could be that I wrote that back then too; as I said, I have no idea what I wrote back then, but I didn’t mean for you to reveal to me that there is a journal called Theory and Criticism…). Indeed, these things grew in that flowerbed; I claimed nothing else, but that does not turn the humanities and social sciences into bogus sciences.
At least regarding the subject of this column (and the next column, which I just read), there is no principled disagreement between us. My comments were specific.
The absence of quality criteria is a characteristic of any science enlisted in the service of a political agenda. True, it may be easier to create enlisted science in the humanities and social sciences than in the natural sciences, but that does not mean that the humanities and social sciences are “bogus”; rather, they are more exposed to the harms of political correctness and the political agenda. But the natural and life sciences are not immune to these harms either. Nowadays, if you are an American biologist who dares to claim that there are inherent differences between male and female, you endanger your job, and the same is true if you are a climatologist who casts doubt on global warming or on human responsibility for it. No one will bother to read your research and examine it. You are a “warming denier,” and that’s it! (In both senses…).
As stated, on the substance I agree. The discussions in the university senate of which I am a member often cost me my health, given the endless amount of nonsense poured out there with abyssal seriousness. What is truly frustrating is that the speakers are not fools and ignoramuses, but educated and intelligent people. Captured infants in the fullest sense of the term…
And one more word about Marx and Marxism (also in the context of the next column). Marx was not as smart as was claimed in one of the responses above me. He was a charlatan and a megalomaniac who believed he understood and knew everything (discoverer of “scientific socialism”), whereas his understanding of economics was less than that of a mediocre student in “Introduction to Economics,” and there is much more to say. There is no need to read all of Capital (a real torture) in order to be convinced. It is enough to read the Communist Manifesto in order to be astonished by the charlatanism, dilettantism, and megalomania of its authors. The tragedy is that on the altar of this absurd economic doctrine about one hundred million people were murdered, and there is still no end in sight.
First of all, in the natural sciences there is no such thing as “enlisted science”: there is correct science and incorrect science (which still has scientific value—sometimes no less than the correct kind; what are called “good mistakes”), and there is nonsense, which is not science at all (or fantasies). There is no need to be a biologist to know that there are biological differences between male and female, and every new biological discovery on this subject, in this context, is already included in the distinction every ordinary person has in terms of its classification. If you are talking about neuroscience, that too is biology, and all the arguments are only about its psychological and sociological interpretation, which itself already belongs to the humanities. In fact, an “American biologist who dares to claim that there are inherent differences between male and female”—and by that you mean that he dares to claim that there are essential differences (not “inherent.” Of course they are inherent. Otherwise there would be no point in speaking of male and female at all. They would simply be the same creatures with different haircuts)—is functioning as a humanities person in making this claim. No wonder they fight him. The above also applies regarding climatology and earth sciences. By the way, note that these are the weaker natural sciences. I doubt this happens among physicists, mathematicians, and chemists. In any case, correct (natural) science is determined only by experiments and not by opposition to studies and refusal to read them. And good science (even when it is not correct) is determined by the standards (criteria!) of natural scientists themselves, and according to explanatory power (for the observations already in our hands), predictive power (new observations about reality), and aesthetic power.
And by the way, I am really horrified to hear about that university senate of which you are a member. So know that maybe if those professors are not ignoramuses, they certainly are fools. (This is really the very embodiment of foolishness: a fool who thinks he is wise. See the introduction of Da’at Mikra to the Book of Proverbs.) Weak-minded. What did you call them? Educated? Well, that is what is called donkeys carrying books. Wise? Wisdom hides its face in shame. And it is really depressing to think that people like that receive a five-figure salary from the state. Not something that would make me want there to be work at all.
There is a serious problem of philosophical incompetence, and therefore the bogus sciences do not know how to define themselves.
For example, in psychodrama studies we heard a long lecture about factual truth and psychodramatic truth, instead of simply saying that a person tends to add imaginary descriptions from the psyche to reality, and thus imagination and reality get mixed together. They start explaining at length about two kinds of truth and more meaningless blah blah.
Why doesn’t the rabbi think that the more phenomena we explain by means of the same factor (the good versus the bad, the rich versus the poor, etc.), the more likely that theory is to be correct because it is simpler? After all, that is what Occam’s razor teaches us.
Why don’t I think that? I do think that. But when there are two explanations that can explain all the relevant phenomena, the choice between them is made according to the razor principle. But when one of the explanations is not a good explanation, the razor principle is irrelevant.
The razor principle says that the simple explanation is the correct one. So according to that, quantum theory is not correct because it is not simple. Sometimes reality is stubborn and annoying. It refuses to yield to the simple explanation and is actually complicated.
To prefer the simple explanation even though it is not a good explanation just because of Occam’s razor is a fallacy.
I don’t understand how you determine that a certain explanation does not explain all the relevant phenomena.
After all, when I start from an assumption that places all the phenomena of the world on a dispute between those with money and power and the working people, I assume I will always be able to find some ad hominem rationale to explain every event. Presumably they have explanations for most phenomena.
This is essentially also your claim directed against the bogus sciences, that many times they explain phenomena by malicious intentions. Like any conspiracy, it has an explanation for most if not all of the details.
So once again we have returned to Occam’s razor. There are two explanations – one based on a single assumption and thereby explaining the phenomena, and the second proceeding from a broad and complex set of views, ideas, and opinions and thereby explaining all the phenomena.
Which shall we choose? Option A.
The question is how plausible the explanation is in itself (even before examining its simplicity). Someone who sees demons under every leafy tree can explain everything. The question is whether it is really plausible that there are demons everywhere. As I wrote, Occam’s razor comes into use only after examining the explanations on their own merits. Among the plausible explanations, one chooses the simplest. To choose an implausible explanation because of its simplicity is foolishness.
For example, I claim that a point particle is responsible for all the laws of physics and the events of history. That is the simplest explanation possible for all the phenomena of the universe. Do you think it is correct?
If you can succeed in explaining all the phenomena by means of it, then why shouldn’t it be so?
Here’s an idea to think about: whenever something bad happens to a person, he claims it is because of his sins.
This explanation broadly explains all his sufferings quite well. On the basis of one assumption. If so, it will probably be the best explanation for him.
I explained what I had to explain. If you don’t accept it, then not.
Forgive me, with all due respect to his honored Torah, may he live long,
but there is a huge problem in your claim. When you argue that one of the ways of choosing an explanation is to test the plausibility of the explanation, that is no small problem.
Because you are begging the question. And that is exactly the claim of the humanities when they seek out the hidden assumption: that one cannot assume the desired explanation to be preferable and then be surprised that it indeed explains best…
And in truth, I think the rabbi himself wrote this explicitly in the column about statistical calculation for the physico-theological proof.
It is a problem only because you are looking for sharp logical criteria. There are none. Intuition and experience tell us that there are plausible explanations and implausible ones. After crossing that barrier, one makes an Ockhamist comparison among the plausible ones.
I asked you about the explanation of the whole universe on the basis of a point particle. What do you think of it? Note that if you do not accept it, you are in a “huge problem,” as you put it. 🙂
Surely it is obvious: to animals, human language is nonsense; to humans, the language of animals is nonsense; to natives in the rainforests, English is nonsense; if you do not speak Chinese, Chinese is nonsense; to a liar, the truth is nonsense. In other words, for one whose consciousness has no spirit in it, the humanities are nonsense, and so on.
Three things drive a person out of the world: envy, desire, and honor.
And how do they drive him out? By turning large parts of it into nonsense, so that he remains trapped in the narrow space that is left.
The modern university is a pastiche and a remnant of various trends in Western higher education. The sciences are engaged in research and in expanding knowledge, along the lines established by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. The humanities are supposed to deal with learning to read and write, interpretation, and education in character and understanding, along the lines founded by the humanists of the Renaissance or the theologians of the Middle Ages. If in the sciences one can acquire a quality education within 10 years, in the humanities it takes at least 30–40 years. Since mass schooling serves mainly the sciences, almost all students who come to study in the humanities lack any significant education and begin their studies from nothing. The ongoing result is that most lecturers in the humanities also lack education, and therefore they created special languages for their field, a kind of imitation of the language of intellectuals, a kind of imitation of sciences, something that can be learned within a few years just like in the sciences. These languages are hard to understand, which causes students to invest most of their efforts in learning them, and they remain even less educated. The result is that, on the one hand, the science faculties bring about the Epicureanization of humanity, and on the other hand the humanities are devoid of spirit or manage to speak only to a very small number of people.
With God’s help, 29th of Cheshvan 5779
The problematic nature of the social sciences and humanities did not begin with Marxism or postmodernity. The difficulty of reaching conclusions backed by decisive evidence, ‘as in arithmetic,’ stems from the fact that here one is not dealing, as in the natural sciences, with entities subject one hundred percent to fixed laws of nature. Here one is dealing with human beings, possessed of mind and choice, and of varying desires and psychological inclinations, conscious and unconscious, that influence thoughts, feelings, and actions.
The person himself is not always aware of all the considerations that drive his thoughts and actions, and it is doubly difficult for the researcher to enter the recesses of the heart of his subject and understand what truly leads him to choose one path or another. Since research nevertheless tries to understand motives and patterns of action – it is only natural that there should be different methods of understanding.
Marx will see envy as the main factor motivating man; Adler will see the main thing in the striving for honor and social status; and Freud will see desire as the main motive. By contrast, the optimistic thinker will see the main motive in the aspiration to understand and become wise, or in the aspiration to love and social solidarity, or in the aspiration to closeness to God.
And it is highly probable that they are all right, and that the human soul is composed of many varied inclinations, each of which demands its share, and research must take account of the complexity of the different desires, and recognize the importance of the various inclinations as well as the dangers latent within them, and from this it will be possible to define the proper domain and measure that will give a balanced response to all the inclinations of the soul.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
1. Does the rabbi not accept the historiosophy that Rav Kook develops in Orot?
2. Does the rabbi not think there is a difference between analyzing phenomena from an interest-based approach (Marxism) and analyzing phenomena from an ideational approach (Har Hamor)?
1. I don’t know what that historiosophy is. If there is something concrete, please formulate it, and then it will be possible to discuss it.
2. There is a difference, and still the question is whether the idea is an interest or an explanation. The question is too general.
I think attributing the idea of “children of light versus children of darkness” to Rav Kook is very mistaken, even if some of his students live by it. True, Rav Kook divides the world into forces, but for him the “solution” to the situation is not the subjugation of the wicked or of the ideologies they hold, but finding the correct balance between them and clarifying and adopting the truth present in each of them. The matter reminds me of the sin of King Solomon according to Abarbanel’s interpretation (I heard it from Rabbi Uri Sherki): he built high places and sought to worship all the alien worships in the world, because all of them together are the worship of God. About that conception one cannot say, “his world is as narrow as an ant,” as you wrote in the column, because this is not a conception that flattens everything into interests, but describes all the tendencies and actions in the world as the product of worldviews, the most fundamental among them being the relation to God, as Rav Kook says in the essay Sufferings Purify: “All the entanglements of opinions among human beings, and all the inner contradictions that each individual suffers in his opinions, come only because of the clouds present in thought regarding the divine concept, which is a sea without end; and all thoughts, both practical and theoretical, come from it and return to it.”
I think so too. And still, Rav Kook is the source of the conception that behind real processes stand metaphysical forces. From here it is but a short step to the conspiratorial conceptions of his students.
A sharp and excellent review.
A pragmatic question: there is a trend among rabbis who attack postmodernism (Chaim Navon, Kellner).
Obviously, as right-wing and conservative people, the far left bothers them. But we are Jews long before we are conservatives and right-wingers, if at all.
I don’t think that as Jews we should be overly troubled by the far left. What is the worst damage they can do? Approve 200 genders and add more departments of bogus studies? It doesn’t sound especially terrible. On the other hand, those same "social justice warriors" on the left fight fiercely against the antisemitic far right like the alt-right. As Jews, that does us an excellent service. Alt-right people are usually far more antisemitic than they hate Blacks and Muslims.
True, they are also usually anti-Israel, but I find it hard to believe that this really changes anything in US or European foreign policy. They are against Israel simply because they perceive Israel as the stronger side in the equation מול the Palestinians, and fortunately for us, that is also true.