The World’s WORST Public Intellectual
There are public intellectuals who are decorous in
debate, nuanced and careful in their arguments, cautious in their assertions
and meticulous in researching the subjects they comment on. Then there is
Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is a man with a megaphone who models, lavishly models,
basic intellectual irresponsibility. Like Ben Shapiro (his right wing
equivalent) he cultivates radical stupidity and sells it to the public as
cutting edge intelligence. Years ago
when I first picked up the God Delusion I
realized not five pages in that it was the work of an intellectual fraud (this
is because religion and philosophy are my ACADEMIC specialties- sorry to pull
rank). I have no reason to think this
fraudulence extends further than his popular works on religion and other topics.
Dawkins is famous because he published a book with selfish in the title at the cusp
of the Reagan/Thatcher era. It was read and admired, I am told, by CEO’s who
suddenly found their narcissism and greed was simply the selfish gene doing its
thing. As for his scientific work in animal behavior it looks, as far as I can
tell, competent enough though I sometimes wonder what any individual scientist
contributes to articles with 4 or 5 authors. All else; on politics, on
philosophy, on poetry, on post-modernism, on theology, is nakedly fraudulent.
Dawkins may genuinely THINK he is insightful on those subjects. Plus, he has
legions of flatterers to tell him he is. Yet he is the world’s leading public
intellectual according to Time and
the simplest hypothesis is that what walks like a duck is a duck: Dawkins has
gotten famous by being (to all outer appearances) a complete humbug and that is
most likely because he is one. His massive reputation is based on little actual
achievement outside his specialty of ethology and I suspect that on some level
he may know this. This could be what lies behind his constant projection:
‘sophisticated theology’ is the emperor with no clothes (Dawkins refers to this
story so often I wonder whether his fascination with it actually embodies a
secret anxiety like imposter syndrome- if ever there were a naked emperor it is
surely him). Post modernism is all pretentious gibberish professors only
pretend they understand. Social scientists are all brainwashed by ‘wokeness’.
Kafka is drivel that English professors con others into thinking contains ‘deeper
meaning’. EVERYBODY is a fake and EVERYBODY is pretending! Well, I sometimes
consider the hypothesis that it takes one to putatively know one and that
Dawkins himself is a simple fake. The only thing that keeps me from pursuing this
hypothesis further are the clear signs of arrested development (‘muslimina’
anyone?) that convince me that, after all, he may still be a boy. If so, I
suppose I can grant him a certain radical innocence and allow his hubris to be
that of a child and not a con.
Now the God
Delusion was not the only piece that made me wonder what this guy with the
urbane Oxbridge accent was actually smoking. Another was an essay attacking Karl
Popper (among others) called “What is True?”. This essay consisted of Dawkins
calling Popper a fool because the sun is hotter than the earth and he has a
head. Dawkins, you see, has solved all the problems of epistemology in a couple
of sentences because, presumably, he is just that smart. Who does this guy
think he is I wondered? Well, his stuff sold. And having succeeded so well with
childish arguments about the sun being hot, he poured out more and more in that
vein. This includes a risibly inept treatment of the proofs of God’s existence
in his magnum opus on God: here he refutes the ontological argument by poking
out his tongue at it: “‘Bet you I can prove God exists.’ ‘Bet you can’t.’
‘Right then, imagine the most perfect perfect perfect thing possible.’ ‘Okay,
now what?’ ‘Now, is that perfect perfect perfect thing real? Does it exist?’
‘No, it’s only in my mind.’ ‘But if it was real it would he even more perfect,
because a really really perfect thing would have to be better than a silly old
maginary thing. So I’ve proved that God exists. Nur Nurny Nur Nur. All atheists
are fools.’ What adult writes this way about anything? What adult reads it and declares it genius?[1]
If anyone else were involved we would flag this instantly for what it is: a
clear case of arrested development. Boy genius Dawkins may remain a genius but
he also remains a boy.
Of course, had he just stuck to rubbishing creationists,
philosophers of science and crazy French radicals Dawkins might have continued
in this vein. Alas, he has now proceeded to apply his special sort of
insouciance to things the political LEFT cares about. This was a terrible
career move because now publications like The
Guardian have started to notice what they never had reason to notice
before: that Dawkins does not actually read up on immigration, trans-rights,
gender, indigenous people or any of the other things he pontificates on. (see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/09/is-richard-dawkins-destroying-his-reputation).
In fact, he explicitly DEFENDS not reading up on them because they are, after
all, nonsense. Indeed, he has a special argument he employs whenever the
question of his lack of intellectual integrity and his mental laziness comes
up. It goes like this: I don’t have to read theologians or Foucault or literary
criticism. Why? I already know they are nonsense! In logic this is called
arguing in a circle. I think Derrida is a terrible philosopher I might say.
Someone might respond: well, have you read him? Ah (I answer) but why would I read him? He is a terrible
philosopher! I have never actually tried this move in an academic context but
it has worked so well for Dawkins that his fan boys repeat it EVERY time you
encounter one on Twitter or Facebook.
Of course, there are people who will say I must be
crazy, or bitter, or attention seeking or a closet fundamentalist to think ANY
of the things I said above are true. How could the world be so wrong to honor
such a man and elevate him to a public sage? This is especially so because
there is, as I have long noted, a cult of personality around Dawkins and if you
challenge the object of such a cult the response is gas lighting. Anyone
looking at the matter from the outside can see that Dawkins is the rudest,
smuggest, most punchable man in contemporary letters. From his high perch he
dismisses his critics as fleas. He waves his hand contemptuously in the general
direction of philosophers (who don’t write like scientists), sociologists (who
don’t write like scientists), post modernists (who are all fake and don’t write
like scientists), indigenous people (who sniff goat scrotums- yes Dawkins is
THAT funny) and in general anyone with a progressive or egalitarian view that
involves listening to people of a different color of gender than Dawkins
himself. Moreover he does ALL these things openly on Twitter for all the world
to see. He does ALL the above without reading or researching a single thing
because, of course, the emperor has no clothes, you don’t need to research
fairies etc. etc.[2]
This, of course, is the traditional insouciance of the aristocrat and indeed
Dawkins himself reeks of privilege: (especially the smug, smirking privilege
that has traditionally underwritten Anglo cultural supremacy). Yet, point any
of this out and the fan boy simply expresses incomprehension like an analytic
philosopher who does not want to deal with a quote from Hegel. Where, they ask,
does Dawkins do ANY of this? Where is he EVER anything but gracious and
informed? THIS, I scarcely need to point out, is exactly like talking to Trump
supporters. We see only what we want to see where cults of personality are
involved.
Well, there are
many layers to unpacking this but if we were to start with a simple
fundamental, Dawkins’ naïve realist epistemology, the rest will fall in place.
A naïve realist will indeed become a bitter old fart after a life time of
kicking a stone for he has the simple obvious truth which is being denied by a
conspiracy of knaves and dunces. Everyone MUST be putting him on and the result
is contempt, anger and indifference for the world of letters which stubbornly refuses
to accept the sun is hot, that planes fly because of science and that there are
no relativists at 30,000 feet. This is a poor way to defend realism I have to
add. Take the second claim for instance. Planes do not fly simply because of
the ‘truth’ of science. Planes fly because of engineering which involves
science but is not reducible to it. Airplanes are not designed by physicists
any more than they are built by them. This is indicated, if by nothing else, by
the engineering successes of ‘non-scientific’ cultures. Thus, the ‘scientifically
trained engineers’ evoked by Dawkins are bringing more to the table than the ‘truth’
of theoretical models and statements. Also, a Marxist might add, planes fly because
of skilled labor. The skilled welder ALSO brings to the table something over
and above ‘theoretical truth’. There isn’t an abstraction called ‘science’ whose
‘truth’ makes a plane fly but a complex web of institutions and practices.[3] This means, to be blunt, that for the sake of engineering theoretical statements need only be 'true enough' and instrumental success is no strict criterion of truth or correspondence to the world. Theory does not simply and directly correspond to reality without passing through the devious route of practice. Practice adjusts theory to fact! Also, unfortunately, the sun is hotter than the earth according to a conventional system and scale of
measurement: taken in a quantitative sense, then, it is as constructed a
fact as can be. In a qualitative
sense, of course, the sun is indeed hotter than the ground though it may not be
hotter than the fire you are sitting next to. To say ‘the sun is hotter than
the earth’ is not a simple, naïve truth but a complex statement related either
to direct sensation (in which case it is purely subjective- the sun may feel hotter
to you than me) OR to an assumed measure constructed theoretically. It is
almost the paradigm case of a fact that is theory dependent (unless Dawkins
assumes that aliens too must measure such things in degrees Kelvin and only in
degrees Kelvin). Dawkins, however, puts complex theoretical truths on the exact
same level as his really existent head.[4]
This, surely, will not persuade the truth hecklers one bit. It is almost as if
Kuhn and Popper actually thought about what they were saying!
Equally inept is
his attempt to refute Kuhn et.al by pointing out that his table is made of
wood. This is the kind of boyish argument we have come to expect from Dawkins
for Kuhn is not questioning the reality of ordinary facts but pointing out how
facts can be deployed and redeployed, even re-described in different historical
paradigms AND how changes in such paradigms can generate new facts and
fundamental re-descriptions of existing facts. Dawkins table may be made of
wood for instance but he does not think the wood is a compound of four
elements. Kuhn is questioning an assumed
relationship between theory and fact which turns out to be more complicated
than certain epistemologies have traditionally allowed. Dawkins has simply not bothered to understand Kuhn OR
Popper. After all why should he? He is a very smart man! Popper, however,
questioned standard theories of verification because of the problem of
induction outlined by Hume. I have never seen the slightest evidence that
Dawkins even knows what the problem of induction is. The result, of course, is
a pompous, insulting flourish directed at people smarter and more informed than
himself: “In the face of these sublime and profound mysteries, the low-grade intellectual
poodling of pseudo-philosophical poseurs seems unworthy of adult attentions.”
What an ass. Dawkins’ naiveté would be bearable, even forgivable, if he were
not so bumptious and arrogant.
But, as naïve realism of some sort is the default epistemology of most people we might stop and consider just why it fails. We might stop and consider why simple statements of fact are never as simple as they seem and simply asserting ‘well, x is just true isn’t it?’ does not solve any problem in epistemology or philosophy of science. Why can’t I just say, for instance, that the sky is blue and leave the problem of knowledge at that? Well here’s the thing; the sky isn’t blue. Not a bit. There are whole cultures for which the sky is something else either because they don’t see blue as we do or (more likely) because they don’t distinguish it from other shades of color. The sky is blue is almost a text book example of a culturally constructed truth. This was implicit in the distinction made long ago between primary and secondary qualities the latter of which were relative to the perceiver. Nor is it a simple, irreducible fact, say, that ‘Jupiter is a planet’. This is obvious because nobody SEES a planet. We see a patch of light; a planet is a complex theoretical construct that has shifted over time and may shift again in the future. One might conceive, at least, of such a shift removing Jupiter from the roster of planets. One might say that Jupiter is then a heavenly body though it could also be a highly sophisticated hologram constructed by an alien civilization. What we take it to be has nothing to do with the image we see but the context in which we see it: in this case a context in which there are no aliens to tamper with our perceptions. If we discovered such aliens we would be seeing the image of Jupiter in a potentially new light. If there is Jupiter the planet, Jupiter the non-planet and Jupiter the space hologram we don’t SEE the difference on photos or in telescopes. The ‘fact’ is a sophisticated construct within a system of pre-judgments. Even more sophisticated would be saying not something like ‘Jupiter is a planet’ but ‘Jupiter exists’ for now we are considering ‘existence’ and whether or not it is a predicate. If you like, the image in the telescope has surface or depth depending on what we bring to it. It is fine in its way to believe in the facts but one should always keep in mind what goes into the constitution and construction of a fact.
There is, then, no lazy man’s solution to the epistemological problem even if we can parse the statement ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘Jupiter is a planet’ into something suitably sophisticated and theoretical to be considered true. There are no simple facts with which to refute any relativist or skeptic and Dawkins is a fool for trying. Further, his entire career since this clumsy attack on Popper and Kuhn has been compounding this folly. Religion is false because snakes don’t talk and you can’t detect an invisible teapot. Literature is foolishness because men don’t turn into insects. Decolonization in New Zealand must stop because science is good and myth is bad. Women who are victimized by abusers need to shut up and be grateful they are not Muslims. Moving around these simple counters Dawkins plays checkers not chess. Indeed, he plays noughts and crosses and rages at a world that wants to play something more adult. AND, since the facts are so simple and are always just what he describes the corollary must follow. The world has gone nuts. Academics are all faking like people who pretend to like abstract art. Only Dawkins can see through the B.S! Thus his current Twitter pose, which will increasingly become a sad and lonely pose as countries decolonize and people continue to read theology in spite of all his injunctions to dismiss it unread. One might almost feel sorry for him if he were not so smug and cocksure and the author of his own misfortune.
[1]
The fan boy, of course, will claim that Dawkins’ inept treatment of Anselm is
justified by Anselm himself being inept. Since the subject itself is childish
Dawkins is excused for babbling like a child. Well, here I have to pull rank as
someone who has actually published on Anselm. If you can sit and work through
Anselm’s dialectic in the Proslogion and
still prefer nur nurny nur nur then I can’t help that kind of obstinate
stupidity.
[2]
Alas and alack anyone writing a 500 page book purporting to REFUTE the
existence of fairies must absolutely research fairies as every single academic
in the world knows. Dawkins fan-boys, one senses, are not inclined to the world
of scholarship. Only THEY seem to think there is a magic trick to circumvent
researching the things you are talking about. Believe me if ANY such trick
existed a lazy academic would have discovered it ages ago.
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