The traditional prose of academic non-fiction is usually taken to be analytical – sources to furnish fact. I do not differ with this approach in the need to offer evidence or in looking at the questions that the evidence presents. I differ in that academic discourse falls silent from this point onwards, failing to lead on to the obvious conclusions that may be drawn and the options for action that these answers present. In short, there is a yawning divide between words and action. Talk is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
But academic discourse often strays from the noble territory that it claims itself to inhabit. Western intellectuals, foundering on the problems of trying to justify the unjustifiable, will resort to a quick bit of speculation slipped into their weighty arguments. A classic example is Adam Smith, the doyen of privilege and the property ethic whose “weighty”, “academic” argument for property I quote from his “Theory of Moral Sentiments”…
“The rich… divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution in the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all inhabitants”
The inequitable division of resources becomes ever more absurd, as does the above proposition from this man who remains steadfastly at the centre of economic thinking. I don’t think the concept of “invisible hand” is a very weighty tool of academic reason. Nor is the bald assumption that the rich will share with the poor. Trickle-down theories abound in “academic” discourse. The facts disprove them. Plain observation ridicules Smith’s text, then as now.
In spite of the above, academics cling to the belief that there is rigour in their own reasoning.
Offerings that are inconvenient to Power or that challenge the status quo, must be very careful not to resort to anecdote to illustrate clear trends, or dare to employ intuition or common sense. There must not be the merest hint of speculation, even if it pales in comparison to Adam Smith’s.
But if proposals from outside the Institutional framework are far too easily dismissed, then what have the acknowledged masters of institutionalised debate to tell us of other ways to be? Does their “debate” have use in terms of leading towards an outcome? Conclusions merely invite further questions. Take a look at “An essay concerning human understanding” by John Locke – a passage entitled “No innate principles of the mind”.
The “logic” runs that Locke’s two choices for the most obvious simplicities possible could not have been thought of by children or idiots and so there are no innate principles. A rather swift, dramatic and dubious conclusion to aid the continuation of his discourse. In reply, I might say that there are many innate principles. Any child or idiot will understand the innate principle of eating when they are hungry, sheltering when they are cold, defending themselves against attack and so on. To which Mr Locke and all others who assert him to be a man of insight, would leap to his defence and say that such examples cannot be admitted for consideration as innate principles. Why not? In the absence of an adequate response to this question, they produce their badges of qualification and their titles of distinction. Note the absence of weighty argument in the initial proposition and in the defence of it.
The format of the debate over centuries within philosophy’s institutions is established within these types of remark – a false proposition subject to challenge is then re-defined to create a new false proposition and on we go through the centuries with earnest academic efforts to justify current practices.
How long did it take Galileo to convince them that the Earth was round? Or Darwin to convince them that the world was not made in seven days? Academic seniority knows its place – it is not open to revelation, it is cautious of change.
This never-ending form of debate that has plodded on over millennia has a historical purpose – to conclude nothing new, to challenge everything that does so. To be essentially conservative as the system leads us ever closer to the cliff edge. This is due to the nature of the origin of the academic institution.
The Romans, much less interested in knowledge than the Greeks, made it their business nonetheless to imprison and enslave all the intellectuals captured as prisoners of war from around the empire. These people were stuffed into Institutions and encouraged to affirm what their rulers liked doing and to provide challenges for what their rulers didn’t like doing. In those days, disfavour meant death. These days, disfavour means no more funding, no more academic career – a living death. The Gatekeepers of Intellect must know their place.
The inability of the institutions to make progress by their own methods is acknowledged from within. One of its institutionalised favourites, Alasdair MacIntyre, declared in his Gifford lecture that the different rival forms of moral enquiry mean that progress is now no longer possible within the institutions. I’d have to add that it never was – nor, when we see its origins, was it ever supposed to be.
So, if someone with a badge that says “expert” – said it is so, then it is taken as truth. The fact that substantive evidence exists to deny it doesn’t seem to matter. The fact is that the more angles that an assertion may be justified from (literally to cross-examine), then the greater the truth that it holds. If an assertion has only one line of defence – for example explanations for government policy – and is open to more counter-arguments than there are arguments in its favour, then it is something less than even a half-truth and becomes relegated to the realm of a highly personal opinion, a partial view or an attempt at propaganda. Petty details some might say, but someone with a badge said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and hundreds of thousands of people died.
In this book we will argue that economic growth is not the essential criterion for progress and that it can actually precipitate the decay of living standards. Such an argument has no place in the Institutions and is a good example of MacIntyre’s warning above. An institution will only be funded to conduct this line of enquiry if they conclude that it is false.
If we only allow experts to contribute to the debate, then any debate inconvenient to the needs of Power will suffocate. The other half of a debate must therefore take place outside of the Institutions. And it must not be marginalized.
Academic discourse argues not towards substantiation but towards expediency. If someone powerful wants to hear it, say it. You will be rewarded and promoted. Then all your colleagues will pretend that you are correct, your reputation will grow and you will be quoted by other parasites as if your words bear truth. And so it is that lies are echoed and oft-repeated until they become the truth. It’s official – economic growth is good for you – we just need to make it greener. Even that last proviso is the result of pressure from outside the institutions over a period of decades that fought relentlessly to make themselves heard above the scorn of institutional dismissal.
Arguments cannot progress with the constant intrusions of self-interest claiming to be the other half of a balanced debate. “Objectivity” was killed off as long ago as the 1950s with the idea that all arguments proceed from a particular vantage point, a point of view. Subjectivity is not a weakness or a crime, it’s a result of speaking from within a body that has been subject to certain experience. To be subjective is to be human.
I will not include subjective arguments for self-interest with the view that they balance the debate. I will not pretend to be objective on the basis that academia is objective, because it is not. Badges should never have been allowed to take the place of logic, observation, reason and evidence. The latter level the playing field between the loftiest academic and the humblest child. I would even place the conclusions of Intuition and Common Sense above those of the Man with the Badge if he is unable to substantiate his opinion. Status is no substitute for integrity.
These are words of an Other Nature not only in the mind-set of the humanity that they represent. These are words of an Other Nature in the form and the style in which they are expressed. Clearing the fog of self-interest and the logjam of bogus objectivity allows this other nature to be revealed.
We are given hearts to know with as well as minds. Observation of what is in plain sight should never be buried beneath the weighty condemnations of the servants of the status quo.