Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Academic Anomaly addresses the Grievance Imbroglio

Scholarly journals publish hoax articles

Dr. Jonathan Anomaly: “I think the academy is in serious crisis right now.”
Dr. Jonathan Anomaly: “I think the academy is in serious crisis right now.”

In 1996, physics professor Alan Sokal submitted an article to the cultural studies journal Social Text claiming that “it is becoming increasingly apparent that physical ‘reality’ is fundamentally ‘a social and linguistic construct.’” His aim was to show that a supposedly scholarly journal would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it sounded good and flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” Social Text took the bait, but according to USD Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jonathan Anomaly, “there was a little bit of back and forth, and then they went on with business as usual.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

Earlier this year, three scholars — James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian — revealed that they had submitted some 20 similar hoax articles to academic journals specializing in what they called “Grievance Studies,” and gotten seven of them accepted. Among them: a rewriting of a Mein Kampf excerpt in the language of Intersectionality, and an investigation of rape culture at a dog park. Anomaly thinks the same thing may happen here — a brief kerfuffle and then business as usual — but he’d like to believe otherwise. Because in his view, “some disciplines that are worth studying have become so politically biased that it’s hard for them to progress. It’s hard for students to learn in any deep sense, because as John Stuart Mill would say, the best way to get justification for your belief, even if it happens to be true, is to frequently and fearlessly encounter opposition.” (Otherwise, suggest Anomaly and the Grievance Trio, you wind up with dogma: quasi-religious absolutes that, whatever their merits, are outside the purview of scholarship.)

Advocacy for opposition can be an explosive move in an academic culture wary of triggering. Anomaly — a Berkeley grad and former left-winger who refuses to call himself conservative even as he lambastes liberal pieties about inequality equaling injustice — has found himself protested and pilloried in the past. Still, he thought it worthwhile to write a piece on the Grievance hoax for the website Quillette, one that argued that “many faculty in [Grievance] departments seem alarmingly eager to hijack for their own ends the emotional circuitry of teenagers who arrive on campus in search of a tribe to join and a dragon to slay.”

Not that he’s opposed to dragon-slaying: “I’m a secular Jew, and the first article I wrote for Quillette was, ‘What the Alt-Right Gets Wrong About Jews.’ It linked to my buddy Nathan Cofnas’s article, which was the first systematic debunking of an Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory written by former Cal State Long Beach Professor Kevin MacDonald in his book The Culture of Critique. No one would review it for twenty years, because it didn’t meet the basic standards for academics. But it gained a massive cult following. Nathan wrote the first academic paper taking it seriously,” in part because, as Anomaly wrote in his more recent Quillette piece, “what happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus.” For Anomaly, that’s true whether you’re convincing folks that Jews are cultural parasites or jiggering Google results to suit your worldview, as suggested by Dr. David Epstein in his Global Research article, “The New Mind Control.”

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Timken museum among best in world

Balboa Park is such a pleasant place, it can almost seem a waste to spend time indoors
Dr. Jonathan Anomaly: “I think the academy is in serious crisis right now.”
Dr. Jonathan Anomaly: “I think the academy is in serious crisis right now.”

In 1996, physics professor Alan Sokal submitted an article to the cultural studies journal Social Text claiming that “it is becoming increasingly apparent that physical ‘reality’ is fundamentally ‘a social and linguistic construct.’” His aim was to show that a supposedly scholarly journal would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it sounded good and flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” Social Text took the bait, but according to USD Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jonathan Anomaly, “there was a little bit of back and forth, and then they went on with business as usual.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

Earlier this year, three scholars — James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian — revealed that they had submitted some 20 similar hoax articles to academic journals specializing in what they called “Grievance Studies,” and gotten seven of them accepted. Among them: a rewriting of a Mein Kampf excerpt in the language of Intersectionality, and an investigation of rape culture at a dog park. Anomaly thinks the same thing may happen here — a brief kerfuffle and then business as usual — but he’d like to believe otherwise. Because in his view, “some disciplines that are worth studying have become so politically biased that it’s hard for them to progress. It’s hard for students to learn in any deep sense, because as John Stuart Mill would say, the best way to get justification for your belief, even if it happens to be true, is to frequently and fearlessly encounter opposition.” (Otherwise, suggest Anomaly and the Grievance Trio, you wind up with dogma: quasi-religious absolutes that, whatever their merits, are outside the purview of scholarship.)

Advocacy for opposition can be an explosive move in an academic culture wary of triggering. Anomaly — a Berkeley grad and former left-winger who refuses to call himself conservative even as he lambastes liberal pieties about inequality equaling injustice — has found himself protested and pilloried in the past. Still, he thought it worthwhile to write a piece on the Grievance hoax for the website Quillette, one that argued that “many faculty in [Grievance] departments seem alarmingly eager to hijack for their own ends the emotional circuitry of teenagers who arrive on campus in search of a tribe to join and a dragon to slay.”

Not that he’s opposed to dragon-slaying: “I’m a secular Jew, and the first article I wrote for Quillette was, ‘What the Alt-Right Gets Wrong About Jews.’ It linked to my buddy Nathan Cofnas’s article, which was the first systematic debunking of an Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory written by former Cal State Long Beach Professor Kevin MacDonald in his book The Culture of Critique. No one would review it for twenty years, because it didn’t meet the basic standards for academics. But it gained a massive cult following. Nathan wrote the first academic paper taking it seriously,” in part because, as Anomaly wrote in his more recent Quillette piece, “what happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus.” For Anomaly, that’s true whether you’re convincing folks that Jews are cultural parasites or jiggering Google results to suit your worldview, as suggested by Dr. David Epstein in his Global Research article, “The New Mind Control.”

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Timken museum among best in world

Balboa Park is such a pleasant place, it can almost seem a waste to spend time indoors
Next Article

Quill & Arrow Law is Saving Drivers Around California with Lemon Law

Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader