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A Clarification of “A Clarification of Standpoint Theory”
4 Responses to “A Clarification of “A Clarification of Standpoint Theory””
I read the article quickly, so I may have missed something.
From what I understand so far, though, I don’t see how ‘science’ can be either exalted or demeaned. It is a methodology, not an end product.
Yes, people relying on ‘science’ will err in the method. the interpretation of results and the application of deductions. Scientists are fallible. That’s why scientific studies are reviewed and re-evaluated, and those reviews and critiques are also science.
The warning against exalting science should really be a warning against exalting any interim scientific conclusions.
We have to base our judgemtns on something, however. We can’t always wait for tomorrow’s knowldge; we have to act in today’s world. So, when warnings are issued, they should not be directed at only ‘science’. There is ample reason to warn against exalting intuition, political ideology, religious beliefs or any other source for decision making.
Until scientific methodology can be replaced by a more fool proof system of pooling knowlege, it’s the best we have.
Hmmm…this seems to be a updated version of Kuhn’s paradigm theory…an effort to embed science in social power structures as a way of undermining its authority.
I’ve long argued that fascism was the agogee of modernism…interesting to see your sources arguing the same point…but much the same could be said for communism (a less sophisticated modernist project than fascism, IMHO)…a point I doubt many of the advocates of standpoint theory would welcome as they seem generally Left (unless they adopt a neo-Left multicult/fem stance).
Just the latest in a long line of anti-Western relativistic theories — when did this trend begin? Spengler’s “Decline of the West”? — which will litter graduate theses and dissertations for years to come.
We can see the fruit of this tree in the popular views that all cultures are equal (cf. America was “discovered” by Chinese explorers, who were also the first to circumnavigate the globe; classical Greek science was stolen from Africa), and to criticize another culture (read: non-western, non-Christian culture) is verboten.
> and to criticize another
> culture (read: non-western,
> non-Christian culture) is
> verboten.
But others can criticize ours, and we “should” criticize it ourselves, because we’ve done so much “wrong,” have been “dominant,” have been “oppressive,” etc., ad nauseum. Goodbye, individual responsibility, and hello, collective guilt. (It’s pathological.)
Standpoint theorists are almost exclusively on the multi-cultural/feminist left, so I think they would accede to both fascism and communism as failed modernist projects.
As for the whole who-gets-to-criticize-who point, I think the ability to self-criticize (and take legitimate external criticism) is a virtue, not a vice, and our society would be stronger if we incorporated them. I hope that we are educating a class of American’s with the critical thinking abilities to criticize the failings of American society–how much worse would it be if they just accepted them?
To be sure, I don’t think other cultures should be immune from criticism (and let’s be honest–it’s not a tough search to find someone calling out Iran or Zimbabwe on all manner of evil things). The point of standpointers is to note that there is a particular value in hearing critiques from those “on the bottom”, and since that voice also happens to be one that tends to go unheard, we should make a particular effort to hear it. That seems intuitively obvious (and, quite obviously, none of this has to do with “collective guilt”, which is totally irrelevant to this conversation)