Mumbo jumbo to you but widom to your neighbor --- what else is new?

I am skeptical of attacks on fools, though I love these round sounds:

Crooked Timber's Mumbo jumbo; The Guardian's Twaddle unswaddled.

The gist of the book upon which these posts revolve is that there are a lot of quacks out there and many who base whatever it is that they are peddling on some non-rational or even anti-rational theory. So be careful.

My comment at CT:

Yes there are a lot of fools roaming the world and opining; some even have their own blogs where they pretend to expertise.

But the medium aside, was it ever any different? Judging from the calamities and stupidities of the past it appears that the foolishness of our own age has a long pedigree.

Let's be skeptical of our current roster of weirdos but let's be skeptical that something brand new is afoot.

While there is always room for one more "call to reason,"  it seems to me that the necessity for such should be no more now than in the past, hence a book which seeks to spotlight the problem of quacks may lead us to a misunderstanding of our age. I do not think that there is any rational, plausible method to prove the truth or falsity of a statement such as "There is more/less cant & stupidity now than there was in _________." (pick-your-year) The data (historical/sociological or whatever) is simply not available. So generalized attacks from left or right (they both take delight in attacking our era) on "the stupidity and cupidity of our age" are mere anecdotal opinion. There is simply no rational basis to make a judgment about the superiority of one era over another. I happen to think that there was never such an enlightened and mentally evolved era as that which we now enjoy. But there is no way to prove it one way or another.

Or is there?

UPDATE: Well perhaps I am too sanguine about the impact of the anti-rationalists of left and right. Read Ian Buruma on The Origins of Occidentalism.

Comments

[Ophelia Benson]

David, no, there is no way to prove now is better or worse than then, but then there is no way to prove most things. Proof is too high a standard. But it is possible to offer evidence (as you indicate via link to Buruma article).

And it is worth talking about in such terms, I think. For one thing, if we have (as I for one think) regressed in a lot of ways in the last twenty years or so - with the rise of fundamentalism as one engine and the popularity of postmodernism and its children as another - then surely it's worth asking why, as one aspect of how to fix the problem.

[David Sucher]

ok. i've change my mind. you are right, Ophelia. there may indeed be something new afoot because of what you characterize as the academic backing for indeterminacy...if that is indeed so...i know virtually no academics so i have no first hand experience, though from the young people i have run across, there indeed may be something seriously wrong in the academy.

i am reminded that i had a professor in law school (part of what i think was then called "critical legal studies") who offered the claim that the law provided total indeterminancy, served only the rich and powerful and that it was constantly being re-formed to fit their needs. while it is of course obvious that the rich and powerful certainly do exploit the law for their own needs, that does not mean that there is no such thing as justice much less an ordering of society which leads slowly and surely to the greatest good for the greatest number. the history of humanity can be summed up as the taming of bullies and law, with all its flaws, has had a big part in doing so.

for people to turn away from reason --- for instance to the claim that "tradition" provides superior answers --- is part of what i think you are attacking...i recently ran across one blog where there was much support for "traditional town planning" but they couldn't really describe at first what that meant except that somehow liberals wouldn't like it...so much for reason.

[Ophelia Benson]

Ah yes, critical legal studies. Someone in Australia was going to write about that for us (B&W) a year ago - but he never did. Yet another item for the long list of things I have to explore further.

"for people to turn away from reason --- for instance to the claim that "tradition" provides superior answers --- is part of what i think you are attacking"

Yup. You bet it is.

For an excellent read on this, see The Flight From Science and Reason, Gross, Levitt and Lewis eds. It's an anthology of essays on various kinds of flight from reason.

[David Sucher]

No Ophelia. On second thought, science "proves" things continually by being able to describe and predict them. So I don't agree with your first premise.