@Leontiskos @Joshs @Number2018 @frank @AmadeusD @Janus

a category is less than, smaller than, any single individual we might put in that box. — Fire Ologist

That was a lot of argument based on principals (like the above), which I get, but is not what I was thinking of (nor trading reasons why/or why not “only those in power can be racist.”). We need a situation where the claim is, in a sense: what are we going to value and how do we do it? And then I am suggesting, before argument, we try to figure out what interest there could be in changing and in how (to judge differently). I’m not sure what the situation is where the above comes up (I think an example always helps, even if manufactured at first), and I also don’t understand the current criteria that are used to judge a person as a unique individual, and what the judgment would be for (Sometimes I don’t want someone unique, I just want a soldier.)

Is that what Nick Land’s accelerationism is about? — Joshs

Yeah. For the most part, the far right is not interested in reform. They believe the establishment has failed.

Run Adorno through Perplexity. — Joshs

I'm familiar enough with Adorno to know that he leans towards realism. But you've merely found an exception that proves the rule.

The points I’m trying to make concerning Crrical theory are twofold. First, that regardless of how unconventional their realism was, they should not be in danger of being accused of an ‘anything goes’ relativism. — Joshs

And Barron does not accuse them of that. What says there is important. To talk about the philosophical antecedents of wokism is not to talk about wokism per se. You keep blurring the difference.

Instead , [Critical theorists] beleive that material and social formations are grounded in truth, and truth is grounded in metaphysical certainties. — Joshs

That's just not true. Asserting contrary to common knowledge, SEP, and Perplexity.ai is doing you no good on this score.

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So we can say that for a given person within a given time and culture, there will be specific criteria for the goodness or badness of a garden. What are such criteria of goodness based on, and can we generalize these criteria across persons and historical eras? I do believe in a certain notion of cultural progress, both empirical and ethical, so my answer is yes. But since the criteria I thinking are fundamental have to do with the concept of sense-making, it will be less clear in the case of aesthetic phenomena like gardens and works of art how this applies than in the case of the sciences or political systems. — Joshs

Okay. In that case you should try to show why wokeness is needed in the garden.

I believe that all of us are continually evolving within our systems of thought, but at a pace that is determined by the limits of that system. My goal in debating with others is to understand their system of thought from their perspective as well as i can, and to test the validity of my efforts by attempting to plug into the leading edge of their own thinking. If my thinking doesn’t find them where they are at, I will just get the equivalent of a glassy eyes stare of incomprehension or outright hostility. If I am successful in plugging into their cutting edge, they will respond enthusiastically, seeing me as a partner in thought rather than as a threat. — Joshs

I think you're leaving out the part where you pull weeds and disagree with others, and it would be much easier if you forthrightly admitted that you do that too.

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Is the head of a family not an activist in putting into practice their understanding of moral standards in their child raising decisions? Are their parenting decisions not means to an end, that being the raising of good people? — Joshs

No, because they do not treat the children as a means to an end. That their parenting is a means to an end does not mean that their children are a means to an end. You are making rational errors here.

Aren’t all ‘activists’ simply actively putting into practice what they believe to be in the best interest of society as they understand it? — Joshs

Sure, and we've covered this before. Just because someone is trying to do something good doesn't mean they are doing something good, and in this case it doesn't mean that they are not treating everyone as a means to an end. Hitler thought it was in the best interest of society for Jews to die in concentration camps. That doesn't make what he did unobjectionable.

How are the critical comments about wokism in this thread not a form of activism? — Joshs

How are they? Try to argue your position that critically commenting on wokism is a form of activism.

What are the ends the criticisms are a means to? — Joshs

A better life and society for everyone, wokists included. To disagree with someone is not to treat them as a means to an end. To disagree with someone implies that they have intrinsic worth.

The points I’m trying to make concerning Crrical theory are twofold. First, that regardless of how unconventional their realism was, they should not be in danger of being accused of an ‘anything goes’ relativism.
— Joshs

And Barron does not accuse them of that. What ↪AmadeusD says there is important. To talk about the philosophical antecedents of wokism is not to talk about wokism per se. You keep blurring the difference — Leontiskos

You need to remind what you think the difference is, in specific terms. Let’s start with this: If you agree with Barron that CT doesn’t adhere to an ‘anything goes’ relativism, are you claiming that some wokists do adhere to an ‘anything goes’ relativism? Can you give specific examples here, (besides Amadeus’s assertions)? If
you do think so, I think you are giving wokists too much credit. They are as a whole not philosophical scholars. Most activists are drawing on commoditized , pre-packaged , dumbed down dilutions of the antecedent philosophies. Given that the so-called ‘radical relativists’ (Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida) offer ideas that are difficult even for other scholars to conceptualize, I suggest it is extremely unlikely the woke leadership, much less the rank and file, has assimilated any of this stuff. And as I argued earlier, if they have, it would pull the rug out from their moral self-justifications.

Here’s the likely effect of a wokist actually absorbing the ideas of the radical relativists:

“By and large identity politics has depended on a rhetoric of blame, the illocutionary effects of which are designed to chastise the target (for being unjust, prejudiced, inhumane, selfish, oppressive, and/or violent). In western culture we essentially inherit two conversational responses to such forms of chastisement - incorporation or antagonism. The incorporative mode ("Yes, now I see the error of my ways") requires an extended forestructure of understandings (i.e. a history which legitimates the critic's authority and judgment, and which renders the target of critique answerable). However, because in the case of identity politics, there is no preestablished context to situate the target in just these ways, the invited response to critique is more typically one of hostility, defense and counter-charge.

In its critical moment, social constructionism is a means of bracketing or suspending any pronouncement of the real, the reasonable, or the right. In its generative moment, constructionism offers an orientation toward creating new futures, an impetus to societal transformation. Constructionist thought militates against the claims to ethical foundations implicit in much identity politics - that higher ground from which others can so confidently be condemned as inhumane, self-serving, prejudiced, and unjust. Constructionist thought painfully reminds us that we have no transcendent rationale upon which to rest such accusations, and that our sense of moral indignation is itself a product of historically and culturally situated traditions. And the constructionist intones, is it not possible that those we excoriate are but living also within traditions that are, for them, suffused with a sense of ethical primacy? As we find, then, social constructionism is a two edged sword in the political arena, potentially as damaging to the wielding hand as to the opposition.”(Ken Gergen, Social Construction and the Transformation of Identity Politics)

Is it really necessary to emphasize the differences between wokism and CT? Is it your contention that wokist practices are so wildly deviant from the philosophical antecedents Barron mentions that ‘blurring the difference’ deprives us of a vital understanding of wokists? If Barron thought so, I dont think he would have bothered to spend so much time on those antecedents. I’ll give you three names: Adorno, Gramsci and Fanon. I defy you to show me any concrete evidence of a wokist pronouncement or action that isn’t fully compatible with one of these three thinkers. It’s true that, strictly speaking, only Adorno comes from the Frankfurt school, but the other two share the larger Marxist framework with Adorno, and are as much realists as he is.

A better life and society for everyone, wokists included. To disagree with someone is not to treat them as a means to an end. To disagree with someone implies that they have intrinsic worth. — Leontiskos

Are you suggesting that wokists, in treating others as a means to an end, don’t believe they have intrinsic worth? Should I be looking in the direction of Kant to locate the context of your critique of means-ends thinking?

Yep, put too much english on that. — Antony Nickles

Okay. :up:

I’m thinking maybe there isn’t one? I started trying to discuss philosophical assumptions that lead us to misunderstand/pre-judge—miss the actual import—of a moral claim. Maybe this is just a matter of you thinking I’m defending/arguing for something I’m not, and me thinking you don’t get what I am saying. Assumptions? — Antony Nickles

Well, I don't understand why you would find it necessary to discuss philosophical assumptions that lead us to form premature judgments if you don't think any premature judgments are occurring. It seems to me that if someone judges that we should discuss the philosophical assumptions that lead us to form premature judgments, then they have already judged that there are premature judgments occurring. If there are no premature judgments occurring then there is no need to discuss such assumptions. If there are premature judgments occurring then there is need to discuss such assumptions. If there is a good chance that there are premature judgments occurring then there is a good chance that we need to discuss such assumptions.

It would be yes, that was worded poorly. Of course we have to get to a judgment about moral claims; we have to move forward, decide what to do, and on what basis. — Antony Nickles

Okay, I agree. :up:

I will admit that, supposing there is a problem with wokism, the specific remedy is not obvious. Similarly, the remedy and the critique must be proportionate. For example, if a problem is intractable then a heavy-handed critique will be unfitting and hazardous.

It is presumptive to assume that has not taken place, and, again, not my intention. I was only suggesting that, generally, people (and philosophers in particular) do not consider “the ways” in which they judge. Thank you for the serious consideration. — Antony Nickles

Okay, thanks for that.

My deeper point here is not that one cannot claim that sufficient understanding has not taken place, but rather that if one tells their interlocutor that sufficient understanding has not taken place (or implies it) then they must provide their interlocutor with some means for seeing why sufficient understanding has not taken place. In one way or another there must be an attempt to persuade their interlocutor that sufficient understanding has not taken place.

That was a lot of argument based on principals (like the above), which I get, but is not what I was thinking of — Antony Nickles

That’s why I hoped you would start the interests/criteria method you propose (and which sounds good to me).

before argument, we try to figure out what interest there could be in changing and in how (to judge differently) — Antony Nickles

“Interests there could be in changing.” So when I hear that, I immediately think there is some particular thing that someone see needs to change and you are looking for what “interests there could be in changing”. Or are you asking “do you have any interest in changing any thing at all?” Like “what is your interest level in making some changes?”

Can’t you lay out some interests some criteria, sort of play this out a bit more?

I think an example always helps, even if manufactured at first) — Antony Nickles

I do too. Here we need an example of how to start the ball rolling toward the conversation you want to have. I am failing to do so.

I also don’t understand the current criteria that are used to judge a person as a unique individual — Antony Nickles

So now it seems you are playing along with me anyway, which I appreciate, but I don’t know if I respond to this I won’t be just taking us further down a direction you were not intending to go.

But I will say, it’s a good question- I didn’t say how to judge a person as unique. I was hoping we could just stipulate something like that, kind of like how @Leontiskos is using not treating people as a means with @Joshs. Thought it was easy starting point. But like I said, instead of digging into this more, can you start with something more like what you have in mind?

(Sometimes I don’t want someone unique, I just want a soldier.) — Antony Nickles

(I’d love to get back to this though. And I’d love to get back to the reasoning that says white privilege allows for white racism towards blacks, but black oppression disallows them from racism towards whites.)

But that may be too substantive as we are looking for interests and criteria for discussion.

My interest was in protecting the unique value of each individual person. This seemed too argumentative to you - what do you have in mind?

I will admit that, supposing there is a problem with wokism, the specific remedy is not obvious. Similarly, the remedy and the critique must be proportionate. For example, if a problem is intractable then a heavy-handed critique will be unfitting and hazardous. — Leontiskos

I agree with all of that.

if one tells their interlocutor that sufficient understanding has not taken place (or implies it) then they must provide their interlocutor with some means for seeing why sufficient understanding has not taken place. — Leontiskos

I call that a discussion. Which we are all having.

Hoping for more meat, so we can make a judgment about woke, or not-woke, or woke versus not-woke, or traditional conservatism, or traditional conservatism versus non-traditional/non-conservative, or how best to even frame the discussion, and why the judge is sound or better than other judgements…

How is this not an argument against the very possibility of totalitarianism tout court, regardless of the ideology consumed by its practitioners? And yet, totalitarianism does exist, and it does not seem impossible that someone who has digested Deleuze or Nietzsche could practice it.

Likewise, your former objection would seem be an objection to the possibility of self-interested behavior tout court. Yet both self-interest as a motivation, and relative selflessness, also seem to exist; there is a meaningful distinction between them. It's the same with rejections of the possibility of weakness of will or the existence of norms.

Might I suggest that if an ideology demands the denial of the very possibility of many of the more obvious features of human life—if it demands that the ideology be affirmed over the obvious—this is itself a sign of potential totalitarianism?

I have nothing against an attempt to find a unifying principle that can be found throughout the appetites, be it "union with the good" or the search for "actuality" or "intelligibility" (arguably all three being the same thing). However, difficulties arise when it is denied that this unifying principle is realized analogously across different appetites, i.e., when all desire and appetition is reduced to a univocal understanding of some term, be it "utility" or "intelligibility." This is, IMO, perhaps the cardinal sin of liberalism, and one its descendants have tended to take on board. An anthropology that is so thin as to make no differentiation between epithumia (e.g., hunger), thymos (e.g., offended honor), and logos (e.g., the desire to "be a good person") is too thin to explain human history, politics, or ethics.

Second, the move to endorse a sort of amoral, disinterested analysis is itself the imposition of a value judgement. I get the basic idea. If we get rid of the moral valence, the blame, and adopt the dispassioned stance of the buffered self, we will avoid getting angry at people (anger is here negative), and thus avoid making the "mistake" of judging people or acts in moral terms.

The problem here is twofold. First, the supposition that getting rid of blame or moral judgement is going to "improve politics" or our "political judgement" seems problematic. On the Stoic view that the passions are simply bad, or at least "bad for reason," it makes sense. Yet the Stoics are wrong here. Rather, what is ideal is to experience just anger over what warrants anger, and likewise to experience just admiration of what warrants admiration. The passions are not a problem any more than the appetites are; only their improper orientation is problematic. The move to exclude morality from political thought is akin to amputating one's hand because one hasn't trained it to preform properly.

A view that advocates the reduction of the human being to a raft of social forces, flows, knots of language, etc., might very well be palliative in that it reduces inappropriate or overwrought anger. However, it can just as easily support callous indifference to suffering and vice. Such a reductionist account also destroys our notions of merit and goodness. It removes the beauty from history and ethical acts. One can certainly study a raft of social forces. One might even try to tinker with it to produce "choice-worthy outcomes." But does one resist serious temptation or suffer hardship for the sake of eddies of social force? Does one stand upon the ramparts in battle and risk maiming and death to save "flows," "sequences," and "concatenations?"

The same problem one finds in liberalism repeats itself here. Civilization requires the pursuit of arduous goods. It requires selfless leadership, a willingness to endure significant hardship and resist extreme temptation even in times of peace, and heroism in times of war. A denial of thymos and logos leaves no ground for such pursuits. A view that dissolves the subject, and thus merit, aside from being metaphysically and psychologically flawed, also fails as being properly pragmatic for society (let alone aesthetically pleasing).

We might suppose then that mercy, clementia, is wanted more than amoralism. That is, "men with great hearts," rather than C.S. Lewis's "men without chests."

The second issue is that such appeals generally tend to be illusory. Dispassion, in the Stoic sense, might be more or less established in individuals, but apatheia is not apathy. It doesn't dispense with values. Were we to dispense with them, there would be no proper standard by which to measure anything. Rather, what one cares to elevate tends to end up being left outside the "bracket" and is raised up on account of all other contenders having been dispatched.

The idea of man as eddies of social force (granted not as fully matured) is exactly the sort of thing I think Dostoevsky argues against to great effect throughout Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov is only aligned to his natural compassion when he is forgetful of this "new understanding."

I find this assertion strange because the annals of Woke protest letters/debates are full of assertions of an expansive moral and epistemic relativism/anti-realism.

Consider, for example, “thou shalt not be a white supremacist.” In 2017, the president of Pamona College (Claremont, California), David Oxtoby, wrote an email to the entire campus in response to protesters who had shut down a speech intended to be given by Black Lives Matter critic Heather Mac Donald. In the email, Oxtoby expressed his disapproval of the shutdown, arguing that it conflicted with the mission of Pamona College, which is “the discovery of truth” and “the collaborative development of knowledge.”


[The students wrote an open response letter...]

“The idea that there is a single truth — ‘the Truth’ — is a construct of the Euro-West that is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, which was a movement that also described Black and Brown people as both subhuman and impervious to pain,” the students’ letter stated, according to The Claremont Independent. “This construction is a myth and white supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of America are all of its progeny.”

“The idea that truth is an entity for which we must search, in matters that endanger our abilities to exist in open spaces, is an attempt to silence oppressed peoples,” it continues.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/04/pomona-students-truth-myth-and-white-supremacy/

I don't think there is any thinking nearly as black and white as wokism. — Leontiskos

Yes. Of course this one example - but one of plenty. (i'm also only trying to illustrate hte attitude - not decry all 'wokists' on the same basis).

Now I see you are using “irrational” as in a person’s actions are contradictory, hypocritical, that we have grounds to dismiss their argument (not factually correct Amadeus), etc., — Antony Nickles

I'm not entirely sure what the potshot here is, but if its that its incorrect to describe woke behaviour hte way I did, either we can agree to disagree or I can present examples for you (one above). They will number high, and be external links to the actors own words/actions. The paradox of tolerance (i.e, the patent intolerance of that which we subjectively deem intolerable ) looms large. If this isn't what you're getting at, I don't know what you are, so would appreciate and explication.

I am saying we have work to do apart and before that judgment about their claim. — Antony Nickles

This seems to rely on your underlying supposition that we(anyone making the noises we're making) don't understand enough to pass judgement. That seems patently incorrect, and exactly what I had classed it as: a cop out. It precludes any third party analysis until you're satisfied the speaker sufficiently understands things (i imagine, the way you do). This is not really doing the work, but instead saying that the work cannot be done other than on terms you agree with. I reject that entirely, so if this is your argument we're at an end to the discussion, i'd say. I imagine you've said more in the thread, so this isn't meant to be a dismissive statement, just explanatory.

Well, good question. I would argue that our goal is not “judgment”. In a moral situation like this, it comes down to whether we see that our (once drawn out) interests are more alike than apart, that we are able to move forward together, extend or adapt our criteria, reconsider our codified judgments, etc. — Antony Nickles

This is a perfect example. Its obviously about judgement. That is how humans operate. However, you've made a point I want to go into a bit, though in other ways:

For any discussion of this kind, we need to establish what goals are on the table. Something like "inclusion" is insufficiently clear. Inclusion of what, for what reason and to what end? But, if we at least have each other's goal in mind, we might be able to do something akin to what you've said above, but judgements will be there the entire way through. This is unavoidable. I cannot understand how you could make the statement above and expect to lead to anything but sitting about umming and ahhing.

each thing has its own standards for us to judge — Antony Nickles

Yeah, and those criteria all rest on a rational analysis of the state of affairs. If your analysis is not rational (i.e reasoned and logical) you will import falsities, assumptions and irrelevancies, making your actions disagree with your object. This is a full explanation of why this is the wrong way to think of "rationality". Wittgenstein is not impressive to me in this regard at all, and in fact, comes across as someone cowardly (take the dramatic-ness out of hte use of this word). I'm unsure relying on one or two thinkers to discuss something so fundamental is a good idea either.

This isn’t “subjective” but specific, thus the importance of understanding all the criteria and current judgments in a moral situation. — Antony Nickles

This doesn't move the needle. If you support a non-rational assessment of any state of affairs, we may be at an impasse. I don't accept that there are ways non-rational to achieve goals. I cannot understand any other motivation to act. If there is one, put it forward and let me know what criteria you think are relevant to it. That may solve hte impasse.

it helps to pick a local to ask — Antony Nickles

Usually not, no. This is a tradition that makes not a lot of sense. What would make sense, is to say "Hey, you live here, what's your favourite x". That doesn't give me anything but an opinion. This is not rational discourse and does not get me to my goal, unless it is to eat at a place this particular local person prefers. There is no good reason to accept a local's answer to the question "Where's good to eat"? They don't know anything more than you do about your apprehension and enjoyment of new food.

but they know their way around — Antony Nickles

This seems to reduce the question to one of "where are the restaurants". That's rational, aimed at a goal. Fits with my descriptions perfectly. The former does not.

they still need to be drawn out, made explicit and intelligible — Antony Nickles

Then (given the arguments you're running, but i admit this is somewhat an assumption about what you're trying to say) the Woke need to do this. Not everyone else. If they can't adequately articulate their urges, needs and goals without resorting to violence, insults and coercion i couldn't give a shit. Neither, I think, should I. The racist can't adequately articulate theirs. I dismiss them. I take a lot of Wokists to be racist anyway, so maybe that's a moot point.

Those things are not evident until we look at them. — Antony Nickles

On current status, we've been looking at them - dead in the fing eye - for a decade or more. I am beginning to think, again, that you simply deny that anyone has a handle on these things. This seems, as my example clip to Leon shows, to be a "You literally cannot question this" type of claim, because at no point that someone is critical, will you accept that they sufficiently understand the subject (it seems). I'm going to simply tell you, outright: I understand what I'm talking about. I was what I am talking about. I was embedded, and respected within Woke culture of a specific kind (drug policy, for clarity and i mean locally, though not entirely restricted in that way. You can find articles about me internationally). I understand these things, and my critiques are well-founded. It wont do to simply tell me "No".

I think we need a case — Antony Nickles

Could you be clear about what you mean by "a case"? It seems we'd only have two options:

1. Explicit claims;
2. Inferences

in 1, we have no work to do. In 2, we will just have the same back-and-forth about understanding.

I was only suggesting that, generally, people (and philosophers in particular) do not consider “the ways” in which they judge. — Antony Nickles

I suggest this is particularly, and somewhat perniciously (again, remove hte dramatics) wrong. Philosophers, over most others, do exactly this. This is probably why academic philosophy so intensely leans left (particularly public academic phil).

For the most part, the far right is not interested in reform. They believe the establishment has failed. — frank

Seems so for the far-left also. This is to be expected, and I'm unsure why there are discussions about understanding absolutist and destructive ideology (on it's face, anyhow) from either side. Why not ignore hte idiots and move forward with reasonable people in the discussion. But that's a pipe dream, I know, and not necessarily 'right'.

How are the critical comments about wokism in this thread not a form of activism — Joshs

They are not activating statements. THey are quibbles on a forum. Activism is taking intentional action aimed at social or political change. We're not doing that. I probably would if I had time, and I used to be an extremely "active" activist and routinely invoked "woke" tenets of inclusion, equity, racial disparity, sex discrimination to support my arguments. These were erroneous. There were rational arguments to be had. I stepped away from activism when I could no longer make any sense of what was happening around me, or what I was doing in response to it. I see exactly hte same thing in woke activists. The crash outs are monumental. I walked away quietly.

Most activists are drawing on commoditized , pre-packaged , dumbed down dilutions of the antecedent philosophies — Joshs

Yes. And it may be worth noting that this is what we're talking about. The mention of the antecedent philosophical thinking is futile, because it isn't involved in their thinking (or activism).

I think the only outstanding matter is Josh' assertion that all wokists run in circles that can be reduced to a few thinkers ike Adorno or Fanon. That is a wild challenge. I would say that the outright racism and wilfully misunderstanding things (like the current American Eagle controversy) is probably not in line, lol.

The idea that wokeness is heretical is intriguing, especially since, on the surface, both wokeness and religion share a common concern for supporting disadvantaged communities. I think the core of the issue lies in where their interests diverge: wokeness is fundamentally egalitarian, oriented horizontally in its social vision, while religion—particularly as articulated by figures like Bishop Robert Barron—is inherently hierarchical, oriented vertically.

In the video linked on the previous page, Bishop Barron refers to an 'objective hierarchy of value'—a structure he sees as embedded in the very fabric of reality. While that may be a compelling theological claim, it also implies a preference for maintaining a vertically structured society. And in any vertical structure, there is always a lower class.

For the most part, the far right is not interested in reform. They believe the establishment has failed.
— frank

Seems so for the far-left also. This is to be expected, and I'm unsure why there are discussions about understanding absolutist and destructive ideology (on it's face, anyhow) from either side. Why not ignore hte idiots and move forward with reasonable people in the discussion. But that's a pipe dream, I know, and not necessarily 'right'. — AmadeusD

Exactly. The far right and left have become so similar that we might expect to start seeing them voting as a block against the establishment, represented by Democrats.

What do you mean by "move forward with reasonable people in the discussion?"

My main focus these days is futurism, like around the year 2100. I think climate will be one of the main drivers of events at that point, so I watch Trump's attempts to make the US independent from the rest of the world, his statements about annexing Canada and Greenland. I think it's super ironic that Trump will probably be thought of as visionary one day. Life is strange.

As for wokism, it's in things like a recent failed Disney movie called Snow White, in which the titular character was played by a fairly dark-skinned Latina, and according to this actress, we shouldn't think of this folktale as a love story, because Snow White doesn't need a man. :grin:

The idea that wokeness is heretical is intriguing — praxis

To say that something is heretical is to say that it is a kind of warping of a religious form, and that the warping has become internal to the religion in question. So analogously, if you take poor care of your feet and end up with a fungal infection, that fungal infection is a kind of heresy. It's a problem, it's merged to your own body, it's in some measure your own fault, it is something you have to take care of and take responsibility for, etc.

In the video linked on the previous page, Bishop Barron refers to an 'objective hierarchy of value'—a structure he sees as embedded in the very fabric of reality. — praxis

There is an important point that Barron makes at 53:26, and it is closely related to what I said about putting second things first. There Barron contrasts the absolute values of justice and love as hierarchically superior, with the secundum quid values of diversity, equity, and inclusion as hierarchically inferior. I think it's fairly difficult to gainsay the Bishop on this point and claim that diversity, equity, or inclusion are absolute values. This inversion where one places secondary things into the first place is key to wokism.

Edit: More explicitly:

The idea that wokeness is heretical is intriguing, especially since, on the surface, both wokeness and religion share a common concern — praxis

If X ideology shares nothing in common with Y religion, then it is impossible for X to be a Y heresy. In such a case Y could view X as an error but not as a heresy.

The idea that wokeness is heretical is intriguing, especially since, on the surface, both wokeness and religion share a common concern for supporting disadvantaged communities. — praxis

So let’s say religion is concerned with supporting disadvantaged communities, those communities being people born on earth. Religion should see us all in the same predicament, all in need of an Ark to ride the storm.

This shows you the heresy. Wokeness divides us all up into privileged and oppressed. As if one group was more moral than some other. Religion, or Christianity, should find this heretical, or at least, too small minded.

The way to help the poor isn’t to take down capitalism and educate people about privilege and social construction - it’s to go out and help the poor. Woke religious folks now get to sit on their asses and argue with republicans, or maybe interfere with some rich person’s activities, or yell at a protest with a bunch of people who already agree with you, (which is way more fun than going to a soup kitchen and doing the dishes.)

@Leontiskos @Fire Ologist

This seems to rely on your underlying supposition that we(anyone making the noises we're making) don't understand enough to pass judgement. — AmadeusD

I worded this wrong obviously, as I conceded to Leontiskos; of course we can pass judgment at any point, and we must at some point. Also, I am not trying to undermine any assertions or judgments in particular (I am not arguing). I am merely suggesting that it might be helpful to look at what is at stake, how that is to be judged compared to now, etc. Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are. Yes! that may have already been done! Although my (one) argument would be our society (not of course anyone here) jumps to judgment most of the time, and I only started because I thought I saw the argument framed as rational—emotional (a version of “objective”—“subjective”) which is one thing that gets in the way, philosophically, of getting at the criteria for the case at hand, thus the interests in it.

For any discussion of this kind, we need to establish what goals are on the table — AmadeusD

This would be traditional philosophy’s framing of a moral discussion as an argument over what “ought” to be done, or the justification for that, or principals, etc. I am suggesting a different discussion where we are talking about how to move forward in a situation where no one has more authority to what is right. I am suggesting that we may not see beforehand what the criteria are that we use in that scenario, and what new or different criteria would look like, as a method, a way in, to see what our interests are (as they are captured in our criteria for each thing).

I appreciate your time in responding; this got a little, philosophically, muddled. If you want, I clarified things more (I hope) in response to Fire and Leontiskos directly above. We worked a bit above on a situation that relies on “lived experience”, but I think I will give something else a chance (in response to Fire) since we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Thank you for your efforts and consideration.

What do you mean by "move forward with reasonable people in the discussion?" — frank

What i mean is that people who can provide reasons, and not either deflect (which, I think personally, Anthony is) or move on to epithets, threats, impugnings and irrelevancies should be included - those who do those things probably shouldn't (and this based on a goal-oriented metric, not some 'moral' framing).

Your final point is an example of the sort of unreasonable behaviours I'm talking about. Zegler's goal was obviously of a feminist/equity bent. She failed, entirely, and turned people off her, the film and the general thrust of her point. Its irrational in a way that (speaking to Anthony's point) is objectively damaging to the goal.

I worded this wrong obviously, as I conceded to Leontiskos; of course we can pass judgment at any point, and we must at some point — Antony Nickles

Ok, fair enough. Much better starting point.

I am merely suggesting that it might be helpful to look at what is at stake, how that is to be judged compared to now, etc. Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are. — Antony Nickles

My initial charge on you still stands. This just kicks the can a bit. Fwiw, I understood this to be your intention to begin with, and felt the same sort of denial was coming through. As someone who was in that space for a decade, I find it (superficially and i do mean 100% superficially) insulting to be told perhaps I'm not looking at the underlying urges. I lived them. This doesn't butter your bread, but may explain why I've been a bit... tetchy.. on this particular point.

Although my (one) argument would be our society (not of course anyone here) jumps to judgment most of the time, and I only started because I thought I saw the argument framed as rational—emotional (a version of “objective”—“subjective”) which is one thing that gets in the way, philosophically, of getting at the criteria for the case at hand, thus the interests in it. — Antony Nickles

While I agree with the opener here (premise?) i disagree that the final point makes sense. This issue is frame and carried out as a tension between emotional and reason. That's largely hte difference between right and left. There's a reason "bleeding heart liberal" is a term, i suppose.

This would be traditional philosophy’s framing of a moral discussion as an argument over what “ought” to be done, or the justification for that, or principals, etc. I am suggesting a different discussion where we are talking about how to move forward in a situation where no one has more authority to what is right. I am suggesting that we may not see beforehand what the criteria are that we use in that scenario, and what new or different criteria would look like, as a method, a way in, to see what our interests are (as they are captured in our criteria for each thing). — Antony Nickles

A few things here, that, unfortunately, make it seem like you're not really hearing what's being said:

1. I disagree. That is not the framing of traditional philosophy given "traditional" philosophy has resulted in three distinct and essentially non-overlapping moral frameworks that virtually all philosophers adhere to. But I also thikn this is a red herring;

2. What you are suggesting is actually ignoring what i've said. What I've said is we need to establish goals. That way, what "ought" to be done is a clear, concise and able-to-be-discussed subject. The criteria are already laid out when our goals are sufficiently articulated. Goal is x. Discussion: How do we achieve goal x? That is the criteria. If being overly emotional is counter productive to the goal, then you have your answer. There is no tension.

3. The interests are our skin in the game of achieving the goal, not in carrying out the criteria. Criteria do not care how you feel, they care about what you want to achieve.

This continues to exemplify the exact tension stated above, between emotional and reason. Reason is getting us to move forward. Emotional is getting us to talk in circles. I very much appreciate your time too. Its a pity we werent' able to come to terms.

I am merely suggesting that it might be helpful to look at what is at stake, how that is… Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are. — Antony Nickles

“What is at stake.” My own assumptions are at stake, and I might find my current conclusions are incoherent, unsound, factually inaccurate.

“What the possible…interests are.”

I keep hoping you’d posit an interest. And we could pick at that for criteria…but I’ll keep spit-balling.

I understand the only reason at this point to posit an interest is “Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means…”

That’s perfectly fine. But still, I keep trying to step off of the starting line, to make my cut so we have something to contextualize again…

But let’s just say I am willing to put enough at stake to learn I was wrong - I (we) have to be honest with ourselves throughout the discussion, and be as clear as we can to each other when talking of the honest conscious thoughts.

There is criteria - at least honest opinion.

So do we have to now figure out what I mean by “honest” and “opinion” first, or do we just pick one and “Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means…”

I am willing to look foolish here. I’m begging you make your own cut to take the heat off me with all of my…“

That was a lot of argument based on principals (like the above), which I get, but is not what I was thinking of
— Antony Nickles — Fire Ologist

Just stick with me.

discussion where we are talking about how to move forward in a situation where no one has more authority to what is right. I am suggesting that we may not see beforehand what the criteria are that we use in that scenario — Antony Nickles

So above I said what is at stake is being wrong in my own understanding or better put, learning something new that replaces what I thought I knew but did not. This is a situation where I concede my authority to something else “where no one has more authority.” Even if it is you who I say corrected me, that doesn’t matter. It is an openness to something new that must be part of the criteria, not something we thought of “beforehand.”

Now we could say:
We put X interest at stake as method, to see what “put at stake” means, and then get back to analyzing X interest with a new sense of what is at stake and a first sense of what was the criteria.

Right? Are you at least with me, if I’m not with you, which I think I am with you. (I don’t think we are getting very far yet, but want to keep reveling the engines here at the starting line.)

new or different criteria would look like, as a method, a way in — Antony Nickles

I’m already ready to jump in.

I’m willing to figure out the criteria, live in action, while floating some arguments and interests about what to do and what there is to bother to talk about.

I propose we do both at once:
1. posit an interest (make a clear start - cut the “way in”)
2. say how to posit an interest (say how it is cutting and not slicing or breaking.)

2 is how you are suggesting we do it.
1 is what I am saying we do.

We can do what and how and the same time.

I think as my first NEW assumption of method, I am positing that we address what and how at the same time as much as possible.

We can bounce between them as we actually do either one. (I posit this, because I think we are already do it, and it has gotten me this far, it is there functioning already..

But even though positing 1. above might go first, I’d rather you positi something of the criteria that you think I might speak to as well. We don’t have to start with my interest in honest opinion with a how/what method.

I keep asking - just throw an example out there.

I think I will give something else a chance (in response to Fire) since we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. — Antony Nickles

This is abstract stuff - not easy to color your thoughts into my head or worse my thoughts into your head. But I think I’m with you. If you don’t see it and that’s surely my fault - I admit I need much more editing than I give these posts, so apologies.

But I hope you see we have at least a little further to go.

rational—emotional (a version of “objective”—“subjective”) which is one thing that gets in the way, philosophically, — Antony Nickles

So do you mean 1.) is subject-object to be taken as meaningless/useless discussion, or 2.) does what subject-object mean not matter, has no needed use here and gets in the way here, and we will just get back to subject-object later?

The criteria are already laid out when our goals are sufficiently articulated. — AmadeusD

That’s akin to what I am saying here:

I propose we do both at once:
1. posit an interest (make a clear start - cut the “way in”)
2. say how to posit an interest (say how it is cutting and not slicing or breaking.) — Fire Ologist

I see both of these as an example of doing precisely what Antony is asking for here:

Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are — Antony Nickles

The means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are is to articulate the goals while we lay we lay out the criteria these goals are articulated in/with.

Right?

We can all consider ourselves on the exact same page methodologically, and that me and Amadeus have taken a first step at a new criteria with the goals/criteria, posit a ‘what’ while saying ‘how’ method.

Can we work on method WHILE we work on goals?

Or here is a different goal:

A better life and society for everyone, wokists included. To disagree with someone is not to treat them as a means to an end. To disagree with someone implies that they have intrinsic worth. — Leontiskos

I see both of these as an example of doing precisely what Antony is asking for here: — Fire Ologist

Yep, agreed. That's why I resorted to saying we're talking in Circles in my reply to Antony. It seems like no start point is acceptable.

@Fire Ologist

I was working on sketching out a situation: criteria for appointment to a board, but I will concede if there is a more interesting example. I am not an expert in these things.

I think it's fairly difficult to gainsay the Bishop on this point and claim that diversity, equity, or inclusion are absolute values. — Leontiskos

There is no gainsaying the Bishop on this point, and that’s half the point.

This inversion where one places secondary things into the first place is key to wokism.

Rather, the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce.

Obviously I am failing utterly to make myself understood so I would suggest that yes, we should discuss the philosophy as a side note. I would reply to all of the above but I think we just move to the meat as you say. I’ll just say I am talking about fleshing out an example, not about an examination of what is at stake for you and me, or our criteria for judging an (this) argument, or an argument about posited interests, or how to assert them. Whew. Gimme a minute.

This inversion where one places secondary things into the first place is key to wokism. -Leontiskos

Rather, the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce. — praxis

@Leontiskos

Huge.

So secondary things placed first is key to wokism.
Or, wokeness aims to reduce fixed hierarchical power stratification.

So much work to do.

I’ll start with “power stratification”.

Why does wokeism assume it must be reduced?
Is there something inherently always oppressive about hierarchy; or can hierarchy be compatible with, or even necessary for freedom and justice?

Can we question this interest first:
If “the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce”, then let’s see if that is a good goal, if that is supported by valid criteria?

My sense is wokeism judges hierarchy inaccurately as oppressive.

I can’t create an argument to prove this (someone else might), but I can give an example that allows me to judge hierarchy as neutral whereas oppression is negative, so by inference, if hierarchy is neutral, it need not be oppressive, so no need to assume so.

Hierarchy is woven into the fabric of everything and speech itself. By positing a “reduction” we still must see the higher has been make lower, and so there is simply a new hierarchy, not a non-existent “power stratification,” merely a new one. So wokeism can’t simply “aim to reduce power” (as if all power over another must be bad). If a woke person, or anyone, wants to realign power stratification, they must do just that - realign it, not simply and abstractly seek to take down all the powerful. We have to live with hierarchy and need have no interest in defeating hierarchical thinking and power structures - but we may instead need new representatives of the ideals or the high, and more humility from the ones who are led or the low. We aren’t just to embrace hierarchy either.

I’m not saying there is never a time to fight the power, to take down the man. Because there certainly is. But I am saying there is also I time to set up on high, to uphold a positive structure, and build up. So if reducing hierarchy is an essential part of wokeism, wokeism is doomed to be incomplete. It’s not a good enough goal.

Mulligan

@Leontiskos @AmadeusD @Number2018 @frank @Count Timothy von Icarus @Joshs @Fire Ologist

We need a situation obviously. I’ll just throw out there what @AmadeusD and I started on, which was basically, say, adding people to a board. If criteria are different based on more details, we can add those to see necessary distinctions.

Now I’m going to brainstorm here, provisionally, so we can all help: what would be the prevailing criteria? history of leadership, subject-matter or practical experience, the ability to contribute to the board's goals (say, fundraising, lobbying), connections (political, celebrity). We may need to elaborate how judgments are made on those criteria with examples, etc., but I would think we could say (agree) the interests in those criteria are something like: having a board with decision and debate skills, knowledge, but also prominence in the community (“powerful”, influential); though, as @Fire Ologist says, take a cut at it.

Now if we are adding “lived experience” to that list (or diversity or equity, which we can shift to (not all at once), but I would be even more useless at fleshing those out easily), we might first have to ask what this is? I would think, broadly and most simply, the criteria to judge if someone has it (again, any help here): would seem to be a person having lived through something. But, in that we have all lived through something, it begs the question: lived what? “Experience” as a criteria is already being considered, so, what’s the difference? Time spent working yes, but also maybe advocating for the same issues as the board, and, perhaps, just, other things we “do” or have accomplished (and practical skills). But, if we consider it as just having passively lived through something, it might look like: having navigated a process the board is working on, or having been part of the population the board is trying to help, say, as a better AA sponser is one who is an alcoholic that is sober (is that a skill?). Other examples? (And here I am not asking to be given examples of woke arguments.)

As I said in a post above, it may have something to do with only certain types of situations (maybe it doesn’t always help), such as a board involved with constructing policies that would change things that affect how people live, and so, valuing having people that are connected with the lives they are trying to change. Maybe, apart from any particular board, prioritizing one person over another just because of what they have been through, or are part of (a community), may be similar (in some way) to the existing criteria of “having connections” (here I imagine the cynical inclusion of someone just because they are a “celebrity” in the sense of a token). But it might be like carpentry, which you can’t just tell someone how to do (sorry DIYers), so it is learned through apprenticeship. Or like an expert as a valued source of evidence; say, an attorney who gives advice, factors to consider, like risk (but not based on something as concrete as the law). I had also mentioned earlier that if you are on vacation looking for something to eat, you ask a local (they “know” their way about). Maybe we could say we would not be valuing, say, their knowledge or skill in making any decision, but perhaps something like their perspective (though I cringe, as the word seems lazy; I mean I might as well say wisdom for all the good that does), but, then, what is it about their perspective? or their ability to have perspective?

I’ll leave it there for now, but I hope I’ve demonstrated the process I’m suggesting. I don’t know anything about boards or “lived experience”, so go easy. What I would hope for next is for us to add to the criteria, fill in examples, draw out distinctions, etc., and then we can see if we’ve gotten anywhere, rather than jumping straight to fighting (or just carping) about what I’ve put out there, which is, basically, conjecture. If things need clarifying, counterexamples, go ahead; if it’s broke, fix it—I suggest first trying to get at a good overall sight of all the grounds (get it).

What do you have to say about the fact that for 95% of human history we lived in hunter-gatherer egalitarian societies—without a state and organized religion?

This flies in the face of what the bishop claims is natural.

What do you have to say about the fact that for 95% of human history — praxis

I’d say 95% of human history covers hundreds of thousands of years possibly, and we have scant evidence of what the moment to moment lives of those individual people were like, other than, if they were people, they found themselves dealing with hierarchy everyday. How certain are you about egalitarian hunter/gatherers? You don’t think some people consistently gathered more food than others, and stratification wasn’t considered all of the time??

I didn’t listen to the bishop.

We can probably skip paleolithic economic theory and simply acknowledge the absence of a state and organized religion, yes? This, in my opinion, loosens the rigidity of the bishop's hierarchy of values because it indicates that their fixedness is not natural.

Including one more thing

Critics argue that emotional discomfort has become a trigger for restricting speech, displacing debate with moral claims based solely on feeling hurt or offended
— Number2018



What do you suppose elevates the role of feeling to the status of sovereign arbiter of justice for wokists? Is the affect doing all this ethical work by itself, or is it the interpretation of the discursive context within which the affect arises which grounds the supposed moral authority of feeling? I’m suggesting it is a certain moral absolutism associated with the attribution of causes for the sources and triggers of pain which is the culprit here, not affect in itself. If I address you with the wrong pronoun and you respond with pained moral outrage, it is because your feelings are expressing your assessment that I am culpable for my slight, even if I insist that it was inadvertent. There are no accidents or innocent mistakes when concepts like while privileged and implicit bias judge us guilty in advance. It is this assumed culpability by association, birth and ingrained use of language that is at the bottom of the hyper-moralism attributed to wokism, not a blind reliance on the authority of affect. — Joshs

This post outlines your overall perspective on wokeness. It begins by a confusion between affect and feeling, and then opposes this conflated notion to “the interpretation of the discursive context within which the affect arises and which grounds the supposed moral authority of feeling.” In this view, affect-feeling is produced through a combination of discursive and hermeneutic practices. This framing makes the interpretation of the discursive context responsible for generating the emotional discomfort like feeling hurt or offended as the ground of moral claims. It is assumed that the force of this discursive-hermeneutic process derives from a certain moral absolutism. In fact, you are pointing to a central aspect of wokeness's moral discourse. Likely, this ‘moral absolutism’ causes woke individuals to avoid debate or resist a rational scrutiny of their views. Yet, the nature of this connection remains unclarified. A potential solution might be based on a reading of D&G’s Anti-Oedipus.

The subject receives those intensities and translate them into ultimate truth. Feeling of ultimate moral certainty resembles the ‘return of all names and intensities of history.’ It is the result of hyper-intensified machinic affect.
— Number2018

But wouldn’t AO argue that it is only on the dimension of the molar (rather than within molecular intensities, the body without organs) where a ‘feeling of moral certainty’ can be manifest? Isnt it the molar regime of social formations which crushes , binds, plugs, arrests, cuts off the circulation of flows, constricts, regularizes and breaks singular points, and imposes on desire another type of "plan”? This crushing and plugging activity of stratification and molarization would seem to be the opposite of ‘hyper-intensified machinic affect’. Moral certainty, a clearly codified, representational affect, is a molar formation, not an effect of free-flowing molecular intensities or the body without organs (BwO). — Joshs

AO offers a more nuanced perspective. Thus, the subject is the product of synthesis, not its origin. The “So that was me…” moment in a conjunctive synthesis is the culmination of intensive processes. "The third synthesis of conjunction, produces the residual subject ... not the subject of desire but a residuum produced by desire and by the series of its productions." (AO, 18–19) Yes, molar formations code desire, but the feeling ‘That is me,’ or ‘I am the moral center’ is not the result of molar repression. Instead, it is an outcome of machinic process of the transformation of affect into an intensive identity. Yet, molar encoding does not erase the moment of the intensive production of subjectivity. The immediate experience of one's moral position cannot be imposed from the outside. It comes as the result of co-existence and co-adaptation of molar and molecular domains. This view aligns with Massumi’s argument that the rational aspects of judgement are unseparated from impersonal, affective forces. “Events of decision that we experience as rational choices, seemingly without the motive force of affect to move them, envelop the complex of the pre-cognitive and micropolitical processes of the event-based situation. The ‘rational’ aspects of the event— judgment, hypothesis, comparative evaluation of alternatives, decision— were mutually included in the event along with all the other co- operating factors.” (Massumi, ‘The Power at the end of the Economy’, pg. 47). Overall, the production of subjectivity and affect underpin wokeness’s 'moral absolutism'.

I find this assertion strange because the annals of Woke protest letters/debates are full of assertions of an expansive moral and epistemic relativism/anti-realism.

“The idea that there is a single truth — ‘the Truth’ — is a construct of the Euro-West that is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, which was a movement that also described Black and Brown people as both subhuman and impervious to pain,” the students’ letter stated, according to The Claremont Independent. “This construction is a myth and white supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of America are all of its progeny.”

“The idea that truth is an entity for which we must search, in matters that endanger our abilities to exist in open spaces, is an attempt to silence oppressed peoples,” it continues.

— Count Timothy von Icarus

They are relativist to a point. For instance, social constructionism’s anti-realism is epistemically realistic. Joseph Rouse’s analysis may easily be applied to the Pomona students’ letter.

Realism is the view that science (often successfully) aims to provide theories that truthfully represent how the world is--independent of human categories, capacities, and interventions. Social constructivists typically reject realism on two counts: first, the world that science describes is itself socially constituted; and second, its aims in describing that world are socially specifiable (satisfying interests, sustaining institutions and practices, etc.). Both realists and antirealists propose to explain the content of scientific knowledge, either by its causal connections to real objects, or by the social interactions that fix its content; the shared presumption here is that there is a fixed "content" to be explained. Both scientific realists and antirealists presume semantic realism--that is, that there is an already determinate fact of the matter about what our theories, conceptual schemes, or forms of life "say" about the world. Interpretation must come to an end somewhere, they insist, if not in a world of independently real objects, then in a language, conceptual scheme, social context, or culture.(Joseph Rouse)

But things get complicated here. Ken Gergen considers himself a social constructionist, and yet rejects the blameful self-righteousness of identity politics.

“By and large identity politics has depended on a rhetoric of blame, the illocutionary effects of which are designed to chastise the target (for being unjust, prejudiced, inhumane, selfish, oppressive, and/or violent). In western culture we essentially inherit two conversational responses to such forms of chastisement - incorporation or antagonism. The incorporative mode ("Yes, now I see the error of my ways") requires an extended forestructure of understandings (i.e. a history which legitimates the critic's authority and judgment, and which renders the target of critique answerable). However, because in the case of identity politics, there is no preestablished context to situate the target in just these ways, the invited response to critique is more typically one of hostility, defense and counter-charge.

In its critical moment, social constructionism is a means of bracketing or suspending any pronouncement of the real, the reasonable, or the right. In its generative moment, constructionism offers an orientation toward creating new futures, an impetus to societal transformation. Constructionist thought militates against the claims to ethical foundations implicit in much identity politics - that higher ground from which others can so confidently be condemned as inhumane, self-serving, prejudiced, and unjust. Constructionist thought painfully reminds us that we have no transcendent rationale upon which to rest such accusations, and that our sense of moral indignation is itself a product of historically and culturally situated traditions. And the constructionist intones, is it not possible that those we excoriate are but living also within traditions that are, for them, suffused with a sense of ethical primacy? As we find, then, social constructionism is a two edged sword in the political arena, potentially as damaging to the wielding hand as to the opposition.”(Ken Gergen, Social Construction and the Transformation of Identity Politics)

I can’t imagine Gergen endorsing the accusatory language of the Pomona letter, and I think the reason is that his form of social constructionism is ‘postmodern’ and theirs is emancipatory. Emancipatory discourses like Marxism and the various versions of CT carries forward Hegel’s totalizing dialectics, asserting a ‘real’ ethical ground on the basis of which to accuse groups of succumbing to mere ‘myths’ and using these myths to oppress others.

↪Joshs

How is this not an argument against the very possibility of totalitarianism tout court, regardless of the ideology consumed by its practitioners? And yet, totalitarianism does exist, and it does not seem impossible that someone who has digested Deleuze or Nietzsche could practice it.

Likewise, your former objection would seem be an objection to the possibility of self-interested behavior tout court. Yet both self-interest as a motivation, and relative selflessness, also seem to exist; there is a meaningful distinction between them. It's the same with rejections of the possibility of weakness of will or the existence of norms.

Might I suggest that if an ideology demands the denial of the very possibility of many of the more obvious features of human life—if it demands that the ideology be affirmed over the obvious—this is itself a sign of potential totalitarianism? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It’s not a question of denying features of life but of offering an alternative explanation for the motivations behind what appears as those features from a certain vantage. If your answer to the question of how well-intentioned people can produce totalitarian regimes and value systems is weakness of will , and my answer is limited ways of understanding alien forms of thinking, am I denying weak will as an obvious feature of life? Or am I acknowledging what you are seeing but enriching your view with a perspective which happens to be invisible to you? It all depends on the perspective.

You may argue that Ken Gergen’s quietism is a tacit endorsement of totalitarianisms, but he makes a distinction between respecting vs accepting ways of life that one disapproves of. Activism is still possible and necessary for him. He doesn’t pretend that totalitarianisms exist, but his analysis of their genesis differs from yours such that he would claim that you miss the forest for the trees. As a result you have no choice but to pathologize and moralize what he would submit to a hermetical negotiation based on mutual respect. This is how I have been reading approach to ethical debate.

“…to champion relational process is to treat with respect the intelligibility of all participants, even when other views are disagreeable. It is to carry the voices of all value orientations, to respect their validity within the circumstances in which those values were created. Every voice of value, no matter how heinous to others, carries the assumption of its own good. To be relationally responsible is to defend the rights of all to make themselves intelligible. One may surely resist what is seen as 'evil action,' but with a sense of humility -with respect to both one's own lack of fundamental grounds and the realization that under identical circumstances, a similar choice could have been made. What would this expanded form of conscience mean in action? It would favor, for example, supporting movements for social justice, for minority rights, or against tyranny of any kind, but without pathologizing those who might be targets of such movements

A view that advocates the reduction of the human being to a raft of social forces, flows, knots of language, etc., might very well be palliative in that it reduces inappropriate or overwrought anger. However, it can just as easily support callous indifference to suffering and vice. Such a reductionist account also destroys our notions of merit and goodness. It removes the beauty from history and ethical acts. One can certainly study a raft of social forces. One might even try to tinker with it to produce "choice-worthy outcomes." But does one resist serious temptation or suffer hardship for the sake of eddies of social force? Does one stand upon the ramparts in battle and risk maiming and death to save "flows," "sequences," and "concatenations? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Don’t confuse flows and concatenations with value-free causal bits. These flows are anything but value-neutral. And they are anything but motive and purpose-neutral. We strive to make sense of things. Put differently, cognitive-valuative systems organize themselves in order to anticipate events, which primarily means the actions of each other. This is an end in itself, not a means to a ‘selfish’ goal. The appearance of selfishness as an ‘obvious feature of the world’ is a kind of illusion in that it conceals the underlying dynamics behind a monolithic concept like ‘will’. The fact that we are concatenations and flows of values and desire means that no one can stand outside of some stance or other to judge from on high, including the philosopher who writes about such flows. They are not a neutral observer but are writing always from within context , within history, within perspective. There is no perspective which doesn’t already have a stake in what matters and how it matters, but this doesn’t prevent one from talking about it from within one’s relation of care and relevance to the world.