That's what philosopher Nathan Cofnas argues in this, shall we say, "provocative" essay. I have never had anything to do with Heterodox Academy, not for lack of sympathy with their "principled" message about freedom of inquiry and speech in the academy, but rather because of their oft-expressed view that what the academy needs is more Republicans (which is rather different than saying the academy needs robust academic freedom norms and diversity of disciplinary methods and paradigms). The Republican Party in the U.S. was once upon a time the place where pro-business apologists for capitalism went (pro-labor apologists for capitalism went to the Democratic Party). That is now ancient history: Reagan sent the Repugs off the rails, and it got worse in the 1990s, and veered into fascist territory with Dopey Donald Chump. (The remaining nominal Republicans in the academy are overwhelmingly libertarians and free-market utopians, who haven't much to do with the actual Republican Party. My friend and colleague Richard Posner gave up on the Republican Party more than a decade ago!). The Democrats--which of course still represent the interests of the ruling class, albeit the prudent wing--are the only viable party in the United States, despite (or rather because) its center has been captured by "wokeness," that is, by the idea that all social injustices derive from "race" (and racial prejudice or "systemic racism") rather than class. Adolph Reed, whom I've often linked to, is a good source for an "unwoke" perspective from the left.
But Dr. Cofnas is no Adolph Reed. He believes the following:
Wokeism is built upon an ideological certitude about the origins of inequality: all groups have the same distribution of innate potential, and all differences favoring whites or men are due to past or present white racism or sexism. The whole ideology stands or falls on this empirical claim. Therefore, the greatest taboo in our society is to consider alternative explanations for inequality, particularly those that implicate natural differences in the distribution of traits among racial groups.
I agree that "ideological certitude" about the origins of inequality is a bad thing: I'm a believer in Marcusian "indiscriminate toleration" in scholarly debate. I also agree that it is not plausible that "all differences favoring whites or men are due to past or present white racism or sexism." Alas, I've seen no evidence contradicting the claim that "all groups have the same distribution of innate potential" (once we control for socio-economic, rather than racial, factors). If being "unwoke" means agreeing with Dr. Cofnas's view, then it will be a small fringe position indeed, as it should be.
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