A framing concept that kept imposing itself on my
thoughts as I reflected on your papers comes from philosopher Amy Olberding. For years, Olberding had been a regular contributor to the
influential (in philosophy) blog Feminist
Philosophers. In late 2018, though, she retired from blogging there,
posting an explanation on her personal page. The post is worth reading in full,
but I’ll give a TL;DR snippet here:
Reading both social media and blog conversations among philosophers, I often feel demoralized. The people who speak most and most insistently seem not only to be absolutely clear about what they think, but think there is no other legitimate, respectable, or even moral way to think. My trouble is usually not that I think otherwise, but that I don’t entirely know what I think. And not knowing what to think is itself sometimes cast as shameful. In too many contexts, to confess confusion or uncertainty is to confess deficiency – sometimes in philosophical acumen, sometimes in “smarts,” sometimes in moral clarity, sometimes even in basic humanity.
Most broadly, I despair of the quick condemnation, scorn, and contempt that so often animates the commentary offered by the certain, whatever the direction of their certainty. I worry that we incentivize both certainty and hiding confusion. Or, more accurately, that we encourage people to *perform* their engagement in online conversations as if their views are confidently, firmly settled – worse, as if all alternatives are justly derided and scorned. We also thereby suppress contributions by those who can’t or won’t do this.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of performative
certainty, how especially in nonpersonal encounters (online but also in our
written work) we use rhetorical certainty or vehemence as a stand-in for the
strength of our argument. I recognize in many past conversations the degree to
which I feel pressured to present my views as the only views—or the only acceptable views—on a particular subject. And
part of this certainty performance involves condemning any heterodox views, including
nuance or uncertainty. Or, more often, I find I come into a conversation already
in progress. There I suss out the consensus among my peers, discerning what the
“correct” (my side) view is. The pressure then involves performing certain
conformity to that view, repeatedly.
The performative aspect
comes in when I find myself more firmly committed to a belief after several
exchanges asserting/defending that belief. It’s rarely the case that I earn that level of certainty (via long
and careful study, fully consulting and considering possible alternative views).
Rather, I become certain because I’ve repeatedly performed certainty. My
performances summon into being an investment in that assertion.
Olberding had occasion to reflect on this dynamic again a
few months ago. I mentioned yesterday about Justin Weinberg's post about trans philosophy on Daily Nous and about the ucky conversation that followed it. Performative certainty on all sides abounded. Olberding’s
notion of performing certainty was invoked.
She herself eventually
weighed in (again, just a snippet):
One more discouraging aspect of these debates to me is how their implications launch out into my life at large. I often feel that the rhetoric of the debate demands much more than that we take a “side” or, rather, that what is required to be on a “side” is to exile, despise, and generally remove from our respect those on the other “side.” [. . .]To take [a] side is to commit to not respecting those on the other side, where “respect” just means to treat with ordinary courtesy, to assume that the other morally cares and struggles, to assume that the other suffers. So, to take the “side” is to take up a kind of arms against the other side, not only disagreeing but separating myself from those on it, treating them as enemies it would be traitorious to engage as people both serious and sincere, as if one is required to be unkind to “them” precisely to demonstrate one’s kindness to “us,” those on the “side” one takes.
The problem is, Olberding continues, is that this kind of
performative certainty just does not, cannot translate to her real life (Olberding
teaches at the University of Oklahoma). She notes that most everyone in her
life (rural Oklahoma) operates well to the right of everyone involved in this
debate. She suspects that “some philosophers would find my life, or me, morally
monstrous because I decline to purify the company I keep to those whose views
mirror my own.” Nor can she simply bracket off the reality that everyone participating
in this debate is in fact a person, a colleague. She continues:
All of this is perhaps a roundabout way of saying that the disregard of civil norms in these conversations is not confined to these conversations’ subject matter. “Civility” is regularly derided, I know, but one of the things incivility is being used to signal across these conversations is just who among us can be tolerated among us, with incivility being a way to say that “these people” are pushed out beyond the pale, that we hold “these people” in contempt. We don’t count ourselves bound to them and we actively unbind from them by treating them or speaking of them in ways colleagues do not treat colleagues. But since these are not just colleagues but also people, the concern is that there are much, much wider normative claims being implicitly made here, ones about ethics in relationships, in one’s sociality, and so forth.
Olberding laments “the dissonance entailed in realizing
that I can have more humane conversations with my rural conservative friends
amidst profoundly deeper moral disagreements than I could expect with
philosophers whose political distance from me is comparably microscopic.” She
ends by reflecting that, were she to post a simple (certain, sure, strong) “Fuck
you, you miserable aching asshole!” reply on her Facebook feed, she’d get tons
of instant likes, supportive replies expanding on the insult, etc. Whereas if
she did that in real life, her friends would think she was having an aneurism.
I think you can (as several people in replies on the comment thread did) take issue with Olberding's response vis-a-vis the specific issue of trans identities in philosophy. But as a general account/lament of how online ucky conversations go, I think she captures my sentiments perfectly.
I'd want to add, though, that I think there are occasions where some performative certainty or something like it is important--expressing sympathy for someone who is suffering, reassuring someone who needs it, setting a boundary with a difficult person. I learned early on as a teacher that having a gear of no-question-about-it certainty to shift into now and then was very useful.
But reactive certainty, defensive certainty? The certainty I find myself sliding into when I feel the need to signal my belonging to a group? This is dangerous.
More tomorrow,
JF
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