Please don't be demoralized!

To touch with tact is to touch without touching that which does not let itself be touched.--Derrida.

Please consider the effect that your blog has on the vulnerable members of the philosophical community. It is so demoralizing for us to see that these are the issues relating to this case that you — as a representative of the professional elite — deem most worthy of concern.--Anonymous comment at Feministphilosophers addressed to Brian Leiter.

During the last six months, the skeletons in professional philosophy's are oozing out of the closets. In particular, we are being rocked by revelations of incidents and long-standing patterns of sexual harassment among the most celebrated members of the profession. With jobs and status on the line, it is no surprise that tempers are becoming shorter and that good practical judgment is in short supply. Because ordinary psychological cues are absent, blog discussion threads are especially prone to bringing out the worst in each other (yes, that's a mea culpa, too).

As the one-time co-host of the second most widely read blog in philosophy, I am aware that some people fear retaliation by others members of the profession and choose to speak anonymously. This fear has provided cover for the well meaning and the abusive. I hate the practice of anonymity (and not just because I have been on the receiving end of such abuse, including misleading Memes about my purported views circulating widely); our opinions ought to be owned and evaluated in light of our (professional-extended) character and not treated as disembodied fragments of proposition-space. So, I have developed the rule to avoid anonymous comments.

But I am no Kantian, so I can allow exceptions to the rule:

Please, don't be demoralized, 'current student'. Please don't let threats of lawsuits (even if not directed at you personally) intimidate you. [UPDATE SEE NOTE BELOW.]* Don't let the cowardly silence emanating from the distinguished named Chairs in the field scare you away from professional philosophy. Don't let any 'representative of the elite' give you a false image of your possible contribution to philosophy.

Let me explain.

By speaking up, you are, in fact, developing, in part, your philosophical voice and contributing to the development of philosophy. We exist -- as a community -- to develop concepts that make experiences visible and by these (concepts) to improve the possible experiences of others and ourselves. Our shared practice can only develop faithfully and with integrity if we hear the voices that call us to our weaknesses and expose the norms by which we force a flattening conformity or rule of power, however petty, on each other.

But in our hearts we all know that true philosophy while difficult is noble and cannot be suppressed from the minds of intelligent readers and thinkers. I put Derrida at the top of this post because for most of my professional life I have been told that he is a charlatan--not just by the bullying types, but my own revered teachers. They cared deeply about truth my teachers; with several of them showing great courage during the political and social causes of their times. But they have not shown themselves as receptive as they could be. We should not judge them too harshly, we all have our limitations.

I hope the line from Derrida speaks to you as it does to me. I wish to touch you with my words; I want these to hold you from running away.

I admit that I often despair to what degree philosophy is possible within the modern university. But I know that humanity needs the most generous souls to partake in it. There are a lot of alternative, lucrative careers open to bright young kids; many walks of life can have a more direct impact on the world. But we humans are not animals -- despite our mutual savagery --; we are governed by thoughts and these thoughts, in turn, are animated by the concepts that you -- who sees the otherwise impossible reality clearly -- can develop.

While we should never let ourselves be confused by the false identity claim, 'professional philosophy is philosophy,' professional philosophy is too valuable to forsake; it has huge intellectual and material resources and many agents of good will. All of us,  professional philosophers know how difficult it is to make genuine, durable contributions; there is, in fact, a touch of madness in our enterprise. But in the moments of sanity, all of us realize that we need to be inclusive and receptive to all the talented and the complex mix of desires that fuel their possible contributions. Even if our daily practice falls short of this ideal in subtle and sometimes un-just ways, all of our judgments ultimately are rooted in this ideal. And even if our institutions of higher learning do not cultivate courage and nobility they have not extinguished our independence of thought. In the privacy of our minds all of us see through the bullies, the arguments from authority, and the recycled myths that justify narrowness of spirit and group-think.

Finally, be encouraged: the tide is really turning. Thanks to the efforts from feministphilosophers, the conspiracy of silence within the discipline is breaking down. The genuine push-back you are encountering is living proof of this. This is a painful period--few of us are not caught up in this in some fashion or another. Keep speaking and developing your voice, and you'll find  friends among us, and hopefully you will discover the true elite among us along the way.

 

*UPDATE: Brian Leiter has informed me that my post seems to imply that a lawsuit was threatened against the demoralized 'current student' (who is the addressee of this post and quoted at the top of it). I did not intend to suggest this; I had hoped that my "(even if not directed at you personally)" had made this sufficiently clear.

Comments

[Mary Ellen Waithe]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Beautifully stated. I am one of those women who was refused the "privilege" of becoming an undergraduate philosophy major because, as the Dept. Chair said I would "just get married, have babies and waste it." That overt form of gender discrimination at a public university was perfectly legal in 1970. Now, I am a tenured full Professor and Chair of my department, the proud beneficiary of a generation of brave feminist activism by others. These demoralizing stories bring back memories of the bad old days. Too bad they're still with us, if in a more subtle--and therefore more difficult to oppose--form.

Oh, by the way, as a perfectly immature 20-year old back then, I left my meeting with the chair secretly wishing him dead. Six weeks later his karma kicked him in the ptush and he was dead. If the new chair hadn't dismissed concerns about me "wasting it" I wouldn't have made it this far. Women should not need to wait for certain men to die in order to achieve equal opportunity.

[Ruth Groff]

Thank you for the really lovely post, Eric.

I hope that soon the discipline will try to think - & feel - equally difficult & challenging (to white people) things about how very, very white it is, institutionally.

It's heartening to think that the general intellectual tone in professional philosophy will also change, as a result of these struggles, along with shifts in structural power and a decrease in harassment.

[Ed]

The first sentence seems to missing a word? (Maybe I'm mis-reading it?)

"During the last six months, the skeletons in professional philosophy's are oozing out of the closets."

Maybe you meant,

"During the last six months, the skeletons in professional philosophy's closets are oozing out." ?

[Eric Schliesser]

Darn, Ed, you are right. Thanks for catching that.

[Carla Fehr]

Thank you.

[Nicole Wyatt]

Well said.

[Roma Hernandez]

Thank you for responding to 'current student' with these words. I am bookmarking this post and will read it when I need encouragement.

[David Forman]

Nicely stated.

It's too bad that there is no real alternative to Leiter's blog. (By an "alternative," I mean a blog with *very short* posts that will keep one up-to-date with what is going on in the profession without attempting to do any actual philosophy.) Maybe now would be a good time for someone to make a go of it.

It's not good for a city to have just one newspaper, and that's kind of what we have going on here.