There’s feminism and then there’s feminism (and also feminism, feminism, and feminism). Even within the academy you have radfems (e.g. Julie Bindel) and queer theorists (e.g. Julia Serano) and liberals (e.g. Martha Nussbaum) at each other’s throats—and I very much doubt that the average self-identified feminist has any of them in mind (as opposed to, say, maternal leave and abortion access) when they claim that label.
I’m seeing an argument against dogmatically enforcing particular sub-branches of feminism, but that is not at all what the OP has suggested. Being open to feminism means being open to a variety of opinions within feminism.
What stance do you actually want EA to take when it comes to this issue? Do you want to shun feminist scholars, or declare their opinions to be unworthy of serious thought?
I’m seeing an argument against dogmatically enforcing particular sub-branches of feminism
I don’t think these are sub-branches of any single coherent thing, any more than contemporary left-of-center politics is just hashing things out between factions of the Jacobin club. Feminism is at most a loose intellectual tradition, not an ideology.
The actual cluster-structure here is something like
the self-identified left
radical feminism (not “feminism which is radical”) is largely its own thing
the liberal left
mainstream liberalism
academic liberal feminism
traditional feminist political organizations: NOW, Planned Parenthood, etc.
the new left and its descendants
queer theory, “third wave” feminism
“woke” politics
anarchism, libertarian socialism, etc.
the environmental movement, other “hippie” groups (the actual hippies somewhat less so)
the radical left
Marxism
Radical social democracy (some overlap with liberalism)
“materialist” feminism (largely extinct)
What stance do you actually want EA to take when it comes to this issue? Do you want to shun feminist scholars, or declare their opinions to be unworthy of serious thought?
Engagement with radical feminism would be both actively harmful and, given their well-deserved reputation for rabid transphobia, a serious reputational risk. They should be completely ignored.
EA is already quite engaged with mainstream liberalism. This is basically fine, but the fact that it’s often not acknowledged as an ideological stance is very bad: many EAs have a missing gear called “other worldviews make perfect sense on their own terms and are not deformed versions of your own”. No change in attitude vis a vis liberal feminism is needed, just go take some old books seriously for a while or something.
The New Left has a bit to offer on the “big ideas” front, but it has terrible epistemics, worse praxis, and is also weird and alienating to a significant fraction of the population. I think it would be a serious mistake for EA organizations to promote their frameworks. Engagement with people who already buy it seems unlikely to matter much either way—it’s an almost completely incommensurable worldview.
Any good-faith engagement whatsoever with left-of-liberal politics would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.
Regarding missing gears and old books, I have recently been thinking that many EAs (myself included) have a lot of philosophical / cultural blind spots regarding various things (one example might be postmodernist philosophy). It’s really easy to developer a kind of confidence, with narratives like “I have already thought about philosophy a lot” (when it has been mostly engagement with other EAs and discussions facilitated on EA terms) or “I read a lot of philosophy” (when it’s mostly EA books and EA-aligned / utilitarianist / longtermist papers and books).
I don’t really know what the solutions for this are. On a personal level I think perhaps I need to read more old books or participate in reading circles where non-EA books are read.
I don’t really have the understanding of liberalism to agree or disagree with EA being engaged with mainstream liberalism, but I would agree that EA as a movement has a pretty hefty “pro-status quo” bias in it’s thinking, and especially in it’s action quite often. (There is an interesting contradiction here in EA views often being pretty anti-mainstream though, like thought on AI x-risks, longtermism and wild animal welfare.)
I don’t really know what the solutions for this are. On a personal level I think perhaps I need to read more old books or participate in reading circles where non-EA books are read.
I would suggest, as a perhaps easier on-ramp, reading writing by analytic philosophers defending the views of people from other traditions or eras. A few examples:
A Spirit of Trust, Robert Brandom (Hegel)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (not really a defense of premodern physics, which is of course empirically wrong, but a defense of its coherence)
Pragmatism as a Way of Life, Hilary and Ruth Putnam (American Pragmatism)
Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, G.A. Cohen (historical materialism)
There’s feminism and then there’s feminism (and also feminism, feminism, and feminism). Even within the academy you have radfems (e.g. Julie Bindel) and queer theorists (e.g. Julia Serano) and liberals (e.g. Martha Nussbaum) at each other’s throats—and I very much doubt that the average self-identified feminist has any of them in mind (as opposed to, say, maternal leave and abortion access) when they claim that label.
I’m seeing an argument against dogmatically enforcing particular sub-branches of feminism, but that is not at all what the OP has suggested. Being open to feminism means being open to a variety of opinions within feminism.
What stance do you actually want EA to take when it comes to this issue? Do you want to shun feminist scholars, or declare their opinions to be unworthy of serious thought?
I don’t think these are sub-branches of any single coherent thing, any more than contemporary left-of-center politics is just hashing things out between factions of the Jacobin club. Feminism is at most a loose intellectual tradition, not an ideology.
The actual cluster-structure here is something like
the self-identified left
radical feminism (not “feminism which is radical”) is largely its own thing
the liberal left
mainstream liberalism
academic liberal feminism
traditional feminist political organizations: NOW, Planned Parenthood, etc.
the new left and its descendants
queer theory, “third wave” feminism
“woke” politics
anarchism, libertarian socialism, etc.
the environmental movement, other “hippie” groups (the actual hippies somewhat less so)
the radical left
Marxism
Radical social democracy (some overlap with liberalism)
“materialist” feminism (largely extinct)
Engagement with radical feminism would be both actively harmful and, given their well-deserved reputation for rabid transphobia, a serious reputational risk. They should be completely ignored.
EA is already quite engaged with mainstream liberalism. This is basically fine, but the fact that it’s often not acknowledged as an ideological stance is very bad: many EAs have a missing gear called “other worldviews make perfect sense on their own terms and are not deformed versions of your own”. No change in attitude vis a vis liberal feminism is needed, just go take some old books seriously for a while or something.
The New Left has a bit to offer on the “big ideas” front, but it has terrible epistemics, worse praxis, and is also weird and alienating to a significant fraction of the population. I think it would be a serious mistake for EA organizations to promote their frameworks. Engagement with people who already buy it seems unlikely to matter much either way—it’s an almost completely incommensurable worldview.
Any good-faith engagement whatsoever with left-of-liberal politics would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.
Regarding missing gears and old books, I have recently been thinking that many EAs (myself included) have a lot of philosophical / cultural blind spots regarding various things (one example might be postmodernist philosophy). It’s really easy to developer a kind of confidence, with narratives like “I have already thought about philosophy a lot” (when it has been mostly engagement with other EAs and discussions facilitated on EA terms) or “I read a lot of philosophy” (when it’s mostly EA books and EA-aligned / utilitarianist / longtermist papers and books).
I don’t really know what the solutions for this are. On a personal level I think perhaps I need to read more old books or participate in reading circles where non-EA books are read.
I don’t really have the understanding of liberalism to agree or disagree with EA being engaged with mainstream liberalism, but I would agree that EA as a movement has a pretty hefty “pro-status quo” bias in it’s thinking, and especially in it’s action quite often. (There is an interesting contradiction here in EA views often being pretty anti-mainstream though, like thought on AI x-risks, longtermism and wild animal welfare.)
I would suggest, as a perhaps easier on-ramp, reading writing by analytic philosophers defending the views of people from other traditions or eras. A few examples:
A Spirit of Trust, Robert Brandom (Hegel)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (not really a defense of premodern physics, which is of course empirically wrong, but a defense of its coherence)
Pragmatism as a Way of Life, Hilary and Ruth Putnam (American Pragmatism)
Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, G.A. Cohen (historical materialism)