I definitely agree with your point that EA should avoid becoming an elite haven, and should be checking to ensure that it is not needlessly exclusionary.
However, I’m not sure that your equation of feminism with the professional managerial class actually holds up. According to this poll, 61% of american women identify with feminism “very well” or “somewhat well”, including 54% of women without college degrees and 42% of women who lean republican. This is very far from being a solely elite thing!
If you want to be welcoming to women, you have to be welcoming to feminists. That doesn’t mean cancelling or excluding people over terminology disputes or minor opinions. It means listening to people, and treating their viewpoints as valid and acceptable.
There might be differences between identifying with feminism and ‘being open to scholars of feminism, queer studies and gender studies’ though. Most Americans probably aren’t familiar with academia to know of its latest thinking.
And like how different people have different notions of what counts as discriminatory, racist, sexist, or not discriminatory, racist, sexist, it’s possible that different people have different notions of what ‘feminism’ means. (Some might consider it a position supporting equal rights between the sexes—others a position supporting women’s rights. They might be thinking of the second, third, or fourth wave etc.)
The supplementary document containing the survey questions suggests the question asked was “How well, if at all, do each of the following describe you?” followed by “Environmentalist”, “Feminist” and “A supporter of gun rights” (in random order), which doesn’t seem to specify one specific notion of ‘feminist’ for survey participants to consider.
Although, to be fair, maybe there’s actually more agreement among Americans on the definition of feminist (in the year of the survey, 2020) than I’m expecting.
In any case, I expect the differences in preferences of elite Anglosphere/U.S. women, and not-necessarily-elite, non-Anglosphere/non-U.S. women in general (e.g., in Europe, Asia, South America) would still be quite large.
There might be differences between identifying with feminism and ‘being open to scholars of feminism, queer studies and gender studies’ though. Most Americans probably aren’t familiar with academia to know of its latest thinking.
We are either open to feminist scholarship or we are not. Do you think that if EA openly declared itself hostile to scholars of feminism, that most self described feminists would not be annoyed or alienated, at least a little bit? This seems rather unlikely.
There’s a similarly large gap between scholars of conservativism and the average conservative. If EA declared that conservative scholars were not welcome, do you think the average conservative would be fine with it?
“We are either open to feminist scholarship or we are not.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that a group could be openly hostile, politely unwelcoming, welcoming in name but not do anything based on the scholarship, or make it a priority, to name a few!
So in my comment I was only trying to say that the comment you responded to seemed to point to something true about the preferences of women in general vs. the preferences of women who are “highly educated urban professional-managerial class liberals in the developed world”.
Such perspectives seem easy to miss for people (in general/of all genders, not just women) belonging to the elite U.S./U.S.-adjacent progressive class—a class that has disproportionate influence over other cultures, societies etc., which makes it seem worthwhile to discuss in spaces where many belong to this class.
About your other point, I guess I don’t have much of an opinion on it (yet), but my initial impression is that it seems like openness comes in degrees. Compared to other movements, I also rarely observe ‘EA’ openly declaring itself hostile to something (e.g. “fraud is unacceptable” but there aren’t really statements on socialism, conservatism, religions, culture...).
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)
I definitely agree with your point that EA should avoid becoming an elite haven, and should be checking to ensure that it is not needlessly exclusionary.
However, I’m not sure that your equation of feminism with the professional managerial class actually holds up. According to this poll, 61% of american women identify with feminism “very well” or “somewhat well”, including 54% of women without college degrees and 42% of women who lean republican. This is very far from being a solely elite thing!
If you want to be welcoming to women, you have to be welcoming to feminists. That doesn’t mean cancelling or excluding people over terminology disputes or minor opinions. It means listening to people, and treating their viewpoints as valid and acceptable.
There might be differences between identifying with feminism and ‘being open to scholars of feminism, queer studies and gender studies’ though. Most Americans probably aren’t familiar with academia to know of its latest thinking.
And like how different people have different notions of what counts as discriminatory, racist, sexist, or not discriminatory, racist, sexist, it’s possible that different people have different notions of what ‘feminism’ means. (Some might consider it a position supporting equal rights between the sexes—others a position supporting women’s rights. They might be thinking of the second, third, or fourth wave etc.)
The supplementary document containing the survey questions suggests the question asked was “How well, if at all, do each of the following describe you?” followed by “Environmentalist”, “Feminist” and “A supporter of gun rights” (in random order), which doesn’t seem to specify one specific notion of ‘feminist’ for survey participants to consider.
Although, to be fair, maybe there’s actually more agreement among Americans on the definition of feminist (in the year of the survey, 2020) than I’m expecting.
In any case, I expect the differences in preferences of elite Anglosphere/U.S. women, and not-necessarily-elite, non-Anglosphere/non-U.S. women in general (e.g., in Europe, Asia, South America) would still be quite large.
We are either open to feminist scholarship or we are not. Do you think that if EA openly declared itself hostile to scholars of feminism, that most self described feminists would not be annoyed or alienated, at least a little bit? This seems rather unlikely.
There’s a similarly large gap between scholars of conservativism and the average conservative. If EA declared that conservative scholars were not welcome, do you think the average conservative would be fine with it?
“We are either open to feminist scholarship or we are not.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that a group could be openly hostile, politely unwelcoming, welcoming in name but not do anything based on the scholarship, or make it a priority, to name a few!
So in my comment I was only trying to say that the comment you responded to seemed to point to something true about the preferences of women in general vs. the preferences of women who are “highly educated urban professional-managerial class liberals in the developed world”.
Such perspectives seem easy to miss for people (in general/of all genders, not just women) belonging to the elite U.S./U.S.-adjacent progressive class—a class that has disproportionate influence over other cultures, societies etc., which makes it seem worthwhile to discuss in spaces where many belong to this class.
About your other point, I guess I don’t have much of an opinion on it (yet), but my initial impression is that it seems like openness comes in degrees. Compared to other movements, I also rarely observe ‘EA’ openly declaring itself hostile to something (e.g. “fraud is unacceptable” but there aren’t really statements on socialism, conservatism, religions, culture...).
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)