Creeping Credentialism, 2.0
It wasn't that long ago that I lamented the growth of citing expertise, whether it be one's own or a source's, as a substitute for actually defending an opinion or viewpoint. This 'credentialism' reached a new peak (or nadir, depending on your preferred metaphor) last week with Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s (who has already been dubbed KBJ by the Internet. Notorios-RBG cultists are quivering in adjectival anticipation) flub in dodging a gotcha question (aren't they all?) from Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (a Republican, obviously) during her confirmation hearing.
Blackburn: "Can you provide a definition for the word 'woman'?"
Jackson: "Can I provide a definition? No, I can't."
Blackburn: "You can't?"
Jackson: "Not in this context. I'm not a biologist."
That's an unforced error on KBJ's part.
The trap was obvious, and the balance of KBJ's response was a fairly competent and traditional tap-dance around it, in order to avoid declaring a position on a hypothetical (that’s standard operating procedure in confirmation hearings).
Her error exposed a mindset that, while no surprise, is disappointing nevertheless.
In the classic vein of dividing people into two types, I present this iteration: Those who have an objective view of colloquial reality, and those who do not.
The latter are called postmodernists:
Postmodernism holds that reality cannot be known nor can it be described objectively.
Postmodernism does not accept any definite description about anything.
If we want to get into deep metaphysical/quantum weeds, we can play with this notion for quite a while, but for the average, reasonable person, it's a bridge too far. Postmodernism is often used as a carte blanche to reject plain truths that get in the way of narratives, and the credentialism gambit is core to the necessary gaslighting:
Who are you going to believe, my experts (or expertise) or your lying eyes?
Contradicting the conclusion that KBJ is embracing a postmodernist's lack of tether is her avowal that she's a textualist,
I am focusing on original public meaning because I’m constrained to interpret the text.
and a sorta-originalist,
But there are times [when] looking at those words [is] not enough to tell you what they actually mean. You look at them in the context of history. You look at the structure of the Constitution. You look at the circumstances that you’re dealing with in comparison to what those words meant at the time that they were adopted.
Textualist/originalist are what I want in a Justice. Deference to ‘experts’ on (what should be) plain concepts like "woman," not so much.
Had KBJ skipped over the credentialist retort, she might have not spawned the widespread meme-mockery and denouncements proliferating across the wonk-o-sphere.
Her follow-up,
[I]n my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. If there's a dispute about a definition, people make arguments, and I look at the law, and I decide,
is the form of response nominees typically offer when pinged on a hot topic. She might have skated had she not provided the 'biologist' soundbite.
Again, it was an unforced error, but moreso a tell-tale as to her likely proclivities regarding the encroachment of woke-postmodernism into the cultural mainstream.
There's another angle to this creeping credentialism: the collectivization of thought itself. When someone defaults to someone else's pedigree, he or she is telling us that anointment-from-on-high is a substitute for a well-presented chain of logic. This then motivates a battle for control of "on-high," where the credentializers get increasing control of what gets one credentialed.
Especially so in the soft sciences and areas of public policy. If external validation is required to legitimize a viewpoint, and the validators have a particular ideological bias, then objective truth starts to die off. The more that happens, the bolder the validators get, and we end up with debates about the word "woman."
That this is all born of a small but dominating-by-fear fringe, the trans-activists, that have succeeded in making some people assert what was formerly nonsensical (e.g. men can give birth) and "give away" words (mother is now birthing person) whose meaning everyone knew without question just a couple years ago.
The confluence of collectivism and woke-culture insinuation is no coincidence. The latter needs the former, because, as the old gag goes,
Would this unraveling of such basic concepts of "woman" and "mother" have occurred at all, let alone with such rapidity, absent the coercive mindset that spawned cancel culture?
Credentialism is also cowardice, and it is laziness, but I'll save those for future installments. Someone, soon, will give me another reason to revisit it.
As for KBJ? Her confirmation, barring a “she eats babies at high tea” meltdown or unmasking as a long-con Manchurian candidate who’s secretly a clone of Clarence Thomas, was a foregone conclusion from the moment she was nominated. So, I haven't been paying much attention, and I have been ignoring all the right-wing hyperbole about how "she must be stopped." Elections have consequences, and the Dems' victories in the Presidency and Senate mean they get to pick who they want.
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Peter.