My journey from the fringe to the center wasn't as far as yours, but it was essentially the same path. Of all the digital ink spilled on this seismic shift, this essay is by far the closest to truth.
I think the last line of your last footnote is perhaps the most interesting point; "We need at least a common understanding of what evidence is and what it is not."
There is a huge amount of bias from being presented fiction as fact, your brain struggles, or simply cannot, overwrite a learnt fiction with the truth. Having a little icon in the corner that says "this is misinformation" is not enough, your have already accepted is as fact before it got that far. A recent example would be the false AI photos of hurricane damage, and post-challenge comments that 'they know it's AI and don't care, it's now what they believe' (was this a senator?).
Children learn fast, really fast, almost as if their brains are built for it. Teach them how to critically think first, then put information in front of them and let them factually challenge it and make their own decisions.
That innate confirmation bias is exactly what the scholarly method is meant to check. I've read some critiques of anti-racism training that make the points that you do: when presented with ideas that challenge our deeply held beliefs, we bristle and stop listening. I think most of us go through a grief cycle in our educations: we meet uncomfortable ideas with denial, anger, bargaining, and sometimes depression before we get to acceptance.
Not to get off on a tangent about DEI, but the problem with those methods is also that the assertions made are not open to question and critique. There is understandable visceral and intellectual blowback against that approach, just as there is against some expert pedantically telling you to get a vaccine if your default is to distrust vaccines. Teaching and nurturing the public trust is separate from the scholarly process itself, but is vital to preserving it.
I am not sure who is teaching children to check their instincts now. Reliability is measured by scale: likes and followers. The playbook for gaining more followers is often to tell them exactly what they already believe. There is an essay making the rounds on Substack arguing that the "real" reason why men are avoiding college is that it has become feminized. This is exactly what readers of that author's newsletter want to hear, and so no one cares that the argument is based entirely on a single study -- of trends in veterinary science -- and not even on the study itself, but on a summary of it (according to the footnote provided). It is troubling.
Extremely well-written and reasoned--thank you. "In all these cases, I believe not that institutions are deserving of unwavering trust, but that there must be an abiding faith in the scholarly methods that built them. Without that, we’re just running on confirmation bias and canards. We need at least a common understanding of what evidence is and what it is not."
What worries me is the ease with which the false can appear to be true--the AI generated video or audio (for example, Musk's fake video of Kamala saying she had no idea how to run the country--viewed and forwarded and believed by millions). Couple that with the immense wealth and power of those, internal and external, who wish to influence us to their point of view, and as you point out, trust is destroyed whole cloth and once we trust in nothing, the very foundation of society/community/culture is gone. That's probably too doomsdayish--but I see very little interest in developing a common understanding of what evidence is and is not. Thanks again for highlighting its importance.
Thank you -- the ease of sharing ignorance is concerning to me, too. I'm under no illusion that I have any real influence on those trends. But I suppose I write to remind myself that it doesn't have to be that way. I'll not repeat my remarks on how Substack is really no different from any other platform in this regard. I've mentioned a couple of very popular posts that are thoroughly unreliable. Many of the most popular newsletters would not pass the sniff test in peer review.
This all seems great if you're young and hip and capable of exploiting algorithms for commercial purposes. But I can't help but feel that the basic foundation for a stable society has eroded far beyond what it was even in my countercultural youth. I worry about this for my kids. But I'm also only 49. I have plenty of years left to worry about this for myself, too.
It’s not just the ease of sharing ignorance that worries me—it’s the deliberate sharing of lies to bamboozle people and advance an agenda and the lack of critical thinking skills (and the time and desire) to evaluate what people see and hear. You are correct this platform is no different than others (except for perhaps the existence of writers like you who point out the dilemma and the danger). I’m older, but I too worry about our kids.
Ah, we have much in common. Except my mother’s family is educated, so she never waxed overly hippie. It’s interesting to read your version of a similar upbringing.
The corporate model of admin has hollowed out academia. I hate late stage capitalism…get me out of here.
Thanks, Liya. I suppose I might be overstating the case, since my upbringing often made me feel fringe even in academe. If you've seen my essays on gardening, you know that there's still a strong back-to-the-land pull for me. Now I'm curious about your experience :).
Plymouth Brethren for me…like Mennonites in outlook, somewhat less stringent and fairly hippie. No rejection of medicine but resolutely countercultural. Big home gardens and strict gender roles, especially for women. But more of a focus on the existential rather than the individual — a literary tradition in its own way — so there was space for individualism, so long as you generally conformed.
When raised counterculturally, I think you inevitably feel you’re at the fringes of mainstream culture even when you’re in the middle of it. It gave me a lot in common with immigrants and other “outsiders”, and I appreciate the perspective now as an adult.
It’s always interesting to find others who grew up in fundamentalist sects of one type or another, then were drawn to rather the opposite: academia.
That sounds familiar. We had a lot of Amish and Mennonite friends in Montana. This is really interesting: "a focus on the existential rather than the individual — a literary tradition in its own way — so there was space for individualism, so long as you generally conformed." Yes, I suppose there was some of that in our Pentecostal circles. A paradox of innovation within conformity, which also has its counterpart in scholarship.
Some describe academia as a cult, and they aren't wrong. But that view is responding to a culture that has little to do with the scholarly method I'm describing. The totalizing view of the profession, "vocational awe," endless obsession with productivity, shaming and shunning those who don't drink the Kool-Aid entirely -- that is not scholarship.
I taught at a liberal arts college where I wore many hats. I published a peer-reviewed article roughly every two years. It did not require total life devotion, but I still stand by the work I did publish and the philosophy it represents.
I mean, I get the critique of academia. It’s like any other closed community. But at the end of the day, the scientific method is the best we can do as humans. Observation and fact is better than belief: we know something is true because we can show it is true. I’m still a believer in the value of disciplining the mind, of slow, deep thinking – and academia is probably the only place where you can still make a living thinking about a single research question for years on end. Unfortunately, it’s also been so politicized over the past few years.
I couldn’t deal with the logistics of productivity…we were expected to publish one article/year and books and endless proposals and I felt like an idea factory. And the “making a living” part has been growing ever more out of reach. But in an age of AI, I firmly believe a liberal arts education is becoming more valuable than ever.
The irony of the hard line churches we attended (My mom bounced us between the Assembly and that little non-denominational church at the lake creek junction) was the insistence on absolute truth actually primed me for empirical testing. After all, if it's True, then it'll pass. Black and white, no nuance, surly no conceptual humility. That works when the choir is doing the testing, but step outside for just a moment and it crumbles. For me, that was in a philosophy course on Spinoza at Oregon, who proposed a very different view of the devine than i grew up with! 😅
I still have faith we'll survive this moment as a nation/culture. it may just be Faith tho. I think work like you are doing here...like Hank Green and similar on other platforms...gives me hope. the larger "conversation"(?) is a mess and will result in messy politics for a while, but in the long run...
I never knew much about your religious background, Jim. Can't recall how much or how little our families overlapped. You are quite right about how fundamentalism primes young people for truth seeking. I know you meant "surely," but I rather like the formulation of "surly no conceptual humility." There is often a snarling arrogance to ignorance. And it took me a while to realize that what I saw as smugness in some professors was actually impatience with canards.
It's nice that you think my work is useful. I'm under no illusion that it's making a larger difference, however. I think of my writing now more as akin to Whitman's noiseless, patient spider, who casts forth its filament hoping the anchor will catch hold somewhere. I have faith in the scholarly method, less so in its future in America.
I'll be traveling for Thanksgiving, so will not likely write the second in this series for a couple weeks. But I do want to remember my mentor Sue. I am not sure whether her story is ultimately hopeful or foreboding, however. She fought her way into the old boy club only to watch the discipline devolve into activism.
I think what's at work is a type of fallacy of composition. The CDC issues false or misleading guidance about masks and thus nothing the CDC says can be trusted. An illegal immigrant commits a terrible crime and thus illegal immigrants are responsible for a crime wave.
It is good to hold our institutions to account but many of us cannot seem to do so without dismissing the entire institution.
To add to what I said on Notes, there has always been a tenuous relationship between public institutions and the public. This is, in fact, the subject of my dissertation: how the scientific physician was thoroughly re-imagined in American literature from a figure of suspicion to a heroic savior. There were good reasons why some medical students had to rob graves to study anatomy in the nineteenth century (autopsy still is central to clinical medicine), but it had much more to do with barriers to access than with any pernicious intent on the part of the doctors. When writers like Oliver Wendell Holmes could explain, in plain English, why a doctor who refused to wash his hands on the maternity ward was like the melodramatic villain tying victims to the railroad tracks (spreading puerperal fever, say), it was persuasive. I can understand why someone like Dr. Fauci might have to lean on guesswork during a pandemic. I cannot understand why he would publicly admit to that after the fact. The harm is long-lasting. No one wants to feel like they are being experimented on, especially not without their knowledge.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to more! We are the same age so I could imagine myself in my grungeness in 1995 at University as I read about your case of pertussis, which really sounds like a close brush with death. As an asthmatic, that experience sounds terrifying. It was a very real way of bringing us into your life and your journey from being your parents' child to the dawning of you as an individual. Are you still feeling the specter of contracting measles?
Agree. The center hasn't held for sure, and the fringe is more accessible and visible. There was a certain comfort in only having one newspaper to read growing up and to feel some trust in a stable narrative. But there are pros and cons (of course). I'm so appreciative of all of the opportunities to read what used to be considered fringe content... All the narratives we have missed because of the center's hold.
My first realization that there was narratives other than the ones I had been fed was as a penpal with youth behind the iron curtain on the late 80s. And then as an anthropology major about the same time as you in the mid 90s. Which reminds me I recently interviewed my professor from then and need to finish that article. He is now retired but lamented the shift in academia (he said the 90s were the golden age from him) in the 2000s from what felt like real scholarship to kids and administrators just looking to turn out stacked resumes. Wonder if you felt or feel the same?
Another thought about the shift from center to fringe which is the well worn argument that the Internet has levelled the playing field where everyone thinks and can convince others from their laptop and armchair that they are an expert. Has that impacted academia too? Or has it been a boon for academics who can now potentially more easily publish and distribute their work?
I look forward to learning more about your Willa Cather scholar friend! I read (listened actually) to My Antonia which was a fascinating glimpse at new immigrant rural life that I knew very little about.
Thanks, Emily! Yes, long live the grunge :). Country music was definitely not as cool in the 90s as it is now. The Seattle scene had more influence.
I am of multiple minds about the fringe and the center. I attend a Quaker meeting, and I appreciate the long history of conscientious objection that runs through that community. Quakers have always been fringe, and for some good reasons. But you can really carry that thinking too far. And I confess that I am not as appreciative as you of the blossoming of fringe content on this platform and elsewhere. There is an essay circulating even among highly educated people suggesting that the 2024 election was hacked by Elon Musk. I guess that's entertaining on some level, but it's part of why I've felt compelled to revisit my own path. It's a little unnerving to feel that the research/writing methods I was taught have lost their power in the public sphere, even if I know that they are not obsolete.
Much of my archive traces exactly what your professor suggests. Platforms like Substack are not really a boon for scholarship writ large. Scholars who already have a sizable public platform (Heather Cox Richardson, Jonathan Haidt, Steven Pinker) can benefit. But those people built their reputations on traditional peer review, and there is no reliable substitute for it.
Spot on. Only I’m older than you. There’s a straight line from the early 1980s. More and more of the superstition from radical cult-ish versions of evangelicalism has seeped into mainstream culture.
My journey from the fringe to the center wasn't as far as yours, but it was essentially the same path. Of all the digital ink spilled on this seismic shift, this essay is by far the closest to truth.
That means a lot, Jane -- thank you!
I think the last line of your last footnote is perhaps the most interesting point; "We need at least a common understanding of what evidence is and what it is not."
There is a huge amount of bias from being presented fiction as fact, your brain struggles, or simply cannot, overwrite a learnt fiction with the truth. Having a little icon in the corner that says "this is misinformation" is not enough, your have already accepted is as fact before it got that far. A recent example would be the false AI photos of hurricane damage, and post-challenge comments that 'they know it's AI and don't care, it's now what they believe' (was this a senator?).
Children learn fast, really fast, almost as if their brains are built for it. Teach them how to critically think first, then put information in front of them and let them factually challenge it and make their own decisions.
That innate confirmation bias is exactly what the scholarly method is meant to check. I've read some critiques of anti-racism training that make the points that you do: when presented with ideas that challenge our deeply held beliefs, we bristle and stop listening. I think most of us go through a grief cycle in our educations: we meet uncomfortable ideas with denial, anger, bargaining, and sometimes depression before we get to acceptance.
Not to get off on a tangent about DEI, but the problem with those methods is also that the assertions made are not open to question and critique. There is understandable visceral and intellectual blowback against that approach, just as there is against some expert pedantically telling you to get a vaccine if your default is to distrust vaccines. Teaching and nurturing the public trust is separate from the scholarly process itself, but is vital to preserving it.
I am not sure who is teaching children to check their instincts now. Reliability is measured by scale: likes and followers. The playbook for gaining more followers is often to tell them exactly what they already believe. There is an essay making the rounds on Substack arguing that the "real" reason why men are avoiding college is that it has become feminized. This is exactly what readers of that author's newsletter want to hear, and so no one cares that the argument is based entirely on a single study -- of trends in veterinary science -- and not even on the study itself, but on a summary of it (according to the footnote provided). It is troubling.
Extremely well-written and reasoned--thank you. "In all these cases, I believe not that institutions are deserving of unwavering trust, but that there must be an abiding faith in the scholarly methods that built them. Without that, we’re just running on confirmation bias and canards. We need at least a common understanding of what evidence is and what it is not."
What worries me is the ease with which the false can appear to be true--the AI generated video or audio (for example, Musk's fake video of Kamala saying she had no idea how to run the country--viewed and forwarded and believed by millions). Couple that with the immense wealth and power of those, internal and external, who wish to influence us to their point of view, and as you point out, trust is destroyed whole cloth and once we trust in nothing, the very foundation of society/community/culture is gone. That's probably too doomsdayish--but I see very little interest in developing a common understanding of what evidence is and is not. Thanks again for highlighting its importance.
Thank you -- the ease of sharing ignorance is concerning to me, too. I'm under no illusion that I have any real influence on those trends. But I suppose I write to remind myself that it doesn't have to be that way. I'll not repeat my remarks on how Substack is really no different from any other platform in this regard. I've mentioned a couple of very popular posts that are thoroughly unreliable. Many of the most popular newsletters would not pass the sniff test in peer review.
This all seems great if you're young and hip and capable of exploiting algorithms for commercial purposes. But I can't help but feel that the basic foundation for a stable society has eroded far beyond what it was even in my countercultural youth. I worry about this for my kids. But I'm also only 49. I have plenty of years left to worry about this for myself, too.
It’s not just the ease of sharing ignorance that worries me—it’s the deliberate sharing of lies to bamboozle people and advance an agenda and the lack of critical thinking skills (and the time and desire) to evaluate what people see and hear. You are correct this platform is no different than others (except for perhaps the existence of writers like you who point out the dilemma and the danger). I’m older, but I too worry about our kids.
Ah, we have much in common. Except my mother’s family is educated, so she never waxed overly hippie. It’s interesting to read your version of a similar upbringing.
The corporate model of admin has hollowed out academia. I hate late stage capitalism…get me out of here.
Thanks, Liya. I suppose I might be overstating the case, since my upbringing often made me feel fringe even in academe. If you've seen my essays on gardening, you know that there's still a strong back-to-the-land pull for me. Now I'm curious about your experience :).
Plymouth Brethren for me…like Mennonites in outlook, somewhat less stringent and fairly hippie. No rejection of medicine but resolutely countercultural. Big home gardens and strict gender roles, especially for women. But more of a focus on the existential rather than the individual — a literary tradition in its own way — so there was space for individualism, so long as you generally conformed.
When raised counterculturally, I think you inevitably feel you’re at the fringes of mainstream culture even when you’re in the middle of it. It gave me a lot in common with immigrants and other “outsiders”, and I appreciate the perspective now as an adult.
It’s always interesting to find others who grew up in fundamentalist sects of one type or another, then were drawn to rather the opposite: academia.
That sounds familiar. We had a lot of Amish and Mennonite friends in Montana. This is really interesting: "a focus on the existential rather than the individual — a literary tradition in its own way — so there was space for individualism, so long as you generally conformed." Yes, I suppose there was some of that in our Pentecostal circles. A paradox of innovation within conformity, which also has its counterpart in scholarship.
Some describe academia as a cult, and they aren't wrong. But that view is responding to a culture that has little to do with the scholarly method I'm describing. The totalizing view of the profession, "vocational awe," endless obsession with productivity, shaming and shunning those who don't drink the Kool-Aid entirely -- that is not scholarship.
I taught at a liberal arts college where I wore many hats. I published a peer-reviewed article roughly every two years. It did not require total life devotion, but I still stand by the work I did publish and the philosophy it represents.
I mean, I get the critique of academia. It’s like any other closed community. But at the end of the day, the scientific method is the best we can do as humans. Observation and fact is better than belief: we know something is true because we can show it is true. I’m still a believer in the value of disciplining the mind, of slow, deep thinking – and academia is probably the only place where you can still make a living thinking about a single research question for years on end. Unfortunately, it’s also been so politicized over the past few years.
I couldn’t deal with the logistics of productivity…we were expected to publish one article/year and books and endless proposals and I felt like an idea factory. And the “making a living” part has been growing ever more out of reach. But in an age of AI, I firmly believe a liberal arts education is becoming more valuable than ever.
Excellent piece, thank you.
The irony of the hard line churches we attended (My mom bounced us between the Assembly and that little non-denominational church at the lake creek junction) was the insistence on absolute truth actually primed me for empirical testing. After all, if it's True, then it'll pass. Black and white, no nuance, surly no conceptual humility. That works when the choir is doing the testing, but step outside for just a moment and it crumbles. For me, that was in a philosophy course on Spinoza at Oregon, who proposed a very different view of the devine than i grew up with! 😅
I still have faith we'll survive this moment as a nation/culture. it may just be Faith tho. I think work like you are doing here...like Hank Green and similar on other platforms...gives me hope. the larger "conversation"(?) is a mess and will result in messy politics for a while, but in the long run...
I never knew much about your religious background, Jim. Can't recall how much or how little our families overlapped. You are quite right about how fundamentalism primes young people for truth seeking. I know you meant "surely," but I rather like the formulation of "surly no conceptual humility." There is often a snarling arrogance to ignorance. And it took me a while to realize that what I saw as smugness in some professors was actually impatience with canards.
It's nice that you think my work is useful. I'm under no illusion that it's making a larger difference, however. I think of my writing now more as akin to Whitman's noiseless, patient spider, who casts forth its filament hoping the anchor will catch hold somewhere. I have faith in the scholarly method, less so in its future in America.
I'll be traveling for Thanksgiving, so will not likely write the second in this series for a couple weeks. But I do want to remember my mentor Sue. I am not sure whether her story is ultimately hopeful or foreboding, however. She fought her way into the old boy club only to watch the discipline devolve into activism.
Thanks for reading.
I think what's at work is a type of fallacy of composition. The CDC issues false or misleading guidance about masks and thus nothing the CDC says can be trusted. An illegal immigrant commits a terrible crime and thus illegal immigrants are responsible for a crime wave.
It is good to hold our institutions to account but many of us cannot seem to do so without dismissing the entire institution.
To add to what I said on Notes, there has always been a tenuous relationship between public institutions and the public. This is, in fact, the subject of my dissertation: how the scientific physician was thoroughly re-imagined in American literature from a figure of suspicion to a heroic savior. There were good reasons why some medical students had to rob graves to study anatomy in the nineteenth century (autopsy still is central to clinical medicine), but it had much more to do with barriers to access than with any pernicious intent on the part of the doctors. When writers like Oliver Wendell Holmes could explain, in plain English, why a doctor who refused to wash his hands on the maternity ward was like the melodramatic villain tying victims to the railroad tracks (spreading puerperal fever, say), it was persuasive. I can understand why someone like Dr. Fauci might have to lean on guesswork during a pandemic. I cannot understand why he would publicly admit to that after the fact. The harm is long-lasting. No one wants to feel like they are being experimented on, especially not without their knowledge.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to more! We are the same age so I could imagine myself in my grungeness in 1995 at University as I read about your case of pertussis, which really sounds like a close brush with death. As an asthmatic, that experience sounds terrifying. It was a very real way of bringing us into your life and your journey from being your parents' child to the dawning of you as an individual. Are you still feeling the specter of contracting measles?
Agree. The center hasn't held for sure, and the fringe is more accessible and visible. There was a certain comfort in only having one newspaper to read growing up and to feel some trust in a stable narrative. But there are pros and cons (of course). I'm so appreciative of all of the opportunities to read what used to be considered fringe content... All the narratives we have missed because of the center's hold.
My first realization that there was narratives other than the ones I had been fed was as a penpal with youth behind the iron curtain on the late 80s. And then as an anthropology major about the same time as you in the mid 90s. Which reminds me I recently interviewed my professor from then and need to finish that article. He is now retired but lamented the shift in academia (he said the 90s were the golden age from him) in the 2000s from what felt like real scholarship to kids and administrators just looking to turn out stacked resumes. Wonder if you felt or feel the same?
Another thought about the shift from center to fringe which is the well worn argument that the Internet has levelled the playing field where everyone thinks and can convince others from their laptop and armchair that they are an expert. Has that impacted academia too? Or has it been a boon for academics who can now potentially more easily publish and distribute their work?
I look forward to learning more about your Willa Cather scholar friend! I read (listened actually) to My Antonia which was a fascinating glimpse at new immigrant rural life that I knew very little about.
Thanks, Emily! Yes, long live the grunge :). Country music was definitely not as cool in the 90s as it is now. The Seattle scene had more influence.
I am of multiple minds about the fringe and the center. I attend a Quaker meeting, and I appreciate the long history of conscientious objection that runs through that community. Quakers have always been fringe, and for some good reasons. But you can really carry that thinking too far. And I confess that I am not as appreciative as you of the blossoming of fringe content on this platform and elsewhere. There is an essay circulating even among highly educated people suggesting that the 2024 election was hacked by Elon Musk. I guess that's entertaining on some level, but it's part of why I've felt compelled to revisit my own path. It's a little unnerving to feel that the research/writing methods I was taught have lost their power in the public sphere, even if I know that they are not obsolete.
Much of my archive traces exactly what your professor suggests. Platforms like Substack are not really a boon for scholarship writ large. Scholars who already have a sizable public platform (Heather Cox Richardson, Jonathan Haidt, Steven Pinker) can benefit. But those people built their reputations on traditional peer review, and there is no reliable substitute for it.
Thanks for reading.
Spot on. Only I’m older than you. There’s a straight line from the early 1980s. More and more of the superstition from radical cult-ish versions of evangelicalism has seeped into mainstream culture.