Digifesto

Like “neoliberal”, “objectivity” in contemporary academic discourse is only used as a term of disparagement. It has fallen out of fashion to speak about “objectivity” in scientific language. It remains in fashion to be critical of objectivity in those disciplines that have been criticizing objectivity since at least the 70’s.

This is too bad because objectivity is great.

The criticism goes like this: scientists and journalists both used to say that they were being objective. There was a lot to this term. It could mean ‘disinterested’ or it could mean so rigorous as to be perfectly inter-subjective. It sounded good. But actually, all the scientists and journalists who claimed to be objective were sexist, racist, and lapdogs of the bourgeoisie. They used ‘objectivity’ as a way to exclude those who were interested in promoting social justice. Hence, anyone who claims to be objective is suspicious.

There are some more sophisticated arguments than this but their sophistication only weakens the main emotional thrust of the original criticism. The only reason for this sophistication is to be academically impressive, which is fundamentally useless, or to respond in good faith to criticisms, which is politically unnecessary and probably unwise.

Why is it unwise to respond in good faith to criticisms of a critique of objectivity? Because to concede that good faith response to criticism is epistemically virtuous would be to concede something to the defender of objectivity. Once you start negotiating with the enemy in terms of reasons, you become accountable to some kind of shared logic which transcends your personal subjectivity, or the collective subjectivity of those whose perspectives are channeled in your discourse.

In a world in which power is enacted and exerted through discourse, and in which cultural logics are just rules in a language game provisionally accepted by players, this rejection of objectivity is true resistance. The act of will that resists logical engagement with those in power will stymie that power. It’s what sticks it to the Man.

The problem is that however well-intentioned this strategy may be, it is dumb.

It is dumb because as everybody knows, power isn’t exerted mainly through discourse. Power is exerted through violence. And while it may be fun to talk about “cultural logics” if you are a particular kind of academic, and even fun to talk about how cultural logics can be violent, that is vague metaphorical poetry compared to something else that they could be talking about. Words don’t kill people. Guns kill people.

Put yourself in the position of somebody designing and manufacturing guns. What do you talk about with your friends and collaborators? If you think that power is about discourse, then you might think that these people talk about their racist political agenda, wherein they reproduce the power dynamics that they will wield to continue their military dominance.

They don’t though.

Instead what they talk about is the mechanics of how guns work and the technicalities of supply chain management. Where are they importing their gunpowder from and how much does it cost? How much will it go boom?

These conversations aren’t governed by “cultural logics.” They are governed by logic. Because logic is what preserves the intersubjective validity of their claims. That’s important because to successful build and market guns, the gun has to go boom the same amount whether or not the person being aimed at shares your cultural logic.

This is all quite grim. “Of course, that’s the point: objectivity is the language of violence and power! Boo objectivity!”

But that misses the point. The point is that it’s not that objectivity is what powerful people dupe people into believing in order to stay powerful. The point is that objectivity is what powerful people strive for in order to stay powerful. Objectivity is powerful in ways that more subjectively justified forms of knowledge are not.

This is not a popular perspective. There a number of reasons for this. One is that attain objective understanding is a lot of hard work and most people are just not up for it. Another is that there are a lot of people who have made their careers arguing for a much more popular perspective, which is that “objectivity” is associated with evil people and therefor we should reject it as an epistemic principal. There will always be an audience for this view, who will be rendered powerless by it and become the self-fulfilling prophecy of the demagogues who encourage their ignorance.