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Christos Raxiotis's avatar

Why more academic philosophers should engage with public discourse despite professional risks. I am skeptical of this claim, substack is working well for you but I doubt there is room for everyone sadly. Philosophy is a niche topic already. I do think academics I general should engage with the public tho, so bad actors and populists have a harder time spreading seeds of distrust

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Seth Finkelstein's avatar

I looked over part of the transcript. It's extensive and thoughtful as always. It's the sort of material I wish I could engage with at length, but I'm not going to start a Substack blog of my own, not worth it on many levels.

Just one highlight, regarding "what you disagree with" - I'd say there's a mistaken path right around here: "They don't trust public health officials. They don't trust mainstream media, and so on. So the main thing is to try to regain trust or to increase trust in those institutions."

It is my empirical belief that it's utterly, completely, impossible, to do anything like this without directly combating somehow the right-wing lie machine. Otherwise, it's like taking the saying "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.", and proclaiming the solution is to always be so careful that even the most dishonest and uncharitable won't be able to find anything in it. And jumping all over any attacked phrasing to "help" explain why there's a desire to hang the writer.

This stuff "And if it's perceived that these institutions are politicized, ..." will trap you in an endless loop of blaming-the-victim, morally repugnant yet completely ineffective. It's a "centrist/moderate" pundit myth that all that is necessary is to go just up to the approved line of the "centrist/moderate" pundit. Because that's their peer-group, not the fetid fever swamp of right-wing lunacy. You will end up sanewashing insanity in a futile quest for "credibility", which will never come. It effectively turns into fellow-traveling with the anti-intellectualism campaigns of the worst, most malicious, liars against the advances of civilization.

I rant. I know how it sounds. It's probably a futile expression of frustration. But these are bad times. It's not as bad as WWII Germany, but that's a very low bar.

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