0

Does activism naturally implies anti-intellectualism?

I have always been puzzled by the fact that when one wishes to attract people to one's political cause (as opposed to one's philosophical or scientific cause), one very fastly falls into a certain form of anti-intellectualism.

Indeed, the goal of being an activist is "to act", not "to think" anymore, and the two are in contradiction.

You can not act (upon your political beliefs) if you continue thinking, and you can not think if you continue acting (upon your political beliefs).

It is because you already so much firmly believe in your political ideas, that you think you must uncritically anymore act upon it, and prompt other people to do the same.

Futilitarian
  • 4,352
  • 1
  • 8
  • 41
Starckman
  • 1,510
  • 4
  • 14

3 Answers3

2

Praxis is an overloaded term whose generic meaning can be action.

We can locate its origin in Aristotle, tacking into account the distinction between episteme and techne, where "epistêmê is the Greek word most often translated as knowledge, while technê is translated as either craft or art."

For Aristotle:

There are five virtues of thought: technê, epistêmê, phronêsis, sophia, and nous. [...] The two virtues of thought that deal with what can be otherwise, i.e., what is contingent, are technê and phronêsis, craft and practical wisdom. Aristotle emphasizes the former, a disposition with respect to making (poiêsis), is distinct from the latter, a disposition with respect to doing (praxis). [...] By contrast, practical wisdom does not make something separate the way craft does. Its province is doing (praxis) and not making (poiêsis).The distinction is between activity, whose end is in itself, and making, whose end is a product separate from the activity of making.

"When someone plays the flute, e.g., typically there is no further product of playing; playing the flute is an end in itself. However, when one makes a house, e.g., the activity of making a house is not an end in itself but has a product, which is separate from the activity."

It can be worth noting that for Aristotle scientific knowledge (epistêmê) can be viewed as a sort of praxis [doing], because it is aimed at satisfying our (human) desire to understand. Thus, scientific knowledge has an "end in itself", while the modern view of science as strictly related to technical applications consider scientific knowledge as "making".

See e.g. Michael Bowler, Heidegger and Aristotle: Philosophy as Praxis (Continuum, 2008), page 105: "we can see how the scientific comportment is a praxis, i.e. an activity whose for-the-sake-of-which is that very activity."

Jumping now to more current usage, "Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied, or put into practice. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practising ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many others."

The use of praxis in the context e.g. of political action (in a broad sense, like environmental issues) seems to reverse original A's thought: political action is a kind of making (poiêsis), because is not an activity whose end is in itself (like playing the flute), but is an activity aimed at producing a result.

Compare with Wiki's Praxis:Origins: "Aristotle further divided the knowledge derived from praxis into ethics, economics, and politics".

Mauro ALLEGRANZA
  • 36,790
  • 3
  • 36
  • 80
  • 1
    i think it would help if you clarified your last comment. why is "understanding" a "making" and technology not? not saying you're wrong, but it's counter intuitive. i may even have read you wrong, in which case i apologize –  Sep 21 '23 at 10:43
  • i thought you may be right actually. it's difficult to tell just by thinking –  Sep 21 '23 at 11:28
  • I am not sure if "praxis" and political activism should be equated – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:50
2

Is reaching a conclusion or acting anti-intellectual?

I think this is fairly trivial false (although I suppose one could get into a semantic debate about what "anti-intellectual" means).

One might say that a big part of the point of thinking is to reach a conclusion, with reasonable certainty, by evaluating evidence and arguments (or to conclude that no conclusion can reasonably be reached at this time), and then to use that conclusion to determine how to act.

It's also perfectly possible to think while acting, or sometimes think and sometimes act, so those aren't mutually exclusive. Even the most intellectual of "intellectuals" presumably aren't in deep conscious thought 24/7, and if someone were, that doesn't seem like a particularly productive use of time (even if it were "intellectual").

Disagreement on this point suggests that one will not even eat a sandwich when hungry, since one wouldn't conclude that hunger is "real", that eating a sandwich will satiate you, that it's not poisoned, and to then finally perform the act of eating the sandwich.

Is activism "naturally" anti-intellectual?

Activism, on a very basic level, is just acting to try to bring about social, political, economic or environmental change. As a trivial extension of the above, this would not be anti-intellectual (well, I suppose one could also try to argue that wanting to bring about change or those types of changes is anti-intellectual, but that case seems about as weak as the idea that acting is anti-intellectual).

Your definition of activism seems to entail just acting and no longer thinking, but this isn't part of the commonly-accept definition, and it would exclude many/most people who identify as activists.

In many cases, activists specifically prompt people to critically analyse their beliefs (so pro-intellectual?), and many activists frequently engage in debate (Earthling Ed is probably a good example, and there are also call-in shows like The Line, which exists expressly for the purpose of debate, and many of the hosts seem to call themselves activists). That doesn't necessarily mean that they critically analyse their own beliefs, but that's hard to judge in any case. If your arguments haven't been able to convince them, maybe that means they don't critically analyse their beliefs, or maybe it means your arguments are just bad, and maybe you're the one who needs to do some critical analysis.

I'm perfectly happy to agree that people in general don't tend to critically analyse their beliefs, but you can't reasonably single out activists for this.

If anything, it's activists who commonly accuse others of not critically analysing their beliefs. Activism usually represents a fringe position. Something that isn't accepted by the majority. Something that people aren't usually raised to believe or do. Something that might require some critical analysis of beliefs in order to reach. No critical analysis is required to just keep believing whatever you were raised to believe.

There may be parts of activism that is anti-intellectual, but it's just that: parts. It does not represent all of activism, nor what activism "naturally" is.

NotThatGuy
  • 9,207
  • 1
  • 18
  • 32
  • Thanks for articulating clearly and thoroughly the oppositive view. To me, politics (which is what activism is all about) implies at its core inter-personal relations, and that individuals are bond together (or at least it stresses very much these bonds). This, by nature, precisely prevents people from objectivity. – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 12:32
  • And I think that acting politically (which is not the same as acting) is antagonist with thinking critically and objectively, because of this social engagement. This is in opposition to a scientific endeavor, which does not implies (at least not directly) this social engagement. I contend that my argument here are not 100% clear or articulate, but that is my intuition – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 12:36
  • Maybe there are too much things at stake in (this kind of = political activism) social engagement, so that it prevent from truly free, objective, criticial thinking – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 12:38
  • Just as a precision: a scientific who raises his voice publicly on a topic which concerns society, to me, is not doing political activism. He is simply diffusing their knowledge, in order for it to benefit a larger group of people, including himself. If he is engaged in a political association, then it starts to be so. There is a continuum of course – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 12:42
  • @Starckman "Politics" is somewhat of a nebulous term, that could refer to anything from the popularity contests of politicians that has little to no impact on anything else, to people dogmatically attaching themselves to a political party, all the way to figuring out how society should function on any and every level, who should have what rights, and so forth. This is often conflated to dismiss people trying to discuss human rights by calling it "just politics". Activism is on the human rights end of that, which needn't have much to do with heavily stressed personal bonds. – NotThatGuy Sep 21 '23 at 12:55
  • @Starckman "a scientific who raises his voice publicly on a topic which concerns society, to me, is not doing political activism" - this would exclude most who call themselves activists, then, so in the spirit of constructive discourse, it might be wise to avoid the (unqualified) term "activism" for this. As for "political activism", if someone were to have protested, campaigned, petitioned or voted for women to have the right to vote, would this meet your definition of "anti-intellectual" political activism? If not, why not? – NotThatGuy Sep 21 '23 at 12:55
  • I think there are particular rights (including the right to vote) which are necessary for intellectualism (which I sustain). Without those rights, we cannot exert intellectualism in the first place. Then again there is a continuum, it also depends on the manner the activism is conducted (which can be more or less political) – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:01
  • A definition of politics by Wikipedia: "Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status." – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:09
  • So it seems to me it is something inherently collectivist, 'groupish', which to me is inherently anti-objectivity – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:11
  • And I maintain that acting is antagonist to thinking, you can articulate acting and thinking, but thinking will never be as objective and free as when one is exclusively dedicated to thinking. – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:13
  • Articulating acting and thinking is of course different from the necessary experimentation of one's ideas. But experimentation is part of thinking, not of acting (political activists are not in the logic to 'experiment' in the scientific sense anyway) – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:15
  • @Starckman How do you define "objectivity"? Because much of politics concerns morality (especially where it overlaps with activism), and it's a common view that objective morality doesn't exist. It's also a common view that humans don't have access to objective truth on essentially any topic. But that doesn't mean one can't use one's intellect/thoughts to reason about morality to determine how to treat others (e.g. to allow them to vote or to not have them be slaves). The right to vote is certainly a political issue, by any reasonable definition I can see (including yours). – NotThatGuy Sep 21 '23 at 13:37
  • @Starckman After you've thought and experimented, then what? If you want the result of your thinking to have any practical application whatsoever, you must act on it, so acting seems like an extension or consequence of thinking, not "antagonistic" to it. This goes back to my "eating a sandwich" example. If you don't act, you aren't eating food. – NotThatGuy Sep 21 '23 at 13:37
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Starckman Sep 21 '23 at 13:39
0

Not necessarily. That depends on your definition of "activism" and "anti-intellectualism.

For example If you abstract the goals of activism than it's usually about allocating resources towards a problem and that could be physical goods, that could be physical labor, but that could also involve mind labor and even just attention.

Then not all but at least the latter version of activism could aim towards intellectualism. Like you could champion causes that would fall under the umbrella of being intellectual, idk "read more", "think more", "take more time to contemplate", "build more schools", "fund more research" etc.

So in that regard it would not be anti-intellectual, in the sense that it doesn't sabotage, downplay or otherwise diminish the ability or the virtues of intellectual activities. So unless you scream so loud that no one can think or promote absolute sketicism to the point of rendering all thinking pointless, you'd not engage in anti-intellectualism.

Now that so far only relates to the goal, but is the activist doing some intellectual work. Well not while they're promoting something, humans are kinda mono tasking and you can't really do (complex) thought and action at the same time. That being said, the way we appear to be multitasking even if we aren't is switching between tasks. So in the time between agitating people, you can think about the problem or you might even do some meta work and think about how you can improve your activism or idk you can analyze the effectiveness of your activism so far or whatnot.

So of course you could engage in mindless activism and your activism could aim to be a bad faith actor and convince without reason, but it's not an absolute necessity that you are.

At some point experiments, action, trying out stuff is a vital requirement for progress and as such part of an intellectual journey. So unless you focus on pure reason and neglect the real world that is not against intellectual labor, but maybe even part of it.

haxor789
  • 5,843
  • 7
  • 28