bullshit detector

Scientific Literacy and Bullshit Detection

Last night, as we were driving to swim lessons, my 6 year old daughter RJP suddenly, with no context, exclaimed, “I’m a scientist!” She likes to dramatically assert her identities in this way. Last year, she loved calling out to anyone within earshot, “I’m an artist!” Sadly, she doesn’t seem to be embracing/performing her artist identity that much this year. What is it about first grade that sucks the joy/imagination/creativity out of kids? After making this bold and somewhat unexpected proclamation and then not receiving much of a response from us, she continued, “My teacher says anyone who likes to ask lots and lots and lots of questions is a scientist. So, I’m a scientist!”

Her statement made me curious and inspired/provoked me to think more about curiosity, wonder, asking questions and how my understandings and practices of these do/don’t fit in with science and the scientific method. But, because life with kids, especially kids who are trying to overcome the trauma of witnessing a kid puke in the pool at swim lessons a few weeks ago so that they can get back in and take their swim test, can force me out of my curious wonderings, I quickly forgot about RJP’s identity claim and my questions about it.

I forgot about it until this morning. While scrolling through my Tumblr feed, I came across a great quote by the super Awesome Neil deGrasse Tyson on the importance of scientific literacy:

To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of shit.

Yes! I’m a proud bullshit detector (and deflector?). And, since I think that a lot of people, especially people who claim to know a lot (like grad students/academics) frequently spout shit, I was pleased to see someone offering up some tools for seeing through it. Learning to know when someone else is full of shit is an essential tool, one that should be regularly taught throughout formal education. I also liked seeing this quote because, for various reasons (some of which aren’t entirely clear to me), I find “shit” to be a great word; it’s rich with meaning (especially in queer theory) and fun to say.

Good little researcher that I am, I attempted to track down this quote. Before I actually found it (on the Nerdist podcast #277), I stumbled upon a quick video clip with NG Tyson discussing the importance of scientific literacy:

In this brief clip, NG Tyson describes how he is training his kids to be scientifically literate:

I immerse them in their environment at home, when we travel. What surrounds them, what forces them to think about how the world works.

And, he clarifies how scientific literacy is not just about reciting facts, but about asking:

How do you look at the world? What does the world look like through your lens? If you’re scientifically literate, the world looks really different to you. It’s not just a lot of mysterious things happening. There’s a lot we understand out there. And than understanding empowers you to first, not be taken advantage of by others who do understand it. And second, there are issues that confront us that have science as their foundation. If you’re not scientifically literate, it’s in a way, you are disenfranchising yourself from the democratic process and you don’t even know it.

I really appreciate reading the highly spreadable one-liner from NGT beside his longer description of what’s at stake with teaching scientific literacy. Seeing the world using a scientific lens is important. Attempting to understand how the world works and discovering rational/measurable (he discusses the importance of measuring results in the Nerdist podcast) explanations is essential for challenging/resisting the ways in which science gets wielded/mis-used/ignored by some (NGT devotes time to de-bunking intelligent design in the podcast).

In critically reflecting on his ideas about scientific literacy, I keep thinking about the questions that RJP’s “I’m a scientist!” declaration raised for me last night about curiosity and asking questions. I’m a HUGE proponent of asking questions and being curious. I write about it and teach it all the time. But, my version of curiosity and my methods and motivations for asking questions are sometimes in tension with the scientific approach, and its emphasis on discovering, measuring, classifying, scrutinizing, knowing. Years of feminist and queer theory have made me wary of these approaches and how they are used to regulate, control and colonize entire communities of people. As I write this post, I immediately think of critiques of science/scientific method offered by Sibohan Somerville, Emily Martin, Riki Wilchins, Carolyn Merchant, Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway. When I pose questions and practice curiosity, I’m not motivated by a desire to “know” or a need to discover, but by a passion to engage deeply with ideas, things, experiences and people.

But, even as I am reminded of these important critiques and I think about my own version of curiosity, I see the value in scientific literacy and developing tools for understanding how things work scientifically. We need these tools. Especially girls. RJP needs to be encouraged (by teachers, other students, pop culture, society) that thinking scientifically is important and that she’s not only capable of it, but can do it really well.

So, how do I reconcile my misgivings about “science” with my belief in its importance, especially for girls? By refusing to see it as an either/or choice. And by expanding my vision of curiosity to allow for a wider range of understandings of how we think about how the world works. In this vision, scientific literacy is just one of many literacies that we need to have in order to fight injustice and to be effective bullshit detectors. (And, like all literacies, it should be interrogated/challenged by the other approaches).

I want to inhabit a world in which RJP can claim the identities “I’m an artist!” and “I’m a scientist!” simultaneously and with the same amount of force and value. In listening to NGT’s passionate discussions about scientific literacy, especially on the podcast, I’m not sure he would agree. He seems to privilege scientific literacy as the primary tool for knowing about the world and being empowered within it. Especially when he describes science as the lens (as opposed to a lens or one of many lenses) through which to understand the world. I want to spend more time engaging with his ideas to determine if my assessment is correct.

Questions to Ponder

Is Neil deGrasse Tyson privileging scientific literary over all other forms of literacy?
NGT discusses the importance of questions, uncertainty and not knowing. How is this similar/different to my understanding of feminist curiosity and the value of unknowingness?
What are all of the tools that a bullshit detector needs?
How can I get RJP to stop freaking out every time she sees the kid who puked in the pool?

Here’s a story of a troublemaker…

Okay, I have been watching way too much Brady Bunch this summer. I still have the theme song going through my head. Here’s a story…of a troublemaker…who was writing ’bout her troublemaking past… Anyway, a few days ago I wrote an entry about kids-as-disciplinary-problems, Judith Butler, and troublemaking. It got me thinking about my own narrative of growing up as a troublemaker.

As a child, I was a troublemaker. But, what does that mean? Well, I had a lot of teachers who really didn’t like me (from elementary school through high school). Not because I acted out in class. I didn’t. Not because I made faces in assemblies. I didn’t. And not because I “did really bad things.” Because, I really didn’t. No, they disliked me because they could sense—somehow—that I saw through their bullshit (for more on being a bullshit detector, see here) and that I wasn’t going to simply believe that what they said was the “Truth.” I guess I was a threat to their already tenuous hold on the classroom.

I asked a lot of questions (and not hostile ones. Just lots and lots of “why” questions). I always wanted to know why things worked the way that they did. I liked exploring ideas without immediately placing judgment on them. And even though I looked the part of the good little white student, I refused to fully buy into the rules and norms that undergird the white suburban school and its goal of molding the minds of children into good little consumer citizens.

So, when I think of my own troublemaking “roots” it is not through the tradition of disrupting class or being disrespectful to teachers. For me, troublemaking was never about breaking the rules (even though I can see why many rules need to be broken) or rebelling against authority/authority figures. No, the tradition of troublemaking that I draw upon in my own understanding and practice of being in/making/staying in trouble is the tradition of posing questions…and lots of them. The question that I used to pose a lot as a kid, and the question that Butler suggests is the first act of disobedience, is “why.” As in, why is something this way and not that? For Butler, to ask “why” is to introduce the possibility that something could be otherwise, that the way things are is not they only way that should or could be. It is to open up the possibility of making ourselves into subjects-who-disobey instead of subjects-who-merely-obey. [Of course, “why” is not the only question many of us do—or should—ask. With my training in feminist/queer/critical theory, the question that I pose a lot now is “at whose expense”? This question seems to infuse the somewhat innocent “why” with an awareness of oppression and a desire for justice.]

Here are some key passages from my earlier entry on Butler and asking lots of questions:

Butler argues that asking why things are the way that they are is a form of disobedience (or is way of not being obedient if obedience requires unquestioned acceptance). The emphasis here is not on disobedience as a refusal to follow the rules or a rejection of rules altogether–some rules are necessary and important and helpful. No, Butler wants to emphasize disobedience as the refusal to be/become subjects who accept and willingly/unthinkingly obey the dictates that we are given without question. Again, in this sense, the disobedience is not to Rules or Law or the State (although that is important as well), but to the formation of us as subjects-who-merely-obey. So, Butler is particularly interested in how our obedience or disobedience functions on the level of self-(re)making (or what Butler would call subject formation).

Now, this idea of disobedience is not just about how and who we are as political subjects who engage in those practices that are traditionally considered to be political (like voting or protesting or being a part of activist communities or even participating in civic organizations). This idea of disobedience is about how and who we are as selves as we engage in our everyday activities and as we work (intentionally and not so intentionally) on our moral/ethical/intellectual development. And it happens when we ask “why”–not once or twice but everyday and all the time.

In this earlier entry, I link Butler’s promotion of asking questions with the “childish” behavior of asking “why”:

Kids are really good (sometimes too good) at asking “why”–from the mundane (why isn’t yellow your favorite color?) to the scientific (why can’t it snow in the summer?) to the existential (why can’t Nana live forever?) to the defiant (why do I have to eat my vegetables?) to the disturbing (why can’t I eat my own poop?) to the repetitive (Why? Why? Why?). The asking of these questions can be tedious for parents, but they are (most often) not done by children in order to be destructive or disrespectful. At their best, these “why” questions demonstrate curiosity and an interest in (caring about) the world and how it works. And, they are an assertion of a self-in-process who is claiming their independence from the forces that shape them.

Posing “why” and later, “at whose expense” questions (to myself and to others) got me in a lot of trouble. A lot of that trouble was bad (such as teachers hating me, being dismissed and discounted as a problem—not so much a disciplinary problem but just a problem), but a lot more of it was good (as in helpful/productive/motivating for me). The refusal to merely accept and the desire to remain open to other ways of being (instead of just fixing in on the way I am supposed to see and/or act in the world) shaped who I am and have, I think, made me a better (happier, more responsible, aware and just) person.

I am drawn to Judith Butler’s work because one primary aspect of her philosophy/ethos/system of thought is the value of asking (and never stopping your asking) of questions. When I look to Butler it is this important strain in her work that resonates with me. Not the acting out (and acting up) that is reflected in the narrative about her as a “disciplinary problem.” This single-minded reduction of troublemaking to bad behavior and the revaluing of “being bad” as good doesn’t work for me. It certainly doesn’t speak to my experiences. And, it is not, in my opinion, a helpful resource for a feminist or queer ethics.

Butler’s emphasis on always asking questions helped me to understand what I had been doing for so long when I was younger. When I was a kid I felt the pressure of opposing forces: 1. a family of intellectuals who encouraged me to think and question and challenge and care (about justice, from my dad the ethicist, and about the world and imagining it otherwise, from my mother, the artist/dreamer/social historian) and 2. the (almost completely) white suburban, conformity-imposing, competition-driven public schools that I attended from fifth through twelfth grade. From my family (and my position as white and middle/intellectual-class), I inherited a strong sense of entitlement–of course, I should ask questions and think, I could do anything and be anything! But from the schools I attended in suburban D.C. (in Northern Virginia) and suburban Des Moines (the insurance capital of the Midwest!), I was reminded everyday that I could ask some questions but only if they were framed in the right way and only if they furthered the goals of success in the forms of being better than everyone else and of acquiring the most stuff (status, possessions, awards, knowledge-as-commodity).

It has always been a struggle to navigate these forces. Why did I have to make everything so difficult? I would sometimes ask myself. Why can’t I just participate in the system like a “good girl”? [Of course, as a white, middle-class, heterosexual, I was a “good” and proper girl and my choice to not fit in was always just that…a choice. I always had the privilege to pass and fit in as normal, even if I often felt like I couldn’t force myself to do it.] How can I reconcile the desire to care about others/the world/justice that my parents instilled in me with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) command by many teachers/adults/”society” to care only about myself and how I could fit in and be very successful? Of course, this was definitely not how I phrased it as a child. But the language of feminist and queer theories and of Butler’s (albeit underdeveloped) notion of troublemaking have given me a way in which to understand and articulate what was (at least partially) going on with my struggles to care but fit in, to question but not to outrage or alienate, and to stay open to new possibilities of thinking, being and doing.

So, there you have it. The opening chapter (or maybe the preface) to my troublemaking narrative. There is much more to say about my own experiences of making/staying in trouble. Indeed, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface.

terms? what terms?

This blog is all about experimenting. Experimenting with blog writing. Experimenting with teaching ideas. And experimenting with how best to organize my posts, both for the reader who is reading it (in theory, at least) and for me who is using it as a reflecting-on-my-research-tool. Sometimes experiments fail. Well, maybe fail is too harsh. Experiments go awry or have unanticipated effects; they don’t work quite right. Like my “terms” category. If memory serves me right (ah, Japanese Iron Chef how I miss you so), this was my description of the purpose/goal of this category:

TERMS: While writing in this blog, I may come across terms that need some clarification or explanation. Perhaps they are loaded (with theoretical baggage) terms. Perhaps they come off as too jargony and inaccessible. Perhaps they are rich with meaning and require some unpacking. For whatever reason, I will devote an entry to explaining/reflecting on a term that requires additional consideration and file it under this category. Right now I am experimenting with how best to engage with (and explain/reflect on) these terms.

Here are the entries (all 10 of them) that I have done so far. They aren’t working quite like I had planned. Everything started out okay. My first three entries follow my goal as it is outlined in the “about the categories” post. But, then I lost steam. In the abstract, offering a glossary of loaded terms seems great. I even have a to do list, which includes:

liminal
abject
virtue
queer/queering
performativity
agonism (versus antagonism)
excess
livable life
beside oneself
truth-telling

If you are thinking that this looks like A LOT of work, you are right. Maybe that’s why I haven’t done these posts yet. Would this be a good assignment for students in my queering theory course? Hmm…

Okay, here comes a mini brainstorming session. Now you can really see how my brain works. Is the idea of creating a glossary terms just more work than I can do or is there something inherently wrong or too difficult about the task? I have assigned students certain terms in past classes, but it hasn’t ever worked out very well. Part of the problem could be that I made the assignment too informal–it was an in-class, small group assignment. Also, I didn’t offer any models/examples of how to describe/engage with the term. Would it work better if I made this term assignment formal (as in, built into the syllabus and with detailed instructions) and if I provided more examples of how to do it? Should students do these terms independently or work in pairs/groups? Or, what if I picked out a term for each week, one that the readings touched on particularly well, and then have students focus their reading/thinking around that term? Then, I could have the students get together at the beginning of class and compare their ideas before we launch into our discussion? Any thoughts? I will report back on what I actually decide to do.

Okay, enough of that musing. Back to the terms as I have written them on this blog. Even though they don’t exactly fit with my intended goal, I do still think that my posts are useful (for me? yes. for you? who knows). I have written about several terms that describe a particular way of embodying the troublemaker: the rebel, the whisteblower, the bullshit detecter. I have also written about terms that engage with the ethical implications of trouble: queer hope, queer optimism, curiosity-as-care. Perhpas I shouldn’t judge the terms so soon–maybe I should assess them later, once I have spent more time writing in this blog?

Are troublemakers truth-tellers or bullshit detectors or both?

Whenever I listen to the song “Cavern” off of Phish’s album, A Picture of Nectar, I add the following line which seems so fitting to me that I am incredulous every time I realize that it is my own invention and not in the song (the lyrics in bold caps are mine):

In summing up, the moral seems
A little bit obscure…

Give the director a serpent deflector
a BULLSHIT detector, a ribbon reflector
a cushion convector, a pitcher of nectar
a virile dissector, a hormone collector

So, what does this little anecdote have to do with troublemaking and truth-telling? Not much except for being my way of (not so) cleverly introducing the topic of this entry: Harry G. Frankfurt’s pithy treatise On Bullshit. This book came out in 2005 and I got it for my birthday shortly thereafter. Every year I sit down to read it and then, in the midst of Frankfurt’s philoso-speak, my brain starts to melt, so I move onto something else. Well, today was the day–I finally finished the whole thing–all 67 extremely small pages of it! And, you know what? I liked it.

In addition to the fact that Frankfurt does a philosophical analysis of a *fun* term like bullshit, this book is great for a couple of reasons. First, Frankfurt’s main aim is to give serious critical and intellectual attention to a term (and a phenomenon) that pervades our lives–one might say we are often knee-deep in it–but that we don’t know much about. He writes:

We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit…(1-2).

Frankfurt’s description here reminds me of my own thinking about troublemaking. It is a term that gets bandied about all of the time, but we don’t spend enough time on what it exactly means or how it is actually done. Giving serious attention to troublemaking (much like Frankfurt’s serious attention to bullshit) is what I am aiming to do in this blog.

Second, one of Frankfurt’s key arguments in this book involves distinguishing lying from bullshitting. According to him, liars are aware of and pay attention to the truth, they just don’t want to tell it. In contrast, bullshitters, who seem to be far worse than liars who at least demonstrate some engagement with the truth, aren’t concerned with what is true or false. They are indifferent to all of it.

Bullshitting is not about deliberately eschewing truth and embracing falsity; it is about fakery (“For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony,” 47.) And it is about not CARING. Ah ha! A connection to my own thinking about taking care as being a form of staying in trouble (see here or here for more). Consider the following statements by Frankfurt:

For the bullshitter, however, all bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not CARE whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose (57).

So, the bullshitter is more concerned with his own self-interest than the truth…

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it all. By virtue of this, bullshit is the greater enemy of the truth than lies are (61).

The bullshitter doesn’t play by our rules and is therefore free to not follow them. Is it true? False? Who cares is her answer.

The greater enemy of truth (we will have to leave an exploration of what truth means for another entry) is bullshit not lying because not caring about the truth is far worse than merely distorting it in order to reject it. Frankfurt is arguing for the importance of caring about ideas/things by being attentive to them. Hmmm….that sounds like the goal of troublemaking: to care by giving serious attention and by critically engaging. So, does that mean that one of the important tasks of the troublemaker/troublestayer and of making trouble/staying in trouble is identifying and challenging bullshit? That’s right–the troublemaker is a BULLSHIT DETECTOR.

Now that doesn’t mean making trouble isn’t also about truth-telling. But, it indicates that troublemakers/troublestayers are more concerned with bullshit than lies. What is truth? What is a lie? How do we determine these and on what basis of “fact” do we authenticate ideas/stories/events? Much more to come on this topic…