"Brandon:" Stoner Logic in Academia

I think this is pretty much exactly right.

I tend to characterize the method in question as literary, quasi-poetic, free-associative...I don't have a single fixed description. But stoner logic is good--maybe better. Good as a description of bad reasoning is what I mean, of course.

I say this despite the fact that I've never been able to sustain enough interest in Foucault to make it very far in any of his books...so it would serve me right to be embarrassingly wrong about him...

But I know enough about academia and the intellectual and political left to know that it's a good description of them...and they sure do love him...

Two other very significant methodological commitments on the left:

[1] What we might call "debunking irrationalism"--the eagerness to "show" that all our important (and conservative) human commitments are irrational, stupid and bad.

[2] The pervasiveness of hidden (and irrational) motives. (This is close to "the hermeneutics of suspicion.")

2 is one of the reasons the left loves Freud--and it seems to me to some extent Marx. I don't know how much of 2 comes from Freud, and how much was there before him. But they looooove them some hidden motives. Hence their "master 'argument':"  that's racist. Which is not really an argument at all, of course. You see, you--if you're white--are a racist, no matter how your thoughts, words and actions may belie the charge. You are. Admit it, racist. Just like the (apocryphal?) Freudian analyst who tells you that of course you'd be sick if you wanted to sleep with your mother...but you're sick and a liar for denying that you do, the leftist...well, you can see where I'm going with this... It's not exactly a novel point...

   And, of course, this applies to all your thoughts and reasoning as well. You may think you think that you believe that speech should be free--or, for that matter, that dogs are mammals--because that's the way the preponderance of evidence points...but you really believe those things because...[insert any half-assed explanation you like here: something something capitalism, something something power, something something sex, something something patriarchy, something something racism, something something whatever...]

This because: such external undermining explanations purport to show that your beliefs aren't rational..which means [something something abracadabra hey look over there...] viva la revolution!

Remember: the point is never the point...the point is always the revolution...

   So 2 is a convenient route to 1: a hidden motive means that your arguments are all bad--they are all mere rationalizations (in the Freudian sense).

   Or, put Marx-wise: my beliefs are science; your beliefs are ideology...

   Such arguments, with even a modicum of philosophical sophistication on the part of the speaker, and sufficient credulity or eagerness to believe on the part of the hearer, can be used to play-debunk any proposition...and, of course, this method (such as it is) is applied only to the bad propositions...not the politically correct social justice propositions...

   But, anyway, overarching all of this is stoner logic--i.e. a free-associative, quasi-literary method that accepts any vaguely plausible suggestion that seems cool or exciting or otherwise welcome.

   Leftist reasoning (like so much human reasoning) is guided by conclusions: any argument will be accepted so long as it can be represented as leading to a politically correct conclusion. Men suck, white people suck, yay abortion!, hoist the rainbow flag, capitalism bad...whatever.