Jason Blakely
@jasonwblakely
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Professor & political philosopher at Pepperdine University, California. Forthcoming book on Utopia with @yalepress More about me: https://t.co/6tbQwQGebq
Los Angeles
Joined August 2019
The backlash against wonkery and the reduction of politics to data isn't "anti-intellectual." It is the recovery of intellectualism against the wave of shallow, gamified casino-empiricism that has drowned our public discourse.
Weird round of mildly anti-intellectual backlash lately against center-left data nerd types from people who are less data-y and less centrist (all of which is totally fine) but are also objectively speaking huge dorks themselves.
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Casino-empiricism is a useful description.
The backlash against wonkery and the reduction of politics to data isn't "anti-intellectual." It is the recovery of intellectualism against the wave of shallow, gamified casino-empiricism that has drowned our public discourse.
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Gamified casino-empiricism… Now that’s a keeper!
The backlash against wonkery and the reduction of politics to data isn't "anti-intellectual." It is the recovery of intellectualism against the wave of shallow, gamified casino-empiricism that has drowned our public discourse.
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Not all mental activity (no matter how arduous) counts as "intellectual" much like not every kind of strenuous physical activity is the same as "sport"!
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Happy to run into two former students of mine at Boston College for the 23rd annual Prophetic Voices Lecture @boisi_center @BostonCollege The talk—"I have a theory, you have an ideology!"—was recorded by the organizers and will share when posted.
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Our 23rd Prophetic Voices Lecture featuring Dr. Jason Blakely has started in Stokes Hall S195.
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Happy to be back in the grand city of Boston—and at Boston College's Boisi Center—for the first time in *20 years* for this!
Join us next Thursday, October 23rd for our 23rd Annual Prophetic Voices Lecture featuring Dr. Jason Blakely (Pepperdine University). His talk, "I Have a Theory, But You Have an Ideology," will take place in Stokes Hall S195; 5:30-7pm. BC Bookstore will be there to sell copies.
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Join us next Thursday, October 23rd for our 23rd Annual Prophetic Voices Lecture featuring Dr. Jason Blakely (Pepperdine University). His talk, "I Have a Theory, But You Have an Ideology," will take place in Stokes Hall S195; 5:30-7pm. BC Bookstore will be there to sell copies.
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In Covid’s Wake is the best book to date on the politics of the Covid-19 pandemic. Check out my review in the latest issue of @commonwealmag
https://t.co/cWE3u4AEPe
commonwealmagazine.org
Too many political decisions during the pandemic were justified on supposedly scientific grounds when they should have been subject to democratic deliberation and debate.
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Are we humble and honest enough to draw the right lessons from the pandemic? @jasonwblakely: 'What the Experts Got Wrong' https://t.co/940NqYr82O
commonwealmagazine.org
Too many political decisions during the pandemic were justified on supposedly scientific grounds when they should have been subject to democratic deliberation and debate.
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Imagine a country in which the only major Left Party sits around waiting for Free Market Economics, Finance, and the Generals to do their politics for them. This is in fact the state of the "Left" in the U.S.A. and its capture by people whose private status is highest.
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It shows, moreover, how profoundly complacent (and even small-c "conservative") the American liberal movement has become. Before the Generals it was "the Economy" and "investors" who were supposedly going to lead the charge with norms of finance contra the "madness" of tariffs!
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If there's one lesson I wish elite liberals would draw at this moment it's that "norms" are not going to save anybody and looking for their last outpost is a losing proposition. No norm is coming to save us. We need concrete steps toward new creative action, bigger vision
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"The Generals are silent!" is part of an interminably long iteration that probably began in 2015 with the chimera that the GOP's "invisible primary" of Republican elites & its "norms" would never ever ever select such a candidate!
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I am old enough to see the supreme ideological irony in American upperclass liberals expecting the last institution to come save them to be the military. Almost an unrecognizable stance to the "spirit of the Sixties" for example!
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I am of the view that (alas!) it is a dark situation but no one is going to do our politics for us. Not the "institutions," not the "norms", not the professional bureaucracy, not the judiciary, not the newspaper article or scandal. And certainly not the "norms" of the cavalry
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People interpreting the *silence of the Generals* in the way they most wish, is another installment in the long & losing liberal politics of "the norms will save us!" It's sad to see US liberals prostrate themselves in front of yet another invented moral authority in this way.
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"Macedo & Lee deserve praise from both intellectuals & ordinary readers from all walks of life for having produced a study that testifies to two increasingly rare virtues: honesty and humility." An excellent review of "In Covid’s Wake" by @jasonwblakely: https://t.co/YmZ4jcHsPS
commonwealmagazine.org
Too many political decisions during the pandemic were justified on supposedly scientific grounds when they should have been subject to democratic deliberation and debate.
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Anecdotally, the average educated person's ability to truly see what they are capable of ajudicating from their vantage—particularly when it comes to determining a person's guilt—is greatly diminished even in shambles. In matters of justice most don't know what they don't know!
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