Reflections on the Heterodox Social Science Conference
A magical gathering--and a firehose of insight into wokeness, left wing authoritarianism, and the explanations of why it happened in universities
Last week, the University of Buckingham and the Centre for Heterodox Social Science (of which I am an affiliate honorary visiting professor), hosted what is among the greatest of conferences I have ever been to. I had immensely enjoyed psychology conferences more than a decade ago, before some ideological corruption creeped in, but even those come second to this one. Those old-school psychology conferences, though, did have a similar feel to this one: excitement, real knowledge, people to look up to, and ideas backed up by evidence. It was, in some respects, like going back in time to conferences before 2012, only even better.
Better because among the visitors were very caring people, some of which who have faced terrible efforts to cancel them in their transgressions against the taboos of wokeness (I use this word here as a shorthand for critical social justice as it has existed since 2017 or so). Others have not been cancelled, but have found the absurdities of the new woke culture of the elites quite painful to hear, and difficult to submit to without a great deal of cognitive dissonance. What all or most speakers and attendees have in common, is that we have all been hard-core trying to figure out how wokeness happened, and what to do about it.
As I listened to many presentations and speakers, it became clear that the differing views were very valuable. I have become convinced that knowledge is distributed across many people, and no one person knows enough to get it all correct. The value of every single speaker and attendee is essential to approximate what happened and what to do about it.
Vice Chancellor James Tooley gave an amusing opening talk where also he described the goals of the university as being freedom, courage, and truth. He described a vision for a freedom-ethic academia that becomes fun again. Indeed, academia was fun before the 2010s in some psychological science circles exactly the same way this conference felt like fun. The lack of cultic-ideology in late 2000s or early 2010s psychology conferences (e.g., the Association of Psychological Science, APS; Western Psychological Association, etc), did indeed feel inspiring, though this conference even exceeded those. The level of careful critical analysis of real data in some talks also reminded me of old APS conferences. Back to Tooley’s introductory talk, he truly talks about academic freedom like almost no other VC in the UK (with perhaps one exception). The American professor I was sitting next to, someone I consider a friend from afar, turned to me after Tooley’s speech and said, “wow this guy is great!” to which I replied “yes, I told you he was.”
I listened to Eric Kaufman’s interesting talk in which he proposes we need a post-progressive reaction to wokeness that critiques many of the left-biased assumptions that have pervaded academia since the early 1970s. The dominant paradigm in the social sciences has been so focused on core assumptions like that of disparities always should be seen to be caused by unfairness, but if these assumptions are challenged, whatever the truth is may actually improve understanding and thriving.
I enjoyed the talk by Gad Saad, and his argument that people’s sociocognitive systems have been parasitized was well argued and evidenced. The absurd woke examples he used are parsimoniously explained quite well by his idea pathogen explanation. As a sociocognitive psychologist, I might add that the untestable theories with fixed incorrect axioms at their base, is what often underlies cults and semi-cults. The unquestionable axioms of critical social justice, that are also incorrect, include the idea that disparities are always caused by discrimination, or that there are no objective binary sex categories, and so on. These moralistic axioms, when held almost religiously in the name of preventing harm, ironically may lead to more harm than a non-cultic approach. Gad Saad also got us all thinking about his resolutely-certain observation that academics have been cowardly. He is now sure of this. That gets one thinking.
Musa Al-Gharbi’s talk surprised me because I had not heard his framing before, and boy did it get me thinking about the claimed worth of academics, journalists, and other people he calls “symbolic capitalists.” If I understand this correctly, symbolic capitalists work with symbols (like words or data) in their work, and earn money from that work. This is different than people who provide other goods of services. Musa argued that symbolic capitalists from the beginnings of our professions have argued they add so much moral and intellectual value to society, that we deserve more resources than other workers. Boy, does that get an academic to think hard about whether we are helping society proportionately to our salary. Musa then went on to say that when there is an overproduction of symbolic capitalists, and competition rises between them, and the moral justification for them to have more resources than ordinary workers, what can result is an ever-higher emphasis on how ordinary workers are less deserving. This overproduced elite class is especially vulnerable to woke moral panics after economic decline or disease outbreaks. This is all provoking stuff, and apologies to Musa if I have interpreted this incorrectly. The haunting thoughts I had coming out of Musa’s talk is to what degree are academics falsely claiming to be of great value to society, in the attempt to justify higher salaries than the average worker. That is truly shocking to think about, especially if universities continue to pander to low standards, indoctrinate students into iatrogenic theories (such as critical social justice), and fail to help society by providing the traditional role of producing people who can independently critically think.
Steven Pinker’s talk was the one that captures my approximate position most closely. Pinker first listed what we might be against, such as authoritarianism, but then argued that we have to be for something, and clear about what we are for. He argued that we should have a positive vision for academic freedom in the sciences and humanities, Enlightenment values, a pursuit of truth, the gain of useful knowledge that may help society, and so on. I think this talk, and the emphasis on what good the Enlightenment project appears to have caused, is a great answer to the question raised by Musa’s talk I mentioned above. I think there is good evidence that academia has benefited society immensely when it stuck to the values Pinker outlines. The way I see it, if we do not work hard to educate a deep knowledge and nurture critical thinking, if we do not discover useful truths about the world, then I am not sure we should be using up tax-payer money. Indoctrinating students into critical social justice does not deserve tax-payer money. So that outlines the moral pain I am in until the universities get back on track with real learning, real exams that bypass cheating with AI, and only real research (hypothesis testing falsifiable quantitative research; or the equivalent questioning empirical approach in the humanities).
Richard McNally’s discussion of the claim that clinical psychology is racist and white supremacist was a response to an absurd peer reviewed paper that made that argument. McNally found no evidence that such white supremacy exists in clinical psychology, and proceeded to refer to the brilliant work of academics who give more plausible explanations of the state of affairs. If anything, clinical psychology has a strong left wing and anti-racist focus that can be excessive in the other political direction. What impressed me about McNally is his kindly temperament and deep concern about real harm, which is almost like a magical power when discussing controversial topics. After talking to him over the course of the weekend, the combination of a brilliant depth of knowledge and an engaging kindness it strikes me as fair that his career is as stellar as it is.
Picture shown above: Lawrence Patihis, Richard McNally, and Sally Satel
Sally Satel, from the American Enterprise Institute, and a psychiatrist who has a great track record of independently critically examining harm in her own profession, gave a great talk. She discussed the contamination of psychotherapy with ideology, and uncovered some real evidence of psychotherapists who explicitly planned to use the therapeutic process to convert their patients to see oppression everywhere, and become activists.
Reflections and Conclusions
The conference was fun like old-school psychology conferences used to be fun before left-wing authoritarians started insisting woke nonsense get added into professional organizations. The conference also signalled for me a move away from ideology and a step back to using scientific means to answer psychological and sociological puzzles (in this case in this conference, many were trying to understand and document wokeness, and to great effect). I certainly understand the world of woke ideology incrementally better after the conference, compared to before.
An insight that also came to me as I talked to the very friendly and kind people, is that this group of heterodox thinkers and academics actually are able to identify real harm more accurately than the woke mob. On the liberal moral dimension of harm and care, heterodox folks actually have a strong argument that they are better on that ethic. Similarly on equality—the steadfast commitment to no advantage by immutable characteristics among heterodox folks demonstrates they have a great argument that they are better on the equality liberal moral dimension as well.
And finally, my own contribution to these ideas might be this—I’d like to persuade heterodox researchers and thinkers to use a falsifiable theorizing approach, and to actively seek disconfirming evidence to speedily find out what theories best explain wokeness. To do this, I’d like thinkers to actively think about problems in their own theory, and to also gather data that could risk refuting or modifying one’s theory. If that happens, the unwoke social science movement will do great good and stay grounded to reality (evidence). I am encouraging more of an empirical approach, and quite precise theory that makes falsifiable predictions.