Ars Longa; Vita Brevis.
There is a phenomenon going on among American Christians today. I would like to say that it’s limited to people outside the tent of classical orthodoxy, but it isn’t. It’s the phenomenon of people who insist that you “read” authors with whom you have a major metaphysical disagreement before you can criticize their ideas.
Now, on its face, this seems so utterly and completely reasonable, doesn’t it. Why, who could criticize anyone without giving them a fair hearing? It sounds nuanced and thoughtful. People who use this rejoinder – and I almost exclusively see it being used by Liberals (political and theological…though these almost always go together as a package deal) against Conservatives. Lemme give ya a for-instance.
Luke: Yeah, I simply reject, out-of-hand, that the Scientific Method is inherently racist.
Fool: OMG, have you even READ Ibram X. Kindi?
Luke: No.
Fool: Then how dare you criticize him?! Hater…bigot…
Luke: Because claiming that the Scientific Method is inherently racist is laughable on its face and to deny objective reality is anathema to my metaphysical commitments to…you know…reality.
Fool: You can’t talk about this…you’re too uninformed.
Again, when we take this argument to its conclusion – which is always a good place to test it – then some imbecile could claim that I couldn’t disagree with Satanism if I didn’t read a book by Alistair Crowley. Ummmmmmmmm…no. Sometimes, in fact OFTEN, you CAN and SHOULD judge a book by its cover. Moreover, what these obnoxious pseudo-intellectuals fail to recognize is that there is such a thing as a SUMMARY. Or an ABSTRACT. These handy-dandy little fellas allow you to get a generalized view of someone’s argument so that you don’t have to read the whole thing. Which is convenient for those of us limited by time and space.
For instance. If someone wants to write a 1000-page tome about how people with penises can be women – I’m not going to read it. I’m just not. I don’t need to. You know why I don’t need to? Because people with penises are, BY DEFINITION, not women. In the same way that 2 and 2 don’t make 5, boys aren’t girls, not every minority is a “victim of systemic racism” not all white people are “crypto-racists riddled with white fragility”. These totalizing and absolutist statements are ridiculous on their faces. Ridiculous, from the Latin meaning “laughable”. These are absurd claims that deserve mockery, not serious scholarship and inquiry.
The whole mode of establishing the credentials necessary to enter into an argument by “reading your opponents” thing is a fundamentally bad-faith argument. It’s saying that being able to refute arguments isn’t enough – you have another standard. It’s not enough to simply demonstrate that “systemic racism” is an unfalsifiable metaphysical commitment that parodies the Christian notion of Original Sin, but does so without offering a solution. No. See, that would be what a thinking person would do. A thinking person who had anything worthwhile at all to do wouldn’t waste 5 minutes reading the garbage “literature” that comes from the Race-Hustlers and Woke-Totemists. They wouldn’t waste their time because they have other, more important things to do, and they recognize that reading this “literature” is entirely unnecessary to reject the tenets of the opposition position.
Here’s a fun question: If I can accurately summarize someone’s position and then refute it without committing logical fallacies or misrepresenting my opponent, then…why the hecky-doodles should I waste my time reading their work? But see, people who invoke the “Read it or shut up” mantra don’t think in terms of logic and reason – they think in terms of feelings and for them, browbeating fundy rubes like me by namedropping a bunch of malcontents is the closest they ever come to making a cogent argument.
Because here’s the dirty little secret – they haven’t read the usual suspects either! Gasp! And what’s more, the reason they insist you read the ever lengthening laundry list of the liturgy of the Left, the real reason, the reason they will never admit to you, or to themselves for that matter – it’s because they cannot defend their position. I’m not sure there’s a name for this fallacy, so I’ll coin one, just in case. I call it the Aut Legite! Aut Tace! fallacy: Read or Be Silent!
Actually, there’s already a name for this fallacy, it’s called the Appeal to Authority…it’s a sneakier version of it, and it kinda mixes in with Ad Hominem, but it is a naked appeal to authority.Here’s the deal. If I’ve rejected something…let’s say Critical Race Theory (which I have, publicly, and wrote at length about why) and someone says, Luke, “you’re wrong, because what you’re talking about isn’t Critical Race Theory today – you’re talkin’ about Crenshaw and she’s the past. You need to update your scholarship.” “OK”, I’d say. “Fair enough! Explain to me how the theory has changed. Explain to me the state of the discipline and show how I’m misrepresenting it.” Now if at that point I just get a summer reading list, well, no. I’m not reading it. Summarize the changes for me, and if I think they’re substantial and actually make a meaningful impact on the theory, I’ll definitely give it a looksie. But I’m not just going to read an ocean of material so that I can be up to date on the latest foolishness. I don’t need to be. And this is what a normal human being would expect.
If a Muslim were attacking Christianity and I said, “Hey man, what you’re talking about isn’t really Christianity” and he said, “OK, well how am I wrong?” and all I did was hand him a Bible, do you think he’d take me seriously as a theologian? No. He’d think – and I think we can all admit he’d think quite fairly – that I don’t have the intellectual wherewithal to actually refute his critiques but am just whinging and obfuscating.
When you step into the ring, nobody can contend in your stead – once you enter the lists it’s you and your opponent and you have to stand on your own two feet – or brain cells. You can’t just suckerpunch somebody before the bell and then tag your 800 friends to jump in. That’s not how argument and debate work – you have to actually address your opponent, not just move the goalposts.Because, let’s not pretend that insisting someone read whatever name you happen to drop isn’t moving the goalposts. No. Either debate or don’t. Fight or stay out of the ring.
This is frustrating. And it’s frustrating because it’s an illegitimate attempt to silence opposition, but it’s done in such a snide, arrogant, supercilious way, that it evokes nothing but contempt from me for those who invoke this imperative. It’s not a good-faith way of debating. It’s cowardly. It’s illogical. It’s unreasonable. It ends conversation and debate – it never opens it up. More than that – it means the death of expertise.What this means is that we can never rely on a critic or critique. And for pastors, this is a VERY dangerous game to play! Why? Because God calls us, and churches hire us to be critics for them. They expect us to know what ideas are unchristian and dangerous and they can and do rely on our opinions. And rightly so. It’s kinda utterly ridiculous to say that people shouldn’t: it’s your job you goon!
Oh, trust me, I understand the problems with hero-worship of pastors – but hero worship of pastors and pastors who are authoritarian is a LONG ways from a pastor who studies non-Christian theories so that he can warn his congregation. Sure, we can say that everyone in the congregation should do their own research – we can say it but we know that that’s a stupid and facile argument – theologically it’s like saying that the sheep should learn to fight off the wolves, themselves, otherwise they’ll overdepend on their shepherd. OK. Sure. Go invest some money in livestock and try out your plan: it doesn’t work in oviculture and it doesn’t work in ecclesiology.
You guys…do you not see that what you’re doing is undermining your own profession? – and for most people who engage in this kind of chicanery, I have no doubt that their clerical status is no more than a profession – do you not see that by undermining the ability to summarize complex arguments into forms that can be accepted or refuted based upon already existing objective knowledge or metaphysical commitments is EXACTLY WHAT PASTORS DO EVERY DAY!?
The stupidity is stupendous and stupefying. But here’s the real deal: when someone tries to end an argument by demanding that you read or have read so-and-so, stop treating them like a serious person worthy of being treated like an adult human. Treat them like the petulant child they behave like. Because this is not the kind of argument that a serious person raises. Because serious people understand that ars longa; vita brevis – art is long and life is short. They know that nobody has enough time to read everyone and everything. Being a grown-up means accepting that you can’t know everything about everything, but you CAN choose which worldviews you accept or reject and what components of those worldviews you accept or reject based upon intuition, logic, and coherence with your existing body of knowledge and metaphysical commitments.
The mythical Liberal Reader is a white whale, a unicorn, a chimera – it doesn’t exist. There is no one who could ever read every piece of literature out there – there’s too much. And in the minds of these fools, if you haven’t read everything then you can’t criticize. But doesn’t that sword cut both ways? if you haven’t read everything – can you agree? I would think that not reading everything would be a bigger hindrance to agreement than criticism since making a positive assertion requires more evidence and thoroughgoing knowledge than a negative assertion. Those who advocate CRT and Wokeism and Gender-Bending Child Genital Mutilation, they have to be right ALL THE TIME. I only have to show they’re wrong on one point.Why? Because worldviews are package deals. That’s why they’re called worldviews “weltanschauungen”. The come as a set of precepts, propositions, and metaphysical priors that rise or fall together – they have Gestalt and cohere – even if, like Wokeism in its various iterations they are incoherent!
So, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should insist that the Wokeists read every piece of literature imaginable on any topic I wish to try to invalidate their arguments. It’s certainly easier than thinking! So, maybe I do want to commit the aut legite! aut tace! fallacy. Maybe I too wish to enter the hunt for the mythical questing beast known as the Liberal Reader. Perhaps if I find Zim, Ze’ll give me a non-binary set of wishes. Maybe…but I’m not holding my breath.