“America’s hidden philosophy”
“The core of it ran like this: members of the Communist Party have abandoned reason, the impartial search for truth, and merely parrot the Moscow line. They should not be allowed to teach, not because they are Marxists — that would indeed be censorship — but because they are incompetent…
Moreover, and conveniently, rationality was now a matter of following clear rules that went beyond individual disciplines. This meant that whether someone was ‘competent’ or not could be handed over to what Allen called members of ‘the tough, hard-headed world of affairs’ — in practice, administrators and trustees — rather than left to professors actually conversant with the suspect’s field…
The Cold War lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Cold War philosophy is still with us today. Thus, humanists long ago abandoned McCarthy-era attempts to subject their work to scientific method (as New Criticism was held to do). But in universities at large, intellectual respectability still tends to follow the sciences…
Cold War philosophy also influences US society through its ethics. Its main ethical implication is somewhat hidden, because Cold War philosophy inherits from rational choice theory a proclamation of ethical neutrality: a person’s preferences and goals are not subjected to moral evaluation. As far as rational choice theory is concerned, it doesn’t matter if I want to end world hunger, pass the bar, or buy myself a nice private jet; I make my choices the same way. Similarly for Cold War philosophy — but it also has an ethical imperative that concerns not ends but means. However laudable or nefarious my goals might be, I will be better able to achieve them if I have two things: wealth and power. We therefore derive an ‘ethical’ imperative: whatever else you want to do, increase your wealth and power!”
If you only have time for a 5 minute read, ctrl-f ‘disidentification’ and read from there.
This quote though — — “when rational choice theory becomes Cold War philosophy, it applies to everything, and everything about me becomes a matter of choice.”
