In Canada, the US and the Antipodes, English is the name of the language spoken by us Western settler colonialists. I accept that. So those opposed to Western settler colonialism should have no trouble accepting that the language they’re speaking is Woke-ish. Some words in Woke-ish share their meaning with what they would in English. But many do not. For example, their words ‘hate speech’ have nothing to do with hate. Neither does ‘ways of knowing’ have anything to do with knowing. Our mistake – where by ‘our’ I mean us Western settler colonialists – is supposing the Woke are speaking English. And their mistake is supposing we suppose they’re speaking English.

So, for example, when they say Black Lives Matter, we want to know to whom. But in Woke-ish that question makes no sense, and so it’s interpreted not as a question but as the assertion that Black lives don’t matter. When they say saying trans women should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports is hate speech, we can’t see how this isn’t just a straightforward non sequitur. But the principle of charity dictates that we just don’t understand what they mean by hate speech. And so on.

It used to be I’d try to get them to define their terms. Which sometimes they’re happy to do. But that proves unhelpful, because just as we define English words by other English words, they define Woke-ish words by other Woke-ish words.

Does this mean our two languages are incommensurable? That no translations are possible? Not at all. What it does mean, however, is that we could never know we had a translation right. We might think we do. But then, because a word just is the set of inferences that can be drawn from it, a few inferences down the line what we thought should follow doesn’t, and we’re back to where we started. So what’s all one can do? Walk away.

Something similar, if not identical, is all we can do when our interlocutor wants to cite the probative force of her Scripture. Or perhaps she’s unprepared to reconsider her metaphysical and moral commitments. If the foetus is a person, and if it’s always wrong to kill a person, then of course it’s wrong to have an abortion. But how would we convince her that the foetus is not a person, or that killing a person is not always wrong? So what can we do but walk away?

But what about when what the two of us can’t seem to share is a straightforward matter of fact? And not because we don’t both subscribe to the force of evidence, but because evidence alone is underdetermining. For example, if the Earth is flat, then the curvature of the horizon is an optical illusion. If someone celebrates his experience at residential school he’s a victim of false consciousness. So once again, where no evidence could settle the matter, are we to just walk away?

These are not abstract questions. They go to the core of the debates over global warming, vaccination safety, 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, the ‘truth’ about the Indian Residential School program, and a hundred other issues, some of which – not all, but some – matter more than a whit.

When I was younger I thought it was cowardly, or at least unseemly, to just walk away. But as I enter my dotage I find myself walking away more and more often. Is this because I’ve learned something? Or, as a function of my age, am I just getting impatient and lazy? These are the questions that used to keep me up at night. They don’t anymore. Have I learned something, or …?

Categories: Angst, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: 9/11, Black Lives Matter, global warming, hate speech, incommensurability, Kennedy assassination, settler colonialism, vaccination safety, ways of knowing, Woke-ism