a Lily without gilding

we live in a very dominance-based world that values hierarchy, and arguments are one of the socially accepted avenues to do that through. having the "right"/correct opinions is a form of social capital and status for people. they feel like it gives them authority, hence why online arguments seem to cling to other forms of hierarchy in order to try to establish a sense of authority for themselves (and thereby assert dominance above the other person they're arguing with). I don't think it's fair to say that they're completely disinterested in intellectual debate or education or learning (you can still have multiple motivations lol), but that's certainly not the main focus in a lot of these online discourses (or so it seems).

so I think people will engage with subject matters in a way that makes them feel self-important, or equips them with some sorta authority. academics are still somewhat respected, if for no other reason than accepting that a person who has done a shit ton of reading and learning about a subject probably knows it pretty well (though sometimes people will fight you on this, too). so there's an incentive to kinda....... cosplay doing that work, in order to bolster your own perceived credibility in your arguments. sometimes because people find it boosts their ego to think of themselves as an Intellectual™ (or at least feel like they are one) by engaging with more advanced topics and theories, and sometimes because they just want to exert control over people and that's an "easy" way to do so.

anyone can lie on the internet. the main people who can really tell if somebody's bullshitting tend to be actual academics themselves, and there are proportionally few in comparison to the amount of people online. and even then, we can still be dead wrong about it. a lot of people can lie very convincingly. the only thing I've found that seems to be more common amongst academics (at least around these here parts of the wild wild internet) is a type of general humility and tolerance for ambiguity/uncertainty (I think there is a humbling that happens in higher ed that not many people are subjected to otherwise lol, and I'm not even trying to romanticize that because it is incredibly lonely and isolating and you rarely have any true support for it or warning beforehand). and ofc that's not a guarantee. there are academics who are reactionary, insecure assholes, too. but yknow. broad overall trends. being forced to advocate for the good aspects of something you disagree with and admit what somebody gets right even if they're wrong in other regards.

so I think there are a lot of people online who do outright lie and claim to have read things that they haven't read (and there's a whole other discussion to be had about how reading it isn't enough by itself, you also need to be able to comprehend what you're reading, and even though they may have read it...). I had that kinda jolted into my awareness a while back when a bunch of people on twitter got mad at me for using the word "privilege" in a way that they disliked, and there were all of these thinkpieces people wrote in my mentions that made it very clear to me that they hadn't read much (if anything) on the concept of privilege, but especially not any of the major baby's first introduction to white privilege 101 type stuff. I don't think any of them had heard of Peggy McIntosh. because the way I used "privilege" was...a very established definition that's used pretty commonly in academic literature, but not necessarily common colloquial discussions. there's been a lot of literature on white privilege especially that talks about how a ton of white privilege isn't solely the additive benefits white people tend to be consciously aware of, but that it's upheld through a vast network of unearned advantages and entitlements that white people are largely unaware they benefit from at all. a ton of white privilege is not simply being given extra stuff, but instead some of it is being exempted from certain types of harm. it's the privilege of being unaware of the struggles other people deal with. there is a blindspot formed there where you are ignorant/blind to what you don't have to deal with.

but, a lot of people who don't engage with that type of literature, get a very different understanding of what the word "privilege" means. in popular culture, you call people privileged for the additive benefits. things you'd have flaunted in your face. things people feel superior about. things like wealth and material possessions and white supremacist rallies. flagrant displays of one's privilege. and you very rarely get exposed to the more nuanced ways privilege is used in basically any academic sphere (which is kinda ironic because that more subtle, unconscious bias etc. aspect seems to be the focal point of a lot of the ways academia discusses privilege; you really can't engage with... nearly any academic lit talking about privilege without at some point learning this definition, it's kinda inescapable honestly).

however, the eye-opening part for me was that a lot of these people who were yelling at me... were those who claimed to be very well-read people. especially when it came to feminism and social justice. especially when it came to the struggles of Black women and intersectionality.

but... they didn't know one of the most common definitions of privilege, as discussed by nearly any piece of literature written about white privilege ever. a definition so commonplace in academic literature that it's realistically only possible for you to somehow be ignorant of this definition... if you didn't actually read any academic literature on privilege at all. so it immediately exposed that these people are liars who likely haven't read any of the theory they claim to have read. that or their reading comprehension is so piss poor that they didn't absorb any of it despite it being spelled out for them. because it was never about intellectual honesty or education or learning or any of these things, it was that they wanted to prop up their supposed knowledge of all of these theories and discussions... as a way to bolster their credibility and shut down anyone who disagreed with them.

a caveat is that I think many of these people have engaged with social media posts about these topics, maybe even for years. and they seem to unironically believe that this is just as educationally productive as reading the texts those posts were based off of. even pre-AI-geddon, people seemed to think this way. I think there are some people who truthfully do believe that they are well-versed on these discourses because they have read a lot of online amateur discussions about it and watched videos about it for a couple of months to years. so not all of them are knowingly lying about having read xyz book or learned xyz theory (even though I think some of them still are knowingly lying and just think they can bullshit well enough that nobody can tell lol... which is why they tend to have an audience + friends filled with people who similarly haven't read any of it and know very little about it, so they can't sniff out that they're full of shit because they too are fairly ignorant on the topic at hand), it's just that they think they don't need to read it because they already know plenty about it from online debates and summaries. and tbh those are probably the most frustrating to deal with because they just do not grasp how big the gap in knowledge actually is.

I've also noticed that a lot of people coming into different topics from a non-academia place seem to really struggle with finding resources for adequate background knowledge, and don't really seem to know how to acquire those for themselves anyhow. so they'll end up finding something interesting and then getting a very one-sided study plan of several articles (typically of varying popularity in the field, some of which are widely refuted and known to be kinda bullshit... but that have a really sensationalized point of interest that plays on the reader's desire to feel like they've uncovered hidden knowledge) that don't actually introduce them to the field in any real way. they just kinda. go down one rabbit hole. and all they know is the rabbit hole. there's no foundation about basic concepts of the field of interest. they can't actually engage in the discourses properly because they don't know anything except for a shit ton about some very narrow focus point. and they become convinced that this means they know all about the field of interest.

I feel mean writing it out in this way, because some of this really isn't these people's fault. it also feels like I'm infantilizing people somewhat or seeing myself as above them somehow. but I don't think I'm better than anyone else; if anything, I recognize this stuff in part because I, too, was once a dumb teenager who thought they knew everything lmao. but on the other hand, there are a lot of reading guides and lists out there that these people have had plenty of access to, and you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. and some of them seem very very obstinate in their desire to remain ignorant (I think some of them are legitimately afraid of being proven wrong, so they avoid reading the actual literature because they don't want to risk the cognitive dissonance that might make them feel a need to change their beliefs).

and even still, they don't need to lie. they don't need to pretend that they've read a bunch of theory when they haven't. but that does mean being able to admit that maybe they don't know everything, and maybe they should listen to people who know more than them, and these types who seem to lie about it are doing it for the status punch of being able to use theory as some sort of thought termination machine to exert their opinions onto everyone else. it's just annoying because like. anyone who knows their shit, knows these people are full of shit and don't actually know what they're talking about. and not all of them have bad thoughts or ideas!! sometimes they bring up good points!! as is natural for any kind of theory based on people's lives and experiences!! you can still observe stuff!!! and write about that!! but oh my god they don't need to larp as an academic when they're not one. they've gotta have some humility, though, and they don't wanna do that. and, probably most obnoxious of all: they outnumber the real ones lol. so they can very easily crowd out actual discussions that are rooted in people who know the actual topic at hand. they can use mob mentality to tell themselves that they're correct, actually. which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle where they are never challenged to wonder if they should read the things they claim to read, because hey everyone is fooled into thinking they have, so clearly they're just that great of an Intellectual™ that they don't even need to read the real books in order to meaningfully contribute anything. and they get the extra brownie points of being a Good Ally to whatever groups they claim to have read all about! and since everyone else is lying, nobody will call anyone else out on their bullshit, because that could risk revealing their own bullshit.

TLDR; dunning kruger + lying = a lot of the online feminist (and political/social justice oriented) discourse nowadays. a self-made panopticon of incompetent people nodding their heads in agreement to things said by fellow duplicitous incompetent liars, always a little bit anxious.

I just wish they'd stop pretending and we could all move on from it tbh. I'm fine with having discussions with people who aren't academics! just like. have an ounce of humility!! aaaa