Alex Tarnava breaks down the taxonomy behind public intellectuals and why both sides miss something essential.
VG: It was Richard Rorty who stated something like, “The sign of a great philosopher is that they invent their own vocabulary.” I believe he was talking about Martin Heidegger in this passage, either explicitly or implicitly, since Heidegger was maybe the best at this vocabulary-building. Heidegger’s early work Being and Time is not written in German but in a Germanic language that came straight out of Heidegger’s head. This is how ideas burrow into your brain: when there is a constellation of them that all reinforce each other.
Neologisms, meaning new words and terms, and a new vocabulary arises from your work fairly organically, Alex. In StressHacked, you introduced a taxonomy of thinkers, where, along the X-axis, they are categorized as Callous Pragmatists or Delusional Empaths. You chose this distinction between these thinkers since idealist/realist, left/right, and humanist/anti-humanist all fell short.
In a reading from StressHacked, you bring up this distinction. Can you talk a little bit about how this taxonomy came about, and what it’s meant to teach us about intellectuals in the public space? What’s good about taxonomies, including this one I believe, is if they capture and can categorize all activities under its purview.
AT: I think this phenomenon (neologisms) occurs when there is an obvious constellation of individuals or items that fail to fall under a specific label. In this case, the label of Delusional Empaths and Callous Pragmatists fit perfectly for many of today’s public intellectuals. In reviewing their arguments I realized that all within each camp are all making an identical, and opposite when camps are compared, error in their world-building attempts. On both sides, their political ideas were both devoid of “something,” and that “something” aligned across the Delusional Empaths, even when their actual solutions didn’t, and the mirror to it likewise aligned under the Callous Pragmatists.
Of course, I merely mention this concept in StressHacked, alluding that my next work, The Stone Wall, will go much deeper.
VG: I recall early on in our professional relationship I recommended a book by one of these Callous Pragmatists, Hans-Herman Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed. Hoppe made his way into The Stone Wall which will be released soon. To be honest, I was somewhat surprised at the push-back you gave to this work. I do believe maybe it spurred a desire to implement this taxonomy, as what I think is novel or shocking about Hoppe’s work is how cold, analytical, or, if you will, callous it is. There are few works like this that make it into the public space in a way that is relatively popular or somewhat adjacent to academia; Democracy: The God That Failed is one of those works.
AT: It’s for precisely this reason that Hoppe’s ideas, for the most part, cannot ever have a chance of succeeding. He is missing a piece of humanity in his cold, logical assessment: empathy, which in many ways, is a leading star in what makes us human. Our innate empathy is irradicable. Any political theory that tries to suppress it will fail, just as those that have ignored other aspects innate in us.
VG: In this reading, you tell us we ought to learn from the Delusional Empaths: to understand their pain in order to integrate into our own thinking. I agree with this, though I do want you to make it explicit. In The Stone Wall, you deal with Delusional Empaths John Rawls (the hypocritical authoritarian), Peter Singer (the guy who muses about human-dolphin sexual relationships), and Michael Sandel (who is boring but there is nothing witty I can say about him). What are the lessons of these folks? What do we get out of them that will help us implement policies of social betterment, independent of the observation that feelings—strong, irrational ones—do exist?
AT: Concerning these three thinkers, the value I found was in the work in deconstructing why they would fail. It led me, I believe, closer to solutions and understanding in how we may eventually succeed. Their arguments were not new to me, but when coming from the “Horse’s mouth,” so to speak, I had to confront the totality of their arguments. Particularly with Rawls, I was forced to conduct an exegesis of his writing, to fill in the possible failure modes where he left items insufficient in detail, or perhaps purposefully opaque.
These three writers represent a large portion of humanity. We must understand what they appeal to; we must isolate their hypocrisy, in order to comprehend the manners in which they twist themselves to appease their own innate nature and desires; and we must understand why these exercises in mental gymnastics are excused, or perhaps not even noticed, by their supporters—even, often, by their enemies, when said enemies are also delusional empaths.
Critically, we must understand as we all exist somewhere on the spectrum between delusional empath and callous pragmatist. Even if fleeting, we will see ourselves, flickers of ourselves, in these writers on both sides. Critically, we will see it, that is to say ourselves, only when sufficiently open in mind, and determined to understand. By seeing ourselves, and seeing ourselves through opposite lenses, we can better learn to see and understand others.
VG: The word “exegesis” is interesting, since it comes out of the interpretation of religious texts but such an approach applies just as much to Rawls (and many other philosophers), since philosophers write in such an occulted way you have to “fill in the details,” as you mention, or try to ascertain what the thinker was really saying. When people read The Stone Wall, they don’t really have to do this. Or do they? What do you say to people not used to reading philosophical texts, who want to dip their toes in with The Stone Wall?
AT: To me, the manner in which certain philosophers, whether societal or existential, make their points shows intellectual dishonesty. If a position immediately requires exegesis in order to interpret vague, opaque positions, it demonstrates a fragile ego. The writer, incapable of admitting they do not have all the answers, confidently states they do—meaning, those who interpret it in certain ways can be immediately rebutted in a way that suggests the reader doesn’t understand. The objection is, almost always, sidestepped in a way that dismisses the criticism without resolving for clarity.
Alternatively, others utilize strategies like this in order to gatekeep their knowledge. This practice is, without a doubt, pretentious. It withholds debate from outsiders, insecure in the truth of the writing. Only those who speak the same lingo may comment, closing potential disagreement, refutation, and critically needed improvements, from a more diverse array of thinkers.
I don’t believe I have done this in The Stone Wall. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and as I write at points in that work, seek to start needed conversations. I rely on others to fill in gaps I’ve missed, whether constructively, or by destructively attacking what I have built in a manner that forces me to improve upon my design. This cannot be achieved when the writing is opaque.
All of the above said, my writing does speak of other thinkers and concepts which may not be accessible to the average reader. This is unavoidable with the subjects I am tackling. Critically, I hope that the style of my writing, and clarity of my thoughts, is if anything over-explained. I want as many readers as possible to tackle these concepts. Together, we can solve these issues. That is how we built society. That is how we will save society. None of us are capable of this task alone.
