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Academic Psychosis: ‘Epistemological Violence’ Ben Bartee
So this isn’t anything like a holistic autopsy of the institutionalized pursuit of knowledge, as that would fill volumes longer than the Bible. But “epistemological violence,” a concept I only recently became familiar with by name but have long seen as an implicitly understood north star of leftist academics, seems as good a place to start as any, as it strikes at the heart of the fundamental claim that the expression of disfavored truths is immoral or violent. In the storied decline of the West, the advent of “epistemological violence” as a concept — and all the self-loathing and censorship that it implies — is a significant plot point.
So, for example, under this framework, not just pointing out but even documenting at all migrant crime statistics in Western Europe, which are wildly out of proportion to their share of the overall population, would be “epistemological violence” and therefore verboten. In an insidious way, “epistemological violence” strikes even deeper at the heart of the right of free expression than the mere silencing of unsanctioned speech. Again, far from merely opining on the subjective social implications of the results of objective study, the labeling of the act of “epistemological violence” in the above example is carried out much earlier in the process of knowledge gathering and dissemination, at the stage of designing the metrics to be applied to measure migrant crime and then analyzing it to draw a conclusion. The aim is to snuff out in the crib any investigation that might produce results adverse to the desired narrative before it ever gets a chance to breathe. In this way, it’s next-level censorship — the “pre-crime” of censorship, if you will, to make the expression of unfashionable ideas impossible from the start by preventing the prerequisite questions from being posed. The concept of “epistemological violence” is a similar outgrowth of the progressive hive mind as a related peculiar concept I have covered before at Armageddon Prosecalled “malinformation,” or “bad information” — not to be confused with “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Unlike the latter two, “malinformation” refers to that which is true but which, by convoluted sophistry, will lead to some real or imagined harm in the world, usually with a protected minority class as the referent object. Moronic Social Justice™ inventions like “malinformation” and “epistemological violence” are total subversions, by the way, of the longstanding Western common law tradition that the truth is always a defense. Skeptics might call that subversion the feature rather than the bug. Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Substack. Also, keep tabs via Twitter. For hip Armageddon Prose t-shirts, hats, etc., peruse the merch store. Support always welcome via insta-tip jar. Subscribe to Armageddon ProseBy Ben Bartee · Launched 3 years ago unfiltered pro-human freedom journalism
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