Is Fire Hot?

The Insane Stupidity of Anti-Essentialism (Part 3)

(The following is the third instalment in a series of articles relating to the relationship between anarchism and postmodernism. Check out Part 1 - Is Snow Black? and Part 2 - Denying Objective Reality: a dangerous delusion.)

In my writing, I have often tried to challenge the underlying dogma of contemporary industrial civilization...

I have discovered that it is very difficult to do so within the restrictions imposed by the language of that civilization, which means too much time and energy has to be spent on justifying or deconstructing the meanings of words.

The way that the culture appropriates and redefines the symbols of our vocabulary to reflect its own ideological assumptions makes it difficult to pull clear of its gravitational field and express ideas which have no place within its dogma.

- Paul Cudenec

Truly, it does feel strange to write a critique of essentialism, as to do so basically amounts to arguing that words have meanings. If you are able to read this sentence and understand it, my point is already proven.

The truth is that much of what passes for anarchist discourse these days is hopelessly incoherent due to the influence of postmodernist ideas.

It is easy enough to understand why this is so - it is because both anarchism and postmodernism are critical of the very foundations of Western civilization and the institutions that reproduce it. The difference is that the anarchist critique stems from the desire to create a new world, where the postmodernists don´t seem to be guided by any particular guiding purpose.

It has therefore become necessary to separate anarchism and postmodernism, because the influence of the latter has rendered the former unintelligible.

If anarchism is to survive the ideological collapse of the Left, there is a need to return to first principles. There is a need to clarify anarchist theory. There is a need to go back to basics. What is anarchism all about? What is the essence of this idea? What can all anarchists agree on? What basis of unity do anarchists all have?

The first problem that we will encounter is that postmodernists are basically opposed to the idea that such a thing as ¨an essence¨ of an idea can exist. There can only be an infinite number of perspectives about what an idea means. Post-modernists come very close to denying the existence of objective reality itself. Now, if we were to accept this, it naturally follows that there is no such thing as truth. How convenient for the liars, lawyers, and politicians of the world!

Now, clearly, if we can´t even agree that reality is real, we don´t have much of a basis of unity. So it has become necessary to state the obvious - the truth is not a matter of opinion.

Now, truthfully, we all know from personal experience that there is such a thing as truth. If you have ever been falsely accused of something, you know what the truth is. If you have had ever had a compelling reason to know the truth of a particular matter, it is very likely that the truth was something very real to you, something that you felt in your gut as much as in your mind.

What there is something important at stake, the nature of Truth is not a question for philosophers in their Ivory Towers. It is a question of vital, practical importance for human beings in just about any sphere of activity.

To use an obvious example, let us consider military strategy. If the reports that one general were getting were true, whereas his enemy was receiving false information, who do you think would win? When we’re talking about real objects in the real world, the truth is easy to understand.

But as soon as we are talking about objects in the real world, we are talking about things that could potentially be claimed as property by some one. And as soon there is property, there is the possibility of theft, and as soon as there is theft, there are lies to justify it.

As I flesh out my argument more, you will see more and more where I am coming from, and where I am going with this, but let me state now that my main problem with postmodernism is that it serves state power by promoting political paralysis.

The relentless obsession with identifying and diagnosing previously unrecognized forms of oppression (i.e. microaggressions), serves an agenda of divide-and-conquer. The conclusion that many of us have now reached is that it is no coincidence that the pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook of wokeness has been so heavily promoted in academia for so long. Really, we´ve all been duped for years on end.

If our goal as anarchists is the creation of a pluralistic movement composed of people from many different backgrounds, we need to stop focusing on our differences and focus on what we have in common. We are all human beings, part of the Great Circle of Life, and we can choose to create a different type of reality if we so choose. If our rulers want to divide and conquer us, we should respond with a conscious effort to unify and ally ourselves with one another, on the basis of shared interest as well as altruism. This is what I can enlightened self-interest. We are happy and better off when the people around us are happy, healthy, and prosperous. Let us never forget that what we want is a more joyful world.

And I suppose this is really where my objection to postmodernism comes from: its ugliness.

Where is the joy in postmodernism? Where is the celebration of Beauty? Where is the Sense of Wonder? Where is the Marvel and the Awe before the Incomprehensible Grandeur of the Cosmos? Where is the appreciation of the irreducible rascality of the Universe? Where is the Wisdom, and where is the humility? Where is the understanding of the wisdom of the Fool - the knowledge that some things lay beyond the scope of the intellect? Where is the serenity that allows oneself to reconcile oneself to tragedy? Where is the rapture at the poetry of the Universe?

But I digress. Let´s get back to the subject at hand: the insane stupidity of anti-essentialism.

First off, what the hell am I even talking about? What is anti-essentialism?

Well, it´s opposition to essentialism, obviously. So what is essentialism? What is the essence of this idea?

Essentialism is the idea that there exists some detectible and objective core quality of particular groups of people that is inherent, eternal, and unalterable; groupings can be categorized according to these qualities of essence, which are based on such problematic criteria as gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, and class.

-Lawrence Jarach, Preliminary Theses for a Longer Discussion on Essentialism and the Problem of Identity Politics

Oof. That much stupidity in one sentence makes my brain hurt. Can you imagine spending good money to ¨learn¨ this kind of garbage?

Basically, the essence of anti-essentialism is that it is offensive that words have meanings. To speak of an ¨objective core quality¨ of a group of people is to profess that members that belong to that group are oppressed by the ¨social construct¨ of whatever group they belong to.

To suggest that there is anything French about French people, for instance, would be essentialist. According to anti-essentialism, any perceived quality of French-ness appearing to connect French people together is an illusion which says more about the perceiver than about French people. If a person of French heritage were for some reason raised by Kalahari bushmen, that person would retain no qualities of French-ness.

Okay, so that´s that the post-modernist definition of the word ¨essence¨, but I´ll also offer my own definition, based on how I think most people understand the word. I would define essence as: the defining quality of a thing, especially of an idea.

It´s worth noting that the word essentialism has historically been associated with classical Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato. According to his definition, essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. This is also sometimes called realism.

It seems to me that Plato's view, which held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form", is equivalent to saying that such things exist. If an object does not have a definable set of attributes, can it really be said to exist? If it we were to define it as being defined by a lack of attributes, even that would be an essence. The essence of that object-without-attributes would be attributelessness, which would be an attribute. It makes no sense. An object without attributes cannot be meaningfully spoken of. Perhaps say that such an object could theoretically exist, but that is all.

Personally, I don´t see anything oppressive about objects (or people), being categorized according to whether or not they possess certain qualities. I can´t imagine how language would work if words didn´t have set meanings.

Now, when I think about communication, I think that there are two parts - form and content. The content is the idea that you want to communicate. The form is the word choice and sentence structure that you use to convey that idea. In other words, the words themselves are not the meaning of the communication. The meaning is contained within the words.

Communication is relational. It presupposes (at least) two minds attempting to pass ideas between one another. There are two simultaneous processes at work - expression and interpretation. And there´s a lot that can wrong along the way. I like this quote:

Between what I think, what I want to say, what I believe I say, what I say, what you want to hear, what you believe to hear, what you hear, what you want to understand, what you think you understand, what you understand... They are ten possibilities that we might have some problem communicating. But let's try anyway...

If I have an idea that I want to communicate to you, then I first need to tailor my word choice to what I think that you will understand. I need to imagine how your mind works. I need to throw something that you can catch.

And so all language is based on both imagination, and the ¨will to relate¨, to borrow a term from Otto Gross. One must want to understand what someone is trying to tell them if the communication attempt is to be successful. And so language is inherently social. And words are the medium through which meaning is transmitted.

If I have something that I want to express to you, then I need to guess how you will interpret it. I will then choose words that will fit my meaning. If you are fluent in English, I will use English. If you speak Spanish, I will use Spanish words. If you speak only Japanese, I will attempt to communicate through gestures, because I don´t speak Japanese.

So, if one person expresses an idea and the other understands what they meant, then something has been passed from one mind to another. You could refer to this something by different names. One might call it meaning, or content, or essence. The words themselves are not important. Words are means to an end.

The end result of anti-essentialism is a bunch of taboos against thinking certain kinds of thoughts. It is to problematize words themselves, as if words had any inherent meaning. Basically, anti-essentialism is an assault on linguistic intelligibility.

In my opinion, it is important, when using language, to remember what it is that you are doing. One should know what one´s own desired outcome is and communicate with that purpose in mind. Ultimately, language is technology. Words have value when they have utility. The purpose of communication is to be understood.

We need to stop pretending that there is such thing as a correct thought. As William Shakespeare said, ¨there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.¨ There is no purpose in arguing over the definitions of words. We need to instead ask ourselves - what is it that we want to accomplish, and how might we best think about things in order to serve that end. The words should fit the meaning, and not the other way around.

And now, we arrive at a question which, I hope, will take this idea out of the realm of pure abstraction into something more useful.

The question is this: Is Fire Hot? Does the essence of fire include the quality of heat?

I give this example for a simple reason: because it would be so easy to prove that anyone arguing against this is wrong. One could simply offer them a flaming torch and challenge them to put their hand into the flame.

At that point, they must either concede that fire is hot or burn themselves.

And this, I think, is one thing that all people, even the most intellectually dishonest, should be able to agree upon. Fire is hot. Pain is real. Objective reality exists. Not everything is a matter of opinion.

There is indeed such as thing as truth.

And we all already knew that.