In 1993, in response to an article by Richard Dawkins in the New Statesman (Dec 1992) I wrote this essay:
Quantum Non-Linearity: HOW TO KNOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW IT (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)
This essay was all about the unstable self-reference implicit in Dawkins' article. However, that Dawkins was unaware of this conceptual instability was actually his "salvation"; the instability is only likely to occur if one spots and ponders the conundrum: People like Dawkins who implicitly assume there is such a thing as an unambiguous truth accessible via observation and rationality immunize themselves against the ravages caused by the unstable conceptual swings of contradictory self-reference (Self affirming self-reference is also immune). However, there are those out there who are not so fortunate and start to lose their grasp on the concept of Truth and consequently lose touch with reality itself as unstable self-reference kicks in. The societal confusion that this can cause gives opportunity for self-assured demagogues to exploit the situation by becoming an anchor point in a troubled sea of existential crises; in the face of this confusion demagogues from both the left and right oversimplify the struggle with a polarized "us vs. them others" model. Today "them others" may be referred to by the right-wing as "The Woke". But in 1993 "woke" was not a vogue term and so I itemized the philosophies I was targeting, and they were...
THE NARROW CONFINES of extreme forms of reductionist materialism, dialectical materialism, existentialism, relativism and subjective idealism may be dogmatic about what can be....
(I'd also want to add any philosophy which portrays truth purely as a social construction and therefore relative to a particular society) These philosophies have an embedded unstable-self-reference which ultimately leads to self-contradiction and the thrashings of unstable conceptual feedback. The authoritarian far-right are exploiting the inherent social instabilities that these notions promote by becoming the great simplifiers of social reality as they lump everything they detest under the heading of "woke". In some quarters this counter-reaction has become so extreme that even someone like myself would be classified as "woke" simply because I don't side with the extremes of what I, in a tit-for-tat response, call "The Unwoke". These extremists are joining the great historical simplifiers and demagogues of the past; their simplification of issues is one feature which makes them popular. But the Old Testaments provides warnings about the kind of popularism which seeks autocratic champions to provide an anchor during those societal breakdowns where every person is a law unto themselves (Judges 21:25): This situation paves the way for the rule of charlatans who promise the earth but in return demand unconditional loyalty to their "highness". (See 1 Samuel 8:7-18). Adoring crowds are a magnet for the narcissistic.
What triggered this current post of mine was the following post by IDist William Dembski on the website Evolution News. This post by Dembski also mentions the unstable self-referencing tendency of what he calls Scientific Materialism, but I would call exclusive secularism:
How Scientific Materialism Begot Woke Ideology | Evolution News
Like Dembski I'm in the ironic position of siding with people like Richard Dawkins and Laurence Krauss, people who still firmly hold on to a belief in truth and rationality. So, 30 years after my essay I find Dembski mentioning something I wrote about in 1993. In fact, it was 20 years on from 1993 when Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga was also talking about the same subject.
Relevant Links:
Quantum Non-Linearity: Meaningless Conflict (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)
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