This post will take a look at an article by Alison Bailey called “Tracking Privilege-Preserving Epistemic Pushback in Feminist and Critical Race Philosophy Class.” The authors’ main point was to identify epistemic pushback, provide examples of the tools of epistemic pushback, and share some of the associated problems. The context for the author’s views are taken from experiences she had as a teacher.

According to the author, the academic classroom is a place where there are unlevel fields of knowledge in which ignorance is produced. This position assumes that students are creators of knowledge rather than consumers of it. This ignorance that the author is writing about can take place when a student pushes back or disagrees with the opinion of another student. The pushback or disagreement can manifest in many different ways. One way in which it shows itself is when the concerns of a marginalized student relating to injustice are viewed as complaints. Pushing back in this way is dismissing the lived pain of another student. Within the scope of this paper, this type of pushback only seems to happen concerning social justice issues.

The pushback that was described in the previous paragraph has a technical name which is privilege-preserving epistemic pushback. Epistemic pushback is the willful use of ignorance by a dominant group to see the social injustices observed by marginalized groups. The author then provides technical examples of epistemic pushback including the use of critical thinking and shadow texts.

Tools of Pusback

Critical thinking is focused on the truthfulness or epistemic adequacy of an argument. In other words, it assesses the strength of an argument through the relevancy of the support and the development of an argument. The author considers the use of critical thinking as harmful to marginalized groups. The reason for this is that when epistemic pushback claims to use critical thinking it validates the pushback and has an unfair influence.

The author also compares and contrasts critical thinking with critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is focused on power dynamics and groups of people to seek justice and emancipation of those who are not in a position of power. Critical thinking in contrast is focused on the soundness of an argument. The author makes this point by stating that critical thinking cannot be used to dismantle a system that employs critical thinking with the analogy that you cannot use the tools of oppression to defeat oppression. Other ways have to be employed in order to challenge the views and opinions of others.

Shadow text is an attempt to share an idea or topic similar to the topic of the debate with the intention to change the course of the debate. The goal with shadow text is to move a person from their epistemic terrain (the topic they are debating and or where they are comfortable) to a weaker position. People struggle to see points of view that are different from theirs such as how men and women struggle to understand each other and people of various races struggle to understand each other. Moving someone from their epistemic terrain can bring a sense of discomfort for people. For example, white fragility is believed to take place when people who are white are faced with a position that challenges their worldview. However, anybody who has their own worldview challenged could potentially face a similar experience of discomfort as it is similar to cognitive dissonance.

Another concern the author has with shadow text is that it can block paths of knowledge. This can happen when people want to be convinced rather than accept the claims of people from marginalized groups as true. When people have to waste time developing arguments it distracts them from hearing the voices of the powerless

Problems with Epistemic Pushback

The author also mentions several additional drawbacks to epistemic pushback. Pushback is considered a type of manipulation called microinvalidation which are words and or actions that deny a person’s thoughts or feelings about their personal experience. Again asking for aspects related to critical thinking may be one form of microvalidation.

Epistemic violence is another problem with epistemic pushback. There are two types of epistemic violence in the paper and these are testimonial quieting and testimonial smoothing. Testimonial quieting is denying the credibility of a knower because they belong to a marginalized group which essentially silences them. For example, silencing the voice of a woman among a group of men because the person is a woman

Testimonial smoothing involves a speaker restricting their word choice out of fear that the audience may not accept or understand what they are trying to say. This self-censorship naturally weakens the individual’s ability to communicate. However, this form of self-censorship is common among the majority and marginalized.

Conclusion

Epistemic pushback is an important term to be aware of because it makes the case that tools commonly used in debating ideas are not acceptable within the context of social justice. Whether this is true or not is a matter for future debate. However, declaring time-honored tools such as critical thinking as being out of bounds within the debate of social justice is a brilliant move to protect the epistemic terrain of those who support progressive ideas within the context of social justice