Difference Flashcards
Who is the text associated with difference
Jose Medina
What is the title of the text associated with Difference
Active ignorance, Epistemic Others, and Epistemic Friction
Name the ‘epistemic virtues’ of the privileged
access to information, access to educational institutions, capacity to disseminate knowledge and to common epistemic authority, having a credible voice.
What is an epistemic vice
a set of corrupted attitudes and dispositions that get in the way of knowledge. character flaw.
What is an epistemic virtue
a character trait that constitutes an epistemic advantage for the individual who possesses it and for those who interact with him/her.
What is the first epistemic vice of the “privileged elites” and what is it a result of?
As a result of having cognitive benefits due to the access to education and more importantly mastering cognitive authority when speaking and receive no resistance or challenges to their voice. They presume to “know everything” and therefore are more prone to “epistemic arrogance.”
What example does Medina use of the privileged elites having epistemic arrogance. (Historical example)
Alexis de Torqueville and the slave holders in the 1830s. This white southerner first habit he learns is to “rule without resistance.” The slaveholders have to be subservient to his voice.
Describe “epistemic arrogance.” What time of “knowing” is this due to.
Letting one’s perspective go unchecked results in oversights, biased stereotypes and distortions. This is because they presume to know all there is to know from one’s own racial and gender perspective (often without realising he has one.) insensitive to contrary viewpoints and perspectives.
cultivated by the privilege of being “assumed to know.”
What is the second epistemic vice that the “privileged elites” have?
Epistemic Laziness: there are entire domains that those in a position of privilege do not need to familiarise themselves with.
lack of effort and motivation to find out more about how racial or gender differences might have an impact on people’s experiences and standpoints.
carefully orchestrated and socially produced lack of curiosity.
What is laziness cultivated by…?
Cultivated by the privilege of not needing to know.
What is the example that Medina uses for laziness?
The not needing to know is shown in the domestic realm. Men who were powerful and wealthy would never bother to learn about the “housework, or “the care of children.” To change a nappy because they simply didn’t need to know as they would never have to change one.
This produces cognitive limitations in domestic aspects of daily life; certain things they cannot do.
What is another examples (not domesticity) that Medina uses to describe laziness
Another area put out of cognitive reach is the mechanisms of oppression that create marginalisation, social death - genocide. Although the machinery that punishes the oppressed is in the hands of the elite, not visible. In some cases when the machinery of oppression is particularly violent, it is made invisible to some members of elite because they are unable to handle it. Actually ignorant and surprised to hear about the oppression taking place which they benefit from.
What does “not needing to know create? (A lack of…and the actual vice)
lack of curiosity about those areas of life or those social domains that one has learned to not concern oneself with.
EPISTEMIC LAZINESS, damages one’s objectivity.
How does the ignorance differ with laziness and with closed mindedness
There is the luxury of not needing to know and the necessity of needing not to know. One is passive and one requires a huge amount of active ignorance to ignore.
Write the three Epistemic vices of privileged elites?
Laziness, Arrogance and Closed mindedness.
What is the third epistemic vice that the “privileged elites” have?
Epistemic “closed mindedness”
Is closed mindedness usually narrow?
usually involves the lack of openness to a huge range of experiences and viewpoints that can create trouble for your own perspective
What is closed mindedness cultivated by…?
cultivated by a defence mechanism of needing not know in order to preserve privilege
What is the example that Medina uses for closed mindedness? (The broad examples)
White supremacists who have deemed the voices and perspectives of members of other racist groups as unworthy of epistemic respect, not open to listen to them or learn as could result in their perspective changing. or the male who systematically undermines the authority of the women gives them no credibility to their perception, reasoning ect. by saying they’re hysterical, irrational.
How can systematic closed mindedness be more narrow and specific?
to a particular historical event such as genocide or particular experience such as date rape. an event like the systematic practices of torture during the Bush administration.
How is closed mindedness implicit yet explicit?
it is implicit attitudes and unconscious habits to ignore certain perspectives and experiences; defence mechanism to live with yourself. But explicit in actively managing oppression in regards to political and social policy; colour blindness and gender blindness.
What is the issue with saying “When I look at you, I do not see gender: I do not see a woman.” “When I look at you, I do not see colour: I do not see a black person.”
This is not an achievement, intention might be that you do not see stereotypes with people, but just by saying it does not mean prejudices go away. the complete refusal to see colour of gender in a racist or sexist society involves refusal to acknowledge that these prejudices exist and how they affect you. Not seeing the person for who they are, for what has made their identity.
Why is gender blindness and colour blindness usually only directed at the oppressed?
This is because ‘epistemic hiding’ needs to be directed at the oppressed so that the person who is making these claims can feel socially distanced from the racist and sexist ideologies and discrimination. Also if you don’t see prejudice than you also can not see the privilege that you experience as a result of being white, male, dominant.
The epistemic vices of arrogance, laziness and closed-mindedness greatly contribute to the production of a particular form of…
ignorance called active ignorance.
