Mongrelization, Ideologues, & Epistemic Credibility

Some meandering thoughts on the three subjects

I had the idea recently that reintroducing the term "mongrelization" into popular vocabulary may have the potential to do for racism what the words "chad" and "cuck" did for sexism. It would be apt to make a habit of always using the term in preference to its alternatives (e.g. admixture, mixing, miscegenation).

This got me thinking. I think it would be defensible to use language like this in technical writing. A friend/acquaintance of mine once remarked that the problem with ideologues isn't that they're too concerned with their values, but that they're insufficiently concerned with doing good scholarship. Ideologues can be perfectly trustworthy so long as they're upfront with their biases and take care to maintain methodological rigor.

In a similar vein, it strikes me that "mongrelization" carries exactly the same descriptive content as its alternatives, with the only difference being that it comes conveniently loaded with moral condemnation. As such, if the responsibility of an intellectual or researcher is to maintain accuracy and rigor, then it doesn't seem like opting for "mongrelization" would conflict with such a duty.

If two people report facts identically but offer different value judgements about them, I don't think it's appropriate to have one of them barred from polite discussion as an "ideologue" wholesale just because their value judgement is really, really unpopular. Unfortunately however, from a game-theoretic paradox of tolerance perspective, somebody who genuinely values their values may be well advised to agitate for the ostracization of those who hold competing values, regardless of whether this furthers the epistemic strength of a discussion.

Ostensibly, "scientists" are respected on the grounds of producing epistemically-rigorous research. If somebody can make a value judgement about some subject without compromising on this responsibility, then doing so shouldn't compromise their status as a researcher. On the other hand, if an ideologue fails this duty by agitating for the ostracization of a competing ideologue, then instead of being ostracized on the basis of being an ideologue, they can be ostracized on the basis of failing their duty to uphold epistemic rigor.

If we had to chose among ideologues then, who should be most trusted to honor this responsibility? Today, "racists" (i.e. people who take issue with their continental ancestry group being mongrelized into extinction) are regarded as less than human. At one time however, the values held by these people were the dominant ones in society. At some point then, this means that a switch was enabled by the people of this era holding tolerance for others who they viewed as agitating for their extinction. The fact that tolerance for mongrelization is now regarded is a barometer of "progress," and the fact that "racists" are now regarded with such disdain, proves that these "racists" of yesteryear were correct to regard these people as such. We can thus regard "racists" as having an immensely-credible track record of intellectual tolerance, seeing as these "racists" gave freedom of speech to people who they viewed as advocating their extinction.

I’m banned from twitter for three more days so I’m posting this here.