The Age of Unreason

Details: Published on Thursday, 11 October 2018 19:16; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1686 ... October 12, 2018
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The Age of Unreason:
The Knowledge-Practice Relation and its Political Significance

Raju Das

In many contemporary societies, there is a typical distrust of knowledge claims that are backed by reason and evidence. Correspondingly, there is a popular penchant for knowledge claims that have no basis in reason or evidence. It is as if post-modernism is being put into practice in popular circles.

Beginning with some empirical evidence from India concerning the existence of knowledge claims emanating from conservative forces that make no sense, and subjecting them to a critique on the basis of a series of counter-questions, I discuss the internal relation between knowledge (theoretical and empirical) and practice (political and epistemological). In part by building on Lenin and Plato, I argue for the... production of knowledge claims that are based in reason, and assert that valid knowledge must be practically adequate, and that it is in the interest of the majority. As unreason becomes more and more important relative to reason, fascistic tendencies get a chance to get stronger. There is a combined need to defend both reason and to defend the class interests of the masses as a part of the same process.

Many countries have not only been under neoliberalism; they have also been under the influence of right-wing, hyper-nationalist forces that display a large degree of resistance against reason. One might take India as an example, a country that is considered the largest democracy in the world.