Lance Armstrong and
Diederik Stapel: Laying Waste to Postmodernism (Trouw,
The Netherlands)
"In recent
decades, postmodernism has instilled in us that there is no such thing as
truth. The concept is thought to be a remnant of the Enlightenment. So
logically, it is difficult to accuse someone of lying, deceit or fraudulent behavior.
If a concept has lost its right to exist, it is no longer possible to violate
it. Without truth, there are no lies."
Bill Clinton, Diederik Stapel, Lance
Armstrong. They have all deceived us. But how much of a right do we really have
to feel cheated when postmodernism
has taught is that truth doesn't exist?
Tonight reportedly, we are to hear a confession and likely
an apology from Lance Armstrong. Perhaps with this gesture he will somewhat reduce
public anger about his drug abuse. But can anyone be startled at the eruption
of such popular anger, since it became likely that thanks to doping, the cyclist
managed to cycle to seven Tour victories?
Without truth, there
are no lies
So how much right does the public have to feel itself cheated?
In recent decades, postmodernism has instilled in us that there is no such
thing as truth. The concept is thought to be a remnant of the Enlightenment. So
logically, it is difficult to accuse someone of lying, deceit or fraudulent behavior.
If a concept has lost its right to exist, it is no longer possible to violate
it. Without truth, there are no lies.
Against this backdrop, we might expect a certain degree of resignation
or even indifference about the Armstrong affair. Instead, it has brought a
storm of indignation that remains undiminished. The same happened with other
notorious liars, like former President Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky affair, and
of course, Diederik
Stapel. When it recently became clear that the professor of social
psychology manipulated datasets to prove his research, the public, both within and
without the scientific community, was anything but indifferent.
Infamous social psychologist Diederik Stapel: According to New
Scientist
magazine, Stapel is behind one of the biggest cases of
scientific fraud on record, having admitted to fabricating data in
dozens of studies. He was responsible for a succession of eye-
catching studies on topics like stereotyping and discrimination,
the effectiveness of advertising, and the circumstances in which
people may perversely prefer negative feedback to praise.
In practice then, the thesis that truth is non-existent is less
satisfactory than the success of Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty
would suggest. When it comes to the academic curricula, there is no shortage of influence for these leaders of postmodernism. Today it is popular to
say, that everyone has their own "truth" - in quotes. Yet it seems
that postmodern concepts are poorly equipped to interpret the shock resulting
from deceptions like those of Armstrong and Stapel.
"As for the entitlements to deference and to respect
that we ordinarily asign to facts and to truth, the postmodernist
view is that in the end, the assignment of those entitlements is just up for
grabs," writes Princeton University Philosophy Professor Emeritus Harry Frankfurt in On Truth (2006). "It is simply a
matter, they insist, of how you look at things."
In his book, Frankfurt stands up for truth. He considers
the concept invaluable. "It is beyond any doubt, no matter what the postmodernists
or anyone else may say, for example engineers and architects, have to strive - and
sometimes they succeed - toward pure objectivity." The latter cannot
afford to play fast and loose with the truth. If their math is to be no longer
correct, the risk is enormous. In the worst case this would result in
collapsing houses and bridges.
Material damage
Armstrong, too, has caused major damage due to his careless
handling of the truth. His sponsors have lost millions, and so has the
anti-cancer foundation Livestrong, which will have to
pull out all the stops to prevent a loss of income. Stapel can be accused of
the same. With his made-up results, he wasted large sums of public money -
money which other scientists could have used for research based on truth.
It is therefore logical that the Tour Down Under wants
to reclaim the millions of dollars it paid Armstrong for his participation in
2009, 2010 and 2011. Equally understandable is that the Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research is investigating whether it can
reclaim the more than €2
million that Stapel received for various research projects between 1994 and
2011.
The general public, however, has suffered no apparent damage
at the hands of Armstrong or Stapel. It cannot in any case be expressed in euros. Yet we all feel cheated.
A form of treason
The reason such fierce emotions are triggered, even among
people who have no direct interest, is explained by Frankfurt in his book. The
liar has committed a form of treason. He tries to sell a fiction as truth. "Insofar
as he succeeds in this, we acquire a view of the world that has its source in
his imagination rather than being directly and reliably grounded in the relevant
facts. The world we live in, insofar as our understanding of it is fashioned by
the lie, is an imaginary world."
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
Once we find out, it is at least sobering, and at worst,
downright offensive. The unmasking of the liar also means a little bit of
unmasking of ourselves. Apparently, we have been too naïve, and this is painful
to acknowledge.
This betrayal of reality and its associated hangover when it
comes to light, can be difficult for post-modernism to explain. This philosophical
movement has many representatives, but without exception they advocate scrapping
the classical notion of truth. Only a multiplicity of perspectives would exist
- as many as there are people. One perspective cannot claim a higher
truthfulness than the other.
As long as you get
away with it
Illustrative is the definition of American philosopher
Richard Rorty. His main work, Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature (1979) is a long reckoning with 2,500 years of
epistemology. It would be impossible to take notice of reality. Truth,
according to a famous definition of Rorty is: "What
your peers will let you get away with."
Over the past decade, both Armstrong and Stapel have more
than met this requirement. Both have gotten away with their deceptions for
years. Only postmodernism struggles with exposing it as such. That the cases of
the cycling champion and the star professor created their own truths hardly
worries members of this philosophical movement. According to postmodernism, we
all do it. It knew all along that what passes for truth is only a construct
created by us.
How convincing is this approach? In each case, postmodernism
evaporates any reason for us to feel cheated. That would require, according to
Frankfurt, that we stick to the truth - without quotes. "The relevant
facts are what they are, no matter what we think and whatever we wish them to
be."
Armstrong and Stapel have now collided hard with the facts. The
title Stapel gave his recent autobiography is significant in this context: Derailment. Ultimately, the facts prove intractable.
They wouldn't be pushed aside only to be replaced by fabrications. That is the
hard lesson that postmodernism must learn from the cases of Armstrong and
Stapel.
Is it "anything goes," as the slogan of postmodernism
goes? That reflects a rather gratuitous dealing with reality. Or as Frankfurt
puts it: "We cannot change the facts, just as we cannot influence the
truth about the facts, solely by judging or wishing."
