As an anthropologist, I can say that it is sadly unsurprising that this creep is an anthropology student. Anthropology has crawled very far up its own commitment to "making the strange familiar and the familiar strange". Anything that seems to invert normie values or perceptions is like catnip to anthropology in a way that has become simply shatteringly stupid.
They all think they are the heirs to Montaigne's essay "On Cannibalism" whilst producing an absolute ocean of "actually wearing hats on your head is a Western imperialist construct, before colonialism everyone wore hats on their bums" ludicrous bilge.
It's this sea in which "actually my ethnography of MYSELF rather than anyone else and my enthusiasm for child sexual abuse is the insightfulest and moast ethicalments" can happily burble and swim. it's beyond the emperor having no clothes -- it's a vocally fried uptalky insistence that actually? clothes? are an invented tradition? that never really? existed anywhere?
Aug 11, 2022·edited Aug 11, 2022Liked by Stuart Ritchie
This article sent me into a grisly Wikipedia rabbit hole chasing 'autoethnography' and other qualitative research methods of dubious effectiveness. Hard-hitting explorations about subjective experience and adventures in masturbation should be relegated to tumblr forums and airplane literature sections, miles away from 'scientific' journals!
I...I am going to defend the paper on masterbation. Kind of. Let's start with the obvious - the paper is stupid. I have zero clue what one can learn from this dudes jerk-off journal and honestly not nearly enough focus was placed on how voyeuristic and creepy it is to be reading this professional talk about cumming.
Part of what makes it so bad in my eyes is how interesting of an ethnographic topic Shota and Loli are! There's an amazing study here that just required some conversations - conversations that the author would have a much easier time arranging given that he himself is a Shotacon. This is a subject-area that is insanely stigmatized in virtually every country on Earth except for Japan. Why? What makes Japan different? Why are people Shota/Lolicons? Does it lead to real abuse? There's a million questions and literally everyone on Earth has something to share about it. And this paper didn't engage with the topic at all!
Frankly a piece ravaging CumBoy for being a Pedo can only happen because of how lazy the paper was. An actually interesting look into Shota/Lolicons would have actually addressed what makes it controversial and have SOME defense of it either by the author himself or via interviews with sex researchers, mental health providers, and Shota/Lolicons themselves. And it's a defense that's not even hard to make. This garbage research is just going to make the actually interesting work trying to understand this community harder, and that's the real loss.
"it has, after all, become a pastime on the right to mindlessly attack work in the Humanities and social science, as the very cringe “grievance studies” hoax from 2017-18 proved."
I know Helen Pluckrose slightly, via Twitter, and I don't think anyone could reasonably describe her as part of the right. She is in fact solidly LEFT-wing. She just doesn't have any patience with postmodernist rubbish.
"it has, after all, become a pastime on the right to mindlessly attack work in the Humanities and social science, as the very cringe “grievance studies” hoax from 2017-18 proved"
It seems that you are guilty in this quote of the exact thing you accuse the academic tweeters of in your article.
As far as I'm aware, none of the three authors of the hoax papers in the "Grievance Studies Affair" could be accurately described as being on "the right", and two of them would be pretty offended by the suggestion. It really takes some chutzpah to call something that took months of work and produced papers of a quality that could pass peer review "mindless", too.
Perhaps it wasn't your all-time favorite hoax, but its goal (ultimately met) was to highlight the very lack of rigor in the peer-review process that you elucidate here.
If anything, it seems that academic journals should be purposely seeding nonsense papers akin to those in the Grievance Studies Affair that contain ethical and other issues so that they have some sort of quality control on their own review processes. Even Walmart has mystery shoppers, for goodness sakes.
A pretty disappointing showing from the author of the excellent piece "Science is political - and that's a bad thing".
Great post Stuart! One thing I noticed that the journal of Qualitative Research needs to rethink as well is their new “Notes” format (which is what this paper is published as).
Per the QR website: “Notes is a new format for short, engaging, and imaginative submissions. It offers a more playful space for critical reflection on the craft of qualitative research. Authors are encouraged to experiment with styles of writing, and submissions can take the forms of stories, anecdotes, or lessons that impart original methodological insights.”
Did someone step on someone else's Respectability?
I think the problem that grievance studies affair uncovered is what's "cringe." I'm honestly stunned that you don't, and, instead, believe that stunt itself is "cringe."
In the very article where you're arguing, correctly, that academic tribalism should not take precedence over substance.
Wonder how to make sure that the responders actually read the piece attached (assuming there is one) before being allowed to respond to it on Twitter or anywhere where there is a discussion forum. We have an (imperfect but somewhat useful) precedent in the online privacy T&Cs of various service providers. At the minimum, you need to open the document. For extra points, you need to scroll to the end. There is no guarantee that one would have actually read the piece. But there is a higher chance of someone spotting key relevant words that may colour what they are about to respond.
I also wonder if the Conservative MP actually properly read the research himself. No way he would have left the word "boy" out of his tweet. And if he did read it, gobsmacked that that nuance has so limited relevance for him to leave it out.
You wrote a great piece overall, but please don't equate this garbage with 'qualitative research' more generally. Some of us use qualitative methods regularly and it looks nothing like this terrible article, thankfully.
Margaret Mead conducted her sexual ethnographies across the Pacific and Oceania in the 1940s, later to be joined by Gregory Bateson, precisely because she was a moral nihilist bent on undermining sexual morés. These are just several examples, but Mead as a celebrated hero of anthropology had her dark reasons for what she did.
As a retired social scientist of 35 years I can honestly say that I find the concept of "autoethnography" as simply...solipsism. Call it phenomenological, it's still solipsistic.
I agree this paper was a waste of money and didn't qualify as academic research. But I disagree the MP buried the lede. Because in fictional drawn pornographic material where no one was involved in the making apart from the illustrator, the subject matter really doesn't matter.
You ask if some people are really ready to defend pedophilia, as if it's an action or behavior, and not a condition people are born with through no choice of their own, and may never act on. Are you implying people should be shamed for traits they were born with? Or are you confused what the word pedophilia (a condition) actually means, and mistakenly think it equals child abuse (an action)?
And sure, it may be the case that the author did do bad things too - that depictions were involved that were not drawn, and if so that's highly immoral and should be dealt with accordingly.
But that's no reason to mix together a condition, a victim-less indulgence, and actual crimes as if it's all the same thing. (And no, pedophilia is not a crime for good reason since obviously you can't make it a crime for certain people to merely exist. It's child abuse that's a crime.)
Aren't papers like this a perfect example of the trend that the "very cringe" grievance studies hoax was intending to highlight - namely, the ease with which rubbish "studies" masquerading as science can get published in ostensibly serious academic journals?
Circling the wagons
As an anthropologist, I can say that it is sadly unsurprising that this creep is an anthropology student. Anthropology has crawled very far up its own commitment to "making the strange familiar and the familiar strange". Anything that seems to invert normie values or perceptions is like catnip to anthropology in a way that has become simply shatteringly stupid.
They all think they are the heirs to Montaigne's essay "On Cannibalism" whilst producing an absolute ocean of "actually wearing hats on your head is a Western imperialist construct, before colonialism everyone wore hats on their bums" ludicrous bilge.
It's this sea in which "actually my ethnography of MYSELF rather than anyone else and my enthusiasm for child sexual abuse is the insightfulest and moast ethicalments" can happily burble and swim. it's beyond the emperor having no clothes -- it's a vocally fried uptalky insistence that actually? clothes? are an invented tradition? that never really? existed anywhere?
This article sent me into a grisly Wikipedia rabbit hole chasing 'autoethnography' and other qualitative research methods of dubious effectiveness. Hard-hitting explorations about subjective experience and adventures in masturbation should be relegated to tumblr forums and airplane literature sections, miles away from 'scientific' journals!
I...I am going to defend the paper on masterbation. Kind of. Let's start with the obvious - the paper is stupid. I have zero clue what one can learn from this dudes jerk-off journal and honestly not nearly enough focus was placed on how voyeuristic and creepy it is to be reading this professional talk about cumming.
Part of what makes it so bad in my eyes is how interesting of an ethnographic topic Shota and Loli are! There's an amazing study here that just required some conversations - conversations that the author would have a much easier time arranging given that he himself is a Shotacon. This is a subject-area that is insanely stigmatized in virtually every country on Earth except for Japan. Why? What makes Japan different? Why are people Shota/Lolicons? Does it lead to real abuse? There's a million questions and literally everyone on Earth has something to share about it. And this paper didn't engage with the topic at all!
Frankly a piece ravaging CumBoy for being a Pedo can only happen because of how lazy the paper was. An actually interesting look into Shota/Lolicons would have actually addressed what makes it controversial and have SOME defense of it either by the author himself or via interviews with sex researchers, mental health providers, and Shota/Lolicons themselves. And it's a defense that's not even hard to make. This garbage research is just going to make the actually interesting work trying to understand this community harder, and that's the real loss.
Topping the list of Things-That-Make-You-Wish-You-Picked-A-Non-Humanities-Career.
"it has, after all, become a pastime on the right to mindlessly attack work in the Humanities and social science, as the very cringe “grievance studies” hoax from 2017-18 proved."
I know Helen Pluckrose slightly, via Twitter, and I don't think anyone could reasonably describe her as part of the right. She is in fact solidly LEFT-wing. She just doesn't have any patience with postmodernist rubbish.
"it has, after all, become a pastime on the right to mindlessly attack work in the Humanities and social science, as the very cringe “grievance studies” hoax from 2017-18 proved"
It seems that you are guilty in this quote of the exact thing you accuse the academic tweeters of in your article.
As far as I'm aware, none of the three authors of the hoax papers in the "Grievance Studies Affair" could be accurately described as being on "the right", and two of them would be pretty offended by the suggestion. It really takes some chutzpah to call something that took months of work and produced papers of a quality that could pass peer review "mindless", too.
Perhaps it wasn't your all-time favorite hoax, but its goal (ultimately met) was to highlight the very lack of rigor in the peer-review process that you elucidate here.
If anything, it seems that academic journals should be purposely seeding nonsense papers akin to those in the Grievance Studies Affair that contain ethical and other issues so that they have some sort of quality control on their own review processes. Even Walmart has mystery shoppers, for goodness sakes.
A pretty disappointing showing from the author of the excellent piece "Science is political - and that's a bad thing".
Great post Stuart! One thing I noticed that the journal of Qualitative Research needs to rethink as well is their new “Notes” format (which is what this paper is published as).
Per the QR website: “Notes is a new format for short, engaging, and imaginative submissions. It offers a more playful space for critical reflection on the craft of qualitative research. Authors are encouraged to experiment with styles of writing, and submissions can take the forms of stories, anecdotes, or lessons that impart original methodological insights.”
The grievance studies "hoax" is "cringe?"
Did someone step on someone else's Respectability?
I think the problem that grievance studies affair uncovered is what's "cringe." I'm honestly stunned that you don't, and, instead, believe that stunt itself is "cringe."
In the very article where you're arguing, correctly, that academic tribalism should not take precedence over substance.
It's confusing.
The "Ok Groomer..." portion of right-wing media will have fun milking this one and honestly, I can't blame them. This is crazy!
Wonder how to make sure that the responders actually read the piece attached (assuming there is one) before being allowed to respond to it on Twitter or anywhere where there is a discussion forum. We have an (imperfect but somewhat useful) precedent in the online privacy T&Cs of various service providers. At the minimum, you need to open the document. For extra points, you need to scroll to the end. There is no guarantee that one would have actually read the piece. But there is a higher chance of someone spotting key relevant words that may colour what they are about to respond.
I also wonder if the Conservative MP actually properly read the research himself. No way he would have left the word "boy" out of his tweet. And if he did read it, gobsmacked that that nuance has so limited relevance for him to leave it out.
You wrote a great piece overall, but please don't equate this garbage with 'qualitative research' more generally. Some of us use qualitative methods regularly and it looks nothing like this terrible article, thankfully.
There is historical context, of a sort, to this.
Margaret Mead conducted her sexual ethnographies across the Pacific and Oceania in the 1940s, later to be joined by Gregory Bateson, precisely because she was a moral nihilist bent on undermining sexual morés. These are just several examples, but Mead as a celebrated hero of anthropology had her dark reasons for what she did.
As a retired social scientist of 35 years I can honestly say that I find the concept of "autoethnography" as simply...solipsism. Call it phenomenological, it's still solipsistic.
This is not the first paper that has rationalised sexual deviance behind a cloak of right-on, cuddly "qualitative" research.
Someone once said too much of modern art is mere self expression. It seems that’s now leaked into academia.
I agree this paper was a waste of money and didn't qualify as academic research. But I disagree the MP buried the lede. Because in fictional drawn pornographic material where no one was involved in the making apart from the illustrator, the subject matter really doesn't matter.
You ask if some people are really ready to defend pedophilia, as if it's an action or behavior, and not a condition people are born with through no choice of their own, and may never act on. Are you implying people should be shamed for traits they were born with? Or are you confused what the word pedophilia (a condition) actually means, and mistakenly think it equals child abuse (an action)?
And sure, it may be the case that the author did do bad things too - that depictions were involved that were not drawn, and if so that's highly immoral and should be dealt with accordingly.
But that's no reason to mix together a condition, a victim-less indulgence, and actual crimes as if it's all the same thing. (And no, pedophilia is not a crime for good reason since obviously you can't make it a crime for certain people to merely exist. It's child abuse that's a crime.)
Aren't papers like this a perfect example of the trend that the "very cringe" grievance studies hoax was intending to highlight - namely, the ease with which rubbish "studies" masquerading as science can get published in ostensibly serious academic journals?