The University of Richmond<\/p>\n
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The Epistemological Crisis in the United States<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Research Proposal Submitted to<\/p>\n Professor Daniel Hocutt<\/p>\n In Masters of Liberal Arts MLA 500<\/p>\n School of Professional and Continuing Studies<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n By<\/p>\n Kenneth (Kenny) Buchholz<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Richmond, Virginia<\/p>\n December, 2021<\/p>\n Contents<\/p>\n Introduction.. 4<\/a><\/p>\n Background. 5<\/a><\/p>\n Overview.. 5<\/a><\/p>\n Historical Context of Epistemology. 9<\/a><\/p>\n Linguistic Relativity. 12<\/a><\/p>\n Polarization.. 14<\/a><\/p>\n Digital E-Crisis. 15<\/a><\/p>\n Methodology and Methods. 16<\/a><\/p>\n Exploratory Interpretative Research.. 17<\/a><\/p>\n Distant and Thin.. 17<\/a><\/p>\n Analytic Autoethnography. 18<\/a><\/p>\n Introduction.. 18<\/a><\/p>\n Rationale and Execution.. 19<\/a><\/p>\n A Brief Word on Postmodernism.. 20<\/a><\/p>\n Contemporary Historical Analysis. 20<\/a><\/p>\n Selection Criteria. 21<\/a><\/p>\n Results and Discussion.. 23<\/a><\/p>\n Speculative Analysis. 23<\/a><\/p>\n Conclusion. 25<\/a><\/p>\n References. 26<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe feel bad for you that you can\u2019t see the truth,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI feel the same way about you,\u201d he replied.<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Following up on a campaign promise, President Trump announced in 2017 the intention of the United States to withdraw from The Paris Agreement.[2]<\/a>[3]<\/a>[4]<\/a> This accelerated an already growing divide in the country on the issue of Global Climate Change (GCC) between Democrats and Republicans.[5]<\/a> Leading into the 2020 US Presidential election, climate change was the most polarized partisan issue.[6]<\/a> The Paris Agreement seemed to take on the role of a proxy for this partisan divide as Democratic Presidential candidates pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement in light of President Trump\u2019s announcement to exit it. The November 19, 2019 United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Emissions Gap report exposed the artifice of the partisan disagreement on the Paris Accord.[7]<\/a> Despite GCC and the Paris Accord being a live and strongly divided political topic, barely any mention of the UNEP report appeared in US media. US media mentioned the report\u2019s finding of global temperature increasing 3.2C by 2100.[8]<\/a> These media reports did not mention, however, that with the Paris Agreement, the temperature increased 2.7C, resulting in catastrophic consequences, even with the implementation of the Paris Agreement.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n The November, 2019 UNEP report was a critical point for me. It was one more piece of evidence about the growing GCC crisis. Leading into the 2020 US Presidential election, it exposed the chasm between reality and acted perceptions. Opposition and advocacy for the Paris Agreement, a voluntary and unenforceable framework, was based, as demonstrated by the UNEP report, on a symbolic reorientation of the Paris Agreement into something it was not. Opposing sides were creating their own realities about an issue and acting from that position. This signaled to me the existence of a further crisis \u2013 The Epistemological Crisis.<\/p>\n What is a (The) Epistemological Crisis (E-crisis)?<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the fundamental question of this research. As such, it necessarily follows that it requires definitional clarification. The suggestion of a crisis is such that it moves it beyond a disagreement over any given specific issue or claim. A secondary analysis of any given claim is the construction or foundation of that claim which requires the analysis of knowledge formation. This level of analysis may reveal that the differences in the foundation of knowledge construction could be a (or the) source of conflict. The tertiary and quaternary levels of analysis is the assessment of the validity of the sources of knowledge formation. If all knowledge sources are subjective and contextual, then the very idea of the existence of knowledge is uncertain. Though widely mocked by many people in certain segments of the media and public, Kellyanne Conway\u2019s phrase \u201calternative facts\u201d illuminated a stark question about the very nature of knowledge and its societal implications. [10]<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018The epistemological crisis \u2026 which one?\u2019<\/em>[11]<\/a><\/p>\n The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) conveyed probably the bluntest warning yet in an IPCC report concerning the crisis facing the planet from GCC.[12]<\/a> However, the immediacy of the past two years of enduring the COVID-19 global pandemic is likely a more visceral experience for many people.<\/p>\n The masking policy in the US with relationship to COVID-19 has persisted throughout as an issue with strongly divided partisan characteristics which has resulted in deleterious societal consequences.[13]<\/a> The US masking issue is both illustrative of the E-crisis and demonstrative of the consequences. Anthony Fauci, a government official at both the NIH and White House Government Coronavirus Task Force who has played a leading role on US public policy on COVID throughout this past two years and spanning both Biden and Trump administrations, has played a central figure on the masking issue. Public support for Fauci has gone from relatively strong bipartisan sentiment in May, 2020 to strongly divided in the latter half of 2021.[14]<\/a>[15]<\/a> The confluence of Fauci and masking is demonstrative (though not essentially so) of the current manifestation of the E-crisis.<\/p>\n March 8, 2020 Fauci\u2019s public statement: \u201cNow people should not be, there is no reason to be walking around with a mask\u201d.[16]<\/a> Generally, the focus has been on the latter half rather than the first part of this statement. There is more ambiguity in the latter part than the first part of this statement. In a February 5, 2020 personal correspondence, Fauci was declarative: \u201cI do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.\u201d[17]<\/a> During this early stage of the pandemic, the guidance from one of the most public and authoritative US government experts, Fauci, was that the public not wear masks, and it was not until April 3, 2020 the CDC encouraged mask-wearing.[18]<\/a> Fauci said in July, 2020 that \u201cthe critical issue was to save the masks for the people who really needed them because it was felt there was a shortage of masks. Also, we didn\u2019t realize, at all, the extent of asymptomatic spread.\u201d[19]<\/a> Leaving aside the moral and material efficacy of deceiving the public, Fauci\u2019s post-hoc rationale to preserve masks seems belied by the personal correspondence in which he recommended the same. The very earliest published reports of COVID in January, 2020 included the presence of an asymptomatic infected child (10 years old) along with five other symptomatic family members (16.7% asymptomatic).[20]<\/a> Published accounts in Europe at the end of February were reporting infection resulting from asymptomatic contact.[21]<\/a> Both parts of Fauci\u2019s post-hoc rationalization appear to be unsupported by available evidence, and it is difficult to assess the exact impact of deceptive and contradictory (and contraindicated) official US Government masking guidance in the early months of the pandemic.<\/p>\n It is striking, however, that US public polling seems to indicate that advocates of masking policies also have positive views of Anthony Fauci despite evidence which seems to indicate Fauci\u2019s conflicting representation of masking in the early, critical, months of the pandemic. I do not believe that disambiguation of Anthony Fauci \/ masking policy or GCC \/ Paris Agreement would be central to solving either of these crises. However, it does seem that both dyads represent symbolism, and the positions on these is one of contradistinction rather than firm grounding in the substance of the positions themselves. This feature, essentially opposition qua opposition, makes the current E-crisis appear to be unique to a categorically similar so-called E-crisis. Is the current E-crisis unique and does it have meaningful societal impact?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018The Epistemological Crisis \u2026 has been with us since Aristotle.\u2019 <\/em>[22]<\/a><\/p>\n Any study of the E-crisis requires a grounding in the philosophical field of epistemology. Epistemology provides the necessary descriptive foundation for the E-crisis. It is an open and ancillary question of whether epistemology simply describes the E-crisis, or has played a role in exacerbating or even been the central cause of the E-crisis.[23]<\/a> The Greek philosophers provide us a good grounding in epistemology. The Meno dialogues concretize Socrates ideas on knowledge. It is not enough to simply possess a \u201ctrue opinion\u201d.\u00a0 Guessing correctly the number of marbles in a jar does not reflect knowledge regarding the number or nature of marbles. \u201cTrue opinion\u201d becomes enduring and knowledge when \u201cchained\u201d to experience.[24]<\/a> Spilling the marbles out of the jar, then counting them as you put them back reflects an experience that is bound to a \u201ctrue opinion\u201d. Knowledge endures because of the link to experience.<\/p>\n Plato\u2019s Allegory of the Cave extends this concept of knowledge. \u201cChained captives\u201d in Plato\u2019s Cave (of ignorance, in the Allegory) are shown nothing but \u201cpuppet\u201d shadow shows, mirroring the Meno dialogues of chaining experience to (in this case, the perception of) knowledge. Escaping the Cave and ascending the \u201croyal road out of the cave into the light \u2026 to the contemplation of the highest idea of being,\u201d the Allegory is largely about the transformative nature of education to elevate knowledge into meaning.[25]<\/a> The idea of chaining perceptual experience is also strongly echoed in the concept of \u201cparadigms\u201d described in 20th<\/sup> Century science philosopher Thomas Kuhn\u2019s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions<\/em>. Kuhn\u2019s scientific paradigms proscribe both what is real and how to investigate the real, but they also, like Plato\u2019s Cave, \u201coften suppresses fundamental novelties\u201d or new ways of thinking about and seeing the world.[26]<\/a> Kuhn\u2019s paradigm sets a conceptual framework that perceptual knowledge and the process of investigation are both chained to an established acceptable range commensurate with that paradigm. Existence within one paradigm is so proscribed that it is functionally an entirely separate world or epistemic bubble from another paradigm.<\/p>\n Seventeenth Century philosopher Rene Descartes frays the chains of Socrates\/Plato with the formalization of doubt and skepticism in Meditations of First Philosophy<\/em>. Senses which \u201csometimes misled us\u201d are our source of \u201ctruth and certainty\u201d, \u201cit is the best part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.\u201d [27]<\/a> Judgements (knowledge and meaning) resulting from potentially flawed sense information may be commensurately flawed. Descartes\u2019 skepticism set out a formalized and functional methodological skepticism for approaching knowledge and certainty through comprehensive self-reflection. An epistemic structure (bubble) is proportionate to the epistemological foundation.<\/p>\n Friedrich Nietzsche extended Descartes\u2019 methodological skepticism into an ideological skepticism upon Descartes\u2019 presuppositional (and famous) cogito ergo sum<\/em> (I think therefore I am), and there is no way to establish certainty that there is \u201cthinking\u201d and it is \u201cI\u201d that is doing that thinking.[28]<\/a> Nietzsche\u2019s skeptical nihilism leads to Baudrillard\u2019s conclusion that meaning itself is ephemeral and is therefore of no value.[29]<\/a> Baudrillard\u2019s and Nietzsche\u2019s nihilism exposes the potential end point of turning methodological skepticism into ideological skepticism and combining it with the pure contextual subjectivity of post-modernism. Nothing means anything and everything means nothing; we just exist.<\/p>\n Along with any idea of an E-crisis is the likely possibility of the presence of Sartre\u2019s Existential Crisis. Unlike the common or colloquial usage of the term \u2018bad faith\u2019, Sartre\u2019s bad faith self-deception is when negation of possibility applies to oneself. Bad faith is a firmly held faith which limits and constrains the individual into a self-imposed definition of who they are. Unchaining oneself from their current paradigm or epistemic bubble will move them into unknown territory. The Existential Crisis results when a person moves to escape the limits of bad faith only to find themselves \u201cparalyzed with nothingness.\u201d[30]<\/a> Dismantling the illusion that one cannot be or believe in anything but what and who they are in that instant may also result in believing in nothing, akin to the nihilism of Nietzsche and Baudrillard.<\/p>\n Ludwig Wittgenstein\u2019s language-games is one of the better analogous descriptors for the E-crisis. Words and language as mutable, \u201c[w]hen language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change.\u201d[31]<\/a> As people exist within separate epistemic bubbles (or Kuhn\u2019s paradigms or Wittgenstein\u2019s language-games), their worldview is held and expressed in ways that are incommensurate with people who inhabit other distinct language-games. This makes even the act of communication fraught with uncertainty even with people who ostensibly communicate in the same language if they are not, themselves, existing within the same language-game (epistemic bubble).<\/p>\n Linguistics are inherent (arguably self-definitional) to any communication. The translation of ideas into communication, though constrained by Wittgenstein\u2019s language-games, is particularly relevant to research which has epistemology as a central focus. It moves the process of pure theoretical philosophical navel-gazing into more concrete descriptive and application. Regardless of the exact interpretation or perspective, there is an undeniable interrelationship between epistemology and linguistics.<\/p>\n Language and \u2018human\u2019 are inextricably linked concepts for some philosophers (and linguists). According to Nietzsche, the human drive to form a metaphorical construct from sense data is translated into images then sounds. It is these sounds (language) which then form the basis of our beliefs, so that our beliefs don\u2019t reflect a natural reality, but a false and constructed metaphor. Language is an \u201caesthetic impulse to represent the external world,\u201d and in so doing, it compels humans into a false belief of reality (natural world).[32]<\/a><\/p>\n Edward Sapir does not dismiss these types of Nietzschean impulses, but for him, \u201c[l]anguage is primarily a cultural or social product.\u201d[33]<\/a> Linguistics integrates into and across all fields of study. It is language which forms the \u201creal world\u201d or \u201csocial reality\u201d so that \u201cworlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.\u201d[34]<\/a><\/p>\n A recent example and arguably related to my research proposal is the German word schadenfreude<\/em>, broadly described as the derivation of pleasure from misfortune. Online dictionary Merriam-Webster reported \u201clookups spiked 30,500% on October 2, 2020\u201d following the official announcement that President Trump had COVID-19.[35]<\/a> Recent research describes schadenfreude as multi-modal exhibiting four distinct functions or reasons for expression in social media \u2013 compensation, identification, aversion, and injustice.[36]<\/a> The interplay between the spike reported by Merriam-Webster may be related to the concept of \u201cemotional contagion\u201d \u2013 the spread of emotions through social media.[37]<\/a><\/p>\n One artifact of the E-crisis is the presence of political polarization in the United States. Superficially, this reflects the elementary level of the E-crisis \u2013 the presence of disagreement over specific claims. The growing partisan sorting has been correlated to authoritarian impulses which reflects more concern about cognitive style than issue preference or positions.[38]<\/a> This undermines the idea that polarization (and therefore the E-crisis) is simply a matter of a disagreement (or series of disagreements) on any specific issue or even an issue set. While I disagree with Hetherington and Weiler that authoritarianism is the causal variable leading polarization, I do think there is a correlation between, as a minimum, cognition and polarization and that authoritarianism may play a strong role in US political polarization, though my sense is that it is opposite from what they propose. Rather than authoritarianism leading polarization, the polarization is leading to authoritarian impulses.<\/p>\n Cross-country studies have shown that political polarization is strongly correlated to trust in government and income inequality, and mitigation of polarization is achieved through government investments and expenditures.[39]<\/a> Ironically enough, Marc Hetherington has recently acknowledged trust in the US government is linked to \u201cfederal involvement in social policy.\u201d[40]<\/a> The correlative between authoritarian impulses and fascism is revealed in the fostering of mistrust in the existing governmental structure which is a feature of Umberto Eco\u2019s Ur-Fascism in which he likened fascism as a game \u201cnot unlike Wittgenstein\u2019s notion of a game.\u201d[41]<\/a><\/p>\n Dissemination of information (production, consumption, and distribution) forms an (perhaps obvious) important role in epistemology. Most Americans obtain news and information through online sources which dominate by orders of magnitude other sources (television, radio, print) for US adults under fifty, including a plurality under thirty who rely on social media for information.[42]<\/a> There is a clear and demonstrable interplay between online and offline engagement.[43]<\/a> The blurring of online and offline self is a notable transformation over the past decade from what the online world had been described as a \u201cpotential space\u201d.[44]<\/a> That is not to say online epistemic bubbles are not different from offline, they are. The basic understanding of information flow in epistemological models has largely remained unchanged since the time of Descartes \u2013 sense information flowing from transmitter to receiver. Digital social media is a multi-nodal network which presents a more complex and potentially vulnerable epistemic environment.[45]<\/a> Recently, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed Facebook benefits from the \u201cspread [of] anger, hate, and disinformation\u201d which resulted in algorithms which amplified this type of engagement.[46]<\/a> While this type of antagonistic engagement could reasonably be considered characteristic of the E-crisis, it is more difficult to tell whether social media is leading, following, or a more complex mix of interplay of cause and effect. Though it is outside of the scope of this paper, the field of digital E-crisis is a live and active current field.[47]<\/a> As such, it is imperative to continue to track this field as supplementary to my research. I have no strong position on this field, though I presume the interplay is a complex mix. Social media would not be causing the antagonism without a preexisting priming of the society it is affecting.<\/p>\n Define the Epistemological Crisis in the United States and describe the societal effects.<\/strong><\/p>\n The two dyads I presented in the Introduction and Background Overview, GCC\/Paris and Fauci\/Masking, are not critically important examples to either the issues (GCC and the Pandemic) or the topic of this research (E-Crisis in the US). They are examples which attempt to demonstrate the societal effects. The E-crisis is not one of mere disagreement on any given issue or claim; in some instances, it seems difficult to tell whether there is a disagreement on a claim for any other sake than disagreement\u2019s sake. It is comprised of the four levels outlined in the Background Overview. The crisis nature of the E-crisis, aside from the criticality of the issues in my two examples (GCC and the pandemic), is the appearance of opposition which substance and background is arbitrarily and evanescently grounded. It is not just that there appears to be no common ground; there does not even appear a way to arrive at common ground. Even for low stakes, this condition would be more than just problematic.<\/p>\n The type of research proposed here is both investigative and limited exploration.[48]<\/a> Epistemology is rich with diverse multidisciplinary inquiries; the topic of the E-Crisis in the United States seems arbitrary and lacks clarity. Labelling the current state of the epistemological landscape of the US as an E-crisis limits the focus, accurately or not, to perceived problematic dialectical public (and often political) discourse.<\/p>\n This will be secondary research and will not utilize any primary research methods. It will likely employ quantitative data, but not include any directed method, to discover broad high heat trendlines, as in the example earlier of schadenfreude.<\/em> It will rely on qualitative ethnographic analysis to reveal, as in the case of Gibbons and Seitz, the \u201cmain insight\u201d obtained through qualitative analysis only after the quantitative methods (and data).[49]<\/a><\/p>\n Commensurate with the broad goals of exploratory-type research, Mueller posits \u201cdistant and thin treatments foster primary, if tentative and provisional, insight \u2026 vital glimpses of an interconnected disciplinary domain \u2026 that define and cohere widespread scholarly activity.\u201d[50]<\/a> My initial impulse was to apply the more traditional approach of thick description of an analogical model \u2013 a thorough analysis of something which seemed to demonstrate characteristics of the E-crisis. My problem with that approach is that revealing a phenomenon in an isolated example does little to reveal (or even suggest) a broad societal level feature. Extracting information across wide (and demonstrably representative) samples is a more useful analytic data set to assess societal level characteristics, analogous to Morretti\u2019s \u201cdevices, themes, tropes\u2014or genres and systems.\u201d[51]<\/a><\/p>\n After moving to Richmond, Virginia from Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 2003, I enrolled at the University of Richmond School of Professional and Continuing Studies Liberal Arts undergraduate program in 2016 at the age of fifty-two. The first course I took was \u2018Polarization and the Presidential Election\u2019, and the topic of my term paper was Vaccine Hesitancy. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, simultaneously labelled anti-vax and big pharma shill by the two \u201copposing\u201d sides after she expressed vaccines are valuable and care needs to be taken in setting vaccine policies and procedures. I did not include Stein in my paper. She was not important or remotely central to the topic apart from cynical political caricature, but she was a near perfect symbolic representation of the two \u2018opposing\u2019 sides. Seth Mnookin captured this, writing, \u201cthe instant accessibility of information has dramatically reshaped our relationship to the world of knowledge … has led to a world with increasingly porous boundaries between facts and beliefs.\u201d[52]<\/a><\/p>\n I have seen this pattern repeat over the past two decades living in the United States on issues big and small, culminating in this being a central feature over the past two years of the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n I am not simply a passive or minimally obtrusive observer, I am a member of the culture which I am researching with biases and perspectives, \u201cthe potential power of autoethnography to address unanswered questions and include the new and unique ideas of the researcher is inspiring to me.\u201d[53]<\/a> Autoethnography permits an alternative approach to a new kind of epistemology, at least with regard to traditional research techniques and methodologies. More formally, Leon Anderson has detailed a list of five key features necessary for analytic autoethnography: \u201c(1) complete member researcher (CMR) status, (2) analytic reflexivity, (3) narrative visibility of the researcher\u2019s self, (4) dialogue with informants beyond the self, and (5) commitment to theoretical analysis.\u201d[54]<\/a><\/p>\n My proposal includes the implementation of a publicly available and open WordPress based Website\/Blog hosted on the University of Richmond blog server. Rigorous and transparent adherence to posting my research materials along with my assessment and analysis of the material and maintaining open comments would satisfy Anderson\u2019s second through fourth features. The success or failure of this research will be demonstrated by the quality of the theoretical analysis to provide materially transformative understanding of the topic.<\/p>\n I understand the impulse to place autoethnography within a postmodern perspective, particularly as a new methodology challenging traditional approaches. As Carolyn Ellis wrote, \u201c[autoethnography] acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher\u2019s influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don\u2019t exist.\u201d[55]<\/a> I am firmly of the belief that all of these play a role even in the most objectively prescribed natural science research, and I embrace and value the \u201cradical honesty\u201d suggested by autoethnography.[56]<\/a> However, I see postmodernism susceptible to sliding into the nihilism of Nietzsche and Baudrillard, a position I am not comfortable with. Rather, I see the potential of autoethnography (particularly as described by Anderson) as aligning with Kant\u2019s public use of reason and necessity of establishing democratic epistemic canons, which is a position I embrace.<\/p>\n Influential crises have strong epistemological interconnections throughout the entirety of human history. My focus, as it reflects the current state, will be on the Anthropocene (mid-20th<\/sup> Century forward), an epoch \u201cshaped by human activity.\u201d[57]<\/a> Hinge or inflection points during this period would be ideal for populating a \u201cthin and distant\u201d data set, if they are also concomitant with some or all four levels of the E-crisis.<\/p>\n An early example concerning GCC is the 1965 President\u2019s Science committee publication of Restoring the Quality of Our Environment<\/em> which described the \u201cnational necessity\u201d of moving away from the burning of fossil fuels because of the risk of \u201cclimatic change.\u201d[58]<\/a> Days after the release of this report, the president of the American Petroleum Industry, Frank Ikard, delivered remarks to his industry regarding the \u201ccatastrophic consequences\u201d of GCC by 2000.[59]<\/a> Yet the contemporaneous Washington Post publication on this report merely mentioned that the government would \u201ccontinue to measure carbon dioxide over the next several decades\u201d and \u201cstimulate industry \u2026 for automobiles and trucks that will not produce noxious effects.\u201d[60]<\/a> This deep disconnect between what the media told the public and what government and industry knew have led to the very catastrophic consequences Ikard was warning about as GCC has become emblematic of the current E-crisis.<\/p>\n The ideograph will be the unit of analysis. While some may reasonably describe the ideograph as vaguely defined representing an ambiguous set of ideas, McGee presents \u201canalysis of ideographic usages in political rhetoric \u2026 reveals \u2026 \u201cstructures\u201d \u2026 which have the capacity both to control \u201cpower\u201d and to influence (if not determine) the shape and texture of each individual\u2019s \u201creality\u201d.\u201d[61]<\/a> Selection of historical ideographs would be characterized by meeting more than a single level of the E-crisis and demonstrate a link between \u201cpower\u201d and the shaping of epistemological \u201creality\u201d.<\/p>\n The events of September 11, 2001 may be such an example. One simple demonstration is the difference between President Bush\u2019s statements about \u2018they hate us for our freedoms\u2019, and on the other \u2018side\u2019 a comment by Ward Churchill alluding to \u2018chickens coming home to roost\u2019. Ideographs of justice, freedom, terrorism, and hate drove the political will and power to create decades long impressions to individual and cultural reality.<\/p>\n The selection criteria are subject to two complications. This, broadly, is an exploratory research topic and any predefined set would artificially restrict the scope of a topic which I contend is broad-ranging. I would also subject my bias into the establishment of a criteria set. Set criteria would, I suggest, result in an amplification of my bias, and artificially restricts the scope making the project narrower and more bias than broad unstructured criteria set. The best selection criteria I imagine is frequency \u2013 making sure that I post to the blog a minimum frequency (once per week) of material and initial analysis of items that resonate to me as relevant to this project.<\/p>\n \u2018years of analysis for a day of synthesis\u2019<\/em>[62]<\/a><\/p>\n The E-crisis is the focus of my MLA program at UR. I currently (and provisionally) scheduled one course per semester for the next four and a half years.<\/p>\n The proposed blog will serve as clearinghouse\/archive for this specific research proposal and my MLA coursework. The open-source nature of WordPress provides flexibility to adapt it to an autoethnographic methodology.[63]<\/a> The proposed interpretative approach will permit identification (tagging) and theme development (pages) within the site. The \u2018thin and distant\u2019 approach will generate a data set. Systematic analysis will lead to the emergence of identifiable core characteristics which will be indicative of a definable feature set of the E-crisis. Additionally, and significantly, autoethnography permits adaptation and revision of the project which can be tracked and evaluated for coherence. The cross and multi-disciplinary approach of my MLA program integrates with the proposition the E-crisis is a broad societal-level phenomenon rather than isolated and temporal. The blog will be the repository of material and analysis upon which I would write a synthesis report.<\/p>\n What is the E-crisis and describe its Societal Effects<\/strong><\/p>\n If a thing can be identified and it occurs frequently enough, it is reasonable to presume it has significance. The E-crisis may be an emergent phenomenon or an assemblage of phenomena which are homogenous or potentially heterogenous. The E-crisis may simply be a repeated signpost which reveals flaws of the underlying social structure akin to the same way that Cubitt\u2019s \u201cglitch reveals the pure indifference underpinning the logic of exchange on which it is founded.\u201d[64]<\/a> Alternatively, the E-crisis may be the street lights which illuminate the existing structure and insure that as the only viable path.<\/p>\n It is possible the E-crisis is only the appearance of a distinct phenomenon reflected by the kinds of epistemic bubbles central to related research in the digital social media field. The COVID pandemic pushed social discourse online which further amplified these digital epistemic bubbles while the distinction between online and offline behaviors and attitudes dissolved, therefore transposing the digital epistemic bubbles into real life epistemic bubbles. I do not believe this is the case, but accept it may be a possibility.<\/p>\n I believe the E-crisis signals, interacts, and manifests the cultural superstructure of the United States revealing and amplifying fundamental flaws. This is similar to Nietzsche\u2019s perspective (and arguably with an equally pessimistic outcome) on language – an instinctual impulse which imperfectly mimics the \u2018real\u2019 which then reinforces a flawed perception because it is forced through this flawed filter. The E-crisis is the crisis of the United States. Currently, and in the context of this proposal, I am reticent to offer a meaningful analysis of the foundational crisis of the US. I do not know whether relevant analogous models throughout history may apply, since I am under the impression the US in the Anthropocene is too unique to be able to establish effective analogous modelling.<\/p>\n I have excluded Narrative (Criticism) from this draft proposal despite my belief of its importance. Borrowing from Dan Richard\u2019s lecture material quoting David Ropeik, \u201cEmotions are the filters through which we see the facts.\u201d[65]<\/a> Because of the emotional power of narrative, it plays a critical role for both individual and social epistemology, and therefore its standing with respect to the E-crisis. My next class in the MLA program is Erik Nielsen\u2019s Voice of Hip Hop course, and this will, hopefully, provide an opportunity to further revise this research project to include Narrative. I have not included here references to issues with broad domestic consensus, but oppositional (and often antagonistic\/militaristic) positions with other countries. This \u2018internationalization\u2019 of the US E-crisis is worthy of consideration in subsequent revisions, particularly as it interacts with the internal domestic E-crisis.<\/p>\n Positivist, postmodern, or Kantian, this research topic will follow me through these next five years (in one form or another), and I hope the journey will be as valuable as the destination, if not more so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c? Trend Watch: \u2018Schadenfreude\u2019 – 10\/2\/2020 | Merriam-Webster.\u201d Accessed December 10, 2021. https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/news-trend-watch\/schadenfreude-20201002.<\/p>\n Pew Research Center. \u201c86% of Americans Get News Online from Smartphone, Computer or Tablet.\u201d Accessed December 10, 2021. https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2021\/01\/12\/more-than-eight-in-ten-americans-get-news-from-digital-devices\/.<\/p>\n MSN. \u201cAfter Thousands of Trump Supporters Rally in D.C., Violence Erupts When Night Falls.\u201d Accessed November 19, 2020. https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/us\/after-thousands-of-trump-supporters-rally-in-dc-violence-erupts-when-night-falls\/ar-BB1b0swK.<\/p>\n Anderson, Leon. \u201cAnalytic Autoethnography.\u201d Journal of Contemporary Ethnography<\/em> 35, no. 4 (2006): 373\u201395.<\/p>\n BuzzFeed News. \u201cAnthony Fauci\u2019s Emails Reveal The Pressure That Fell On One Man.\u201d Accessed December 9, 2021. https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/nataliebettendorf\/fauci-emails-covid-response.<\/p>\n Baudrillard, Jean, 1929-2007. 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President\u2019s Science Advisory Committee. Environmental Pollution Panel. \u201cRestoring the Quality of Our Environment: Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, President\u2019s Science Advisory Committee.\u201d Washington: The White House, 1965. http:\/\/richmond.summon.serialssolutions.com\/2.0.0\/.<\/p>\n Wall, Sarah. \u201cAn Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography.\u201d International Journal of Qualitative Methods<\/em> 5, no. 2 (2006): 146\u201360.<\/p>\n Washington Post. \u201cMajor Recommendations In Environment Report.\u201d The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973)<\/em>. 1965.<\/p>\n Whitty, Monica T. \u201cManipulation of Self in Cyberspace.\u201d In The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication<\/em>, 103\u201328. Routledge, 2009.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> \u201cAfter Thousands of Trump Supporters Rally in D.C., Violence Erupts When Night Falls,\u201d MSN, accessed November 19, 2020, https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/us\/after-thousands-of-trump-supporters-rally-in-dc-violence-erupts-when-night-falls\/ar-BB1b0swK.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> \u201cThe Paris Agreement | UNFCCC,\u201d accessed December 3, 2021, https:\/\/unfccc.int\/process-and-meetings\/the-paris-agreement\/the-paris-agreement.<\/p>\n<\/a>Introduction<\/h1>\n
<\/a>Background<\/h1>\n
<\/a>Overview<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Historical Context of Epistemology<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Linguistic Relativity<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Polarization<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Digital E-Crisis<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Methodology and Methods<\/h1>\n
<\/a>Exploratory Interpretative Research<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Distant and Thin<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Analytic Autoethnography<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Introduction<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Rationale and Execution<\/h3>\n
<\/a>A Brief Word on Postmodernism<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Contemporary Historical Analysis<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Selection Criteria<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Results and Discussion<\/h1>\n
<\/a>Speculative Analysis<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Conclusion<\/h2>\n
<\/a>References<\/h1>\n