Ypsilanti-born journalist Joseph Sobran, who received his B.A. in English from Eastern Michigan University, went on to become a specialist in Shakespearean studies. In 1997, Sobran wrote his best-known work “Alias Shakespeare” in which he argued that the man known as Shakespeare was not the actual Shakespeare. Of the just-passed Sir John Gielgud, Shakespearian actor extraordinaire, Sobran wrote: “In their later years, Gielgud and Laurence Olivier reached the conclusion that the real author of Shakespeare's plays was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford - a view shared by Sir Derek Jacobi, now the finest surviving Shakespearean actor.”
But controversy laced Sobran's otherwise brilliant career. In 1993, amid accusations of anti-Semitism, Sobran was fired from the conservative magazine “National Review,” bringing a career that had began in 1972 to a tumultuous end.
On Sept. 30 2010, Joseph Sobran died of complications of diabetes. He was 64 years old. On Oct. 3, Jeet Heer, a Toronto-based journalist who received his M.A. in History in 1996 and has been working on his doctorate ever since, wrote what could have been a decent criticism and a respectful obituary but ended up being a torrid affair with the ridiculous.
When I say Heer was irrational, I am not saying that he was incorrect. Wading through theatrical thickets of sarcasm, I could scarce find a sentence that was capable of being either correct or incorrect; it would also be difficult to call the statement “the sky is blue because billions of blue marbles are suspended over our heads” as either correct or incorrect.
“Skepticism is in general a good thing,” Heer wrote, “a sign of a curious mind. All good scholars are to some degree skeptical of prior research, wanting to push knowledge farther. But the pose of skepticism that Sobran adopted . . . was not truly a scholar’s skepticism but pseudo-skepticism. . . adopted in order to debunk the standard and accurate view of a subject and promote [a] counter-narrative.”
Might one ask what the difference is between “pushing knowledge further” and promoting a “counter-narrative”? Thankfully, Heer clarifies.
“Sobran’s ‘skepticism’ was not the honest skepticism of a mind who wants to check the evidence of all the competing theories but rather a dishonest rhetorical stance of agnosticism, designed to befuddle the innocent into believing that things that are true should be considered [sic] as open questions.”
The honest skeptic, according to Heer, wants to check the evidence of all the competing theories because he is “skeptical of prior research,” while the pseudo-skeptic seeks to “befuddle the innocent into believing that things that are true" could be open to question. What is the difference between pushing knowledge further and pushing a counter-narrative or between checking the evidence and considering as open to question things thought to be true? Aside from intentions, nothing. In short, no difference.
Your arguments should contain words, not the other way around. What’s the difference between skepticism and pseudo-skepticism? The same as the difference between diversity and inequality: popularity. Using words like “diversity,” “inequality,” and “pseudo” is an easy way of wriggling out of a debate. Avoid words that do your thinking for you.
If the justification for holding an opinion becomes chipped away, one ought to confess their ignorance and change their opinion, or at least, confess their doubts and abandon your previous opinion. There is no need to caricature it as a struggle of the forces of what is standard, accurate, and truthful besieged by the forces of what is dishonest, rhetorical, and befuddling.
“A rhetorical stance of agnosticism” is a contradiction in terms. When you ask a rhetorical question, you already know the answer. By definition, agnostics aren't sure. But if admitting one’s doubts counts as “a dishonest rhetorical stance of agnosticism,” or if chipping away at the justifications used for holding an opinion is to "befuddle the innocent into believing that things that are true should be” considered open to question, let the befuddlement rage.
