Do You Not See the Reason for Yourself? Political Withdrawal and the Experience of Epistemic Friction

Abstract

The epistemic friction that is generated when privileged subjects are confronted by different social perspectives is important for democratic politics since it can interrupt their active ignorance about oppressive social relations from which they benefit. However, members of oppressed groups might sometimes prefer not to accept the burden of educating the dominant. In circumstances of structural inequality, withdrawing from privileged subjects’ ignorance can be a form of self-preservation. But such withdrawal also has the potential to induce epistemic friction insofar as it depletes the opportunities for active ignorance to reproduce itself. Herman Melville’s tragicomic short story of Bartleby – the legal copyist who ‘would prefer not to’ – has been celebrated by philosophers as emblematic of such resistant withdrawal. Interpreting the story as a dramatisation of the epistemic friction encountered by its narrator makes vivid how such withdrawal can be political.

Innovation on Education and Social Sciences

“…A thorough overview of Žižekian's practice of action is described in a study by Stejskalová (2011) in sequence, starting with Žižek's background of philosophical thinking, the emergence of the Act, to political withdrawal as an alternative to radical action. In contrast to the tone of criticism in Stejskalová's study, several other studies were appointed to show the important role of Žižek's practice of action (Bojesen & Allen, 2019;Kang, 2021;Schaap, 2020). The subject's radical action is seen as a tool to get out of the limits of capitalism (Robinson & Tormey, 2005), while political withdrawal is seen as a modern resistance that positions the subject outside the hegemonic symbolic order.…”

“…At this point, social inequality emerged between the two groups. While active ignorance allows dominant subjects to feel comfortable in the inequality of the social structure that benefits them, epistemic friction arises with interruptions in the structure that continues to be reproduced (Schaap, 2020). In other words, epistemic friction is generated when marginalized groups expose their social perspectives to the public sphere.…”

New conceptual tools for be(com)ing antiracist (teacher) educators at PWIs

“…Ella also reminds us that while this work is necessary and important, it is insufficient and incomplete. We see Ella instigating epistemic friction through her “critical self-questioning of the constitution of society” (Schaap, 2020, p. 568). Although Ella would like to rest and trust that white folx – including us, as educators at PWIs – would keep engaging in antiracism, she is not convinced this will happen.…”