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Academia as Cargo Cult

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Abstract

Ian C. Jarvie’s original research was on cargo cults—more specifically regarding the anthropologists who study cargo cults as themselves constituting a cargo cult. I reflect on the broader epistemological significance of this work, extending it to what I call ‘academic expressivism’, whereby contemporary identity politics is analysed as a cargo cult that relies on a superstitious attachment to sociological categories such as race, class, and gender. Special attention is given to the academic expressivist redeployment of Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice as a vehicle for promoting identity politics.

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Correspondence to Steve Fuller .

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Fuller, S. (2019). Academia as Cargo Cult. In: Sassower, R., Laor, N. (eds) The Impact of Critical Rationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90826-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90826-7_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90825-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90826-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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