John Nerst writes essays on debate, political discourse, communication across worldviews, and how people argue past each other.
Commenters link it for its take on the sociobiology debate and treat it as a corrective voice in discussions of communication and politics.
I could not disagree more. Wallace's use of language here is instructive, poignant, and immensely useFUL.
I'll bet you're an engineer, data scientist, or other technical professional, not simply b/c you're here, but b/c your response to Wallace's use of ambiguity and multiple layers of meaning reveals as much about the nature of your own relationship with language, which I'd guess prefers that things should be clear, precise, and have singular meaning. (I'm certainly oversimplifying you, so apologies.)
Look into "cognitive decoupling", and you may find a dichotomy that illustrates some of your reaction to Wallace.
https://everythingstudies.com/2018/05/25/decoupling-revisited/
It's a fundamental problem of the political compass, since people's political beliefs are usually object-level or tribal rather than rooted in fundamental principles (for example, when their party controls the state congress but not the federal congress, they believe [ISSUE] is a matter of states' rights. When their party controls Washington but not the state legislature, they believe [ISSUE] is a Federal matter. I'm sure you've seen the studies).
I don't like the orthodox compass myself, and prefer the categorization system described in the blog Everything Studies here; https://everythingstudies.com/2019/03/01/the-tilted-political-compass-part-1-left-and-right/
It's true that there's a fair amount of bullshit in humanities. However, thinking in terms of fuzzy categories like "grievance studies" is lossy and imprecise. It's not really a term which carves reality at the joints, so much as a general purpose tribal rallying cry for STEM people against a hated and feared outgroup. This kind of interdisciplinary tribal politics isn't constructive. Rounding off everyone in "grievance studies" to the same stereotype is the fastest way to irrational hatred and unnecessary conflict.
Also, this article is pretty good:
https://everythingstudies.com/2018/06/21/postmodernism-vs-the-pomoid-cluster/
I think it's good to keep in mind the concept of signal and corrective[1] when reading this blog post. This blog is a corrective assuming an environment where people don't speak up enough about things that are going wrong.
If you're in an environment where harsh criticism is regularly thrown out, to the point where everyone is constantly on guard and major CYA is the norm rather than the exception, this advice is not for you (you need another nice blog about when to shut up, and how to deliver criticism without being hostile, etc)
[1]: https://everythingstudies.com/2017/12/19/the-signal-and-the-corrective/
Imagine RO is a former Amazon employee who was severely injured on the job and fired, whose life was destroyed by this faceless company, and who resents the sentiment that it is anything but. It is also a fun read imagining them this way.
Yes, if the situation was different, than my judgement of it would be different. This is not a novel observation.
The context matters - you cannot decouple[0] this interaction from the economic and social structures it arose from.
[0] https://everythingstudies.com/2018/05/25/decoupling-revisited/
The sociobiology debate was a relatively high-profile and personal debate primarily between Wilson and Lewontin and their supporters.
A good brief overview is given by John Nerst in his review of Segerstråle's "Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate": https://everythingstudies.com/2021/06/23/rereading-defenders-of-the-truth/
Lewontin doesn't come out covered in glory.