There are two parts to being a sceptic. The first is interrogation of claims that seemingly compel action: things such as climate change, disease, terrorism. The second is challenging the power that captures the imperative: the global bureaucracies that have been created to save the planet, defeat viruses or vanquish enemies. Of course, one can be sceptical of any truth claim. I could, for example, waste my time arguing with literal flat-Earthers. But why, when the claim that the planet is flat does not have any real consequences for me or for society at large? Scepticism of inconsequential claims is little more than some kind of pedantry at best. At worst, it is just playground bullying.
Scepticism arises out of the fact that today’s politics is increasingly invested in the authority of institutional science. But this itself cuts two ways. Some ‘sceptics’, particularly those that emerged out of the hyper-rationalism of the 2000s, have been intent on defending that authority or arguing for its expansion into the technocracies we have come to know and hate.
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