In our discussion about the nature of “academic” writing, Julia Molinari introduced the very useful notion of “affordances”. I remember Manuel DeLanda once explaining affordances by noting the difference between a mosquito stepping onto the surface of a lake and, say, a bear doing the same. While the bear’s foot goes right through the water to the lakebed, the lake “affords” the mosquito a surface on which to land. It reminded me of my old philosophy professor, Charlie Martin, and his “mutually instantiated dispositions”. The surface of the lake and the tarsus of the mosquito are so “disposed” that the former offers the later a surface tense enough on which to walk. The lake does not afford the bear’s paw the same thing, though the its same lake, of course.

I won’t develop the point in this post, but it’s interesting to consider that Foucault developed his “discursive formations”, which he used as units of analysis for scientific knowledge, into the more general notion of a dispositif, sometimes translated as an “apparatus”, a structured “readiness” for particular manifestations of human agency. What I want to do here is simply play a little on the notion of “affordances” in the interest of what I saw as the crux of our discussion, namely, the readiness to be proven wrong in our discussion with our peers. This, I believe, is what academia–and therefore academic writing–should be all about.

Basically, an academic is someone who can afford to be wrong. The academic does not “bet the farm” on any particular claim, or even an entire theory. Ideally, the academic, through the institution of tenure, has a protected livelihood that will persist even after repeated falsifications, and this should show in the style of our writing as academics. We should assert our claims boldly and transparently, tying what we believe to be true explicitly to our basis for thinking so. If we believe something because we read it in a book, we provide the source so that someone who knows that the book we’re citing is wrong can point our mistake out to us. If we believe something because we gathered data and analysed it in a way that suggested a conclusion, we provide enough information about our methods that a qualified peer can tell us where we went astray if we did.

It is easier to listen to–indeed, to talk to–someone who we think can afford to be wrong. If our interlocutor doesn’t seem capable of recognizing a mistake because their livelihood depends on their being right, or everyone thinking that they’re right, then our criticism will be colored by a certain embarrassment. It’s not that we ourselves are necessarily right, of course. The imbalance exists as long we are arguing a point we can afford to be wrong about and our interlocutor cannot. In academic discourse, then, one must choose one’s themes and one’s conversation partners carefully. The aim is to afford ourselves and each other an occasion for criticism.

Notice that this works both ways. You shouldn’t say something you can’t afford to be wrong about. But you also shouldn’t engage with someone who is making a claim they can’t afford to admit they’ve gotten wrong. If you do, the conversation will not be academic. That’s one reason that scholarship engages with the thoughts of very senior, very established, and sometimes altogether dead authors of so-called “classics”. These are people whose position is so firmly established that we don’t have to worry about harming them with our criticism.

Perhaps this will show that I’m an idealist, but I firmly believe that the value of the academic literature is that it affords anyone at any stage of their career a stage on which to present their thoughts, no matter how mistaken they may be. When you say something “for academic purposes”, whether in a school assignment, a doctoral dissertation, or a journal article, you are protected by “the right to be wrong”. Or at least you should be. These days, it seems, there are various movements, both on the left and on the right, that would have academics seriously consider the consequences of stating their beliefs, whether in front of their students or their teachers or their peers. Holding unorthodox views (or at least expressing them too clearly) sometimes seems to be a dangerous business.

I think this is why I’m so strident about keeping the notion of “criticism” in our definition of academic writing. In academia, mistakes should in a sense be so “cheap” that everyone can afford to make them. Conversely, we should invest very little of our total wealth of knowledge in each of our disciplinary engagements. If we do make mistakes, they have to be honest mistakes, of course. And they should not reveal an important area of ignorance or incompetence in our thinking. But we should be writing, for the most part, without fear of being shown to be wrong by other knowledgeable people. We should be ready for that possibility.

Our doctoral studies should prepare us for this. It should endow us with the necessary wealth, and inculcate the necessary frugality, to make each possible mistake affordable to us.