Projection: Good, Bad, or Just Inevitable?
Yesterday, a friend said to me, “To Straussians, everyone is a Straussian.” Which reminded of Xenophanes’ dictum, “If humans were horses, the gods would have hooves.” It’s hard not to read other thinkers and texts in our own image, projecting ourselves and our methods onto them, but is it impossible? A certain class of academics in the 19th century Germanic mold of the neutral, objective, dispassionate scholar would like to think so. I don’t think my friend’s statement is unique to Straussians, to XYZ-ians everything seems like an XYZ-ian thing. If you hold a hammer, you’re more likely to see nails.
Yet often the belief that we can avoid our biases makes us ever more susceptible to bias. If we acknowledge and own that we have a personal stake in the questions we ask perhaps that will serve as some bulwark against our unconscious machinations. Of course, too much acknowledging and owning and the search for truth, the search for something beyond ourselves, becomes impossible, and academia or science becomes its own weird religious anti-religious cult.
So the question probably isn’t is projection good or bad, but what do we do with it, when is it appropriate and helpful, when is it counter-productive and harmful, and what if is it both simultanesouly?
Maybe the Straussians are correct. Everyone is a Straussian. If I were a dove, I’d probably read the passages about doves in the Bible more closely than I do.
What is Called Thinking? is a practice of asking a daily question on the belief that self-reflection brings awe, joy, and enrichment to one’s life. Consider becoming a subscriber to support this project and access subscriber-only content.
You can read my weekly Torah commentary here.