This is the final installment of my series of essays on the so-called “intellectual dark web”—a loose confederation of talking heads, some of whom have a mind-bogglingly massive following, who promulgate philosophical, political, and psychological ideas, either primarily or entirely outside the formal academic universe (and who generally claim to have been driven to do so because academia is fatally infected with “political correctness” and is hostile to the full-blooded, open-minded, heroic pursuit of truth).

Because the intellectual dark web thrives on consumer popularity rather than peer scrutiny, it doesn’t have mechanisms for sorting out the worthwhile stuff from the trash. Consequently, the burden is on the shoulders of the consumer to decide to what extent the dark web pundits have something valuable to offer or to what extent they’re what I callenlightenment peddlers—people who are skilled at getting bad ideas accepted as profound truths by exploiting the psychological vulnerabilities of their audience. They are, so to speak, shadow versions of genuine public intellectuals.

It’s because of this that I’ve devoted time to writing this series of essays, which provide a twelve-point checklist to help consumers critically assess what these people are putting out. In the previous two postings, I concentrated on intellectual foibles: logical fallacies, reasoning unscientifically in the name of science, the oversimplification of complex problems, and so on. This time, I want to zoom in on the methods of emotional manipulation that such people often use to garner followers, oftentimes instinctively rather than deliberately and strategically.

The great 18^thcentury philosopher David Hume was well known for pointing out that our behavior is always fueled by our passions, our emotions and desires. He argued that the faculty of reason, all on its own, never motivates us to do anything at all. All that it does is help us figure out how best to get our passions satisfied. I think that almost all of us can count theloveof truth在我们的激情中，在某种程度上，我们重视理性正是因为理性可以引导我们走向真理。但对我们所有人来说，对真理的热情与其他激情相竞争，而这些激情会扭曲我们的推理能力，从而阻碍对真理的追求。启蒙运动的兜售者利用这一弱点，以满足对真理的渴望为幌子，提供满足我们某些其他欲望的服务。它们有一种诀窍，通过暗中操纵我们对地位、报复、尊重、支配、舒适、认可、救赎或其他任何事情的欲望，让我们认为自己是深入而宝贵的见解的一部分。这样一来，他们就把沙子扔进了我们的眼睛里，让我们很难发现他们论点中的漏洞和他们主张的不实之处。

柏拉图称之为“迎合”——告诉人们他们想听而不是他们需要听的艺术——他把它比作给孩子们提供美味的糕点。你可能会对这个诊断提出异议:“等一下!你可能会插嘴说，“劝导者的行为往往与你和柏拉图所说的相反。”它们告诉我们的事情，任何一个理智的人都不会希望是真的!”这样的例子并不难找。火气十足的传教士告诉我们，我们正在开往地狱的特快列车上;唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)竞选时的前提是，我们受到了嗜血的移民的威胁;流行知识分子乔丹·彼得森(Jordan Peterson)严肃地向我们保证，大学里充斥着危险的左翼理论家，他们正在伤害那些落入他们有毒的后现代主义控制下的年轻人。

这些都不是让人安心的信息!但是仔细看看....

What all these examples have in common is that the enlightenment artiste first pumps-up his audience’s anxieties and then offers a remedy. The time-honored technique for implementing this strategy is a dance I call “the Goebbels three-step.” First, make your audience depressed by convincing them of their miserable condition—telling them that they’re mired in sin (in the case of the preacher), or the laughing stock of the world (in the case of Trump), or aimlessly drifting through a life that’s devoid of any sense of meaning or purpose (in the case of Peterson). Next, blame your audience’s dire straits on the machinations of others—the devil and his minions (the preacher), brown-skinned immigrants (Trump), or feminists and post-modernist neo-Marxists (Peterson). Finally, offer salvation from the chaos—let Jesus into your heart, vote for Trump, or embrace the ideology (and, typically, heap contempt on those who disagree with it). Enlightenment peddlers are experts at manufacturing, or at least amplifying, desire. First, they make you feel sick, and then sell you the cure. It’s a powerful formula and, as history teaches us, a very dangerous one.

So, here’s the first red flag. When listening to what would-be public intellectuals are telling you, first ask yourself whether they’re reciting a narrative of gloom and doom, invoking shadowy forces that are hell-bent on destroying something that’s precious—Western civilization, freedom of speech, religion, morality, enlightenment values, or whatever. And then ask yourself if they claim to offer an antidote to this malaise. If so, beware!

To pull this off, it’s helpful to appear to be an unimpeachably authoritative intellectual champion battling against dark forces. The enlightenment peddler must cultivate the persona of someone who has access to profound truths that are unavailable to the rest of us. One way to do this is by indulging in what appear to be displays of intellectual virtuosity—citing highbrow authors, sprinkling their discourse with references to obscure facts, invoking the authority of science, and connecting the dots between seemingly unconnected things. So, when listening to a dark web pundit, ask yourself the following questions. Does he cultivate the impression that he’s intimidatingly (and impossibly) knowledgeable about almost everything—not just in the content of his discourse but also in his tone of voice and even his movements and bearing? Does he proclaim rather than suggest, and offer certainty rather than appropriate intellectual humility (not just token intellectual humility, which is often a stylistic ploy)? Does he strut and preen, either literally or metaphorically? Does he put you in the role of a passive recipient of his wisdom rather than respecting your autonomy by addressing you as an active and critical interlocutor? That’s my second red flag.

But prophets can’t afford be too aloof from the ordinary folks who are thirsty for guidance. To be effective at capturing hearts and minds, their words have to seamlessly mesh with the biases of their audience. So, the esoteric, highbrow stuff (which the audience is usually in no position to critically assess) gets used tounderwritebanal prejudices. Seemingly erudite references to (for example) natural selection, genetics, or psychometrics are redeployed to legitimate uninformed and often base attitudes. Do you want to believe that women are by nature less ambitious than men, or that Black people are inherently less intelligent than Whites? Let the guru mouth “Science has shown, and only a fool would deny…” and you’ll be tempted not only to lap it up, but also to castigate those who disagree with you as the Enemies of Reason. So, if the pundit seems to be confirming your own biases—if he articulates the things that you “knew all along” but couldn’t find a way to justify—and especially if he appropriates the epistemic heft of science, religion, or philosophy to do so, watch out! That’s my third red flag.

要发现一个启蒙主义者的意图，通常更容易的方法是监测他的表演对你心理的影响，而不是试图追踪他的修辞花招。说话者的话语是否引发了那种美德和优越感的愉悦感?那些不同意他的人是否显得迷失了方向、愚昧无知、甚至心怀恶意?整个过程是不是有点像坠入爱河?当你在思考一个问题时，你是否听到他的声音在你的脑海中回响，或者发现自己在与持不同意见的人对话时模仿他的措辞、提供口号和预先包装好的结论?这些危险信号是我的第四个也是最后一个危险信号。

In an era when the universities have abandoned their historic role as sites for the transmission and critique of culture and are rapidly morphing into vocational training centers with the humanistic disciplines retained as only charming ornaments on the side, the cultural gap is being filled by the celebrities of the intellectual dark web and their many, many followers. Now, perhaps more than ever before, it’s vital for consumers to be vigilant about scrutinizing what’s presented to them by intellectual populists. So, be careful, think hard, and good luck!

Read David's entire series on the IDW:

1.Dark Knowledge

2.Dark Knowledge: A User's Guide

3.An Antidote to Bullshit

4.Enlightenment Peddlers