Three Things Thursday: Talking Pseudoarchaeology with Flint Dibble

I learned a few things from going on Flint Dibble’s YouTube channel last week and had a fun time chatting with Flint and the audience (which at one point was over 1000 viewers). Since then, over 4000 people have watched the video and it has generated some thoughtful conversation in the comments. This conversation and some of the comments during the video have helped me think about not only my argument, but how to make it more interesting and compelling. If I had to do it over again, I would have probably take a slightly different approach which I’m still struggling a bit to sort. My work on pseudoarchaeology is still very much a work-in-progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stNtjwnhtZY

Anyway, here’s what I learned: 

1. It’s hard to build arguments during a conversation. One of the main critiques of my position that pseudoarchaeology can teach us something about the past is that I didn’t do enough to substantiate my position. Any argument that is unexpected or unconventional carries requires more patient explanation and a more deliberate approach to connecting the dots. It’s clear that the very idea of pseudoarchaeology was “triggering” (which as not meant to trivialize the response of Flint’s very engaged and interested audience) and that meant I had to push through the some sincere skepticism in the audience.

Flint did his part to keep the conversation moving which was great, but it also made it harder to connect the dots in my argument and introduce nuance. To be clear, I’m not complaining, but I would do things differently next time.   

2. People really like the idea of TRUTH. I have to admit that this caught me off guard. The audience and most of the commentators had a rather narrow view of what constitutes “truth.” In particular, there seemed to be a willingness to accept that if pseudoarchaeology does not produce “true” understandings about the past, it is impossible (or at least very difficult) to talk about it in a truthful way.

As a result, it became difficult to use pseudoarchaeology to introduce the idea of epistemological pluralism within archaeology. To be honest, some of the narrowness of the audience made me nervous. It made me feel like the efforts to promote and celebrate “big tent” notions of archaeology remains a very much inside the discipline. 

This got me wondering how much the resistance to pseudoarchaeological ideas has shaped outside perspectives on the discipline. One of the main critiques of pseudoarchaeology is that it is unscientific and it ignores or distorts standards of empiricism developed in the discipline. While this is undoubtedly true, most archaeologists recognize that strict adherence to empirical argumentation is only one aspect of disciplinary knowledge making. Archaeologists regularly rely upon all sorts of other knowledge to construct our arguments and as a result, tend to be pretty open minded when it comes to engaging with other ideas and ways of seeing the past. This doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to accept all views of the past as equally valid or “true” in an absolute sense, but it does encourage us to engage with them critically.   

3. The marketplace of ideas is a moral marketplace. Finally, I was surprised to see how much the commitment to a fairly narrow conception of truth became a moral imperative. Because those who promoted pseudoarchaeological views could be grifters, racists, or colonialists, those who accepted their views become dupes or co-conspirators. While even a cursory understanding of pseudoarchaeology (and broader pseudoscience) can demonstrate the problems with these assumptions, the moral stigma of attached to the ideas themselves contaminates not only those who accept these views, but also those who try to understand them.

What took me a bit by surprise is that many of the people saw that archaeologists with strong commitments to empiricism were engaged in morally good work. While there is no doubt that archaeologists with strong commitments to empiricism do good work and work to do good, I don’t know as if a commitment to empirical knowledge making is necessarily morally good on its own. 

In fact, exclusive commitments to particular ways of producing truth (whether it is empirical or mystical) and the truths these systems produce have often do a good bit of harm. Indeed, archaeologists often used the sanctity of their truth (and truth seeking methods) as an excuse to violate indigenous rights, disregard cultural (and political) identity, and attack the belief systems that produced rival claims. Archaeology’s disciplinary pivot to pluralism represents an effort to prevent the emergence of this type of epistemological (and disciplinary) tyranny. As much as I dislike the world of grifters and racists in pseudoarchaeology, I see the continued popularity of these beliefs not a bug that archaeology has to fix, but a hedge against the past becoming beholden to the exclusive authority of experts.

Finally, I want to thank Flint and all the folks who watched and made comments on the video. They were inspiring and thought provoking and fun!