Scholarly work is never neutral but can still stay open to contrary evidence

Evidence

If we assume, as we should, that knowledge is never innocent of the social, conceptual, material, political, and power networks within which it is cultivated, then engaging in knowledge production—inter alia the mission and, indeed, raison d’être of the scholar—comes with a grave ethical and moral responsibility, but one that can no longer be formed through the liberal tradition or exclusively within the central domains’ discursive formations. As an instrument of power and one that in modernity stands in dialectical relationship with it, knowledge is a weapon that can inflict cruel violence, including, as we have seen, genocide and much else. To cultivate it within an ethical framework is to engage, first and foremost, in a series of self-interrogations about the justifiability of the very concept of scholarship in the first place: Why, that is, choose to enter into this domain of production? What forms of scholarship are ethically justifiable and what forms are not? How can a scholar, through a specific and precisely formulated research project, partake in ethical self-formation? — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 518 (#expands, via linked claim)

In short, it has compelled me to leave open the possibility that my analysis may come to complicate the vision of human fl that I hold most dear, and which has provided the bedrock of my personal existence. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 28 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Most scholarly critique operates within a field’s assumptions and never questions its foundations; Scholarly critique stays docile when it revises detail without questioning foundations — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 338; Keeping the organic-intellectual ideal in view changes the character of scholarly work (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Scholarship comes with grave ethical responsibility because knowledge is never innocent of power #expands (0.84) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 518
• Most scholarly critique operates within a field’s assumptions and never questions its foundations #qualifies (0.82)
• Honest analysis may have to unsettle a scholar’s own deepest values #expands (0.82) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 28
• Perfect neutrality in politically charged science is elusive and possibly undesirable #corroborates (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 93
• Scholarly critique stays docile when it revises detail without questioning foundations #qualifies (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 338
• Impossible perfect objectivity does not justify abandoning scholarly standards. #qualifies (0.75)
• Keeping the organic-intellectual ideal in view changes the character of scholarly work #expands (0.72)