Skepticism toward political norms is essential to intellectual inquiry

Evidence

I read Wendy Brown here as insisting on the importance of practicing a cer.. tain amount of skepticism, a suspension of judgment, if you will, toward the normative limits of political discourse. “Intellectual inquiry” here entails pushing against our received assumptions and categories, through which a number of unwieldy problems have been domesticated to customary habits of thought and praxis. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1298

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the reader’s interest in silence/listening as a mode opposed to urgent speech—the suspension of judgment as a form of intellectual patience. — connects to: Hume’s skeptical critiques fought ideology; modern successors ratify established thought — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 649; Scientific uncertainty reflects political context, not deficient understanding — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 684