Suspect

 Someone in Grad school, in David Halliburton's theory course my first semester, said that in a capitalist society scientific facts are generated in the same way that industrial products were, through a capitalist mode of production. I thought that was a strange idea, so I asked for an example, and the example offered to me floored me.  The person's example was a scientist who argued for genetic component in intelligence, on racist grounds. 

Now, this racism is despicable, but it had no bearing on the phenomenon of which it is supposedly an example. This has nothing to do with capitalism, etc... There wasn't some actual mode of production of scientific data infected by capitalism. It was simply science in the service of something bad. 

I could have protested, but instead I felt humiliated, in a strange way. I knew instinctively that I couldn't argue, because even if I knew I was right there was another part of the picture: I realized that there was a different standard for arguments in this academic milieu, which was Stanford's Modern Thought and Literature program. (I was in comp lit., but we both shared this theory seminar as our intro course.) If you could tie something to politics in a crude, inaccurate, handwaving kind of way, that is all you had to do to win an argument.  The reference to racism sealed the point, because those are magic words for winning an argument.  Of course, most science is not about heritability of intelligence, and most scientists reject that idea, in fact. How can this be typical or illustrative in any way?  

Strangely, the person in question is someone I personally like and still count as a friendonfacebook. 

Another friend from High School who I like posts cringe memes on Facebook, inspiring stories of achievement written by AI.  They are written in the dark and stormy night style. Other leftist friends post cringe worthy content as well. There is something wrong with me temperamentally, because I find this kind of thing unbearable.