The Unmasking Style in Social Theory

by Peter Baehr

This book examines the nature of unmasking in social theory, in revolutionary movements and in popular culture. Unmasking is not the same as scientific refutation or principled disagreement. When people unmask, they claim to rip off a disguise, revealing the true beneath the feigned. The author distinguishes two basic types of unmasking. The first, aimed at persons or groups, exposes hypocrisy and enmity, and is a staple of revolutionary movements. The second, aimed at ideas, exposes illusions and ideologies, and is characteristic of radical social theory since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

The Unmasking Style in Social Theory charts the intellectual origins of unmasking, its shifting priorities, and its specific techniques in social theory. It also explores sociology’s relationship to the concept of unmasking through an analysis of writers who embrace, adapt or reshape its meaning. Such sociologists include Vilfredo Pareto, Karl Mannheim, Raymond Aron, Peter Berger, Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski and Christian Smith.

Finally, taking conspiracy theories, accusations of social phobia and new concepts such as micro-aggression as examples of unmasking techniques, the author shows how unmasking contributes to the polarization and bitterness of much public discussion. Demonstrating how unmasking is baked into modern culture, yet arguing that alternatives to it are still possible, this book is, in sum, a compelling study of unmasking and its impact upon modern political life and social theory.

188 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2019

About the author

Peter Baehr is Chair Professor of Social Theory at Lingnan University. Before coming to Hong Kong in 2000, he worked at universities in Canada and Britain. He teaches and writes mainly in the areas of social/ political thought, political culture, and mass emergency. Peter Baehr’s work has been translated into Chinese, Danish, Farsi, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese. Aside from his position at Lingnan University, Baehr is Raymond Aron Fellow at Boston University, and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh. He is President of the History of Sociology Research Committee of the International Sociological Association, and sits as an international editor on eight journals. Baehr’s books are published by Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press, Transaction, Penguin and Stanford University Press.

Reviews

[Paul O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure on this book review. Peter is a cherished colleague from Lingnan University and I had many interesting discussions with him while he was writing this book. In many ways this text crosses into my interests with religion and social theory, and also about public debate in the era of social media. There is no doubt about it, this book provides some challenging material. It is provocative and has many conservative strands. What it does provide is a helpful way to think about the absence of a middle ground in contemporary public debate. This might well apply to the grandeur of social theory, of social justice, populist politics, or everyday online exchange.

I read this book as a call to engage in the humanity of discussion that recognises individuals and social life as opaque. It is above all else a request to debate, recognise difference, and not be shielded from disagreement or offence. From a sociological perspective, it is also an affirmation on the promise of qualitative work, not least ethnography which seeks to know people rather than to judge and condemn.

Firstly let me describe what the author understands unmasking to be. This is a style of rhetorical challenge which consists of five techniques, weaponization, reduction, positioning, inversion, and deflation. The classic example that Baehr provides is that of Marx, who weaponises language and reduces social action to class struggle. Religion is a prime target, this is not what is seems, it is a distraction, an opiate. The unmasking style is chiefly about ending debate, it provides a watertight assertion that the guilty party does not know their own flaws. Protest against such an accusation only further confirms the ignorance and guilt of the accused. In Marxist thought, religion is always a distraction and to claim otherwise is only proof of your addiction to the opiate. The relevance of this unmasking style in the barbed exchanges on social media are apparent. Unmasking is about showing to the world what is concealed and hidden, your true face. But it is hindered by the fact that it is unsolicited, accusatory, and reliant on showing what is not there, rather than what is apparent. It is in effect a race to the bottom.

So in short, weaponization is a language that talks in escalation. A ‘war on drugs’ is only ever a metaphor, but it contains hyperbole. Other examples are a ‘weapon of truth’, or murderous intentions, and violent language. Reduction and positioning are polemical styles that assert to know the real truth behind an argument or comment. That is, to reveal a secret motive. Knowing what others don’t know, reducing an argument to a hidden truth, is largely unanswerable. Inversion is a ‘technique that destroys people’s credibility by upending the meaning of their statements.’ Deflation moves an argument to a new terrain, labels it as something else, takes the breath out of it. Baehr takes particular issue with the clinical approach that has been popularised, equating discrimination with a psychological malady.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the proliferation of terms that end in phobic: homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, ecophobic and several others in a steadily expanding list. Strictly speaking this language is redundant. We have other terms to express intolerance: bigotry, prejudice, narrow-mindedness and so forth. Phobia in contrast, has connotations that are distinctly medical and therapeutic…It transforms an account that expressed a political or moral argument into a social sickness caused by toxic motives or interests. It is striking more generally that an ever more common way to denouncing political opponents - presidents included - is to claim that they are unhinged or even mad.

So the book is a challenge to Unmasking and proceeds with three parts. The first unpacks examples of the unmasking style giving particular attention to the Enlightenment unmasking of religion, and Marx’s theory. The second part looks at Sociology and explores how unmasking has been embraced or rejected by various scholars. The final part presents ways to avoiding unmasking in an unmasking age. One approach being to read literature which enables us to engage with the truth that humans are fallible, changing, and full of nuance. A further remedy is a proposed disposition of conflictual pluralism that works with democratic politics to balance the inevitably of disagreement, not to eradicate it. The warning Baehr provides is to be wary of unmasking, it is a vacuous approach which halts discussion and strikes fear in those who might voice more balanced and nuanced opinions.

I especially enjoyed the sections on sociology where the various styles of different scholars are explored, we visit debunking, and unveiling. We learn how ethnography helps insert some reflection on human variance, and tolerance at the same time. This is however a text that has little sympathy for leftwing social justice identity politics and trigger warnings. It is similarly critical of the unmasking techniques of the right wing arguing that ‘White despisers occupy the same extreme polemical space as White Supremacists: Sarah Jeong is Richard Spencer’s twin.’ Let me be clear here that this is challenging terrain. I follow neither Sarah Jeong or Richard Spencer on Twitter, but 12 of the people I follow also follow Jeong, and only 1 person I follow is listed as a follower of Spencer. This is some indication of my political stance.

So does Baehr simply unmask the unmasking style? He responds to this in the final part of the book (pg135), but it is evident throughout that he is not engaged in unmasking. He does not employ the same tactics outlined above, and takes care to balance his attacks with empirical examples rather than speculations of ulterior motives. In this I am largely satisfied.

In sum, an erudite and engaging book. It will appeal to those who take seriously the challenge of heterodox ideas and mostly to those who are perhaps cautious and tired of the unmasking style and its vehement rhetoric of vilification.