Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity, and Why This Harms Everybody

This weeks book of the week joined my library in 2020 when it was released, but I’m just now getting around to it, mostly because I stuck it on a shelf and left it there. Then I stumbled across James Lindsay’s New Discourses podcast and remembered I had it, making this weeks book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity, and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.

Little back story here, the reason I bought this book is that in 2017/2018, three scholars, Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose, took it upon themselves to highlight the absurd biases present on college campuses and in “peer reviewed” journals by submitting for publication bogus papers that were written solely to pander to Social Justice Warriors. Among these papers included one that dog parks were an allegory for rape culture, and in one paper they blatantly plagiarized large chunks of Mein Kampf, but wherever Hitler cited The Jews as the great evil, they replaced it with cis-het white men as the source of all evil. These papers were accepted for publication with no, or only minor, corrections requested. When this came to light, the entire incident became known as the Grievance Studies Affair, or you can google College Hoax Papers and it will pull you right to the study.

Two of those authors, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, wrote this book, which does a deep dive into the history of postmodernism in scholarship and how that tainted tree has poisoned 40 plus years of scholarship.

Now, they’re pretty straightforward in saying that postmodernism itself is effectively dead. Its inherent nihilism led to its demise in the 1980’s, but not before giving birth to its malicious children, which include post-colonialism, critical race theory, queer theory, feminism and gender studies, disability and fat studies.

So, first some basic foundational thoughts. Post modernism has two primary focuses, with four sub-branches, all of which contribute to this faulty scholarship that is taking over colleges and then being spewed into the real world.

First is the Postmodern Knowledge Principle: Radical skepticism as to whether objective knowledge or truth is obtainable and a commitment to cultural constructivism. This is a rejection of scientific method, logic, and reason as belonging solely to the province of Cis gender, heteronormative, white men. Sorry, straight white men. I will say as a woman, ok as a WHITE woman….as straight white woman…. this pisses me off. According to post-modernist thought, I am incapable of reason or logic because that is the province of white men only. I should resolve myself to having all the feels but none of the thoughts. Because feelings are just as valid as a way of knowing. Trusting your gut has its validity. When you’re walking alone at night in a dimly lit area, becoming hyper-alert to your surroundings is a good way to trust your gut. On the other hand, it’s also logical and reasonable. But saying I know that the area of town isn’t the safest because I read the local crime reports and so logic tells me to be wary, is not acceptable. But trusting my gut because my spidey-sense is tingling is perfectly reasonable. Except Spider man was white. Shit, I am NOT good at postmodernist thought.

Second is the Postmodern political principle: A belief that society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies, which decide what can be known and how. That is so wrong it’s entirely backwards. Society is formed of people. And those people, at least here in the west, decide who gets to be in power by voting. Now, it’s disingenuous to say our voting system doesn’t need to be grossly overhauled, and there is definitely something rotten in the state of DC, but to say hierarchies are formed of power is faulty. But this is where postmodernists get off on saying Speak Truth to Power, never once realizing the irony that their ideology has already fully infiltrated the halls of power in America. It’s seen in college campuses nationwide; it’s seen in every Fortune 500 company now having a DIE office…. Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. I know it’s usually presented as DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but my ordering of the words is more appropriate. Once DIE shows up, and organization is effectively DEAD. It just doesn’t know it yet. DIE is poisonous cancer that rots from the inside out.

Now the four subcategories are the blurring of boundaries, the power of language, cultural relativism, and the loss of the individual and the universal. Let’s look at each of these.

The blurring of boundaries is exactly that: blurring truth and reality to a fuzzy haze so that you don’t know what is true or false anymore, what is real versus make believe. That insistence that trans women ARE women, despite the evolutionary imperative that humanity is a sexually reproducing dimorphic species. Problematizing everything under the sun in order to win metaphorical points against your ideological enemies. The blurring of boundaries contributed to the overall panic over the last few years and probably contributed no small part to a large chunk of the population looking at the leftists like they had, in fact, gone bug nuts crazy, when they all scream “trust the science” and we’re all looking at them like “you don’t even believe in science, but now you want us to TRUST the science? What is a woman, again?”

The Power of Language: this is how postmodernist thought principle has been actively trying to change language. It’s no longer straight white men. It’s cis gender heteronormative man. 95% of the world’s population falls under that category, but it’s more “inclusive” to say cis-gender, instead of just male. Because what about the trans-men? Those who were born female but transitioned. They’re real men too! Postmodernists believe language has tremendous power to control thought. And they’re right. It does. And those who oppose this bullshit have been falling down on the job by not speaking out against it. I think that’s why Matt Walshes’ documentary “What is a Woman” garnered so much hatred. He let them speak openly about what they believed, and postmodernism was revealed for the shell game it is.

Cultural Relativism is the belief that we cannot judge another culture based on the societal mores of the west. So, we can’t judge middle eastern or African countries for practicing female circumcision. Or for forcing 9-year-old girls to marry 50-year-old men. Because that judgement is the result of the morals of the west sitting in their ivory towers looking down on the east. It’s the worst part of orientalism, to place that judgement. So, pointing out that something is, in fact, evil, is purely wrong, because you don’t KNOW it’s evil. You can’t know. You’re not from that culture. I can provide context for the stupidity of cultural relativism with one image.

I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Prey about a year ago. She is from that culture. Yet white author and darling of the cancel culture Robin DiAngelo never responded to the invite to debate. I remain confident that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would have wiped the floor with her.

And then finally, The Loss of the Individual and Universal. Individuality is to be shunned at all costs. So, the statement should not be “I am a person who happens to be black (or white, or gay, or trans)” The statement should be “I am a black person (or white, or gay, or trans.)” Erasing the person, for the identity. Identity politics writ large, erasing all sense of individuality among its proponents. The loss of Universal is loss of universal truths. We are all human first. I am a person. No, you are a black person…emphasis on the black. Martin Luther King Jr is rolling over in his grave…so that the critical race theorists can kiss his ass. This is not the equality he fought for.

So how did all this come to be? Well, essentially, classical liberal principles, the belief that the central problem of politics is the protection of individual freedom or liberty. Freedom first. That’s it. Free to be me, free to be you. And classical liberalism had, over a long bloody 200-year span, essentially solved most of the inequality in the west. Black people are no longer enslaved in the west, women have the right to vote, hold down jobs, they do receive equal pay to their male counterparts. The memes about $0.77 on the dollar to men is when you compare like McDonald’s burger flippers to the CEO of McDonalds, for example. But if you look at the wages of ALL the burger flippers, the men and women are paid the same. And if you move up the line, the managers of McDonalds are all paid the same…I’m talking corporate locations, not franchise locations. Can’t control ALL variables.

And with no dragons left to slay, the postmodernists had to invent some new ones. Hence, the evil children of postmodernist thought. And they spend a good chunk of the book explaining how the original postmodernists, Jacques Derridas, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Richard Rorty, Fredric Jameson, and Douglas Kellner, how their thinking and writing directly contributed to modern Social Justice Movements with the introduction of Theory.

Pluckrose and Lindsay specify there is a difference between social justice, in lower case, with Social Justice, capitalized, and a difference between theory in the scientific meaning of the word, and Theory as presented by postmodernists. Social justice, lowercase, is important. Social justice is why homosexuality was decriminalized, women are allowed to vote, black people are no longer slaves and why we have wheelchair ramps for those who need them, and why crosswalks now emit a tone advising the blind when it’s safe to cross. These are all great things, things a just society should protect and have in place. And the authors admit there is still more work to do in social justice, as black people are imprisoned at higher rates, largely thanks to the failed War on Drugs….I’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs…. But Social Justice, with the capitals, thinks that offering cochlear implants for the hearing impaired creates a genocide against the deaf. Social Justice thinks that instead of learning to get around in the world AS IT IS, the world should bow to the minority. So far, only American Elites think this is right. The rest of the world is probably laughing at us. Hell, I’M laughing at us.

Theory, in the scientific meaning of the word, means that something has been tested beyond hypothesis and has not been falsified…but it could be! This is important and the authors provide lessons of Newtonian physics, which were invented by Isaac Newton in the 17th century and was accepted scientific principal until Albert Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity. Relativity has yet to be falsified, and so it remains the predominant theory. But the great thing about science…no not that science…is that it IS falsifiable. So some enterprising physicist in the future could very well disprove Einstein. And advancements will be made again. But Theory in the Social Justice world is the catch-all term for the thinking behind critical social justice, especially on the academic level. It is the set of ideas, modes of thought, ethics, and methods that define Critical Social Justice in both though and activism. This definition is from the New Discourses website. It’s in the book too, but honestly it was faster to look it up on the website than to find the exact quote among my sea of tabbies. Theory is canon, Theory is essentially the bible of this philosophy. Theory is why we with two braincells left to rub together say this is an ideology, and NOT actual scientific theory. Unfortunately, Theory is one of the words postmodernisms has managed to thoroughly corrupt and strip of all meaning and relevance.

And the authors address why this all needs to be addressed, head on, by the classical liberals everywhere. So much of humanities potential is being lost to this rot and nonsense. People who might otherwise spend their college years studying math or science are being booted out of college because they are not diverse enough to study math or science. And isn’t that sad? The cure for cancer might be a plumber now, because he happened to be born a white man. Or she. She might have been suckered into a gender studies degree and will go on to help destroy a company, because the ideologues got to her freshman year. Maybe she fully intended to be a doctor and would have cured actual deafness, not just with a cochlear implant, but the actual cause of deafness. But the SJW crowd found her first and she changed her major because they hit her outrage buttons just right. Fun fact: a lot of cults recruit on college campuses. Learned that in the cult book. Because young women, alone for the first time, are highly susceptible to cult like thinking.

So, what can we do? The authors provide four very solid statements of what still needs to be addressed, what they believe to be a practical way forward, and why they reject Social Justice Movements based on actual evidence that what SJW proposes causes far more harm than good. Which is probably more useful than my response. The first, and I believe only time, I had someone tell me to check my privilege. It was in response to something I posted on Facebook, although I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what. They said, “check your privilege.” I said, “welcome to thunderdome.” Probably not as useful as logical discourse. But then again…I’m a woman in the west. I don’t have to be logical. That’s a man’s province. So thunderdome was the…. admittedly bad….Social Justice response.

And that’s it for this week. I will include links to Lindsay’s New Discourses website, and Pluckrose has her website Counterweight, which is a solid place to go if you are beset by ideologues in any way. It’s kind of a support group with good advice on how to navigate the DIE cultists in your life.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on April 23, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.