Helen Pluckrose Discusses the Need to Push Back Against Critical Social Justice Activism (Woke-ness)

Earlier this year, British author Helen Pluckrose, also the Editor-in-Chief of Areo Magazine, co-authored a new book, Cynical Threories, with James Lindsay, who is the creator of the anti-woke website New Discourses.  The long title to their book is also their compact thesis: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody.  

Pluckrose was recently interviewed by Jason Hill of Quillette. The topic was the brand of postmodernism embraced by modern Critical Social Justice activists. In recent years CSJ's version of postmodernism has been increasingly employed as a political strategy by the Woke Left.  What is "postmodernism"?  Pluckrose offers these four characteristics:

  1. Objective knowledge is inaccessible and what we consider knowledge is actually just a cultural construct that operates in the service of power.
  2. Dominant groups in society—wealthy, white, heterosexual, western men—get to decide what is and isn’t legitimate knowledge and this becomes dominant discourses which are then accepted by the general population who perpetuate oppressive power dynamics like white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, ableism, and fatphobia.
  3. The critical theorists exist to deconstruct these discourses and make their oppressive nature visible. This results in the breakdown of boundaries and categories through which we understand things like emotion and reason, fact and fiction, male and female.
  4. [Critical theorists] also produce a profound cultural relativism and a neurotic focus on language and language policing as well as a rejection of individuality and humanism in favor of identity politics. This is a problem because of the resulting threats to freedom of belief and speech, the divisive tribalism and the rejection of science, reason and liberalism.

Hill asked Pluckrose why it was necessary for Lindsay and Pluckrose to write Cynical Theories at this time? Pluckrose offered this response:

Continue ReadingHelen Pluckrose Discusses the Need to Push Back Against Critical Social Justice Activism (Woke-ness)

What I Want for Christmas: Skeptical Coverage of Joe Biden by Legacy News Media

It's not a good sign that NBC's Kasie Hunt is fawning over Joe Biden, despite Biden's long and well-established history of being dishonest, which can be easily confirmed through Google by anyone with an open mind. What does it take to remind the legacy news media that it is their job to cover the news by refusing to ever trust politicians and by always following facts wherever they might lead. It is not their job to be cheerleaders for either political party, but here we are in an all-too-familiar place, though the script is now flipped. Do I need to say that I am writing this article as a person who voted for Biden primarily because I saw Trump as a much bigger threat?

For Christmas, Santa, make sure that news reporters take their jobs seriously. They need to blow the whistle on Biden whenever they see anything that doesn't add up and there will be plenty of it, just as there are in all administrations.  I am also asking Santa to  make sure that Biden keeps his promise to look out for the interests of ordinary Americans. Bernie Sanders he is not. Santa, don't be fooled by Biden's diverse-looking cabinet choices--he is loading up his cabinet with a neoliberal Who's Who of war hawks and players from big financial firms.  Based on Biden's top ten contributors, Biden's favorite "clients" will likely be these big financial services corporations and you can bet they will be calling in their chips starting in January.  Again, I am asking Santa to keep President Biden on a short leash for the next four years.

Continue ReadingWhat I Want for Christmas: Skeptical Coverage of Joe Biden by Legacy News Media

Time for a new party?

This year, once more, I was not pleased with the choices. Absent a viable third party, we were faced with an impossible choice for president: An old white man who had appealed to his party’s darkest fringes and failed the most significant test of his presidency, allowing his ego to overwhelm him; or an old white man who had trouble speaking and remembering where he was, whose party had been taken over by the loons of the left. The electorate chose the forgetful guy, but otherwise turned its back on his party. For the other party, which had neared becoming a cult, it won the larger election but was handed notice that its leader was unacceptable to America.

After the 2016 election, Democrats refused to accept the results. After the 2020 election, Republicans refused to accept the results. The past four years have nearly torn us to shreds. It’s not clear to me that our country can endure another four years just like the last four.

In 2016 I was not pleased with the choices, and voted for the Libertarian candidate. Libertarian is the closest we have to a third party, but it can never win a nationwide election. Its appeal is its downfall. The party celebrates the supremacy of the individual over the group, which yields what most Americans seem to want: social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. The problem comes when departing from core principles to the nuts and bolts of policy. Put ten Libertarians in a room and you’ll get 23 opinions on any policy issue you put forward. And, party discipline is anathema to a group that celebrates the supremacy of the individual over the collective.

To compete, we will need to be a big-tent political party accepting anyone who can subscribe to individual liberty as the basis of our Republic. We are not a collection of group rights, we are a collection of equal, individual citizens. Libertarians can set the principles, but politicians will be needed to run a political party. I think I know where we can find them. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingTime for a new party?

Trump Baseless Claims of Vote Fraud Constitute an Existential Threat to the United States

Eric Weinstein has never supported Trump. In a recent Tweet he has stated: "I couldn’t vote DJT because of the daily negative effect he has on our national culture." That said, some Trump supporters are among the many people who follow Weinstein (through his writings and through his excellent podcast, "The Portal"). Today Weinstein wrote a series of Tweets to Trump supporters. I don't know that Weinstein's fear about the football is substantiated, but it is something that occurs to me repeatedly and makes me nervous.

Even if misuse of the "football" is not a legit fear (yet), I do think that the delta between Trump's vote fraud allegations and proof of such a fraud is a well-substantiated existential threat, proof that Trump is willing to put his enormous fragile ego ahead of the safety of the United States. Trump is recklessly trying to stir up (through misinformation) a mob of 70M people in an attempt to circumvent the rule of law. How are Trump's lies on "election fraud" not treasonous, especially given that MIT studies have shown that lies spread much fast than the truth on social media?

I write this article knowing that many people on the political right are passionately seeking the reelection of Trump or at least they are passionately opposed to Joe Biden and the political left. I'm firmly convinced that most people don't support Trump because he is a "racist," as many of the left claim (any of us who actually personally know even a few Trump supporters know this). There are many reasons to be apprehensive about Joe Biden (I write this having voted for Biden over Trump, who I also see saw as an existential threat to the United States based on many things he has done over the past 4 years). Those legitimate fears about Biden (see below) are dry tinder that Trump is exploiting through his baseless claims of election fraud. This is a precarious moment for the United States.

Here is the dry tinder that could ignite the "mob" of 70 million. There are dozens of reasons other than "racism" that convinced millions of people to vote for Trump (or to vote against Biden):

Continue ReadingTrump Baseless Claims of Vote Fraud Constitute an Existential Threat to the United States