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Cynical Theories
- How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody
- Narrated by: Helen Pluckrose
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly best seller!
Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only White people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society?
In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself.
While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy - in the academy, in culture, and beyond.
What listeners say about Cynical Theories
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- Patrick R
- 2021-06-11
Great book, botched recording.
A thorough and engaging synopsis of the advent of postmodernism through to the current reshaping of its tenants in order to fixate on gender, race and identity. The recording itself is full of badly recorded inserts and distracting sudden shifts in tone and ambient sound. It's a great book that deserves to be recorded properly.
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- Chelseareader
- 2021-06-21
A must read
Though claiming to be for a general audience this book covers a very complex and nuanced topic in an impressively comprehensive manner. Alas it makes for a tough read for a layman of critical theory.
It is however well worth the effort and goes a very long way to understanding what is happening in today’s media, social media, and culture wars
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- Amazon Customer
- 2021-06-13
A full taxonomy of Critical Theory
Finally an outsiders manual on the thinking and language of Critical Theorists and their specifics sects (gender, race, colonial, fat, disability, imtersectional). The book doesn't go into detail about what to do about the illberalism of Critical Theory, it is more a comprehensive exposure of Critical Theory as completely illiberal and the reader can choose what if anything should be done about it. The subject seems far less daunting now and I feel I can challenge some ideas of Critical Theory more confidently as a Classical Liberal.
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- Anonymous User
- 2021-05-27
A reilef to listen to these ideas
Fantastic to hear a detailed rebuttal to the cult of social justice. But a bit too academic in first half. Second half much easier to digest. So sensible and reasoned it is amazing these ideas aren't being expressed more loudly in society.
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- HRPuff&Stuff
- 2020-12-11
Postmodernism has sex with Critical Theory ...
and produced a deformed child called Social Justice. This is a thick book and though Helen Pluckrose is easy to listen to, one can drift off requiring a double take by rewinding. However even with one reading, you get the historical arch of where we are today with on-line campus student struggle sessions and the secular faithful imposing only one truth around modern society. It is also a way to understand the coded language of Social Justice activists, where words have meanings that the average person misunderstands as something else. This is an important book regarding the concerns of liberal humanists and people who believe in the universality of human rights. We are again moving into troubling social times with identity politics and dog whistles not only coming from the nationalistic right but also the deconstructing everything left. Will the center of Western Liberal democracies hold? Only time will tell. But if you are worried and confused, this book helps with understanding what the f**ck just happened since 2010.
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10 people found this helpful
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- paul summerville
- 2021-02-15
Thank you
Like Richard Dawkins gave us the language and arguments to beat off magical thinking so Pluckrose and Lindsay provide us with all the tools we need to marginalize Social Justice Theory in all its insidious forms. Bravo!
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- Anonymous User
- 2021-11-02
A primer for understanding postmodernism
Very thorough and well argued. Provided a comprehensive overview with sufficient detail that helped me finally understand this subject and how it is affecting the world.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-07-19
Thank you
As a progressive liberal, who has many of the same concerns of both authors, I am grateful for their work here.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bannister Bergen
- 2021-06-06
Post modernism explained in layman's terms
Vital listening for understanding the danger of the post modernism paradox inherent in today's social justice extremism.
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- Mark F Sperring
- 2021-05-20
mark sperring
I had heard thus was a little scholarly in its writing. I'm not that scholarly but I found it very useful to understanding the series of events that led us to where we are. Of course I did have to listen without distraction but it is easy enough to follow.
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