This is a very important book and I will try to review it appropriately. Bear with me. First, the jacket art is misleading. It makes the book look like an 'advocacy' book of the sort usually associated with contemporary politics. It advocates for a point of view, but it is a densely-argued, densely-written scholarly book. It is, at many points, painful to read because the ideas which are being depicted and countered are both wrongheaded (or banal) on their face but of immense influence. How did we ever allow ourselves to get here? (we scream to ourselves), but that is where we are and it is a very dangerous place, initially destroying whole segments of universities and now finding its way into the external, real-world society.
The book is written in three acts; it explains postmodernism and its progenitors (a nexus of ideas already passé in the 80's); shows how postmodernism was applied (creating ". . . Studies" departments, and so on) and then reified, with Social Justice (to be distinguished from social justice) warriors in the streets. It then offers a coda, an alternative to this nexus of ideas and activity: traditional liberalism. This is largely rational liberalism (the defense of reason, logic and evidence; the necessary openness to a multiplicity of ideas; the refusal to be force-fed ideological dogma) and nearly every conservative would subscribe to the alternative which the authors offer (or at least 98% of it).
The argument is very detailed; we get down to the nitty gritty of individual articles published by race/gender/identity theorists and see how even obscure programs ("fat studies") have been initiated.
The argument is persuasive and, I believe, scrupulously fair, but it lacks the liveliness and punch of the critiques of individuals such as Camille Paglia who have exposed the nudity of these reigning emperors and empresses for decades. It is strong medicine; we receive detailed depictions of the syndromes in the best scholarly fashion, but there is less outright and passionate debunking than many would prefer.
I would love to see this book as the 'common read' for a university but that will never happen. Students should realize that the dogma they are about to be force-fed is nonsensical. We receive a bit of the anticipated counterattack in the coda, where issues are faced head-on. An example:
WE AFFIRM that sexism remains a problem in society and needs to be addressed.
WE DENY that Theoretical approaches to gender issues, including queer Theory and intersectional feminism, which work on blank slatist theories of sex and gender, are useful to address it as we believe it is necessary to acknowledge biological realties to address such issues.
(The authors' orientation is secular and scientific in many senses of the terms, so that their go-to authority for support is often Steven Pinker.)
I would recommend the following supplementary books, each of which is more 'conservative' and, with one exception, a livelier read:
Daphne Patai and Will H. Corral, THEORY'S EMPIRE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF DISSENT. (47 essays by principal thinkers, including [memorably] Chomsky).
Roger Scruton, FOOLS, FRAUDS AND FIREBRANDS: THINKERS OF THE NEW LEFT. (Note that the title is more hyperbolic than the book, written by the principal conservative voice of our time.)
Heather Mac Donald, THE DIVERSITY DELUSION: HOW RACE AND GENDER PANDERING CORRUPT THE UNIVERSITY AND UNDERMINE OUR CULTURE. (The title and subtitle are self-explanatory. Written at the nexus of top-flight journalism and serious scholarship.)
Paul Boghossian, FEAR OF KNOWLEDGE: AGAINST RELATIVISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM. (The premier philosophic counterattack by a preeminent analytic philosopher. Not for the casual reader.)
Stephen R. C. Hicks, EXPLAINING POSTMODERNISM: SKEPTICISM AND SOCIALISM FROM ROUSSEAU TO FOUCAULT, Expanded Edition. (The only one of these books that is listed in the authors' bibliography. It is crucial for an important argument which the authors mention twice, though largely in passing—the notion that the French Nietzscheans were devastated by the collapse of communism and the oceans of blood it left in its wake. They knew that it could not stand up against the forces of history, evidence, logic and reason and so they assaulted the truth claims associated with the Enlightenment, 'removing' the foundations for, in effect, rational discourse that could be tested in the arena of ideas.)
One final point: this is (given the current ethos) a brave book. It proclaims what may be obvious but what is now forbidden to say—that there is such a thing as the individual and such a thing as common humanity and, yes, human nature (p. 257). It also says, without qualification, that "we must oppose the institutionalization of [reified postmodernism's] belief system" (p. 264). "We must object to any requirement of an orthodox Social Justice statement of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or mandatory diversity or equity training, just as we would object to public institutions that required a statement of Christian or Muslim belief or attendance of church or mosque" (p. 264). Amen.
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody
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Last update: 06-19-2024
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