Exploring Cynical Theories: Examining How Activist Scholarship Changed the Way We Understand Race, Gender, and Identity

Mountain Panther Cat: I'm enjoying the book but it gets a little heavy at times (well, what to expect from a book on theory, right?). Don't let this put you off, though. It's very well written and helps us to understand why contemporary societies have been captured by so many crazy ideas.

United Kingdom on Sep 11, 2023

Saga: This book is suprising both in its ability to present complex (and sometimes nonsensical) ideas in an approachable way, and in its rigorous and systematic manner of contending with those ideas. It shows that the authors deal with these pressing and contentious matters with their heads on their shoulders and their feet firmly on the ground.

United States on Sep 05, 2023

Jose M.: which deconstructs(!) the various facets of wokenism and sheds light into the absurdity and reactionary character of many aspects of so-called postmodern critical "theory"

Spain on Mar 05, 2023

LenZen: What are the philosophical origins of wokeism? In this book Pluckrose and Lindsay argue that it is postmodernism. More than any other book or commentary I found this book to be the best in terms of understanding why today's woke think the way they do and just how far they would be willing to take their beliefs.

The authors provide an overview of post-modernism beginning in the 1960s. They describe how the original post-modernist philosophers called the possibility of any objective human knowledge into question. In its place they focused on language, dominant discourses, and how these worked to perpetuate the continued power of those at the top of western society. The authors describe how after everything had been deconstructed postmodernism did not die, as many now allege. Rather, with some modifications, postmodernism branched off into studies like queer theory, post-colonial studies, critical race theory, intersectionality, gender studies along with fat and disabled studies.

The authors discuss how the evolution after the late 1980s involved conceding the possibility of some knowledge: namely that dominant and oppressed groups exist and that the post-modernists'...

United States on Feb 26, 2022

Apemantus: I remember the days when “left-wing” meant being interested in and fighting for workers’ rights, focusing on class struggle, basing political action on real issues. Nowadays such things seem not to exist for the trendy intellectuals and tenured academics, who are more interested in “identity” – a term even less easy to define than class (which usually equated essentially with wealth). In their world such issues as unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness apparently do not exist – presumably as they have never suffered personally from any of these. Instead they shout and scream about the oppression of fat people, of anyone who is not heterosexual, anyone who is not white, anyone who is disabled – whether those groups want “representing” or not.

This useful and important book gives a concise explanation of the absurd roots of this phenomenon, lying in “postmodernism”, which , though starting out as yet another intellectual thought experiment, gradually became accepted as gospel, and worse, became the assumed basis for reality and praxis. The theory that all (meta)theories are only conceptual constructions has itself become the underlying fabric...

Italy on Nov 20, 2021

stefanf: Mit "Cynical Theories" legen Pluckrose und Lindsay ein sehr lesenswertes Buch über die gegenwärtigen Debatten rund um linke Identitätspolitiken vor. Hierbei wird eine dezidiert kritische Haltung gegenüber den theoretischen Hintergrundannahmen und den Mitteln der Zielerreichung linker Identitätspolitiken (v. a. faire Zugangs- und Lebensbewältigungschancen in allen Lebensbereichen für alle Menschen unabhängig von Merkmalen) eingenommen. Pluckrose/Lindsay geben dabei zu verstehen, dass sie die Zielsetzungen zwar zweifelsfrei teilen, als Anhänger/innen des klassischen politischen Liberalismus allerdings gänzlich andere Mittel für die Erzielung von weiteren Fortschritten ins Feld führen. Dementsprechend attestieren sie den radikalen Formen linker Identitätspolitiken "noble ends" und "terrible means" (S. 132).

Dreh- und Angelpunkt des Buches ist die Zerlegung der Grundannahmen der auf dem Poststrukturalismus basierenden, aber angepassten Spielarten sog. "postmoderner Theorien", die im Buch oftmals verkürzt als "Theory" benannt werden. Diese "Theory" erfährt laut Pluckrose/Lindsay seit den 1980/90er Jahren eine immer größere wissenschaftliche Relevanz in den...

Germany on Apr 11, 2021

Bluecashmere.: Although the authors tell us that this book is written for the layman, much of it is dense and challenging because the language of political correctness and identity politics is deliberately obscure. What is presented in the name of tolerance so often masks intolerance. Too often what we are offered is bullying and restraints on free expression. The obsession with class, race, gender, sex and sexuality has grown from practical applications of Postmodernism, particularly the writings of Foucault and Derrida. The larger part of the book is concerned to show how these oppressive cultural forces have grown from the key intellectuals of the 1960s.

In rejecting Christianity and Marxism as answers to deep injustices in society, out too went respect for reason, science and our inheritance from the enlightenment. This is at the very root of the predicament we find ourselves in now. These thinkers were cynical about the notion of human progress. There is no objective reality. All derives from the power invested in privileged groups, de facto white, males – no-one other than a white person can be racist and all white men are racist by definition. Postmodernism rejected the...

United Kingdom on Dec 09, 2020

Richard B. Schwartz: 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...

United States on Sep 20, 2020