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  • Cynical Theories

  • How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody
  • By: Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay
  • Narrated by: Helen Pluckrose
  • Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (205 ratings)

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Cynical Theories

By: Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay
Narrated by: Helen Pluckrose
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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.

©2020 Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay (P)2020 Pitchstone Publishing

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A must read in 2020

This book is very informative and provides a solid knowledge base into critical theories and the way they’re currently applied.
It’s really well written and easily digestible.
Narration is really nice too.

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3 people found this helpful

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Struggled to engage

Really interesting subject matter but the narrators voice was so monotone I just couldn't stay attentive

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3 people found this helpful

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An excellent primer on a pernicious ideology

Pluckrose and Lindsay have done the reading so you don't have to. Do you ever wonder why Hollywood is in a woke delusion? Why diversity quotas and implicit bias training have infected HR departments of companies as big as Google? It can all be traced back to Post-Modernism and it's antecedents, Critical Theory and Woke-ism. This book is an excellent treatise on this poisonous nonsense.

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    4 out of 5 stars

absolutely worth the read but buckle in

sound a book to have some really important points and food for thought, but I will say it's not easy reading, you have to be engaged in the text otherwise the words can bombard you, which I know has to happen because of the subject but can make it slow goimg

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brilliant

this is a brilliant reasonable book that talks common sense through out I absolutely loved it

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Grateful

Wow such a clear, concise and important rebuttal to social justice scholarship, and a reaffirmation of liberal ideals

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  • Ben
  • 25-08-2023

very insightful

A very well researched analysis of the current zeitgeist plaguing the west. It's helped to make sense of the madness.

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Brilliant!

Such a necessary and timely work. Thank you for putting all the pieces together and helping.me make sense of the current Social Justice dialogue

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A must read so we rescue what is actually progressive

It is curious that those claiming to be Progressive are regressing our society and harming those they claim to champion. This book gave me a better understanding of the roots of this new religion and reaffirmed my belief in open discourse and the value of diverse views.

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Enlightening

I listened to this book after finding it referenced in The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle.

They both helped me understand the present culture wars, and appreciate why religious categories are being used about critical social justice ( capitals are required).

The arguments are clear , rigorous and for me persuasive. Long live social justice ( no capitals) .

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