Eli answers “So, who's actually read it? It's...”

Philip of Macedon asked this question about Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody:

So, who's actually read it? It's interesting that this book is still more than a month from release, but there are already a dozen ratings for it and zero reviews. I'm confident it'll be a good book, because Helen and James do fantastic work. But this seems to provide more evidence of the disappointing recurring theme I see on Goodreads, which is that a lot of people rate or review books they haven't even read.

Eli Probably because the title gives away the entire thesis. This is clearly some attack piece that uses cherry picked research and copious appeals to emo…moreProbably because the title gives away the entire thesis. This is clearly some attack piece that uses cherry picked research and copious appeals to emotion to try to make snowflake conservatives feel safe again. It's a literary safe space, if you will, where entitled white people can retreat into an echo chamber where "western ideals" are being attacked by out of control minorities demanding radical things such as basic human dignity, legal protection, and equal access to economic opportunity. And there's probably gonna be some straw-man argument about how "Postmodernism" or "wokeism" or whatever you want to call it is different from "The Enlightenment." Because the Enlightenment was about questioning dogma and looking at objective evidence and postmodernism is...also about that? The folks who whine about modern progressivism have never had a very cogent argument. This book is just one more turd on the shitheap.(less)

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Cynical Theories

by Helen Pluckrose

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