Applied Postmodernism: How "Idea Laundering" is Crippling American Universities

A fringe ideology on the far left has taken over academia, suppressing free speech and promoting grievance studies over evidence-based research, with the goal of controlling society and imposing its ideology on others

Questions to inspire discussion 

• What's happening in American universities?

  —A fringe ideology on the far left has taken over academia, suppressing free speech and promoting grievance studies over evidence-based research. This ideology aims to control society and impose its views on others. It's spreading rapidly, metastasizing into other areas of society.

• What is postmodernism in academia?

  —Postmodernism in American universities promotes a framework where knowledge is seen as constructed by powerful groups, leading to a rejection of objective truth and the promotion of subjective "truths" based on identity and power dynamics. This approach prioritizes lived experience over objectivity and elevates personal feelings and cultural traditions to the same level as scientifically established truths.

• What is "idea laundering"?

  —Idea laundering is a process where opinions or prejudices are disguised as scholarly research, published, and taught as fact, creating a false legitimacy. This allows fringe, far-left ideas to be legitimized and mainstreamed into academia, often through the creation of new journals and conferences.

• Why are academics promoting grievance studies?

  —Academics are promoting grievance studies as a way to critique a specific branch of scholarship that assumes grievances exist before evidence is found, prioritizing identity and power dynamics over reason and universal knowledge. This approach is seen as a way to address social justice issues, but it can lead to the suppression of dissenting voices and the promotion of misinformation.

• How can we counter this ideology?

  —To counter this ideology, individuals must speak up and challenge prevailing ideologies, such as social justice, by understanding and questioning their underlying principles. Supporting students who are willing to speak out against the dominant ideology can also help create a counterbalance and restore free speech in universities.

Key Insights

Academic Freedom and Censorship

• 🚫 I was penalized for saying sexual selection exists and for saying race is less significant than shared goals, and it was made very clear to me that I could not pass my masters or do a PhD if I were to keep insisting on liberal principles and on biology actually being a reality.
• 📊 Asking for evidence for institutionalized policies in the Academy is now considered racist, as seen in the case of Brett Weinstein at Evergreen State College.
• 📚 The claim that a campus is "unfixably racist" can be based on the idea that even asking for evidence of racism is evidence of one's own racism.
• 🚨 Bruce Gilley, a professor at Portland State University, wrote a paper in defense of colonialism, which sparked death threats to the journal and its authors, illustrating the extreme backlash against unpopular ideas in academia.
• 🚫 This ideology doesn't like disagreement, it doesn't allow it, it shouts it down.
• 💡 A relatively powerful fringe is enforcing their rules with the cultural equivalent of a bludgeon, suppressing free speech in universities.

Flaws in Critical Theory and Scholarship

• 📝 They decided to write "kind of gibberish" and see if academic journals could tell that it was "beyond nonsense" and "completely worthless words on paper with random citations attached".
• 🚨 Science itself and reason are considered straight white male knowledge that are intrinsically oppressive.
• 💡 Idea laundering is a process where opinions or prejudices are written into scholarly-looking papers, published as scholarship, and taught as truth, making dirty ideas look legitimate.
• 📚 One of the reviewers called the paper, which was intentionally written to be absurd, "an important contribution to knowledge".
• 🚫 Authors of critical nutrition studies created their own journal to validate their ideas after being rejected by existing nutrition journals, giving the appearance of legitimacy to their work.
• 📚 The kind of scholarship that we're looking for is the kind that assumes a grievance to exist before it begins and then it finds it, which is a problem because it doesn't want evidence, it doesn't want reason.

• 🚫 The disciplines of intersectional feminism, post-colonial theory, critical race theory, and queer theory attacked the idea of liberalism, which aims for equality and freedom for everybody.
• 📚 They get seven of these in and seven years they get tenure which is a job for life, they then get together in communities with other people who have published in this and let's make no mistake, but these are purely ideological ideas coming from a fringe section of the far left.
• 📚 The dominant orthodoxy in every single teacher education program in the English-speaking world is based upon Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" that has morphed into an industry of grievance studies.
• 👥 The far left's goal of taking over academia has succeeded, and they are now using it as a means to control the country or the world.
• 🚫 The paper's authors followed Hitler's plan for the Nazi Party, condensing his 13 points into 8, to create a set of principles for achieving intersectional feminism, including enduring sacrifices, punching back at critics, and prioritizing the most oppressed groups.

Ideological Takeover of Academia

• 🚫 "This is how fascism works" hashtag has been attached to my name, and people have made accounts cloning my family members' accounts to abuse me online.
• 🗣️ Some activists are trying to prevent important information about autism and hearing from being shared, arguing that it's "ableist" to not want a child to be autistic or to make a deaf child hear.

#Sociology #Cult #DEI #Identity #Woke

XMentions: @HPluckrose @peterboghossian @ConceptualJames @elonmusk

• 00:00 📚 American universities are being crippled by "idea laundering" where postmodernism promotes subjective truths over objective reality, suppressing conservative voices and discouraging evidence-based inquiry.
  • A literature and history student was penalized for expressing liberal principles and acknowledging biological realities, leading to a desire to study rigorously without ideological frameworks.
  • Institutional policies designed to protect people from offensive ideas have created a culture of brittleness, suppressed conservative voices, and discouraged evidence-based inquiry in American universities.
  • A small liberal college in Olympia, Washington, was taken over by aggressive students who claimed the campus was "unfixably racist" despite a lack of evidence, and anyone questioning this claim was labeled racist.
  • Researchers attempted to publish nonsensical papers in mid-tier academic journals, but were unsuccessful, leading them to realize that the journals were publishing a specific type of nonsense that required understanding.
  • Academics are validating and amplifying postmodern ideas, such as the notion that knowledge is constructed rather than objective, by faithfully reproducing and publishing them in credible academic papers.
  • Postmodernism in American universities promotes a framework where knowledge is seen as constructed by powerful groups, leading to a rejection of objective truth and the promotion of subjective "truths" based on identity and power dynamics.
• 09:10 📚 Postmodernism in American universities prioritizes personal feelings and group identity over objectivity and reason, leading to the spread of flawed and fabricated research through "idea laundering".
  • Postmodernism in American universities prioritizes lived experience over objectivity, elevating personal feelings and cultural traditions to the same level as scientifically established truths, undermining reason, evidence, and individuality.
  • Intersectional feminism, post-colonial theory, critical race theory, and queer theory attacked liberalism, arguing against individual equality and freedom, and instead emphasizing group identity over universal humanism.
  • Postmodernist schools of thought argue that individualism is a myth, and instead, people should be viewed as demographic groups with their own knowledge and experiences, which have been unfairly marginalized and require elevation.
  • Idea laundering is a process where opinions or prejudices are disguised as scholarly research, published, and taught as fact, creating a false legitimacy.
  • Academic journals are publishing nonsensical research that starts with a predetermined conclusion and uses existing scholarship to build a flawed argument, which is then presented as legitimate knowledge.
  • The peer-review system in American universities is flawed, allowing absurd and fabricated research papers to be published without scrutiny.
• 15:16 📚 Fringe, far-left ideas are being "laundered" into mainstream academia through self-publishing, peer review, and tenure, spreading postmodernist ideologies that prioritize moral fashionability over intellectual rigor.
  • Academics with fringe, far-left ideas create journals, publish each other's work, and gain tenure, thereby laundering their ideologies into mainstream academia.
  • Feminist studies' "doing gender" concept, which assumes men and women are psychologically identical and that gender differences are solely due to societal socialization, has spawned a dozen derivative papers that build on this ideology, leading to absurd conclusions.
  • A book on critical nutrition studies, citing Lenin as a model for food distribution, exemplifies "idea laundering," where fringe ideas are legitimized by creating new journals and conferences to bypass traditional academic scrutiny.
  • The spread of postmodernist ideas, which prioritize moral fashionability over intellectual rigor, is crippling American universities and metastasizing into other areas of society, including media, business, education, and even online communities.
  • Peggy McIntosh's "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" assumes white skin is a privilege, ignoring economic and educational privilege, and has been further problematized to imply that privilege cannot be simply "taken off".
  • The concept of "grievance studies" critiques a specific branch of scholarship that assumes grievances exist before evidence is found, prioritizing identity and power dynamics over reason and universal knowledge.
• 29:21 📚 A movement is emerging to counter the dominant ideology in American universities that prioritizes grievance studies over learning, promoting a more liberal and inclusive approach to education.
  • The speaker aims to provide resources to articulate an alternative to a prevailing ideology that suppresses disagreement and promote constructive conversations with those holding opposing views.
  • A movement is being built to counter the dominant orthodoxy in teacher education programs, which prioritizes grievance studies over learning, by articulating alternative ideas and promoting a more liberal and inclusive approach to education.
  • The speaker, an independent writer, faces online abuse and social ostracism for their views, but believes that accurate scholarship is essential to solving problems like racism and sexism.
  • The speaker claims to have been a target of harassment and smear campaigns, including being followed into restrooms, due to their involvement in controversies like the Google memo.
  • The speaker describes being targeted by faculty members and facing numerous false accusations, emphasizing that the issue is not personal but rather about fighting against the spread of misinformation and protecting future generations from its consequences.
  • A college student's expertise is limited to specific social justice topics, such as the civil rights movement and Black Panthers, while lacking basic knowledge in other areas, like geography.
• 37:52 📚 A far-left ideology is infiltrating American universities, prioritizing social justice over academic rigor and stifling free speech, with many secretly disagreeing but remaining silent due to fear of backlash.
  • A far-left ideology is infiltrating American universities, pushing a moral agenda and social justice issues over academic rigor, even in subjects like math.
  • A small but influential faction of the identitarian left has undue institutional power, stifling free speech and legitimate debate in American universities.
  • Many people on college campuses secretly disagree with dominant ideologies but remain silent or even pretend to agree due to fear of backlash, a phenomenon known as "preference falsification".
  • Elite universities are more prone to ideological conflicts and "idea laundering" due to their theoretical focus, whereas community colleges with more working-class students prioritize practical knowledge.
  • Liberal atheists are gaining popularity with the religious right, including Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, where their ideas are being taught.
  • The concept of "woke" refers to a worldview where every instance of bigotry is seen as evidence of a systemic, underlying disease of racism, sexism, and homophobia that permeates society.
• 45:32 📚 Postmodern ideas have evolved into a cultural force in American universities through "idea laundering" and are now crippling free speech and academic discourse.
  • Postmodern ideas, born in 1960s France and incubated in 1990s universities, have evolved into a cultural force through internet-facilitated "idea laundering" and adoption by scholars seeking to apply them to solve societal problems.
  • Kimberly Crenshaw's influential ideas replaced liberal erasure of racial categories with identity politics, using postmodern thought to make race a central identity category.
  • A counterbalance to the dominant ideology in universities can be created by supporting students who are willing to speak out against it, as they are the key to restoring free speech and challenging the powerful fringe enforcing its rules.
  • Many professors, including some on the left, are hesitant to speak out against radical, fringe ideas in academia due to fear of backlash, but would be willing to push back if they felt comfortable doing so.
  • To effect change in academia, individuals must speak up and challenge prevailing ideologies, such as social justice, by understanding and questioning their underlying principles.
  • The term "equity" is being used to smuggle in an ideology that prioritizes making up for past injustices over treating everyone equally.
• 55:39 📚 Postmodernist ideas have infiltrated American universities, promoting non-scientific approaches to social science issues and legitimizing radical ideologies through "idea laundering".
  • A proposed academic paper suggested "experiential reparations" by ignoring emails from white heterosexual males, but was softened to avoid being "compassionate" to the "privileged".
  • Thirty years ago, postmodernist ideas shifted to focus on power, knowledge, and language, becoming more accessible and simplified, leading to the proliferation of absolute certainty statements that can be argued with.
  • Theoretical humanities, particularly cultural studies fields like post-colonial and queer studies, and education departments in universities, are promoting non-scientific approaches to social science issues, influencing K-12 teaching and college administrators.
  • Social justice ideologies spread through social media can lead to public shaming, causing people to ignore important issues like sexism and racism due to repeated exposure to misinformation.
  • Researchers replaced "Nazi Party" with "intersectional feminism" in Hitler's manifesto, massaged the wording, and added scholarly references to create a paper that was accepted by a journal, demonstrating how "idea laundering" can legitimize radical ideologies in academia.
  • The speaker discusses the need to simplify and make accessible the ideas of postmodernism to counter its negative influence on American universities, and announces plans to create educational resources and turnkey syllabi to help professors and students understand the topic.
• 01:07:02 ⚠️ Activists are pressuring universities to suppress medical information and impose ideological language, creating a culture of corruption and vulnerability.
  • Forcing people to share their pronouns can make some individuals, such as rape victims, feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, and can be seen as a form of "signaling" rather than a genuine expression of identity.
  • Activists are pressuring organizations to suppress medical information, such as the link between obesity and cancer, and the benefits of treating autism and deafness, by labeling it "fat phobic" or "ableist".
  • Corruption in academia is more insidious when driven by political ideology rather than money, making it harder for people to recognize and condemn.
  • Young people are frequently exposed to a pervasive language that hides a more sinister agenda, requiring resources to help them understand what's really being asked of them.

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Duration: 1:11:47

Publication Date: 2024-08-27T16:06:05Z

WatchUrl:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeXfV0tAxtE

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