"Cynical Theories" by Pluckrose and Lindsay. An Abbreviated Review

 

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody.
Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
Pitchstonebooks.com
ISBN: 9781634312028; $27.95; August 2020


It was refreshing to watch! The Enlightenment sparring with Postmodernism! Classic Liberalism taking on Social Justice Theory! Secularism scrapping it up with Critical Theory Authoritarianism! And what a match it was. Essayist, James Lindsay, and writer, Helen Pluckrose, who were leading lights in the 2018 grievance studies affair probe, pulled together long hours and research and presented them to the reading public recently in their 352-page hardback, “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity – and Why This Harms Everybody.” This well documented tome is written with an even hand that gives judicious thinkers truck loads of material for perceiving the modern moment and helping to fathom what has happened and is happening in the West.


“Cynical Theories” is full-on liberalism: that old, classic liberalism of bygone eras, where liberty of thought, expression and the individual, were held in high regard. It is also a clear secularism eschewing religion and complex spiritual worldviews and moral communities of the left or the right. “This book ultimately seeks to present a philosophically liberal critique of Social Justice scholarship and activism and argues that this scholarship-activism does not further social justice and equality aims” (20). It is not a work undermining liberal feminism, civil rights, or LGBT equality, but is concerned that Social Justice Theory is undercutting all of these and more. So, this is by no stretch of the imagination, a Christian work, nor is it a political or socially conservative manual.


Since there are hundreds upon hundreds of reviews already out and freely available for readers to plumb so they can grasp the intricacies of the volume, I will simply state two reasons (out of many) why I, a Christian pastor, social conservative, and political traditionalist, found the manuscript valuable. I appreciated the helpful distinction Lindsay and Pluckrose made between Social Justice Theory (a reified postmodernism that has its own regimes of truths and moral communities) and social justice (the establishment of liberty and justice for all in society regardless of race, religion, etc.). The authors carefully describe and display the many ways Social Justice Theory dismantles and damages genuine actions of justice in western society. They have also written large the whole matanarratival approach of “The Truth according to Social Justice” and how this newfangled orthodoxy crushes open discussion and viewpoint diversity that has been so necessary in western development and scientific advancements. Further, they tease out many of the fields of “study” where “Theory” has impacted scholarship, and the ways this is changing academia and impacting culture. Their whole criticism of Critical Race Theory, as a case in point, was extremely insightful.


The research presented in “Cynical Theories” will help people decipher more clearly what they see and hear going on, and the why. And will provide readers with important details to aid them in thoughtfully challenging those perspectives. If you’re an educator of kids or college students, you need to read this volume and reassess the educational models you’ve been handed. Are you a journalist, pastor, opinion-shaper of any kind? This book is a must! You may not be happy with every description or conclusion, but you will find it richly beneficial in readdressing your perceptions and giving you ideas for the way forward. I highly recommend the book.