December 22, 2020
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3Czyd0XSEso
Those who sounded the alarm were right. Ideas that just a few years ago were content to dismiss as the constant agitation of a few campus lunatics have now permeated the corporate world, mass media, and pop culture.
Critical race theory, transgender ideology, a relentless exploration of oppressive power relations in every aspect of life and every feature of language, a call for everyone to be an activist, and the silencing of dissent as violence: For most people who reject these ideologies, either common sense or the gift of solid Catholicism, formation is enough.
However, some may seek a more rigorous critique or a deeper understanding of the philosophical roots of radical leftism. To that end, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay write: cynical theorya very useful introduction to the development of modern activism from the postmodernist philosophy of the 1960s.
In this episode, Thomas and political philosopher Darrell Paul discuss the book. This book explores how postcolonial theory, queer theory, women’s/gender studies, critical race theory, and other activist fields have embodied or adapted the following core principles and themes of postmodernism: is being tracked.
Postmodern principles:
- Fundamental skepticism about the ability to know anything: cultural constructivism
- Society is made up of systems of power and hierarchy that determine what things can be known and how.
Postmodern themes: blurring boundaries, power of language, cultural relativism, loss of the individual and the universal.
The episode ends with Pluckrose’s critique and Lindsay’s prescription for a return to Enlightenment liberalism as a corrective to postmodernism.
content
[1:41] Reason for discussion cynical theory
[4:36] Evidence that postmodernist activist movements are reaching the mainstream
[10:58] What this book contributes to the debate on woke ideology
[15:00] Similarities and differences between postmodernism and Marxism
[26:25] Postmodern core principles and themes
[38:53] Policing speech as a means of power rather than a rational means of communicating the truth
[47:58] Diffusion of postmodern principles into many activist fields
[49:47] Defining one’s identity in terms of suffering and oppression
[55:07] The tension between the rejection of postmodern categories and the need to have categories to critique power relations. The emergence of queer theory. Deliberate contradiction as liberation
[1:01:06] The challenge for LGBTQ activists: To achieve the status of “normal” or to destroy the concept of normal?
[1:06:40] Gender theory and critical race theory about categories
[1:18:50] Postmodernism as a class ideology?
[1:24:17] Postcolonial critique of science. epistemological relativism
[1:27:30] Criticism of Pruckrose and Lindsay’s defense of a return to Enlightenment liberalism
[1:32:51] Liberalism as an essentially negative and deconstructive philosophy
[1:40:04] Postmodernism as an extension and/or result of liberalism
[2:04:33] How do you communicate the truth to someone who believes that language is just power?
link
Pluckrose and Lindsey, cynical theory
https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity_and/dp/1634312023
Darrell Paul: ‘No to racism’ https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/against-racialism
Darrell Paul “Listen to the Great Awakening”
https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/17/listening-at-the-great-awakening/
Darrell Paul: “The global community is an illusion”
https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-global-community-is-a-fantasy/
Darrell Paul From tolerance to equality
https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481306959/from-tolerance-to-equality/
Episode 61: Talking about liberalism as a counterculture with James Matthew Wilson
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-61-litera-anti-culture-vs-western-vision-soul-pt-i-james-matthew-wilson/
Episode 18. About the vice of acedia, which manifests itself by refusing to accept the given nature.
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-18-acedia-forgotten-capital-sin-rj-snell/
Christmas episode:
It’s a wonderful life (1946) Film Discussion with Patrick Coffin
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/its-wonderful-life-1946-w-patrick-coffin/
CCP 59 – Glorious British Carols
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-59-glorious-english-carol/
This podcast is produced by CatholicCulture.org. If you like our show, please consider supporting us. http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio
Source: The Catholic Culture Podcast – catholicculturepodcast.libsyn.com
