Helen Pluckrose...why?

[RoyalCorgi]

I've just bought Helen Pluckrose's new book, Cynical Theories, attacking identity politics. We've had some discussions on here about it.

Yet apparently she doesn't like gender-critical feminists. I can't get my head around why, given that we are on the same side. Anyone know?

I think that it was done to expose the absolutely piss-poor state of academia where standards and evidence don't matter so long as you say the woke thing. And they did expose that.

Agree that this is a generalisation, even in sociology and under humanities it undermines the interesting and analytical work that is done. We always need to uphold standards, and agree with Goosefoot that science publishing can be problematic - look at the recent example of the Covid study published in the Lancet in May.

Anyway, I've no beef with Helen. She's anti-idealogy (and treading the fine line now of not becoming ideologically anti-idealogy) and in many ways, I am very sympathetic to that. Nietzsche reads to me in a similar vein.

Also I think people underestimate the role of academic thought in the cultural discourse. In most Western countries, there's been a move from under 10 to around 50% of young people going to University in the postwar years. Nearly everything you watch on TV, every novel or piece of non-fiction you read, newspaper articles, social media (certainly creators of it, though allows for a wider range of voices ), has been created by someone who has been through higher education.

I think the GC crowd on there don't always see how upsetting it must be to get literally hundreds of comments all saying the same thing and demanding answers, interspersed with a few unpleasant insults. I get the impression that Helen has got a lot of this, and then she also gets a lot of shit from TRAs and the alt-right, so I think she probably just shuts it all down.

To keep it to what this threads about, that didn’t happen with Maya. I suspect it was the TRA pile on she was trying to avoid. I didn’t see anything more than a polite patient conversation.

I also think that’s a little unfair to say any of the women on twitter who are GC don’t understand what a twitter pile-on feels like. Of course they do. Helen isn’t special, it happens to Maya, to other GC feminists... all women have issues using social media and speaking their truth.

She doesn’t owe anyone anything. That was my point above, right? Similarly nobody owes her anything and ‘writing someone off’ can just simply be a matter of, ‘ Ive not seen anything worth giving more of my time to this persons work/writings... whatever’. If you become a public person of some sort, people will discuss your position on the issues you speak about, and they will challenge you sometimes too, that goes with the territory. Obviously abuse or harassment don’t, but I don’t see angry nasty gender critical accounts following people around twitter abusing them, certainly not in large numbers.

In most Western countries, there's been a move from under 10 to around 50% of young people going to University in the postwar years

Is that a good thing? There are myriad reasons why it is not.

Nearly everything you watch on TV, every novel or piece of non-fiction you read, newspaper articles, social media (certainly creators of it, though allows for a wider range of voices ), has been created by someone who has been through higher education

The increasing insularity of the views which dominate the media, the lack of diversity of political discourse, is an indictment of the education system. Not an endorsement.

Gwynfluff I should have said 'some areas of' academia. I clarified in a later comment.

MillyMolly Yes, as I said, I agree with you it's your choice who you agree/disagree with/pay attention to. I definitely have seen plenty of GC pile ons though, on women who weren't saying the right GC thing. Most of them aren't nasty in the way TRA pile ons are. But it's a lot of 'can't you see how stupid you are being?' type comments which, if you get 100 of those, is just going to feel wearisome, at best. And yes, Helen P may have been trying to avoid the TRA pile on, but I think sometimes the two go together - you attract GC attention then the TRAs follow. So I imagine it all gets to be a bit much and people have got lives to live - Helen, Maya, and everyone else.

Yes, as I said, I agree with you it's your choice who you agree/disagree with/pay attention to

The way you framed it previously made me clarify what was actually happening.

@MillyMollyFarmer

Yes, as I said, I agree with you it's your choice who you agree/disagree with/pay attention to

The way you framed it previously made me clarify what was actually happening.

I apologise if I didn't make myself clear.

No probs