Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Idiots' guide

15 replies

picklemewalnuts · 03/03/2021 22:07

Could some patient soul explain the following terms for me please? They are bandied about round here, and I know I don't understand what they are. I know I could Google, but I'm currently unable to process anything particularly academic. I don't need a lot, just an outline- when I've processed that I'll be able to go deeper, I just can't get in!

Social Justice Theory
reified postmodern theory
Queer Theory
Critical race theory.

And if you don't want to, that's fine. I'll keep ploughing away.

OP posts:
SunsetBeetch · 03/03/2021 22:19

Someone cleverer than me might be along in a bit, but you might find this helpful?

newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/

NonnyMouse1337 · 03/03/2021 23:18

I'm not an expert, but I'll try to explain some of the terms as I understand them.

Many people call any kind of activism and campaigning around things like poverty, discrimination, racism etc as 'social justice'. That's not a bad or negative thing in itself. People who feel strongly about various kinds of injustice in the world look for ways to promote ideas and actions to improve or solve these social issues.

Social Justice Theory seems to me to be a sort of ideological framework originating in academia for 'pursuing' social justice aims or goals. People take these kinds of ideas into various organisations and institutions and push for changes that they think need to happen to 'achieve social justice'.
It is easily seen in the way people these days don't seem to have a boundary between their personal political views and their professional life.

For example, you might have come across a trendy café or shop that has posters up about supporting migrants or protesting against Brexit or saying things like 'if you're a Tory spend your money elsewhere'.
It used to be very unprofessional to voice your personal political views in a public setting. If you're running a cafe or shop, surely your main aim is to sell good products and services to anyone in your area. Yet these days, it's not enough to do that. There has to be a 'message', specifically a 'social justice' message.

At least with cafes, you can avoid going to them if you dislike their preachy, zealous approach. It's more worrying when people take this kind of zealous approach into areas of public policy and governance. Such people are not interested in collaborating on solutions that help the most people and that are based on factual data. They have an ideological perspective that they are determined to put into use because they think it's the right thing to do. It never occurs to them that this kind of imposition is deeply undemocratic and that other people might have different ideas about how to solve social problems. Or they assume that anyone who disagrees with them must be a bigot because why else wouldn't they accept the obvious solution to a problem?

So it turns something that had potential for good i.e. trying to solve social issues or supporting marginalised groups, into something very warped and authoritarian i.e. people putting their personal activism before their profession and pushing for sweeping changes in public policy or legislation without acknowledging how undemocratic this is. But they feel the end justifies the means.

NonnyMouse1337 · 03/03/2021 23:56

I've not heard of reified postmodern theory.
Postmodern theory is a philosophical and intellectual discipline that does have some valid points, but also can be quite weird and incoherent.

It promotes ideas like objective truth / reality doesn't exist or is unimportant; rejection or skepticism of reason and empiricism is a good thing; there are different 'truths' and knowledge which are all equally valid; reality is constructed via language and power structures; and so on. More knowledgeable posters can explain it better, but this ideological framework has influenced many branches of the social sciences such as queer theory and critical race theory.

ErrolTheDragon · 04/03/2021 00:09

I've not heard of reified postmodern theory.

Sound like a bit of an oxymoron.

PotholeParadies · 04/03/2021 02:36

Followimg this thread so I can find out I mean er...

I know that reifying mean treating abstract concepts as if they're real, because I looked it up last week. The academics on twitter keep using it!

It does seem a very good word to throw around when people expect you to put pseudo-intellectual nonsense into practice.

TaraR2020 · 04/03/2021 02:48

Calling postmodern theory also can be quite weird and incoherent is the neatest understatement I've heard all week Grin

You could try some bitesize resources aimed at students eg www.tutor2u.net/sociology/topics/postmodernism
Or take a look at YouTube

AffronttoGender · 04/03/2021 06:41
NecessaryScene1 · 04/03/2021 07:09

I've not heard of reified postmodern theory. - Sound like a bit of an oxymoron.

I believe it means postmodernism as applied in social movements like Wokism, rather than just as an academic tool.

For pretty much everything on the list applying it in the real world breaks it. They are oxymorons.

If everything is a social construct and there is no universal truth, how can postmodern theory be a universal truth enforced on all?

If you believe society is implicitly based on some power pyramid, so you create a space within it where you explicitly invert the power pyramid to "cancel it out", and you're in charge in that space, then all that stuff about who is supposed to have power no longer applies in your space. You need to update your "privilege" table and reverse the pyramid again.

And "queer theory" is all about rejecting the establishment norms. Once queer theory becomes the establishment norm, you have to reject it by its own principles.

And same with "trans women are women". If they are, and that was really anyone's association with "women", then the whole thing they're "identifying" with would vanish. They need "woman" to still mean "female" to anchor the "wrong sex" feeling. They don't want to identify as "Alex Drummond".

So it is oxymorons all the way down, which is why none of it works.

And I think the applied postmodernism is the battering ram which forces all the oxymorons through - it fairly consistently says "I reject your "reality" and "empiricism", they are just your verbal pretext for exerting power. I'm going to fight back with my own words, making this a straight verbal power struggle." And the above oxymoronic tools are used in that fight.

Once you go down that path of course, you're worse off than when you started. Previously if a bully wanted to be in charge they had to combine it with some convincing arguments. Now it's just the biggest bully wins.

Someone linked to New Discourses above - there are some good videos there, and audio podcasts. I think Helen Pluckrose might be a good place to start for the OP's questions:

The Evolution of Postmodern Thought

In her talk, she develops the definition of “Social Justice” as it is used in the academic literature in this tradition, explains its connections to identity politics and the political correctness movement, and then shows the relevance of the original postmodernists to this Theory in some detail. She does this to elegantly describe the progression of these ideas from Theory to activism to the streets by describing how these ideas originated, evolved, and were built upon by successive generations of Theorists leading up to those who have become famous names even outside of the scholarly world today: for examples, Peggy McIntosh, Barbara Applebaum, and Robin DiAngelo. She wraps up by explaining how this newest generation of Theorists simplified the highly abstract ideas of their predecessors and made it far clearer and easier to understand so that it could, as we now see all around us, eventually go mainstream.

picklemewalnuts · 04/03/2021 07:36

Ok, that's helpful. I'm starting to get there.

There's a sense that disagreeing with the person proclaiming their truth is down to your privilege, rather than objective facts.

Grievance studies came up as well.

It gave me a shake because I think I'd fallen in to some ways of thinking that were perhaps based on power or powerlessness (?) rather than objective truth.

I'll look at those resources.

Thank you for trying!

OP posts:
NecessaryScene1 · 04/03/2021 07:48

Grievance studies came up as well.

That's kind of a separate side thing to the "core" Woke CRT/postmodernism things, but it does answer the question about "what's going wrong in some of academia", aside from the activism. Mike Nayna did a 3-part doc about the Grievance studies hoax.

But this new interview is fab - about it, and the interviewer's struggle to articulate his thoughts on what Lindsay's describing are something.

YouTube comment about it:

May I humbly suggest that this discussion video be titled "Good Innocent Man Comes Face to Face With Evil." I'd pay good money to see him watching the "canoe meeting" vids by Nanya. His reaction was really kind of a new refresher for me...I've been so (involuntarily, like all of us) immersed in the bullshit for 4 years...since Evergreen...that the pure malevolence of SocJus really hit me anew. Excellent discussion...bless his ❤

NonnyMouse1337 · 04/03/2021 07:51

Lol thanks TaraR2020, it was my attempt at being balanced and evenhanded. Grin

Reified postmodern theory does sound like an oxymoron. I've come across the term 'applied postmodern theory' as well.

picklemewalnuts sorry I got distracted last night and forgot to say something about queer theory and critical race theory.

Queer theory is based around sex, sexuality, sexual practices, gender identity etc. It's influenced by postmodern theory which is why you have concepts like biological sex is a social and colonialist / oppressive construction; the conceptualisation of man and woman is based around gendered 'performances'; an obsession with controlling language; framing heterosexuality as this oppressive evil. Following in the footsteps of social justice theory, everyone who isn't heterosexual or who doesn't conform to the 'binary' of 'gender' is oppressed and marginalised. Therefore there's a need to disrupt this oppressive system by 'queering' everything. You might come across people or projects trying to 'queer the legal system' or 'queer the school curriculum'.
The ideological framework claims that if you 'queer' the notions of man and woman then you can defeat the 'white cisheteropatriarchy'.

Similar postmodern and social justice influences can be seen in what's termed as critical race theory. The notion that white people and 'whiteness' is this great evil that is responsible for nearly everything wrong in this world, therefore anyone who is not white is an oppressed group in this all-pervasive, racist system. (It never takes into account the rest of human history and human civilization that isn't USA-centric)
It claims that every interaction with a white person is imbued with 'unconscious' racism and bias. Also obsessed with controlling language, with words causing literal harm and violence upon marginalised groups. The insistence to 'decolonise' everything.

It's important to note that all these kinds of ideologies are based on actual academic disciplines. They used to be very obscure, but in recent years have spilled into popular culture and public conversations as people who are taken in by these ideas promote it in their work and social circles. Many people aren't aware of the 'theory' behind these areas - they pick up the ideas and run with it because it superficially sounds good. (End racism! Support trans / non-binary people!) But actually these ideologies are awful the closer you look into it.

There's a lot of detailed info and videos out there that explain these concepts further, but hopefully my (amateur and possibly not very accurate) descriptions give you an idea of why these terms are used when people are criticising what's going on around them.

picklemewalnuts · 04/03/2021 07:52

I've already watched the James Lindsey one. That was the start of my realising i need to understand this better, partly to recognise where it's impacting women's rights, and partly to make sure I'm not falling into the same traps.

OP posts:
NonnyMouse1337 · 04/03/2021 08:00

And NecessaryScene1 explains the overarching concepts much better. Smile

picklemewalnuts · 04/03/2021 08:11

Thanks Nonny. Having that 'bitesize' introduction will help me process what I'm reading. There was no section in my brain to put the ideas while they percolated!

OP posts:
costco · 04/03/2021 08:56

This whole thread has made my day. Maybe everything will work out for the best after all, if people keep talking.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.