Have just picked up Cynical Theories, by Pluckrose (who wrote a great piece on liberal lefties a while ago: Liberal lefties are not right-wing) and Lindsay. Same authors who created those fake (non-)scientific articles on gender and race last year or so. Also currently reading another interesting book, The End of Gender (dedicated to everyone who has blocked her on Twitter) by Dr. Debra Soh, sexologist and neuroscientist. Quite relevant here I think is that at least both Pluckrose and Soh are liberal leftists.
1 Like
Thanks @rebecca, I was seeking something to read last time. Here are a few quotes from Soh’s book I started yesterday:
The book intro and Soh’s suggestion about reader could feel shameless by buying or reading this book, made me think that all this Twitter cancel culture needs to be stopped. Why did Twitter become the place of a major public opinion? I did not have an account there till May 2020 (as many people did not) and it was further blocked without a reason. Does it mean that my precious point of view was not taken into consideration? I call for Twitter cancellation! 
It is totally OK not to agree with something but it is worth to know why someone thinks another way. And if the opinion will be changed after there is no shame of this process. We live we learn, there is no shame to learn.
2 Likes
Twitter is not suitable for scientific/academic discourse for sure. That’s where this forum hopefully can help.
Cynical Theories seem to be the book I’ve been looking for: it offers an explanation to the origin of identity politics (ie postmodernism).
“The progressive left has aligned itself not with Modernity but with postmodernism, which rejects objective truth as a fantasy” (p. 12).
3 Likes
Lindsay seems to have gone full performative, and as a result has jumped the shark. You can’t vote for Trump on the basis that “Sure, he’s an asshole, but the Constitution is strong” while simultaneously endorsing the view that “If Biden wins, wokeists will abolish liberal democracy” (with a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS majority).
On the other hand, I recently read “Gender is to sex as astrology is to astronomy”, and I’m having difficulty thinking of reasons why that isn’t so. I had always accepted the idea that gender is real, not least because (but I may be imagining this) it used to be a word that feminists used a lot, but maybe gender is really just a member of the religions/unevidenced beliefs family.
2 Likes
I’m embarrassed to confess that I apparently didn’t know how biological sex actually is defined: by gametes (eggs or sperm), not by genitals. Now I understand why transwomen like Debbie Hayton, PhD in Physics, claims herself to always be a man despite the fact that she has transitioned.
According to Soh, there are people claiming the number of gender to be over 100. Soh claims her favorites to be “moongender” (meaning your true gender only comes out at night), “puzzlegender” (meaning that your gender needs to be pieced together), and “arborgender” (meaning you identify as a tree!). Page 70 in the book.
2 Likes
I must admit I dont follow social justice or viewpoint diversity discussions very closely, but I just stumbled across this book which seems relevant to these issues in an academic context.
3 Likes
Well as always,
islamic and/or indigeneous and/or indonesian
perspectives have many things to say about this…
Perhaps later after our current offline university politics battle… 
I recently read this article by Pluckrose and thought it helped me understand a bit more about what Critical Social Justice really is. The Counterweight site she founded also looks like a good resource for those in favour of viewpoint diversity.
1 Like
Hi Rebecca, I resume this old conversation because I found an article by Richard Dawkins, which could be very useful to get a clear idea on the topic. The title is already very clear: “Race is a Spectrum. Sex is pretty damn binary.”
Yes exactly, it’s defined by gametes and the kind of gametes you produce is genetically determined: if you are born XY, you won’t EVER be able to produce eggs, if you are born XX, you won’t EVER be able to produce sperm.
Here the link to the article by Richard Dawkins: Race Is a Spectrum. Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary. - Areo
1 Like