Post Modernism and Its Origins

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Post modernism started with the french post modernists, ican. Straigt and critical theory took quite a post modern turn at this stage as well. Feminism kind of disappeared, to get swallowed up by aspects of queer theory and intersectionality. And then we see these strange er, sort of sub er lines ofo things like fact studies and disability studies. All of them have a kernel of truth, and that's what is so frustrating, because there's something in each of them that actually makes quite a good point. And then it just goes insane. Now now we just meant to understand that knowledge is a construct of power society are telling us. So we need theorists and activists

Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn’t practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society?

In this wide-ranging conversation Helen Pluckrose recounts the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous.