The Panel

I watched and took notes on this Aspen video from 2019 and here is the verbatim introduction to this video on Applied Postmodernism. Bad ideas, ideological but not grounded in evidence, science or logical argument, are now being applied, and the effect is the crippling of our universities and the progressive destruction of civic culture. These three authors, all liberal atheists, wrote fake papers that were often published in peer-reviewed journals. Academics are promoting postmodernist ideology over sound scholarship: "Applied Postmodernism: Idea Laundering - Pluckrose, Lindsay & Boghossian 647 views •Aug 8, 2019 25 1 Share Save Aspen Jewish Community Center - Chabad of Aspen 32 subscribers How "Idea Laundering" is Crippling American Universities and Destroying Civic Culture In 2017 and 2018, as a part of a whistleblowing effort, James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose wrote ideologically-driven, morally horrific papers and submitted them to leading peer-reviewed academic journals. Seven of these were published, and seven more were under review before their project was uncovered and subsequently revealed by the Wall Street Journal. The trio's intention was to expose a kind of academic corruption that puts radical social and political agendas ahead of scholarship and a dispassionate search for truth." Helen commences by criticizing Applied Postmodernism that denies that sexual selection goes on, as humans compete with their same-sex rivals to select a mate to couple with. Helen also believes that race matters less than shared goals. She is very bright and very articulate. She is hard to disagree with. Peter Boghossian dislikes that on campus, conservatives and liberals are so intimidated that they cannot push back against those asserting the need for safe spaces against trigger warning and microaggressions. It seems that students are regarded as too vulnerable to allow the open exchange and expressions of alternative ideas. Freedom of speech and outspoken ideas are discouraged and disallowed on campus, and this most un-American tyranny and ideological oppression must cease. Young people, it is insisted, need sheltering from controversial ideas, as dissident intellectuals are attacked and cowed into silence and overt conformity. By institutional design, no free speech, no free enquiry is acceptable. Neither evidence or logical justification of ideological stance is welcome or permitted. If one challenges their wild assertions by asking for evidence, that inquiry is regarded as racism. They explain how their friend and Professor Brett Weinstein at the same liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington, fought against Maoist-like woke fanatical students that saw racism everywhere in this ultra-liberal college, where none existed, and rioted and took over the institution. Helen, Peter and Jim Lindsay wrote junk, ideological papers, 7 of which were published in professional journals, and they did this to reveal how much poor-quality crap, driven by ideology not science, has invading academic publications. They exposed the postmodernist bent of fraudulent academics that claimed that objective knowledge does not exist and cannot be discovered. All there is to be discovered and written about is subjective knowledge that is mere opinion up against other opinions, and these opinions are made by people whose language is artificially constructed. They accuse white heterosexual males of foisting off their subjective knowledge as objective, rational and scientifically discovered, when all it is language of justification asserting white power conglomerating as their rationalization using language to protect their knowledge power to help them protected their oppressive hegemony. They recount how the oppressors punch down against the oppressed who conflict with these oppressors by punching up against them. Reverse discrimination is justifiable for the racist oppressed can never be bigoted against their white oppressors. These identity-politics obsessed postmodernist radicals hail subjective victim knowledge as good, while subjective oppressor knowledge is bad and dismissed. These radicals are anti knowledge, anti-reason, anti-evidence, anti-science anti-liberty and anti-individualist, and these cruel prejudices are a cruel, effective, concerted effort to undermine Western values. Helen observes that Enlightenment values like liberalism, equality among individuals, and freedom for all is dismissed as reasons pawned off on the public by white heterosexual oppressors. The postmodernist collectivist would replace white patriarchal ideology, a linguistic fiction allowing them to keep power for themselves, I believe it was Jim Lindsay that quoted Brett Weinstein as the one that coined the phrase idea laundering (woke, extreme biases are pawned off as objective scientific and per-reviewed in respectable journals to make them emerge as impressive, legitimate and often cited. Just as dirty drug money is filtered through bogus businesses to make it appear clean, that money has been made clean and presentable for regular society and economic exchange. and investment. These three intellectuals started with outrageous biases, their conclusions that they started with and produced reasoning and arguments to make these conclusions seem solid and rigorously vetted. Many of these fake papers were accepted by academic peers. These three are showing how junk science and Marxist crap has been mainstreamed and made promising, as the woke ideologues take over campuses across the nation. Not good, not good at all. These three lament that academic woke scholar are now lost from swimming in this inbred, postmodernists pond for the last 50 or 60 years. These ideologues deny biology, insisting that men and women are the same, and that different roles are not innate, but are made up by society. Helen dismisses the insane assertion that men like women, taught to like them, and sexual attraction is not a natural desire to procreate. Academic dissidents are threatened with censure, not being published, Title IX violations or not granted tenure. Postmodernists do not play by the rules of engagement--their opposition are to be crushed and silenced. None speak out against them. They demand that we examine our white privilege. These three are trying to lead a counter-movement against academic leftist fascism. White skin is a privilege? Helen discovers that postmodernist leftists deny that economic status and education do not much matter, because race, gender, sex and sexuality is where discrimination is most telling and hurtful? She wonders why a white homeless man is more privileged than a black millionaire. To be white is to be racist, all are complicit in racism, and all whites or born into it and speak it. She denounces their neurotic focus on language. The postmodernists see the power imbalance as permanent and racism as universal. Grievance studies are what much of modern college is all about. They demand that others accept and follow their ideology; no disagreement will be tolerated. Knowledge is relative, and the only reality is the social community captured by and expressed by language and power struggles among the vying identity groups are all that there is. This video, Applied Postmodernism: How 'Idea Laundering" is crippling American Universities." Postmodernist Marxists have taken over Academia, Hollywood and the media, and they aim to take over the entire society, and then the whole world, like the ambitious fascists that they are. They wield undue institutional power, and conservatives, moderates and liberals cannot speak their minds on campus, due to being intimidated by loud, bullying, vicious minorities. The Internet helps this mob silence opposition. We three liberal atheists are loved by the religious right. Postmodernists are fascinated with language: language and power wielded by the white male patriarchy keep others down through language domination, so they deconstruct language. Equity is not equality to treat all fairly: it is to grab the reins of power and then make up for past injustices via reverse discrimination. Science is not a valued methodology. These three want a Counter-Reformation from modernists and liberals to obstruct and stall out these totalitarian, postmodernist thugs.