James Lindsay: How Critical Studies Led to Today’s Turmoil

“This is an attempt at a social, cultural, and political revolution.”

On July 9th, Kevin Turner had a conversation with Dr. James Lindsay discussing the social and cultural movement that has gripped the nation since the death of George Floyd in late May. An author and mathematician by training, Dr. Lindsay has written six books spanning a range of subjects including religion, the philosophy of science, and postmodern theory. Dr. Lindsay’s upcoming book is Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody, which he co-authored with Helen Pluckrose of Areo. Dr. Lindsay is also the co-founder of New Discourses, a media website and educational resource for those who are “politically homeless.”

Dr. Lindsay describes the recent developments taking place across society as “terrifying” and goes on to say, “This is an attempted revolution to the ways that our society operates and functions.”

He traces the origins of this social upheaval to the academy:

“Late in the 1970s is when you start to see a set of academic disciplines rising such as ethnic studies, African-American studies, women’s studies, gender studies, masculinity studies (they all have the kind of a same flavor); identity studies, queer theory, post-colonial studies, feminist media studies, and so on.”

On how subjects such as critical race theory have impacted society outside the academy, Dr. Lindsay says that the new scholarship “…has used the emergence of social media—and the current events that are happening—in order to propel itself into the mainstream.”