James Lindsay | Social Justice Explained: The Foundations Of Wokeness | Modern Wisdom Podcast 124

1. 0:00 – 0:52

   Intro

   1. JLJames Lindsay0:00

      (wind blowing) Somebody will get upset that I've said this, but the- truly, the whole thing is, is steeped in, like, psychoanalyzing people you disagree with, and paranoia, and it's all about systems of power and the way that those influence everything so that nothing can be authentic, and it's all kind of whining and complaining, and very pessimistic, very cynical. Um, it has that characteristic where... you've probably run into this, where you know it's wrong and it's not hard to see how it's wrong. It's easy to see how it's persuasive though, and it's gonna take you a lot of work to explain why it's wrong in a satisfactory way. And it's really a negative place to be. I don't think it's fun to do this (laughs) at all.

2. 0:52 – 1:41

   Walking over hot coals

   1. JLJames Lindsay0:52

   2. CWChris Williamson0:52

      Are you the- the sort of the guy that's had to walk over hot coals to try and retrieve something of value from the other side a little bit? So, if it's you that's- that suffering this- this discomfort?

   3. JLJames Lindsay1:03

      That is a good way to put it, yeah, in a sense. That's- I feel like that's kind of what I'm doing now is I- I really want to understand the mindset and understand it in a way that's faithful to what it actually is, that portrays it accurately, but also in a way that I- I can communicate that back to other people in plain language so that they can see it for what it is without having to go read, um, tons of it. And it is like walking back and forth, back and forth-

   4. CWChris Williamson1:33

      (laughs) Constantly.

   5. JLJames Lindsay1:33

      ... back and forth across the coals, knowing every single time that it's- (sighs) it's gonna be hot again, it's gonna be terrible.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:40

      (laughs)

3. 1:41 – 9:56

   What is critical theory

   1. CWChris Williamson1:41

   2. JLJames Lindsay1:41

      Um...

   3. CWChris Williamson1:41

      I get it. Um, so, I mean, (clears throat) the listeners, you will have joined us. There's usually an intro, but me and James had too much to talk about, so welcome back. I'm joined by James Lindsay, and we are talking about an awful lot of different interesting things today, principally critical theory?

   4. JLJames Lindsay1:58

      That's principally what I've been thinking about, yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:01

      What is- what is critical theory? I don't know what critical theory is.

   6. JLJames Lindsay2:04

      Critical theory is a way to view the world, um, the long and short of it is that it's a way to view the world that sees the world in terms of s- and there are multiple critical theories. There are many critical theories. Um, at- at its very bottom, it's a way to view the world where everything relevant in terms at- at least of social relations has to do with power dynamics that are in society between some group with power and other groups who don't have as much power. Um, and the object of critical theory is to say that the groups that have power carry certain assumptions and biases and the likes, and they bake that into the systems that they create without realizing that they're doing it. So, the critical theorist's job is to expose those biases and uncover those assumptions so that they can be critiqued and reexamined and usually discarded, dismantled, subverted, or, uh, otherwise overthrown.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:10

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JLJames Lindsay3:10

      So, you would have this... in the Marxist sense, the power group would either be the capitalists or the bourgeoisie, which would be the property holding class, and they, you know, in a kind of a very direct sense, control the working class and kind of control how they're supposed to think and set the fashion and set the tone of what high society is supposed to look like, or how the- how the businesses are supposed to be operated, and they exploit the working class, which would be the oppressed group. Um, critical theory, uh, grew out of that mindset in w- uh, Institute for Social Research that was set up in Frankfurt, Germany in the '20s, that's now called the Frankfurt School. Um, and they actually, following off of the Italian communist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, realized that, you know, Marx predicted there would be this revolution, the proletariat would rise up and overthrow the capitalists and the bourgeoisie, and this didn't happen, and they wanted to know why. So, Antonio Gramsci came up with this idea that's called cultural hegemony, and that's the idea that the powerful classes of society set the way that everybody's supposed to think, and everybody else buys into that so they won't go against it. And then the Frankfurt School kind of ran with this idea and started saying that things like liberalism and Western civilization themselves bake in the assumptions of their creators and make it so that the people who have power, which would mostly be white Western men who are straight and so on, have both explicitly and inadvertently cooked up systems of power so that they benefit themselves and exclude those that they don't want to take... to have the power 'cause it- power's a zero sum object in this world view. So, um, critical theory is, (laughs) in that sense, a way of looking at the world that sees the world that way, and that essentially tries to pick at whatever the system is-

   9. CWChris Williamson5:21

      Mm.

   10. JLJames Lindsay5:22

       ... so as to tear apart the hidden assumptions and biases. That's the most charitable way to put it, that's what they say that they're doing, is tearing apart the hidden assumptions and biases to make the system more fair, or as they phrased it in the Frankfurt School, uh, to make it into an ideal democracy, um, where nobody is actually, uh... has their voice or their opportunity or whatever shortchanged. So (laughs) that's a very long definition, um...

   11. CWChris Williamson5:51

       But at face value, that sounds... critical theory sounds pretty good.

   12. JLJames Lindsay5:55

       Uh, it- it- it's definitely something that when used appropriately, a critical method, at least, can be very, very useful. And, in fact, um, the Enlightenment tradition, which has brought us, you know, pretty much all of modernity, like the ability to Skype and have good microphones and things-

   13. CWChris Williamson6:11

       (laughs)

   14. JLJames Lindsay6:13

       ... um, the Enlightenment tradition...... could very easily be seen as an appropriate use of critical methods. It started to question the authority of, say, the church, and it started to say, "Let's defer to an external authority, uh, the r- essentially the, uh, the way nature works, to answer our questions about the world, and let's try to appeal to reason and logic, and, uh, evidence as much as we can in making our decisions." And so it started to create this very different way to see the world that presented a very useful skepticism against the previous kind of mythological and, uh, episcopate type and monarchical type mindsets, where you had these literally powerful individuals-

   15. CWChris Williamson7:02

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   16. JLJames Lindsay7:02

       ... who then decided, you know, either the interpretation of scripture or the organization of society or whatever, and whatever their fancy was was how it went, you know?

   17. CWChris Williamson7:11

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JLJames Lindsay7:11

       The, the law was what the king said the law was, or, you know, the scripture is what the Pope interprets it- interprets it to say and so on. So yes, um, the issue is that a critical theory the, the... So this, this philosopher, um, Max Horkheimer, in the Frankfurt School, laid out the difference between what's technically called a critical theory and what he called a traditional theory, both of which exist within a broader kind of critical thinking tradition that we would think of. And the point of a traditional theory is to understand a thing, is just to understand it. The point of a critical theory is to understand how it goes wrong, and in particular how it goes wrong according to some normative vision, which means a moral structure. And how... To qualify as a critical theory, it must be explanatory about how it is particularly an unjust thing. So it's looking for injustices in the system and nothing else. No attempt to understand how the thing works, necessarily, or why those injustices happen to be what they are or something like this. And it must f- fit the vision of the, uh, social engineers who are... have decided what justice looks like when they look for these injustices, and it must be applicable by activists. And so it is, in a sense, a way of putting the cart ahead of the horse where, you know, our, our best knowledge should lead our decision-making rather than what we want to be true leading our approach to figuring out knowledge.

   19. CWChris Williamson8:58

       Yeah.

   20. JLJames Lindsay9:00

       So yes, the best way that I can think of it is to actually... 'Cause I don't want to say that critical theory's useless, 'cause it's not. Um, it's odd that it gets applied to so much given that it's mostly a literary thing. But, um, I try to say that it's like a really strong industrial solvent. Um, it has applications, it has uses, but man, you're not gonna spread it everywhere.

   21. CWChris Williamson9:26

       (laughs)

   22. JLJames Lindsay9:29

       You're not gonna give it to kids. You're not gonna just, you know, dump it on everything you see.

   23. CWChris Williamson9:34

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JLJames Lindsay9:34

       Um, it's one of those things that certainly has beneficial and appropriate uses. Uh, we should be looking for those biases and those unconsidered assumptions.

   25. CWChris Williamson9:45

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JLJames Lindsay9:45

       But we should also do so responsibly, not with an effort only to pick at how something goes wrong. You must also understand why the system, your situation

4. 9:56 – 14:07

   Understand why your situation is the way it is

   1. JLJames Lindsay9:56

      is the way that it is.

   2. CWChris Williamson9:57

      Yeah, I mean, that, that to me is one of the most enjoyable parts of life. For me, as someone who enjoys sense-making, you know, I, I, I do this podcast and I try and, I try and uncover why things are the way they are. The, the tagline to Modern Wisdom is, uh, understand yourself and the world around you. Like, you know?

   3. JLJames Lindsay10:17

      Yeah, yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson10:17

      I like doing it. It's cool. There's nothing, there's no better satisfaction for me than joining together two different points with something and you being like, "Fuck, that's why."

   5. JLJames Lindsay10:27

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson10:27

      "That's why that's that thing." And that, and that's-

   7. JLJames Lindsay10:29

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson10:29

      ... inherently enjoyable. But yeah, when it's got this... I- it's the, it's the same, uh, central core, but it's just facing in a complete different direction. And this direction-

   9. JLJames Lindsay10:43

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson10:43

       ... this direction I- is, like you say, is trying to work out who has the power and w- why-

   11. JLJames Lindsay10:48

       Right.

   12. CWChris Williamson10:49

       ... why is that the case? So how do we... 'Cause this is something that, uh, you are, I think probably-

   13. JLJames Lindsay10:54

       Let me give you... Let me give you an example real quick before we go into that so it's really clear what the difference between a critical mindset and another, you know... I'm gonna assume you're gonna say normal mindset is-

   14. CWChris Williamson11:04

       Sure, sure.

   15. JLJames Lindsay11:04

       ... although that would be torn apart by critical theory. Um, so imagine like... I just want to use the, uh, an example of say like an airplane, and the seats on an airplane. Everybody has a bad time with the seats on airplanes except for very small women, I think.

   16. CWChris Williamson11:17

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JLJames Lindsay11:17

       Um, so the seats on airplanes tend to be s- narrow. They tend to be small. Your knees are getting banged up against the person in front of you, so on and so forth. Nobody's really happy about this. Now, a traditional theory would try t-... You know, you have the people who designed the aircraft and they tr- they had to make decisions as to how they're gonna arrange the seats. Obviously they want to put as many seats in the plane as they can given the size of the aircraft and its weight specifications and so on, because that optimizes for the number of people who can travel and the amount of money that they can make with the plane. So those considerations would all fall under traditional theory. Uh, critical theory would say, "Well, these seats are really uncomfortable," and so if we were to take a lens, for example, that looks from what's now called fat studies, it would say... And obviously, you know, everybody knows of the issue of really overweight people on airplanes 'cause the seats are what they are and it makes the next person over uncomfortable, and sometimes they need two seats and, you know, all of the different things. And so the critical perspective there would say, "Well, the plane was designed by people who are generally..."... thin or of average size, not overweight. And so they have a blind spot to what it's like to be an overweight person, and that is them exercising a power called thin normativity that sees thinness as normal and overweightness as abnormal, and therefore there is a power relation here between average size or thin people, and they are exerting it on the oppressed overweight people who are forced to be uncomfortable on aircraft because they, um, the- the people designing the airplane don't care that pe- and ultimately, that's what it is. That they don't care or they want fat people not to exist, or they want fat people to lose weight or whatever it happens to be.

   18. CWChris Williamson13:07

       Yeah.

   19. JLJames Lindsay13:08

       Um, so that's the difference between the way a critical mindset... The critical mindset is merely going to look at the size of the chairs and start complaining. The traditional mindset or a ph- what Horkheimer called a traditional theory would say, "Why were the plane seats designed like this in the first place? And what were the reasons that went into that? Why was this considered to be the best possible decision over maybe a few iterations of, well, they used to be more narrow or they used to be wider and we figured out we could get more people?" And there's- there's the one that tries to understand why the seats are the way they are and then there's the one that says, "This sucks and I want to complain about it." So, whether it's informed or not. Whether they- there's any attention given to the real reasons that s- things are the way they are. So that's kind of the difference between a critical mindset versus a more comprehensive way to look at things. It's a solvent. It's an- it- it tears apart what's there without necessarily even knowing what it is.

   20. CWChris Williamson14:06

       Yeah.

5. 14:07 – 19:14

   Why did social justice come from

   1. CWChris Williamson14:07

      I understand. So that's- that's actually... I wanted to ask the question, um, where did social justice come from and can you give us the academic underpinnings of it? Which it sounds like you're really delving into. And I think as well for a lot of the listeners, I've had Douglas Murray on, Andrew Doyle's been on, Konstantin Kisin's coming on soon and blah, blah, blah.

   2. JLJames Lindsay14:24

      Oh, great.

   3. CWChris Williamson14:25

      So you got all of these people who are talking about the manifestations of that, but what we're talking about here and what's my- my particular selfish, um, love of things, why is this the way it is? So I want to get into that. But the- the- what you've come across there to me, I think, is quite archetypal in terms of what appears to be happening overall with social justice at the moment. And this is that there is a normal distribution of something, anything, whether it be gender expression, whether it be performance at school based on race, or, um, particular job choices based on, uh, in relation to gender or whatever it might be. There is a particular normal distribution and it seems to me that one of the hallmarks of social justice at the moment in its malignant form, because I- you know, social justice in its purest form, I don't know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago before this term sort of began to get hijacked, is actually a really- a really, really good thing. But, um, yeah, i- in its current form, it appears to be there are some people who have an extreme experience of the world. We need to accommodate them ahead of the bulk of people that fall within the normal distribution. Am I- am I a million miles away there or is that- is that- is that what's happening a lot?

   4. JLJames Lindsay15:45

      You're pretty close to the bullseye. Um, there's a number of interesting things that can be said about that if you want, uh, but you are very close to an accurate- an accurate description of what's going on. Um, one of the things that can be said about that is that what you are... So another kind of useful example here is- is what's known as the social model of disability. So within disability studies, which has also become one of these kind of social justice bastions to the dismay of lots of disabled people who reach out to me all the time and say it's wrecking their lives, uh, there's this model that came about, I think in the '80s. It may have been a little earlier, and it was okay at the beginning. Disability studies is really an interesting case because it's one where it's really easy to see the point being made that's good and then how it falls off the rails. Um, the social model of disability basically said, "Okay, so some people are disabled and it's important not just to kind of say, 'Suck it up, buttercup,' and figure it out, but rather society should make reasonable accommodations for disabled people." So there should be, you know, the- the thing on the sidewalk, the ridged area for the blind people and the traffic signal should make noise and there should be-

   5. CWChris Williamson16:58

      Ramps outside of doors.

   6. JLJames Lindsay16:59

      ... ramps and- and elevators and things. Yes. To the- to the degree that (...) bathrooms and so on. And so- so the social model of disability is exactly what you're just saying. There are these people who fall outside of the normal range of human experience and there is some expectation that a society that's well off enough is doing the right thing by making them have more accessibility to that society. So there's the so- it shouldn't all be on the disabled person to deal with the world. If the society is, I mean, they usually don't say it so explicitly, but the reality is if the society is well off enough to be able to afford it, there is a, uh, there is a reason to believe that we have a social obligation to, uh, make things more accessible.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:49

      A common good.

   8. JLJames Lindsay17:49

      Yes. To pay for those ramps, to pay for the- to pay taxes, to pay for the thing on the sidewalk and at the light, uh, the- so that the- the crossing light makes noises and things like that.

   9. CWChris Williamson17:58

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JLJames Lindsay17:59

       So this seems perfectly reasonable because it is perfectly reasonable and then when it starts becoming, as you were distinguishing between... The- so that's- that is social justice. That is making, in the liberal sense, society more just for people on the outside end of the spectrum at very... Some, but very little cost to people in the middle. But then where it starts to become the malignant form is when you start getting into ideas like, and these are- these are valid, these are things that are actually happening, that, uh, deafness, for example, is an identity. So you are a deaf person, not a person who happens to be deaf. And so when there's medical advances in, say, hearing aid technology that can give deaf people the ability to hear, that can be reinterpreted as a, uh, medicalization of deafness or a desire for deafness not to exist, which then can be further interpreted into a will to genocide against deaf people.So-

   11. CWChris Williamson18:51

       Oh, my God.

   12. JLJames Lindsay18:51

       ... the wish that n- that no one would be deaf, because being deaf is a disability, is interpreted when you go too far down this rabbit hole as wishing there were no deaf people in the other meaning of the term, as in, like, they were all d- their deafness was all... (laughs) It's so hard to say, uh, but, uh, they literally equate it to a genocide.

   13. CWChris Williamson19:13

       But is this

6. 19:14 – 26:59

   What is a genocide

   1. CWChris Williamson19:14

      not the-

   2. JLJames Lindsay19:14

      The same... Uh, would this not be the same as, uh, when was the, when did the polio jab come out? It was about 100 years ago. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson19:21

      Yeah. It would be the same as 100 years ago, the polio jab being released, and everyone saying, "Right, so you're saying that all of these people that have got polio, that are, like, walking around on crutches, you're saying, you're saying that they shouldn't exist?" And you're like, "Well, I mean, by most people's measures of welfare, they would be having a fuller human experience if they weren't like that. And given the choice between the two, the majority of people, if they were laid out in front of them, would also choose sort of full, normal human function. Where is the problem here?" But as you say-

   4. JLJames Lindsay19:59

      But you know-

   5. CWChris Williamson19:59

      ... it's an attack on, it's an-

   6. JLJames Lindsay20:00

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson20:00

      ... attack on the identity, or at least that's what it's...

   8. JLJames Lindsay20:03

      So, that's the thing is that it becomes an attack on the identity, which then it gets further translated into an attack on the people who carry that identity.

   9. CWChris Williamson20:13

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JLJames Lindsay20:14

       And you can start to see how this isn't really a good way to think about things.

   11. CWChris Williamson20:18

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JLJames Lindsay20:18

       Um, yeah, it's-

   13. CWChris Williamson20:20

       And then so, so people start to... We will get up, to the listeners, we will get onto the academic underpinnings of social justice in a second, I promise, but this is cool and interesting. Um, you can increasingly slice this, "I am out on the fringes" thing, right?

   14. JLJames Lindsay20:35

       Uh-huh.

   15. CWChris Williamson20:35

       Is that what's happening whereby people are inc- making something which isn't perhaps that much of a disadvantage, more of a, uh, uh, exaggerating that? So, um-

   16. JLJames Lindsay20:47

       Um.

   17. CWChris Williamson20:47

       ... d- for instance-

   18. JLJames Lindsay20:48

       Yeah, I think so.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:49

       For instance, Douglas, I don't know whether you ever, uh, heard the interview that I did with him, but I asked him, uh, "What chapters would you have put in the book, in The Madness of Crowds, um, that you didn't?" And he said that one of them was mental health, because he said that-

   20. JLJames Lindsay21:02

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson21:02

       ... uh, as far as he was concerned, there are real people who have real problems with mental health, but waving your hand in the air and saying, "I have mental health problems," like it's some sort of, um, some calling card, some sort of marker of, of distinguishment or whatever it might be, some sort of sympathy card, uh, and the other one was green. Um, so those were the two (laughs) , those were the two that he was, he was considering adding in. But yeah, I'm wondering how that, um, y- you have some people who have, uh, uh, who genuinely are out on that, the tail ends of that distribution of normalness-

   22. JLJames Lindsay21:35

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson21:35

       ... and who require social justice to allow them to be a part of society because we have to accommodate for them because that's the good thing to do within a good society.

   24. JLJames Lindsay21:44

       Correct.

   25. CWChris Williamson21:45

       But then there are people who want accommodations made for them because why? Because they want some attention? (laughs)

   26. JLJames Lindsay21:55

       It's really difficult to say why, but somehow along the way, um, this all became very identity focused. They call it an identity first mindset. In, in other words, it adopted identity politics.

   27. CWChris Williamson22:06

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JLJames Lindsay22:06

       This maybe is attributable to the black feminists, um, and that black feminism is a (laughs) type of feminism. It, I'm not saying feminists who happen to be black.

   29. CWChris Williamson22:16

       (laughs) Yeah, I understand.

   30. JLJames Lindsay22:17

       Because it turns out, um, black feminism w- it's kind of grew out of like a, the, the combination of the Black Power movement and, and feminist- feminism, I think, and it had that, has that ethos at any rate. And so they very much so, Kimberle Crenshaw and bell hooks in the 1980s, two very famous names, uh, among, among, uh, people who are paying attention to any of this now, they both were very adamant that black identity should be first. It should be, uh, "I am a black person," or, "I am a black woman," rather than, "I am a person who happens to be black." So, and, and the... Kimberle Crenshaw at least was explicit about it. The purpose is so we can do identity politics. Um, so a step awa-
7. 26:59 – 32:59

   True academia

   1. CWChris Williamson26:59

      was gonna say, yeah-

   2. JLJames Lindsay26:59

      And so-

   3. CWChris Williamson27:00

      ... is it, is it, is it partly because you guys are one of the bastions of sort of true academia. Uh, there's, you know, a lot of listeners will be familiar with how many times someone has said on this podcast, if the subject has the word science in it, it's not a true science. Or if it's got studies in it, it tends to not be a true science because nothing, physics doesn't have the word science in it. Chemistry doesn't have the word. It, it's only a lot of, um, slightly more spurious topics, uh, and subject areas which need to reaffirm their scientificness by putting science in the title. And I wonder whether-

   4. JLJames Lindsay27:37

      That's probably right.

   5. CWChris Williamson27:38

      ... (clears throat) I wonder whether this is, um, the old guard dusting off their sort of padded, uh, uh, elbow-padded jackets and, and putting the chalkboards-

   6. JLJames Lindsay27:49

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson27:49

      ... down to, like, come out and, and, and have a crack at sort of protecting-

   8. JLJames Lindsay27:53

      Nah.

   9. CWChris Williamson27:53

      ... true academia.

   10. JLJames Lindsay27:55

       So, yeah. I actually do think, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced, so that I maybe am deluding myself-

   11. CWChris Williamson28:03

       (laughs)

   12. JLJames Lindsay28:03

       ... or I'm getting more right, I don't know. But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that most of what is happening regarding all this very academic side of the culture war, the social justice and the scholarship and all of this postmodern stuff and all ultimately comes down to a gigantic culture war between the sciences and the humanities that's been raging since like the '30s. Um, I really-

   13. CWChris Williamson28:27

       It's territorial.

   14. JLJames Lindsay28:27

       ... kinda think that's what's going on.

   15. CWChris Williamson28:29

       It's quite territorial, aren't you think?

   16. JLJames Lindsay28:30

       It's a turf war, yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson28:31

       (laughs)

   18. JLJames Lindsay28:32

       So, I think what happened was it became undeniable that the sciences were getting much better answers about the world than, uh, w- as the harder the sciences got, the more rigorous they got, the better the answers they were getting, instead of this, you know, kind of armchair philosophy sort of thing you used to be able to do when you were a natural philosopher and so on and so forth, and you could just kinda... Like, if you look at the advancement even in, like, psychology from Freud, which is all kind of unfalsifiable and he's just sitting back thinking about stuff and writing it down, to, you know, what we expect now, which is very, uh, deeply, when it's done well, very deeply rigorous and experimental and experimental control, controls and statistics. And you can't just, you know, "Well, everybody wants to have sex with their mother, and then that results in..."

   19. CWChris Williamson29:19

       (laughs)

   20. JLJames Lindsay29:20

       You know, you can't do that anymore. And so you've had this, like, hardening up. And so you had the, the side of, of scholarship that was more of the, "Well, I wanna sit back in my armchair and talk, talk about issues." Then you had the, "Well, let's go get our hands dirty with the data," the two sides of it. And the science just keeps stealing ground from the other ones, and I think they're bitter about it and have been bitter about it for decades and want their ground back. You see it really strongly with analytic philosophers and moral philosophers, especially, um, where they feel like science is encroaching upon, you know, they, they, they're like the highest end of philosophy and, uh, science is encroaching on their turf, and they're very hostile about it and get really worked up. Um, but the French postmodernists, for example, were extraordinarily, uh, m- uh, Foucault in particular was extraordinarily pessimistic about science. His whole sch- shtick was, well, he'll, you know, he's like, "Well, I'm a philosopher and a historiographer, and I'm here to tell you about the history of how science was, was wrong." (laughs) And science was wrong here, and then science thought it was better, and science was wrong again. And, you know, it's just this whole kind of, well, science can't do anything right. And I actually think that's how Foucault took off, is these literary theory departments that were trying to do a lot of social activism realized that Foucault gave them a tool-

   21. CWChris Williamson30:41

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JLJames Lindsay30:42

       ... to, um, point out how science is more a longstanding string of failures with gigantic moral consequences than it is a rigorous and legitimate method. So, it gave people a way to criticize science without having to do science, allowing that turf war to just flare up at, like, the highest level. And so who's gonna come out and defend it? Scientists.

   23. CWChris Williamson31:05

       Yeah.

   24. JLJames Lindsay31:06

       And that's what you saw in the, in the '90s, um, with what's called the science wars now. You had, like, Gross and Levitt and Sokal and, oh, I can't think of all the names, up against these mostly, uh, French postmodern philosophers, and just-... this really heated culture war within the academy wait- or it was, it was weight- it was raging between them, and, and I think ultimately the science side won the battle, but maybe lost the war 'cause the theorists went underground and have now come back with a vengeance. (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson31:42

       With seven- seven arms and eight heads, and then, and they're breathing fire and all this sort of stuff.

   26. JLJames Lindsay31:48

       Yes. Somebody recently that I was talking to, I can't think of who it was so I apologize to whoever that was, uh, said it's like a hydra.

   27. CWChris Williamson31:54

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JLJames Lindsay31:54

       And I think that's a really good analogy. You cut off a head and it grows two more. And it seems to be a hydra that doesn't know it's a hydra, which is, is really a peculiar-

   29. CWChris Williamson32:04

       Thinks it's just a fluffy bunny or a-

   30. JLJames Lindsay32:05

       ... state of affa-
8. 32:59 – 43:34

   The history of social justice

   1. CWChris Williamson32:59

      let's take it from... We've got about 20 minutes or so. James, can you try and take us through a journey? Let's imagine that we're at, is it Epcot at Disneyland or whatever it might be, and we're gonna go on a little roller coaster, and we're gonna sit in the roller coaster-

   2. JLJames Lindsay33:13

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson33:13

      ... and this is social justice from beginning until now, and we're gonna sit in there. So where are we, where are we going first? Where's the roller coaster take us first?

   4. JLJames Lindsay33:23

      Uh, Hell's Kitchen, New York City.

   5. CWChris Williamson33:27

      (laughs)

   6. JLJames Lindsay33:27

      Um, early 1900s or late 1800s with a guy named... I mean, so the term I think originated in the 1820s or '40s, but I don't know exactly what it referred to. I haven't gone that far back. I'm not going to talk about Marx, although Marx is gonna be very influential. Um, I'm gonna try to direct it to a number of streams. But the word social justice gained a lot of its relevance actually with a Baptist minister in Hell's Kitchen named Walter Rauschenbusch, who invented what was called the Social Gospel. And if you go back and read the Social Gospel, it looks a lot like the social justice of today, and we're gonna leave that as a seed, except that, uh, Rauschenbusch ended up working with people, um, in... on your side of the pond. Uh, he came over to London and, uh, got in cahoots with the, um, Fabian Society early on, which is a far left organization. Uh, eventually spawned the London School of Economics, which is a socialist school of economics and so on, uh, think tank now. And so, he came back to Hell's Kitchen and he said... So social justice started to become a thing within a, within the Baptist, uh, religion of all things, uh, which is very conservative now, which is kind of funny. So, turns out Rauschenbusch was Richard Rorty, who's one of the American postmodern philosophers, uh, Rauschenbusch was, uh, his grandfather. So that's kind of like track number one.

   7. CWChris Williamson34:54

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JLJames Lindsay34:54

      Then I wanna take you to Frankfurt, and by Frankfurt I actually mean Frankfurt kind of and mostly New York City because the Frankfurt School was mostly in New York City, uh, because of the Nazis, so they had to leave Germany, um, 'cause that's when that was going on. Uh, it started in the late '20s and so not very long later most of them relocated to, um, New York City. So you're talking about Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, um, Herbert Marcuse. Um, eventually a decade later, two decades later, uh, Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin was early on, allegedly, um, Adorno stole most of Benjamin's ideas. And so these guys laid, as we talked at the beginning of the conversation, they laid the groundwork for this critical theory idea, and they ended up especially coming off of, um, Marcuse, the groundwork for what became known as the social movement known as the New Left. And the New Left is what was responsible for all of the, when you talk about the crazy politics of the 1960s and all of the riots, especially around 1968, the New Left was really what was responsible for that. So these guys' vision for how society should be organized and ultimately viewed through critical theory in order to overthrow the hidden oppressions and injustices of liberalism and Western civilization became a huge, like, political movement on the far left. Uh, it defined the radical left. So all your radical feminists, your Black Power Movement, you know, Malcolm X, et cetera, all of that would have had in some sense either direct or indirect ties to the thinking of the New Left. And so that kind of whole far left radical activist morass, which was actually quite violent at the time in the '60s, the, you know, you got the May 1968, what was it, in France, in Paris, you got whatever happened in the US, some of the riots got pretty intense, Berkeley and so on. And so that would be kind of like the second stop on our little roller coaster, is that philosophy there. So especially, like I said, Marcuse, who was extremely influential with these, these kids, uh, he... I actually saw an interview with him from the '70s where he was a bit dismayed with how people were taking up his ideas and being uncareful with them and running kind of roughshod and wild with them. Uh-

   9. CWChris Williamson37:16

      I was gonna say, just, just so that we can, we can kind of have a, um, how would you say? One of those, uh, dipsticks, like a PhD level dipstick of the intensity of how much this is becoming malignant, 'cause you know, we hear these things. We've got Malcolm X, we've got... Y- these are just, in most people's eyes, they're some extreme tactics that are being used, but they're just causes. There's few people that would-

   10. JLJames Lindsay37:39

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:40

       ... look back and see these and say...... that shouldn't have happened. So where does this start-

   12. JLJames Lindsay37:45

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:45

       ... to, to sort of lose its way as well?

   14. JLJames Lindsay37:48

       (sighs) So, um-

   15. CWChris Williamson37:51

       (coughs)

   16. JLJames Lindsay37:51

       Yeah, we'll get there.

   17. CWChris Williamson37:52

       Sure.

   18. JLJames Lindsay37:52

       So I wanna actually-

   19. CWChris Williamson37:53

       Cool.

   20. JLJames Lindsay37:53

       ... dip back to Paris for, for a minute.

   21. CWChris Williamson37:55

       Cool.

   22. JLJames Lindsay37:55

       Because around that same time, around six- the '60s and early '70s is when you had the postmodernists really coming to, to bear. Now, the context in Europe more broadly, of course, also was the collapse of colonialism at this point. So you had the postcolonial people really starting to speak out about h- how bad empire was and, um, the damage t- that did, and it's kinda set... Now it became very actually central to, to European new left thinking. Um, whereas at roughly the same time in the US, it started shifting toward anti-Vietnam War sentiment. And so they kinda had two different paths going on there. So the postmodernists arose in the European context it being French, and highly influenced by some of the German idealists, uh, philosophers. And so (smacks lips) they, um, they were at the Sorbonne, uh, I think the University of Paris in Paris anyway, and they all kinda worked together and studied together and you have this kinda whole little group of, you know, Derrida, Foucault, et cetera. They didn't always agree, sometimes they didn't like each other, sometimes they did, but there was this sort of, um, occasionally Marxist, occasionally Leninist, occasionally Maoist, occasionally not that, occasionally communist, occasionally anti-communist, b- but very far left, there is no stable knowledge. We gotta... Because of the postcolonial context we have to look at different cultures, there's no way to compare a culture, we'd been doing that, that was unjust, we were saying Western culture's better. So they had to cut back from... They pulled back from all of that kinda thing, very culturally relative, we can't really obtain objective truth, we think that the West is so good but it made World War II, you know, all this death and destruction, it came up with... The Atlantic slave trade became an interesting topic. All of these horrors that came out of, out of Western culture, so we can't keep saying it's so good. And postmodern theory was born. And so I think postmodern theory was actually not really... It was, it was an offshoot of and not really in line with the rest of what the so-called new left was doing. And then so where did it really start... There are already problems here, but where it really started to become malignant was when those two things came back together, and that would've been in the mid and late 1980s. So through the '70s and '80s, for example, within feminism, uh, you would overwhelmingly have had, um, radical feminists and Marxist feminists, or they're called materialist femin- feminists, being the ones doing the analysis. And they would say, "Oh, well women were a commodity under patriarchy and patriarchy and capitalism are in cahoots, and so the patriarchal capitalist system is what needs to be overthrown." And s- you can kinda see this was a very radical mindset, you had people like Andrea Dworkin and all of these characters, Catherine MacKinnon who were very against pornography as a form of exploitation and violence against women. A lot of this dipped in and out of the liberal feminist stuff but the radicals were separate and more often separatist and intense in their, their, their approach. This of course is also by the way all along stimulating a backlash from the conservatives who are afraid that this is the end of society in the making. So you know, there's something boiling on the other side as a result of this, so that's kind of important. Eventually in the late 1980s you had a f- fusion of postmodern methods into this radical left thought. And that's where I think it really started to become malignant. That's where, again, we talked about briefly before the introduction of... The intention to do identity politics through postmodern methods was introduced. That's where postmodernism and liberalism were simultaneously critiqued heavily, uh, by these theorists, um, but the conclusion was that postmodernism was just... The, the problems with postmodernism, postmodernism i- has most of the right ideas except that it was formulated by (pauses) white western well-off men who could afford to deconstruct everything, and so when you look at oppression you can't deconstruct that experience, you can't deconstruct that injustice, hence the turn toward identity centrality. So you had that whole twist toward let's do identity politics and let's do it with postmodern methods. If you really wanted to stick a date stamp on it I would tell you it was 1989 is when that happened but really anywhere from 1984 up through, uh, 1994 is when that was developing and cooking and all of the biggest pieces and most of the groundwork was laid. And from there it's just actually kind of concretized, um, most of this happening in the United States now, c- once the... Postmodernism was picked up by these American philosophers so like Kimberle Crenshaw as a legal scholar, Judith Butler as a, I guess a philosopher or something but a queer theorist is the best way to describe her now. Um, as it started getting picked up by all these Americans it just took off. Um, I'm not entirely sure why it took off so heavily in the American academy whereas it was kind of poo-pooed in Fran- in France where it was originated.

   23. CWChris Williamson43:11

       Mm.

   24. JLJames Lindsay43:12

       Nobody on the continent or in, in England was particularly interested, and it just took off in the US, and then of course our academics exported it to yours and especially to Australian ones who are also very interested in these kinds of things. The first women's studies department actually was in Sydney, um, in Australia which, but that would've been more of the radical line. Um,

9. 43:34 – 46:01

   cynical theories by 2010

   1. JLJames Lindsay43:34

      so that's how it started to change, and what it changed into by 2010, and anybody who's interested will be able to read this in great detail in the book I wrote with Helen which is due out in May called Cynical Theories, um, by 2010 or so it had become just... The phrase that, that is probably best used is, is, uh, it's hard to say this and have it be understood, it's known knowns.... things that are known to be known, things that-

   2. CWChris Williamson44:02

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JLJames Lindsay44:02

      ... people just therefore accept as being generally true.

   4. CWChris Williamson44:04

      Yep.

   5. JLJames Lindsay44:05

      So all of the postmodern theorizing, all of the- the attempts to reify certain points around identity that went into the identity politics turn in the late '80s and early '90s, and then the developments that preceded in the next decade or so, everybody just started taking those things for granted. Well, that's true, everybody knows that. We have decades of theory saying that that's true, there's no reason to- to say no, th- that that can't be right, eh, we have so much scholarship now all saying that that's true. And so by 2010, they just started s- kind of mixing everything together in- in this sort of super intersectional, uh, framework where, um, solidarity and allyship became kind of core ideas that had to be paid full attention to all the time. And it started coming out of the academies and into society. Um, and when they speak about it now, it used to be this crazy highfalutin jargon that nobody understood, complicated sentences. Now it's quite clear, it's almost religious in its quality, it's, if- if you go listen to, for example, Robin DiAngelo, who's a famous whiteness scholar, uh, it sounds very much like a, um, a woman talking to children, e- with her theory. It's comprehensible by a 10-year-old.

   6. CWChris Williamson45:21

      Mm.

   7. JLJames Lindsay45:21

      Very straightforward, very clear, very self-assured, absolutely confident in the underlying assumptions that these systems of power are the correct way to view the world, and that identity is at the core of systems of power, and knowledge, and who can have what in society and do what in society. Um, so that's sort of like the broad tour of how this all has come down. Um, largely because it tends to eat itself also, it tends to concentrate, you know, and get more and more virulent, uh, anybody who kinda says, "Well, maybe it's a little bit not quite that extreme," is that person's gonna get shut down big time.

10. 46:01 – 49:15

    the room for nuance

    1. JLJames Lindsay46:01

    2. CWChris Williamson46:01

       Mm.

    3. JLJames Lindsay46:01

       Um-

    4. CWChris Williamson46:02

       So this is-

    5. JLJames Lindsay46:02

       ... so-

    6. CWChris Williamson46:02

       ... this is a really- this is a really interesting point that came up in my discussion with, uh, Douglas Murray and with other people as well, which is that in these discussions inc- as we increasingly sort of polarize the, uh, opinions about any topic, um, the room for nuance, and I suppose this loops to how to have impossible conversations, which is your- your most recent book.

    7. JLJames Lindsay46:24

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson46:25

       Um, the room for nuance and subtlety is- is- is largely missing, and the problem is that to your own side, if you're in this quite sort of militant discussion where- where b- you're supposed to be as aggressive or- or as convincing as possible, um, to your own side, nuance and subtlety sounds like a- a lack of commitment to the cause, and to the other side-

    9. JLJames Lindsay46:50

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CWChris Williamson46:51

        ... nuance and subtlety sounds like a lack of conviction or a potential weak point in your argument. Do you think that's fair to say?

    11. JLJames Lindsay46:59

        Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Um, and there's been ... So a little while ago I was giving you the tour and I said, um, that all along, each step along the way, the new left, the riots in 1968, the turn toward identity politics, et cetera, um, and then more recently all the things where, uh, y- it's become, you know, widely disseminated, I left out that this happened mostly in, eh, where it got the tightest hold was in education, uh, or schools of education have basically been social justice oriented since the 1980s, um, which is becoming a problem. Critical pedagogy is what it's called, and, uh, it's been more or less the only approach, not even the dominant approach, the only approach to education. So if it's an education, I read that s- for example, in colleges everybody's like, "Oh, this is coming from the colleges." Um, what I read was that the universities actually experience it as a student-led change. Where do the students get it? From their previous education, which was critically oriented because our colleges of education have been doing critical pedagogy since the '80s. So, um, a- all along though I said that there was this right wing backlash brewing.

    12. CWChris Williamson48:13

        Mm.

    13. JLJames Lindsay48:13

        Well, guess what?

    14. CWChris Williamson48:14

        (laughs)

    15. JLJames Lindsay48:15

        The far left side of this interprets the far right side of this as proof that their theories are correct.

    16. CWChris Williamson48:23

        Mm.

    17. JLJames Lindsay48:23

        That society really is corrupt and society really is trying to protect its vested interests in the so-called status quo, and the powerful people really are pushing back against them and they of course are gonna have irrational backlashes. Meanwhile, they double down because of the exact dynamic you just said, nuance can't be allowed because it looks like a lack of commitment or betrayal, and from the other side it looks like, uh, you know, a weak point. And so both sides have actually pulled apart from one another, seeing the other as- as I ... Helen and I wrote an article in 2017 that we titled this dynamic existential polarization, where both sides now actually believe if the other side gets any power whatsoever, it's an existential threat, um, either to the planet or to our way of life or to our ci- civi- our civilizations or societies or something like this. And so that's absolutely nonnegotiable. Nuance can't possibly exist in such a situation. And-

    18. CWChris Williamson49:14

        Yeah, it's

11. 49:15 – 50:22

    a threat to everyone

    1. CWChris Williamson49:15

       no longer-

    2. JLJames Lindsay49:15

       ... that's-

    3. CWChris Williamson49:15

       ... it's no longer a th- it's no longer a threat to just your side, it's a threat to everybody, even the people who aren't involved and who don't know it and they're a threat to themselves as well.

    4. JLJames Lindsay49:25

       Right. Right. And so critical theory of course stems out of this idea that, um, generally the unwashed masses don't know what's good for them.

    5. CWChris Williamson49:32

       (laughs)

    6. JLJames Lindsay49:32

       That was more or less Ant- Antonio Gramsci's underlying idea, that was what you saw, a lot of the motivation on the Frankfurt School was that, um, if you leave the masses to choose things for themselves, they won't choose art and poetry, they'll choose football and beer, and going to the strip club or whatever (laughs) it happens-

    7. CWChris Williamson49:51

       Yeah.

    8. JLJames Lindsay49:51

       ... to be. And so people tend not to choose what's best for themselves and they need some kind of philosopher king to be able to choose for them. The postmodernists, in particular, uh-... uh, Baudrillard and Lyotard were particularly concerned with this. So, um, Baudrillard especially was the people never pick art and poetry. They're always gonna pick some low culture trash, if you let them make their own choices. So they clearly don't know how to make good decisions and everything's artificial and everything's fake now. So, um-

    9. CWChris Williamson50:20

       Which is also interesting, right?

    10. JLJames Lindsay50:20

        ... you can kind of see where this has all

12. 50:22 – 52:01

    the left sees the right way

    1. JLJames Lindsay50:22

       come from.

    2. CWChris Williamson50:22

       Tha- that kind of, like, out-gaming or the, um, increasing sort of caricaturism of what's going on. You know, if you were to look at something 20 years ago and say, "Oh, you think that that's vacuous?" Like, just, just, just wait until you see what happens when Instagram arrives. Just wait until you see-

    3. JLJames Lindsay50:38

       Yeah, right?

    4. CWChris Williamson50:38

       ... what happens when the Kardashians get on TV. Like-

    5. JLJames Lindsay50:41

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson50:41

       ... you know, it, we are able to outdo ourselves even in, um, how hollow we are, which is-

    7. JLJames Lindsay50:48

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson50:48

       ... almost impressive.

    9. JLJames Lindsay50:49

       It's, yeah. Well, the left sees the, the, the right ... well, I should say I, I guess, that the, the, the, so the left that's all into this, like, kind of high-minded thing that doesn't trust the masses, sees the right as choosing against their own interests. So the right is back, r- you know, the right i- conservatives all back corporate interests and they, you know, big politics and a bunch of white men in a room and smoking jackets or whatever the hell-

    10. CWChris Williamson51:14

        Yep, yep.

    11. JLJames Lindsay51:15

        ... the, the things are.

    12. CWChris Williamson51:16

        It's just a ?

    13. JLJames Lindsay51:16

        And so those ... Right. And so the average conservative is backing something that's against his own interests and he just has to be informed and brought back around to the right side of thinking and then he wouldn't choose conservatives anymore, whereas the conservatives are like, "The liberals are trying to do some damn social engineering program." They call it the liberal agenda. And if we do that, society's gonna collapse. And you can actually sit back for like two seconds and look at the dynamic and think, "Man, we're fucked."

    14. CWChris Williamson51:42

        (laughs)

    15. JLJames Lindsay51:44

        How does that stop?

    16. CWChris Williamson51:51

        Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I mean-

    17. JLJames Lindsay51:54

        Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson51:55

        II still-

    19. JLJames Lindsay51:56

        But that's kind of I think what's going on, so cheers or something.

13. 52:01 – 52:37

    the next 10 years

    1. JLJames Lindsay52:01

       (laughs)

    2. CWChris Williamson52:01

       (laughs) You're not far wrong. Okay, so to finish up, James, put your money where your mouth is. Now, what does the next five to 10 years look like for this dynamic?

    3. JLJames Lindsay52:11

       (sighs) That's so hard to answer, 'cause it depends on a lot of things. Um, I do think the next election in the US, a presidential election, uh, well, it's, you know, we do all over our elections (?) um, is going to be, uh, a big variable in how that goes. My perception, so we'll take that off the table for the moment because it's a big wild card and nobody really knows what's gonna happen and everybody's kind of scared, but nothing, it doesn't look like anything good's coming.

14. 52:37 – 54:04

    the keystone

    1. JLJames Lindsay52:37

    2. CWChris Williamson52:37

       Do you think-

    3. JLJames Lindsay52:37

       Um-

    4. CWChris Williamson52:38

       Do you thi- sorry, just to inter-

    5. JLJames Lindsay52:38

       Take that off of the table.

    6. CWChris Williamson52:39

       Do you, do you think that's going to be a keystone in terms of sort of where we go, moving forward?

    7. JLJames Lindsay52:45

       I think it's very likely that it will be, yeah. Um, it's, but I don't wanna, like, also say, "This is the election of a lifetime." Because then that increases those stakes and makes everything worse.

    8. CWChris Williamson52:55

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JLJames Lindsay52:55

       Um, I think one of the only or biggest lessons of Trump is that, um ... 'cause I think Trump's a disaster, uh, in general. But one of the biggest lessons you can pull out of his presidency is, most stuff still works okay, even with that in the White House. So calm down about politics. Um, whoever's the president isn't nearly as important as we've been thinking for the last 20 or 30 years. But, uh, as far as social justice goes right now, the dynamic I just described, I have no idea. The social justice part of it, I feel like is collapsing under its own weight, but it's at the same time rapidly institutionalizing. So I anticipate that a lot more organizations, companies, uh, legal entities, whatever they happen to be, are going to go woke as it, as it were. And that wokeness is going to end up hamstringing them. And so we'll see a lot of important institutions and less important institutions that see a lot of damage as the thing starts to collapse under its own weight, which is I think what's happening. Um, so

15. 54:04 – 56:06

    the situation implodes

    1. JLJames Lindsay54:04

       it's like it's-

    2. CWChris Williamson54:04

       By collapse under its own weight, is, is that just sort of the inherent ridiculousness and self-contradictoriness of the situation imploding?

    3. JLJames Lindsay54:11

       Yes. Yes. And it's, uh, for example, I saw the other day a l- article that I read, this is maybe two weeks ago, about the problem of settlers of color. And so what is a settler of color? This is a black person, say in North America, who, um, for w- whatever reason they ended up there, you know, they stole indigenous land also. So this is basically a turf war for victimhood status between black and indigenous as kind of the maximum racial, uh, victimhood status. And it's a clear bid that the indigenous are going to try to throw the black people under the bus by saying that they're settlers of color. So the infighting alone is going to really hobble what they're able to do.

    4. CWChris Williamson54:56

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JLJames Lindsay54:56

       I also see that there is two, there are two things happening at once. One is good and one is bad in response to all this. A lot of people on both of those two things are waking up to what's going on. Social justice has shown its hand. A lot of people have become very interested in the problem and are studying it like I have, like Helen has. And that's going to increase tremendously. Um, and people are going to understand what it is. And when they understand what it is, they will do what they can to reject it. The bad side of that is going to be the backlash side, which is going to be a turn again toward making traditional gender roles cool. Maybe a turn toward racism. Uh, certainly a lot less sensitivity than we actually should have toward issues of identity. Um-

    6. CWChris Williamson55:44

       Disability and-

    7. JLJames Lindsay55:44

       ... a wholesale rejection.

    8. CWChris Williamson55:45

       ... things like that.

    9. JLJames Lindsay55:46

       Sure. And there's, uh, these new movements, it's like, I guess there was like the Trump people and now those people are all like cucks or something now, like they're not hardcore enough like-

    10. CWChris Williamson55:55

        (laughs)

    11. JLJames Lindsay55:55

        ... Trump and his family are sellout liberals or something now from the far, far, far or extra alt, double alt-right or whatever. They have a name.

    12. CWChris Williamson56:03

        (laughs)

    13. JLJames Lindsay56:03

        Frogs or something. Groypers, they call 'em.

16. 56:06 – 1:02:55

    the future

    1. JLJames Lindsay56:06

       So it's like-

    2. CWChris Williamson56:07

       Groypers? Is that what we're looking out for-

    3. JLJames Lindsay56:08

       Groyper.

    4. CWChris Williamson56:08

       ... over the next year?

    5. JLJames Lindsay56:10

       ... I doubt it. I don't think they're gonna have a whole lot of steam behind them. They're a thing at the moment, but n- probably not much of one. But it's, like, the alt-right aspect is going to still continue to swell. You couldn't give them a better recruiting ground than having all this crazy stuff happening, like, with presidential nominees and things like that. Um, on the other hand, there is also a, this is very good, an enormous growth in the interest in liberalism and, uh, the underpinnings of how liberal society should work and why those principles should be in place and how to defend them. Um, tremendous amount of interest, and I'm seeing that from people on the left, I'm seeing it from people who identify as centrists, and people on the right. So... And those people will, despite retaining tremendous disagreements politically, will be able to rise up and say, "You know what? A liberal on the right and a liberal on the left have more in common than these fools on the extreme."

    6. CWChris Williamson57:07

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JLJames Lindsay57:07

       And so they will, they will probably start to pick, in elections, less predictably-

    8. CWChris Williamson57:15

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JLJames Lindsay57:15

       ... and more, well, predictable toward whoever's being the most liberal. For example, you see this kind of broad coalition, I don't think it's gonna work out, but broad coalition for candidates like Andrew Yang, who are being, in a, in the US right now, who are being very, uh, traditionally liberal. Um, whether left or right doesn't actually matter. I think you would see, you see a lot of conservatives supporting him despite many of his policies or being open to his poli- his, his ideas despite his policies, whereas, um, normally you would just s- it would be, you know, a Democrat trying to get, you know, a position, terrible. You're not seeing that. So you're starting to see this broader open-minded thing where people... And I think it would be reflected as well, if you had a very centrist Republican who's trying to push back against whatever's going on right now with the far right politics, it's the populism that's dominating. I think you'd see a lot of left wing support coming out for central, center left support coming out for that. So I see a, this huge rebirth, like almost a renaissance of liberalism, and that's the place that I'm trying to stick myself into-

    10. CWChris Williamson58:18

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JLJames Lindsay58:18

        ... is to encourage th- that. To expose the thing that we're looking at, the social justice, malignant social justice thing, and try to resurrect, you know, proper liberal principles including liberal social justice principles, like you said earlier, are actually really good and, uh, it's almost everybody short of a small fringe off on the right agree with them.

    12. CWChris Williamson58:40

        One of the things I've thought of as you've, as w- uh, we've got towards the end of this discussion, we've been talking about sort of this, uh, uh, it's analogized to a virus and we're talking about when did it become malignant and things like that. I've got it in my head thinking about how a vaccination works. A vaccination gives you a very small dose of a potentially lethal, uh, virus, and then you realize, your system realizes, "Shit, I'm, I'm pretty vulnerable to this. I need to do something." And I wonder, I wonder how much this particular social justice movement is going to be a vaccination against something else which could have or may arise in the not too distant future for which we will need to be able to marshal an appropriate response, and that this situation that we have encountered recently will have been a canary in the coal mine to go, "Oh, you didn't, you didn't know that this was a problem? Let me tell you." Like, "This is, this is, this really is a, a, a, a problem and you, you gotta be ready for it." But we didn't get the smooth talking, slick dist- uh, future dystopian overlord from, like, some James Bond film. We didn't get him. We got, like, uh, Native Americans versus, um, like, black settler, like, who's got the m- who, who is the most underprivileged in this situation, l- like, fat studies. That's who we got.

    13. JLJames Lindsay1:00:04

        Yeah.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:00:04

        We didn't, we didn't get the, the, the owner of some huge billion dollar media conglomerate who's actually really, really nefarious with it. We got, like, people with blue hair that are unhappy that they didn't get enough hugs as a kid.

    15. JLJames Lindsay1:00:18

        Yeah.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:00:19

        And I wonder, I wonder whether or not that, that will actually end up being, in the long term, whether that will end up serving us well because it'll prepare us for what's to come.

    17. JLJames Lindsay1:00:29

        It's possible. I think it's going to be really important that, um, we understand... I think that it's not centralized like the, like the dangerous g- guy with the big money and all of that. But, um, critical theory is a real, it's, it's again, like we talked about, it's like a, it's like an industrial s- grade solvent. And so learning how to deal with that as a society is going to be really, really important. And so perhaps it's, as you're suggesting, best that it's in the hands of these self-defeating, um, uh, oddballs, uh, and grievance mongerers rather than, you know, the next Hitler who's gonna come out and know how to wield those tools, uh, to a much worse end. Um, it's certainly a possibility. Uh, I do think though that understanding the, the potential for critical theory, uh, to be something that can literally dissolve a liberal or western society, uh, or any society really, 'cause it can latch on and change itself to fit anything, is, is of paramount importance right now. And so administering kind of like the, the critical theory jab-

    18. CWChris Williamson1:01:44

        Mm-hmm.

    19. JLJames Lindsay1:01:45

        ... and, and giving people that vaccine I think is super important at the moment.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:01:49

        Well, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to the book to come out with, with Helen next year. Um, thank you so much for today, James.

    21. JLJames Lindsay1:01:55

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:01:55

        Where should, uh, where should the listeners head if they want to keep in touch with you to find out more?

    23. JLJames Lindsay1:02:00

        I am probably pathologically active on Twitter, so that's the best place to look for me and reach out to me. Um, the, I'm @conceptualjames on Twitter. Uh, there should be some big things coming in the next few months, so, uh, if those pan out, uh, people should be getting excited and check m- check me out and see what's going on. So that's the place to look for now.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:02:22

        I'm looking forward to it. James, thank you so much. To the listeners at home, you know what to do. If you've enjoyed this episode, go and follow James, check out How to Have Impossible Conversations, and don't wait for his book with Helen which will be coming out early next year. Like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. You know what to do. But for now, thank you James.

    25. JLJames Lindsay1:02:38

        Thank you.

    26. NANarrator1:02:41

        (instrumental music plays)

Episode duration: 1:02:55