Post-Modernism Gone Crazy
Kevin Simington
Three U.S. academics have recently revealed how they highlighted the ludicrous nature of postmodernism within academia by successfully publishing hoax papers on a range of ridiculous topics. (Post-modernism refers to the wholesale rejection of past traditional beliefs and values, and the embracing of disparate alternate values and morality.) American academics, James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian successfully published a total of seven academic papers (under pseudonyms) in various professionally reviewed journals, on topics that would make any thinking person howl with laughter. Their purpose? To see how far they could push the boundaries of credibility in a world where common sense seems to have permanently left the building (along with Elvis).
In one paper, they argued that, in dog-walking parks, “dog humping incidents can be taken as evidence of rape culture” and that serious action needs to be taken as these incidents promote rape culture amongst humans. The paper also raised “serious concerns” regarding how dog humping was undermining the rights of dogs. (Yes! Seriously!) Their paper issued “a call for awareness into the different ways dogs are treated on the basis of their gender and their queering behaviours, and the chronic and perennial rape emergency that dog parks pose to female dogs.” The managing editor of the journal in which the paper was published (“Gender, Place and Culture”) honoured their paper as “an excellent piece of scholarship”.
Even more extraordinary, was their successful publication of another paper in which they transcribed chapter 12 of Adolf Hitler’s horrendously infamous book, “Mein Kampf” (a book brimming with discriminatory hatred), with buzzwords switched in and postmodern terminology added. This paper was greeted with high praise by reviewers! An even more ridiculous paper examined what they called “transhysteria”, which addressed the “fact” that men are fearful of inserting objects into their bottoms because of fear of becoming homosexuals. This paper was praised by academic reviewers as “a rich and exciting contribution to the study of the intersection between masculinity and anality (bottoms!).”
Perhaps most disturbing of all, was their paper which proposed that because the perpetrators of oppression have historically been white, upper-class, privileged males, our learning institutions need to counteract their ongoing influence. Their paper proposed that university professors rate a student’s potential to oppress others, based on that student’s race, gender and class. Students who are deemed to be “privileged” (from a white, upper-class background) should be “kept from commenting in class, be interrupted when they do speak, and told to sit on the floor for the duration of the class, perhaps wearing light chains around their wrists”. The paper also recommended that these students’ essays should be marked more harshly. The paper was published under glowing reviews as a significant contribution to postmodern egalitarianism.
Now that the three academics have revealed their hoax papers for what they were, the academic world has been left with red faces. The three authors also readily admit that they may well be viewed as pariahs as a result, and their academic careers impeded, but they believe their cause was worth it, in order to shine a light on the ridiculous nature of postmodernism. In a jointly published statement, they wrote, “It shows that the emperor has got no clothes! The takeover of the humanities by postmodernism, identity politics and political correctness has completely trashed the intellectual integrity of these disciplines. Anybody who singles out the right victims and blames the right oppressors by name-checking the right identity groups gets a free pass without any other evidence. A culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed, like those that make whiteness and masculinity a problem.”
Certainly, their bogus publications reveal a disturbing level of fuzzy, unchallenged postmodern thinking within academia, as well as highlighting the extent to which reverse bias now exists within our politically-correct society as a whole.