I have to say, I felt this, @GlennLoury . I learned this week that a humanitarian health organization I hold dear is being shaken down to divert attention & resources toward some kind of colonial exorcism in the middle of a global pandemic. 1/5
Much of the "vacuousness" popular among guilty white intellectuals is grounded in an academic fad that flourished throughout the '90s. It created a generation of tenured radicals that practiced a new kind of dissociated activism. @noamchomskyT sums it up nicely here. 2/5
This movement focused on subjective experience, uncovering hidden power structures, & subconscious prejudice. Without objective reality serving a regulative function, their collective endeavor drifted into a world of pure abstraction. 3/5
A billion-dollar industry grew out of this alternate reality with Ph.D.'s & other graduates expanding into administrative roles, founding non-profit organizations, & cobbling together careers for themselves outside of academia. 4/5 quillette.com/2020/02/05/con…
For several years I've been mapping this phenomenon that now appears to be dominating public discourse & I'm yet to find evidence it produces anything practical. I have seen it create guilt complexes, social derangement, & profitable careers for those evangelizing its doctrines.
