1/
@roderickgraham claims @HPluckrose and @ConceptualJames" lied and took advantage of an honest process" when they got several papers, which argue for absurd positions, published in respected journals. This is a dishonest redescription of what happened...
2/
First I'll explained what happened, then I'll show how Rod bends the truth to make an unfair insinuation.

What @HPluckrose @ConceptualJames and @peterboghossian did was claim, very publicly, that there was a problem academia, namely academic journals were publishing shoddy...
3/
scholarship using methods which were not rigorous. They wrote public essays about this long before it was revealed that they had gotten absurd papers into academic journals.

Here is one of their essays which speaks about this issue explicitly:
areomagazine.com/2018/03/23/a-p…
4/
Their method was to accept the assumptions of the people who are running the journals, and then show that if you take those assumptions seriously, you can get them to validate and legitimize things which are both untrue and morally wrong. The idea is this:
5/
You say "OK academic journal, let us accept your assumptions about systemic power, racism, sexism, discourse analysis, and standpoint epistemology. If we accept those "woke" premises we can argue that dog parks are bastions of rape culture, and you will publish it"
6/
They then proceeded to publish a paper which argued exactly that, and an academic journal published it.
That was not the only paper either, at least *SEVEN* papers were accepted for publication.
THAT is what they did. It was of calling the bluff of these journals.
7/
The fact their papers said what they did and got published shows these journals claims to rigor are unfounded. One should not be able to publish obviously incorrect information and morally dubious arguments easily in a large variety of journals. But this is what happened.
8/
The issue is, of course, that the *REASONING* that these journals validate and legitimize is flawed. It isn't matter of sloppy editing, the journals are very very specific about making sure you use the bad reasoning.

Now, what @roderickgraham is doing is pretending that...
9/
@HPluckrose and @ConceptualJames have a secret axe to grind and are engaged in some kind of political ploy which is hidden. This is why he claims they "lied and took advantage of an honest process."
You will notice that @roderickgraham does NOT claim that the people who...
10/
trade on the name and reputation of the academy to validate their ideology as knowledge are taking advantage of an honest process. He is ok with going to the public with studies published in journals that have as their goal of laundering a political ideology as knowledge.
11/
He repeatedly accuses Helen of being only upset by "the political consequences" when Helen has made CLEAR on many occasions that she cares deeply about the TRUTH and making sure that we get the TRUTH from universities; not ideology dressed up as knowledge.
12/
@roderickgraham re-describes what Helen did to make it look like she was taking advantage of an honest process to dupe well meaning people for her own hidden agenda.

This is a disingenuous re-frame.
13/
The whole POINT of academic journals is to check the articles submitted to see if they are rigorous, well argued, and use proper methods.

*THAT IS THE REASON WHY ACADEMIC JOURNALS HAVE SO MUCH CLOUT*

They make certain that articles use good methods, and careful reasoning.
14/
Without a reputation for liberal epistemic standards and rigorous reasoning academic journals would not have the clout they do. What Helen and James showed by publishing the absurd papers and *BY THE COMMENTS THE REVIEWERS LEFT ON THOSE PAPERS* which really tell the story...
15/
because it showed that the journals *UNDERSTOOD THE PAPERS AND THOUGHT THEY WERE EXCELLENT*

What @roderickgraham is doing is not saying "I see you have published nonsense in the journals perhaps the journals are not being on the up and up" oh no, Roderick has another game...
16/
@roderickgraham thinks people hide their motivations, so when they say somethings, it must mean that they really want something else. they have some other goal that Roderick, the wise academic, has to figure out indirectly.
17/
Unlike those of us who are Naive and get duped cause we don't really know how this stuff works, Roderick sees through the facade, to "what's really happening." He thinks of himself as seeing and being aware of the hidden motivations of other people.
18/
So unlike us, who read @HPluckrose saying "I did this because I believe in liberal ideas of science and reason, and I wanted to show academic journals aren't doing that so I called their bluff" and believe her, @roderickgraham sees himself as being to smart for that old game
19/
You can't fool @roderickgraham with the old "here is exactly why I did what I did, see, I even had @MikeNayna film it while I did it and made detailed notes about it." Oh no, @roderickgraham is nobodies fool, this ain't his first rodeo, and he wasn't born yesterday...
20/
@roderickgraham "knows" (just ask him, he says this clearly over and over) that @HPluckrose has hidden motives, and it's really all just a ploy and a "work" (to use a wrestling term) to take the political punch out of Social Justice for her own benefit.
21/
Of course, @roderickgraham claims that *HIS* side has views which are well validated, and more evidenced then ANYTHING an anti-woke person says. If you ever implied he only said that to trick people into being woke and didn't really believe it he would not take it well.
22/
of course people can be cynical, hide their motives, play social power games, and do all sorts of nonsense.

They can also be totally honest about what they are doing.

But, I would argue that people who proudly proclaim that everyone else has hidden motives....
23/
are people who simple refuse to see that most people are good, kind and caring...even those who disagree with them.

Sure, we need to look out for people who might lie, but that doesn't mean we imply everyone always has a hidden motive. That's ridiculous.
24/
Fuck Cynicism.

People sin, mess up, screw up, make mistakes, and hurt each other.

They are also capable of profound honesty. Lose the cynicism and start enjoying human relationships again.

\fin

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More from @wokal_distance

29 Oct
1/
AOC is on the cover of vanity fair and no one says a word

The Girl Scouts made a nice tweet about Amy coney Barret, then got mobbed and had to delete it.

This👏 isn't 👏about 👏free 👏speech

This is about Discourses.

A THREAD🧵
2/
The "discourse" refers to the discussion that occurs around a topic or idea. This includes the words used, how the ideas are conveyed, and the ways in which various points of view gain traction in the conversation and become dominant or become the "default" view.
3/
So included in the idea of "the discourse" are:

1. the words, signs and symbols used in a discourse
2. The ways in which ideas are conveyed and communicated
3. How particular ideas are used in a given discourse
4. The idea that certain views come to dominate the conversation
Read 14 tweets
26 Oct
1/
Wokeness is deeply postmodern.

Most of you have been told postmodernism contradicts other key elements of wokeness like critical race theory, neo-marxism, and standpoint epistemology, which means wokeness can't be postmodern.

This is wrong, and I'll explain why:

A thread🧵
2/
We need to understand the objection before we can show why it is wrong, and show just how completely postmodern wokeness is.

The objection revolves around the idea that postmodernism is relativistic, nihilistic, and skeptical of meta-narratives. This needs unpacking...
3/
A meta-narrative is a theory that tries to give a comprehensive account of how the world works, and how society works and functions, by appealing to universal truth or universal values. So a meta-narrative appeals to absolute truth to try to explain "the arc of history."
Read 33 tweets
25 Oct
When I do a thread about why enlightenment liberalism is better than critical race theory Image
"So you see, Critical Race theorists accept the postmodern worldview, but deny the skepticism of meta-narratives, and they think that gets them off the hook for their postmodernism" Image
"This is why they think they avoid the charge of relativism. Isn't that right @ConceptualJames ?" Image
Read 4 tweets
22 Oct
The woke: "tHeRe'S nO PoStMoDeRnIsM iN cRiTiCaL RaCe ThEoRy"

Critical Race Theorists:
Hello philosophy Bro's and CRT people:

The point here is to show Critical Race Theorists have absolutley made use of postmodern ideas and tools even though many of them claim a commitment to liberalism, and have been aware and discussing the tension since the early 90's
This shows CRT has been trying to figure out how to use postmodern theory for a long time.
And, as it turns out, intersectionality was how they brought postmodern theory and politics together. From Kimberlee Crenshaws essay "mapping the Margins":
Read 4 tweets
20 Oct
1/
I mean, dude, it's right in your own quote. Mills likes what postmodernism does politically and he says so in the highlited portion of the bit YOU quoted. Also, he seemingly accepts large portions of Postmodernism via postcolonial theory (hence his focus on deimperialism)....
2/
Yes, he rejects the move of some of the postmoderns to be skeptical of all meta narratives.

But postmoderns did away with the "incredulity toward meta narratives" since Kimberlee Crenshaw wrote "Mapping the Margins" and she states explicitly that....
Intersectionality a
Is a “provisional concept linking contemporary politics with postmodern theory."

So yeah, they don't accept the postmodern conclusion that doubts all and every metanarrative. They do accept many other aspects of postmodernism and he says so...
Read 7 tweets
20 Oct
This is the philosophical equivalent of a biologist examining every tree, leaf, and branch, and then proclaiming he had not seen a forrest...just some leaves, branches, trunks and seeds.

This is common :
"that isn't what Derrida meant by trace."

I could talk about how every experience must point beyond itself, or about oresence and absence and differance and meaning is always endlessly differed and all the rest...

Or .....
I could say "this is the bit about what Derrida said that people took and ran with, and here is what they did with it"

I'm not getting bogged down in a discussion of Greman Phenomenology.
I'd read the Crisis of the European sciences if I was.
Read 6 tweets

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