PPS on the Grievance Studies Scandal

Steve had a “Postscript on the grievance studies scandal” about the project of three liberal academics placing nonsense articles in leading postmodernist/identity politics journals. I have a PPS.

Jillian Kay Melchior’s updated Wall Street Journal story on the hoax is accessible here on Outline. The Australian site Quillette has posted “The Grievance Studies Scandal: Five Academics Respond.” It is prefaced by this editor’s note:

For the past year scholars James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have sent fake papers to various academic journals which they describe as specialising in activism or “grievance studies.” Their stated mission has been to expose how easy it is to get “absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research.”

To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia.

Quillette then posts a response to the scandal from five academics who are currently researching, publishing and teaching in the fields of Philosophy, English Studies, Behavioral Genetics and Economics. The symposium leads off with “From Foolish Talk to Evil Madness” by Nathan Cofnas. Cofnas writes: “King Solomon said of the fool: ‘His talk begins as foolishness and ends as evil madness’ (Ecclesiastes 10:13). Can a disregard for evidence, logic, and open inquiry combined with a burning hatred for large classes of people perceived as political opponents (‘racists,’ ‘sexists,’ ‘homophobes,’ ‘transphobes,’ etc.) possibly lead to a good result? The editors and peer reviewers who handled LBP’s papers have revealed their true, vicious attitudes.”

Steve posted the video below with his original post on the hoax. The perpetrators explain themselves in the video. They tell their story from the inside. If having fun exposing the truth were against the law, this video would be incriminating beyond belief. Quillette also includes the video together with its symposium.

Quotable quote: “What appears beyond dispute is that making absurd and horrible ideas sufficiently politically fashionable can get them validated at the highest level of academic grievance studies.”

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses