Ayishat Akanbi discusses the problem of “reactionary” behaviors in the modern social justice movement and how it’s hurting us all. Although some of the popular fundamental belief systems in this movement encourage aggressive behaviors in activists against perceived enemies, Akanbi’s theme of practicing open-hearted immediacy and embracing the humanity of people who belong to groups we have deemed “the enemy” is as timely as ever. This theme is similarly expressed in the essay, “In Praise of Allies: Wherever we’re going, we’ll only get there together”. Since this video has gone viral, Akanbi has given talks around the world about the importance of discovering our commonalities alongside our differences.
This is the first video in Benjamin A. Boyce's serial documentary The Complete Evergreen Story. In this series and in his vast collection from the #ExposeEvergreen YouTube series, Boyce captures the disturbing cult-like behaviors and an atmosphere of forced ideological conformity, bullying and mobbing that has been occurring at Evergreen State College since 2015. In this video, he explores a clip showing an Evergreen State College professor introducing students to a mystical world-wide conspiratorial, malevolent force labeled as “white supremacy” that is believed to structure all of reality. Boyce is currently working on an authoritative documentary about the Evergreen State College breakdown that took place in the spring of 2017. For another powerful document of the Evergreen breakdown, we recommend the first installment of a documentary by Mike Nayna. For a breakdown of one of the most influential theories that fueled the mobbing attacks at Evergreen, we recommend this piece on Robin D’Angelo’s White Fragility Theory.
This essay from Quillette describes the formal and ritualized way in which social justice as an ideology has become institutionalized in the media, educational institutions, and even corporations that have embraced a highly codified orthodoxy that threatens conformity through mechanisms of shame, public call-outs, and humiliation, enforced thought-conformity, and widespread censorship.
In this watershed Ted Talk, filmmaker Cassie Jaye talks about the transformational process she went through as she set out to “expose” the Men’s Rights Movement in her film, “The Red Pill”. In this talk, and through her other work, Jaye reminds us that inter-gender hatred and stereotyping is not the way to liberation or equality, and that in spite of the often-true narratives around women’s oppression, boys and men suffer, too. Rather than treating women’s issues as a zero sum game, she asks us to consider the possibility that we can embrace the rights of all at the expense of none.
Dave Rubin interviews Coleman Hughes about race issues and emerging new heterodox perspectives on racism that question the narrative of systemic bigotry. Part 2 of this interview can be found here. Hughes is currently studying at Columbia University where he met linguistics professor, John McWhorter, who teaches there. Both of these black writers are formally connected with the Heterodox Academy. This interview features refreshingly open dialogue without ideology, rhetoric, or image-making.
In this YouTube Series, The Fiamengo File, University of Ottawa, Professor Janice Fiamengo deconstructs the orthodox world of intersectional ideology on the college campus and its strong influence on recent generations of young people. In this particular video, Fiamengo speaks of the shame orientation of privilege theory and the adversarial, almost-cult-like behaviors of new converts. Another concept that is discussed in the series is the imbalanced narrative of what each gender has contributed to the world throughout history.
In this video Jonathan Haidt, the moral psychologist and founder of Heterodox Academy, lays out in great detail the power behind inquiry, investigation, and open-mindedness. This way of approaching reality, knowledge, and truth, Haidt exhorts, is in stark contrast to ideologically fixed and unchangeable truths of modern social justice ideologies. The competing values referred to in the title are: Truth (open inquiry) and Social Justice Ideology (a programmed, restrictive view of seeing and responding to reality in a predetermined way). While this particular talk focuses on the “telos” of institutions of higher education, Haidt has also studied and lectured on the the ways in which Congress and the American public have become polarized in recent years. have led more in-depth discussion about the variables that have impacted the strength of Western democracies can be found in Haidt’s take on “Why America’s Finely-Tuned Democracy is Running Down”. Haidt has recently collaborated with attorney Greg Lukianoff to co-author the critically acclaimed book "The Coddling of the American Mind" where they investigate further Haidt's theory of the “Three Terrible Ideas”.
Linguistics professor John McWhorter, a founding member of Heterodox Academy, discusses the alleged hate crime hoax that Jussie Smollett, an openly gay, black actor on the television show Empire, has been accused of engineering for the purpose of advancing his career, and the impact of victimhood narratives and ideology on the culture at large. A major theme of this interview (and other McWhorter writings) is the need for black advocates to question victimology as a permanent stance. For an in-depth discussion of this issue with McWhorter and Glenn Loury, click click here. It’s interesting to note that an increasing number of black writers and academics have written and spoken along similar lines. Harvard professor, Dr. Cornel West questions the victim narrative and the bleak and racialized world view of Critical Race Theory in a piece called “Ta Nahesi Coates is the Neoliberal Face of the Black Freedom Struggle“, and Christina Dit Sully echoes some of the same concerns in a piece called “Universalism and the Courage to Change Society”.
In this interview, social psychologist and author of The Boy Crisis, Warren Farrell speaks of the need for a more humanized and balanced approach to conversations about sex and gender, and in particular, the topic of masculinity. Emotional vulnerability in boys and men is a shared value between advocates for women’s rights and men’s rights, and this interview covers this and the many other overlaps that ultimately tie all movements for equality and mutual respect into a single whole.
Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers taught philosophy for more than twenty years and is the author of The War Against Boys. She has been a consistent critic of what she has called the adversarial stance against males in contemporary feminist culture, theory and practice. As she has often noted in public talks and in her YouTube series, The Factual Feminist The Factual Feminist, Hoff Sommers supports what she considers the original foundation of feminism and other movements, which is about true equality rather than gender chauvinism and identitarian hostility. Like other public figures who have spoken out on the harmful effects of misandry and the denial of biological differences between the sexes, Hoff Sommers has met with passionate opposition. For more insight into her work, here is an interview with Joe Rogan.
Here, Bill Maher reminds us that there are distinctions in the world of abuse and violence and that there is a spectrum of behaviors that require different measures of our responses. Put more simply, destroying lives is not a proportional response to every mishap, sexual or otherwise. Psychologists and social science researchers are also discovering the apocalyptic cult of “cancel culture”, and a recent New York Times piece questions “The Cruelty of Callout Culture” among similar lines.