Mohler Discusses Critical Theory with James Lindsay

This is spot on. Anyone who works in the academy and has not been converted to the idiocy of Critical Theory will be refreshed by the clarity of this talk. I am getting the book.

The point of Liberalism (the philosophical perspective, not politics) was supposed to be to resolve conflicts between perspectives. Political conflict was to be resolved by democracy. Economic controversy was to be resolved by the free market. And intellectual controversy was to be resolved by rational discussion. Critical Theory wrecks all of that. There is no freedom to disagree or argue clearly. You conform or get excommunicated.

You notice the speaker has a Doctorate in Math, and Mohler is a theologian. They are self taught. James Lindsay would be radioactive in the standard academy. No one would touch him.

Some schools offer doctorates in Humanities. I know Daniel Akin got his doctorate in Humanities from Texas at Arlington.

You are either all in, or you are all out. The speaker discusses this at 42:30. You cannot take parts of Critical Theory just to be “analytical tools.” The SBC leaders are big into this.

The core of Critical Theory is systems of oppression. Any compromise to CT is complicity with the oppressors.

[TylerR]

This kind of thing (I don’t even know what to call it) is what I want to study for a doctoral program. The big ideas, the meta-narratives, that are driving contemporary culture in the West. I want to study this kind of thing, and bring Christian apologetics to bear to tear it down. But, I don’t even know what this field is called. Is there a field? It appears to be a mix of philosophy, sociology and humanities. What is it, and where can I study it!?

[Mark_Smith]

Daniel Akin got his doctorate in Humanities from Texas at Arlington.

Tyler is a big fan of Akin’s new book ;)

This is spot on. Anyone who works in the academy and has not been converted to the idiocy of Critical Theory will be refreshed by the clarity of this talk. I am getting the book.

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I really enjoyed the conversation. I generally agreed with both Lindsay and Mohler on the majority of their points, including the historical timeline of different phases of Post-Modernism along with some of the radical things that have come out of it. Fat Studies, anyone? What a crock! Some of the observations that Lindsay made are the same I’ve made on different threads about Critical Theory, such as the multiple number of strains within Feminist Critical Theory and how they don’t get along with each other, or even that Critical Theory will collapse on itself. I was also surprised at the charitableness and professionalism of Lindsay towards Mohler and Christian Theism, given that he is an atheist. In a previous book (Everybody is Wrong About God) Lindsay viewed Christians as psychologically weak–whenever people say they believe in “God,” they are really telling us that they have certain psychological and social needs that they do not know how to meet. I was also surprised at his professionalism, especially since he sometimes responds low-brow-sexually crass as well as bodily functional crass towards those he debates on Twitter. (Example–someone snarkily asked him in an August 1st, 2020 tweet “What are you doing with your life right now?” He responds-“Your Mom, whenever I get the chance, which is pretty much all the time, as you probably know.”)

When Mohler made the comment that Cynical Theories was the best cultural analysis, I was excited to get it. So I then googled reviews of the book to see how others have perceived it. And then it brought me back to reality. What I realize is that the actual Critical Theorists don’t engage him, but those who come from a Classical Socially Liberal standpoint do, like this fellow atheist of Lindsay who happens to be a philosophy prof (working on his Ph.D.) in NY. And this review https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-cynical-theorists-behind-cynical-th… is a brutal takedown of Cynical Theories if it holds to be true. I don’t know if it is because I have neither read the book nor the vast majority of authors that Cynical Theories critiques. But the reviewer/analytical philosopher specifically points out how Lindsay and Pluckrose misrepresent a number of CT Scholars, including Dotson, Fricker, Code, Wolf, Medina, Mills, and Bailey to support their arguments. He also criticizes the lack of citations or poor footnoting to back up their many claims. That is very concerning if proved to be true. I then examined any of the twitter discourse between Lindsay/Pluckrose and the reviewer (Sam Hoadley-Bill) after the review came out. Lindsay attempted to use the fallacy of “guilt by association,” which is odd especially since their worldviews are similar. When that didn’t work, Lindsay resorted to fart remarks as Sam Hoadley-Bill attempted to get Lindsay to respond to his different points, and then Lindsay eventually blocked him. Pluckrose was more charitable at the beginning, but again wouldn’t answer the points that the reviewer made, and eventually she blocked him as well. Now Sam Hoadley-Bill is not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. He admitted trying to bait Lindsay into the guilt-by-association fallacy with his author description from liberal currents (he described himself with“his recent indoctrination into the woke cult of academia, he has begun to develop interests in feminist epistemology and critical philosophy of race” which is quite contrary to what he believes). So you have some entrapment going on. By the way, Hoadley-Bill agrees with Lindsay/Pluckrose’s assessment of Robin DiAngelo and I even heard a podcast of him where he also goes after the Anti-Racist Scholar Ibram X Kendi as well.

All this is to say, I’d be extra careful and actually critically read the primary sources that Cynical Theories is interacting with. Making sure that Lindsay is getting them right, especially since Lindsay isn’t a scholar in the areas of philosophy, history, social sciences, cultural studies but rather as math scholar and more self-studied in the area that he is critiquing. Also, I am not saying that these CT scholars are right. In fact, I’d argue that they are mostly still wrong. But if Christians are going to enter the public square and debate secular sociological ideologies, they need to be much more careful in their analysis for the sake of truth.

And I also think that this co-belligerence connection that is developing between Lindsay and certain SBCers (now Mohler) may end up blowing up in their face. Influential SBCer Michael O’Fallan from Sovereign Nations owns New Discourse, the comprehensive website that exposes Social Justice and Wokeness, to give a platform for Lindsay to continue writing. It isn’t just the questionable content that Lindsay seems willing to write that may be filled with misrepresentations, but also his questionable character, which has manifested itself on twitter. And especially what he’s previously said about Christianity. Think about it. Lindsay has no epistemology to actually deal with racism, sexism, and etc…. To him, no one is created in the image of God. He doesn’t believe we were all made from one man. He rejects total depravity (which James Lindsay calls the Calvinist cause of the witch trials). He rejects the Incarnation. He rejects Christian eschatology and to Revelation 7:9. He rejects the authority of the Scriptures, which provide not only the moral eternal maxims of Social Justice, but also the divinely ordered histories of Jews and Gentiles working toward lived unity in the New Testament Church. And, most importantly, he rejects the gospel, the only ultimate and final solution.

It never ceases to amaze me how easily the worldly concept of “the ends justify the means” creeps into the worldview of all Bible Believing Christians (in this case, fighting the culture wars) and how blind we can be to it.

I didn’t take it that way. I just thought Mohler wanted to interview a guy who wrote an important book, for his podcast series. What surprised me is how well-read Mohler appeared to be on this topic. He could follow Lindsay quite easily. Why, then, has Mohler not offered his own sustained analysis of critical theory at all, in any forum, in the context of apologetics?

Maybe. But I was bothered by Mohler calling it the best cultural analysis on CT, especially when an atheist classical liberal analytical philosopher could so easily refute it. To me, their arguments would need to be fairly airtight to be put into that category of being the best cultural analysis but the authors couldn’t even defend it against an unknown PH.D. philosophy student and grad teacher. The lack of citations and poor footnoting? That’s scholarship 101. It was one of the (among many) reasons why I dismissed Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. I had a professor at GRTS that made us get into the practice of researching and dissecting footnotes/endnotes of books and articles we were researching. I hated it, but it helped me learn to critically read.

Maybe it’s the political angle within the SBC. On the one end, he theologically affirms systemic racism as part of a more robust doctrine of sin so that social justice and/or black SBCers will be happy. On the other end, he gives props to Lindsay’s book, throwing a bone to the Sovereign Nations/Founders followers.

the Founders or this Sovereign Nation you talk about. I just followed a link here to a Mohler interview.

Tyler, why are you so interested in CT/CRT? Are you just wanting to know more about what the world thinks? Or do you think it might be helpful.

Don’t read CT/CRT in the abstract. Go to a university campus where the real impact of how destructive it is is in full force.

a commission arranged by the Mayor of Washington DC has recommended that the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial be dismantled, moved to a museum, or be “contextualized” with corrections on the site.

That’s CT/CRT.