In her talk, Doing Social Justice Responsibly on October 13, 2019 at the 'Speaking Truth to Social Justice' conference in London, Helen Pluckrose tackled the ideological excesses within social justice activism, offering a way to address genuine social justice issues without abandoning reason or liberal principles. She argued that the dominant framework in social justice today—rooted in critical theory and postmodernism—has transformed genuine concerns about power and privilege into a rigid worldview. This ideology, she explained, rejects objective truth and promotes “strategic knowledge,” constructed to serve specific identity-based agendas rather than being tested against reality.

Pluckrose acknowledged that while social justice concepts like bias, cultural narratives, and the power of language have validity, the radicalized methods often used within social justice turn productive critiques into dogma. Instead of engaging in open dialogue, activists demand conformity, condemning dissenting views as tools of privilege. She urged liberals and conservatives alike to stand for a balanced approach to social justice—one that promotes fairness without sacrificing truth and the ideals of secular liberalism.

Viewers will find this talk interesting not just for its contents but also for the glimpse back in time by five years, which allows them to see how the views expressed have matured and developed over the intervening time.

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Doing Social Justice Responsibly | Helen Pluckrose

Has critical theory helped or hurt the future of the left in politics? Tune in for an inspiring discussion with Eric Heinze on his new book Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left.

Moments with Marianne airs in the Southern California area on KMET1490AM & 98.1 FM, an ABC Talk News Radio affiliate! 

Eric Heinze, Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London, is a distinguished intellectual with a deep background in law, political theory, and human rights. He provides a nuanced and research-driven perspective, bridging the gap between extreme voices in contemporary political debates. Heinze's commitment to critical thinking and refusal to align with strict ideologies offer a pragmatic alternative to polarized narratives, promoting inclusive and constructive dialogue for the future of centrist left thought. His previous books include The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022), Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship (2016), The Concept of Injustice (2013), and The Logic of Liberal Rights (2003). His work has been featured in the Guardian, Times Higher Ed, The Conversation, The Irish Times, Aeon, and many other publications. https://ericheinze.com

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www.MariannePestana.com


Coming Clean with Eric Heinze

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 164

What is the Woke worldview? It's called "critical constructivism." How is it adopted? The formal name for picking up "Wokeness" is adopting "critical hermeneutics." What in the world does that mean? It means viewing the world through lenses of power as described by critical theory and social constructivism. That is, it means reading Marxian analysis into all perceptions of the world and believing this makes you more "enlightened." In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay takes you through another segment of what he calls "The Book of Woke," i.e., Critical Constructivism: A Primer (https://amzn.to/3EuM2mZ ), by Joe L. Kincheloe, a (late) critical education theorist. Join him to have all these questions answered and to clarify your thinking about what "Woke" means even more.

This episode is Part 2 in a developing series exploring "The Book of Woke." Find Part 1 here: https://newdiscourses.com/2025/04/the-book-of-woke-introducing-critical-constructivism/

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The Book of Woke: Critical Hermeneutics

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 165

The "New Atheism" movement, which lasted more or less from 2005 until 2015, was a cringey and curious thing, and it has become an object of much mythology, particularly on the highly online, largely Christian Right. Unfortunately, they don't know much about it, leading them to turn it into propaganda for a cause that mirrors it more than many might find comfortable. In this casual episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay goes through quite a lot of the history of the New Atheism movement as it really was and compares it against Critical Religion Theory, Marxism, and, ironically, the Woke Right. Join him for a surprising and refreshing discussion.

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Woke Right: MAGA's "New Atheists"?

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 170

It is long past time we take a look at the Communist Manifesto (instead of just sending it to dubious Woke Right outlets and getting them to publish it: https://newdiscourses.com/2024/12/a-communist-manifesto-for-christian-nationalists-testing-the-woke-right/). Obviously, this infamous document (pdf: https://www.marxists.org/admin/books/manifesto/Manifesto.pdf) is not the beginning point of Communism, but is the beginning point of organized Communism, particularly of the Marxist type, which we have recently (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/06/communism-is-not-atheist) and thoroughly discussed. In this long-overdue episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay takes you through the main body of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: preface, chapter one, and chapter two. In a subsequent episode (Volume Two in this mini-series) he will cover a later addition called "The Principles of Communism." There's a lot here, and you won't want to miss it.

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The Communist Manifesto, Volume One

Case File 4 (A Place You Can't Escape)

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 171

Welcome to the third volume in the crucially important New Discourses Podcast series on "the Nazi Experiment," which is largely but not entirely a direct exposé of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. In the previous episodes (Prequel (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/03/woke-nationalism-and-the-nazi-experiment/); Ep. 1 (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/06/the-nazi-experiment-vol-1-the-nazi-racial-worldview/); Ep. 2 (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/07/the-nazi-experiment-hitlers-nazi-race-ideology)), we revealed that Hitler very much intended National Socialism to be a grand experiment in a totalitarian state based on a new political ideology based in what he called a "racialist World-concept" (Ford translation). We explored how blatantly his project was based on racial occultism and eugenics and the racial hatred of Jews. In this episode of the series, host James Lindsay reads from the fourth chapter of Volume 2 of Mein Kampf to show how Hitler's worldview required the right elevation of the individual through his subordination to the worldview and service to his Nazi experiment. Join James to peel back another layer of this stinking onion and unmask much of the propaganda we're seeing from bad actors aligned with the Woke Right today.

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The Nazi Experiment, Vol. 3: The Individual Nazi in the Nazi State

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 172

The "Woke" worldview, however it manifests, has a proper name, and it is "critical constructivism." Helpfully, there's a book about critical constructivism (https://amzn.to/3EuM2mZ) specifically, written by the man who first outlined it by that name, Joe L. Kincheloe. James Lindsay, host of the New Discourses Podcast, calls this book "The Book of Woke" and has been reading from it as a loose podcast series to help people understand what "Woke" really means. It's not a slur, a smear, or even a slang term anymore. It means something quite specific. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay takes you through a series of bullet points outlined by Kincheloe along with the twelve defining points of critical constructivism so you can better understand what "Woke" is. Join him to sharpen your understanding.

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The Book of Woke: The Basis of Critical Constructivism

From Get Out to The Babadook to Saint Maud: In his new book, Josh Gooch uses the horror film genre to expose the hostile conditions of life under capitalism, drawing connections between Marxist theory and contemporary narratives of psychological unease. Here, Gooch is joined in conversation with Jo Isaacson. This episode contains spoilers for multiple films (list below).


Joshua Gooch is professor of English at D’Youville University in Buffalo, New York. He is author of Capitalism Hates You: Marxism and the New Horror Film; Dickensian Affects: Charles Dickens and Feelings of Precarity and The Victorian Novel, Service Work, and the Nineteenth-Century Economy.

Johanna Isaacson is professor of English at Modesto Junior College and author of Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror. 


EPISODE REFERENCES:
Sianne Ngai
Michael Löwy / “critical irrealism”
Linda Williams on Psycho, essay in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho: A Casebook
Søren Mau
Nancy Fraser
Mariarosa Dalla Costa
Silvia Federici
Amitav Ghosh
Kim Stanley Robinson
Jason W. Moore
Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Sophie Lewis
M. E. O’Brien
Kathi Weeks
Lauren Berlant


FILMS DISCUSSED:
Psycho
Dracula
Nosferatu
Candyman
Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell
Joe Lynch’s Mayhem
Robert Eggers’s The Witch
Gillian Wallace Horvat’s I Blame Society
Rose Glass’s Saint Maud
Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook
Ari Aster’s Hereditary
Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
Jordan Peele’s Get Out
Jordan Peele’s Us
Mariame Diallo’s Master
Tim Story’s The Blackening
Timothy Covell’s Blood Conscious
Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance
Romero’s Night of the Living Dead
Lamberti Bava’s Demons
The Ring
Jeremy Saulnier’s Murder Party
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining


Praise for the book:
"Fiercely smart." —Annie McClanahan, author of Dead Pledges

"This is a book not just for fans of horror but for everyone interested in the ways films embed and communicate values, judgments, and affects." —Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, author of Gothic Things



Capitalism Hates You: Marxism and the New Horror Film by Joshua Gooch is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.

Capitalism Hates You: Horror film and Marxist theory.

New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 123

The world of Woke doesn't believe in truth, not at all. It is a world in which truth may or may not exist but is, assuredly, inaccessible. In place of actual truth, Woke thinking believes there are narratives which are regarded as true because powerful groups have the capacity to make people believe in them as truths. Thus, a Woke perspective is that information is "narratives all the way down," resulting in a kind of unresolvable, subjectivist conflict and power struggle over everything. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay reads briefly from "The Book of Woke" (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/04/the-book-of-woke-introducing-critical-constructivism/) in order to help you understand this bizarre and dangerous (ultimately relativist) foundational perspective of Wokeness. Join him to see how they think and why it's so insane.

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Woke as Warring Narratives

Inventors of Digital Dungeoncore. A collective. An idea.

In a single moment your life can change!  “Moments with Marianne” is a transformative hour that covers an endless array of topics with the ‘best of the best.’ Her guest are leaders in their fields, ranging from inspirational authors, top industry leaders, business and spiritual entrepreneurs.  Each guest is gifted, and a true visionary!  A recognized leader in her own work, and while teaching others to develop, refocus, and grow; Marianne will bring the best guest, and sometimes a special surprise.  Don’t miss this – you never know just which ‘moment’ will change your life forever.

Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness.

New tracks tagged #Critical Theory