In response to this article, some readers have been discussing PoMo politics and its various “trickle-down” effects. Readers who’ve been following that discussion may be interested in some points made by Fabian Tassano over at his blog. Tassano addresses the broader subject of leftist bias in academia and the creeping censorship that follows:

“The larger part of academia has become obsessed with jargon and formalism, at the expense of meaningful content. An academic’s principal options in fields such as economics, psychology or sociology are now (1) become a number-cruncher (do tedious empirical research with plenty of highly technical statistical analysis, much of which is likely to be questionable), or (2) generate pseudo-theory of a kind which reproduces the currently fashionable terminology. In either case, taking care to say nothing that conflicts with received wisdom. In fields such as literature or philosophy, there is only option (2). The high level of technicality and referencing typically masks the triviality — or absence — of genuine content.

The purpose of academia has changed from producing real insights to generating reinforcement for the preferred world view… It should be obvious by now, to anyone who cares, that the principle of free speech is being gradually eroded in the West. Either by straightforward ditching, or — more subtly — by redefining it in ways designed to legitimise the prohibition of ideologically incorrect viewpoints. For example, not long ago an editor at the Index on Censorship admonished us for being too literalist about the issue: ‘People shouldn’t think that the Index is against censorship on principle. It may have been so in its radical youth, but it is now as concerned with fighting hate speech as protecting free speech.’ (Rohan Jayasekera, commenting about the murder of Theo van Gogh.)

…Where we get dissident research being done at all, it is — inevitably — funded by bodies with links to commerce and/or right wing politics, since those are the only organisations with an incentive to challenge the il-liberal consensus. This is used by the mainstream both (a) to prove that there isn’t a restriction on what research gets done, and (b) to discredit that research.”

The article can be read in full here. Tassano’s book, Mediocracy, may also be of interest.

In light of recent posts, and various responses to them, I thought I’d highlight this article, The Philosopher and the Ayatollah, by Wesley Yang. Yang documents Michel Foucault’s dalliance with Islamist fanaticism and his enthusiasm for a “perfectly unified collective will.”

“Foucault never considers the rights of women in Islam until his very last disillusioned missive, in May 1979. When an Iranian woman living in exile in Paris wrote a letter… castigating Foucault for his uncritical support of [the Khomeini revolution], he airily dismissed her claims as anti-Muslim hate-mongering.”

The piece was published a couple of years ago, but it seems relevant and fairly symbolic of what’s been discussed here in the last couple of days. Not least because it conveys Foucault’s contrarian posturing, his bizarre lack of realism, and, above all, his stunted moral sense – attributes shared by many of his PoMo peers at the time and, currently, by much of the political left. As, for instance, when the Socialist Worker published a piece by Loretta Napoleoni, claiming jihadist terrorism is “the new anti-imperialist ideology” and fawning over Musab al-Zarqawi’s “kindness” and “determination.” For other examples of practised unrealism, see here, here, here and here.

Yang’s article is worth reading in full. I’m pretty sure one or two modern parallels can be drawn.

In responding to yesterday’s post on Carolyn Guertin, several commenters noted the contradictions that arise in various strands of PoMo theorising and its political connotations. These contradictions are often summarised as: “All cultures are equal in merit, but the West is uniquely oppressive, imperialist and corrupting. All values are subjective, but sexism, racism and imperialism are definitely evil and must be struggled against.” With these contradictions in mind, I thought I’d post a brief extract from an interview with Stephen Hicks, author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault:

“If all you want to do is destroy, it doesn’t matter to you if the words you use contradict each other… I sometimes think of an analogy here to a stereotypically unscrupulous lawyer who will use any argument, even one that contradicts one he’s already made, if he thinks it will be rhetorically useful in convincing a jury. If one is driven by anti-capitalism, then one knows that attacking technology harms capitalism and one knows that attacking unequal distribution harms capitalism. So who cares if those two arguments contradict each other? You’re harming capitalism!”

As most of the major figures in politicised postmodernism have favoured various forms of collectivism, anti-capitalism and deranged authoritarianism, it’s easy to see how the argument above might apply. Relativistic arguments may be used against the enemy – to flatten hierarchies, for instance – but they’re less readily applied to the collectivist or reactionary politics that PoMo enthusiasts so often advance. (Thus, sceptics among us might suspect the relativism is actually a ruse to further an absolutist agenda.)

If one’s ‘work’ is based on being oppositional – or being seen to be oppositional – against capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism (real or imagined), white male patriarchy, etc, then liberties can, and probably will, be taken. Attempts to fathom truth, or to be consistent, meaningful and accurate, can, and probably will, be dispensed with in order to advance The Great Cause. (Or The Great Oppositional Posture, depending on one’s scepticism.) And it’s worth noting that in Criticism and Social Change, the left-wing theorist, Frank Lentricchia, announced that the postmodern movement “seeks not to find the foundation and conditions of truth, but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.” Achieved, one might suppose, even at the cost of truth.

Or, the postmodern scholarship of “radical cyber-feminist” Carolyn Guertin.

Thanks to the blogging psychoanalyst, Shrinkwrapped, I came across a doctoral dissertation called, rather implausibly, Quantum Feminist Mnemotechnics: the Archival Text, Digital Narrative and the Limits of Memory. The work in question, by “radical cyber-feminist” Carolyn G. Guertin, is apparently the basis of a forthcoming book of the same name. Faced with such an imposing title, one can practically hear the boundaries of human knowledge squealing as they expand. Naturally, I had to find out more.

On visiting Guertin’s website, I discovered that the author is a Senior McLuhan Fellow in the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. As a “scholar of women’s art and literature and new media arts,” Dr Guertin also shapes young minds at the Universities of Athabasca and Guelph, Canada, and is a frequent guest speaker at conferences and events across Europe. Her works, I learned, have been published “in print, online and in real space.”

Space crops up quite a bit in Guertin’s dissertation, as do various mathematical, quantum mechanical and geometric terms, the bulk of which are misused in a series of strained and incoherent metaphors. In keeping with many purveyors of postmodern theorising, Guertin has been careful to appropriate fragments of scientific terminology that sound fashionable and exciting, and uses them with no apparent regard for their meaning or relevance. (Entanglement and Hilbert Space are mentioned casually, with no explanation, and for no discernible reason.)

Consequently, it’s difficult to fathom the author’s supposed intention, or to determine exactly how far short of that objective her efforts have fallen. Instead, we’re presented with what amounts to a collage of grandiose jargon, habitual non sequitur and unrelated subject matter – including feminism, web browsing and space-time curvature – bolted together by little more than chutzpah:

And,

And furthermore,

I hope that’s clear to everyone.

Guertin takes care to drop the obligatory menu of names – Baudrillard, Burroughs, Deleuze, Derrida, Gibson and Guattari among them – though the actual relevance of many citations is, again, far from clear. The more sceptical among us may even suspect a number of them have been included arbitrarily or for reasons of cultish connotation, rather than for any logical or evidential relevance.

I should, I think, mention that Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze have been debunked at length in Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont’s book, Intellectual Impostures, chiefly for producing “a handful of intelligible sentences – sometimes banal, sometimes erroneous,” and for what the authors describe as “the most brilliant mélange of scientific, pseudo-scientific and philosophical jargon that we have ever encountered.” Readers unfamiliar with Guattari’s prose may benefit from a mercifully brief, and by no means unusual, example:

At this point, readers may detect a strange similarity of Guertin’s chosen prose style with that of Guattari. It needn’t be Guattari, of course. It might as well have been Baudrillard or Derrida, or half of the names in Guertin’s annotations. One ream of postmodern gibberish is difficult to distinguish from any other, and this is not by accident. Buzzwords and citations are carefully chosen – along with gratuitous neologisms and misused terminology – generally to build sentences of such opacity and length that readers will be suitably intimidated.

The intention behind such wilfully unintelligible text is, it seems, not to invite thought or reward it, but to repel and discourage it. This is done by exhausting the reader’s efforts to comprehend and reducing him to a state of demoralised dishonesty, whereby absurd and vacuous statements are repeated and endorsed, regardless of incomprehension and for fear of appearing stupid. By publicly endorsing vacuity, and making great claims in its name, the unsuspecting student is thus painted into a corner and any subsequent rethinking entails an intolerable loss of face and credibility. Few of us like to admit to being duped, least of all those who have been duped rather badly. This may explain the heated defensiveness that often surrounds even the most absurd material of this kind.

Postmodern prose is perhaps best approached as an exercise in posturing and phonetics – of couching slim and trite observations in needlessly Byzantine language; or as what Sokal and Bricmont refer to as “a gradual crescendo of nonsense.” Efforts to fathom deep meaning, or, very often, meaning of any kind, are generally exhausting and rarely rewarded. More often, what you’ll find is essentially a pile of language, carefully disorganised so as to obscure a lack of content.

As Shrinkwrapped notes, Guertin’s ‘conclusion’ is suitably postmodern, mulling as it does on the difficulty of arriving at a conclusion. In a rare moment of relative lucidity, we learn: “The whole concept of reaching a conclusion or drawing conclusions is, of course, antithetical to the nature of this kind of literature as much as to my aims in this work as a whole.” It goes without saying that conclusions are much easier to write if one has actually done the work to draw a conclusion from, and it’s theoretically possible one might feel a flickering of sympathy for Ms Guertin at this point. Instead of making any attempt to focus her thoughts, such as they are, or to clarify her aims, whatever they may be, Guertin veers from vacuous pseudo-argument to vacuous pseudo-poetry, and resorts to listing a series of words – again, in no perceptible order:

This goes on for some time:

And so on.

It’s important to understand that nonsense of this kind is rarely arrived at by accident. It’s highly unlikely that mere clumsiness and mental dullness would produce such determined vacuity. It’s less probable still that so many academics and students would, by chance and dullness alone, produce vacuity with such eerie uniformity. To produce ‘work’ of the generic emptiness shown above – or seen here, or here, or here or here – requires practice and dedication, and no small dishonesty. One might forgive genuine stupidity and a lack of mental wherewithal, but when people who aren’t entirely stupid are determined to peddle stupidity as the height of intellectual sophistication, well, that’s harder to excuse. In a saner world, Guertin and her peers would be laughed out of every room they entered. And a gentle pelting with soft fruit wouldn’t go amiss.

In my recent discussion with Ophelia Benson, I suggested that PoMo ‘theorising’ has most obviously served far-left ideologues, specifically those, like Guertin, whose ideas wouldn’t withstand scrutiny of the most elementary kind. One notes, for instance, the number of PoMo traffickers who label themselves as “activists” or “radicals” of various far-left causes. And one notes that almost all of the architects and key figures of politicised postmodernism have embraced leftist politics, often of an extreme kind. If, to quote Foucault, “reason is the ultimate language of madness”, and if, as Jean-Francois Lyotard argued, notions of truth and clarity are synonymous with “prisons and prohibitions,” then adherents of this view are free to believe whatever they wish to believe, regardless of contrary evidence or logical errors, and regardless of the practical fallout of such beliefs.

If texts can be read to mean almost anything, and if anachronistic subtexts can be projected to suit the reader’s own political prejudice, then a world of illusion and false opportunity has been opened. If hierarchies of knowledge and value are conveniently flattened into a spectrum of equally valid “narratives,” then one can claim that the second-hand ‘revelations’ of Muhammad are equal in rigour and sophistication to the epistemology of David Hume, or that aboriginal rock painting is on an aesthetic par with Bach; or that gender is entirely a social construction with no biological basis. Or, against all evidence to the contrary, that Socialism is compatible with individual freedom and general prosperity.

Some, like Simon Blackburn, have argued that postmodern theorising isn’t that bad, some of it at least; and besides, we’re assured, its influence is fading. Well, let’s hope so. But politicised PoMo has for decades cast its shadow over the Humanities and over hundreds of thousands of minds. Many of which have been encouraged to disassemble the tools of rational thought in order to repeat political preferences of a remarkably similar kind, and in a remarkably similar way. Others have learned to obfuscate, to be dishonest and to see meaning where none exists, if only to further their careers or to avoid looking foolish in the company of fools. And this doesn’t foster scepticism and the testing of ideas; it leads to dullness and credulity.

In Why Truth Matters, Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom quote David Lehman’s Signs of the Times, a lamentation on the state of English departments, in which he recounts being told, “If you want to make it in the criticism racket, you have to be a deconstructionist or a Marxist, otherwise you’re not taken seriously. It doesn’t matter what you know. What counts is your theoretical approach. And this means knowing jargon.” As I’ve noted elsewhere, the pervasiveness of postmodern theory is uniquely pernicious in that it has explicitly marginalised expectations of accuracy, coherence and truth in favour of ostentatious political conformity. The basic tools of discernment have thus been dismissed as “Eurocentric”, “patriarchal” or unfairly distributed. Some might call this intellectual vandalism. This is the legacy of postmodern thought, as trafficked by many academics of the left – the ‘freedom’ to blunt the senses and be triumphantly, shamelessly wrong. Provided, of course, everyone is wrong in exactly the same, triumphant, way.

Carolyn Guertin’s “Statement of Teaching Philosophy” can be read here. And, please, no laughing.

For newcomers, some popular items. In chronological order.

2007:

Al-Guardian & the Brotherhood. Secrets, lies and vicarious titillation.

PoMo, Terry Eagleton & Che Guevara T-Shirts. A discussion with Ophelia Benson on irrationalism and the left.

Islam’s Hagiographer. Karen Armstrong acts casual, rewrites history.

Phantom Guilt Syndrome. Self-loathing 101.

Art Bollocks Revisited. Postmodern gibberish and political lockstep.

Peddling Stupidity. “Radical cyber-feminist” Carolyn Guertin is mocked, quite a lot.

For the Love of God. Islam, women and dissent; death threats and piety.

The Floating Phallus. Autoerotic flummery disguised as education.

Egalitarian Epistemology. “Feminist empiricism” and the goddess of smallpox.

Shaping Young Minds. Seattle socialists outlaw Lego and “eliminate bias.”

2008:

A Conspicuous Omission. Faisal al Yafai’s cartoon causality and passive-aggressive claptrap.

Fire Starters. Thinking is incendiary. So stop it at once.

What to Think, Not How. A review of Indoctrinate U.

Tears and Role-Play. When one type of identity politics collides with another. Cue victimhood poker.

Naming the Devil. The intimate flaw of Islam is its founder. And dishonesty won’t change that.

The Guardian Position. Jakob Illeborg wants to defend free society by abandoning it.

Being Reasonable. Intruders, small children and “reasonable force.”

Let’s Play Bamboozle! Hiding bias with postmodern bafflegab.

The Greater Good (2). Arabella Weir passes among the proles, hoping to be noticed.

Womanier Stuff. Oh, the insights to be found in Women’s Studies discussion groups.

Rebellion, Revisited. Your children’s education and their teachers’ politics.

A Mighty Intervention. Bettina Camilla Vestergaard suffers for her art at public expense.

Insufficiently Sensitive. A university student reads a history book in his own time. And is punished for it.

2009:

The Voice of Conscience. The wild imaginings of Mr John Pilger.

Construct Unstuck. The urge to reproduce is an oppressive social construct. So is upper body strength, apparently.

Behold My Virtue (3). Sunny Hundal waves his eco-credentials. Sniggering ensues.

Postmodernism Unpeeled. A discussion with Dr Stephen Hicks.

Thrashing the Hegemon. Fearless artist José Carlos Teixeira gives Western society the thrashing it deserves.

Freeloading and Snobbery. Arts establishment claims to be “suppressed,” sneers at the little people, demands free money.

Avert Your Eyes. George Monbiot surrenders to the madness.

Uprising. “Penile imperialism” and obligatory lesbianism. A video history of radical feminism.

Every Bit as Hobbled. Christina Hoff Sommers highlights inaccuracies in feminist textbooks. The Sisterhood takes umbrage.

Moral Inertia. Anti-social behaviour and the weight of doing nothing.

Where Reason Never Sleeps. Professor Thomas Thibeault points out error in sexual harassment policy and is fired two days later.

Don’t Bother Me With Details. Linda Bellos is much too superior to do things like research.

The Master’s Tools. Heterosex is rape, virginity is oppression, dildos reinforce The Patriarchy. A feminist guru ruminates.

I Sense a Malign Presence. Meet Jane Elliott: “diversity” pioneer and Witchfinder General for the modern age.

Intellectual Life. The literary left in all its glory.

The Privileges of Piety. The Archbishop of Canterbury, a palace-dwelling lefty, wants to save you from your earnings.

Artists for Gaia. Concerned artists sail north at public expense. Gas is released courageously.

The Wrong Kind of Rich. Toynbee and Rusbridger deserve hefty salaries. Unlike you.

2010:

A Great Big Socialist Heart. Kevin McKenna rails against private education and reveals more than he intends.

The Monbiot Fatwa. The cowardice, displacement and moral exhibitionism of Mr George Monbiot.

I Don’t Deserve This Shabby Treatment. The staggering vainglory of the academic left, part 203.

Comedy Economics. Leftwing think tank will improve your lives by making you poor and controlling your time.

Is That Your Hand In My Pocket? Playwright Jonathan Holmes thinks he’s heroic and so you owe him money.

Fringe Theatre. Vegan advocate of “militant action” is victim of “militant action” and gets terribly upset.

They Have No Politics. The mighty Bidisha doesn’t comprehend how people could disagree with her.

Unlearning Whiteness. Teaching pretentious self-contempt. Evidence be damned.

The Crushing Patriarchy, Episode 12. Bidisha sees “cultural femicide” everywhere, descends into madness.

The Flow of Ideas. Professor Sharra Vostral exposes the humble tampon as an “artefact of control.”

When Activists Hallucinate. Innocuous graduation card spreads subliminal gangsta racism. According to idiots.

At Last, Socialist Football. Some kids play better than others. This simply will not do.

Overlords. On egalitarian superiority. In order to fix us, someone has to be in charge.

Just Thwarted Sperm. Amanda Marcotte tells menfolk which feelings they’re allowed to have.

Some Guardian Nuance. Priyamvada Gopal denounces Western modernity, excuses Taliban, loses grip.

I’m Other, Subsidise Me. Omar Kholeif is professionally ethnic and terribly oppressed. Though by what he doesn’t say.

You Are Privileged to Witness Just How Brilliant I Am. Conceptual artists reach bottom of barrel. Omar Kholeif swoons.

The Sound of Wringing (2). Theo Hobson sticks pins into his eyes, rhetorically.

Dissident Academic Feels the Warmth of Social Justice. Or, “if you expose our student indoctrination policy we will punish you.”

An Instrument of Choice. Melanie McDonagh’s feminist rationale for fraud, dishonesty and extortion.

Like Fun, But Less So. Leo Hickman recoils from fireworks and brandishes his veg box.

New Tyranny Detected. Lara Pawson rails against “heteronormative privilege” and “the tyranny of coupledom.”

Unveiled, New Definitions of Violence and Civilisation. Being insufficiently leftwing now constitutes “violence.”

MilneWorld (4). Meet the new paymaster of the British left.

Above Them, Only Sky. The Guardian pines for radical pop stars. Like the peacenik who bankrolled the IRA.

The Warm Glow of Socialism. Student protestors somehow, perhaps carefully, miss the larger issue.

How Not to Make the Case for Public Subsidy. Art students denounce economic realism, brandish Derrida. Adam Harper swoons.

2011:

New Crisis Detected. Does your home have a spare room? George Monbiot wants to make you “pay for the privilege.”

The Penny Hasn’t Dropped. Laurie Penny’s world is a heteronormative police state that’s brutal, intolerant and also on fire.

Sparkly Bits. Laurie Penny rails against the menace of pubic glitter.

Techno, Annotated. Goa/psytrance is being repressed! The vital scholarship of Dr Graham St John.

My Tribe’s Violence Doesn’t Count, Okay? Radical Guardianistas indulge in threats, projection and double standards.

Ignorant Teachers, A New Socialist Ideal. Knowledge and competence are outmoded and unfair, says philosopher Nina Power.

Because Men Have Abortions Too. The world-shaking insights of gender trendsetter Jos Truitt.

I’m Not Condoning Violence, But… When “being heard” means being obeyed. A lesson in leftist euphemism.

The Impervious Toynbee. Well-heeled leftist struggles with reality. Also, logic.

Socialist Hearts Are Just Bigger Than Ours. Zoe Williams objects to philanthropy. Because giving money away “creates inequality.”

All Pop Music Will Henceforth Be Terrible. Socialist pop music is apparently impossible without taxpayer subsidy.

It’s Protest So It’s Righteous. Alexander Vasudevan says radical people are entitled to “seize” your property.

Ambient Truth. Made-up facts will do just as well.

Meanwhile, in the Arts. Liquidised carrots, moths and bras, and a fat, naked narcissist jumps around in talc.

The Riots, Summarised. Thugs prey on children, torch occupied buildings and assault fire-fighters. The delusional left gets giddy.

New, Leftwing Physics Discovered. Passive overeating is a pandemic, says Professor Boyd Swinburn. People must be punished.

We’re Compensating You for That Face. Not everyone is good-looking. Affirmative action now!

Militantly Nude. A San Francisco “nude-in” reveals more than intended.

Worth Every Penny. Laurie Penny champions Arts Council-funded dirt relocation. It’s vital for “social progress.”

Remember, Kids. Socialism is the Opposite of Greed. Socialism always attracts the smart ones.

Don’t Be So Mean to the Titans of Tomorrow. Stop laughing at Occupy. They’re really, really radical. It’s a “new world order.”

The Occupod People Will Save Us. Occupiers blather, stab, shit on streets. Leftist media swoons.

It’s the Calibre of the People That Impresses Me the Most. Meet Occupy Denver’s Idiot Hat Guy. A radical thinker, a precious flower.

2012:

Because Artists Are So Dangerous. Bettina Camilla Vestergaard denounces free market, makes hilariously bad art.

Terrorising Coffee Drinkers for the Greater Good. Guardian hearts Occupier. Said Occupier hearts smashing other people’s stuff.

Crotch Funk as Art. Five narcissists attempt to fill their transparent plastic overalls with body odour. For art.

No Ego Whatsoever, Just an Urge to Control. Ken Loach is countercultural. And so you should be forced to give him your money.

Towers of Learning. David Horowitz explains the pathologies of leftist academia. From counterfactual history to the thug veto.

They Exist on a Higher Plane, You See. Visual art “is not about looking at things.” It’s about the aching cleverness of blank sheets of paper.

When Scolding is the Payoff for All That Piety and Angst. Guardian education journalist sends daughter to private school. Hysteria ensues.

The Pure Ones Will Guide Us. Jean Brady: novelist, umbrage-taker, colossal hypocrite.

You’ll Notice They All Wear Shoes. Or, “Mommy, What’s a Cock Ring?”

On Fungal Matters. A black man buys truffles. The Guardian is thrilled.

It’s Politically Radical Sex, Not Ordinary Mortal Sex. Ms Nadio Cho: student, titan, radical shagger.

Monbiot and the Morlocks. George encounters the noble savage. Things go badly wrong.

2013:

Just Don’t Call it a Hustle. Liz Forgan burns your money because, well, she can.

Our Brightest Minds. Meet Arun Smith, the ideal self-satisfied product of a leftist education.

The Incident. The unspeakable mental horror of a partly-chewed Pop-Tart.

Racist Hair. Don’t colonise my black essence with your white racist hair.

Because Socialism is Never About Envy and Spite. The Guardian’s Michele Hanson wishes fear and misery on people she doesn’t know.

Bearing Down, Radically. Artist Mikala Dwyer is “challenging taboos” by inviting dancers to shit onstage. “It’s a wonderful, powerful work.”

Will No-One Think of the Artists? “Employment should be optional,” says Godfrey Moase, who wants $30,000 a year just for being fabulous.

I’m Sorry, But Your Utopia is Just a Little Creepy. Parents should make sacrifices. Not for their children. Of their children.

Headdesk, She Replied. If mugged, don’t call the police. That would be proof of your racism and “white privilege.”

Two Balls Bad, No Balls Good. The Guardian’s Mike Power denounces the barbecue patriarchy, where pleasure is impossible.

Responding to Semen, Belatedly. Guardian writer fights tube masturbation with bad performance art.

Her Unspeakable Woes. Icess Fernandez Rojas isn’t being “validated” by her spellcheck software. Something must be done.

Sweating from the Effort. Excrement and feminism, together at last.

Not Hearing His Own. The deep socialist wisdom of Mr Owen Hatherley. Verily, he will lead us to the light.

Three Snippets from One Paper. Apocalyptic poetry, Fair Trade carrot cake and the patriarchy of fracking. The Guardian in miniature.

Improving Us From Above. Leftwing academics want to save us from all those nice things they enjoy and that we shouldn’t want.

Get Them While They’re Soft and Yielding. On the first day of class, Professor William Penn lets his students know what his politics are.

Clinging to the Teats. Gender studies lecturer Hila Shachar doesn’t think the public should have any say in how its money is spent.

Diversity and Inclusion. To be cultivated, obviously, with racial segregation.

I Don’t Think She’s Handling the Menopause Very Well. A performance artist and author of “porno-erotic texts” struggles with middle age.

Wolf, They Cried. “Hate crime” hoaxes and campus complicity. Because a lie will do just fine.

The Cupcake Menace. Tiny cakes are exploitative, demeaning and emotionally crippling, says the Guardian’s Matt Seaton.

Because Art is the Fourth Emergency Service. Writer rails against the indignity of not being given money he hasn’t actually earned.

Don’t Oppress Me With Your Commas. Tomorrow’s intellectuals protest against the racist “microaggressions” of corrected punctuation.

Because Lying and Resenting Is What Angels Do. When there isn’t enough racism to justify your pre-booked outrage, make some up.

It’s a Fascist Groove Thang. Students display their moral credentials by trapping staff, vandalising property and setting bins on fire.

The Needs of Artists. Meet Ms Casey Jenkins, Australia’s foremost exponent of vaginal knitting.

2014:

The Humble Among Us. Novelist Brigid Delaney wants a nicer flat. You, taxpayer, come hither.

A Dining Room Comedy. Oh no. A plate with food on it. The exquisite mealtime sorrows of the Guardianista male.

Pearl-Clutching Pornographers. Campus feminists combat “male-centricity” by rubbing eggs on their naked bodies.

The Roar of Enlightened Manhood. A Guardian-reading student is baffled by the world. Why won’t all men copy him?

Scenes of Extended Fretting. Mr Leo Hickman has a mangetout moment. Self-flagellation ensues.

Their Mighty Brains Will Save Us. The Guardian unveils its sassy and eclectic trainee journalists. Just don’t laugh at their biographies.

When the Onion is Redundant. Paul Krugman and Polly Toynbee are awfully concerned by how much you earn. Themselves, not so much.

But Beauty Is So Hard. Taxpayer-funded artist Keeley Haftner deposits garbage on street, is bewildered by lack of gratitude.

Your Masculinity Must Be Abolished. The thrilling moral radicalism of Ms Lierre Keith.

Something About the Tone. Urban Studies lecturer frets about the unequal distribution of litter, suggests bulldozing Belgravia. For the poor.

The Crushing Patriarchy, Sporting Edition. The Guardian’s Silvia Murray Wakefield is distressed by the World Cup. Incoherently, of course.

The Patriarchy Made Me Do It. Laurie Penny is confused again. Huge chunks of rhetoric fall from the sky.

I Hammer Culture into Your Tiny Minds. Radical artists deploy “guerrilla performance piece.” Passers-by remain unmoved.

Well, Soil is Sort of Brown. Your furniture is a racist proxy, says sociology lecturer. Also, Gardeners’ Question Time.

Spider-Man’s Unwell Cousin. Performance artist faffs about, wraps head in yarn. It’s a daring “infiltration in public space.”

Please Don’t Dump Your Garbage on the Roadside. Performance art duo “create a space to think critically” by bashing themselves with pillows.

He’s a Fan of Laurie Penny, You Know. The economics editor Of Channel 4 News imagines his utopia.

But Does it Massage the Buttocks? Every student needs a $13,000 vibrating nap machine.

The Wrong Colour Buttocks. The Guardian’s Yomi Adegoke ponders the politics of prosthetic comedy bottoms.

Because Waitrose Eats Your Soul. Felicity Lawrence and Deborah Orr tighten their moral corsets, comedy ensues.

Flatter, Mythologize, Rinse, Repeat. Laurie Penny is marginalised, “marked as other,” and also a cyborg.

We Mustn’t let the Poor Have Nice Things. Millionaire socialist denounces cheap food.

Hush, Art is Happening. Artist and educator Marilyn Arsem rails against democracy, squashes fruit in protest.

Meanwhile, on the Battlefield of Facial Hair. Beards “glorify behaviours typical of people in white hegemonies.”

Great Subtlety of Mind. Professor’s sculpture leaves students “traumatised” and in need of counselling.

Chewing the Scenery for Social Justice. Student activist is emotionally devastated by two-letter word previously unknown to her.

2015:

Ladies First. In Professor Judy Haiven’s classes, male students learn their place in the progressive pecking order.

Art, Wigs and the Wearing of Pants. Ms Eames Armstrong, a performance artist, improves Shakespeare.

A Life Without Art, How Barren That Would be. Performance art students shake our tiny minds with three hours of radical pavement mopping.

Uncanny Powers Are a Feminist Issue. “Young, creative, politically engaged women” are fighting “patriarchal conditioning” with Tarot cards.

Are You Not Feeling the Positive Vibrations? Students attempt to cultivate “positive vibes” with luminous teepee. Arguments ensue.

We Need More Cushions. “Safe space” deemed unsafe due to radical poetry.

Uterus Rising. Genitals are the most vital qualification for presidential office. The searing moral insights of Ms Deborah Orr.

Wherever Possible, Avoid Mad People. Students “harmed” and “negatively impacted” by insufficiently sensitive buffet.

Just Surrender to the Will of Clever People. Reading to your children causes “unfair disadvantage.” Leftist academic asks, “Should it be allowed?”

Such Details are Beneath Her. In which we marvel at the outpourings of Polly Toynbee.

High Maintenance. How to date a brown feminist.

Answers on a Postcard, Please. The Guardian’s Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett asks, “Are we too selfish to live like hippies?”

You May Clap When Moved. Performance artist ends war, poverty, “oppressive discourses.” By amplifying his clothes.

How Dare You Hold on to Your Wallet. Artist Zoë Coombs Marr complains about how bloody hard it is to screw the taxpayer.

Strange Construal. In which socialists misremember The Good Life, a 1970s sitcom.

Achieving Collapse. Eco-radicals Deep Green Resistance struggle with reality and the concept of time.

My Kingdom for a Time Machine. Fifty-something radical yearns for the “good old days of the feminist collective.”

Feel the Racial Healing. Aisha Mirza bemoans the “psychic burden” of living among white people, which is worse than being mugged.

Nostalgie de la Butch. The Patriarchy has ruined lesbianism, says Julie Bindel.

Undone By Her Radical ‘Do. A “white grrl with dreadlocks” atones for her “whiteness” and “appropriated” hair.

Do Not Date Bedlamites. Melissa Fabello’s interracial dating advice is excruciatingly neurotic.

Diary of a Hunter-Gatherer. The Guardian’s George Monbiot waves a dead, twitching squirrel at bewildered children.

When Starbucks is a Hate-Crime Scene. Brace yourselves for the concept of sweat-shaming.

Always Winter, Never Christmas. The inconsolable sadness of the Guardian’s Michele Hanson.

Think Good Thoughts. Politically correct? You can’t say that.

Those Baby Blues. “Non-binary” parent Dorian Stripe struggles with biology.

The Final Outrage. The Guardian’s Osman Faruqi wants someone else to pay for his leisure activities. Nationalise Twitter, says he.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Branded Headphones. Racist black students run riot with impunity, are applauded by staff.

The Mouthing of Bollocks. Feminist Rachel Kuo tells us how to order takeaway in a suitably fretful and intersectional manner.

Unseen Energies. Non-binary being Kris Nelson is radically feminist. And also a witch. Feel her positive energy.

Never Knowingly Understated. Laurie Penny tells us that expectations of coherence are “a great way of shutting down dissent.”

But I Am Not Androgynous. Silpa Kovvali insists that gendered pronouns should be abolished. Everyone is a “they.”

2016:

Today’s Word Is Chutzpah. Living in Glasgow for a year is art says taxpayer-funded artist who lives in Glasgow.

She Does All This For Us, You Know. Performance artist Sandrine Schaefer “collaborates” with hand-dryers and automatic doors.

Slacking for Social Justice. Riyad A Shahjahan says punctuality and competence are racist and oppressive.

And This Is Your Brain On Feminism. Meghan Murphy wants “a curfew for men” and “an end to masculinity.” “It makes sense,” says she.

At All Times, Dignity. The staggering vainglory of the academic left, part 404.

Is Your Bacon Sandwich Oppressing Women? “Does feminism require vegetarianism?” asks feminist philosopher Celia Edell.

A Performance Art Sampler. Drooling, doomed horticulture and terribly radical fatness.

Lofty Beings. Feminist “creative” Katherine Garcia attempts to justify her sub-optimal life choices. Things go badly wrong.

You Can Either Concur Or Agree. When leftists gather at Edinburgh University, please don’t shake your head.

Unhappy Camper. Feminist says we aren’t feeling enough compassion for narcissists, psychopaths and pathological liars. Like her.

He’s Being Rugged And We Can’t Have That. Transvestite potter denounces masculinity as “useless” and “counter-productive.”

See How Their Agonies Catch The Light. We must spend more time fretting about “gender non-conforming Indigenous people with disabilities.”

She Leans. Laurie Penny “leans towards anarcho-communism.” And so your money is hers.

The Dunning-Kruger Diaries. The “emerging talents” of Eames Armstrong and Matthew Ryan Rossetti.

Lifestyle Advice. Laurie Penny says her suitors are of no more importance than her books.

Feign Diabetes, It’s The Only Way. The Guardian’s Sarah Marsh is being oppressed by free cake.

Fat We Can Fix, The Excuses Are Trickier. Feminist of girth says not being fat makes you complicit in her oppression.

You’re Doing It All Wrong. Josefin Hedlund wants to correct your erotic preferences and make them egalitarian. For “social justice.”

Just Don’t Get It On The Sofa. Menstrual activist Iris Josephina Verstappen bleeds down her legs and waits to be applauded.

Free Hits. Punching teachers in the face is how black students “engage in learning.” What, you didn’t know?

An Intellectual Being. Melissa Fabello is a feminist intellectual. How dare you question her?

Do Not Feed The Narcissists. If you talk back, they’ll get angry. If you sit quietly, they’ll get angry. If you applaud them, they’ll get angry.

But Not All Feminists, Apparently. Attention, all men, everywhere. There’s something fundamentally wrong with you.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your White Devil Science. Magic negroes throw lightning at their enemies.

A Mere Sliver Of His Brilliance. Performance artist Philip Fryer explores “queer identity” in terribly radical ways.

They Say It All Belongs To Them. Berkeley students prove how not-at-all-racist they are by abusing random white people.

An Intellectual Being Rides Again. Empowered feminist Melissa Fabello once again faces the trauma of People Who Disagree With Her.

We Can’t Promise Not To Hit You. The Clown Quarter of academia is the left’s proving ground. And that should worry you.

Poverty And How To Get There. The first step is leftist vanity.

Totes Hardcore. The left-leaning Mic magazine celebrates post-election hysteria and the “true insurgence” of really bad tattoos.

An Eighteen-Year Project. Proud feminist Polly Dunning shares her parenting advice, and reveals more than she intends.

2017: 

It’s Almost As If One Were An Excuse For The Other. It’s interesting just how often “social justice” activism looks a lot like sociopathy.

Fashionable Malice. “White fragility” and the Kafkatrapping left.

Bad Medicine. At the University of Washington, Tacoma, black students are told that grammar is racist and irrelevant.

She’s Seething With Empowerment. Polite man holds door open for woman. Woman starts screaming.

The Patriarchy Sits On Her Chest. Feminist philosopher Celia Edell struggles with alleged sexism in academia, and also competence.

Turf War. Charles Murray attempts to speak on campus. A riot ensues.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Big Hooped Earrings. In which we learn that winged eyeliner is “an everyday act of resistance.”

Insufficiently Swiped. Immense, frustrated love machine Caleb Luna wonders why his Grindr profile attracts so little interest.

Imagine The Picnics. Emily Zak wants us to know that fresh air and countryside are, like everything else, terribly oppressive.

But Why Aren’t People Rushing To Buy My Art? Deep thought, shifting paradigms and heads wrapped in meat.

And The Wonders You Can Do. Performance artist Sarah Hill creates work that is “cathartically dialogical” and a “temporal historical rupture.”

It’s A Feast For The Senses. “Artist, healer and dancer” Shizu Homma “interrogates the human condition.”

Mother’s Milk. Feminist Jody Allard humiliates her own teenage sons for being white and male, and therefore potential rapists.

All Types. But Not Yours, Obviously. Skylar Baker-Jordan is a gender studies graduate. Words fall from his mouth.

And Lo, There Came A Great Bunching Of The Panties. Google software developer states facts, gets fired, mass dishonesty ensues.

The Psychology of “Social Justice” Is A Thing To Behold. Professor advises students to say “fuck you” to potential employers.

Excruciatingly Woke. Educator Alice Ristroph watches a total eclipse and sees only racism.

They Come To Teach Us. Polite man encounters Mao-lings. Mao-lings lose their minds, scream abuse, then assault him.

The Wrong Neighbours. When one type of pretentious grievance collides with another, it’s a costly business.

A Rustling In The Bushes. “We talk erotically to plants,” say the ecosexuals. Then the clothes come off.

We Can Only Aspire To Their Mental Heights. Educator champions the looting of trainers, while the law-abiding shelter from a hurricane.

Pantomime. A balding, middle-aged transvestite, a sociology lecturer, wishes to confuse your children.

A Balanced Individual. Anti-capitalist lecturer hopes that his students get murdered.

The Educators Of Tomorrow. Teaching assistant Stephanie McKellopp signals her wokeness by ignoring white male students.

You Mustn’t Stop The Hysteria. Any hint of consequences for thuggery by students is “racist” and “unfair,” says professor of education.

Panic Sweeps Nation. Not being aroused by camp, effeminate men is damning proof of “misogynist attitudes” and “toxic masculinity.”

The Absurd And The Sinister Aren’t Mutually Exclusive. The sadistic, fever-dream world of leftist educators, caught on tape.

The Clown Quarter Now Has An Engineering Division. Expectations of competence are racist and oppressive, says Dr Donna Riley.

2018:

Slacking For Social Justice, Part Two. Laziness is “a political stance,” and incompetence is empowering. Says leftist educator.

Among The Little People. Feminist and educator Dr Jane Bone ponders “problematic” furniture, hears it speak.

Quick, Men. To The Escape Pods. Feminist fight club is “a mode of resistance,” a thing to behold.

She’ll Ruin The Leather. Sandrine Schaefer presents her buttocks to the world.

Space Travel Is Patriarchy And Therefore Bad. Says Women’s Studies educator.

Zombie Movie. Jordan Peterson tries to speak at Queen’s University, Ontario. Mao-ling psychodrama ensues.

A Giant Stone In The Sky. A short, rather lovely film by Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet.

It’s A Fractal indignation. When someone sneezes, don’t say “Bless you.” That’s problematic and oppressive.

Burning Question. “Can pot make you a better parent?” asks the Guardian.

Today We Juxtapose. Guardian champions Teen Vogue as the future of woke publishing. Sales immediately plummet.

Modern Manners. Professor Melina Abdullah is a “womanist and truth-teller.” Words fall from her mouth.

The Laurie Penny Chronicles. A compendium of inadvertent comedy. A cautionary tale.

Happy Meal. Woke history professor James Livingston eats burger, exults in racial hatred.

Rise Of The Bedlamites. When your fascinating brownness trumps other people’s opening hours.

Know Your Readership (2). Ms Ixty Quintanilla rages against Trump, channels her ancestral spirituality, pushes against trees.

How Dare You Not Feel Oppressed. Minority students reject victimhood narrative. Sociology professor calls them racist.

Because Random People Must Be Punished. Apparently, the way to make people compassionate is to gleefully screw them over.

It Was Raining Outside And They Were Promised Sandwiches. Nika López “establishes an intimate relationship” with a pile of dirt.

How To Impress Your Boss, An Intersectional Guide. Minority employees shouldn’t have to do their jobs or be at all reliable.

Clown Quarter Contagion. At Birmingham University, a taxpayer-funded programme to make white staff “feel uncomfortable.”

Land Of The Giants. Diabetes and incontinence equals “body positivity.” In the Guardian, obviously.

I Axe You. Sounding dim and barely literate is something to be encouraged. At universities.

The Perils Of Jogging. The Guardian’s Zoe Williams warns that exercise “makes you rightwing.”

She’s Very Tired, You Know. Intersectional narcissist takes umbrage at being quoted by other intersectional narcissists.

Weepy And Hysterical. Philosophy professor apologises, at length, for his own heterosexuality.

Loving Themselves. Fat feminist students fight the patriarchy by gorging on doughnuts and thick, liquid pudding.

One For The Ladies. A Guardian writer tries his hand at saucy celebrity news. Things take a strange turn.

Not Boldly, Then. Politically-corrected space exploration. Two feminists opine.

Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women. Their marriages failed, and it’s all Trump’s fault.

Bad Souls And Bedlamites. Seattle’s sociopathic left invoke trauma of being observed. Death threats ensue.

Free Lollies. Six-year-olds should vote, says leftist academic.

Your Failure To Enthuse Is Violence, Apparently. Roy G Guzmán is oppressed by the “violence” of people not liking his poetry.

2019:

Old Photo Seen, Umbrage Ensues. Woke poet sees photo of coal miners, denounces “blackface,” fears for his safety.

Zack Is Upset. “Proud SJW” thinks women shouldn’t defend themselves against muggers.

The Dunning-Kruger Diaries, Part Two. Angeliki Chiado Tsoli does performance art, quite badly.

When Bitches Gather. The unhappy world of intersectional knitting.

Trump, Erection, And A Lack Thereof. “Post-Trump sex disorder” is a thing, apparently. Lefties hardest hit.

World Of Woo. Pretentious ethno-masochist Dr Deborah Cohan rails against the “tendrils of white supremacy.”

An Artistic Interlude. The creative, um, feats of Mr Claude Boudeau.

Your Standards Are Holding You Back. Brooklynite lefties launch socialist-only dating platform. Things do not go well.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Public Libraries. Woke librarian denounces “so-called ‘knowledge’” of pale people.

Her Loveliness Revealed. Threaten your parents with never seeing grandchildren. It’s the progressive way.

The Other Heartbeat Isn’t Yours. Feminist “theorist” says abortion, via drugs or dismemberment, is a form of “anti-violence.”

Zack Ford Is A Grown Man. No, really. He is.

Think Big, Badly. Lose weight, or topple Western civilisation? It’s the fat person’s eternal dilemma.

Can You Spell ‘Bedlamite’? We mustn’t judge competence of writing when grading papers, says Dr Asao Inoue.

The Blurting. A leftist compulsion is pondered.

Titans Walk Among Us. Fearless masked leftists harass the elderly and disabled, congratulate selves.

Trust Me, I’m A Witchdoctor. Ngaree Blow denounces Western medicine as “outdated.” Champions use of bush dung.

The Unspanked. Meet the new intellectuals of the left.

It’s Petty When It Happens To Someone Else. Atlantic columnist Lauren Smiley avoids reality via rhetorical limbo-dancing.

A Stupefying Vanity. In which we attempt to define the contortions of “social justice.”

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