We Need to Raise Awareness About The Problem

least partially explain the increased tendency for young LGBT individuals to adopt these ideas, for example. On the other hand, once people are more hopeful about the future, and once they have meaningful things to believe in and a stake in caring for the health of society, they are less inclined to embrace extreme ideas like critical theory and postmodernism. This was effectively why most baby boomers turned away from critical theory. Understanding this provides us with a way to tame the beast for a second time, and perhaps for good this time.

We Need to Raise Awareness About The Problem

To effectively tackle any problem, we must first be aware of it, and be able to define it. This is, perhaps, the most important part of our work right now. Awareness about the effects of critical theory and postmodernism has been increasing in right-leaning circles in recent years, but there remains misunderstandings even in the majority who are aware of the problem. In moderate and left-leaning circles, however, awareness about the effects of critical theory and postmodernism is still extremely low. This represents the biggest problem, in my opinion, because critical theory and postmodernist activists mainly target left-leaning people for their recruitment and alliance building. Without much resistance to their ideas in left-leaning circles, critical theory and postmodernist activism keeps growing every year. Without many people to challenge their ideas in left-leaning

146

circles, critical theory and postmodernist thinking keeps spreading unchecked every year.

While right-leaning circles have become much more aware of critical theory and postmodernism in the past 20 years or so, this awareness has been communicated in a somewhat confused manner. The way some right-leaning commentators set out to oppose critical theory and postmodernist thinking has also created confusion among the general public, and impeded the spread of awareness across the political spectrum. Too often, right-leaning commentators attempt to smear the whole left with the critical theory extremist brush. As a result, their otherwise completely correct critique of these extremist activists just won't be taken seriously in leftleaning circles. Where this kind of politically motivated critique keeps coming in large volumes (as it has since 2015), left-leaning intellectuals eventually invent excuses to ignore it all, like how it supposedly only happens on college campuses, and how it supposedly only represents immature behavior from college students. The eventual effect is that left-leaning circles become completely resistant to any discussion about the harms of critical theory activism.

Another thing is, while critical theory activists often call their project 'social justice', we should all know that it doesn't represent real social justice, as it has been defined in the mainstream throughout the 20th century. Still, some rightleaning commentators somehow let the radical activists get away with appropriating the term, effectively agreeing that

147