The Bankruptcy Of Grievance Studies

[Ad Orientem]

Editor’s note: For the past year scholars James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have sent fake papers to various academic journals which they describe as specialising in activism or “grievance studies.” Their stated mission has been to expose how easy it is to get “absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research.”

To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia...

https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... e-studies/

[Kriegsspiel]

The flagship feminist philosophy journal, Hypatia, accepted a paper (not yet published online) arguing that social justice advocates should be allowed to make fun of others, but no one should be permitted to make fun of them. The same journal invited resubmission of a paper arguing that “privileged students shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class at all and should just listen and learn in silence,” and that they would benefit from “experiential reparations” that include “sitting on the floor, wearing chains, or intentionally being spoken over.” The reviewers complained that this hoax paper took an overly compassionate stance toward the “privileged” students who would be subjected to this humiliation, and recommended that they be subjected to harsher treatment.

This is a review of one of the fake studies about dog parks:

It therefore forces us to confront and unpack our own biases and assumptions about humans, animals, and spaces while considering those of dogs living alongside humans and thus allows us to extend our work for social justice towards the oppressed dog while de-masculinizing, thus improving, urban public spaces.

Consequently, I examine the following questions, which are underdeveloped within intersectional animal/feminist literature: (1) How do human discourses of rape culture get mapped onto dogs’ sexual encounters at dog parks; particularly, how do companions manage, contribute, and respond to ‘dog rape culture’? (2) What issues surround queer performativity and human reaction to homosexual sex between and among dogs? and (3) Do dogs suffer oppression based upon (perceived) gender.

These are hilarious. The Mein Kampf bit was great. I predict this all will be mainstream accepted thought in 5 years.

[Ad Orientem]

And more...

Here are excerpts from reviewers’ comments on the (fake) paper examining dogs humping each other in a dog park from the perspective of “queer performativity” and “feminist geography”:

page 9 – the human subjects are afforded anonymity and not asked about income, etc for ethical reasons. yet, the author as researcher intruded into the dogs’ spaces to examine and record genitalia. I realize this was necessary to the project, but could the author acknowledge/explain/justify this (arguably, anthropocentric) difference? Indicating that it was necessary to the research would suffice but at least the difference should be acknowledged.

In other words, the reviewer is worried that the author of the paper might have invaded the private spaces of dogs humping each other at the dog park.

More:

page 22 and the definition of “oppressed dog”: it is reductive and inaccurate to say that the only dogs that are oppressed are those that “were engaging in queer behaviour.” I understand the point that the author wants to highlight with the specific definition in the analysis from Taylor here, but all animals are oppressed/made vulnerable by their legal non-subjectivity and personhood status, even those companion and humanized animals such as dogs who are favourably treated. To not at least mention and then bracket this if need be seems too abrupt of an analysis. I would strongly encourage the author to nuance this statement or better yet, reconsider using Taylor’s definition of oppression, for as the author notes, it doesn’t make sense to exclude the raped female dogs.

And:

The second substantive point relates to Question 3’s discussion about dog fur colour. Could the author introduce this question with some mention of the literature exposing the tight correlation between race and species, but then consider why fur colour does not seem to matter from her observations? Is colour variation within dogs as a species (as opposed to humans as a species) not thereby racialized in the author’s informed opinion because perhaps the species difference is already so highly constitutive/reflective of racial anxieties?

From here...
https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... dog-parks/