Postmodernism vs Social Justice

I know there has been some discussion on this and confusion caused by the likes of Jordan Peterson, but for those interested I’d recommend Thaddeus Russell’s podcast with James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose. Thaddeus is a professor who teaches postmodern philosophy and is familiar with the work. Some on here have both praised Lindsay and Pluckrose as well as questioned their knowledge of postmodernism. They have a good discourse where Thaddeus challenges their understanding of postmodernism and, at least James, comes across as empathetic to the usefulness of the philosophy. The high level summary:

- They agree the current movement (Social Justice, Identity Politics, etc) is not postmodernism.
- Good chat on the history and why many people confuse SJWs with postmodernism. Basically, the leaders of the movement themselves often site postmodern texts and not Critical Race Theory (CRT), even though their ideology appears to more closely align with CRT from the Frankfurt school. They touch a little bit on why it isn’t really Marxist or neomarxist either.
- Their general thought is this movement is a perversion of postmodernism. The postmodernist were descriptive and were highly skeptical of essentialism. The current movement is prescriptive and generally has an element of essentialism (basically secular religion). It’s basically weaponizing the philosophy for their intended purposes.