Fredrik deBoer is a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

American author and cultural critic.

Education

DeBoer earned his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in English at

Central Connecticut State University Central Connecticut State University (Central Connecticut, CCSU, Central Connecticut State, or informally Central) is a public university in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1849 as the State Normal School, CCSU is Connecticut's oldest publi ...

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree in writing and rhetoric at the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...

, and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in English at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. His dissertation was titled ''The CLA+ and the Two Cultures: Writing Assessment and Educational Testing''.

Views and career

DeBoer identifies himself as a "

of an old-school variety". DeBoer has written for magazines, newspapers and websites. Topics include American education policy,

cancel culture Cancel culture is a cultural phenomenon in which an individual thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is ostracized, boycotted, shunned or fired, often aided by social media. This shunning may extend to social or professio ...

, and police reform. He was the communications editor for '' Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy'' until 2017. DeBoer's book, ''The Cult of Smart'', was published in 2020 by All Points Books. Gideon Lewis-Kraus, writing for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', says the book "argues that the education-reform movement has been trammelled by its willful ignorance of genetic variation." Lewis-Kraus groups deBoer with "hereditarian left" authors such as Kathryn Paige Harden and Eric Turkheimer in their shared emphasis on the importance of recognizing the heritability of intelligence when formulating social policy. Nathan J. Robinson, the editor-in-chief of the left-wing, progressive '' Current Affairs'', vehemently disputed the accuracy of deBoer's position, saying "the central argument of the book is not just wrong, but wrong in the strongest possible sense of that term." His next book, critical of individuals and institutions taking advantage of

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...

, ''How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement'' (his preferred title being ''No Justice, No Peace, No Progress''), was published in 2023. DeBoer has been a teacher at both high school and college level. DeBoer has written publicly about his struggle with

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

Books

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References

External links

*
DeBoer's blog
on

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:deBoer, Fredrik 1981 births 21st-century American non-fiction writers American educators American bloggers American male bloggers American male non-fiction writers American Marxist writers American socialists Central Connecticut State University alumni Living people People from Middletown, Connecticut Purdue University alumni University of Rhode Island alumni Writers from Connecticut People with bipolar disorder