James Lindsay (mathematician)

James Stephen Lindsay (born June 8, 1979), known professionally as James A. Lindsay, is an American author. He is known for the grievance studies affair, in which he, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose submitted hoax articles to academic journals in 2017 and 2018 to test scholarship and rigor in several academic fields. Lindsay has written several books including ''Cynical Theories'' (2020), which he co-authored with Pluckrose. He has promoted right-wing conspiracy theories such as Cultural Marxism and LGBT grooming conspiracy theories.

Early life and career

James Stephen Lindsay was born in Ogdensburg, New York. He moved to Maryville, Tennessee, at the age of five, later graduating from Maryville High School in 1997. Lindsay received a B.S. in physics and a M.S. in mathematics at the Tennessee Technological University, and a Ph.D. in mathematics in 2010 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His doctoral thesis is titled "Combinatorial Unification of Binomial-Like Arrays", and his advisor was Carl G. Wagner. After completing his degree, Lindsay left academia and returned to his hometown, where he worked as a massage therapist.

Lindsay, along with Peter Boghossian, is the co-author of ''How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide'', a nonfiction book released in 2019 and published by Lifelong Books. In 2020, Lindsay released the nonfiction book ''Cynical Theories'', co-authored with Helen Pluckrose and published by Pitchstone Publishing. The book became a ''Wall Street Journal'', ''USA Today'', and ''Publishers Weekly'' bestseller upon release. Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker praised the book for exposing "the surprisingly shallow intellectual roots of the movements that appear to be engulfing our culture". Tim Smith-Laing charged it with "leaping from history to hysteria" in a ''Daily Telegraph'' review.

Lindsay is the founder of the website New Discourses, which is owned by conservative commentator Michael O'Fallon. Lindsay's video series is also hosted by Sovereign Nations, O'Fallon's Christian nationalist website. According to theologian and author David W. Congdon, "framing the left as an alternative religion has made Lindsay popular among the Christian Right".

Lindsay has also appeared four times on Joe Rogan's podcast ''The Joe Rogan Experience''.

In August 2022, Lindsay was permanently suspended from Twitter. His account was reinstated in November 2022 after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.

Grievance studies affair

In 2017, Lindsay and Boghossian published a hoax paper titled "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct". In writing the paper, Lindsay and Boghossian intended to imitate the style of "poststructuralist discursive gender theory". The paper argued that the penis should be seen "not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity". After the paper was rejected by ''Norma,'' they later submitted it to ''Cogent Social Sciences'' where it was accepted for publication.

Beginning in August 2017, Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose wrote 20 additional ‘woke’ hoax papers, which they submitted to peer-reviewed journals using several pseudonyms as well as the name of Richard Baldwin, a friend of Boghossian and professor emeritus of history at Florida's Gulf Coast State College. The project ended early after one of the papers, published in the feminist geography journal ''Gender, Place & Culture'', was questioned by investigative journalist Toni Airaksinen of ''Campus Reform'' who suspected the article was not real due to its lack of adherence to academic journal publishing standards. This resulted in widespread interest in the incident, which was written about by several journalists.

The trio subsequently revealed the full scope of their work in a YouTube video created and released by documentary filmmaker Mike Nayna, which was accompanied by an investigation by ''The Wall Street Journal''. By the time of this revelation, seven of their twenty papers had been accepted, seven were still under review, and six had been rejected. One paper, accepted by feminist social work journal ''Affilia'', contained passages copied from Adolf Hitler's ''Mein Kampf'' with feminist language added, though sociologist has contended that the paper only contained similarities in structure, and did not contain material "historically specific in Hitler's text (racism, references to the First World War, and so on)".

Academic reviewers had praised the hoax studies of Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose as "a rich and exciting contribution to the study of ... the intersection between masculinity and anality", "excellent and very timely", and "important dialogue for social workers and feminist scholars".

Views

Prior to 2020, Lindsay supported Democratic Party candidates, including volunteering for Barack Obama, and was part of the New Atheism movement. In 2023, Lindsay published an article on New Discourses in which he set out to defend the philosophical basis of classical liberalism, which he summarized as "the project of organizing our society from a position of political equality with certain rights that are inalienable, among these life, liberty, property, capacity for their use toward our happiness and purposes, and a reasonable expectation of privacy in which we can maintain their sanctity".

Lindsay is a critic of " wokeness", which he analogizes to religious belief. He describes "the Social Justice Movement" as his "ideological enemy". Though he opposed Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election, Lindsay announced his intention to vote for Trump in the 2020 election, arguing that the danger of "wokeness" is much greater than that of a Trump presidency. Lindsay has clashed with other right-wing figures, who he refers to as the "woke right."

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler looked to Lindsay to understand critical race theory because, in Mohler's words, few have "given sustained attention to critical theory from a conservative viewpoint".

''Cynical Theories'' (2020)

Conspiracy theory promotion

Lindsay has promoted several prominent conspiracy theories.

He is a proponent of the right-wing LGBT grooming conspiracy theory and has been credited as one of several public figures responsible for popularizing " groomer" as a slur directed at LGBTQ educators and activists by members of the political right. Lindsay has referred to the Pride flag as "the flag of a hostile enemy."

In 2021, Lindsay wrote on Twitter that "there will be" a genocide of whites if critical race theory "isn't stopped." His statement was met with widespread criticism, including from founder of libertarian anti-identity politics magazine ''Quillette'' Claire Lehmann who wrote: "James Lindsay is now peddling White Genocide Theory. Implying that a genocide against whites in the U.S. is imminent has the potential to inspire racist violence. Such comments are extreme, reckless, and irresponsible. They should be denounced."

Lindsay has promoted the far-right Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, which alleges a concerted effort by Marxist critical theorists to undermine Western civilization using Marxism.

Works

* ''God Doesn't; We Do: Only Humans Can Solve Human Challenges'' (). 2012.
* ''Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly'' (). Onus Books. 2013.
* ''Everybody Is Wrong About God'' (). Pitchstone Publishing. 2015.
* ''Life in Light of Death'' (). Pitchstone Publishing. 2016.
* ''How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide'' (with Peter Boghossian; ). Hachette Books. 2019.
* ''Cynical Theories'' (with Helen Pluckrose; ). Pitchstone Publishing. 2020.
* ''Counter Wokecraft'' (with Charles Pincourt; ). Independently published. 2021.
* ''Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis'' (). Independently published. 2022.
* ''The Queering of the American Child: How a New School Religious Cult Poisons the Minds and Bodies of Normal Kids'' (with Logan Lancing) (). New Discourses. 2024.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindsay, James A.
1979 births
Living people
21st-century American mathematicians
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century atheists
American atheism activists
American conspiracy theorists
American critics of postmodernism
American political commentators
Far-right politics in the United States
Hoaxers
Mathematicians from Tennessee
New Atheism
People from Maryville, Tennessee
People from Ogdensburg, New York
Tennessee Technological University alumni
University of Tennessee alumni
White genocide conspiracy theory