This is a quick post, and a post-scriptum for a previous post absorbed into Section 1.6 "A Woke-related Typology of Participants" of Counter Wokecraft. In particular, it's related to the Woke-proximate. The Woke-proximate are participants who adhere to the principles of Critical Social Justice but who don't really understand CSJ, or what it implies. Whereas most participants trained in the Fine Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities are either familiar with, and adherents to, the Critical Social Justice perspective, the Woke-proximate typically come from outside of these domains, that is the Sciences, Engineering or Business. Often, and more specifically, they come from scientific disciplines with environmental vocations such as Environmental Science, Climate Science, etc. They are typically collectivist and anti-capitalist in political outlook. Although they don't normally know very much about Critical Social Justice, they adhere to CSJ doctrine (e.g. systemic racism) and support CSJ prescriptions. They will advocate for preferential hiring, affirmative action, as well as citing authors in research articles based on their immutable characteristics (e.g. skin color or sex). The Woke-proximate are ignorant of the fact that the CSJ perspective maintains that science itself is inherently bigoted (because of the immutable characteristics of those who first developed it) and advocates for the dismantling and delegitimization of science (see Pincourt (2021)). Finally, they will support and vote in favor of CSJ initiatives and advances. They are particularly dangerous because their scientific qualifications provide their support of CSJ advances with an air of neutral authority. It is for this last reason that another term can be appropriately applied to them, "useful geniuses."
This term came to me when I came across the expression "useful idiots" (it's the name of Matt Taibbi's podcast) last summer. The term has been apocryphally attributed to Lenin. It's used in different ways, but it basically refers to people who were not communists and didn't really know much about communism or communist theory, but who were deemed susceptible to communist propaganda. It has also been used to refer to people who could advocate on behalf of communism despite their ignorance of it - this is why they were considered to be useful (to the communist cause) but idiots. So the parallel between useful idiots and the Woke-proximate is obvious. They don't really know very much about CSJ, but they advocate on its behalf. At the same time, since the Woke-proximate are university participants (professors, students, etc.) they are highly educated and sufficiently intelligent to make it as professors or students. That's why I don't think using the term idiot is quite right. Instead I'm going to use useful genius.
Pincourt C. and J. Lindsay. Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond. Release in November 2021.
Pincourt C. DEI: a Trojan Horse for Critical Social Justice in Science. Merion West, 4 April 2021.
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