One of the really sad things about the existence of IDW folks and the rest of the anti-woke brigade is that they actually make legitimate criticisms of the theories and social dynamics of contemporary social justice culture more difficult to make, not less.

Are there anti-scientific and under-theorized elements to sj culture (of which I am a part) - yes, absolutely. Is there abusive behavior and bullying in sj spaces? Yes. Is some of that behavior “justified” by appeals to bad theory? Yes.

But it is actually harder to make nuanced criticisms from within the culture because of the existence of so many wildly inaccurate and bad faith criticisms from outside of it! If we have to spend all our time fending off wild mischaracterizations, internal critique is harder.

People get defensive, feel attacked, pull up the drawbridges and fight the attacker from without instead of examining the problems within. So the criticisms have the opposite effect to those the critics (claim) they desire.