I wasn’t talking about postmodern philosophy per se, but the combination of postmodernism and critical theory-based activism. Critical theory-based activists have been incorporating postmodernism to develop their new theories about race, gender, and queerness in the past 30–40 years, and it is this kind of postmodern critical theory-inspired activism that I was talking about.

The ‘value’ of postmodernism to critical theory is that it provides some level of justification for a worldview that all ‘truths’ are a manifestation of power and oppression. From there, they can justifiably divide ideas into those favoring the ‘oppressor class’ vs ‘oppressed class’, rather than assess each idea on its own merit. With this approach, scientific fact can be dismissed as the ‘truth’ of the oppressor class.

The problem is, ‘postmodernized’ critical theory activists don’t just stop at the social sciences. It won’t leave the sciences (especially biology and other medical sciences) to the experts.

One example of this is the variety of theories that talk about gender being a social construct that can be ‘deconstructed’ in various ways, which inspires activism to that effect. In this tradition, what is stressed is not the empirical or scientific truth, but the supposed ability of these theories to ‘liberate’ people (especially the ‘oppressed’) from gender. Hence using the ends (liberation) to justify the means (theory that might not be scientifically valid).