MathGate, or the Battle of Two Plus Two
The culture wars come to math and reach a new low
Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any stupider or weirder: for over a month now, a battle has raged in some corners of the internet over the question of whether “2+2=4” is always true.
The combatants, broadly speaking, are “woke” progressives (a.k.a. “social justice warriors,” a hackneyed but somewhat useful label) vs. “anti-SJWs,” sometimes linked to the Intellectual Dark Web. Neither side has covered itself in glory. But while some “anti-SJWs” have acted childishly and obnoxiously, I believe this absurd dust-up shows more serious problems on the progressive side.
Sorting out when the quarrel started is confusing, but it’s traceable to early June when James Lindsay, a fierce critic of social justice discourse (and co-author of the new book, Cynical Theories), posted a series of “Woke Minis” — graphics mocking “wokeness” (e.g., “Listening: Agreeing completely without argument”). They included this:
On July 5, someone snidely tweeted this meme at journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones — the New York Times reporter who created the “1619 Project” — in…
