Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Critical social justice


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. People disagree mainly about whether this is a concept discussed as such in the social sciences, or merely a neologism and/or a label by ideological opponents of "social justice". And there's no way I can determine, within my role of AfD closer, who's right or wrong here.  Sandstein  10:27, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Critical social justice

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Neologism apparently invented by opponents of the social justice movement - sources are polemic opinion pieces or books, literally all of which are written by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose. It does not appear to be self-applied by anyone. Previous version included deceptive use of sources which did not contain the phrase "critical social justice." The one remaining source not written by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose... is a review of the book by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

(For transparency, this is the version before I attempted to gut and rewrite it before realizing it wasn't salvageable because literally all the sources came back to Lindsay and Pluckrose. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:42, 30 January 2021 (UTC))

*delete per WP:TNT GScholar lights up like a Christmas tree for this term, so I'm not convinced anything the current article says is true. I'm not sure that the numerous references to it in scholarly literature are intended to mean a specific and distinct topic, but either way, this is either NN, or it's a real subject and not a right-wing neologism. Mangoe (talk) 18:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC) see below Mangoe (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The article discussed it as a real subject, not a neologism, but only cited very low-grade sources for that. Nom was the one who rewrote it to refer to critical social justice as a neologism. —Kilopylae (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename. This should be a move request — not a gutted page and an AfD. The broad social and intellectual movement (call it critical social justice, woke ideology or whatever else) is clearly deserving of an overview article that does not currently exist. This AfD is predicated on the idea that CSJ as a neologism for that topic is not notable, which is true. However, the topic for which CSJ is a neologism is notable. Hence the article should be renamed to a more appropriate term and should be returned to its original framing as an article about the intellectual and social movement rather than the terminology. —Kilopylae (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One cannot write a page about a purported "intellectual and social movement" when literally all the sources are from two people who have established themselves in opposition to this claimed "intellectual and social movement." The page wouldn't have been "gutted" if it included sources other than blogposts by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, a book by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, a book review of said book, an opinion column by Helen Pluckrose, and a YouTube video by... Helen Pluckrose. (Nice try with the Britannica source which nowhere actually contained the phrase "critical social justice," but that doesn't count.) You may wish to review WP:V and WP:RS - basically you're demanding that we take these two people's polemic opposition to what they claim to be "critical social justice" as fact, and that we clearly cannot do. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:09, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Scholarly and borderline-scholarly papers coin neologisms all the time. This one hasn't reached the point of being sufficiently widespread and established to qualify as noteworthy. Sources not by Lindsay and Pluckrose are false positives. Some use "critical" as a synonym for "vital"; e.g., Some counselor and counseling psychology training programs also might consider including educational, legal, and public policy institutions as experiential or applied learning sites for the development of critical social justice competencies among their students (Constantine et al. (2007), emphasis added). Others use the phrase to describe their own work, but overall there isn't an established meaning consistent across authors. It's not our job to bring unity where the actual literature has none. (Compare the recent deletion of Indigenous Ways of Knowing on WP:SYNTH grounds.) WP:TNT applies. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It also reminds me of these recent discussions about one academic's recent, and not widely discussed, ideas. - Astrophobe  (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The examples given above aren't in any way accurate comparisons - there is sufficient evidence that the term is widespread, used in major publications, and consistent across authors - see references added today. Vastsmack (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the added references. Many were, in my view, unsuitable per WP:RS; at least one was Russian state propaganda. I'm still going with "delete" on this one. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That does not automatically render it unsuitable for all contexts — Russian state propaganda is a reliable source for "what the Russian state is putting out as propaganda", for instance. A major news publication using a phrase does help to establish that that phrase is used in a range of publications and the author of an RT piece using a phrase does help to establish that a range of authors have used the phrase; the reliability of statements of fact in that source has no bearing on its use as a source for the style of language it is using. WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:RSOPINION are both worth considering here, particularly the principles that information provided "by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable" (from WP:RSCONTEXT), which indicates that the reliability of a source varies in relation to different kinds of information that the source may be cited to support, and "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact" (from WP:RSOPINION), which establishes the general principle that a source that is unreliable for matters of fact — such as Russian state propaganda — might be reliable for other material, such as the author's opinion and presumably also such as whether the source used a particular phrase or not. —Kilopylae (talk) 10:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Russia Today has been formally deprecated. Consequently, it can only be used in extraordinarily rare circumstances (WP:ABOUTSELF), none of which would apply here. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 13:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete: My search is turning up the same thing as XOR'easter's: this neologism is not used in this way in any in-depth independent discussions of the idea that I can find. We do not have the coverage needed for a standalone page about a recent academic neologism. And TNT has basically already been applied to this page, I think correctly, leaving nothing worth merging anywhere and no sources that I can find worth adding back in. - Astrophobe  (talk) 20:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:NEO --LaserLegs (talk) 12:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: Delete per WP:TNT. SwashWafer (talk) 16:58, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Agreed that previous version of article was far too reliant on Lindsay and Pluckrose as primary sources. I've added a considerable amount of detail and secondary sourcing to this article today, enough I think to make a strong case for keeping the article. NorthBySouthBaranof made the AfD under the premise that CSJ is a "Neologism apparently invented by opponents of the social justice movement...It does not appear to be self-applied by anyone." This is incorrect - in fact, the term was both coined and self-applied by a major figure in the social justice movement (DiAngelo) who traces its history and stresses the centrality of the concept to her project. The term's recent appropriation by opponents of the field I believe makes it particularly noteworthy. Furthermore - the term is being used with some frequency in publications big and small. Don't blame above contributors for not spotting the links as some are buried in search results, but they are there, and I've added the references. Vastsmack (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 05:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. 2000+ hits on GScholar. The concept is notable, and I don't see what in the current article merts WP:TNTing. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Counting the raw hits on Google Scholar is wildly misleading for this topic. If you search "critical social justice" you see a colossal number of hits for people who are not talking about this article subject at all, but are rather saying things like "we have a need for critical social justice reforms". Why do you believe you found thousands of hits for the topic of the article and not just the same string being used in an unrelated way? This is like arguing to keep an article on an obscure person named "Bob Smith" because "Bob Smith" has a lot of google hits. - Astrophobe  (talk) 23:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, WP:GOOGLEHITS applies to Scholar as well, particularly for phrases with alternate meanings. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep. Political neologisms have a place on Wikipedia. If they did not, then you'd have to delete many pages worth of terms used exclusively in Marxism theory. --Ryubyss (talk) 21:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * "Other stuff exists" is generally not a good starting point for deciding whether to keep or delete. It's possible that we should delete some pages of Marxist theory; it's also possible that (whatever they are) they're better supported by reliable sources than this page is. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: the article is not presently in the best condition but reflects a political concept that is increasingly being discussed. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: per changes made by Vastsmack. FreeEncyclopediaMusic (talk) 13:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * comment I'm almost to the point of withdrawing my previous opinion, but I'm still seeing an article which doesn't actually describe the subject adequately to take it beyond a social science buzzphrase. Mangoe (talk) 16:04, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The lack of clarity about the social-science-buzzphrase meaning of the phrase also makes it hard to tell whether it's actually the same thing as what Lindsay, Pluckrose, etc. are complaining about, or whether they lifted the term and are applying it more broadly. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:02, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * DiAngelo and her critics agree on a precise definition of Critical social justice, i.e. critical theory applied to social justice. Lindsay et al explain that they use her term because she defines it and they agree with that definition. What sits under that umbrella is broad, but the term itself is specific, and I don't believe there's another term for what it describes. Regarding Mangoe's point that the article "doesn't describe the subject adequately" - additional referenced details have been cut - some quite rightly by XOR&#39;easter, but some I'm still confused about. e.g. I'm still unsure sure why the Federalist ref was cut - as an opinion column by the political editor of a prominent conservative news website, I thought it significant? (I'm a new contributor so apologise if if this is not the right forum for the question) Vastsmack (talk) 00:32, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You can't use an opinion column as a reference for factual details about anything. At best, it's usable for the cited opinion of the author, and that only if deemed due weight. It's unclear whether The Federalist (a clearly-partisan source of unknown provenance and funding which published knowing falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the 2020 United States presidential election) is due weight on this subject. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * John Daniel Davidson, that same "political editor of a prominent conservative news website" you wish to cite, wrote an article promoting the clearly-false and seditious conspiracy theory that Democratic Party machines in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are trying to steal the election. If that's the quality of the sourcing you're standing on, I rest my case. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I cited an opinion column as a source for an opinion - it was marked as a such as per WP:RSOPINION. XOR'easter cited WP:DUE but given that the term has gained more currency among critics it's reasonable to expect the weighting of the literature reflected in the article. Regarding The Federalist - yes, it's clearly partisan - but that alone doesn't distinguish it from any major news network in America. I'm not aware of The Federalist being a deprecated source, despite its coverage of the 2020 Election conspiracy theories (I don't read it but I'll take your word for it - they are Trump sycophants) Your dislike of their politics or their misleading coverage of a certain issue does not mean their political editor's opinions need additional corroboration to establish their significance.
 * Even if the subject is notable, random opinions about it aren't necessarily worth talking about. In fact, the more noteworthy a subject, the more people pay attention to it, and the more nonsense is said about it — 90% of everything is crud, and for a more popular topic you're just taking 90% of a larger commentary pie. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The issue is that there aren't any reliable sources (or even unreliable ones?) defining what is, and what isn't, "critical theory applied to social justice."
 * In what way are DiAngelo and Lindsay, two best-selling authors, not reliable sources? Vastsmack (talk) 04:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sales don't indicate reliability. Goop is a successful brand, but that doesn't make its products actual medicine. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Lindsay's entire essay about this subject last year is basically describing his invention/repurposing of the term "critical social justice" as a naked attempt to rebrand his opposition to "the social justice movement" because using that phrase feeds into exactly the nearly perfect branding that the movement wants. He wrote Still, it’s nearly always best to name your enemy something that they would or do call themselves. So basically he's trying to invent "critical social justice" as a neologistic phrase to brand his clearly-identified ideological enemy, which is the existing social justice movement. We're not obligated to help him. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:34, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * "Naked attempt"? Well, at least you're being honest that your WP:TNT is based on your ideological opposition to Lindsay. I've given an example on the talk page that you're clearly not holding your own editing to the standards that you've held mine. Your bar for including random quotes critical of Lindsay is lower than your bar for including Lindsay's own words. Guidelines make clear that a self-published source is sometimes the best possible source when it concerns the views of an expert in the relevant field. Lindsay and Pluckrose literally wrote a best-selling book in this field. Their views on Critical social justice are cited in the media. And I don't think your characterisation of Lindsay's views is accurate - in his telling, he is not rebranding "the social justice movement", but trying to differentiate between social justice, and what he and others have previously called the 'Social Justice Movement', that is, the specific tendency to use ideas derived from Critical Theory as a lens through which to view problems of social justice. If Critical Theory was an insoluble part of "the social justice movement" I would expect it to be cited at least once in the article. Vastsmack (talk) 04:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You keep declaring James Lindsay as an "expert" on social justice as if that's some known and acknowledged fact. It's not. He's clearly a critic who views social justice as his ideological enemy (his words) - that doesn't make him an "expert" on social justice any more than Mike Lindell is an "expert" on elections. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it really looks like "critical social justice" as used by DiAngelo means a somewhat specific (but still buzzwordy) thing, while "critical social justice" for Lindsay is the new "grievance studies" or "wokeism", i.e., anything in a great big blob of ideas that Lindsay doesn't like. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 03:49, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vaticidalprophet (talk) 11:38, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * keep I'm going to give the article another day or so before I look at it again, but it seems to me baldly obvious that however much Lindsay may have a right to criticize CSJ in practice, he has no standing to define it in theory. That said, and leaving aside my personal skepticism about critical theory in general, it seems clear that we're at the point of trying to hammer out a decent article on a notable subject at this point, rather than being stuck with starting from scratch. Mangoe (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * As the one who originally titled the page critical social justice, I want to emphasise that Mangoe is completely correct that what we need is a decent article on a notable subject. I'm really not wedded to the term CSJ — I just used it because it was what I'd heard. We need an article about the topic and discussion about what that article should be titled (including NorthbySouth's concern that CSJ is a non-notable neologism) is not a matter for this AfD. —Kilopylae (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there actually enough to support a stand-alone article, though, or would the topic be better off treated as an offshoot of something else within another article? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete or merge It doesn't look like this is really a good standalone article - critical social justice gives 470 million hits whereas critical social justice lindsay gives 5 million. It is probably better off being a part of Lindsay's article given that this term is only a small fraction of what critical social justice is on the internet. See also critical social justice pedealogy which has 15 million hits and critical social justice feminism which has 36 million hits.  Swordman97  talk to me  00:31, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per and Kilopylae and Vastsmack. I agree with the users arguing that this is a notable topic, although it's known by many different names. Other names for this set of beliefs are "Wokeism" and "Successor ideology". While the articles Wokeism and Successor ideology also exist, those are articles about the terms "Woke" and "Successor ideology", while Wikipedia does not have an article (aside from this one) about the actual belief system that these terms are describing. So the article should be kept, but I wouldn't be opposed to moving it to a different name. 2600:1004:B119:831C:A0BF:D564:1BD6:5387 (talk) 00:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It is at the very least debatable whether "Wokeism" and "Successor ideology" are actual belief systems or merely labels applied to disparage ideas the labeler doesn't like. Consequently, they are best discussed as terms, since the terms themselves exist. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:44, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This belief system recently was denounced by the president of France:  Instead of "Wokeism" or "Successor ideology", his education minister referred to it as "an intellectual matrix from American universities". These are a lot of different terms for the same set of beliefs. If a belief system is notable enough for the president of a country to denounce it, it should be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. 2600:1004:B11E:1D33:4DF0:ACE1:82B2:9BF4 (talk) 01:13, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Except that you have the problem of WP:SYNTH. That NYT article nowhere uses the phrase "critical social justice." It might be your personal opinion that it's talking about "the same set of beliefs," but absent a reliable source making the connection, Wikipedia cannot do so. There are many topics which Wikipedia may or may not be able to, in some minds, adequately cover because reliable sources have not yet covered them adequately. That James Lindsay wants to popularize the term "critical social justice" for this purported set of viewpoints is clear. That the term is in anything resembling widespread use is not debatable - it is not. If it was, we'd have far more and better sources than a batch of op-ed columns written exclusively by people who share his opinions. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's be clear: are you agreeing that there exists a coherent set of beliefs, with its own epistemology and set of policy prescriptions, that these various terms are referring to? And the question is whether Wikipedia can apply the term "critical social justice" (or any other term) to this set of beliefs, in cases where sources aren't using that specific term? 2600:1004:B11E:1D33:4DF0:ACE1:82B2:9BF4 (talk) 02:18, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * James Lindsay has laid out a rather broad, vague set of things he views as his "ideological enemy" which he thinks should be collectively called "critical social justice." That there is any sort of coherency to that set of things is, at this point, a matter of opinion, and based on the sources that anyone has been able to find, his opinion doesn't appear to be very widely shared. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Exactly; whether there is a coherent set of beliefs, with its own epistemology and set of policy prescriptions is not at all clear from the sources available, which tend to the polemic rather than the soberly analytical. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This is why I linked to the article quoting the president of France. This is a situation where there are a few Wikipedia editors saying there isn't necessarily any coherent underlying ideology that these terms are describing, while the president of a country and several members of his cabinet are saying that there is. How many national leaders have to say this a real ideology before it becomes verifiable? Is it necessary for the presidents of multiple countries to say it, rather than just one? 2600:1004:B163:4C2D:D0FC:62DF:786A:E4CC (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, what reliable source says that what the French president was talking about is "critical social justice"? If you can't find one, it's prohibited original synthesis to make such a connection. We already have articles on "Woke" and social justice which discuss criticisms by people who perceive problems with those perceived philosophies (that there is a coherent and identifiable "woke" is debatable). Just because James Lindsay wants to rebrand them "critical social justice" doesn't mean Wikipedia is going to automatically follow his every whim. We follow the sources, and the sources aren't taking up his phrasing.
 * As a matter of fact, the NYT article specifically uses the phrase "woke leftism." So if you wanted to include that article there, it shouldn't be a problem. That the NYT has not taken up Lindsay's rebranding project is not a problem Wikipedia can fix for you. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Please stop changing the subject. There are two separate questions here, but when I try to address one, you switch to the other. These are the two questions:


 * 1: Is "Critical social justice" a widely used term, and are there enough sources available that describe what it means?


 * 2: Is there a real underlying ideology to which this term, "Woke leftism", and "Successor ideology" refer?


 * My last comment was addressing (2), not (1), but your response here was to bring up point (1) again.


 * I'm fine with the article being named something other than "critical social justice", if we can come up with another term that's more widely used. I'm making a point about the concept, not the name. The relevance of the comments from the French president is that they show it's verifiable there is a real ideology that these terms are referring to. And there is no other Wikipedia article about this particular ideology, rather than about various individual names for it. 2600:1004:B14D:A7C2:6CFB:635E:492D:B534 (talk) 16:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What makes a politician reliable about, well, anything? Also, it seems to me that 's comment was about your point (2): it's not our job to declare that what one person calls "woke leftism" is the same as what somebody else calls "critical social justice". XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with the article at "woke"? That seems to be the term used by, well, the source you yourself cited. And it contains extensive discussion and criticism of perceived issues with the perception of "woke." Whether or not it is a "real ideology" is certainly a question of debate, but some people certainly argue that it is, and there are sufficient reliable sources on the issue for Wikipedia to present that debate. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:19, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per Ryubyss, though the name may be arguable. tickle me 12:52, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.