> I don't think the problem is so much a problem with all politically charged ideas. It seems like there's something specific about ideas with a sort of left-is

> I don't think the problem is so much a problem with all politically charged ideas. It seems like there's something specific about ideas with a sort of left-ish academic origin that makes them almost intentionally designed to be distorted or misunderstood by people who aren't deeply a part of the group already. I sometimes think they might even be intended to provoke that kind of reaction and misunderstanding as a form of validation. Another way of looking at this is that these ideas have little-to-no intellectual content (just some mumbling about "power structures"). They are pure resentment given an intellectual gloss. When the ideas come in contact with the real world, away from academia, that quickly becomes clear.