Idiotic or not, it's widespread in academia.

And some would argue that there are fairly objective ways to define "power"

Personally I'm on the fence about these definitions but it annoys me to see people dismiss them as "idiotic" without engaging with the level of serious thought that has been put into them by sincere people.

Disagree once you've spent a day or two surveying the subject. Or even an hour or two.

I have surveyed it, and it’s still idiotic. It’s no different than horoscopes or numerology, both of which have immense depth from “experts”. It doesn’t change the fact that not of it is grounded in any kind of scientific discovery or logic.

> And some would argue that there are fairly objective ways to define "power"

Funny how elusive these “objective ways” are when it comes to actually defining them.

Even if there were an objective way to define that power, it still doesn’t change how dumb and divisive the whole approach is of making asymmetric the criteria for being “racist”. It has enabled blatantly bigoted behavior by tons of people against downtrodden “majorities” and has done more to divide society than the segregation in the 60s.

> it's widespread in academia.

This is very damming to sociology and to associate it with “academia” is a disservice to people who practice the objective discovery of science.

It doesn't matter if it is popular in academia. Nobody outside of academia uses it and they are trying to force a language change. Languages of course change, but it should be done naturally not by force.