by Julian Christopher
You are a soldier in a war being waged right now.
You. Reading this. You’ve been unknowingly drafted into the greatest fight of our generation, and worse, there’s a good chance you’ve already fallen prey to the enemy, or even been turned yourself.
Before I get to who the enemy is, let me offer some comfort; until recently they were rather hard to identify. And whatever you may or may not have done in their name, it was likely for good reason.
You want the world to be a better place, I’m sure of it. In fact, let’s wipe the slate clean entirely — You, for all intents and purposes, cannot be held responsible for the way things are right now.
The thing is, that’s all about to change. We are all about to be culpable for the state of the world. No matter our net worth. No matter our reach. No matter our intention.
Haven’t you noticed a change lately? There are a small but growing number of social issues that seem to demand lip service from everyone regardless of occupation. And God help you if you get it wrong.
If you say the wrong thing, within earshot of the right person, or the right camera, you just might find yourself on the receiving end of a severance package, or a mob of angry online strangers intent on ruining your life.
These issues don’t just come up in private conversations anymore, they are the center of advertising campaigns, workplace initiatives, and now, they are working their way into public policy. They have not yet become reason enough to interrogate anyone, but that is where they’re headed.
The lines are being drawn quite clearly — some on public streets by city workers in bright yellow paint. Sooner or later, everyone is going to see which side of these issues you’re standing on, whether you like it or not.
It is crucial to understand that the outcome of humanity’s next chapter will define our path forward in an unprecedented way. It is not often the case that society’s source code is up for grabs. There is so much that is poised to change, that we really do stand a chance of fractioning off and destroying ourselves if we don’t all start paying attention.
Let’s really hammer home exactly what’s at stake in this war of ideas we find ourselves in. It’s very easy to do. Ready?
Everything is at stake.
Once again — Everything you hold dear is under threat of corruption. Your job, your home, your husband or wife, your children, your beliefs, and most important — your identity itself. If they claim that, the rest is won. Who are “they” you ask?
They are The Woke.
At this point you may be tempted to call me dramatic. “Oh, it’s just a bunch of kids with funny haircuts,” you might say.
The problem is, all those kids graduated. They found jobs in our institutions, in our human resources departments, in our governments. It is not just a bunch of kids anymore. This movement of Wokeness has its talons dug in, and it’s doing real damage.
Take a step back and ask yourself how we in the West came to enjoy everything it is we enjoy today. Roofs over our heads. A police force to deter crime. Roads on which to drive. Heat to keep us warm. Food to satiate the masses. It is very simple. Everything we have, we generated through a shared, objective understanding of reality.
Of course, this shared understanding doesn’t mean we must agree on every subject, or strategy, or value, say. But it does mean we all agree on what certifies any given claim as “true”. If not, how can we agree on what’s real?
For example, if you don’t accept that 2+2=4, we can’t very well build an apartment complex, can we. We can’t bake a cake, build an functioning airplane, set a timer, or run an experiment. We can’t make assessments, predictions, coherent arguments or draw sensible conclusions if we can’t agree on what’s real.
We simply must agree on objective reality, or everything is forfeit. And it is this objectivity that is under full attack.
It’s under attack by people motivated first by compassion, then by anger, and now by power. It began in the 90’s, in a distant corner of the humanities, and no one took it seriously. By 2016 it had grown strong enough to plunge the Evergreen College campus into full on race riots, and still, no one took it seriously. Now it’s begun taking our institutions, our workplaces, our political systems, our schools, our streets, our Facebook feeds, and our social circles.
Where do you think this ends? Let me submit to you all; if we let this force of destruction into our courts, we are lost. The only thing left after honest conversation between reasonable people, is violence between savages. We are on a collision course with civil war. And all we have to do to get there is nothing.
The logic is as follows:
a) Our shared understanding of what constitutes objective reality is under attack. b) You live in reality. c) Everything you know is under attack.
Now, you may be asking yourself, exactly who am I to tell you this?
I am a nobody. I am a regular, everyday person whose mind has been increasingly consumed with where we are headed as a society. This is my first article. I am not a columnist. I am not a practiced intellectual. I am not an authority on anything. I am not special. I am just like you.
I want us to survive and flourish together. And that really has to be enough, because it’s going to take normal people like us to protect our way of life. Decent, thinking people with a commitment to but one single value: Reason.
Reason is why we are still here. It’s how we grew crops. It’s how we got to the moon. It’s how we’ll get to Mars if we don’t destroy ourselves in the meantime. And if you don’t like Mars, pick literally anything else. There is nothing without it.
It’s the single greatest invention of mankind. It’s not what, but how to think. It is on this foundation that everything we enjoy is built. Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. The tools of Reason are how we have survived the worst of times, and created the best of them. And they are under attack by those who have either forgotten how to wield them, or were never taught.
Here is what has happened already:
A growing number of increasingly controversial issues no normal person wants to touch, such as race and sexuality, have been occupied and distorted by an anti-scientific concept called Critical Theory.
Its creators and supporters, many of whom occupy positions with impressionable minds under their influence, have politicized and weaponized these issues, taken advantage of their radioactivity and therefore lack of suitable defenders, and are attempting to modify the function of truth within them, which will by extension redefine what constitutes objective truth itself.
Having achieved a sufficient normalization of the tenants of Critical Theory through academia and pop culture, they are now marching steadily into every institution that exists, under a banner of compassion, to serve their ultimate objective wherever they are granted entrance: control.
If they can maintain territorial dominion over these kinds of social issues, and successfully edit the rules that govern them, they will crusade onward, referencing them with one hand, while slashing at all else with the other. It is on this ground of controversial topics that this war must be fought and won. That is, while logical arguments still hold value.
We must expel this cult of anti-science from our institutions, close the gates afterward, and throw away the key forever.
Mind you, this is much easier said than done, for a few reasons. One, The Woke enjoy perhaps the greatest advertising campaign ever created. Two, their funding is virtually limitless. And three, to stand against them could cost the average person their job.
It’s a pickle, no doubt.
The Woke’s method of preying upon one of humanity’s greatest strengths—our compassion—and transforming it into a weapon of oppression to fire at anyone who doesn’t fully adhere to their tenets, has been very effective so far. How can you not support an organization entitled “Black Lives Matter”? Surely you know that refusal to do so makes you a confirmed racist. Does any normal person want to deal with these kinds of charges? Of course not. That’s the whole point. And as soon as you cave they own you.
This is the new religious fundamentalism. And make no mistake, to be silent against it, is to tacitly subscribe to it. If there is one thing to take with you, it is that. We must all stand against this in our own way, and on our own level.
The truth is we are going to have to take some hits here. Every war has casualties. But marching as one, we could overpower the enemy and emerge victorious in defense of Reason. This is a matter of numbers and at the moment we have more. That may not be the case for long.
One thing is for certain. This battle between the Woke and the Reasonable is about to be everywhere in a way that it wasn’t before. There is nowhere it will not reach. The actions of normal, decent people like yourself, are about to have more impact than ever before. You are on the battle front here, not the elites, not the prominent intellectuals — you.
Speaking of you, let’s run an experiment that should serve to demonstrate just how lethal these issues have become. It’s no wonder no one wants to say the wrong thing. And it’s precisely this fear that will be our collective undoing.
For example, how comfortable would you be making one of the following statements in public? Say, at a work function, or at a friend’s BBQ, or maybe on your personal Facebook page. Let’s assume the appropriate topic is raised or posted about, and you have an opportunity to give your opinion.
Choose from the following:
- “It is impossible to change your sex.”
- “Hormone replacement therapy on children has irreversible effects.”
- “Black people happen to commit more crime than everyone else.”
- “White people are not inherently racist.”
- “All lives matter.”
No doubt a small, brave portion of you would attempt this. But for most people I’m guessing there’s nothing I could give you short of enough money to retire on to make one of those statements to your co-workers, your boss, your social circle. And every single statement on that list is objectively true. This actually isn’t a matter of opinion. Are there more to these facts? Absolutely, but that’s not the point.
Now, imagine the reverse. How easy would it be to utterly destroy the person making such a statement? You would have no trouble doing this, because most of the room would immediately dog-pile them into submission like sleeper cell agents activated by the code-word. Racist. Sexist. White Supremacist. Bigot. These charges still carry weight despite their overuse.
Speaking truths about certain topics has become incompatible with employment. It’s becoming incompatible with human progress. We are unable to use certain words, make certain arguments, notice certain facts without committing social suicide. This is a problem. It’s the kind of problem that, left to fester long enough, can take down a democracy. A country. A people.
I will close with my idea of a solution. It is rather simple. It does not involve becoming an expert on anything. It does not require schooling, memorization, or debate training. It is something every normal person can do. Let’s call it what it is — A Commitment to Reason.
Do not compromise on the truth. Do not cede the land of objectivity. Do not give in to emotional arguments, subjective anecdotes, or appeals to authority. If a claim is false, call it false. If you’re not sure, say so. Ask for clear reasoning in plain speech. If someone begins to sound like the side of a prescription bottle, request simplification. If simplification is not offered, or your request is insulted, the source is suspect.
Anyone that knows anything should be capable of communicating their knowledge to you in simple terms. If they can’t, they just aren’t a trustworthy source. Ask yourself, if their concept is so obvious, why is it so difficult to explain? Why doesn’t it make any sense? They either don’t know what they’re talking about, or you’re being scammed.
If I present a conclusion and seek your agreement, and you request further explanation, or challenge its statements, I should not respond with attacks on your character. My reasoning should not include appeals to popularity or attempts at telepathy. When good faith requests or challenges are met with such actions, the claims in question become functionally invalid.
As far as logic goes, this is really all we need to turn the tide here. Most of us have the critical thinking skills necessary to defeat poor arguments. The rest is simply courage.
Think of it as civic duty. We have got to get over this inability to have uncomfortable conversations about reality for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. If you get offended by me referencing the biological fact that men cannot change into women, I’m sorry, that is simply not my problem. I have not erased someone’s experience by making statements contrary to their deeply held beliefs, this is nonsense — not to mention, an invalid supernatural claim.
Do you want to spend the rest of your life with your head down when it comes to certain topics? Hobbled like a prisoner? Muzzled like some animal? Do you really want to live in a world where a handful of subjects are so hazardous, you could lose the food on your family table for discussing them improperly?
Perhaps you could tolerate it for a while. We seem to be doing so happily. How about your kids? Is this the life you imagined for them? What happens when teaching them simple mathematics invites charges of white supremacy? How hard is it to imagine a world where state policy requires ordinary citizens to attend “Implicit Bias” workshops to qualify for government services?
If you think Critical Race Theory can’t make that happen, you’ve got another thing coming. The foundation for this has already been laid.
Ultimately, the outcome of this war is a matter of subscription. If we all wake up now, we stand a fighting chance. If we ignore this much longer, there is no going back.
They are hoping you have better things to do. That you won’t notice. That you’ll keep your mouth shut.
It is time to show them how wrong they are. Show them we will not stand for this. We will not go backwards into the darkness. We have come too far.
I have decided to join the fight myself the only way I know how. I don’t know what else to do at this point. The thought of raising children in this world is scarier than it should be. We are hurtling toward totalitarianism.
We must all unite in defense of Reason.
This article was originally published at Medium.
100 comments
all lives do not matter… such a thing must be earned
Very important to respond and compete as FIRE is doing in June 2022.
https://www.thefire.org/news-and-media/for-the-media/faces-of-free-speech/
One correction. None of the examples you provided should ever be topics of discussion at your job. That goes for arguing for or against any of them. the workplace is not the right place for social debates. Now if some woketopian brings up one of these than defend your position but don’t be the initiator. As for anywhere else, complete agreement.
I have gotten a lot from the article, which I found a bit hyperbolic—so I guess I am complicit, by the definition given. I have enjoyed reading all the rejoinders, too. I see some similarities in the criticisms, so it seems like they are reading from the same playbook. I don’t see many comments on the agreement side that sound like they come from people who spend their time in the bar throwing darts. Finally, a couple of the comments remind me of the nerds in college, back in the 1970’s, who were taking Derrida’s ideas seriously and who thought their concepts would flow through the proximity of their key words in the text versus using the oppressive rules of language to communicate. All I can say to them is, “What?”
Yes indeed, these are scary times. We are at the tipping point and this radical mindset must be stopped before its too late!
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Leon Trotsky
Thank you for such an incisive and clear expose of the problem. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
Truth indeed is the light that really matters. The way to get rid of the darkness is not to try to shoo it away but to simply turn on the light. Your call to enlist and and to become “…..a soldier in a war being waged right now.” is a statement of reason based on reality and the stakes could not be any higher.
We must not only know what we are fighting for and against, but also how we must fight. We must go even go beyond reason as reason itself cannot explain all there is to human life. Reason alone cannot explain love, suffering, why is there a right and a wrong or why evil.
A “Commitment to Reason” falls short as really someone could argue that we find ourselves here precisely because of reason. If tomorrow by an incredible and magical potion all were committed to reason would it be reasonable to expect, as history has proven time and time again, that simply we will find that all wars wars end in a mere CHANGE OF MASTERS & an EXCHANGE OF SLAVES, a vicious never-ending cycle of evils ending with fewer & fewer richer & richer rich & more & more poor, & all of them miserably unhappy with their life of death & fear together!
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
The real war is about the eradication of evil sitting in the center of each one of us! Truth shedding light in the nature of flawed mankind is the first step. Simply put we are out of sync and off center to in relation to the Truth. Our flawed condition, suffering, evil and death are the reasonable result of our lack of harmony with our Creator.
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That[b] was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His [c]own, and His [d]own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the [e]right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:6-13
So it is true that there is “a war being waged right now” and it has been waged from the beginning but unlike other wars we already know the victor so it is up to us to enlist in the right army and pledge our allegiance and to accept the truth, and in so doing become the children of light.
Perhaps the root cause of the trouble within the left, is the way the egalitarian sentiment came to influence the decisions that ultimately affect an entire culture.
Despite all virtue signaling and romantic delusions, the evidence seems to show that not enough individuals are sufficiently inclined to use critical thinking and rational skepticism, to resolve the most serious issues, such as austerity and violence.
Even “community organizing” admits that much, when it’s whole system revolves around a so called “outside expert”, who makes the critical decisions. That’s how the woke got their power. And this is also how empowerment-before-education became the norm. Because, let’s face it, critical thinking, rational skepticism and STEM are hard, while romantic delusions are much easier to profess.
So, then, those discriminating few that prefer to use reason before force, are they perhaps also delusional? Do they expect to much from the average person, when claiming, in the name of egalitarian sentiment, that everybody could and should use critical thinking and rational skepticism, when framing their view of reality? despite sufficient evidence to the contrary.
But then, without egalitarianism, what kind of “left” is that? Not so “left”, apparently – considering the elitism of the outside experts, the saviors of the ignoramuses who are unable to decide independently what’s good for them (oh yes, never mind the potential for dogmatism and demagoguery there).
…And if you still believe the egalitarian sentiment is still relevant within the contemporary “left”, then please try to explain how that fits with identity politics and intersectionality. I’m sure the woke can explain, but I suspect they also suspend critical thinking, in order to do that.
This article, the decision to publish it and some of the comments here actually make me question the entire project of new Discourses.
If this is what ‘defending reason’ looks like then i’m not sure i’m onboard with it. Many of the comments look more like ideologically fixated reactionaries wearing ‘reason’ like a cheap dress.
I can see a lot of people are getting quite agitated on here. I hope my English Liberal prattlings don’t casue to much alarm. I can see at least one post that refers to the Frankfurt school as a sort of Jewish organisation because the members were Jewish (if not explicitly then implicitly). This attributoin of certain behaviours/thoughts etc to a ethnic group due to the actions of a notable sect seems to me to be the very basis of all racist ideas. This is a sad, collectivist distraction and risks tarnishing attempts to counter the woke narrative. But I value freedom of speech above most other things so A 2nd Aponym and his fellow travellers are welcome to their opinions, however seemingly steeped in that old prejudice they are. I disagree vehemently with the anti-semitic insinuation. However I also find the attempts to ‘tell teacher’ on this person a bit off as well. The Frankfurters (as I like to call them) may have been Jewish, but let’s not make the mistake of recycling old and oderous tropes.
The Frankfurters did have Marxist DNA, but they redrew Marx’s in/out groups and moved away from class as the main divide. This is something that still annoys ‘old school’ Marxists and they would refute CRT (I know you don’t believe me, but they would) as being divisive due to this. My eyebrows raised when those leaders of BLM said they were ‘trained Marxists’, due to this. I think the Frankfurters had realised the game was up for classical Marxism as the proletariat had en masse chosen capitalism, due to it actually working for them. The Frankfurters knew Marx had failed and it opnly took about 40 years and 200 million corpses to prove it. Well done Karl!
The real driving force in this ‘woke’ gibberish is not Marxism per se in my view. Afterall it is difficult to take too seriously criticism of an economic model (capitalism) by someone who seems not to have done a proper days work in his life (Karl). The problem is a mixture of Maoist didactic and ‘the internet’, which has come at a time when capitalism as generally been so successful that the indicators of poverty are now obesity (not malnutrition). Couple this with a slow but effective undermining of the concept of ‘character’ or stoicism (both those things seen as deeply racist and offensive by the wokies) and you have a recipe for demoralisation. Bezmenov was right. He described things correctly if a little dramatically.
The best bet we have is to try to breath life into the concepts of individualism as a force for good as opposed to another word for selfishness, which is what the wokies and many on the left see if as.
Excellent comment. Thank you.
“The best bet we have is to try to breath life into the concepts of individualism as a force for good as opposed to another word for selfishness, which is what the wokies and many on the left see if as”
This has been my strategy. For many reasons. I don’t necessarily try to focus on it as a Force for good because I try to steer away from common good arguments. For me it’s about choice and knowing what’s best for yourself or your family rather than some unelected bureaucrat or or professor both of whom live in bubbles.
As to the word, selfishness , applied to individualism, I kept trying to remember where I had read about that a long time ago. I finally remembered that it was covered in the first chapter of CS Lewis’s “Weight of Glory”. I went back and reread it. Seems he noticed the change during his lifetime. It’s clever. It’s all about pointing fingers and virtue signaling. Although he doesn’t use those words.
The idea that cultural Marxism is Marxism in name only cannot be stressed enough. No self-professed Marxist I know is in the business of demolishing every single institution that holds society aloft. Those who didn’t go the Frankfurt school route must have decided at some point, that if we need to destroy society as we know it to bring about a revolution, maybe revolution’s not so worth it, after all. The proletariat that the Marxist elite claim to speak for (i.e. us, all of us that need to work for a living) do not want to radically redefine concepts, do not want to do away with their families, do not want reality to slip away from under their feet to land in something entirely alien that they don’t know what to do with. I suppose this is why the woke resort to such underhanded methods.
I think you are spot on with your assessment. I had an incident with a family member a few years ago in which I was shocked to learn that this (young and educated) family member had zero respect for an opposing viewpoint. The things said were shockingly hurtful over a relatively insignificant current event. So much so that I immediately thought of a Cult-like or addiction denying reaction. It seemed as though this person had been taught to ferociously disregard any opposing view. No counter-point; only total dismissal. Like “that’s not a thing,” type of response.
After that incident I instinctively started to do what you have outlined. I ask questions and try to get the wok-ed to explain their reasoning. I stick to objectivity and try to keep in mind and accept that emotion is their guiding principle. Unfortunately it comes at a great price. They feel bullied and usually the result is a lost relationship. I have made up my mind that the price is too great not to fight though. How can we live in a world in which the mere opinion of a person can ruin a livelihood?
Why aren’t our so-called representatives, in government, speaking up and taking action?
Here at home, us little people are outraged, are infuriated, are stomping around in our little homes demanding that those in the position to do something do it BEFORE it gets to the point where we must.
This did not start in the 90s. This shows how little people understand the real danger here. We are not dealing with a bad idea in the free market of ideas. We are dealing with a virus, called postmodernism, that has infected our collective mind, and it’s not easy to fight it off.
I’m not as pessimistic in the short run. I am hoping that this woke ideology will soon become so reviled that people and coporations will step away from it. But in the long run this will only mean that postmodernism will fester for longer and come back stronger in the future.
Another fear is that if this leftist madness doesn’t do much harm itself, it will drive people to the extreme right and we’ll get to deal with that whole thing again, as is visible in certain comments here.
The author of this article identifies the right problem, the attack on reason, but it’s not critical theory that’s doing it, it’s postmodernism. Critical Theory is just a tool.
You are correct! Post-Modernism is a virus. Please, I beg all of you, look into the origins and goals of Trans-Humanism as well. It’s quite nefarious.
Warnings of this sort of future have in fact been voiced since the early 1900s. Everyone thought they were talking about Fascism, or Communism. And we dealt with those, right? No,we didn’t.
I got on board in the early 1980s via a newish religious organization that promoted spiritual freedom. It is a good organization, but these developments have been a challenge for it. They are indirect attacks, couched in partisan politics. We were used to definding ourselves from direct attacks and staying out of politics. For this and other reasons, friends of reason (rationality) today often consider our group dangerous and not really coming from a good place.
And now we see how the lies, forwarded by a media machine that has gone more and more out of control through the 1900s, can deeply affect even those who hoped to remain unscathed. We would like to stand with you against this enemy of life. But it is not, essentially, that intellectual creature known as “Critical Theory” that is the problem. It is the sickness that made that theory possible and supported it. It is a sickness that runs deep in society and is likely to overtake anyone who has not been “living right” and working to build up their immunity.
So, good luck. We will continue our work and we fully intend to keep this ship afloat at least long enough so that our own continuity is possible. You can change your minds and begin to refrain speaking ill of us. Or not, as you like. We have data we think would be valuable to you. But you can’t force a horse to drink. Good luck!
THANK YOU!!! I wish I had written this piece, it says everything that is seething in me. I have even poised a similar test to those who are in the cult, I dared them to post one thing that they truly believe that the cult does not. Cowards all of them.
The rapidity of the mainstreaming of critical theory has me very disturbed, you laid out why very clearly.
Ok those questions:–
“It is impossible to change your sex.”
“Hormone replacement therapy on children has irreversible effects.”
“Black people happen to commit more crime than everyone else.”
“White people are not inherently racist.”
“All lives matter.”
The places you can’t currently say those things are within the blue church of upper middle class professional workplaces where one has an image, a prestige an a reputation to keep- or if one is in particular sorts of ‘right on’ enclaves of society.
The places where you CAN say these things is almost literally everywhere else – especially in every dive bar or darts hall in the land.
This article marks a turn for me – from intelligent liberal values – to reactionary foolishness, as can be seen by some of the comments sections which seems to have attracted the sort who likes to dress themselves up in the garments of ‘reason’. Its likely these people who will respond to this call to arms in defence of reason.
Like all the people inspired by Jordan Peterson who wanted to make ‘nuance’ into a movement and ended up creating their own blunt movement lacking nuance.
“The places you can’t currently say those things are within the blue church of upper middle class professional workplaces where one has an image, a prestige an a reputation to keep- or if one is in particular sorts of ‘right on’ enclaves of society.’
The places you can’t say those things are in fact virtually all the places where any kind of organising power over society is wielded. Government bureaucracy, corporate HR and PR departments, NGO’s, universities, any kind of organisation dealing with social issues, schools, the police, the intelligence community, mainstream media…
What the hell does it matter if you can say it in a “dive bar or darts hall”. LOL Are you for real?
Question Authority.
I find good authorities give good answers.
A guy once told me his friend with a degree in philosophy said that we can’t really know the truth. I asked, “Is that true?”
He looked stunned for a moment, then walked away with a grin tugging at his lips, red pilled, I think.
Seek truth. Point out absurdities. Don’t condemn; it’s hard to discriminate between deliberate deceivers and the deceived who are merely regurgitating deceptions, who will turn on the deceivers with a vengeance when they realize they’ve been deceived.
That “don’t condemn… they might be deceived rather than deceivers” thing is a pearl of wisdom I’ll try to hang on to. Thanks!
None of this will end well. The very basis of our civilization, the Enlightenment, is now being challenged. Science and objective reality are under attack. This is now seeping into the courts, but the worst effects will be on our infrastructure. Very soon, power will be spotty, planes will start falling out of the sky, and bridges will fail. Our civilization will literally crumble before our eyes. People will starve for lack of food production (this is a socialist specialty all through history).
Anyone who says this article is hyperbole is part of the problem. They suffer from normalcy bias, and don’t think about where our standard of living comes from, and how none of our energy and production processes are routine. These processes are built on a series of assumptions about reality, and millions of people work hard to make sure the system works. Once the assumptions are challenged, the whole infrastructure crumbles.
The forces of unreason believe they will be victorious. They have got this far on lies, like climate change and wild claims about the virus and gender theory, among others. They are now resorting to violence, and few are standing against them. There is no “normal” anymore. No careers, no regular paychecks, no comfortable lives, nothing. Even if they were defeated tomorrow, they have done so much damage that nothing will be the same.
There is no avoiding it. You must take a side, because they are coming for you, your family, and everything you’ve built through hard work. We are just at the beginning of this, and your life is changing. You can call this hyperbole or “alt-right” or whatever you want, but it is the truth. The mob is now. They will soon be at your door to steal or destroy everything you have.
Prepare accordingly.
Nothing you say is untrue.
History tells us in no uncertain terms that Marxists will kill everyone who disagrees with them the moment they have the opportunity to do so. They can’t be reasoned with, they can’t be persuaded, and they will never stop. Ever. They must BE stopped. And considering the extent to which they have infested the power structure of society at all levels, sitting around waiting on some government agency or law enforcement type to rescue you is even less realistic than waiting up all night for Santa Claus.
There are no rescuers coming. If we are to be rescued from the bloodthirsty Red Menace, we will have to do so ourselves. What’s worse, we can expect the commies to be at least partly successful in mobilizing the government’s jackboots on their behalf.
Quite against our will and wishes, we have found ourselves dragged into a Second American Revolution. The penalty for losing this one is a New Dark Ages that will cover the whole world and last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
The war analogy seems unhelpful here. One reason the far left is alienating people is precisely that they are treating this as war. The us vs. them rhetoric of loyalty and disloyalty drive people away from them, or, at least, creates a fifth column within their ranks. We win by providing an alternative to that approach. We win by allowing people to engage with their ideas without being alienated by us. We win by having an open door to people on their side. They are erecting a wall to keep people in. We succeed by putting holes in that wall – not by erecting our own fortifications.
We can definitely have an open ideological door for those willing to engage in honest discourse and discussion. But we hand a sword to those who would run us through if we think that ideal can be applied to the Marxist left. It cannot.
Unfortunately, if someone makes war on you, your choices are to fight back or die. The history of Marxist communism is quite clear: they will kill everyone who disagrees with them as soon as they acquire the means and power to do so, in the fanatical belief that this is the path to Utopia. (Fanatical as in the rank and file. The leaders are in it for power and control, hence the term “useful idiots” they coined to describe that rank and file.)
Between 100 and 120 million people were murdered by Marxists in just over seven decades of the 201th Century. Attempting to reason with Marxists is like attempting to talk locusts out of devouring your crops.
What fills me with hope and joy is seeing liberal become detached from left. To see the love of open debate and discourse move away from the problem. Untill just two three months ago I could see and struggle with huge ideological problems and have been doing so since about 2015 – with no word to pin down what I was fighting.
Now I have the words “woke faith” it’s the false religion in all its glory. It makes me so sad to see as I the bad ideas it’s founded on took a decade of my life to over come, honestly close to two. I’m not sure the kids that took this poison will ever be able to fix their brains. We will see. With love.
Its not serious yet. Just wait until the intersectional Cult has risen to the top of the military and government institutions and get their righteous fingers on the nuclear codes. In 15-20 years, a fully declined US, will still face “toxic countries”, which are overall Anti Woke (China), Full of Whiteness (Russia) or Non Inclusive (Pakistan). These evil unbelievers stockpile enough bombs to kill mankind several times over, but nevertheless needs to be pressured into compliance, to keep the US population under the spell. Perhaps a bunch of true believers in a rusty nuclear submarine or a biolab feel the urgent need to burn it all down and purge the evil from the face of the earth.
Reading some of the comments here – as in the one above – is not giving much hope in our ability to combat the Woke spread, if this is the intellectual calibre of New Discourses readership.
Perhaps a better system of verification of subscribers need to be implemented to prevent the comment sections turning into a YouTube forum for the unhinged.
There _was_ a comment review process at some point, but I haven’t encountered it in a while.
I agree. This article, the decision to publish it and some of the comments here actually make me question the entire project of new Discourses.
If this is what ‘defending reason’ looks like then i’m not sure i’m onboard with it.
Unhinged is good. Diversity divergence is the gist of cultural furthering neurological expansion into realms of multidimensional perspectives beyond the expected paradigms in need of renovation. You would be surprised how diverse Youtube is musically if you have the nous to be courageous and knew what to discard and what to look for and go beyond your own preconceptions and discover musicians such as Chelsea Wolfe for instance or remember Nico and many other worthwhile contributors not in the mainstream but at the site you so easily and facetiously denigrate. Bon Chance with your exaltations.
While the writer has some grasp on the seriousness of the situation, the polemic is overblown and bombastic.
We need serious and balanced articles written on the situation: anyone coming to this as an interested and concerned citizen will find the piece unbelievable and take it as paranoid hyperbole.
To counteract this movement we need to understand it. The article has gaping flaws in its understanding of the history and development of Critical Theory and the Postmodern philosophy which undergird Critical Social Justice.
We will only be able to counteract this movement if we fully understand its intellectual makeup.
I would recommend ‘Explaining Postmodernism’ by S. Hicks as a good starting point for a clearer understanding of what is driving this irrational moment.
“We will **only** be able to counteract this movement, if we fully understand its intellectual makeup.”
No more so, than if this mov’t was driven by Creationism, or Holocaust Denial.
This movement has power, almost entirely due to its usefulness to powerful elements on campuses, in gov’t., the MSM, and others, who are *dominated by hate* for Western Civ., the white race, the male gender, the Deplorable class, etc.
if you want to amuse yourself, working to fully understand this mov’t’s intellectual makeup, suit yourself.
But for those who really want to defeat this crowd, they should concentrate on working to defeat its power bases (incl. the Virtue-signalling status aspects, as shaped by the MSM/ TPTB).
The outcome of the coming election may well have a huge impact, upon the strength of these power bases.
As may the brewing moves by Wm. Barr, to set up an avalanche of busts of (mostly Dem) anti-Trump conspirators, in the Obama Admin., Congress, and (?) even the MSM.
The next month+ will tell, about whether there is an avalanche of such busts.
For one among many good places, to bone up on this (little-known, outside of Righty circles) drama, see, for occasional broad overviews (from a Jew), https://kunstler.com/, and for key details (from a Catholic), https://meaningInHistory.blogspot.com/ .
Here’s hoping Barr & Durham bring The Hammer of the Gods down on the foreheads of everyone involved in the coup.
As to Kunstler, I’ve been reading him over at Zero Hedge for years. It’s been a sight to see over the last few, how the actual far-left has shown him that he really wasn’t one of them after all. He still calls Trump “The Golden Golem of Greatness” but his tongue is a lot more firmly in his cheek after seeing what Obama & Pals pulled, not just on Trump, but on America. He’s a very talented and funny writer, and kudos to him for valuing the objective truth in front of his nose over ideology.
The other person I’ve not heard of, but I will go check him out. I’m always looking for new people who place honesty above partisanship.
“The outcome of the coming election may well have a huge impact, upon the strength of these power bases.
As may the brewing moves by Wm. Barr, to set up an avalanche of busts of (mostly Dem) anti-Trump conspirators, in the Obama Admin., Congress, and (?) even the MSM.
The next month+ will tell, about whether there is an avalanche of such busts.”
Well, the election certainly had an impact. The woke are now firmly in power. Did Barr ever bust anyone during his time with Trump?
Your concern trolling is duly noted for what it is. The article may not be delivered in the typical dryball prose proffered by the corporate, Marxist-sympathizing media, but can you list the points made within it which are factually incorrect?
Your comments here bear all the hallmarks of controlled opposition shilling: damning with faint praise, unsubstantiated claims of inaccuracy, pearl-clutching over the “tone” and a poorly disguised admiration for those of whom the original piece is critical. I could also point out how you responded to my above comment by exactly proving me correct with your accusations, but I’m fairly certain anyone who read both posts sees that quite clearly.
In summary, if you wish to derail a discussion on a place like this, you might want to take a breath, remember that you’re not on 4chan, and adjust your tactics accordingly. Have a nice day.
Your blatant anti-semitism is not welcome here. Not by me any way. I have already contacted the administration of the site. We will wait to see if this forum can actually offer any insight and debate on how best to counter the CSJ movement and not degenerate into the type of radical conspiracy based non-sense you seem intent on spewing here.
“Your blatant anti-semitism is not welcome here.”
You can peddle that fiction to someone else. The facts very clearly in evidence are:
• The Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University in Frankfurt Germany, was a real group of real people.
• Today they are known as “The Frankfurt School.”
• Every single member of that group was a Marxist radical, bent on collapsing Western Civilization, according to their own writings.
• Every single member of that group was also Jewish, which is why they fled Germany in the 1930s.
• Rockefeller had created Colleges of Education, all across the country, with the express purpose of Marxist indoctrination.
• When “The Frankfurt School” arrived here, they took up positions in universities and set about spreading their Marxist anti-Western, anti-American – and anti-White – ideals.
• It is from this group that what we call Critical Theory came into the world. It is specifically credited to Max Horkheimer, from a 1937 essay “Traditional and Critical Theory.” Theodore Adorno is also credited with the creation of this vile bit of “philosophy.”
This all happened. These are FACTS. If stating that constitutes “antisemitism” to you, that’s your problem. I have seen how the shriek of “antisemite!” is used just like the term from which it derives, namely “racist!” to shut down discussion and attempt to scare people into silence.
“I have already contacted the administration of the site.”
Good for you, Karen! You go talk to the manager. Meanwhile, those of us who aren’t trying to censor and concern troll will get on with life.
Listen you little prick – I have a graduate degree in Philosophy – with my final paper wrote on Relativism and Richard Rorty – I know who the fckin Frankfurt school are.
You are blatantly anti-semitic and the fact that your posts are still here is damming to this whole sight.
We don’t need idiots like your self bringing disrepute to an essential area of study and the fight against the woke take over of our culture.
Anyone coming to this sight not well versed in the language and post-modern philosophy which under girds this whole movement will see your post and think the whole place is very unsavoury.
I will keep on trying to contact who ever is supposed to be administrating this place to have you removed.
If in doubt, if one cannot counter a criticism out comes -anti- antisemitism- and when no satisfaction is received the blame continues and now it is the administration of the site. Next the rising of the outraged and the revolution is on – where is Herr —- insert a bolshevik like Trotsky/Bernstein et.al –when you need them to further the -not welcome here- authentic moralist par excellence. Nice to have diversity from all sorts of mental cogitations here.
Mic, when you say you want “Balanced” you are showing what you want someone to tell that evil is really not that bad, nor does it have fangs anymore. events in the last 3 months say otherwise. “to counteract this movement” is not going to be intellectual in nature, this is spiritual and is filling the gap that fundamentally God filled in America. the fundamental issue is spiritual and the only way to bring a solution to it is for America to turn back to God (Jesus) who provided us the freedoms and liberties and responsibilities that exist in His rulership and laws.
yeah but still – a bunch of unhinged reactionaries wearing ‘reason’ like a dress whilst they actually have a very flimsy grasp on it – is not going to help anything. In fact it will probably just make everything worse.
Thanks, Mick. I’ve read some criticism of that work by Hicks, but I think I’ll pick it up.
concern trolling
But what can we do? The unstoppable totalitarian train steams onward. What is there for a common man to do?
The only strategy I have in my arsenal is called “silent disagreement” or “withrawal of cooperation.” One would have to work out what that would look like in this particular situation. For me it includes not watching TV and not carrying my phone on me when I go out around town.
Where free speech is still possible, that should also be used provide useful information.
You said: “And make no mistake, to be silent against it, is to tacitly subscribe to it. ”
Careful lest you become what you’re fighting against.
I get your point but I’m fairly certain James intends that statement as a prophesy while the SJW’s mean it as a threat.
no..both are expressing good old marxist false consciousness theory. If you do not actively stand up against the tyranny of the class system you are tacitly complicit in it. Plus the entire article is basically an echo of the very same febrile language the ‘woke’ use….
…except they describe the tyranny of the class system and its ‘cultural’ new version ‘white supremacy’ as the deadly enemy against which everyone must fight with all their being.
… If you don’t then you are a part of white supremacy.
Plus the article wraps ‘objective reason’ up in an entirely too convenient and philosophically naive rosy bundle. The kind that risks actual white supremacy – of the sort that saw Aboriginal children taken from their homes to boarding schools to be ‘re-educated’ in the superior ways of rational white western culture.
The vexations and confusions around ‘objective reason’ cannot be all placed at the door of the CSJ woke brigade- Even if they may be a rather unhealthy manifestation of such vexations.
You might as well blame physics and the vacum catastrophe problem- or the problems of subatomic non-locality – or the replication and delay problem in medical research.
I normally find the essays on here intelligent. Not this one.
The Harper’s Letter points toward the kind of coordination mechanism you need, in order to credibly change “common knowledge” about the state of privately held opinions, and it ain’t easy, but otherwise it ain’t happening.
For your “coordination letter”, you need, roughly,
-a fixed and unambiguous statement for people to sign and commit to that declares their stance (otherwise it will be walked back under social pressure)
-a way to ensure the collected signatories are real people and from the US (otherwise people will say it’s bots)
-an overwhelmingly large number N, like 100 million (otherwise it will be written off as an insignificant minority opinion and signatories will be picked off)
-a credibly secure and trustworthy mechanism by which the identity of the signatories is only released once the number N is met and not before (1)
-a way to hold the maintainer of the letter-system responsible and provide damages if it fails and reveals identities before N is met (2)
-a clear explanation of how it will work that you agree you’ve read before you sign it (otherwise people can claim they didn’t understand it)
(1) If the security of such a proposed system isn’t real and verifiable it will be (and should be) written off as a honeypot operation.
(2) If individuals cannot expect some kind of damages for the possibility that the system is compromised, they have reason not to sign.
This is the only way I see people – “normal” social-calculation-making people, not single heroic idiots – actually credibly showing up to stand for “Reason”. Kickstarter for “common knowledge”.
You could probably do this on a much smaller scale for individual towns or something, but it’d have to be somewhere that matters, and again N needs to be a large enough fraction of that place that it won’t be written off.
If it sounds far-fetched, it is. I have little hope in it working. But as far as I know the experiment has not been tried: existing petition platforms I’ve seen visibly attach the names of signatories immediately.
I stand in defense of Confederate Monuments in my home town almost every Sunday. I have held signs including “Monuments Now…Books later?”, “Apparently Le Gend Talliferro’s Life didn’t matter!” and “Objective Reality is the only Truth!”
Try it. You will meet great people who think like you.
DA
Charleston, SC
Everything is said correctly in this article. But totalitarianism succeeds over and over again for a very straightforward reason: the “silent majority” first doesn’t care, and then it gets completely indoctrinated as only one party comes to power. They never listen to the voice of reason and never will. So what to do with all those people? The only thing that can affect their opinion is propaganda. And they are those who formally decide while in reality, it is not they who do.
The Chinese cultural revolution started this same way — people were shamed for certain words and discussions — then they were punished — them jailed. Their children weee taught to turn in parents for private discussions around the dinner table. The parent was taken away and never came home. The children were then raised in state “education” camps living in dormitories. Yes this is dire and we don’t have much time don’t be quiet. Speak up.
Just reread a memoir from the Cultural Revolution and it is beyond eerie to see so many similarities in rhetoric. The author acknowledges it took decades for the majority of China to realize they’d been duped by a political power struggle under the guise progress in society.
What book did you read?
Amen Friend! I am one of the people who speak no matter the outcome, as to not be free scares me more than looking for employment elsewhere or being attacked! And the thought of my daughter, who is a thinker, to not be able to express how she feels is unacceptable!
Thanks for writing this, stand strong.
All Critical Race Theory et al. amounts to is Psychological Projection. of- to quote the old adage about’ brains being computers’, feed Garbage in, get Garbage out! Fantasy has to confront Reality at some point. Fantasy does not put food on the table, or meet our basic housing needs. At that point what value has an A+ Masters Degree in White Fragility?
I could go along with you further, but you seem to think the far left is the problem while the far right claims climate change is a hoax, masks hurt your, Covid is not a problem (I know people who actually died of that lie), making quid pro quo with foreign powers to stir up bogus dirt on a political problem “fake news”, Fox “news” rather than the truth: “main stream” news like NYTimes and WSJ have a bias but generally try to report truth while Fox news doesn’t even really have investigative reporters it exists purely as a propaganda site primarily for the benefit of super wealthy interests. Beyond this, things dribbles down to evolution anti-vaccines (bi-partisan!), evolution denial.
The far or “alt” left and right are EXACTLY the same people, just running slightly different scripts and slight nuances between when they employ mob think vs violence. A pox on both their houses!
Rather,
I agree that both the right and the left have abandoned reality in their own ways. But what is scarier about the left is that they’ll force you to say things you don’t believe in ways much more far-reaching than the right.
Its not the “right” that is threatening our way of life. America as it was founded is gone forever if democrats win November’s election.
“while the far right claims climate change is a hoax,”
Who? Where? What exactly do you mean by ‘far-right?’ Ben Shapiro, a prominent commentator on the right, someone who is decidedly conservative, regularly cites the IPCC on global warming statistics as a credible source. Do you mean Trump? He originally called global warming a ‘Chinese hoax’ in a tweet that he later said was a joke.
“masks hurt your,”
Excuse me, but masks hurt your what? Or did you just mean to say that the far-right has been claiming ‘masks hurt you?’ Again, I have to ask, where? Initially, it was WHO and the CDC that said masks were useless, and their initial argument for why they are useless was sound; it just wasn’t applicable to the way in which we are using masks to prevent the spread of this disease.
“Covid is not a problem (I know people who actually died of that lie),”
Nobody I know has said that; what people are pointing out is the fact that the increase of deaths from despair, up from the average in our country, an increase which started in the month of May, up until now, has accounted for far more deaths than COVID-19 has in America. The ‘cure’ (the lockdown) has been measurably worse than the disease, and when compared to places like Germany, who was less strict on rules than the entire US has been, or Sweden which did nothing at all, the US has done a lot more to stop the spread of the disease, and seen a lot more cases. The only correlative factor seems to be population density.
“making quid pro quo with foreign powers to stir up bogus dirt on a political problem”
I’m confused. . . are you talking about the actual corruption case that Hunter Biden got caught in, or the Steele Dossier that the Clinton campaign colluded with the Ukraine to fabricate?
“‘fake news”,’
Let me guess; the New York Times and CNN tell the truth, while Fox News is nothing but lies, right? Those two news orgs, along with MSNBC, have made more egregious mistakes and worked so hard to push the debunked Russiagate conspiracy theory that they have drowned our country and the world in disinformation.
“Fox “news” rather than the truth: “main stream” news like NYTimes and WSJ have a bias but generally try to report truth while Fox news doesn’t even really have investigative reporters it exists purely as a propaganda site primarily for the benefit of super wealthy interests.”
Well, I called that one cold. I’m not psychic, I’ve just heard this a million times before. Stop reading Democracy Now and the NYT and, yes, start watching more Fox News, and then actually fact-check them yourself instead of relying on another partisan news source to fact-check them for you. As of right now, Fox News is sitting at about a 60% accuracy rate, which is far higher than the NYT or CNN.
See, this is exactly what the article is talking about; there’s reality, and then there’s bullshit, and at least half of your comment is bullshit.
And yes, the far left is the problem. The right did not create critical theory. That is an invention of a group of communists and Marx-admirers who translated conflict theory into other in-group/out-group clashes.
Thank you for writing ALL TBAT so that I didn’t have to.
Well done.
Amazing. This discussion has somehow devolved into a garbage meaningless comparison between left and right news media. Adopting the left vs right framework into your argument renders your entire argument meaningless. This is not reason. This is exactly the type of garbage that we need to throw out, and I’m disappointed that I’m the one that has to point it out.
Exactly. It’s the FORMAT of the “news” itself and its impact on your limbic system which is the problem, not the content or whether it’s slanted left or right. News – ALL news – distorts your perception of risk, systematically misleads, and dumbs you down. News is the equivalent of high fructose corn syrup for your brain. Avoid it as much as possible no matter which way it slants.
Yes. But the Left/Right dichotomy is largely a fiction. We should be able to see through that one. That is a part of why the mainstream’s propaganda campaign is making things worse. It ignores the true source of the problem: Irrationality itself. It can happen to anyone who is not properly prepared to fight it off when it hits.
Your a little closer to the truth then most on here, but still immersed in the Matrix/false reality invented by the educational system and corporate news monopoly, which in reality is conservative [Some liberal virtue signal to sound liberal, but still promote the neo-con agenda while sounding woke, anyway,], there is no liberal media, and liberalism is not the problem like some on here polly- parrot, the nation was founded upon liberalism.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties…
Officially we have two parties which are in fact wings of a common party of property with two right wings. Corporate wealth finances each. Since the property party controls every aspect of media they have had decades to create a false reality for a citizenry largely uneducated by public schools that teach conformity with an occasional advanced degree in consumerism.”
― Gore Vidal, Imperial America & The United States of Amnesia
True, FOX is more accurate then the rest, as planned, the fake liberal media are the straw-men as Woke and the other PC isms are, so stupid that they will be knocked over by conservatives, and then they can use a lot of actual truth to promote the conservative agenda which is fascism [corporate or private control of government with curtailments of civil liberties, like in Bush land/Patriot-Act,], a return to the old order of church and state.
Shocking? Reality sucks, I know, but what I just said in a few words on here will check out if one is willing to look behind the green curtain to see what the wizard is really doing.
The big money promotes socialism, communism, invented it actually, as a boogyman to scare the masses back towards the old order, or Ancien Regime of church and state, with monopolies and special privileges for the elite. Look at any conservative administration since the end of the New Deal and FDR, they have done plenty to destroy the free market for all, empower corporations [who take your jobs overseas to slave plantations, like their friends of old with their slave plantations here, until liberals destroyed that,] and expand the surveillance state, Democrats doing the same while mouthing some liberal slogans.
Its all a big circus and side-show designed to distract you from reality and from seeing the larger picture.
By the way, the right, or conservatism did invent all of these isms, funded them to create a false and scary opponent that could be used to further their conservative agenda which is the final effort of the counter-enlightenment, and even counter-reformation, the return of the dark ages.
Right now you will think I’m some mad man or nut case, so be it. I thought back during my days in the cold war that such thinking was way out there. But as I deepened my studies into history and religion, the picture became clear.
What is maddening is listening to all of you on here engaging in the limited spectrum of acceptable thought, the false reality created for us to keep us ineffectual in making any real change, from the fake two party system to the false left-right paradigm, lumping liberalism in with socialism. It was the last grasps of the Age of Reason that condemned socialism when it came to light in the early 1800s, and big conservative money that funded Marx, not to mention later making sure Lenin got back to Russia to create the communist state which later enabled the cold war, created for us by fascists left over from the 1940s.
One of ,modern conservatism’s greatest elephants in the room is the idea that the big money and banksters want communism, nonsense, it useful to exploit to achieve the final goal, which is a return to nobility and feudalism.
So, despite what I’m saying here, I think you saw through some of what is missing in this article, and its a good appraisal of the situation, although like most, and yours, lacking in certain realities which without seeing, doom this whole effort to failure. I agree with you about this,
“…there’s reality, and then there’s bullshit, and at least half of your comment is bullshit.”
OK, I said enough for now, although I think the good captain’s statement from Treasure Island might apply here, “Now you’ve said too much, and too little” I know I have!
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
―Noam Chomsky
“In every country unscrupulous wealth can, by artificially “making opinion,” mislead and beguile the people more easily and with less chance of detection than in any other way. Democracy has no more persistent or insidious foe than the money power, to which it may say, as Dante said when he reached in his journey through hell the dwelling of the God of Riches, “Here we found Wealth, the great enemy.”
–James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, Modern Democracies (1921), Vol. 2. , p. 486 [British politician, diplomat, and historian best known for his highly successful ambassadorship to the United States (1907–13) and for his study of U.S. politics, The American Commonwealth, which remains a classic.]
“This world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other. This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralization of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found. “
—Mikhail Bakunin, Profession de foi d’un démocrate socialiste russe précédé d’une étude sur les juifs allemands, 1869
[Interesting note, look at Communist China today, outwardly communist, but more like a corporate fascist state, and in league with the feudal, Gilded Age style money powers of the west to provide slave labor for profits!]
You missed the point, didn’t you!
Either specify the”point” missed, or spare us, by leaving here, e.g. for Daily Kos.
The Far Right (actual far right like National Socialists, not conservatives and libertarians) and Far Left (which consists primarily of certain culture movements, communists, anarchists, and other assorted ideologies) are going absolutely insane when it comes to the culture war, there are civil wars in the Democratic and Republican parties for the very soul of them.
As for the rule of law, I don’t have as much faith in it as you do, have you been following what’s been going on in Portland? It’s getting rough.
I almost feel like this is the death spiral that a liberal democracy can take, and I genuinely do fear a civil war.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t know, when I see what I see, I can’t help but feel like this is where the buck finally stops.
“civil wars in the Democratic and Republican parties for the very soul of them.”
Nazi types’ power in the GOP is *nothing*, compared to “certain culture movements’ ” power in the Dem party.
Were the latter’s power only that of the Nazi types’ power, the prospects for this democracy would be far better than they are, i.e. civil war would be extremely remote prospect.
Where’s the Nazi equivalent of Portland?
Minneapolis, where the people we entrust to use violence to protect us murdered an innocent man, violating their sacred trust.
I’m sorry … are you referring to the incident in which a man with a history of violent felonies overdosed on multiple illegal narcotics and then died while police held him down and waited for an ambulance (which they had called)?
If so, your definition of “murder” and “innocent” seems to be somewhat problematic.
You are incorrect in your political placement of the National Socialists. The ideology of National Socialists is on the left. Strong government control, reliance on the state, and stripping away of personal liberties is part of their makeup. National Socialism and Communism is like a train track: Two separate rails but both bonded together and heading the same place.
The far right is so obvious in its absurdities that it’s easy to defeat. Not wearing masks can kill but not as many people as died in Cambodian killing fields, gulags (even now in China) or of famine (Ukraine, Myanmar and soon Venezuela).
The Woke ideology will destroy our institutions and with it our way of life. And then there will be nowhere to go.
I recognize the terror, I grew up with it in Romania. From the age of 5 I was afraid to say in public what I heard at home. As I grew up I had to split my world in two: the honest one, in the very small circle of my immediate family, where I could express myself and the hypocritical outside world in which I had to be extremely careful with what I said.
It terrifies me to see this world creeping around me now when so many young professionals in many industries tell me the same thing: they are afraid to say what they think, no matter how innocuous, for fear of LOSING THEIR JOBS.
In response to an article published by my husband in National Review Online, many people expressed support but admitted being afraid to do it in public.
This is not the America so many of us came to. 14% of Americans are non-US born. Why do you think people came here and are still crowding at our borders?
We must preserve THAT America!
I find fault with your statement about the WSJ and NYT . They consistently have jumped on things without investigating. Example the Catholic school kids and now are paying the price for it.
As for FOX news they do have investigators out in the field doing their job correctly.
I think you should do some research, the media has been lying to us for decades. Turn the TV off & do some research. You will be shocked at what you find.
I’m still on the fence about whether the situation is this dire. What I’m most pissed off about is that the Universities let things get this bad at all. Disgusting.
It’s not just academia. It’s publishing, the arts, journalism, many churches, public (and private) education, medicine, law, science, and all of leftwing politics. That means the only places where wokeness hasn’t taken over are rightwing politics & think tanks, some churches, and … what else is there?
Freemasonry still stands for love of God, love of country, and love of family.
…and objective truth.
Freemasonary is a religious cult straight from the devil
Sure, but my point is that the disease was incubated in the Universities. Standards in the Humanities, in particular, went out the window. I’m still working out for myself, in broad strokes, as to how this happened. My worry is projects like New Discourses are too little. too late.
Liberal Democratic societies are only possible with: a) a well-functioning, informative media (degenerating by the day), b) a relatively educated populace (degenerating by the day), c) an intellectual elite bound together by moral and intellectual virtue (…), d) a political elite able and willing to inspire and lead the populace and e) faith in humanity.
All of these things are on the downswing. The saving grace is that the backbone of our culture, the rule of law, is basically still intact. People pressured into white-only struggle-sessions and the like need to start suing, like yesterday.
Right, Liberals, Libertarians: “I don’t agree with you, but I’ll die defending your right to say what you feel.”
Left, Democrats, Leftists: “Do you love Comrade Stalin?”
By the way, don’t let the negative people get you down. I appreciate dissenting opinions and the simple fact that you’re here means that you’re still open to reason. Keep fighting and thinking, it may just save you in the days to come.
“[M]y point is that the disease was incubated in the Universities.”
Correct. And not even the author of this piece correctly identifies the origins of it. About a century ago, Rockefeller spent a ton of money to endow Colleges of Education at Universities all across the country. Their true mission: indoctrinate educators into what’s called “Fabian Socialism,” which I’ll merely describe as “Marxism by ten thousand paper cuts” and leave you to research further as you please.
Just prior to WWII, the true originators of Critical Theory fled Germany and came to America. They had been part of a group called the Institute for Social Research, which was based out of a University in Frankfurt.
Today, they are referred to as “The Frankfurt School.” The leftists insist that any reference to existence of The Frankfurt School is, and I quote, “an antisemitic trope.” And yet the Frankfurt School, comprised entirely of Jewish Marxist radicals, was 100% real. Incidentally, or perhaps not, Frankfurt is also the city where a man, born with the surname of Bauer, changed it to Rothschild and proceeded to use numerical chicanery to take control of the world’s financial systems. Karl Marx was a third cousin of this family.
Max Horkheimer, along with Jürgen Habermas, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and others, founded this anti-Western think tank with the aim of collapsing all of Western Civilization. When they fled to America, they found a ready-made home in places like New York’s Columbia University. Eventually, their ideas would spread out and infect almost every College of Education in the country, as they were already set up to be Marxist indoctrination facilities.
What is referenced as having taken place in the 90s was merely the eruption of a long-festering ideological boil on the ass of the American Body Politic. What we now face are thousands of well-placed, West-hating, White-hating Cultural Marxists who’ve acquired positions of power and influence all throughout society. The rabble in the streets are merely cannon fodder: dangerous, yes, to a point, but not the source of the problem. The actual source of the problem, the gaslighting Marxist indoctrinators known as professors, are firmly dug in, protected by Marxist judges, shielded from scrutiny or criticism by Marxist media outlets ans funded by both wealthy private Marxists and those in government, who use our tax dollars to do so.
So, yes: It is dire. Right now.
This type of comment should be taken for what it is: anti-Semitic conspiracy theory!
Please don’t let this place slide into a haven for lunatics. My criticism of the piece below shows my concerns with bombastic articles written in this vein.
Im afraid the sloppy, hyperbolic rhetoric of the article will invite such drivel as what is posted above.
The piece shouldn’t have been ran as a leading article I’m afraid. After holding great hope in this new site and the great respect I have for James and those associated with him – coming to the site today I see a different space than I expected.
Free-speech is paramount for an open-society, but this type of comment is not welcomed and should be called out.
With ant-semites like you supporting the cause the war is already lost.
2nd Opinion points out facts.
Marxist Mick “problematizes” those facts, perverting them from objective reasoning into an oppressor-oppressed cultural Marxist narrative.
Ladies & Gentlemen, right before our very eyes here in our Petri dish of comment agar-agar has grown a disgusting but interesting blob of that which we wish to examine! How cool is that??!?
Good comment.
What else is there? Millions upon millions of households, where SJW views are rejected.
government is left, and it has entered heavily now into that arena. See Christopher Rufo on twitter.
Is there something demonic lurking behind all of this?
It’s dire. And it’s worse than you think. I was first exposed to Critical Race Theory in 2005 during a week long equity training all of my organization’s employees had to take. At the time I thought, “People will see through this nonsense and speak up.” I tried to speak and nearly lost my job (I decided to resign).
The author is right: The former college kids schooled under CRT are now adults, and are leading HR departments—as well as equity departments. You CANNOT reason with these people, and they are real.
I was standing before a historical monument today in a prominent Southern City holding a sign pointing out the hypocrisy of BLM. The Leftist protestors lost their minds, especially the young white women. There was NO reasoning with these people.
You are correct. You were probably in RVA.
William, understand 99% of all universities have administrative guidance by liberal professors. They have been teaching liberalism an socialism since the 1970`s . That is why we’re at this point now. Destroy anything that makes sense. Destroy all history. They are now calling for history to not be thought in schools and to destroy all history books.
As for racism! People of any color or ethnic groups are racist in their own way! With that said let me explain! Those that aren’t educated or aggressively pursing a better life stay in their own pod of people ant assimilating into society. People who are educated and aggressive assimilate well into society.
It’s dire.
I am a retired professor who is just as angry as you are.
What we are looking at is a hostile takeover by a new religion-a religion whose main belief is that intellectuals from the elite universities should be in charge of the worldview that dominates our lives.
Hang on-I know something about this ;I was present at the creation.
If you are going to have a religion the first thing you are gong to need is good and evil. When I was young good was defined by the values of Western Civilization with liberty at the top. In modern times good was defined by the values of Western Civilization until the left arrived to dominate our public conversation . Eventually the left came to dominate universities, which is the most important factory of ideas at this time. Now equality is at the top of our value scale.
By first dominating the universities the left came to dominate the media and law schools and Hollywood. Critical theory focuses on law.
Join me at my podcast Google: Citizes Gone Wild Podcast.
Your article is very perceptive and important. Maybe together we can effectively fight back.
Academia mostly believes it is the truth – plus they have a vested interest in not rejecting aspects of wokeness….
Hello there,
I’m a immigrant living in Canada and has been following the cultural war since the very beginning in 2015-16. I learned about the grievance studies affair at the beginning of 2019. I just want to say that this SJW regressive ideology has to be defeated, it absolutly has to be.
This is a civilisational threat, all sane liberals from both the left and the right and esspecialy, all sane immigrants and minorities who are grateful about what the liberal democratic world has to offer have to united and speak out.
I don’t have a very big platform, but I’ve been trying to inform my families and friends about this problem. I can tell that many minorities started to feel like something is wrong about the left. Most of them are not right-wing or Trump supporter and don’t understatnd yet Social Justice ideology in its full horror, but they are starting to see that the mainstream woke narrative is weird and wrong.
Thanks you Mr. Boghossian and Lindsay and Ms. Pluckrose for raising the alarm, once enough people are aware of it we can mount a counter-attack. we have to win this war, our futur is at stake.