The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 38
At the heart of the “Woke” (Critical Social Justice) movement is the abuse of language, which is perpetrated in order to abuse power. Therefore, at the heart of the New Discourses project is a Critical Social Justice Encyclopedia, Translations from the Wokish, that documents these abuses and helps to decode them so that everyday people won’t be taken in by them. One of the projects taken up by James Lindsay and the New Discourses team with that Encyclopedia is to document the theoretical underpinnings of the Critical Social Justice ideology so that people can understand not just the words but also why they are given the particular distorted meanings they have.
In line with that, and because it is the heart of the “Woke” (Critical Social Justice) movement is the concept of Neo-Marxism, which is the school of thought brought to the world by (communist) people like György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Angela Davis. It’s almost impossible to understand the Woke ideology without understanding this precursor. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, join James Lindsay as he reads through and adds nuance and detail to the relevant “neo-Marxism” entry in his Critical Social Justice Encyclopedia so that you can better understand where Wokeness comes from and how it thinks and operates.
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7 comments
The problem is that this ideology has some kind of magical draw to it that brings it popularity and power that are impossible to beat with debate alone. Mark my words, if global trends towards mass democracy continue then neo-Marxism will be the ideology under which those democracies will operate. There is no way to stop it without embracing some form of violent resistance.
I have a thought on the “magic.”
While Marxism has been discredited, the following expression has not:
“From each according to his abilities;
to each according to his need.”
This is alluring. It seems right, fair and inspiring. Of course, it is practiced in our FAMILIES everyday in every civilization throughout all time.
However, if a society should FORCE this idea on others (through the coercive power of the state) it is a tyranny.
I’ll leave you with an old wisdom.
“There’s a way that seems right to a man;
but in the end leads to death.”
Proverbs
“There’s a way that seems right to a man;
but in the end leads to death.”
Proverbs
one such way :
EQUITY
D.E.I. => D.I.E.
WOKE Communism
The deadliest political ideology in modern history
WOKE makes it even deadlier
James
It only looks magical because we can’t see who’s pulling the strings.
The reality is it’s being trained and taught in a systematic way through the networks of (a) political parties (they have huge mailing lists), and (b) BLM.
If it wasn’t able to masquerade as a way to deal with racism, it wouldn’t have got to where it is today.
A good reason, if you need another one (there are many), not to murder people when you’re trying to arrest them.
Yeah. I think the, “magical draw” is that people need ritual and faith. The idiot secular atheists kept pushing to take that away from people, many people fell for it, took it into the education system, and now, walla. We don’t even give the kids the simple ritual of pledging to the flag anymore.
We have weak, deluded teachers preaching to children with no faith of their own (because their parents don’t have any either) the wonderful world of CRT, and wokey-dokey nonsense. It sounds grand, takes the place of religion, and sometimes even cult religious fervor.
God forbid it takes over much more. Parents are starting to make a raucous about it, and that is very good.
We shall see.
James Lindsay, I don’t know how you keep so much information regarding the origins and evolution of CRT and CSJ in your head, but I just can’t! No matter how many of your pieces I read or podcasts I listen to, I can’t seem to hold onto it all at once and grasp all the connections; it’s so elusive, probably because a lot of it is insane! Anyway, in your spare time (that was ironic), could you possibly create a visual, like a flowchart/family tree, of all the “intellectuals”/schools of thought along the way who have contributed to what we have today in the form of CSJ? It would be so helpful, especially to those of us who are more visual leaners!
It’s all just Hegel-Marx.
The Frankfurt School so-called Critical Theorists were disappointed by the failure of Marxism.
The French post-modern ‘philosophers’ were disillusioned with Marxism.
BLM are mostly Marxists.
You can map all the splinter groups who said ‘we’ve updated Hegel/Marx’ but it’s still one plant from one root.