Resisting Critical Race Theory Workshop, Session 3 of 5
What is Critical Race Theory? What does it believe? Where does it come from? How does it work? And what can we do about it? These are core questions to understanding our times. In this series of lectures, originally delivered in Tampa, Florida, in July of 2021, James Lindsay, the founder of New Discourses, gives thorough, deep answers to these questions.
In this third lecture in this eye-opening series on Critical Race Theory, Lindsay goes even deeper, into what he refers to as the “deep ideological roots” of Critical Race Theory. These roots are, predominantly, in the Communist Theory of Karl Marx. Marx’s mid-19th century ideas were based on other ideas, however, particularly those of the German idealist G.W.F. Hegel and the French romantic Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In this lecture, Lindsay makes abundantly clear the relevance of these 18th and 19th century social theorists and philosophers to the Critical Race Theory plaguing the world today. He also makes important connections through the intellectual godfather of Critical Race Theory, a black scholar from the turn of the 20th century named W.E.B. Du Bois. After this lecture, you will have a deep understanding of how Critical Race Theory is both Race Marxism and just a racial manifestation of the broader “dialectical faith of Leftism” that finds its origins primarily in Hegel and Rousseau. Join him in this and the other lectures in the series to understand Critical Race Theory like you never have before!
For those interested in learning even more, Lindsay’s newest book, Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis, was developed out of the notes for this series of lectures. His notes for this lecture served as the basis for the very detailed third chapter of the book. Get the book and follow along with the lectures!
Session 1: What is Critical Race Theory?
Session 2: The Proximate Ideological Origins of Critical Race Theory
Session 4: How Critical Race Theory Operates
Session 5: What to Do About Critical Race Theory
The audio version of this presentation is available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or by RSS.
6 comments
If I quote James Lindsay or Christopher Rufo to my friends on the left, they just shut down. Critical Race Theorists’ own words are less likely to be dismissed. The source reference for the “odd place for a bunch of Marxists” quote from Richard Delgado would be very helpful.
Here’s a potentially inspiring chart from the 1940s
https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/1941-constitutional-education-league-map/
Regarding “anti-communist education”, here is what many considered the Maoist Anne Frank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scarf_Girl
Human attempts to understand themselves have a long history. What I have noticed about many of these attempts is that the personalities of the thinkers get involved with the theories they are developing, and those theories end up just explaining themselves to themselves. If these explanations “resonate” with many other people (some non-academic, one might presume) then you get attempts to apply these theories in the form of political movements, or perhaps religious or other movements.
It seems one must aim very high and be extremely rational to escape the trap of inventing just another theory that explains and justifies one’s own personality and accomplishes very little else.
Through all this academic gyration runs a countervaling current of common sense. Though many of us use common sense to keep our feet on the ground amid a barrage of bizarre ideas from the wild creative minds of Earth, it is amazing how fragile common sense can be in the face of certain very persuasive ideas. James grounds his own position in a combination of common sense (knowing what usually works best) and perhaps some other training or whatever and so seems sane compared to the theories of the Woke, or Marx or Hegel, or Rousseau.
I must excuse myself, I suppose, in admitting that I haven’t studied all these theories myself. I had a practical background melded with an artistic background, and I needed workable data much more than I needed beautiful thoughts, and I still feel that way about my approach to life. And so I found my useful data, which most academics think is very ugly indeed. Yet their gyrations bother me much less now, so I feel my own path of discovery has done me some good.
The missing elements of understanding human life on Earth are intellectually huge and observationally nearly invisible. So the fact that a human managed to piece this together is a bit of a miracle. But the basic finding is that personality survives death and is for all intents and purposes immortal. Thus, if you can find tools to help the individual remember all that he (she) has experienced with some degree of accuracy, a universe of data opens up that simply has not been available to thinkers of the past. This universe of data, when built up by interviewing many different individuals, begins to present us with certain interesting patterns which can inform new understandings in physics, biology, politics, organizations, as well as psychology.
In some ways, this data blows apart the whole focus on race as a basic element of personal identity from the realization that most beings have experienced many different ethnic and racial identities. The preceding is just an example of how radically different our understanding of human experience could become if we take this finding (normally considered as a purely religious belief) seriously and pursue the data that has been extracted from research done so far in this direction, and which is continuing today.
Every time I read one of your channelled Gnostic-Gnudnik comments, I recall the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his 1980s legions of young and pretty bourgeois yoga-pant shamaness Manson-girl New Age Woo-Woo-cult zombie-whores who were enlightened-deflowered with eons of higher mystic “neo-sannyasin” crystal-light “knowledge” while their chakras were opened by the Bhagwan’s randy lingum during dimwit-chick-shtupping in the back of one of his 72 Rolls Royces (his reincarnation Car Nation) parked outside his love-bimbo ashram-brothel. The Bhaggy-One also loved the idea of reincarnation because it gave him an eternal supply of hot babes to bang.
“The ashram at which [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh] had cultivated his spiritual movement, [was] run with his particular brand of “capitalism, meditation, ethnic and dirty jokes, and open sexuality…”
“Reports indicate that Rajneesh was obsessed with the finer things in life, becoming the owner of the world’s largest collection of Rolls Royces, and indulging in multi-million dollar jewels. He would take money from his followers, ‘donations’ to his cause, and use them on himself.”
https://allthatsinteresting.com/rajneesh
“Crimes and Arrest… As tensions between the commune and the local government community [in Antelope Oregon] increased, Rajneesh and his followers soon turned to more drastic measures to achieve their ends… including murder, wiretapping, voter fraud, arson and a mass salmonella poisoning in 1984 that affected more than 700 people… During his subsequent trial, Rajneesh pleaded guilty of immigration charges, realizing that a plea bargain was the only way he’d be allowed to return to India.”
https://www.biography.com/religious-figure/bhagwan-shree-rajneesh
“Rajneesh… was seen as a reactionary ideologue of the monopolistic bourgeoisie of India, promoting the ideas of the consumer society in a traditional Hindu guise…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh_movement
Om, simply Om. (There’s One Born Every Minute.) Blessed Be.
ps You’re not helping the cause.
My brother James , I’m going to listen to this after coming up for air after your other two rapid fire lectures. You are doing a great job of condensing the huge knowledge you have been laying down the last years , and I have been listening and some things are coming together in a powerful way. I’m starting to remember names and some fundamentals they stand for , Krenshaw. Bell , Delgado. Marcuse , Angela Davis , something River Collective, I haven’t remembered that. Hegal , Marx , Gramsci and the father of Pete Butikeg a Gramsci expert, Horkheimer , Adorno, Paulo Freire. Henrey Giroux , Kendi, De Angelo etc . Many others I’m starting to focus in on .
I actualy think I could flip Brianna Faith Joy, ex press secretary of Bernie Sanders , because now I see exact where she got some of her logic.
These CRT fools insult my intelligence , of course no one is passing out Krenshaw books in kindergarten, these are the origins , the logic comes from here , and it is evil and should be presented like studying Mein Komf , scrutinizing, mocking, belittling , and shunned.
I saw you defending the post modernists . Even a broken clock is right twice , so, some things they say are right , but anything someone has pointed out at look what they said right, I figured out for myself and don’t need them. I think Thadeus Russel is trying to influence you on these matters, ok, some things he sais are ok, others I just don’t trust. I keep my eye in him.