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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Moving this to a top-level comment, since the point seems generally applicable.

Previously, a conversation about "Cultural Marxism" vs "Marxism".

@Eetan

Not similar at all. Aim of Marxism is indeed radical social change, while aim of wokeism is preserving society as it is, only with more rainbow flags and transgender toilets.

There's a point of view from which the point of Scientology is to allow someone to rid themselves of the Thetans that cling to them, becoming "clear" and unlocking the supernatural powers that are every human's true birthright. There's another sense in which the point of Scientology is to scam people into placing everything they have and are at the mercy of a vast, highly scalable scam so systemized that it outlived its creator and arguably now runs itself. Both of these could be, potentially, valuable ways to understand and discuss Scientology, but it's important to understand the distinction between them.

When talking about groups and how they relate to each other, I think it's not terribly useful to argue over whether two groups are, in their immutable essence, related or not related to each other. I think it's much more useful to lay out one's own understanding of the salient connection or separation between the groupings under discussion. It seems evident to me that you believe Marxism and Wokeism share no relation, because Wokeism has discarded too much of Marxism's theory and practice. I can readily concede that this is a coherent view to hold, if one thinks that the specific elements of theory and practice are the core of Marxism, rather than the periphery.

On the other hand, it is not obvious to me that wokism is any less aimed at producing radical social change than Marxism is. Certainly it seems to me that it has succeeded in changing society quite radically in the short time it's existed as the current, coherent, legible ideology. Certainly the Woke themselves would not agree with your description, so why should we presume it on your say-so?

When Marxists get their way, billionaires are expropriated. When wokeists get their way, billionaires are richer and more secure than ever before.

When Wokeists get their way, Billionaires and the corporations they control throw their unquestioning support behind Wokeism, providing a great deal of social, political, and economic power behind, for example, large-scale lawless political violence. The fact that CHAZ enjoyed de facto corporate sponsorship did not make its actions any less radical. The capitalists can, in fact, sell Revolutionaries the rope to hang them with, and can even help them tie the nooses. Nor is cooperation between Billionaires and radical leftists a novel development; rich people have attempted to cooperate and support radical socialist utopianism many times before. Some of them actually moved to the USSR.

When Marxists got their way in one situation, which itself contradicted Marx in numerous ways, some billionaires got expropriated. That does not prove that one attempt to implement some elements of Marxism while discarding others is fundamentally different from another attempt that implements and discards a different selection of elements. What we actually have, as with Scientology above, is an open question of which elements of Marxism are core, and which are periphery. You and I can have differing opinions on the answer to that question.

In my view, Marx's theories are of roughly equivalent value to Scientology's theories about Thetans. Labor theory of value, scientific materialism, class analysis and so on are more or less fiction, and are not load-bearing to Marxism as an effective ideology. Ideologies, I think, are best considered not by their stated aims, but by what they actually produce. Marxism is quite bad at producing Materialist Utopia, but it's fantastic at generating and prosecuting class warfare, thereby accumulating power to Marxists themselves. It's a system for building an army unconstrained by the humanizing effects of tradition and civilization, and putting oneself at the head of it. It does this by telling people a lie about their lives, that the misfortunes and tragedies that beset all humans are not simply the nature of human existence, but are instead are intentional harms inflicted by bad people on good people, and that if the good people band together and remove the bad people from power and possibly from existence, all their problems can and will be resolved.

Marx's theories about the identity and characteristics of the good people and bad people, how to remove them, what to do once they're removed and so on do not, in my view, actually matter. Marx was not a scientist in any meaningful sense of the term. His factual claims about what his ideology was supposed to achieve have either been falsified or proven themselves unfalsifiable. What makes Marxism relevant is not its blueprint for building a better world, but rather its blueprint for burning down the existing one, and it is from this perspective that its similarities to Wokeism emerge. Wokeism adapts Marxism's core lie to a wildly different cultural context, where its original claims would be laughably irrelevant. The proletariat never actually mattered, which is why Marxist revolutions were executed in countries with no proletariat to speak of. Categorizing society into oppressors and oppressed and relentlessly framing all social issues according to these categories, on the other hand, is actually how both the Marxist and Wokeist systems work.

Perhaps the model I describe above is wrong, and some doctrinaire Marxist model is correct; that's at least potentially a productive conversation to have. What's necessary, though, is an understanding that the groupings are something we're generating as a tool, not a brute fact of the universe. I draw connections between Marxism and Wokeism and progressivism not because people did one and then the other, but because I believe there's actually important parts of the ideology that the later has drawn and continues to draw from the former.

Actually existing Indians well understood differences between European colonialists and played them for their advantage as they could.

Sure. So what's the relevant differences between Marxists and Wokeists that I'm missing here, and how should people like me play them to our advantage?

I do not get why boomer conservatives insist on pushing "Marxist" straightjacket on everything, why they insist calling "Marxist" people who know nothing about Marx and never claimed to be Marxist.

I observe that the Wokeists do in fact claim to be Marxists quite frequently, claim to know quite a bit about Marx, and often frame their critiques in terms of Marx's ideas. So right off the bat, we have a factual disagreement.

I observe that, doctrinal disputes aside, Marxism remains eminently relevant to the whole of Progressivism. As long as they keep quoting and teaching him, and as long as they keep building their ideology around the scaffolding he provided, I think it's reasonable to take them at their word that he's relevant to them, and hence to those who oppose them.

If you disagree with my understanding of the facts, we could go look at some actual evidence, of which I'm confident that there's no shortage. If you concede the above, I'm not sure how your critique makes sense.

If you asked woke activists about Marx, 90% would answer "What is Marx?" and 10% would say "Fuck this white racist colonizer".

This has not been my experience. Can you provide some examples?

Is it their childhood programming that taught them that Marxism is the worst thing in the world, and all bad things must be Marxist?

I certainly don't think what I've written above can be summarized in such a way. Have I provided you with a fresh perspective?

@aaa here

They don't, communism appealed very much to the working class.

It appealed very much to intellectuals, academics, journalists, and other elites, and I'd argue appealed to such people much more consistently than it did to the lower classes.

You may not see this because communism was basically illegal in the US, but where it did exist the parties were staffed by working class people and that's where they received votes.

Communism was not basically illegal in the US. It was suppressed to a limited and ineffectual extent for brief periods that manifestly failed to eradicate it from elite strongpoints, academia among them. I've no doubt that formal structures for organizing working-class people were predominantly staffed by working class people; I would be surprised if it were otherwise. On the other hand, Communist penetration of multiple Western governments didn't happen at the behest of steelworkers and teamsters. Stalin was an academic before turning to revolution full-time. So was Lenin. So was Marx.

What would that be?

Heirarchy, tradition, law, economics, justice, ethics, morals, etc. Ideas along the lines of "Social justice" or the cultivation of a "revolutionary conscience" recur with monotonous regularity, because the fundamental logic of Progressive Materialist revolution demand such innovations.

All strong ideologies "attack the family" to some degree:

Your examples seem fairly bimodal to me, in a way that is quite telling. I observe a significant difference between honoring God above one's father and mother, and honoring the state or one's auditor above one's father and mother. Neither Christianity nor Judaism seem to encourage this.

Beautiful rhetoric. Still: no, «wokeness» is substantially different from «Marxism», The Thing you oppose and which had been partially incarnated in their shapes predates both, and it is far from obvious that you will accomplish anything of worth with this line of argument.

You are approaching this instrumentally, starting from your own intents and purposes rather than essences of things. Wokes are «similar people», they are posing danger to your values that's of a nature similar to the Marxist menace, and their own chosen labels are not nearly as toxic as «Marxism» or «Communism», so you do what they do with Fascism and every right-wing movement and idea they want to see dead, spreading the reputation-killing poison wide – and thin. It may work to an extent, with audiences already receptive to overarching critique of left-wing ideologies; but really this is a tactic for the side that has the higher ground and can dictate terms of engagement.

Leftism is vast; one doesn't have to be a «doctrinaire Marxist» to appreciate this fact. It's more of an intellectual ecosystem than a doctrine, or an entire class, like «Mammalia» (I wonder: if reptiles had class consciousness, would they assume that foxes and hares are on the same side?) and most elements of the ecosystem are more concerned with internecine sectarian conflicts than with an organized front against aliens. Leftists are aware of having even more irreconcilable external enemies, of course, and constantly seek to form a united front, with varying success. Sometimes, the combination of those drives causes the entire system to evolve and reinvent itself. When they deprioritize Marxism, it is natural to suspect this to be a tactically expedient, insincere rebranding. But when your allies scream that Marxism is dead and this new Thing is not it – you'd do well to check if you aren't tilting at windmills, while the giant, having shed its skin, is safely plundering the town behind your back.

The Thing has always had two morphs – the more populist and the more esoteric, Wycliffe's brand of proto-socialism and Cathars, Conjuration des Égaux and mainline Jacobinism. In the last century Marxism, too, had explicitly diverged into two very distinct schools, loosely speaking, Lenininst (Bolshevik, Stalinist, Maoist, whatever) and Trotskyist (the real structure is far more complex, with the Anarchist tradition, Western clubs etc. participating in the horizontal meme transfer). The former has seized much of the globe (and a sliver of its wealth) though the combination of brutally enforced party discipline centered around personalist leadership, severe political-military fusion, appeal to the lower classes and unlimited opportunism. Its last significant bastion is the People's Republic of China. The latter has spread, rhyzome-like, through the intellectual classes of the developed world. They are so different as to make the common moniker of Marxism inapt; and all evidence one needs to see this is the fact that America with its violent immune reaction to Communism proved to be a fertile soil for rapidly speciating Ivory Tower doctrinaires. Wokeness is a product of their unholy aggregation on the basis of American identity politics and race issues; and while obnoxious, it's an inherently crumbly substance – little in common with the steel edifice of Bolshevism that proved to be the apex predator in the competitive world of 20th century totalitarian systems.

Crucially, though, I think you are wrong about the potential of wokeness. It is a diminished strain, not in some moral sense but in the sense of its motive power. It promises no salvation and doesn't have alluring intellectual content. It's a slightly more respectable elaboration of anarkiddies: shock troops and unwitting expendables of The Thing. Like an inactivated vaccine, it is unlikely to kill the host by itself, and indeed may inoculate the body politic instead. It's a historical tangent, a red herring.

The problem with attacking Wokeness as Marxism is that not only is Marxism dead in the West, but Wokeness may be discarded just as well, and the Thing, ever protean, will again reform behind your back, even appropriating convenient parts of your rhetoric and sounds of your voice.

This is why I think more people should read Shafarevich's Socialist Phenomenon and learn to see The Thing as such.


In a more conspiratorial/whimsical mood, 2 years ago [revisited]:

[…] This doctrine bore different names, but in its deepest essence it is singular. The supreme Trilobitism, the real Lizardism, the Genoine Cromagnonism, the authentic Atlanteanism, the Sacred Faith of Babylon and Carthage, Living Ethics, Pure Islam, The Truth of Revolution, Authentic Socialism, Scientific Communism, Intersectional Feminism, European Social Democracy, Active Humanism, the Great Animation –

– these are just some of its most glorious names,

behind all of which stands the One Order,

the holy

thidivine

sevenfold

billion and trillion unfathomable immeasurable

beyond vast immensely hundredravenously

GREAT

DOCTRINE OF COMMON TASK

– The pointing finger of Progress.

And only the obscuration of creatures, their ossified nature, their unbelief, and self-interest of reactionary forces, made the Teaching warped in its implementation, leaving smouldering ruins and mountains of corpses after a yet another attempt. All this is trifling compared to the fact that the Brotherhood has always survived. And always, after a little regrouping, it guided the world back to the fulfillment of the Great Dream.

There is no doubt that sooner or later it will succeed, even if at the cost of the Universe's existence. Since – let the world perish, let every quantum of radiation, all leptons and baryons be devoured by the abyss of vacuum, let it happen! Let it be! - but may the precepts of the Brotherhood be fulfilled! When the countenance of the Light-bearing Lord shines over the stunned existence!

One day I should translate the whole piece, and do it well.

Beautiful rhetoric. Still: no, «wokeness» is substantially different from «Marxism», The Thing you oppose and which had been partially incarnated in their shapes predates both, and it is far from obvious that you will accomplish anything of worth with this line of argument.

I think that Wokeism and Marxism are both branches of Progressivism, which is the ideology of the Enlightenment. I maintain that as long as Progressives are still explicitly basing their worldview on Marx, it's silly to pretend that they're not doing so. Whether pointing this out will accomplish anything... well, let's see, shall we? If Wokes insist on loudly associating themselves with one of the worst ideologies the world has ever seen, why not hammer them for it?

You are approaching this instrumentally, starting from your own intents and purposes rather than essences of things.

Am I?

The Enlightenment: "Through reason, we know how to solve all our problems. Therefore, unsolved or imperfectly-solved problems are the fault of specific people with names and addresses."

Marxism: additional detail about who the specific bad people are, how to identify them, organizational tactics for overthrowing them.

Wokeism: As Marx, with some of the specific detail about classes swapped around.

It may work to an extent, with audiences already receptive to overarching critique of left-wing ideologies; but really this is a tactic for the side that has the higher ground and can dictate terms of engagement.

...For now, and less every day, I think. But that leads into disagreements in how the two of us assess the current situation and the likely trajectory of the future. If I've understood you correctly, you think an anglo Globohomo singleton is the likely outcome, while I think the West abruptly deconstructing itself is more likely. Much of that disagreement comes down to questions of the sources and nature of social fragility that are probably not appropriate here. "Cheer up, Judgement Day is closer than you think," to put it flippantly.

When they deprioritize Marxism, it is natural to suspect this to be a tactically expedient, insincere rebranding.

To be clear, I don't think that, say, their abandonment of the Proletariat is a tactical, temporary move. They really have ditched large sections of Marxist theory for good. What they haven't ditched are the parts that reliably produce huge mountains of skulls in the specific way Marxism does: year-zero revolution, the tyranny of "reason", its inevitable breeding of corruption and finally the desperate, inevitable search for "wreckers".

But when your allies scream that Marxism is dead and this new Thing is not it – you'd do well to check if you aren't tilting at windmills, while the giant, having shed its skin, is safely plundering the town behind your back.

This is good advice, but are these specific people even my allies? The "Right" has no shortage of thralls to the Enlightenment, adherents to Reaganism, tax hawks, those deeply concerned about the deficit or the Dow-Jones to the exclusion of all else, to gesture at one loose axis. The Right likewise is an ecosystem, and one of the current challenges is what one's values and priorities should be, and how one organizes an effective coalition around them. What's the Giant, and what's the city? What must be fought, and what can be sacrificed? The economic model is the primary difference between Marxism and Wokism, and economics is, to me, one of the least interesting and important issues in play.

Wokeness is a product of their unholy aggregation on the basis of American identity politics and race issues; and while obnoxious, it's an inherently crumbly substance – little in common with the steel edifice of Bolshevism that proved to be the apex predator in the competitive world of 20th century totalitarian systems.

...How much of this difference is simply down to the nature of a pre-revolutionary mass? Is this terribly different from what Bolshevism's precursors looked like, in the years well before open warfare forged the movement into what it became? You've posted excerpts talking about how the early anarchic murderers were greeted with open, sympathetic arms by the Russian elites at the time, how their "critique" of Russian society was swallowed whole by the educated and the thoughtful. Suppose some variance in actual leadership; had the Russian government embraced the moderate end of the revolutionaries and zealously attempted to reshape society according to their dictates, how might things have gone?

The latter has spread, rhyzome-like, through the intellectual classes of the developed world. They are so different as to make the common moniker of Marxism inapt...

If Trotsky had purged Stalin, do you think things would have gone significantly differently?

People used to think swarming locusts were a different species from normal grasshoppers. Then we discovered that they're the same critter, and environmental conditions trigger a complete behavioral and even physical transformation.

If I'm understanding your taxonomy correctly, western intellectuals like, say, Chomsky would be examples of what you label the "Troskyist" branch. Only, Chomsky and his set did in fact carry water for multiple contemporaneous Leninist implementations, Cambodia and Vietnam among them, well past the point where such support was a source of acute embarrassment. This same class was backing Chavez in Venezuela as recently as the late 2000s. It seems that we've got a group that's willing to shoot people in their own country, and a group that's willing to support shooting people in a different country until it looks so obviously bad that it starts threatening their good name in their own country, where such shooting is obviously impractical. It's not obvious to me that these people are actually different in any important way. And sure, such people are very unlikely to actually implement the shooting in their own country, or to long survive such shooting. But they observably maintain cordial relations with what appear to me to be the actual proto-lenins and -stalins. Who's to say they aren't simply the Bukharins of a later age?

Crucially, though, I think you are wrong about the potential of wokeness. It is a diminished strain, not in some moral sense but in the sense of its motive power.

...So you think that Wokeism is a small tentacle of the Thing, and I think it's something more approaching a head or an arm. How much of this disagreement is over definitions? BLM is pretty obviously spent as a movement, but I think we'd agree that the Thing is more dominant than it was a few years ago, despite BLM's precipitous decline. So what is the core of the Thing, in your view? What is its essential form and nature, from which the morphs spring? Mine is the description of the Enlightenment delivered above. I think Enlightenment ideology requires a social gradient to operate, with class conflict being its method of operation. Do you see that description as sheddable skin?

I hold that we cannot solve all our problems, that some misfortunes must be accepted, even embraced. I do not think this is a voice that the Thing can productively mimic, not as a tradeoff made with other peoples' lives, but as a tradeoff made in my own life. ...Perhaps this description is not sufficient, but I remain confident that for those that understand it, differences are evident almost immediately.

One day I should translate the whole piece, and do it well.

Soon, one hopes.

That utopia can be achieved, on earth, by human hands.

If this is the end state, immanentizing the eschaton, etc. Nothing is off the table. Most disagreements seem to be on the method.