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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27924 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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Marxism and the History of Philosophy:

Most people in most places, including intellectuals, have never worked out their basic worldviews, and thus, they flounder without foundations. This is what Marxism has to offer: foundations and meaning.

We have a worldview that is clear, coherent, comprehensive, and credible. We bring a way to think that combines totality with historicity, a way of processing experience that is both integrative and empirical, and a way of synthesizing that is not an abstract unfolding of a mystified idea, but a constant and dynamic interaction with nature and with labor in a material historical process.

We need to show how the system structuring people’s lives, capitalism, is responsible for the terrible injustices of the world, the ecological destruction of the world as well as for the cultural decadence and psychological disorder of the world. We offer not only analysis in understanding the nature of the system generating the most basic problems, but also a solution in a movement to expose this system and to bring about an alternative system, socialism. We offer both meaning and purpose. [emphasis mine]

If this sounds a lot like a religion, then that's because it should. Marxism undoubtedly shares many structural features with traditional religions in its fundamentals.

(I have argued previously that wokeism is not identical with Marxism. The relationship between wokeism and Marxism should be understood as being something like the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Adherents of the newer religion incorporate the sacred texts of the older religion as their own, but they also make a number of modifications and additions that adherents of the older religion would stridently reject. Nonetheless, the two traditions are united in certain ethical and philosophical commitments that more distant outsiders would find baffling.)

Much ado has been made about the "crisis of meaning" in the contemporary West, and how "we", as a civilization, "need" religion (and how in its absence, people will inevitably seek out substitutes like wokeism). But speaking at this level of generality obscures important and interesting psychological differences between different individuals. Many, perhaps most, people are actually perfectly fine with operating in the absence of meaning. And they can be quite happy this way. They may be dimly aware that "something" is missing or not quite right, but they'll still live docile and functional existences overall. They achieve this by operating at a persistently minimal level of sensitivity towards issues of meaning, value, aesthetics, etc, a sort of "spiritual hibernation".

It is only a certain segment of the population (whose size I will not venture to estimate -- it may be a larger segment than the hibernators, or it may be smaller, I don't know) that really needs to receive a sense of purpose from an authoritative external social source. And this segment of the population has an outsized effect on society as a whole, because these are the people who most zealously sustain mass social movements like Christianity and wokeism.

Finally there are individuals who are seemingly capable of generating a sui generis sense of meaning wholly from within themselves. This is surely the smallest segment of the population, and it's unlikely that you could learn to emulate their mode of existence if you weren't born into it -- but you wouldn't want to anyway. Such individuals are often consumed by powerful manias to the point of self-ruin, or else they become condemned to inaction, paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties they have placed upon themselves.

Regarding the origins of wokeism, recently I chanced upon the concept of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), it also has a Wikipedia entry. Basically there are people who argue that general wokification of institutions is an internal development of some of the American elite's religion, via Unitarianism and then Unitarian Universalism, and the general "be nice, don't judge, don't harm" morality of Oprah with a deistic God you can occasionally call upon for some encouragement but doesn't demand much, just to be kind, there are many equally valid paths etc. This is of course not the same as the mandatory activism required by woke, not merely a lack of judging etc. But it is the basis for the willingness of simply nice decent people to obey such demands.

I would also consider post-WWII Boomer morality, incl John Lennon Imagine, etc, which doesn't seem all that influenced by the postmodern writers like Foucault or Derrida.

Another set of people point to a merger of a mutated American Civic Religion and German Guilt Pride (the phenomenon where Germans feel superior and proud of how well they have done the processing of the past, the Vergangenheitsbewältigung).

I don't think there needs to be a single origin.

Regarding the origins of wokeism, recently I chanced upon the concept of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), it also has a Wikipedia entry. Basically there are people who argue that general wokification of institutions is an internal development of some of the American elite's religion, via Unitarianism and then Unitarian Universalism, and the general "be nice, don't judge, don't harm" morality of Oprah with a deistic God you can occasionally call upon for some encouragement but doesn't demand much, just to be kind, there are many equally valid paths etc. This is of course not the same as the mandatory activism required by woke, not merely a lack of judging etc. But it is the basis for the willingness of simply nice decent people to obey such demands.

I've encountered the concept before, but while I think it captures something about the secularization of society and the rise of "spiritual but not religious types", I don't think it is very explanatory.

I actually think the Guilt-shame distinction (which you partially touched upon in your third paragraph) probably goes further to explain much of the shape of contemporary life. I honestly think guilt culture is just another angle of approaching Western individualism. In shame-honor culture, what is important is your place in the collective. This is the source of your pride and honor. In a guilt culture, various social technologies are used to make it so that the rules are inside peoples heads, and are pre-enforced by the knowledge of the self-flagellating guilt that will result from stepping a toe out of line.

While Christianity is one path towards a guilt culture, given its emphasis on individual repentance and salvation, I think in modernity things like Wokeism show one way this kind of culture can be maintained in a secular way. However, I think Wokeism is a lot more prone to what I see as a likely failure state of guilt culture: anxiety. If all the social structures of a guilt culture are oriented towards making human animals feel guilt, a basic problem emerges. How do you know when a person has "cooked enough", and feels enough guilt that they won't do bad things anymore? You don't.

So some people get "overcooked" or "burnt" by guilt culture, and do indeed develop a psychology that won't do bad things or break the rules at the cost of crippling anxiety. And I think because Wokeism is an amorphous mass movement, without the supernaturalism or the 2000 years of practical wisdom of Christianity to deal with it, it is a lot more prone to such "overcooking."

Relatedly, I suspect that a lot of dysfunction in pluralistic, liberal democracies is due to clashes between a wider guilt culture, and pockets of shame culture that still exist in various parts of society. For example, in America, I would put forward African American ghetto/gang culture as more of a shame culture. (I know I'm not the first person to suggest this. Thomas Sowell hints at this in his "Black Rednecks and White Liberals", and I'm sure I've read similar things around here, though I am currently unable to properly credit who here might have said something like this.) I think there's always going to be a bit of a clash between the two, especially if elements of the shame culture end up including a rejection of elements of the guilt culture's hierarchies and values.

While I think it is possible that the Kumbaya, "Let's all get along" aesthetic of Moralist Therapeutic Deism (MDT) is one foundation for Western guilt culture, I actually think it is precisely backwards. In the West, people don't decide to act nice and decent because of MDT. Instead, people adopt MDT because their brains have been programmed into guilt machines, and they thus already have a great propensity to act nice and decent most of the time.

Love, love this comment.

The quoted text in your post is basically all true, except of course for the fact that socialism is a terrible system.

I'll try to be short and axiomatic:

1: Systems become worse with size, meaning felt by the individual is inversely correlated to the size of the structure they exist within (a social being can tell when it's not needed by its environment. This terrifies the social being)

2: Because of laws of statistics, the limit of the micro-scale will result in a macro-scale in which the individual properties of the micro-scale entities don't matter (I don't know the name for this, perhaps asymptotic emergence?)

3: In the far past, emotions didn't exist, life competed in a purely material sense. Emotions (or more generally, qualia) came into existence because they out-competed agents without emotion.

4: It seems we may be creating an environment in which emotions are once again sub-optimal. In fact, a lot of human things are starting to be sub-optimal, and the shortest paths to "success in life" requires destruction of the self ("selling out") and of good taste (morality prunes locally optimal choices if the definition of optimal is purely materialistic)

5: We're trapped in a world in which the incentives threaten to destroy humanity, in the sense that, even if humans exist in the future, they will lack depth and personality. I predict that the standard deviation on various tests and quizzes will shrink as the homogeneity of various things increases.

In short, the problem is not "capitalism", it's the traits/structure of the system that we exist within, like it's size and connectivity. The woke are not wrong when they say that diversity is good, they're wrong when they accelerate the destruction of diversity by mixing together different things.

Technology is only making all this worse, though Ted Kaczynski seems to blame technology for all the problems I listed above.

In the far past, emotions didn't exist, life competed in a purely material sense. Emotions (or more generally, qualia) came into existence because they out-competed agents without emotion.

This is a tremendous claim. I don't object, exactly, but I wonder if you can substantiate it without what amounts to post-hoc reasoning. How exactly does consciousness arise. More importantly, why would it outcompete an equivalent setup with the same output for the same input, i.e. p-zombies?

Well, life originated on earth about 4 billion years ago. Between that time and now, qualia has slowly come into existence. Emotions, consciousness, subjective taste, ego, and other such things. I also have reasons to believe that individuality and higher levels of consciousness are somewhat recent (say, developed over the past 5000 years). But more generally, what I'm claiming is "In a completely material universe, qualia emerged due to some unknown factors, and now it seems that these factors might be disappearing again".

Why would it outcompete an equivalent setup

It must have, otherwise it wouldn't exist. The reasoning I'm using is the same that Darwin used, survival of the fittest is a tautology in a sense. If consciousness resulted in a lower fitness, I believe it must necessarily have disappeared. Another fun fact we can deduce from this is that suffering is good (useful), and that deeming suffering to be bad (a problem) is useful as well. So, suffering is good but we're meant to think that it's not.

Some more arguments for why qualia might disappear:

What you learn in school is to be less human, less spontaneous, less biased, less subjective. The socialization process is basically destroying parts of yourself until you fit within the mold. The goal of most religions is suppressing parts of yourself (Buddhism takes this idea the furthestm though). The system just wants you to be useful and productive, and you're judged by your utility alone. In society we value fairness, impartiality, reason, level-headedness, stoicism and other behaviour at which robots happen to be perfect because they lack qualia. Most psychiatry and medicine works by numbing qualia. Most psychological defense mechanisms have the goal of numbing qualia. Most people life in constant distraction (escapism) and hate being alone with themselves. Most philosophies are designed around lowering qualia, bringing it towards zero: "This too shall pass", "Nothing really matters". It's all dead-mans morality, minimization of the human experience, a sort of suicide and glorification thereof.

The remaining aspects are collapsing into categories of superstimuli (porn, girlfriend ASMR videos, power-fantasy manga, slice-of-life manga, gambling, spices, reaction videos, fast food, massage, roleplaying, daydreaming) and serve as drugs to satiate or numb a category of human needs.

P-zombies don't exist.

Precisely what a p-zombie would say...

I'll take a stab at it, because I like the spectacular boldness of the claim:

The human brain can host an extraordinary variety of mental structures. Only a minority of them give rise to consciousness. Those that do, however, are better at navigating complex environments than others (maybe some concept of the self and self narratives are the simplest way to get agency, conferring advantage, and those happen to be the ones that host qualia). But environmental drift toward increasing bureaucratized environments make agency less useful: navigating them is difficult for most people, and so the concept and resultant consciousness are abandoned. It's not so much that consciousness gives an advantage in itself, but that the simplest structures that enable taking advantage are conscious. You could have brains that are equivalently capable without being conscious, but they take too much compute to be realized.

I don't have a clue where consciousness and qualia come from, though, so I don't have a sense of whether Homo erectus or Homo bureaucratus would lack them.

I would like to cross post this excerpt about the mathematician Imre Lakatos, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

In Nagyvárad Lakatos restarted his Marxist group. The co-leader was his then-girlfriend and subsequent wife, Éva Révész. In May, the group was joined by Éva Izsák, a 19-year-old Jewish antifascist activist who needed lodgings with a non-Jewish family. Lakatos decided that there was a risk that she would be captured and forced to betray them, hence her duty, both to the group and to the cause, was to commit suicide. A member of the group took her across country to Debrecen and gave her cyanide (Congden 1997, Long 2002, Bandy 2009, ch. 5). To lovers of Russian literature, the episode recalls Dostoevsky’s The Possessed/Demons (based in part on the real-life Nechaev affair). In Dostoevsky’s novel the anti-Tsarist revolutionary, Pyotr Verkhovensky, posing as the representative of a large revolutionary organization, tries to solidify the provincial cell of which he is the chief by getting the rest of group to share in the murder of a dissident member who supposedly poses a threat to the group. (It does not work for the fictional Pytor Verkhovensky and it did work for the real-life Sergei Nechaev.) Hence the title of Congden’s 1997 exposé: “Possessed: Imre Lakatos’s Road to 1956”. But to communists or former communists of Lakatos’s generation, it recalled a different book: Chocolate, by the Bolshevik writer Aleksandr Tarasov-Rodianov. This is a stirring tale of revolutionary self-sacrifice in which the hero is the chief of the local Cheka (the forerunner of the KGB). Popular in Hungary, it encouraged a romantic cult of revolutionary ruthlessness and sacrifice in its (mostly) youthful readers. As one of Lakatos’s contemporaries, György Magosh put it,

How that book inspired us. How we longed to be professional revolutionaries who could be hanged several times a day in the interest of the working class and of the great Soviet Union (Bandy 2009: 31).

It was in that spirit, that the ardent young Marxist, Éva Izsák, could be persuaded that it was her duty to kill herself for the sake of the cause.

Though his research program is interesting and in spite of previously defending art by question artists, I now fear such ideas as memetic viruses cast evil people. How can we verify a communist correctly described the sky as blue, might it not be grey or beautiful and pink? I marvel at just how much we should throw out.

It was in that spirit, that the ardent young Marxist, Éva Izsák, could be persuaded that it was her duty to kill herself for the sake of the cause.

Grim story. Now, let me add the necessary context to understand it, and it would be time and place where it happened.

It was late 1944 in Nazi occupied Hungary.

In this context, choosing to join underground resistance group was choosing to die for the cause, soon and often in rather unpleasant way, and it was clear to everyone.

Nothing "marxist" or "materialist" about this particular case, staunch Christian anticommunist Polish resistance would also execute their members at the slight suspicion they are compromised and endanger the group as a whole. These are rules of actual guerilla resistance against serious and determined enemy.

According to an article published in an 1998 issue of a Hungarian periodical of social sciences, reproduced online in .txt format, the young Jewish woman in question was carrying forged papers and hiding in a safehouse which she had to leave because it got compromised, and no replacement could be found. Fearing that her likely capture will compromise them all, the cell members (including her partner/lover) all unanimously voted to force her to commit suicide. In 1950, party organs investigated the matter and concluded that Lakatos formed the underground cell without permission from above and was the main culprit in this suicide, was expelled from the party as a consequence and was sent to a notorious forced labor camp (interned, technically speaking, although in retrospect it’s impossible to confirm what further considerations, if any, were decisive in that). According to his social circle he was pretty much a Dostoevsky character.

In this context, choosing to join underground resistance group was choosing to die for the cause, soon and often in rather unpleasant way, and it was clear to everyone.

Why would it be clear to everyone? It's clearly false: the war ended within a year, with their team winning. In fact, this resistance leader himself survived the war.

I'm not saying there aren't people with a martyrdom fetish, but that's their problem, not an objective analysis of the situation or even a coherent strategy. In the words of one of the generals on the winning team: "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."

"Accepting the risk of death" is probably a more accurate description than "choosing to die for the cause" in this context.

wokeism is not identical with Marxism

I find these arguments nonsensical.

The Jordan Peterson-esqe "cultural Marxism" shibboleth is genuinely gibberish.

What on earth does grievance politics have to do with redistributing the means of production so that the workers capture more of the surplus value of the product of their labour? How do you do that with "culture" at all?

It's literally just "I 'ate communism, I 'ate wokism, refer to 'em interchangeably, simple as"

  • -26

Here's an 18 minute video that goes into the text and cites how the creators of Critical Race Theory (the actual academic theory) literally say they were inspired by Marx and Critical Theory. It's not that Marx himself would necessarily approve of the goals of CRT, more that CRT adopted Marx's framing of class struggle and class consciousness.

The Jordan Peterson-esqe "cultural Marxism" shibboleth is genuinely gibberish.

As @naraburns memorably explained once, it was a term coined by the original cultural Marxists themselves, not by Peterson or by any other of their opponents. The memory holing of that is just weird.

In the short term his interlocutor tried to cling to the theory that Peterson was the designer of a phrase that, by some weird coincidence, also happened to be a related field of study with diverse academic citations for decades prior, but in the long term that entire account was deleted, so perhaps there's only so much cognitive dissonance a person can take.

It's literally just "I 'ate communism, I 'ate wokism, refer to 'em interchangeably, simple as"

No; it was a self-appellation. It may have gotten too embarrassing to hang on to at some point, but that's language for you. The same thing has been happening to "woke", for that matter, after it happened to "social justice warrior". Some groups are so proud they'll even adopt exonyms their enemies created; others are so uncomfortable they have to keep escaping their own endonyms.

What I find especially funny/galling about this is that Peterson almost never used the phrase "Cultural Marxism" - the one time I saw him use it was in a meta way, referring to the term as something that people used and coined, but not referring to the thing that the term was pointing at.

The phrase he's most quoted as saying in terms of "Marxism" is actually "Postmodern Neo-Marxism," not "Cultural Marxism." Eliding between the two when complaining about the vapidity of the term, I think, is a reflection of the fact that there's a real cluster of ideologies there that is being pointed to that is postmodern, cultural, new, and Marxist.

Some groups are so proud they'll even adopt exonyms their enemies created

4chan has wholeheartedly adopted "chud" and even taken the wojak variation originally designed to mock them and made it their own, it's beautiful to see.

Ah yes, the classic Yankee Doodle strat.

We call by many names the "successor ideology", "wokeness", "PC", "Cultural Marxism" etc. It is all the abstracted christian heretical sect which has no true ideology except opposition to western society and its economic and military success. These are deracinated christian cultists who believe the US is the devil. It really isn't much deeper than that. Any number of political, social or entirely imaginary theories will be propagated to hold up this structure, but it really is just oikophobia at the root.

That this ideology is the ruling ideology of the western empire, which legitimates their expansion of empire, is merely the crowning irony.

I'm not denying it doesn't exist, full agreement there, I'm just saying "cultural Marxism" is a stupid name

  • -10

We write with the language we have, not the one we wish we'd thought up.

Someone should have probably said that when cultural Marxists started calling themselves that.

It is all the abstracted christian heretical sect

As I wrote before:

That's [wokism as Christian heresy] an interesting claim, considering that it came significantly out of atheism. E.g.:

Most movement atheists weren’t in it for the religion. They were in it for the hamartiology [the study of sin, in particular, how sin enters the universe]. Once they got the message that the culture-at-large had settled on a different, better hamartiology, there was no psychological impediment to switching over. We woke up one morning and the atheist bloggers had all quietly became social justice bloggers. Nothing else had changed because nothing else had to; the underlying itch being scratched was the same. They just had to CTRL+F and replace a couple of keywords.

I'm pretty doubtful that if one examines the continental->critical philosophy pipeline that may have undergirded some of the trend, one would find a pool of Christian heretics, either. I guess if you say that all the atheism is just Christian heresy (would be quite a claim) and that Wokism is just atheist heresy, blink and imagine some form of transitive property, you might be able to think that Wokism is just Christian heresy.

The last time, it seemed like most of the response was to actually entertain the idea that atheism is just Christian heresy rather than contest that Wokism was just atheist heresy. There was some discussion on whether or not that was justifiable, but no real discussion on whether any sort of transitive property could be used to make Wokism a Christian heresy through the intermediary of atheism.

I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I believe this (maybe less on the specifics of "heresy") is part of Tom Holland's thesis in Dominion. And I think it is true that Social Justice does hew closely to some teachings ("blessed are the poor", "and the last shall be first") which were first popularized by Christianity in a world where vae victus was much closer to the norm.

Yeah, it was brought up pretty much immediately in the prior (linked) discussion. I haven't read it, so I don't have much to add besides that it generated a little bit of discussion last time, and I wasn't strongly persuaded either way from what I saw. I'll probably just have to read it sometime to see if I find it or parts of it convincing.

It's all right in front of you. This is a belief system that posits "scientific" politics as a substitute for what christians would call "godliness". "Science" is the clerisy that interprets the Moral Arc of History (the Popular Will, or Will of God) and informs the initiated what the correct Just Being A Decent Human Being (politically correct, christian) behavior is. Marx was just the first big one to take off during the religious doldrums of the second half of the nineteenth century, and so it is his name most associated with all the related sects that squabble among us to this day. From the enlightenment until now, this has been the pattern. The first attempt in France to replace Christianity failed miserably, the second in Russia worked, sort of, for a while. The third, in the west has been more successful, largely by free-riding on western military power and religious tolerance. But here too, we see cracks forming.

I'm not really following. Sure, "Science" has been the calling card for many a scientismist for quite a long time, core to their being as atheists. One question is whether this is truly "Christian heresy", but all these atheists have, indeed, been around for a long time. Plenty stretching back to antiquity and in non-Christian societies.

Then, within this group of scientism atheists, there are remaining questions. The standard "big four" being epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. I think we're mostly skipping the squabbles on the first two, as I think you're focusing on the latter two (ethics as "correct Just Being A Decent Human Being behavior" and politics is called out by name). These have, indeed, been tough questions for atheist sects for a long time. I've observed plenty that The Ethics was always a sore spot for Internet Atheism; they just couldn't figure it out, and they ran off in a bunch of different directions with mutually-contradictory sects, some trying to prop up some form of "science-based" "objective" version and others often running headlong into naive meta-ethical relativism. Interestingly, you see both forms in Wokism, depending on how hard you scratch and how far up the priesthood you inquire.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't note that even more recently, we're seeing the anti-woke atheist Counter Reformation still grasping with these problems, thinking that they're going to get game theory to do their work for them. I've noted before that most of these attempts misunderstand the basics of game theory, and you can see by their actions that the Wokists actually understand some elements of game theory better than their opposing sect.

I think the TL;DR is that you're probably just mistaking what they're doing as replacements for specific Christian things, whereas it's more that the pieces you've described are just versions of Ethics/Politics. They were all already atheists, and then they split sects depending on how they wanted to build Ethics/Politics, where in these topics, Scott points out that hamartiology turns out to be important. This is unsurprising, since so many atheists think that they've grasped the Problem of Evil and think that it's a big deal for them. Hamartiology is pretty naturally paired with it.

Sure, "Science" has been the calling card for many a scientismist for quite a long time, core to their being as atheists. One question is whether this is truly "Christian heresy", but all these atheists have, indeed, been around for a long time. Plenty stretching back to antiquity and in non-Christian societies.

I'm not sure why we'd assume a continuity of ancient atheism and modern atheism. Atheism is a rejection of God(s). How we see gods influences it.

Consider New Atheism: their moral critique of Christianity was that it was a) unnecessary and b) insufficiently universalist because non-Christians are excluded from full communion. The latter is not a critique that ancient atheists would necessarily have cared about. Ethics doesn't actually obligate you to be a universalist.

Criticisms of the morality of the Old Testament God are born of the same impulse that gave us an actual, clear Christian heresy like gnosticism: the god of the Hebrew Bible, at first blush, fails by the standards of the New Testament/NT-inspired modern morality. This is a problem that becomes acute when you're not a polytheist.

The other claim is that science can fill the role religion plays as an arbiter of truth, a moral authority and a source of meaning and the sense of the numinous. I see no reason for these to be basic atheistic assumptions. A lot of our debates are about principles. And truth doesn't have to be numinous.

I'm not sure why we'd assume a continuity of ancient atheism and modern atheism.

I don't know that I would. But I think that's kind of not my point. My point is more that I saw the reasoning as being, "Look at these people, having an Ethics and Politics; that's Christian!" (Yes, that's a simplified caricature.) I don't think that qualifies it as being a "Christian heretical sect".

In general, I should probably make an effort post on what it would be to be a "______ heretical sect". Tentatively, I would expect that one would find some folks in that sect writing within the context of the tradition that they are being heretical from. I think it likely that you would find them claiming that what they are doing is that tradition, while others in that tradition are saying that their work is actually heretical. I highly doubt that if we go look at the folks who developed the frameworks for wokism and the like, we will find them writing, "Jesus Christ is our Lord; we are doing our best to follow Him as we find guidance in the bible. Here are the parts of the bible that support our woke doctrines and guide our sect."

There may be other ways to argue that folks are a "______ heretical sect"; thus the need for a larger effortpost. But that would be, I think, the top-tier type of evidence.

Consider New Atheism: their moral critique of Christianity was that it was a) unnecessary and b) insufficiently universalist

I think you put a lot of stock in the universalist axis, and I don't think it's that load-bearing. Again, it's a bit of a superficial relation. Not quite "Hitler was a vegetarian", but yeah, I think we can find a range of views on the universalist axis across all sorts of traditions.

Criticisms of the morality of the Old Testament God are born of the same impulse that gave us an actual, clear Christian heresy like gnosticism: the god of the Hebrew Bible, at first blush, fails by the standards of the New Testament/NT-inspired modern morality.

Oh boy. This one takes a whole lot more actual theology, but I'm not really sure how it's germane to the question at hand of the provenance of wokism.

The other claim is that science can fill the role religion plays as an arbiter of truth, a moral authority and a source of meaning and the sense of the numinous. I see no reason for these to be basic atheistic assumptions. A lot of our debates are about principles. And truth doesn't have to be numinous.

This is a within-atheists fight between sects, which I wrote about:

I've observed plenty that The Ethics was always a sore spot for Internet Atheism; they just couldn't figure it out, and they ran off in a bunch of different directions with mutually-contradictory sects, some trying to prop up some form of "science-based" "objective" version and others often running headlong into naive meta-ethical relativism. Interestingly, you see both forms in Wokism, depending on how hard you scratch and how far up the priesthood you inquire.

Tentatively, I would expect that one would find some folks in that sect writing within the context of the tradition that they are being heretical from. I think it likely that you would find them claiming that what they are doing is that tradition

Either that what they do is that tradition or is in fact the truer fulfillment of the essence of the faith even if it does violence to a lot of the claims the tradition they're attacking stands by. Which is why I compared it to Gnosticism. Christians would deny that Gnostics are Christians. Gnostics might not deny that they are Christians, but they certainly claim that all non-Gnostics are ignorant of the true implications of their gospels and the real ground for Christian faith.

The New Atheist claim is that you can have all of the good things about God without God and, in fact, what you think is necessary might as well be the commandments of the demiurge that prevent full flourishing.

I think you put a lot of stock in the universalist axis, and I don't think it's that load-bearing. Again, it's a bit of a superficial relation. Not quite "Hitler was a vegetarian", but yeah, I think we can find a range of views on the universalist axis across all sorts of traditions.

Sam Harris came up with a hypothetical "worst possible misery for everyone" and uses this to bootstrap himself to a justification for what is basically modern liberal Western morality.

Theoretically it could come from anywhere when a Western atheist basically reinvents hell so he can also reinvent existing moral theories I think we're significantly more justified in skepticism that it comes from the aether. Harris could have come up with a more collectivist view, or something centered more in relations than individual human dignity he didn't. He could have accepted that his hypothetical appeal lacks the sort of universalizing force of God (sure, avoiding WPM state for me and mine make sense but why are we obligated to avoid it for others?)

But he ends up in the same place. This isn't ethics as such. It's a particular form of ethics.

More comments

thinking that they're going to get game theory to do their work for them. I've noted before that most of these attempts misunderstand the basics of game theory, and you can see by their actions that the Wokists actually understand some elements of game theory better than their opposing sect.

Can you explain this claim a bit more. It is not self evident to me what specific basics the anti-woke atheists are missing nor what elements the Wokies get better.

If I could, I'd like to take a rain check on this. I have an effort post in the works, and I think it's going to include this (at this moment, there is a minor chance that a narrow component of this will get edited out of that one and pushed further, so please remind me if it does).

In the meantime, here are a few comments/chains which contain some elements.

Doesn't the Christianity-Judaism parallel work for that too?

"What on earth does some theory about God sacrificing his own son to himself to absolve all of humanity's sins have to do with the Jews being God's chosen people? How do you do that with 'culture' at all?"

Yet, "Judeo-Christian culture" is a term that is being used, predominantly by Christians. If the Imperial Romans had our version of the discourse and pagans actually spent time tweeting at Christians rather than trying to feed them to the lions as their control slipped, I can absolutely imagine that they would have called the Christians an offshoot of Jewish culture with the intention of associating them with pre-existing negative sentiment towards the rebellious colonial subjects, and the Christians in response to this would have done a public 180 on this (despite continued internal efforts to market themselves as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy) and claimed it to be an insane conspiracy theory.

Pagan polemics against Christianity exist, though. They’re not much about that- some common themes include accusations of magic/sorcery, Christian’s being low class/gullible, and rebelliousness/insufficient patriotism. Not a lot about it being too Jewish.

Contemporary Roman humor made fun of Christian’s as good natured but very strange, often particularly mocking charity and the treatment of slaves as being eccentric.

and rebelliousness/insufficient patriotism. Not a lot about it being too Jewish.

The Jews were seen as troublesome, stubborn bastards too. It was just that they were clearly an ancient people and so got somewhat of a pass. Christians not so much.

After the rebellion this association would have been even stronger. Which explains the Christian efforts to distinguish themselves in their Gospels.

Cultural Marxism is a demonstrable thing, unless you believe that culture is some sort of fungus that shows up on economies. What do you think Homo Sovietcus was, anyway? Only orthodox Marxists care to elevate their dogma as some sort of materialist science of history, which it obviously isn't and has failed on its falsifiable claims over and over. Late-stage capitalism has come and gone like so many proclamations of the Rapture.

Wokism is the bastard child of communism, and the connection strengthens in spite of strenuous denials of paternity. People realized you could substitute historical materialism for any other sort of intersectional nonsense. They could add infinite categories to the class-based analysis to suit their own purposes. As an active heresy and schism of the left it remains after Communism itself discredited its own legitimacy over a hundred years. They even claim to be communists themselves!

This was birthed from intellectuals on the left. History didn't stop with Kapital. Pay the damn child support - with words, if not action.

Cultural Marxism is a demonstrable thing, unless you believe that culture is some sort of fungus that shows up on economies. What do you think Homo Sovietcus was, anyway?

I mean sure, "the culture of Marxists" obviously exists

But when my uncle goes on about how DEI departments are "cultural Marxism" I think that is nonsense words. That's "progressive liberalism" and has essentially nothing to do with Marx except that I guess both have a general goal of a more equitable society (although I question if progressive liberals even want that).

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For a parallel that captures a lot of the nuance (and echoes another discussion that happened here a while back), do you think a committed atheist from out of state bristling under Mormon rule in Utah would be justified in lumping it in as "Christian supremacism"?

Seems like one of those pervasive labeling problems: the Mormons in question label themselves as "Christian", which I think makes the use of it in this context within the realm of reasonable takes, even if the Pope, or maybe even the majority of self-identified Christendom don't accept that label.

Analogously, I don't think "Islamic fundamentalism" as defined from the outside in the West needs to take into detailed account which groups think of each other as infidels. "Actually Hamas aren't Islamic Fundamentalists because Ali was the rightful heir to the throne" is, uh, a take.

Maybe I'm slow today but I'm not understanding your parallel.

Mormon rule is a derivative of Christianity and by prioritizing it with rules you do give it a "supremacy" of a sort I guess.

The words are actually connected to the real life effects.

"Cultural Marxism" has very little to do with Marxism, although I'm still reading through all the philosophy everyone linked so maybe there was a more coherent connective thread in the 1960s, but these days the way it's used is borderline meaningless

There are others around who are far more qualified to make the argument than I am, but my understanding is that the circumstance that Critical Theory is derivative of Marxism is beyond dispute. Wikipedia itself devotes a big section to it, and the introductory paragraph on its history already says,

Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory (German: kritische Theorie) in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory", as a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only toward understanding or explaining it. Wanting to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxist philosophy (...)

I suppose that the assertion that is more likely to be disputed is that CT is a driving cultural phenomenon or could be described as the principal philosophical basis of US progressivism, for which it is much harder to show receipts. The only way I can see is to painstakingly show the provenance of defining features and tenets of it - value systems built around class/group interest and oppressor/oppressed dynamics, the fundamental rejection of positivism (lay definition, perhaps: the premise that something like a correct way of reasoning can be discovered and yield a "symbol-pushing" way of generating true statements that should be upheld regardless of human interests) and embracing of textual criticism (dismissal of a "text"'s content in favour of a meta-analysis of who stands to benefit from it being accepted and the motivations of those authoring and conveying it) as a tool to implement this rejection, emphasis on subjective experience, and faith-based anticipation of radical changes to society leading to an improvement of conditions.
One could also point at the high correlation between above-average engagement in the Social Justice movement and explicit self-identification as Marxist with all it entails (being concerned with economic oppressor-oppressed dynamics, anticipating a labor-based radical reorganisation of society resulting in utopia), which would be an unexpected phenomenon that warranted explanation if the two philosophies were not actually closely related.
Lastly, my personal experience as someone fairly deeply embedded in academia and acquainted with many Social Justice activists is that questioning any particular tenet of the movement on a philosophical level (like, "why is it actually desirable that black people get the same average salaries?" or "wasn't colonialism a net good?") will inevitably be answered with arguments from/concrete references to publications that explicitly situate themselves in the CT tradition. If the typical follower believes that SJ is fundamentally moral because its morality is asserted by a selection of activists and intellectuals they trust, those trusted assertions of morality are grounded in Critical Theory, and Critical Theory is grounded in Marxism, is it fair to assert that SJ is Marxist? My sense is yes, but there is obviously some nuance there.

I am actually with you insofar as I don't think that it is politically sensible or productive to apply the "Cultural Marxism" label as part of public discourse. This seems comparable to me to the erstwhile push to attack Muslims by saying things like "Allah is an Arabic moon god" - it may be true that Islam was shaped by the polytheistic soup of medieval Arabia, and this may even have great explanatory power regarding its culture and tenets, but in a modern context where most everyone is more familiar with Islam than with the medieval Arabic moon god you are trying to link it to, all it will achieve is making you look obsessive and schizophrenic as it suggests that your beef with Islam is just because you are the sort of person who would have a beef with the worship of a moon deity from 1500 years ago.

But when my uncle goes on about how DEI departments are "cultural Marxism" I think that is nonsense words. That's "progressive liberalism"

How? Critical Race Theory explicitly stood against the liberal approach to race.

Ahahahaha it's fucked up colloquial word usage all the way down

Yeah fully agree that CRT and classical liberalism are at odds.

But much like the term "the left", which used to be a reference to actual Marxists but now means "progressive liberalism" (I genuinely don't know what else to call this).

The word "liberal" has evolved from the classical (borderline "don't tread on me") industrial Revolution liberalism to a phrase that's basically interchangeable with "the left"

AHHHHH

I don't think it's quite so bad as you say. I wasn't referring to 19th century industrialists when I said "liberal", I was referring to the American center-left of the 1960's, the architects of the Civil Rights Act.

Critical Race Theorists were explicitly opposed to them, claiming that the liberal / center-left approach doesn't go far enough. A lot of their ideas gained prominence recently in the forms of BLM, DEI, "racism = prejudice + power", "colorblind racism", etc. These people's scholarly lineage draws a straight line through generations of Marxist thinkers, and straight back to Marx himself.

You can call it a bastardization of his thought, if you want, I think Marx himself told one of his descendants "bro, if this is Marxism, than I'm not a Marxist", so it wouldn't even be the first time it happened. But your uncle is straightforwardly right about DEI, and your denials are just inadvertant gaslighting. Like, some of these people literally and explicitly called themselves "cultural Marxists".

To this day you find leftists who insist that progressive liberals aren't actually leftists. Nobody in the American system cares much but they'll passionately insist that America doesn't really have a left because they're all liberals.

The obscuring factor here is that progressive liberals seem to see leftists as closer to them politically than right liberals. But leftists will generally attack them even more for being more susceptible to their attacks than right libs.

Of course, when they're attacked from the outside they have no problem hiding behind the ambiguity.

But your uncle is straightforwardly right about DEI, and your denials are just inadvertant gaslighting

The uncle/"simple as" stuff really does feed my belief that it just comes down to these terms being low status.

I don't know that any of the supposedly technical or more accurate terms - like Mounk's "identity synthesis" - are actually superior in intuitiveness to "cultural Marxism" or, even worse, "gay race communism". Those other terms are just used by icky dumb people like right libs.

I see why this ideology, which is notoriously against being named at all would behave this way but I don't see what anyone else gains.

but I don't see what anyone else gains.

I'm at a loss myself, but I think the status thing might be a big part of the equation. Some people built their entire philosophy around "Uncle Roy is wrong".

Isn't this a motte and bailey?

The motte is Marxists caring about culture, which obviously they have done throughout history. The Soviet Union is just one famous example.

The bailey is the much less defensible claim that "wokism is the bastard child of communism" - this kind of 'cultural Marxism' is a much larger, more complicated narrative about how intersectionality, modern progressive thought, etc., derive from a complex chain of descent from Marxism.

The bailey may be true - you'd have to defend it - but you don't get it free with the motte.

(And it's a genetic fallacy anyway, but that's a whole separate issue. Suffice to say that I think wokism is wrong, but it's wrong because it's wrong, not because of this or that historical antecedent.)

The bailey may be true - you'd have to defend it

I mean, there's this obvious pattern where if you look at the SJ and traditional positions on most cultural issues, the (actual) Marxist position is right in the middle. How did I put it?

Tradition: "Men should be in charge of women", Marxism: "Sex divisions are a distraction and should be ignored", SJ: "Women should be in charge of men".

Tradition: "The white man is the best man", Marxism: "Racial divisions are a distraction from class struggle; be colourblind", SJ: "Whites suck".

Tradition: "White culture is scientifically superior to natives' primitive culture and we should raze the latter", Marxism: "All cultures suck and we should make a new, constructed culture designed by science", SJ: "Indigenous ways of knowing are just as valid as science; traditional Western culture should be razed".

And as others have noted, there is a direct line of descent. The obvious culprit would be the Marxist academic community attempting to out-Marx itself on cultural issues (having adopted a virtue axis of "Marxism good, tradition bad").

You are of course correct that this interesting historical tangent is not dispositive of the question "is SJ good or bad?". Merits are merits; descent is descent.

Merits are merits; descent is descent.

Of course, you notice that the SJ position is the exact same as tradition but with the labels swapped. This makes perfect sense, because reversed stupidity is intelligence (or revenge, if you prefer).

What you have labelled as the Marxist position is just the classical liberal position, but with a class angle grafted on.

This is an obvious pattern to me- traditionalists and progressives have a... significant amount of inertia in their political philosophies, and while liberals might actually be able to accomplish the tasks at hand, they're also generally outnumbered so unless you have philosopher-kings in charge like the US did after WW2, you're stuck with either traditional stupidity or modern ytidiputs.

Yeah, I probably should have included "and six-foundationers were winding up raised Marxist and/or hippie liberal and tried to extend these to fill in the missing foundations".

The motte is Marxists caring about culture, which obviously they have done throughout history. The Soviet Union is just one famous example.

Yes, Soviet Union cared about culture a lot, by promoting classical literature, art, music, opera and ballet to the masses (even when the masses were not interested and would prefer pop music, comic books and cowboy and gangster movies). Marxist-Leninist line always was that feudal and capitalist culture is great and belongs to working class, what was wrong with it was that the oppressors kept it only for themselves.

Marxist-Leninist line always was that feudal and capitalist culture is great and belongs to working class, what was wrong with it was that the oppressors kept it only for themselves.

Not always. The 20's and early 30's (aka the years of peak Marxism) were all about new culture and everything old was derided. I think [Alexander Nevsky (1938)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_(film)) was the first instance when a historical figure, a "great man" was shown in a positive context. Before that, everything associated with the "great men" of old was held in contempt, as nobles and clerics and merchants of any kind, native of foreign, were viewed as the natural enemies of the "common men".

The motte is Marxists caring about culture, which obviously they have done throughout history. The Soviet Union is just one famous example.

The bailey is the much less defensible claim that "wokism is the bastard child of communism" - this kind of 'cultural Marxism' is a much larger, more complicated narrative about how intersectionality, modern progressive thought, etc., derive from a complex chain of descent from Marxism.

This claim comes around with some frequency, and has always left me quite confused as to where exactly such a view emerges from.

From your understanding, what is the doctrinaire Marxist view on, say, feminism as an ideological/philosophical system?

My understanding is that doctrinaire Marxism had no room for Feminism as such; class conflict was the problem and the solution, and the future classless society would provide seamless, perfectly egalitarian solutions for existing conflicts between the sexes with no need for further analysis or theoretical constructions. My impression of the attempts to implement Marxism likewise believed this, even as they often implemented, for example, what from a feminist perspective would be considered large-scale rape culture, exploitation and repression of women in their societies.

Likewise, from your understanding, what is the mainline Feminist view of Marxism as an ideological/philosophical system?

My understanding is that mainline Feminists consider Marx enormously influential to their critique of society and its discontents, but believe their ideological/theoretical model is an application and refinement of Marxist social critique, and that as a refinement, their movement's distinctive perspectives and prescriptions should be prioritized over the older, cruder, pure-class-conflict marxist view.

It seems to me that the above two descriptions are accurate for central examples of Doctrinaire Marxist and Feminist thinking respectively, and that both the fundamental relationship and fundamental conflict between them is undeniable. This old comment provides concrete examples of the phenomena both from popular appeals to academia, and from within academia itself; I'd be interested in whether you think I'm engaging with a Motte and Bailey there, and if so how. The dénouement to that post seems evergreen:

It seems obvious to me that the various branches of Social Justice theory are, to a first approximation, direct descendants of Marxism. It seems obvious to me that a supermajority of the people promulgating Social Justice theory believe that they are performing some combination of extending, expanding, or (for the truly arrogant) correcting Marxism, quite explicitly. I think the above position can be defended unassailably by looking at the academic output that constitutes the headwaters of the Social Justice movement. I think that those who argue that the obvious, inescapable ties between Social Justice theory and Marxism are some sort of hallucination or sloppy categorization are either woefully uninformed or actively dishonest. To those who have advanced such arguments in the thread on the subject below, I offer an invitation: assuming the above examples are insufficient, what level of evidence would satisfy you? How many papers from how many journals do you need to see? How many quotes from how many prominent figures within the modern social justice movement, and the people who taught them, and the people who taught them, and so on? How far back do we need to go to satisfy you? How deep do we need to dig to bring this question to a conclusion?

(And it's a genetic fallacy anyway, but that's a whole separate issue. Suffice to say that I think wokism is wrong, but it's wrong because it's wrong, not because of this or that historical antecedent.)

I would disagree. New Ranch Marxism goes wrong specifically because it retains many of the distinct errors of its progenitor.

My understanding, roughly, is that classical Marxism, to the extent that it acknowledges patriarchy as a concept at all, holds that patriarchy and gender-based oppression are downstream of economic class. The father and husband holds power in a way derivative of his position in the economic system. As such any attempt to solve the patriarchy problem or liberate women that does not engage with capitalism is doomed to fail. The liberation of women is, insofar as it goes, a good thing, and a component of the overall class struggle, but it is subordinate to that struggle and must not be separated out from it.

Today I don't think there is an ideologically coherent 'mainline Feminism'. I think that feminism today is an extraordinarily contested label that is riven by internal strife, and as such it is very hard to generalise about a doctrinaire feminist position on anything. There are some obvious fault lines (pro-porn vs anti-porn, pro-trans vs anti-trans, pro-choice vs pro-life, and in general radical/separatist vs accomodationalist/assimilationist), but they are often mixed up and not immensely predictive of any individual's position. If I were to generalise, I would say that what makes a person or position 'feminist' today is 1) it is primarily interested in the position of women in society, and 2) it holds that women, as group or class, are in some way disadvantaged, and some sort of collective action is necessary to ameliorate those disadvantages.

Within that broad heading, there are both Marxist and non-Marxist feminists, and the line can be blurry. Moreover, because Marx is such a massively influential figure in the history of sociology, philosophy, etc., if you search for traces of Marxism in almost any school of social analysis, you're going to find some. I think it's fair to say that it is reasonably common to find bits or pieces from the wider Marxist tradition in most feminist schools of thought today - but which pieces, and how consequential they are, will vary widely.

I would not generalise that modern, mainline feminists consider their critique to be a refinement of Marxism. I think that most academic feminists, if questioned, will grant that there is some Marxist influence on their thought - but that most will not see that thought as decisive, and most do not think of themselves as working in a Marxist school, or as part of the Marxist tradition. I'd guess that just as classical Marxists think of the class structure of society and the economic mode of production as the umbrella issues, and everything else as derivative, academic feminists today tend to take gender as the umbrella issue, and see economics as downstream of that. For them Marx is an important historical figure working in a related field, whose insights are sometimes but not universally applicable to their own analyses.

My understanding, roughly, is that classical Marxism, to the extent that it acknowledges patriarchy as a concept at all, holds that patriarchy and gender-based oppression are downstream of economic class.

If there's a difference between our understandings here, I'm not seeing it. So far, so good.

Today I don't think there is an ideologically coherent 'mainline Feminism'.

I would disagree quite strongly. The terms "Patriarchy", "Sexism", and "Misogyny" seem like stable, highly politicized tokens of a highly coherent ideological structure. Likewise "reproductive rights", "women's rights", "women's safety", etc, etc. There can be lots of disagreement over lots of things, even very important things, without an absence of a unifying foundation. As you say:

If I were to generalise, I would say that what makes a person or position 'feminist' today is 1) it is primarily interested in the position of women in society, and 2) it holds that women, as group or class, are in some way disadvantaged, and some sort of collective action is necessary to ameliorate those disadvantages.

..To which one might add additional precision: women as a class are seriously disadvantaged due to the nature and structure of society, and this sum of disadvantages can only be resolved by fundamentally deconstructing and rebuilding the nature of society. Patriarchy in Feminist ideology is isomorphic to Capitalism in Marxist ideology, in much the same way that the Greeks worshiped Ares and the Romans worshiped Mars.

Within that broad heading, there are both Marxist and non-Marxist feminists, and the line can be blurry. Moreover, because Marx is such a massively influential figure in the history of sociology, philosophy, etc., if you search for traces of Marxism in almost any school of social analysis, you're going to find some.

bell hooks is my go-to central example of modern Feminism as an ideological structure. Googling "bell hooks on Marx", first result:

The Black Marxist Feminism of Bell Hooks

This book explores bell hooks' trajectory of work and cohesiveness of thought about the meaning and meaningfulness of black womanhood in terms of a Black Marxist feminism, which uniquely confronts the dimensions of feminism and womanism; the relations between the secular and the religious; the problems of gender and sexism; and the structural and systemic issues of oppression, domination, white supremacy, and capitalism. In making sense of black womanhood in its philosophical, social, cultural, institutional, and historical complexities, hooks' Black Marxist feminism constructs an intersectional theory about what hooks describes as white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. In this sense, hooks' Black Marxist feminism conceptualizes the ways and means by which white supremacist capitalist patriarchy imposes intersectional predicaments upon black womanhood, drawing foundationally on Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, working within the purview of a host of Marxisms in Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Karl Kautsky, Nikolai Bukharin, and Georgi Plekhanov, and speaking to the Marxist proclivities of Cedric Robinson, Cornel West, Charles W. Mills, James H. Cone, Stuart Hall, and Angela Y. Davis.

Okay, but this is commentary about bell hooks, not hooks herself. So let's skip several repeat results, and we find:

Challenging Capitalism and Patriarchy: An Interview with bell hooks (apparently republished from "Third World Viewpoint" via the Espresso Stalinist). Pertinent Excerpts:

...I think that what we see globally is that there have been incredible struggles to combat capitalism that haven’t resulted in an end to patriarchy at all. I also think that when we study ancient societies that were not capitalist we see hierarchical systems that privileged maleness in the way that modern patriarchy does. I think we will never destroy patriarchy without questioning, critiquing, and challenging capitalism, and I don’t think challenging capitalism alone will mean a better world for women...

...I think that strategically, we have to start on all fronts. For example, I’m very concerned that there are not more Black women deeply committed to anti-capitalist politics. But one would have to understand the role that gender oppression plays in encouraging young Black females to think that they don’t need to study about capitalism. That they don’t need to read men who were my teachers like Walter Rodney, and Nkrumah, and Amilcar Cabral.
I think that as a girl who grew up in a patriarchal, working-class, Black, southern household there was a convergence of those issues of class and gender. I was acutely aware of my class, and I was acutely aware of the limitations imposed on me by gender. I wouldn’t be the committed worker for freedom that I am today had I not begun to oppose that gendered notion of learning that suggests that politics is the realm of males and that political thinking about anti-racist struggle and colonialism is for men.
I’m very much in favor of the kind of education for critical consciousness that says: Let’s not look at these thing separately. Let’s look at how they converge so that when we begin to take a stand against them, we can take that kind of strategic stance that allows us to be self-determining as a people struggling in a revolutionary way on all fronts...

Absolutely. I think Marxist thought–the work of people like Gramsci–is very crucial to educating ourselves for political consciousness. That doesn’t mean we have to take the sexism or the racism that comes out of those thinkers and disregard it. It means that we extract the resources from their thought that can be useful to us in struggle. A class rooted analysis is where I begin in all my work. The fact is that it was bourgeois white feminism that I was reacting against when I stood in my first women’s studies classes and said, “Black women have always worked.” It was a class-biased challenge to the structure of feminism...

Absolutely. In my newest book, Killing Rage: Ending Racism, one of the big issues I deal with is the degree to which capitalism is being presented as the answer. When people focus on the white mass media’s obsession with Louis Farrakhan, they think the media hate Farrakhan so much. But they don’t hate Farrakhan. They love him. One of the reasons why they love him is that he’s totally pro-capitalist. There is a tremendous overlap in the values of a Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam and the values of the white, Christian right. Part of it is their pro-capitalism, their patriarchy, and their whole-hearted support of homophobia.
Farrakhan’s pro-capitalism encourages a kind of false consciousness in Black life. For example, you have a Rapper like Ice T in his new book, The Ice Opinions, making an astute class analysis when he says that “People live in the ghetto not because they’re Black, but because they’re poor.” But then he goes on to offer capitalism as a solution. This means that he has a total gap in his understanding if he imagines that becoming rich within this society–individual wealth–is somehow a way to redeem Black life. The only hope for us to redeem the material lives of Black people is a call for the redistribution of wealth and resources which is not only a critique of capitalism, but an incredible challenge to capitalism.

I would not generalize that modern, mainline feminists consider their critique to be a refinement of Marxism.

Would you say bell hooks considers her critique to be a refinement of Marxism? For the many, many feminists who draw on bell hooks as an inspiration, and who likewise employ formulations about Capitalist White Supremacist Patriarchy and Late-stage capitalism, would you say that they also appear to consider their critiques to be a refinement of Marxism?

...In any case, we apparently agree that there are Marxist feminists, and I hope I've demonstrated that these are often central examples of most workable definitions of "feminist". Can you provide some clear-cut, central examples of prominent Feminist theorists or intellectuals who are not Marxists?

I think you're assuming a more stable ideology behind some key feminist terms than actually exist. I don't think, for instance, that using the terms 'patriarchy', 'sexism', or 'misogyny' necessarily implies that the user subscribes to a particular "highly coherent ideological structure". The latter two, in fact, are regularly used by non-feminists. 'Sexism' and 'misogyny' have clearly understood general meanings (discrimination based on sex and hatred of women) and are obviously compatible with a wide range of feminist beliefs, including those more or less influenced by Marxist thought. 'Patriarchy' is a bit more specific but I think that among feminists it does admit of different interpretations - 'patriarchy' is a word for a general social bias in favour of men, and anything past that is the subject of debate internal to feminism. This is why the word 'patriarchy' itself is contested and opposed by some feminists; 'kyriarchy' is an alternative that some prefer.

I don't see here a coherent ideology 'isomorphic to Capitalism in Marxist ideology'. To Marxists, capitalism means a form of political and social economy organised around the interests of owners of capital. To feminists, patriarchy means the idea that society favours men over women. These seem meaningfully different, and if the Marxist understanding of capitalism is more more specific than the feminist understanding of patriarchy, that's because Marxism is a much more narrow tradition with a single ideological forefather and body of canonical work, whereas feminism has neither. There is no feminist Marx; there is no feminist equivalent to Capital.

Thus you take Bell Hooks as one representative example. I'm a bit surprised because my first thoughts as to some of the most influential authors and texts shaping modern feminism were Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. I submit that de Beauvoir and Greer are more important and influential feminist thinkers than Hooks, at least. Are these particularly Marxist texts, in your view? Do they describe a Marxist or quasi-Marxist philosophy? There's obviously some Marxist intellectual influence there (de Beauvoir was quite familiar with Marx), but there is as much by way of resistance as there is by way of agreement - de Beauvoir disagrees with some of Marx's central claims!

At any rate, yes, there are certainly Marxist feminists, and there are feminist Marxists. But I don't think that shows that feminism is descended from Marxism, a form of Marxism, isomorphic to Marxism, or anything like that. It is equally true, for instance, that there are both Christian Marxists and Marxist Christians (I find this baffling, but it nonetheless appears to be the case), and yet nobody tries to tell me that Marxism and Christianity must be closely related in this way.

(Well, I suppose maybe Nietzscheans. Slave morality and equality and so on. Or Randians/Objectivists, for whom both Marxism and Christianity are forms of altruism. Nobody who I think is worth taking remotely seriously tries to group together Christianity and Marxism.)

There is no feminist Marx; there is no feminist equivalent to Capital.

Feminism is redistributionist at its core, though. It just looks really weird because men don't understand women, and understanding women takes way more words to write down. They have a 200,000 year head start on their complexity and selection pressure has been high with respect to hiding their resource-extraction behaviors from the gender that most often takes the time to seriously analyze this sort of thing.

Redistribution looks like traditional communism when men do it because their biological specialization [and inherent worth] is based on labor (so equality of outcome means a good laborer and a bad laborer receive the same economic capital). When your biological specialization is something else, the character of redistributing what that is will be entirely different (perhaps one where equality of outcome means a pretty woman and an ugly woman receive the same social capital- efforts to establish equality of outcome won't focus on labor, or if it does it's just a side effect of technology-enabled gender equality).

Nobody who I think is worth taking remotely seriously tries to group together Christianity and Marxism.

Only in the sense that Marx (as far as I can gather; I haven't taken the time to properly read his work) is pointing at (intentionally or not) what the wiser Christian communities were doing at the time. And neither of those approaches scale, for the same reasons- they don't account for the wicked.

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I would not generalise that modern, mainline feminists consider their critique to be a refinement of Marxism. I think that most academic feminists, if questioned, will grant that there is some Marxist influence on their thought - but that most will not see that thought as decisive, and most do not think of themselves as working in a Marxist school, or as part of the Marxist tradition.

That would require pretty low self-awareness. For example if you take either the pro- or anti-porn or prostitution feminists, they will both frame women as victims of capitalist exploitation. Arguably Marxism is the glue that holds all the factions you mentioned together.

The historical antecedent does not cause it to be wrong, but the explanation for why it is wrong may be analogous to the explanation for why its historical antecedent is wrong.

The Jordan Peterson-esqe "cultural Marxism" shibboleth is genuinely gibberish. ... It's literally just "I 'ate communism, I 'ate wokism, refer to 'em interchangeably, simple as"

It really isn't. It's a popularization (thus, inevitably, a bit of a bastardization) of a real theoretical development. I strongly recommend Martin Jay's "The Dialectical Imagination" for an academic but decently accessible intellectual history of the movement.

How bastardized does a theoretical development have to be before it can be considered an entirely different thing?

The Frankfurt School had lots of critiques of Western Civilization. But "people having critiques of Western Civilization" isn't a useful class--it'd group together everyone from the Frankfurt School to Evola to wokes to Mottezans to etc.

And, when you look at the actual content of Frankfurt critiques, they don't overlap much, if at all, with woke ones. They seem rather quaint actually, given the points of conflict and focus of today. And when you look at their actual actions during e.g. 68, they were considered enemies by student activists, shiftless intellectuals creating masturbatory theories while ignoring praxis. Habermas condemned "left wing fascism," Adorno famously called the cops on students protestors who occupied a lecture hall. (Marcuse, to be fair, was friendlier.)

The current theory of the American Left doesn't draw much from the Frankfurt School or any thinkers really; to the extent it exists at all, it's just a ramshackle gloss on patronage politics with a couple academic shibboleths to give it an air of legitimacy.

How bastardized does a theoretical development have to be before it can be considered an entirely different thing?

Depends on whether you take a genealogical (A taught B, who was read and cited by C, who taught D...) vs. taxonomic approach. Both have their strengths and weaknesses; both capture something useful and real about the world but have blind spots.

The current theory of the American Left doesn't draw much from the Frankfurt School or any thinkers really; to the extent it exists at all, it's just a ramshackle gloss on patronage politics with a couple academic shibboleths to give it an air of legitimacy.

One could certainly say the same of Mormonism vis a vis the early Christian church fathers...or indeed wokism vis a vis the early church fathers. But there are clear historical and sociological lineages there as well.

The issue with a genealogical approach is that theory is more like a lattice than a tree, with extensive lateral gene flow and different branches being reabsorbed into the main.

For instance, we have a Marx -> Marcuse -> New Left -> Social Justice lineage. But what do we make of Carl Schmitt's significant influence on Marcuse (who found his critique of liberalism very strong)? Does that mean woke activism is just a far right extension of Nazi legal theory adapted to modern times?

Does that mean woke activism is just a far right extension of Nazi legal theory adapted to modern times?

I don't know if that's what it means, but this is certainly an elegant summary that mostly accurately describes what woke-ism is. Woke-ism is just the latest iteration of an ideological structure for justify bigotry against types of people one dislikes, that has been adapted to be palatable to high status people. In the past, it might have been things like "grace of God" or "they're genetically predisposed to being lesser than us and thus belong in the fields" or whatever, but in modern times, it involves narratives around "oppression means that people we dislike are actually each individual, down to the last baby, guilty of [crime]."

Does that mean woke activism is just a far right extension of Nazi legal theory adapted to modern times?

Thus, the feminazi :)

Does that mean woke activism is just a far right extension of Nazi legal theory adapted to modern times?

Clearly not an extension in the sense of merely being an appendage of. However, it would be fair to say that there is some degree of cross-pollination (though the influence can certainly be overstated; significantly less than Freud and the psychoanalysts, for example).

Freud was a much bigger influence. But, a quote from him, to highlight the issues with the genealogical approach:

The Communists believe they have found a way of delivering us from this evil. Man is wholeheartedly good and friendly to his neighbour, they say, but the system of private property has corrupted his nature... psychologically [communism] is rounded on an untenable illusion. By abolishing private property one deprives the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, a strong one undoubtedly, but assuredly not the strongest. It in no way alters the individual differences in power and influence which are turned by aggressiveness to its own use, nor does it change the nature of the instinct in any way. This instinct did not arise as the result of property; it reigned almost supreme in primitive times when possessions were still extremely scanty; it shows itself already in the nursery when possessions have hardly grown out of their original anal shape; it is at the bottom of all the relations of affection and love between human beings.

Freud was a classical liberal in his politics. But we can draw a very clear line from his thought to the Frankfurt School. Can we then conclude that the Frankfurt School was anti-socialist? No; the existence of a genealogical relationship is interesting and often a useful lens to view things through, but to stop there without looking into the content of the theories can lead to very wrong conclusions.

Not "just", "partially inspired by", the same way it was by Marx.

And, when you look at the actual content of Frankfurt critiques, they don't overlap much, if at all, with woke ones.

If the venn diagram of Critical Theory and wokism isn't a circle, it's pretty damn close. Or are you saying Critical Theory is not related to the Frankfurt School at all?

I'm saying that it's a mistake to identify the critical theory of wokism with the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The major figures of the Frankfurt School would reject wokism--ideologically and aesthetically, and in particular its focus on consumerist identity.

The only major thing they do share (at least, if we don't want to group together a lot of wildly disparate approaches) is a rhetorical commitment to communism, and in both cases that commitment is fake.

I'm saying that it's a mistake to identify the critical theory of wokism with the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The major figures of the Frankfurt School would reject wokism--ideologically and aesthetically, and in particular its focus on consumerist identity.

Would it also be a mistake to identify the socialist theory of Trotsky with the Socialist theory of Stalin? (Or that of Kamenev and Stalin, or Zinoviev and Stalin, or Bukharin and Stalin, or...)

...I submit that Marxism is best understood as a bundle of critiques of society emerging from a particular worldview. Beyond those worldview-clustered critiques, Marxism contains no actual, gears-level insight or plan for fixing society beyond "amass absolute power and use it tear down this society and build a much better one in its place". If you are tracking ideological descent, you should track it through the worldview, the critique cluster, and the prescription of amassing and wielding absolute power. These are the constants of Marxist thought.

The non-gears-level theoretical confections layered atop by Marx and his feuding successors are best understood as superstructure, epiphenomena. Lenin gutted much of Marx's own theoretical constructs to carry out the Russian Revolution, and no one cared because he maintained the constants of perspective, critique, and seizure of power, and he won. The Russian Revolutionaries who followed him themselves contained great diversity of thought and and many beautiful theoretical elaborations, until Stalin culled them all by hueing to the constants of Perspective, Critique, and seizure of power, and no one cared because he also won. Mao likewise diverged greatly from Marx, Lenin and Stalin, and yet he stuck to the basics, and he also won and so was recognized, at least initially, as a Real Marxist.

Consider the idea that Marxism does not actually contain actionable insight into the human condition or the proper ordering of a peaceful, prosperous society. Because of this lack, people attempting even minimally to engage with the human condition or build such a society in the real world quickly find themselves having to make shit up. Then if their improvisations work, they must have Really Understood Marx, and if they fail, clearly they were heterodox and benighted, at least by everyone within reach of the winner.

You may be correct that all the Frankfurt School and modern Social Justice share is a rhetorical commitment to communism, and you may be correct that in both cases, that commitment is fake. When in the history of the ideology has it been otherwise?

When in the history of the ideology has it been otherwise?

The Khmer Rouge. (And, yes, Lenin/Stalin/Trotsky/Mao.)

The distinguishing characteristic of communism is not that it critiques society. It's that it seizes state power and uses it to commit mass murder in order to radically reorder society, with the murderers being at the top of the new order.

Neither the Frankfurt School nor Social Justice activists, despite their faults, desire that. Their relationship to power in the existing order is very different, in that they, in different ways, already had/have substantial access to it. That's not capable of creating the apocalyptic communist revolution, because that kind of upending would undermine their power. Instead, they want to expand their existing power and use it to push their different visions (a legally and socially recognized racial and gender hierarchy for the wokes, and some odd psychological liberation for Adorno etc).

The distinguishing characteristic of communism is not that it critiques society. It's that it seizes state power and uses it to commit mass murder in order to radically reorder society, with the murderers being at the top of the new order.

True, but building up a cadre willing and able to implement that plan requires significant preparation, and during that preparation the naïve will claim the ideology is all about peace and love, the brotherhood of man, and gradual, incremental, painless reform.

Neither the Frankfurt School nor Social Justice activists, despite their faults, desire that.

This man saw a political opponent murdered in front of him, and his instinctive reaction was to begin dancing and cheering in exuberant celebration. Why do you think he did that?

We've already seen Social Justice lead directly to the celebration and implementation of large-scale, lawless, organized political violence, including cold-blooded murder. We've already seen Social Justice lead directly to both the attempted removal of policing, and also the draconian and illegitimate use of police powers against dissenters. The (surviving) previous generation of violent Marxist radicals got tenure, and are considered luminaries by their intellectual progeny.

Social Justice academia is overrun with arguments for the necessity and inevitability of Revolution. Social Justice culture, likewise, is typified by a totalizing model wherein the forces of oppression permeate every facet of society and only a complete leveling and reconstruction can deliver a truly just society. We've had a decade to observe how these cultural assumptions interact with our society's formal and informal power structures, and the answer seems clear to me: they aim to amass and wield absolute, unaccountable power without limit or restraint, and more "moderate" forms of Progressive culture are set up to pointedly ignore, cover for and enable the harms they cause.

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...I submit that Marxism is best understood as a bundle of critiques of society emerging from a particular worldview. Beyond those worldview-clustered critiques, Marxism contains no actual, gears-level insight or plan for fixing society beyond "amass absolute power and use it tear down this society and build a much better one in its place".

A friendly amendment - Marxism isn't just the critiques of society; it's also (1) critiques of the critiques, usually trying to explain why their prior predictions didn't pan out [e.g. Frankfurt school], and (2) tactical theorizing about the proper way in which to actualize the vague, high-level, utopian promises of the original critiques [e.g. the Trotskyite "Permanent Revolution", Leninist "Vanguardist", Stalinist "Socialism in One Country", etc.].

The major figures of the Frankfurt School would reject wokism--ideologically and aesthetically, and in particular its focus on consumerist identity.

They had the opportunity to, but didn't. Just off the top of my head, Critical Race Theory kicked off around the time of the Civil Rights Act, and was indistinguishable from BLM from the start. I'm less sure of it, but I think even some of the people who developed it studied directly under the major figures of the Frankfurt School.

It's fair to say that the CRA is central in the history of social justice activism, right? And, I agree, the Frankfurt School didn't condemn it. But that's because they by and large ignored it--a quick search through Google books isn't digging up anything by Adorno, Fromm, Habermas, Horkheimer where they even mention it. They would probably have thought it was a fine thing, in the sense that people generally think "oh, that sounds good!" But race, in general, isn't something they concerned themselves with much: anti-Semitism gets at least 100x the attention (which is a point of critique against them by the social justice crew).

It's fair to say that the CRA is central in the history of social justice activism, right?

Sort of. There was a whole conflict between the liberals that actually made the CRA happen, and Critical Race Theorists, who had a much more radical vision, and were salty about the liberal one winning out.

The latter aren't likely to say nowadays (they did in the past though) that they the CRA was bad, because that would make them even less popular than they are now, but they will put out memes that go directly against the philosophy of the Civil Rights movement (for example seeing "there is only one race, the human race", or "I don't see color" as expressions of racism).

But that's because they by and large ignored it--a quick search through Google books isn't digging up anything by Adorno, Fromm, Habermas, Horkheimer where they even mention it. They would probably have thought it was a fine thing, in the sense that people generally think "oh, that sounds good!"

No, not really. Like I said, Critical Race Theory thinkers studied directly under them. It would be bizarre if they never heard of their theories, and took no inrerest in them. I think the most reasonable interpretation of their silence is complete approval of the crazy woke theries you claim they would have opposed.

I think even some of the people who developed it studied directly under the major figures of the Frabkfurt School.

Correct.

OG Marxism says that the key to true freedom is for the proletariat to seize the means of industrial production because they are materially oppressed. Cultural Marxism says they need to seize the means of cultural production (art, universities, etc) because they are socially oppressed. Replace "economic status" with "cultural status." Hence "cultural Marxism."

Genuinely asking, who is the "they" in "they need to seize the means of cultural production"

Who are the cultural Marxists? Because the people Lobster Daddy hates have been in control of art, universities, etc for the back half of the 20th century and all of the 21st

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We are generally lax about modding when it comes to insulting public figures, but "Lobster Daddy" doesn't really express much but your contempt and seems meant only to provoke people. Don't use whatever cute nickname some person's enemies use for him on Twitter.

I'll defend @fmac and say myself and other friends who like Peterson also call him Lobster Daddy. It's a bit of an affectionate nickname ime.

I actually enjoy his writing/ideas/most of his arguments and use the term because I find it absolutely hilarious and slightly endearing, although I see how that isn't intuitive given the context

Because the people Lobster Daddy hates have been in control of art, universities, etc for the back half of the 20th century and all of the 21st

And are we arguing that that has yielded no fruit? All of the things people blame on Tumblr started in the academy.

Or is that they clearly aren't trying because they otherwise would have succeeded given their hegemony in those spaces?

I don't see why "they did try. They were just wrong, like their Marxist forebears" isn't an answer in this framework. There may just be limits on what you can do sometimes using those tools.

And are we arguing that that has yielded no fruit?

No I'm just saying I don't understand the explanation

"They" is the disadvantaged. And if "they" won't seize the means of cultural production, then a cultural Lenin or Lenins has to do it for them. When the welfare state (mid-20th century, which explains your timeline) solved economic problems but none of the attendant social problems in marginalized communities, it seemed like maybe the problem was cultural power. If no one lacks anything material, but you still don't have the equality you were looking for, maybe you need a black little mermaid.

So you're saying cultural Marxists think black people need to be in charge of art, universities, etc?

Yes, and that is why the people we are calling Cultural Marxists have engaged in a protracted and highly public campaign to, among many other things, put black people in charge of art, universities, and "etc". Surely you are aware of this campaign, the explicit arguments forwarded for its necessity and its many notable and expensive foibles?

What is your actual argument here? You appear to be quoting newspaper headlines as examples of ridiculous things that obviously haven't happened.

I was legitimately just trying to clarify what he was saying

Obviously that is happening, I have eyes and I'm not a shitlib

My argument is simply that the phrase "cultural Marxism" is pretty devoid of meaning and when used in common parlance has essentially nothing to do with Marxism at all.

It's basically the right-wing equivalent of the very common leftist trope of "everything I hate is neoliberalism, the more I hate it, the more neoliberal it is"

Just in this case it's "everything I hate is Marxism, the more I hate it, the more Marxist it is"

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My argument is simply that the phrase "cultural Marxism" is pretty devoid of meaning and when used in common parlance has essentially nothing to do with Marxism at all.

There is a lot of meaning, but most of that meaning is indeed in the meta: these people blame entire groups for the alleged oppression of other groups, based on a very poor analysis, and see the solution in giving power to these supposedly oppressed groups with the assumption that this will solve the alleged oppression (and not create new oppression). As people have explained to you, the initiators of this movement actually saw cultural Marxism as a meaningful name, that they chose for themselves, where they shifted their Marxist reasoning and methodologies to a new field.

Imagine that there is a group in Indonesia who wrote the Protocols of Sino, blaming Indonesian problems on a secret cabal of Chinese elites and think that the solution to Indonesian problems is to kill the Chinese. And imagine that they initially called themselves 'anti-Chinese Nazi's', but ran into the issue that Nazi has a rather negative connotation outside of their own little bubble, so they rebranded with a different name. Not because their beliefs fundamentally changed, but just to get more acceptance.

Then it makes perfect sense for the critics to use the original name. Not because it falsely links the ideology to another ideology with a negative connotation, but because that link actually exists and is strong.

They want whomever they believe to be low-status in the culture to have more status. They believe everything is a social construct, and so they conclude that status is not earned, but granted by authorities to preferred classes of people, and stigma to disfavoured classes. Cultural marxists want to become the status/stigma-granting authority, and for them this means controlling art and education. In the US they’re primarily concerned with black people. In Canada they’re concerned about indigenous people. In Europe they’re concerned about migrants or something. You can question whether status actually works this way, but you can’t dispute that this attitude toward status is widespread all across the political spectrum.

I mean yeah agree with all of this

My thesis isn't that these people don't exist, they do.

My thesis is just that the phrase "cultural Marxism" has been beaten and twisted to the point it's basically just an out-group signifier that has nothing to do with Marx

I don't think Marx would like DEI departments. I'm actually pretty confident he'd see all the DEI stuff as the bourgeoisie using a wedge issue to keep workers fighting each other.

He probably wouldn't like it because his era was obsessed with industrialization, yeah, but that doesn't mean that the people doing it are not transplanting his ideas from the factory to the movie studio.

who is the "they" in "they need to seize the means of cultural production"

Realistlcally, a small vanguard party of dedicated ideologues.

Who are the cultural Marxists?

Initially there was Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm, Benjamin, Pollock, and Lowenthal. Of those, Columbia, Brandeis, and a few west coast public universities (Marcuse wound up at UC San Diego) saw the most influence in political science and theory. Fromm had a large impact on feminist theory.

Second generation figures include Habermas, Frederic Jameson, Stuart Hall, and generally the New School for Social Research and the UC system more broadly (which also played a big part in bringing in and fusing French post-structuralist analysis into it).

Then you have the full efflorescence through Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak, Duncan Kennedy, Kimberle Crenshaw, Nancy Fraser, Donna Haraway, Wendy Brown, Cedric Robinson, Walter Mignolo, Andreas Malm, Shoshanna Zuboff, etc.

This article by arcove is a great dive into the genetic & cultural markers of the priest caste, which sounds like what you're pointing out here.

I recently stumbled onto a website outlining something called “CAPS” (aka CYP21A2 Mutation Associated NeuroPsychiatric Spectrum), which is a medical theory proposed and advanced by a psychiatrist named Dr. Sharon Meglathery.

Briefly, we know that the RCCX genes are unique in that mutations can be inherited together and they mutate often. There is a collagen matrix/hypermobile gene (TNXB) sitting next to a stress response gene (CYP21A2), sitting next to an autoimmune/CVID/schizophrenia gene. Doctors often see combos of these illnesses in families and individuals at a rate far higher than by chance alone.

It claims that if you have one of the following conditions it is likely you and blood relatives have others:

“Giftedness” (unusual abilities in music, maths, arts or abstract thinking)

5/5 of the “Major Psychiatric diagnosis”: Autism, ADHD, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, and Depression.

Hypermobility/Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (aka double-jointedness)

Hormone disorders

Sensory processing issues

Anxiety, Cutting and Eating disorders

Autoimmune disorders, Asthma, Allergies, Mast cell activation disorder

Gender dysphoria, fluidity, Same-sex attraction

Sleep disorders, Chronic fatigue

Left Handedness

… and loads of other random stuff.

It apparently makes you “wired for danger”, and so overly stressed by the normal world that many have brain wiring identical to PTSD patients despite having lived relatively tame lives. Perhaps there's something to all of this talk about “trauma” after all. People with these qualities seem to be drawn to one another, so you might even find evidence of this lineage on both sides of your family tree.

When the stress accumulates past a certain threshold, something called 21hydroxylase overwhelm is triggered, and it brings about near-death illness, life-changing burnout, and/or psychosis.

“Giftedness” (unusual abilities in music, maths, arts or abstract thinking)

5/5 of the “Major Psychiatric diagnosis”: Autism, ADHD, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, and Depression.

Hypermobility/Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (aka double-jointedness)

Hormone disorders

Sensory processing issues

Anxiety, Cutting and Eating disorders

Autoimmune disorders, Asthma, Allergies, Mast cell activation disorder

Gender dysphoria, fluidity, Same-sex attraction

Sleep disorders, Chronic fatigue

Left Handedness

This is such an eclectic collection of traits, I challenge you to find one Mottizen who doesn't qualify.

Indeed! As I told @The_Nybbler, I think pretty much everyone here is basically shaman-typed. We are heavily selected if we post on niche internet forums, you know.

It's tough to have all 5 of the psychiatric diagnoses in a single individual. I think Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Depression are exclusive.

Ah, my bad, I didn't mean qualify for all of them simultaneously. Rather, qualify by having some undefined number larger than one of those traits. Vague, yes, I know.

Why are schizophrenia and depression mutually exclusive?

Because the diagnostic criteria explicitly say that if it's schizophrenia it's not depression.

The occurrence of the major depressive episode is not better explained by schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, delusional disorder, or other specified and unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders.

It's possible to have both at once though. Like if you are depressed and then you develop schizophrenia. In that instance they determine schizophrenia by assessing whether your symptoms are affected by your mood - if it is, it's more likely bipolar or schizoaffective disorder, if it isn't, it's schizophrenia.

This post is uncomfortably well suited for me. Thanks for sharing it! It ties together a lot of seemingly unrelated things that I've already come across by chance (I noticed years ago doing my depression that the shared reality of a group was more or less the sum of individual interpretations, making social matters collaborative storytelling). The advice is good as well, but it seems difficult for shamans to achieve financial security. Oh well, at least my autism gives me a buff in STEM related tasks

My advice, find yourself a lady who likes shamans and makes a lot of money. Assuming you're a man.

Thank you, that was highly interesting.

This same concept has been independently rediscovered in multiple communities (including the link to the historical practice of shamanism) which increases my confidence that there's something to it.

I've never heard of this idea before but it grossly fails the sniff test - a lot of this stuff is pretty much known in medicine to almost always be untreated/diagnosed/refused diagnosis Cluster-B.

Some of the rest of it is known to have other different causes for instance (allergies).

Seems very likely to be bullshit, especially since the patients we see who fit into these buckets are um very un priestly.

Seems very likely to be bullshit, especially since the patients we see who fit into these buckets are um very un priestly.

Perhaps they would've lead happier lives as priests!

And why would Cluster-B not fall into this? Also you're saying hypermobility and chronic stomach pain are cluster B as well?

People with Autism and people with "Autism" are very different. There is a large community of people in the US who have a number of the conditions on this list by their own understanding but are really just someone with BPD.

"Yes I have depression, anxiety, PTSD, EDS, mast cell blah blah and 5 allergies as well as a non-typical gender presentation." That person is a borderline who refuses diagnosis or is not diagnosed.

This is so wildly off base.

Additionally most of these people are women. Women aren't really priests in the abrahamic tradition and the emotional instability associated with these people is not a good fit for priestliness.

Most of the listed disorders are incompatible with leadership and gravitas.

"Yes I have depression, anxiety, PTSD, EDS, mast cell blah blah and 5 allergies as well as a non-typical gender presentation." That person is a borderline who refuses diagnosis or is not diagnosed.

Idk man, I am one of these, and I'm a man. Perhaps I'm extremely rare. But the article matches my personal experience extremely well.

Again, what is the point of labeling it "borderline?" How does that solve anything? You're still agreeing that this is a real phenomena just putting it into a different box.

No there is a specific pattern of issues in emotional response and personality construction with associated genetic markers known as borderline personality disorder. Many people with this condition incorrectly label themselves with a bunch of other stuff that may or may not be real but generally doesn't apply to them.

True allergies have an at least partially known mechanism.

Depression doesn't quite march clearly with the others listed and likely represents multiple syndromes.

Some of the big names in medical research have tried to genetically localize schizophrenia and firmly failed to do so, even if it is strongly suspected to be genetic and cause.

Emotional instability is poorly correlated with abrahamic tradition priests.

And so on and so forth. This model really doesn't make sense and ignores quite a bit of known medical knowledge.

Many people with this condition incorrectly label themselves with a bunch of other stuff that may or may not be real but generally doesn't apply to them.

Just chiming in to note that I've personally heard mental health professionals admit to incorrectly diagnosing borderlines as well, ostensibly so that they could receive mental health services that explicitly excluded borderlines from eligibility in their guidelines. I strongly suspect that several percentage points of bipolars are misdiagnosed borderlines.

And so on and so forth. This model really doesn't make sense and ignores quite a bit of known medical knowledge.

A perfectly fair accusation. I do indeed ignore quite a bit of 'known' knowledge of psychology and psychiatry. I find this perfectly reasonable given the replication crisis, the obvious corruption in the field, and my own personal experiences.

ETA: For the record I still love you @self_made_human!

Alright I've repeatedly tried to be a bit soft here but to be blunt this is absolutely horseshit that seems to not match genetic studies, general research, or the gross consensus of individuals working in the field.

Some additional examples:

Gifted people have good life outcomes and contra to expectations are more attractive than average.

The "major psychiatric diagnosis" is just not true by any stretch of the imagination. It does not capture definitions of serious mental illness, inpatient populations, or most the most likely diagnosis (anxiety disorders are more common).

EDS has several known genetic markers and the one that all of the psych patients has is mysteriously the one that doesn't have genetic markers. Also women are more flexible than men and many women who are normal will claim they have EDS.

Additionally googling this person appears to show all the usual signs of questionableness and medical inaccuracy.

You are falling for pure ascientific bullshit quackery.

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I love you too my dude, even if you love Jesus more :(

You're still agreeing that this is a real phenomena just putting it into a different box.

No, the point of doing that is because people who say they have it are usually using it as an excuse to be destructive, and the cost of making a Type I error here is nothing compared to what you'll spend if you make a Type II error here instead and give a bunch of wicked people carte blanche to just make up self-serving nonsense at everyone else's expense (otherwise known as "sufferers of Cluster B disorders").

Naturally, this has a huge selection bias, where people who are just making shit up are overwhelmingly more likely to talk about it, especially if society is currently biased towards making Type II errors in their direction. The word "religious sacrifice" was generally used to refer to this when society contextualized its desires using that lens, which is why people with an inkling of this tend to class atheism and woke as religions (because of the way they justify the benefits of intentionally making those particular Type II errors).

And even then, there are people who can use this 'condition' productively, and there are those who can not. Again, in conditions of societal oversupply [which people without the condition are relatively adept at noticing, at least on a group level] it can be a reasonable strategy to over-reject people on the grounds that they're destructive with that power, or that they don't have enough of the power to actually be worth fully utilizing them.

Much like with words related to gender identity and sexuality, and potentially for the exact same reason, the terms the wise (or more precisely, those who have this condition, or at least those who are fully capable of understanding what it is and how it works) use to talk to each other are dangerous to everyone else when they inevitably fall into the wrong hands.

A big part of having this condition is knowing when, when not, and how to talk about advanced topics to co-sufferers.

No, the point of doing that is because people who say they have it are usually using it as an excuse to be destructive

Idk man, I have experienced the opposite where I am genuinely hypermobile (source: my joints pop around!) and if anything it was less of an excuse to be destructive. I think that you and mister throwaway are being far too negative towards this subset of the population, though I'm sure he at least has fair reason having to deal with many more of them than I do.

All this being said, I'm not sure how this line of argumentation applies to the original point that some people with these health issues have shamanic abilities/tendencies. Can you tie it back for me?

I think that you and mister throwaway are being far too negative towards this subset of the population

You misunderstand.

We know that they misuse these tools/words/concepts that could have (and perhaps were originally intended to) helped us, in an intentionally destructive way. It's not Complete Asshole Disease Cluster B disorder, it's My Anxiety (and everything else I've Munchausen'd my way into today).

The article very clearly describes us, who are describing actual problems (and I can attest that the statements made in the article are indeed very accurate), and not just using them as a license to be selfish pricks.

It's difficult for the normies to tell the difference and depending on the situation sometimes there legitimately isn't one. They just have to trust us. And that is difficult, even for others like us.

There are far too many conditions and too many of them are common (or general) for me to take that too seriously. Also my own family has some of them, but they definitely weren't shamans. Maybe the branch I know of really does have "it", though, and it's a selection issue -- the "it" being they immigrated to the US.

That hypothesis would have to be made a lot tighter before it could even be tested. I know links between left-handedness and giftedness have been tested, with widely varying results (some studies showing a strong effect, some none).

Idk, I could see you as sort of a nihilistic shaman. I think most prolific online posters have the potential.

That was a fantastic read, cheers. I liked his list of jobs for modern shamans in particular.

If this sounds a lot like a religion, then that's because it should. Marxism undoubtedly shares many structural features with traditional religions in its fundamentals.

Are there many other mass political / economic systems that don't share structural features with traditional religions like offering meaning and purpose to varying degrees? Is Marxism a significant outlier?

I believe it is a significant outlier yes, in terms of providing a comprehensive metaphysical worldview, an ethics, an eschatology, etc. I think it's more of a religion than any historical form of fascism is for example.

It sort of comes from a period of time (1860s and 1870s) where the immediate success of the theory of evolution in providing an overarching material explanation for diversity of life on Earth engendered great enthusiasm in discovering similar sorts of grand theories that explained fully other disciplines. And while we eventually got some for certain of the "harder" scientific fields, obviously the softer sciences have resisted such attempts. Marx attempted to provide a grand theory of politics; it has clearly been about as successful as grand theories for history, criminality, economics, poverty, etc.

It depends what qualifies as mass politics. You'll find lots of political movements that are interested in a specific issue (notably, who rules) and are therefore compatible with a lot of ideologies and/or religions and don't necessarily have something to say about the meaning of one's life.

But if you're asking in the largest sense whether Weltanschauungen contain any view of purpose, that's a tautology.

Marxism is different precisely because it is a worldview, not merely an interest group.

Such individuals are often consumed by powerful manias to the point of self-ruin, or else they become condemned to inaction, paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties they have placed upon themselves.

What names come to mind?

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc. Titans of business are often of this mold.

Nietzsche certainly. Kierkegaard too.

Oh, a Nietzsche-type destined to to be "consumed by powerful manias" or "paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties" should be very rare, but real. Was Diogenes the first recorded Nietzsche-type? It is difficult to discern to what extent the Nietzsche-type, the Grill-type, and the Priestly-type are conditionally generated or individually driven. The printing press, plow, literacy, the Enlightenment, and the 20th century provides tools to enable the Priestly-type that simply didn't exist at other points.

I think it is fun to think of this piece as reactionary. RETVRN! The philosophy of individualism fallen prey to anti-materialist, post-modernist witchcraft contradictions. "We must go deeper and wider." The heretical sect -- that which has sapped vitality of the faith -- has not sinned such that they cannot be forgiven, but only if they repent and, once again, condemn capitalism the evil that corrupts them.

Powerful manias happen when that type of person builds up momentum, and the paralysis happens when they cannot build momentum. The "gifted kid burnout" is what happens when somebody takes up more of a challenge than they can handle. The more resistance you overcome, the greater the rush you experience when it is overcome, if you overcome it. Perfectionism is similar, people either make amazing things, or they're destroyed by their own high standards. I think what happens is that such people accidentally condition themselves into inaction. If you deem your own imperfect product to be a failure, then you punish yourself for your own hard work. The higher your standards, the less reward you get from your accomplishments.

Suffering leads to greatness because suffering is the gap between your current state and your goals. But if this gap is too wide, you realize that the current you is insufficient in reaching the goal, so you realize that you "aren't good enough". Most positive emotion felt in life comes from movement towards ones goals, and despair generally comes from the prediction that one will not reach their goal. Often, despair drives one to re-evaluate things, and if one questions reality for too long, it falls apart, and one falls into nihilism. From nihilism, one can build their own, better philosophy out of the rubble, but it's generally a really difficult thing to do.

If Diogenes was a Nietzsche-type, then he was broken early, only to never fully recover. A common trait in nihilistic people is that they find enjoyment in pointing out other peoples illusions, e.g. "love is just chemicals". If he had actually recovered, he'd be more positive and monk-like, or like Jesus or the Buddha. A well-made philosophy is for something good, while poor philosophies rely on something else to be against, they exist only as a negation of something else

The printing press, plow, literacy, the Enlightenment, and the 20th century provides tools to enable the Priestly-type that simply didn't exist at other points.

Can you explain this a bit more? If you're talking about the ability to maintain an unproductive priestly class it seems like the ancient extractive hierarchy (whether through direct taxation or tradition-bound hospitality) is a social technology which is very capable of doing this on its own. With Christian poverty you even get priests, monks and saints in places where they can just about feed themselves, and their number seems more constrained by the strength of their ideals than anything else.

Can you explain this a bit more?

Not with much clarity. OP has a point, many societies have priestly class, social role, and some part of it is filled by the Priestly-type, individual psychology. The psychological need is constant, but the available options are historically contingent.

I listed some of the things that help guide the psychology of Priestly-type to meaning and zeal. The printing press and the October Revolution happened. The former helped democratize literacy, thus enabling the spread ideas to more Priestly-types, and the latter was added to the catalog of ideas that the Priestly-type now access and maintain. The catalog grows, and Priestly-types continue to splinter, branch, and find novel doctrinal positions.

I didn't mean to imply that we can't find zeal in the past, only that we won't find Marxist Priests there. That sounds boring and obvious to write, but it doesn't feel boring in my head. The catalog of ideas has exploded in size, and it continues to grow at an incredible rate. So if we were to say the population is 15% Priestly-type psychologies, accept they have "an outsized effect on society," then it seems relevant just how many varied positions of meaning Priestly-types defend now. But, I need to think about thinking about it some more.

I think one of the stronger tells re:Marxism-as-religion is how they treat Marx himself, much more like a prophet than a scholar (despite protestations to the contrary).

I don't think that the way Marx is treated is all that out of the ordinary compared to how other canonical historical philosophers are treated (and you can find other historical thinkers who have a bigger cult of personality, like Lacan imo). I think the locus of emotional investment is more in the cause of socialism itself rather than Marx as a person.

The particular attention paid to Marx's writings and Marx as a person may seem strange to people with a STEM background, where primary historical sources are never read by anyone except dedicated historians. But that's simply how things are done in philosophy. If you want to do serious scholarly or intellectual work using X thinker’s ideas, then you're expected to read what X actually wrote.

No one treats Marx's thought as an infallible edifice which can never be criticized or amended. The Frankfurt school thought that Marxism had to be supplemented with psychoanalysis and cultural criticism in order to address some of its blind spots. Wokes are intrinsically suspicious of Marx because he was white and male. Etc.

Lacan's cult of personality is bigger than Marx's? What? How are they even in the same order of magnitude?

I feel like you are in a very small bubble if you genuinely think that! Unless maybe you're defining it in a counterintuitive way.

I suppose that was ambiguous.

In terms of the sheer number of people around the world who (claim to) adhere to his ideas, no one can really touch Marx. But within academic circles, self-professed "followers of Marx" I think are more willing to be critical of Marx when compared to followers of certain other philosophers.

Lacan's cult of personality is bigger than Marx's? What? How are they even in the same order of magnitude?

Psychoanalysis is a weeeeeeird discipline, man.

I mean maybe im not into the philosophy scene enough to be in on those conversations but I’ve never seen any other philosophers treated as Marx is. People in the Woke/Marxist movements insist that you aren’t well educated in political theory until you have studied Marx. This isn’t what people claim about Kant, or Shoepenhour or Pascal. Nobody’s passing around Critique of Pure Reason like they do for Communist Manifesto. Some weird libertarians might pass aroun$ Milton Friedman, but it’s pretty rare. The closest I’ve seen to people treating philosophers like prophets is the Neo-Stoic movement that encourages people to read Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

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