Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Can anyone recommend a left-wing analysis of how economic Marxism* seemingly got supplanted by "woke" or "bioleninist" Marxism in the U.S.? I'm interested in learning (1) what caused the shift, (2) a history of the shift itself, and (3) how economic Marxists view this change (i.e. how would they describe the phenomenon in Marxist language).
It’s likely the CIA is involved in some way. Consider that they boosted up abstract expressionism, which (inadvertently?) reduced the power of regionalism. They then boosted atonal composers and 20th century classical music forms over Bach/Mozart etc through the Congress of Cultural Freedom. In 1953, the CIA founded Encounter Magazine which was an anti-Stalinist Left publication (thanks Bill Kristol’s Dad!). We like to think the intelligence agencies have gotten less powerful over these decades, but this is certainly false — we have gotten easier to control, the surveillance and technological state makes it easier to influence people. They are spying on us through all of our phones and computers. Whoever got the DSA to go full-send on the feminized IdPol stuff probably got a raise.
What?
You think the CIA managed to install idpol…why, exactly? Cui bono? I guess dismantling Marxism fits with their goal, but goodness, they took their sweet time.
The best evidence you’ve got is copying from the wiki article on abstract expressionism, specifically the Cold War section. It cites a single book (dead link) and a quote from a former CIA spook, who I’m sure has no incentive whatsoever to inflate its impact. I notice you stop right before the paragraph where it argues against this theory.
What’s the best example of domestic CIA interference after the Iron Curtain fell, and how does it compare to redirecting half the Democratic Party?
Sadly the CIA does not publish what they do, so our best guess is to extrapolate from past actions. The CIA doesn’t even tell congressional oversight members what they do, despite that being illegal. Multiple CIA directors have simply lied to their congressional overseers. The intelligence services are so omnipotent that they have a backdoor in all of our devices and we only learned about this from whistleblowers. This should clue us in to their power and range of activity. It would be foolish to think that, despite knowing their breadth of activity from the 50s to the 80s, and despite knowing they have grown in power and funding since then, that we ought to conclude they are not involved in social movements simply because we lack evidence. Because no, we will never have evidence. Journalists who seek to obtain such evidence are spied on.
So first, the CIA boost of modern art is widely agreed upon. Plug those terms into google scholar and you should be able to find that. You can read articles written by MOMA and Guggenheim talking about this.
But cui bono? I think two things. It completely neuters the left from doing anything but lobbying for diversity. The left can’t even accomplish unionizing anymore. Literally 100 million hours of leftist cognitive labor have been spent on questions related to gender and sex. Second, the diversity acts as a justification for America to become de facto world power. There were intelligence briefings leaked about this: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1429188218424078338
The second reason is important, because the CIA needs to motivate its own recruits to fulfill its mission. Intelligence agency recruits come from Ivys and many of them truly believe in IdPol, so casting America as the globohomo superpower is necessary to capture and retain intelligent employees.
Consider that our involvement in Syria was hardly as criticized as in Afghanistan, because by then “Assad” began coding anti-IdPol. Finally, our involvement in Ukraine is beloved by the Left, because Russia firmly codes anti-IdPol. Russia is anti-gay, anti-democracy, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link