You can find a few videos of Yuri Bezmenov on YouTube. Worth the watch. In the mid-80’s hr outlined “ideas” being pushed that are now the mainstream “progressive” left ideology. I watched the “progressive” Dems in Congress all chanting “our Democracy” as if the owned it and any other view was abhorrent. The other night I was at a community event where the organizers played the song “Proud to be an American”. I have a good leftist friend who later told me she considered that devisive.
I could best be described as a 1960’s Democrat in my beliefs on freedom, free speech, equal rights, anti-war, etc. Where the current left has gone is truly so far beyond me I mentally cannot comprehend it. As in no matter how hard I try to understand it, it is just beyond me.
Yuri was correct. The Soviets seeded our nation with bad ideas promulgated through the education system. I simply cannot see any way to reunify this nation when so many just seem to hate it. The Biden years were the most anti/democratic of my long life.
Should the right watch what it does? Absolutely ! Should they “turn the page”? Not on your life. The radical wing of the Democrats is a genuine threat to actual freedom in this country and needs to be snuffed out by any means possible.
Had Harris been elected, for the very fist time in my life I felt I might have to leave this nation. A continuation of the Biden policies was the road to Maoist China of the future. However flawed Trump may be, I believe he truly cares to make the country better.
As someone who was early and ardently on the "woke" train, the dismissal of the influence of Marxism in this rang hollow for me. Most of modern progressive ideology - including feminism - has its roots in "critical theory," which has its roots in Marxism. It's the basic differentiation in any 101 sociology course, functionalism and critical theory. I think we can manage to work with conservatives and remind them not to do the very human tendencies that "our side" (which I don't really think of as my side anymore) did for so long (longer than Biden or even Obama, the "long march through institutions" actually happened) but also not defend the problematic roots of why "our side" ended up the way it did.
"Meanwhile, many opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza—and I count myself among them—believe that a genocide has been taking place. If we are right, those who refuse to hear what we have to say may end up being complicit in a crime against humanity." I stopped reading after this. I just don't care what a person who posts this message today, as all decent humans mourn the brutal murder of the Bibas babies. The timing of the post is incredibly, unbelievably, shockingly tone-deaf. Shame on you, Carol;
That's pretty funny to respond to an article encouraging more discourse by saying you won't read any farther. Is it that hard to understand that sociopaths exist on both sides of that war?
The Bibas children shouldn't have been murdered. Nor should babies be blown up on busses in Palestine. It's not that complicated.
I stopped reading earlier--when the author says that those who are critical of Israel are being shut down. Only those who manipulate facts or overtly and maliciously lie are being shut down. I haven't heard conservative voices who shut down actual criticisms of Israel. This piece is written on false premises and the timing is telling.
The shame is yours my dear. How dare you inject such a disgraceful complete missing of the entire point Carol is making. And how dare you presume to have a lock on “human decency”. Read the room. Israel is now universally regarded as a pariah state.
Excellent and timely post. Regarding the question of whether identity politics is "marxist", the closest it could be called is "neo-Marxist". Critical theory did take off from Marxism in a way, but the way I'd put it is, it framed the question of class analysis as though no class analysis could occur until human beings had been perfected away from identitarian flaws, rather than working the other way around through class unity and insistence on human rights to remove the economic exploitation that exacerbates identitarian concerns.
The division and suspicion created by this tactic ends up functioning as a tool of the petit bourgeoisie, to keep the class hierarchy intact while simply creating new criteria by which divided labor competes amongst itself for success within the hierarchy.
At one time, leftist identity groups had peeled away from labor to form their own anti-capitalist activist circles -- black communism, feminist communes, and so on. These didn't succeed, for the obvious reasons including tiny size, that division and suspicion, lack of philosophy of creating unity (rather everyone is supposed to come to the commune). Marxism doesn't reject technology or knowledge in any case, which some of these projects did.
At some point, perhaps with the New Democrats' "big tent", these identity groups were fully brought into neoliberalism's capitalist order.
I think those of us who've seen academic and corporate life can see how it became relatively easy for "leftish" theory to be "addressed" by capital, partly because a burgeoning academic economy was happy to produce identitarian concepts such as "representation in advertisements", just one example of the conversion of people into material which identity politics fosters. This sort of approach easily transforms, through academia-lite classes, electives and "concentrations" and such, into HR-friendly corporate endeavors: bite-sized nuggets of "change". Mirror-gazing concerns that critique the form not the function of corporate structure thereby foster management of people as material and so slot perfectly well into corporate life under capitalism.
There's been mention of critical theory. Here's an academic who is both impeccably Marxist in training, and absolutely not neo-Marxist or progressive.
[While I don't agree with him on Palestine, it appears to me that he isn't familiar with the recent Israeli political shift, Israeli long-term tactics and goals, or with the inception of Zionism as a Nietzschean anti-moral Romantic ethnonationalist project of the 19th century and the ur-identity political project of all time--I suspect, given his takes on true fascism as well as on identity politics, his views might shift somewhat if he were.]
Regardless, his discussions of progressivism as a tool of the existing order, and corrections of ideas that critical theory is Marxism in any meaningful sense, are practically essential.
There is a lot to unpack in this essay. "Cancel culture is destructive." Yes, it is.
I liked this part in particular:
"Some people have outrageously declared that a “woman” is now anyone who “identifies as a woman.” They have grabbed an important word and presumptuously redefined it to mean its opposite. Presto-Chango, men are now women."
And: "redefining “women” to include men is insane and undoes all the gains women have made.
Don’t let the manipulation of language and the corruption of important words stand in the way of the alliances we should be building."
I had to stop reading, but I did get about 80% through it. What a mish-mosh of opposing beliefs in one person. One of the signs that a writer is confused on the issues is when he or she can't write concisely.
I am a liberal Democrat. I support most Democratic positions except transgenderism. Transgenderism is bad because it is an existential threat to America and the world. It is a seductive ideology which has infiltrated the good intentions of liberals and makes them feel that they must be 100% behind trans people in whatever they want. But trans people want to redefine the parameters of the sexes: "You are whatever gender you feel you are." It doesn't work that way. We don't throw reality in the waste basket to make people feel better about themselves.
Now, we can accept that there are some people who have such strong gender dysphoria that they feel they were born in the wrong bodies, but that doesn't mean that we give them the world. We don't let them redefine what "gender" means for the whole human race, nor do we hand over our children to them, nor do we hand them women's spaces in order to ease their pain by supporting their fantasies. We hold to reality, no matter what, and reality says you can't change your sex or gender.
The real threat to American right now is not coming from cancel culture -- although I admit that it is very destructive -- it is coming from President Boob who seems to be fooling conservatives into believing that he knows what he is doing. He doesn't. This author, in the first sentence of her article, implies that she supports Trump. If she does, her opinions are not worth much. The great threat to America is narcissism and shallow thinking and impulsive action, and those are the qualities that Trump epitomizes. Carol, you need to figure out that Trump is the problem (and the processes in the Republican party that allowed Trump to take it over), and then you will have figured out what is going on.
Brilliant contribution, Carol. I’m shocked that some people whose views somehow led them to your substack could so baselessly object to your thoughts on Israel-Palestine. But so it goes. I guess I’m naive.
I have been reading your work for the better part of the past year, and I want you to know that I so appreciate your information, analysis, and sage perspectives on war, trans, politics, empire, genocide, censorship, cancel culture, the environment, socialism and more — plus your thoughtful delivery that serves the cause of finding common ground among those so inclined. I have to make certain compromises or concessions to read Taibbi (to whom I subscribe, despite that he is conflicted on genocide) and Johnstone (to whom I subscribe, despite that she is confused on trans) and Hedges (who I also read, despite that he was wrong on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan), but, so far, in your writing, I have not had to pretzel myself around things with which I strongly disagree. Many thanks for your work and your informed writing.
You can find a few videos of Yuri Bezmenov on YouTube. Worth the watch. In the mid-80’s hr outlined “ideas” being pushed that are now the mainstream “progressive” left ideology. I watched the “progressive” Dems in Congress all chanting “our Democracy” as if the owned it and any other view was abhorrent. The other night I was at a community event where the organizers played the song “Proud to be an American”. I have a good leftist friend who later told me she considered that devisive.
I could best be described as a 1960’s Democrat in my beliefs on freedom, free speech, equal rights, anti-war, etc. Where the current left has gone is truly so far beyond me I mentally cannot comprehend it. As in no matter how hard I try to understand it, it is just beyond me.
Yuri was correct. The Soviets seeded our nation with bad ideas promulgated through the education system. I simply cannot see any way to reunify this nation when so many just seem to hate it. The Biden years were the most anti/democratic of my long life.
Should the right watch what it does? Absolutely ! Should they “turn the page”? Not on your life. The radical wing of the Democrats is a genuine threat to actual freedom in this country and needs to be snuffed out by any means possible.
Had Harris been elected, for the very fist time in my life I felt I might have to leave this nation. A continuation of the Biden policies was the road to Maoist China of the future. However flawed Trump may be, I believe he truly cares to make the country better.
As someone who was early and ardently on the "woke" train, the dismissal of the influence of Marxism in this rang hollow for me. Most of modern progressive ideology - including feminism - has its roots in "critical theory," which has its roots in Marxism. It's the basic differentiation in any 101 sociology course, functionalism and critical theory. I think we can manage to work with conservatives and remind them not to do the very human tendencies that "our side" (which I don't really think of as my side anymore) did for so long (longer than Biden or even Obama, the "long march through institutions" actually happened) but also not defend the problematic roots of why "our side" ended up the way it did.
"Meanwhile, many opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza—and I count myself among them—believe that a genocide has been taking place. If we are right, those who refuse to hear what we have to say may end up being complicit in a crime against humanity." I stopped reading after this. I just don't care what a person who posts this message today, as all decent humans mourn the brutal murder of the Bibas babies. The timing of the post is incredibly, unbelievably, shockingly tone-deaf. Shame on you, Carol;
That's pretty funny to respond to an article encouraging more discourse by saying you won't read any farther. Is it that hard to understand that sociopaths exist on both sides of that war?
The Bibas children shouldn't have been murdered. Nor should babies be blown up on busses in Palestine. It's not that complicated.
Thank you. I came here to say exactly this.
I stopped reading earlier--when the author says that those who are critical of Israel are being shut down. Only those who manipulate facts or overtly and maliciously lie are being shut down. I haven't heard conservative voices who shut down actual criticisms of Israel. This piece is written on false premises and the timing is telling.
The shame is yours my dear. How dare you inject such a disgraceful complete missing of the entire point Carol is making. And how dare you presume to have a lock on “human decency”. Read the room. Israel is now universally regarded as a pariah state.
Thank you for saying this.
Thank you for a very sane and substantive message! Unless we disarm our language we are incapable of being engaged in true dialogue.
Good read, many truths spoken.
Excellent and timely post. Regarding the question of whether identity politics is "marxist", the closest it could be called is "neo-Marxist". Critical theory did take off from Marxism in a way, but the way I'd put it is, it framed the question of class analysis as though no class analysis could occur until human beings had been perfected away from identitarian flaws, rather than working the other way around through class unity and insistence on human rights to remove the economic exploitation that exacerbates identitarian concerns.
The division and suspicion created by this tactic ends up functioning as a tool of the petit bourgeoisie, to keep the class hierarchy intact while simply creating new criteria by which divided labor competes amongst itself for success within the hierarchy.
At one time, leftist identity groups had peeled away from labor to form their own anti-capitalist activist circles -- black communism, feminist communes, and so on. These didn't succeed, for the obvious reasons including tiny size, that division and suspicion, lack of philosophy of creating unity (rather everyone is supposed to come to the commune). Marxism doesn't reject technology or knowledge in any case, which some of these projects did.
At some point, perhaps with the New Democrats' "big tent", these identity groups were fully brought into neoliberalism's capitalist order.
I think those of us who've seen academic and corporate life can see how it became relatively easy for "leftish" theory to be "addressed" by capital, partly because a burgeoning academic economy was happy to produce identitarian concepts such as "representation in advertisements", just one example of the conversion of people into material which identity politics fosters. This sort of approach easily transforms, through academia-lite classes, electives and "concentrations" and such, into HR-friendly corporate endeavors: bite-sized nuggets of "change". Mirror-gazing concerns that critique the form not the function of corporate structure thereby foster management of people as material and so slot perfectly well into corporate life under capitalism.
There's been mention of critical theory. Here's an academic who is both impeccably Marxist in training, and absolutely not neo-Marxist or progressive.
[While I don't agree with him on Palestine, it appears to me that he isn't familiar with the recent Israeli political shift, Israeli long-term tactics and goals, or with the inception of Zionism as a Nietzschean anti-moral Romantic ethnonationalist project of the 19th century and the ur-identity political project of all time--I suspect, given his takes on true fascism as well as on identity politics, his views might shift somewhat if he were.]
Regardless, his discussions of progressivism as a tool of the existing order, and corrections of ideas that critical theory is Marxism in any meaningful sense, are practically essential.
This is a great post to start with. He links several additional posts to read in the post, and I will link more below as well. He's been writing for years and he doesn't only focus on this topic; he's a criminologist and sociologist and writes about those and other topics as well. https://andrewaustin.blog/2020/07/17/the-mao-zedong-thought-shift-from-the-class-analytical-to-race-ideological/
and this related post https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/04/03/the-cultural-revolution/
A clarification of Marxist thought on the family and also a discussion of right-wing understandings of Marx and how later analysis, building on error in earlier analyses, has resulted in contemporary understandings that are at cross-purposes https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/12/04/queer-theory-is-not-marxism-the-myth-of-family-abolitionism-in-the-materialist-conception-of-history/
A discussion of the development of theory, postmodernism, post-structuralism, etc, reviewing Glenn Loury's interview of political scientist, Yascha Mounk, on The Glenn Show https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/11/20/the-peril-of-left-wing-identitarianism/
A discussion of Hegel and Marx and what he views as misrepresentations of their views https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/09/29/misrepresenting-hegel-and-marx/
Marx on unchecked immigration (against) https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/09/24/the-progressive-politics-of-mass-immigration/
Marx on racism and the evil of slavery, vs woke corporate progressivism https://andrewaustin.blog/2023/06/04/stay-woke-the-corporate-state-is-counting-on-it/
The massive error of the New Left ideology and an explanation of his populist vision, again, powered by Marxist analysis! https://andrewaustin.blog/2021/01/25/the-pathology-of-identity-politics-and-the-force-behind-the-pathology/
Thanks for sharing this. Fascinating website, well worth delving into.
There is a lot to unpack in this essay. "Cancel culture is destructive." Yes, it is.
I liked this part in particular:
"Some people have outrageously declared that a “woman” is now anyone who “identifies as a woman.” They have grabbed an important word and presumptuously redefined it to mean its opposite. Presto-Chango, men are now women."
And: "redefining “women” to include men is insane and undoes all the gains women have made.
Don’t let the manipulation of language and the corruption of important words stand in the way of the alliances we should be building."
Thanks for writing this essay.
What a wonderful essay! I will be forwarding this on to my email group of friends/family.
This is exactly how I'm feeling right now. Thank you!!!
I had to stop reading, but I did get about 80% through it. What a mish-mosh of opposing beliefs in one person. One of the signs that a writer is confused on the issues is when he or she can't write concisely.
I am a liberal Democrat. I support most Democratic positions except transgenderism. Transgenderism is bad because it is an existential threat to America and the world. It is a seductive ideology which has infiltrated the good intentions of liberals and makes them feel that they must be 100% behind trans people in whatever they want. But trans people want to redefine the parameters of the sexes: "You are whatever gender you feel you are." It doesn't work that way. We don't throw reality in the waste basket to make people feel better about themselves.
Now, we can accept that there are some people who have such strong gender dysphoria that they feel they were born in the wrong bodies, but that doesn't mean that we give them the world. We don't let them redefine what "gender" means for the whole human race, nor do we hand over our children to them, nor do we hand them women's spaces in order to ease their pain by supporting their fantasies. We hold to reality, no matter what, and reality says you can't change your sex or gender.
The real threat to American right now is not coming from cancel culture -- although I admit that it is very destructive -- it is coming from President Boob who seems to be fooling conservatives into believing that he knows what he is doing. He doesn't. This author, in the first sentence of her article, implies that she supports Trump. If she does, her opinions are not worth much. The great threat to America is narcissism and shallow thinking and impulsive action, and those are the qualities that Trump epitomizes. Carol, you need to figure out that Trump is the problem (and the processes in the Republican party that allowed Trump to take it over), and then you will have figured out what is going on.
TDS
Brilliant contribution, Carol. I’m shocked that some people whose views somehow led them to your substack could so baselessly object to your thoughts on Israel-Palestine. But so it goes. I guess I’m naive.
I have been reading your work for the better part of the past year, and I want you to know that I so appreciate your information, analysis, and sage perspectives on war, trans, politics, empire, genocide, censorship, cancel culture, the environment, socialism and more — plus your thoughtful delivery that serves the cause of finding common ground among those so inclined. I have to make certain compromises or concessions to read Taibbi (to whom I subscribe, despite that he is conflicted on genocide) and Johnstone (to whom I subscribe, despite that she is confused on trans) and Hedges (who I also read, despite that he was wrong on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan), but, so far, in your writing, I have not had to pretzel myself around things with which I strongly disagree. Many thanks for your work and your informed writing.
Thank you for writing this and sharing it with the world.