As much as it pains me to admit, Jordan Peterson was kind of right with his "Cultural Marxists". (Though I prefer to call them "neo-maoists".)
Yeah, sure, JP is hilariously wrong about postmodernism :
https://medium.com/s/story/peterson-historian-aide-m%C3%A9moire-9aa3b6b3de04
(And was hilariously offtopic in that debate with Žižek.)
"216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control."
The post I am now replying to shows a remarkable lack of insightfulness because what it really says is something it's author clearly never even thought about: the real left are the oppressed, NOT those in power.
That is an unfortunate circumstance since it implies humanity's doom as right-wingers, pretty much always the ones in control, are, on whole, too selfish to do the right thing (such as having true compassion for their fellow man and concern for the rest of the biosphere) - and that may well be "the human condition."
If my conjecture is correct - and I see scant evidence it isn't - we can all bend over and kiss our asses goodbye; hello Holocene, we're on our way.
Of course it doesn't help that Kaczynski has a very… idiosyncratic? definition of leftism (and maybe also of power), which he himself admits.
As a reminder, this whole discussion is indeed about whether there are "fake-leftists" in power that only pretend to be leftists.
Kaczynski talks a lot about power, and has something to say about those in power too, but in his opinion they aren't fundamentally different :
33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the power process. This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing.[...]
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
83. […] In particular, leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking to satisfy their need for power. But for most people identification with a large organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy the need for power. […]
214. [...] Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power. [...]
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most powerhungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with nonleftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry type, because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the powerhungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the powerhungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't seem to be much we can do about this. [...]
Here, read this - you can skip over all the graphing stuff at the top; the author has a pretty good write up that answers your question from your closing paragraph - what left is:
You've provided yet *another* definition of the "left".
(BTW, I have posted the political compass – yet another definition, which your author criticizes – elsewhere in this discussion.)
Your author *also* recognizes that the terms "Left" and "Right" as somewhat nebulous in his closing paragraph.
So please don't write in a way that it seems like you've found the definitive definition of "the left". (But thank you for the contribution.)
It's not my question, it's Kaczynski's, and it's not even a question : he provides his own definition of some category of people he names "leftists", and asks us to follow him reasoning about a very specific model of the world.
I'll also note that both Kaczynski and your author consider Stalin as the "most leftist that has ever leftisted".
I'll have to consider that, as (formerly?) a leftist myself I had initially rejected that classification (also why I had embraced the political compass, which also clearly sets, say, Gandhi and Stalin apart).
I wasn't considering Kaczynski at all, or, rather perhaps, whatever parts of his you quoted or content you yourself generated; I have no interest in the man or his manifesto.
However, it's worth noting that propaganda in the USA has been intentionally screwing around with the term "left", specifically to make it hard for us to communicate effectively.
Also note that "the right" has much the same problem as we on the left have with the usurpation of "conservative."
As much as it pains me to admit, Jordan Peterson was kind of right with his "Cultural Marxists". (Though I prefer to call them "neo-maoists".)
Yeah, sure, JP is hilariously wrong about postmodernism :
https://medium.com/s/story/peterson-historian-aide-m%C3%A9moire-9aa3b6b3de04
(And was hilariously offtopic in that debate with Žižek.)
But then the American academics that he's criticizing seem to be misunderstanding French Theory too!
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/french-theory-how-foucault-derrida-deleuze-co-transformed-the-intellectual-life-of-the-united-states/
Though worse, you know what this whole discussion reminds me of ?
This guy :
https://unabombermanifesto.com/#THE%20DANGER%20OF%20LEFTISM
"216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control."
Ugh…
You can't say the Unabomber was far off in his analysis
The post I am now replying to shows a remarkable lack of insightfulness because what it really says is something it's author clearly never even thought about: the real left are the oppressed, NOT those in power.
That is an unfortunate circumstance since it implies humanity's doom as right-wingers, pretty much always the ones in control, are, on whole, too selfish to do the right thing (such as having true compassion for their fellow man and concern for the rest of the biosphere) - and that may well be "the human condition."
If my conjecture is correct - and I see scant evidence it isn't - we can all bend over and kiss our asses goodbye; hello Holocene, we're on our way.
You've fallen into the semantics trap here.
Of course it doesn't help that Kaczynski has a very… idiosyncratic? definition of leftism (and maybe also of power), which he himself admits.
As a reminder, this whole discussion is indeed about whether there are "fake-leftists" in power that only pretend to be leftists.
Kaczynski talks a lot about power, and has something to say about those in power too, but in his opinion they aren't fundamentally different :
33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the power process. This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing.[...]
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
83. […] In particular, leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking to satisfy their need for power. But for most people identification with a large organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy the need for power. […]
214. [...] Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power. [...]
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most powerhungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with nonleftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry type, because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the powerhungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the powerhungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't seem to be much we can do about this. [...]
Here, read this - you can skip over all the graphing stuff at the top; the author has a pretty good write up that answers your question from your closing paragraph - what left is:
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/redefining_the_political_spectru.htm
You've provided yet *another* definition of the "left".
(BTW, I have posted the political compass – yet another definition, which your author criticizes – elsewhere in this discussion.)
Your author *also* recognizes that the terms "Left" and "Right" as somewhat nebulous in his closing paragraph.
So please don't write in a way that it seems like you've found the definitive definition of "the left". (But thank you for the contribution.)
It's not my question, it's Kaczynski's, and it's not even a question : he provides his own definition of some category of people he names "leftists", and asks us to follow him reasoning about a very specific model of the world.
I'll also note that both Kaczynski and your author consider Stalin as the "most leftist that has ever leftisted".
I'll have to consider that, as (formerly?) a leftist myself I had initially rejected that classification (also why I had embraced the political compass, which also clearly sets, say, Gandhi and Stalin apart).
I wasn't considering Kaczynski at all, or, rather perhaps, whatever parts of his you quoted or content you yourself generated; I have no interest in the man or his manifesto.
However, it's worth noting that propaganda in the USA has been intentionally screwing around with the term "left", specifically to make it hard for us to communicate effectively.
Also note that "the right" has much the same problem as we on the left have with the usurpation of "conservative."