The ruling class has little interest in ideology. They care about power. If a given ideology will get them power, then they will use it, only to drop it like a hot turd, the moment it no longer is convenient.
To return to the example of "woke", the subtext is that the populace are too bigoted and benighted to be entrusted with any real power, while We The Better Sort of People will use that power much more wisely.
At the same time, "woke" does not require the rulers to give up any part of The Goodies. They can have it both ways. Demand more more power because of their self-evidently superior virtue, but at the same time, thr distribution of wealth in their favor is obvious just and proper.
Refreshing to read this article as a fellow South Asian. I think your experience isn’t unique and many women run either right or left based on their world view. I think neoliberalism is kind of like snake oil that really wants us to believe if we all chase after desires like happiness, passion, love then we will reach some level of enlightenment. It’s quite intoxicating and fun and it works for those that don’t feel any duty to family or community. No judgment but usually people like this will either be incredibly lonely later on because their life was so shallow or they will keep finding the money to get the next hit of desires.
Another super powerful essay. There's so much here to unpack!
I still remember when I first started seeing something very wrong with the left. It was when Evergreen State College (my wife's Alma Mater, by the way...) was shut down over the Bret Weinstein fiasco. There were videos circulating on the internet by a guy that was going around campus chalking innocuous Limp Bizkit lyrics on walls and sidewalks and he was repeatedly harassed by a bunch of alt-emo types, some with baseball bats. This seemed to be a level of intolerance (in the name of tolerance) that was disconcerting.
I remember having a couple of conversations around this same time very clearly, as well, that disturbed me. One surrounded income inequality. A person I didn't know very well was going on about how income inequality between blacks and whites proved systemic racism. I made the mistake (I would learn my lesson later) of pointing out that if you separated "black" into actual nationalities/regions such as Caribbean origin, sub-Saharan African immigrant, the comparison showed that they actually earned more than white Americans on average. When she said that's because they come from the upper social classes in their home country, I made the mistake of saying, "Well, doesn't that prove my point that class is more important than race?" I was basically called everything but a racist by this woman.
Another conversation involved lack of women in STEM fields. I'm a biologist; the ratio of men to women in biology is pretty much 50-50. I pointed this out to the woman (a college professor), and also pointed out that surveys that show a lack of women in STEM exclude the life sciences and medicine (something I resent as a biologist). If they did, the disparities of women being less represented in engineering would disappear because women have dominated veterinary medicine since the 1970s, pharmacology since at least the 1980s, and there are now more women physicians than male physicians (though surgeons still tend to be predominantly male). I was flat out called a misogynist by her and, believe it or not, by the MEN who were present! All for presenting flaws in methodology by which she reached her conclusions.
I have always been able to have conversations with people on pretty much every topic because I stuck to facts, was interested in listening to others' reasoning, and didn't disdain another point of view. But after these events I listed above (I believe all around 2016-2017) I found it increasingly, and eventually impossible, to have rational discussions with some people...including, unfortunately, some life long friends. Something "broke" in a lot of peoples' brains in 2016. I don't know if they can ever be fixed. Though when I read stories like yours it gives me hope.
I’m glad I could provide a modicum of hope. I went to college 2005-9, before the woke really took over, but I saw it start right after Obama was elected and my education was woven together by postmodern theories of power. I’ve had similar arguments with people that immediately turn contentious. It’s like women can’t discuss these things without emotions and can’t accept that they may be wrong about something. It’s why I call them conservative authoritarians, and we ought to be loud about this observations because they claim to be the true “liberals”. They lost their reasoning faculties after trump. More than anything, I see feminism as the root cause, the original illness.
I saw, even in the eighties (I had classes from some radical lesbian feminists like Anne-Marie Wagstaff) that there was a branch of feminism that wasn't for equality for women (i.e. giving women all the choices men had) as much as it was anti-male and sought to replace a male dominated society with a female dominated society. When I put that to Anne-Marie she told me that I was correct, though she also couched that in terms of moving the Overton Window…that is, you take the extreme position to move the center towards your point of view. I found that attitude disturbing then, and more so now.
I don’t know if it’s feminism per se but it’s certainly the attitude of adopting radical stances that is at the heart of the problem. You, being younger, were exposed to it as mainstream where as for me it was a decidedly fringe attitude back then.
I hope you’ll keep up speaking out; we need more young people like you doing this. Thanks.
you all give me hope. the pattern i see which causes alarm is when the levers of power champion an extreme and/or fringe minority and bring it center stage. i think this extreme feminist ideology is being used to destroy women, make us nonexistent, again.
i have waited & watched for the pendulum to swing back to begin to find it's center. so beautifully & assuredly articulated.
I have had similar confrontations. What is even more wierd is that they routinely bring up ideological topics in normal casual conversation. They are obviously checking to see if you are also a true believer. Many of them cannot stand the thought of socializing with someone with different opinions.
I used to avoid political discussions with other people and say that I am not interested in the topic just to avoid the conflict.
Not anymore. I never bring up the subject, but if they do, I will give them my real opinion.
I appreciated your candor. Writing can be cathartic. I've been called all kinds of nasty things. Online and in person. In front of my children in fact. It's caused me to have a thick skin.
I'm likely contrarian as I hate crowds and herds. Particularly as an investment style. Most definitely a civil libertarian. Live and let live. Not a fan of large governments but believe in the necessity of great education/healthcare as a point of compromise. Been a SAHM for 17 years now so maybe even a trad wife. :-D with a master's degree in chemistry. Everyone should be able to do whatever suits them, excel in whatever they can. reach their personal potential. Most importantly women.
My identity was formed in the 90's in extremely liberal multicultural Vancouver, anti establishment grunge meeting my formative exposure to hip/hop. I'm not sure American's knew what to make of me. The classic binary party, with us or against us, silly paradigm. But as cultures mesh there are so many more mutts in the world. A truly globalized, common humanity should emerge. Fingers crossed.
People want to conveniently pigeon-hole you. I think it helps compartmentalize the onslaught of information in finding your identity. You have no one to answer to but yourself and loved ones.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
These words have served me for decades. Go your own way. Thanks for sharing.
The only “anti-woke kool aid” is reality. The obvious parallels between the Woke and the People’s Temple (a weird mix of socialist ideology and religious cult) should make it obvious that it is the Woke and those who defend them are the ones who have drunk the kool aid.
I think that it is important for us to understand the relationship between Woke ideology, mental disorders and social media usage. Once we as a society come to understand that we are accidentally (and sometimes deliberately) spiking mental disorders, then we can start to move beyond this. Teenage boys and young men seem to be waking up to the problem, but teenage girls and young women have not yet done so. I hope that your writings can help convince them.
Though I focus more on the history of human material progress, I have written a number of articles related to the subject:
Jones himself followed Marcuse and the Frankfurt guys, et al. Pretty clear he was convinced The Utopia could only 'work' on a limited scale, and with pretty strict guardrails. Also pretty clear he was a raging sociopath. 2 weeks in November of '78 were a pretty tumultuous time in SF.
Excellent analysis. Stay pissed off, the insane, radical left is trying to destroy civilization.
Nassim Taleb’s article on the Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority explains a lot of why small numbers of insane, toxic, extremists on the “woke” “left” have so much power, and why they abuse it.
I’ve been around large numbers of leftists and what are now called “wokies” for 50 years, including on a student tour of USSR satellite countries in Eastern Europe in 1974, and they just keep getting more evil and depraved.
I have a small collection of links to leftists opposed to the forces that hijacked the social justice movement, and abandoned class struggle. Exiting the Vampire Castle is a classic. The sad reality is that leftists always engage in infighting and back stabbing (Orwell’s Homage to Catalunya describes how he narrowly escaped assassination by a hard line Stalinist communist faction during the Spanish Civil War, 1930s).
Techno-economic disruption and the decline of the modern nation state Westphalian system (Martin Van Creveld) ensure that postmodern cult “beliefs”, such as that “reality is a social construct” , put the “left” in full alignment with global neoliberalism, which is depraved and evil.
Here is one path, described by a heterodox, atheist, tantric Buddhist (in the renunciate tradition) that is a MIT trained PhD in AI (1980s) to escaping the dead end of the whole left-vs-right narrative:
Thanks for the rec, I’ll check it out. As for the rest, I’ve come to see that women are the most ardent upholders and the source of it in the West. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.
So happy to discover Radha here and learn there seem many others, people with the fire (or at least desire) to reclaim the left from the radicals… thanks, have also been reading a lot of Taleb this year and see that same dynamic at play in this.
I love your comment and the article recommendation! As a fan of Kegan’s work, it was cool to see someone really go into stage 5 of the developmental mode he wrote about in “In Over Our Heads”
His absolute takedown of garbage-tier postmodernism in the end of that text is so erudite.
Thank You. I'm also very angry about being tricked by Identity Politics into becoming less of a humanist. (By humanist, I mean seeing every human being as a unique expression of God with a right not to be judged based on sex, skin color, or ethnicity).
This made me a less open and compassionate person. It also made me a more depressed and discouraged person. It's a vicious treadmill of misery that you convince yourself you can't escape until the whole "wicked" world changes. Ha! Good luck with that!
When a critic says something flat out untrue about you, it's a nice data point. I have my moments where I think "am I wrong? Maybe I'm in the wrong here."
Then the counterpoints are the handful of things you've mentioned. That helps. Let's me know I'm not wrong (or at least not so obviously wrong that good arguments could be thrown my way).
I enjoyed this article as well as your previous one. I am a new reader. Having moved from Portland, OR to East TN in 2020 with my husband and two children - I left behind an entire community of friends and family who were basically all Progressives. I was a Republican and Trump Supporter, so obviously the worst kind of person one could be. When Covid happened and the George Floyd riots took over our city, we had protests down our block and homeless people sleeping on our porch. My daughter was worried about the world ending from climate change and that I would be thought of as a racist for refusing to participate in the BLM protests (I was vehemently against them). Thus, we moved so I could give my children the best opportunity to grow up in an environment, where they would remain critical thinkers. I knew that despite my influence with them at home, that eventually my influence would wain as they become older and more independent - seeking approval and acceptance from others. Unfortunately everyone around us was so radically progressive I could see no way for my children to ever be allowed to think independently about a subject and feared they would simply just conform. Teaching them - and by extension anyone - how to think critically is probably the single most important thing we can do - as it affects every single technical issue in our lives and in society. Unfortunately, Public K-12 schools no longer do this. In fact, The science curriculum in K-12 schools - which is where the fundamentals of critical thinking are first taught, has been taken over by the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) in 49 states and what have they done? Completely removed both the Scientific Method and the term Critical Thinking from the curriculum. In its place, they have promoted the use of modeling and deference to authoritative experts. That’s right, they are teaching children to forgoe critical thought and instead default to what a computer or “expert” says. God help us. At any rate, I very much appreciate the story of your growth and evolution into the person you are today. It gives me hope that some of my long lost friends with whom I no longer speak may eventually come to realize that extreme liberalism is not healthy nor empowering. I am not perfect either, but I do my very best on a daily basis to remain grounded and open minded, and humble
Thank you for a thoughtful and informative read! I agree that both political parties have become cultish. As a complex human, most of us don’t fall squarely into either side. Greed, entitlement, privilege & self interest has taken over our country. People in politics talk about the collective good but it’s a lot of nimby-ism, elitism and again, privilege. The people “in charge” are so disconnected from 70% of people’s reality that it’s scary. It’s easy to get caught up in one’s own world and blame “society,” “republicans,” “liberals” etc.
What if we each took individual responsibility for our actions and tried to improve a little bit daily. A little more awareness, a little more accountability, just a bit more presence?
Thank you this is a brilliant piece. I think about all the complex issues we are
faced with today how can they be addressed with either conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat policies. Baffling the limitations one places on their life by insisting that all thoughts and ideas must fit into an ideological box.
You can examine policy outcomes there are actual consequences resulting from poor policies. One not accepting the results or consequences does not mean that it is not happening.
Here is one that was my favorite while
my daughter lived in NYC. Allowing people to rob stores up to a certain value
before you arrest or prosecute.
I don’t even know the reasoning behind it because it is to baffling for me. Ky daughter was in a CVS at least 3 times while it was being robbed. I am not even going repeat what some of the employees said to her to reduce her fear and horror. It would just seam that we have lost our grip on reality.
Sometimes I think about being more vocally critical of bad thinking on the left, and it reminds me of the time at age 19 when I was realizing I didn’t believe in Mormonism and fearfully wondering what would happen to me socially if I started admitting that outloud (my social identity was highly tied into the faith and I had been personally exceptionally devout)
Luckily the small bubble of geography where Mormonism matters in this way was so easily escapable I now have a very chill relationship with the high demand religion of my youth and moved on from the type of anger you’re feeling after maybe 5 good years of processing it.
It seems the absence of thinking you’re talking about, the religion that kidnapped your critical thinking for a decade, is not geographically small at all. I never had to prove Mormonism wrong; I just had to leave Utah for a while. I wonder how we will all recover from this strange hiccup in the long arc of the moral universe.
Buddhism teaches that 'chasing desire' does not lead to happiness; you're constantly chasing something that doesn't make you happy. One book I read likened it to walking around a large circular dolmen trying to find happiness. You can't move any closer; it's a fool's errand. Fix what's inside you which is where the problem always lies. In our narcissistic culture it seems to be recommending poison for what ails you, but narcissism is about upholding one's delicate and often faulty self-image; inner analysis and awareness seeks to unearth all the negative stuff we avoid and deal with it, which is what leads to true happiness when we find better ways to live, think, and accept ourselves.
I think you're still a feminist, Radha; as Caitlin Moran asked, "Do you have a vagina? Do you think its owner should have equal rights? Great, you're a feminist!" What you *aren't* anymore is a *victim* feminist. I, too, disavowed feminism for 25 years as I didn't want to be associated with the whiners, the self-infantilizing, and the man-haters. Then I read Naomi Wolf's 1991 book Fighting Fire With Fire and I realized I'm a *power* feminist: One who believes in female power and using it for the greater good. If you haven't read that book I highly recommend it. Don't let its nearly 35-year-old age put you off; it's still highly relevant today.
You're dead to rights when you say that when you're pissing both sides off you're getting it right. You are. I'm happy that I have subscribers from both the right and the left; I'm connecting with the non-crazies on both sides of the partisan divide. Just as not all liberals are crazy Regressive Left wokies, not all conservatives are crazy-ass hyper-extremist MAGAs.
Congratulations Radha on reaching 1000 subscribers and for the many thousands to come! Your voice of reason and shunning the prized oppressed progressive BIPOC role will make you some enemies and a lot of supporters. This piece is a banger and as long as you keep challenging people's ideas, they'll provide you with all the inspiration to keep writing.
Thank you also for sharing my work. I'm so pleased it resonates!
It's a cult. It's split my family and along gender lines. It's doing this across thousands, millions, of families across our society.
This is probably the largest and most successful cult that's ever existed. It's global across western civ.
It's split my family. I despise it. For a while I did not see it for what it was. Accepted parts of it. Until it all came in to focus to me for what it truly was.
Would that I could have my daughters read this and understand it through your eyes and experience.
Maybe that time will come.
I pray that time will come.
I don't hate them. (they hate me right now but they don't know what they are doing nor thinking).
The ruling class has little interest in ideology. They care about power. If a given ideology will get them power, then they will use it, only to drop it like a hot turd, the moment it no longer is convenient.
To return to the example of "woke", the subtext is that the populace are too bigoted and benighted to be entrusted with any real power, while We The Better Sort of People will use that power much more wisely.
At the same time, "woke" does not require the rulers to give up any part of The Goodies. They can have it both ways. Demand more more power because of their self-evidently superior virtue, but at the same time, thr distribution of wealth in their favor is obvious just and proper.
The greed of group think! The power to control a large nation so there is blind allegiance and compliance. Agreed!
also known as pacification, a technique designed to sway the hearts & minds of the people
And THAT is the Kool-Aid!
Refreshing to read this article as a fellow South Asian. I think your experience isn’t unique and many women run either right or left based on their world view. I think neoliberalism is kind of like snake oil that really wants us to believe if we all chase after desires like happiness, passion, love then we will reach some level of enlightenment. It’s quite intoxicating and fun and it works for those that don’t feel any duty to family or community. No judgment but usually people like this will either be incredibly lonely later on because their life was so shallow or they will keep finding the money to get the next hit of desires.
Well said
Another super powerful essay. There's so much here to unpack!
I still remember when I first started seeing something very wrong with the left. It was when Evergreen State College (my wife's Alma Mater, by the way...) was shut down over the Bret Weinstein fiasco. There were videos circulating on the internet by a guy that was going around campus chalking innocuous Limp Bizkit lyrics on walls and sidewalks and he was repeatedly harassed by a bunch of alt-emo types, some with baseball bats. This seemed to be a level of intolerance (in the name of tolerance) that was disconcerting.
I remember having a couple of conversations around this same time very clearly, as well, that disturbed me. One surrounded income inequality. A person I didn't know very well was going on about how income inequality between blacks and whites proved systemic racism. I made the mistake (I would learn my lesson later) of pointing out that if you separated "black" into actual nationalities/regions such as Caribbean origin, sub-Saharan African immigrant, the comparison showed that they actually earned more than white Americans on average. When she said that's because they come from the upper social classes in their home country, I made the mistake of saying, "Well, doesn't that prove my point that class is more important than race?" I was basically called everything but a racist by this woman.
Another conversation involved lack of women in STEM fields. I'm a biologist; the ratio of men to women in biology is pretty much 50-50. I pointed this out to the woman (a college professor), and also pointed out that surveys that show a lack of women in STEM exclude the life sciences and medicine (something I resent as a biologist). If they did, the disparities of women being less represented in engineering would disappear because women have dominated veterinary medicine since the 1970s, pharmacology since at least the 1980s, and there are now more women physicians than male physicians (though surgeons still tend to be predominantly male). I was flat out called a misogynist by her and, believe it or not, by the MEN who were present! All for presenting flaws in methodology by which she reached her conclusions.
I have always been able to have conversations with people on pretty much every topic because I stuck to facts, was interested in listening to others' reasoning, and didn't disdain another point of view. But after these events I listed above (I believe all around 2016-2017) I found it increasingly, and eventually impossible, to have rational discussions with some people...including, unfortunately, some life long friends. Something "broke" in a lot of peoples' brains in 2016. I don't know if they can ever be fixed. Though when I read stories like yours it gives me hope.
I’m glad I could provide a modicum of hope. I went to college 2005-9, before the woke really took over, but I saw it start right after Obama was elected and my education was woven together by postmodern theories of power. I’ve had similar arguments with people that immediately turn contentious. It’s like women can’t discuss these things without emotions and can’t accept that they may be wrong about something. It’s why I call them conservative authoritarians, and we ought to be loud about this observations because they claim to be the true “liberals”. They lost their reasoning faculties after trump. More than anything, I see feminism as the root cause, the original illness.
I saw, even in the eighties (I had classes from some radical lesbian feminists like Anne-Marie Wagstaff) that there was a branch of feminism that wasn't for equality for women (i.e. giving women all the choices men had) as much as it was anti-male and sought to replace a male dominated society with a female dominated society. When I put that to Anne-Marie she told me that I was correct, though she also couched that in terms of moving the Overton Window…that is, you take the extreme position to move the center towards your point of view. I found that attitude disturbing then, and more so now.
I don’t know if it’s feminism per se but it’s certainly the attitude of adopting radical stances that is at the heart of the problem. You, being younger, were exposed to it as mainstream where as for me it was a decidedly fringe attitude back then.
I hope you’ll keep up speaking out; we need more young people like you doing this. Thanks.
you all give me hope. the pattern i see which causes alarm is when the levers of power champion an extreme and/or fringe minority and bring it center stage. i think this extreme feminist ideology is being used to destroy women, make us nonexistent, again.
i have waited & watched for the pendulum to swing back to begin to find it's center. so beautifully & assuredly articulated.
I have had similar confrontations. What is even more wierd is that they routinely bring up ideological topics in normal casual conversation. They are obviously checking to see if you are also a true believer. Many of them cannot stand the thought of socializing with someone with different opinions.
I used to avoid political discussions with other people and say that I am not interested in the topic just to avoid the conflict.
Not anymore. I never bring up the subject, but if they do, I will give them my real opinion.
I appreciated your candor. Writing can be cathartic. I've been called all kinds of nasty things. Online and in person. In front of my children in fact. It's caused me to have a thick skin.
I'm likely contrarian as I hate crowds and herds. Particularly as an investment style. Most definitely a civil libertarian. Live and let live. Not a fan of large governments but believe in the necessity of great education/healthcare as a point of compromise. Been a SAHM for 17 years now so maybe even a trad wife. :-D with a master's degree in chemistry. Everyone should be able to do whatever suits them, excel in whatever they can. reach their personal potential. Most importantly women.
My identity was formed in the 90's in extremely liberal multicultural Vancouver, anti establishment grunge meeting my formative exposure to hip/hop. I'm not sure American's knew what to make of me. The classic binary party, with us or against us, silly paradigm. But as cultures mesh there are so many more mutts in the world. A truly globalized, common humanity should emerge. Fingers crossed.
People want to conveniently pigeon-hole you. I think it helps compartmentalize the onslaught of information in finding your identity. You have no one to answer to but yourself and loved ones.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
These words have served me for decades. Go your own way. Thanks for sharing.
Trumpers regularly accuse me of being a "far-left socialist".
Team D partisans accuse me of being a Trumper.
When both cults detest you and accuse you of working for the other side (enemies are everywhere!), it is a good place to be.
In fact, I try to avoid ideology, as it tends to short-circuit critical thinking.
I fit in right here too, thank you!
Me too! A good place to be indeed. :-D
Where did those words come from? I like them.
Attributable to Marcus Aurelius. Some people disagree. It can be found in meditations. Variations on theme.
The only “anti-woke kool aid” is reality. The obvious parallels between the Woke and the People’s Temple (a weird mix of socialist ideology and religious cult) should make it obvious that it is the Woke and those who defend them are the ones who have drunk the kool aid.
I think that it is important for us to understand the relationship between Woke ideology, mental disorders and social media usage. Once we as a society come to understand that we are accidentally (and sometimes deliberately) spiking mental disorders, then we can start to move beyond this. Teenage boys and young men seem to be waking up to the problem, but teenage girls and young women have not yet done so. I hope that your writings can help convince them.
Though I focus more on the history of human material progress, I have written a number of articles related to the subject:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/is-material-progress-driving-us-crazy
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/where-does-ideology-come-from
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-are-people-still-unhappy-in-a
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-studying-progress-may-be-an-antidote
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/t/psychology
Psychologists call the accusations the woke make that we're in the Koolaid-drinking cult 'projection'.
Leftist 1960s radical Angela Davis supported Peoples' Temple.
THE "LEFT" DRINKS THE KOOL-AID
"Social justice" support for the Jonestown suicide cult.
https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=19027
jonestown. sdsu. edu /?page_id=19027
The People’s Temple were also very influential within the San Francisco Democratic party in the 70s. Politicians courted their votes.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2634006/how-san-franciscos-democrats-made-jim-jones-and-then-made-his-memory-vanish/#google_vignette
https://www.amazon.com/Cult-City-Jones-Harvey-Francisco/dp/1610171519
Jones himself followed Marcuse and the Frankfurt guys, et al. Pretty clear he was convinced The Utopia could only 'work' on a limited scale, and with pretty strict guardrails. Also pretty clear he was a raging sociopath. 2 weeks in November of '78 were a pretty tumultuous time in SF.
Yet another link between a cult and “woke”.
https://nonsite.org/the-first-privilege-walk/
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
Excellent analysis. Stay pissed off, the insane, radical left is trying to destroy civilization.
Nassim Taleb’s article on the Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority explains a lot of why small numbers of insane, toxic, extremists on the “woke” “left” have so much power, and why they abuse it.
I’ve been around large numbers of leftists and what are now called “wokies” for 50 years, including on a student tour of USSR satellite countries in Eastern Europe in 1974, and they just keep getting more evil and depraved.
I have a small collection of links to leftists opposed to the forces that hijacked the social justice movement, and abandoned class struggle. Exiting the Vampire Castle is a classic. The sad reality is that leftists always engage in infighting and back stabbing (Orwell’s Homage to Catalunya describes how he narrowly escaped assassination by a hard line Stalinist communist faction during the Spanish Civil War, 1930s).
Techno-economic disruption and the decline of the modern nation state Westphalian system (Martin Van Creveld) ensure that postmodern cult “beliefs”, such as that “reality is a social construct” , put the “left” in full alignment with global neoliberalism, which is depraved and evil.
Here is one path, described by a heterodox, atheist, tantric Buddhist (in the renunciate tradition) that is a MIT trained PhD in AI (1980s) to escaping the dead end of the whole left-vs-right narrative:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Thanks for the rec, I’ll check it out. As for the rest, I’ve come to see that women are the most ardent upholders and the source of it in the West. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.
THAT FIRST LINE SHOULD BE THE SLOGAN ON OUR OWN BASEBALL CAPS!!!
So happy to discover Radha here and learn there seem many others, people with the fire (or at least desire) to reclaim the left from the radicals… thanks, have also been reading a lot of Taleb this year and see that same dynamic at play in this.
I love your comment and the article recommendation! As a fan of Kegan’s work, it was cool to see someone really go into stage 5 of the developmental mode he wrote about in “In Over Our Heads”
His absolute takedown of garbage-tier postmodernism in the end of that text is so erudite.
Very cool recommendation! I just read some of it and look forward to having time for more later. Thank you!
Thank You. I'm also very angry about being tricked by Identity Politics into becoming less of a humanist. (By humanist, I mean seeing every human being as a unique expression of God with a right not to be judged based on sex, skin color, or ethnicity).
This made me a less open and compassionate person. It also made me a more depressed and discouraged person. It's a vicious treadmill of misery that you convince yourself you can't escape until the whole "wicked" world changes. Ha! Good luck with that!
It is a dangerous and destructive lie.
I'm so glad you have found your freedom.
When a critic says something flat out untrue about you, it's a nice data point. I have my moments where I think "am I wrong? Maybe I'm in the wrong here."
Then the counterpoints are the handful of things you've mentioned. That helps. Let's me know I'm not wrong (or at least not so obviously wrong that good arguments could be thrown my way).
I enjoyed this article as well as your previous one. I am a new reader. Having moved from Portland, OR to East TN in 2020 with my husband and two children - I left behind an entire community of friends and family who were basically all Progressives. I was a Republican and Trump Supporter, so obviously the worst kind of person one could be. When Covid happened and the George Floyd riots took over our city, we had protests down our block and homeless people sleeping on our porch. My daughter was worried about the world ending from climate change and that I would be thought of as a racist for refusing to participate in the BLM protests (I was vehemently against them). Thus, we moved so I could give my children the best opportunity to grow up in an environment, where they would remain critical thinkers. I knew that despite my influence with them at home, that eventually my influence would wain as they become older and more independent - seeking approval and acceptance from others. Unfortunately everyone around us was so radically progressive I could see no way for my children to ever be allowed to think independently about a subject and feared they would simply just conform. Teaching them - and by extension anyone - how to think critically is probably the single most important thing we can do - as it affects every single technical issue in our lives and in society. Unfortunately, Public K-12 schools no longer do this. In fact, The science curriculum in K-12 schools - which is where the fundamentals of critical thinking are first taught, has been taken over by the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) in 49 states and what have they done? Completely removed both the Scientific Method and the term Critical Thinking from the curriculum. In its place, they have promoted the use of modeling and deference to authoritative experts. That’s right, they are teaching children to forgoe critical thought and instead default to what a computer or “expert” says. God help us. At any rate, I very much appreciate the story of your growth and evolution into the person you are today. It gives me hope that some of my long lost friends with whom I no longer speak may eventually come to realize that extreme liberalism is not healthy nor empowering. I am not perfect either, but I do my very best on a daily basis to remain grounded and open minded, and humble
If you're pissing people off, you must be doing something right! 😉
Thank you for a thoughtful and informative read! I agree that both political parties have become cultish. As a complex human, most of us don’t fall squarely into either side. Greed, entitlement, privilege & self interest has taken over our country. People in politics talk about the collective good but it’s a lot of nimby-ism, elitism and again, privilege. The people “in charge” are so disconnected from 70% of people’s reality that it’s scary. It’s easy to get caught up in one’s own world and blame “society,” “republicans,” “liberals” etc.
What if we each took individual responsibility for our actions and tried to improve a little bit daily. A little more awareness, a little more accountability, just a bit more presence?
What a wonderful world it would be!
My North Star is taking responsibility for my behavior, but seems like the the most elite are allergic to the concept
Thank you this is a brilliant piece. I think about all the complex issues we are
faced with today how can they be addressed with either conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat policies. Baffling the limitations one places on their life by insisting that all thoughts and ideas must fit into an ideological box.
You can examine policy outcomes there are actual consequences resulting from poor policies. One not accepting the results or consequences does not mean that it is not happening.
Here is one that was my favorite while
my daughter lived in NYC. Allowing people to rob stores up to a certain value
before you arrest or prosecute.
I don’t even know the reasoning behind it because it is to baffling for me. Ky daughter was in a CVS at least 3 times while it was being robbed. I am not even going repeat what some of the employees said to her to reduce her fear and horror. It would just seam that we have lost our grip on reality.
I think we have gone way passed absurd.
Sometimes I think about being more vocally critical of bad thinking on the left, and it reminds me of the time at age 19 when I was realizing I didn’t believe in Mormonism and fearfully wondering what would happen to me socially if I started admitting that outloud (my social identity was highly tied into the faith and I had been personally exceptionally devout)
Luckily the small bubble of geography where Mormonism matters in this way was so easily escapable I now have a very chill relationship with the high demand religion of my youth and moved on from the type of anger you’re feeling after maybe 5 good years of processing it.
It seems the absence of thinking you’re talking about, the religion that kidnapped your critical thinking for a decade, is not geographically small at all. I never had to prove Mormonism wrong; I just had to leave Utah for a while. I wonder how we will all recover from this strange hiccup in the long arc of the moral universe.
For me the issue is that it’s just the default way women in my cohort think. You can’t escape it in any city. It’s constantly smothering me.
Buddhism teaches that 'chasing desire' does not lead to happiness; you're constantly chasing something that doesn't make you happy. One book I read likened it to walking around a large circular dolmen trying to find happiness. You can't move any closer; it's a fool's errand. Fix what's inside you which is where the problem always lies. In our narcissistic culture it seems to be recommending poison for what ails you, but narcissism is about upholding one's delicate and often faulty self-image; inner analysis and awareness seeks to unearth all the negative stuff we avoid and deal with it, which is what leads to true happiness when we find better ways to live, think, and accept ourselves.
I think you're still a feminist, Radha; as Caitlin Moran asked, "Do you have a vagina? Do you think its owner should have equal rights? Great, you're a feminist!" What you *aren't* anymore is a *victim* feminist. I, too, disavowed feminism for 25 years as I didn't want to be associated with the whiners, the self-infantilizing, and the man-haters. Then I read Naomi Wolf's 1991 book Fighting Fire With Fire and I realized I'm a *power* feminist: One who believes in female power and using it for the greater good. If you haven't read that book I highly recommend it. Don't let its nearly 35-year-old age put you off; it's still highly relevant today.
You're dead to rights when you say that when you're pissing both sides off you're getting it right. You are. I'm happy that I have subscribers from both the right and the left; I'm connecting with the non-crazies on both sides of the partisan divide. Just as not all liberals are crazy Regressive Left wokies, not all conservatives are crazy-ass hyper-extremist MAGAs.
Thanks for the rec and the constant encouragement
Congratulations Radha on reaching 1000 subscribers and for the many thousands to come! Your voice of reason and shunning the prized oppressed progressive BIPOC role will make you some enemies and a lot of supporters. This piece is a banger and as long as you keep challenging people's ideas, they'll provide you with all the inspiration to keep writing.
Thank you also for sharing my work. I'm so pleased it resonates!
It's a cult. It's split my family and along gender lines. It's doing this across thousands, millions, of families across our society.
This is probably the largest and most successful cult that's ever existed. It's global across western civ.
It's split my family. I despise it. For a while I did not see it for what it was. Accepted parts of it. Until it all came in to focus to me for what it truly was.
Would that I could have my daughters read this and understand it through your eyes and experience.
Maybe that time will come.
I pray that time will come.
I don't hate them. (they hate me right now but they don't know what they are doing nor thinking).
I despise the thing that has taken them from us.