I have read the essay, more than once. Yes, it has the much trumpeted good intentions, but the mechanisms proposed are patently inimical to free speech, especially in the claims to epistemic authority to assess what is progressive, and so legitimate, and “anti-progressive” and so not.
"Hence, secular salvation is sold on the basis that burning society down will mean the golden, transformative future emerges from its ashes."
It is the concept of salvation that is the root problem. It is the core of Christian values and theology. Ironically, it stems from alienation from God - our fall from grace; to be redeemed is to be restored to God's grace. What a glorious vanity for the perpetrators of this fraud - preaching a message that they themselves do not grasp.
Marx sort of did. Alienation from our species being, being what communist salvation would overcome. Via the apotheosis of man’s capacity to humanise the world. That is, our creative capacity.
Luxury beliefs are a kind of psychoaffective UBI for the strivers of the Outer Party struggling to maintain appearances as they experience a slow, but unmistakable, erosion in living
conditions.
White collar professions long ago lost much of their substantive autonomy. Lawyers and physicians are becoming proletarianised to a degree that would have shocked predecessors even a generation ago. But fantasies of elite status compensate for material frustrations. At least for now.
A lot of it is aspirational. When Mrs Hanson first rose to prominence in Australia I noticed in my workplace that status-obsessed bogans in middle management conspicuously over-identified with the 'educated' or 'elite' consensus. Cosmopolitanism and pearl-clutching anti-racism had become the "I've been to Bali too" of politics.
The gamesmanship over beliefs is essential within the Outer Party but the true elites recognise each other by more subtle cues: experiences of significant agency, psychic postures and expectations that are formed by the kind of privilege that mere strivers only dream of etc. Those who display luxury beliefs typically lack the depthless, unfeigned, confidence of their masters.
It's an important point that "elites" include not just a monetary/social elite. There are plenty of elite-wannabes embracing this stuff from the middle class and below because they want to be part of something special. Those are the most dangerous ones, the "ground troops" so to speak. I won't get an Ivy League person yelling at me, but an Identity Person with a state school education making 20k a year in line behind me at the bookstore? You better believe it.
There also are a number of firms named "Dominion Capital." "Dominion" is sort of a nickname for the state of Virginia, so not surprisingly there a Dominion Capital there.
"With spread of the Dialectical Faith, post-Christian society is being punished—indeed reviled—for not offering a structure of salvation."
This is so deep right here, it could be the premise of a book.
All our deepest spiritual and communal needs have been bathed and drowned in the bright neon of our mall-ed societies, it's as if modern Westerners have all undergone a spirit-ectomy. The destruction of higher values is so complete that most people would find even the mention of them unintelligble, and where "ek-stasis" should be instead we have the spurious Self and all the other virtual baubles and battles that go into the making of 100% processed humanity. (I think this is the premise of Simone Weil's excellent "The Need for Roots".)
I like the reference to 'corporate bureaucracies'. We like to think that the 'revolutionary left' can propagate their messages inside academia, govt etc. But the reality is that they can thrive in any environment where they can earn a living, pontificate to the 'unwashed' but never be held accountable for the consequences of their pontification. This is exactly the environment in corporations where the 'employee' is protected from the risk assumed by the corporation. Apply this to the 'revolutionary left' and think of such corporate roles as human resources, corporate affairs, government relations, media management and so on. Such roles are perfect protected bubbles for their ambitions. And what's the worst that can happen to them? They might risk being 'off hired' with a great big fat payout. How terrible!!!
There's a general principle of counter accountability that can be contemplated. Take schools for example... teachers applying for restraining orders against abusive, violent students and even their parents. Reverse thrust 'entitlement' attitudes. For ever action their can be a counter-action.
Whatever happened to humility and genuine wonder? Every half-wit is now an expert on everything. Intellectual curiosity and the capacity to ask meaningful questions has been tossed aside.
Perhaps the advances in scientific "knowledge" have reduced the breadth of what one can truly wonder about - in my view largely reduced to:
1) the cosmos, galactic superclusters, relativity and quantum mechanics; 2) biology and microbiology/ biomolecular interactions; and 3) evolutionary and normal psychology and neuroscience attempting to address the emergent nature of a brain with 10^15 synaptic connections.
But with a reduction in "breadth" comes a drastic increase in the "depth" of what one might need to know or wish to know about these awe inspiring areas. There is then also the need for extensive educational and mental/physical/economic investments to begin to understand these specialized realms and potentially advance our knowledge about them in any meaningful way. Even laymen need to make some efforts in that direction. But these practices also require a major focus on reality and rationality [recent climate change "science" and issues with experimental replication not withstanding]. In the final analysis there is no faking your elite expertise if you explore advances in these arenas.
Genuine wonder still requires humility (in spades) but not a reliance on faith, per se.
Indeed. My worry is that the layperson does not make those efforts but outsources their "knowledge" to purveyors of simplistic sloganeering, with its concomitant instant elevation to morally superior status.
Hi. OT for this thread, which I will read later, but I was also on vacation so am now catching up.
I am now reacting to a Substack email with misc. comments and this one by Helen grabbed my attention for deeper follow-up:
"Helen Dale 2d
Like @Holly MathNerd, I’m incapable of religious belief (I don’t have the right software preinstalled). This piece of hers comes the closest I’ve seen to explaining why some people can’t do the supernatural. At all."
Helen, this states my situation as well, which I have been trying to understand over a lifetime. So I poked around Holly's Substack a little today but did not quite see something aligned with your comment. Can you please point me to the 1 to 3 or 4 posts where she addresses this idea? And any supportive evidence she explores. Thanks.
I'm not sure how your Notes client looks, but Holly and I and a couple of other people have a useful chat on that Notes thread, if you can find it again!
Hi, for when you get a chance: I went to her site and had read that item; but for some reason related to getting bad or impolite commenters she had closed comments, with only two showing. I poked around the supposed Notes function, but I could not find the way to see the Notes related to this posting if they were available via a separate process (??). Substack is not yet quite what it ought to be, it appears. Unless I had to be a paid subscriber to her Substack to see her/those Notes??
"Not only are workers and peasants not coordinating classes of the form required, the Dialectical Faith’s ranking of subjectivity over structure has little appeal for those who have to struggle with physical reality. It appeals most to those immersed in the social and the imagined. Industrial workers and land-owning farmers will forever be disappointments."
This idea is somewhat analogous to your assertions about the social being derivative from the biological (evolution) - both involve a recognition of a similar level of reality - except that it seems to take your "special sauce" to be able to connect those dots that all too many of the rest of us just don't happen to see without assistance.
"They also resist naming their belief system, apart from social justice. It’s presented as unalloyed moral righteousness. Any name risks reducing it to “just another point of view”. The point is precisely that it is no such a thing. It’s meant to be an Olympian viewpoint that judges all other viewpoints and so asserts authority over them."
AKA?
"Thou shall not have any God before Me!"
"I am that I am!"
No images of Allah or of Muhammad allowed.
Only "grace" and "faith" -- may -- lead to salvation - even good works do not/ will not count.
But of course: arbitrary and changing rules and "lawfare justice" is not justice at all.
And thinking about that, I am surprised our inherent sense of fairness vs. harm does not elicit greater rationality than it sometimes does.
The dominion capital game seems self-defeating to me. First, people not vying for status within the woke hierarchy are largely immune to cancellation. Indeed, cancellation may be seen as a badge of honor in non-woke circles.
Second, to ascend the woke hierarchy, climbers must continually try to one up each other in hopes of catching their competitors flatfooted. Failed attempts at oneupmanship can backfire, resulting in cancellation.
Either way, the constant winnowing of players must eventually weaken the game. And the effort to survive as players leapfrog each other into insanity must be exhausting.
Finally, institutions that have at least some grounding in reality must end the game or perish - thus the move by some companies to rid their HR departments of the DEI virus.
I have read the essay, more than once. Yes, it has the much trumpeted good intentions, but the mechanisms proposed are patently inimical to free speech, especially in the claims to epistemic authority to assess what is progressive, and so legitimate, and “anti-progressive” and so not.
"Hence, secular salvation is sold on the basis that burning society down will mean the golden, transformative future emerges from its ashes."
It is the concept of salvation that is the root problem. It is the core of Christian values and theology. Ironically, it stems from alienation from God - our fall from grace; to be redeemed is to be restored to God's grace. What a glorious vanity for the perpetrators of this fraud - preaching a message that they themselves do not grasp.
Marx sort of did. Alienation from our species being, being what communist salvation would overcome. Via the apotheosis of man’s capacity to humanise the world. That is, our creative capacity.
Sort of has a lot of work to do there.
The old saying..." I had to burn the village to save it'
Luxury beliefs are a kind of psychoaffective UBI for the strivers of the Outer Party struggling to maintain appearances as they experience a slow, but unmistakable, erosion in living
conditions.
White collar professions long ago lost much of their substantive autonomy. Lawyers and physicians are becoming proletarianised to a degree that would have shocked predecessors even a generation ago. But fantasies of elite status compensate for material frustrations. At least for now.
A lot of it is aspirational. When Mrs Hanson first rose to prominence in Australia I noticed in my workplace that status-obsessed bogans in middle management conspicuously over-identified with the 'educated' or 'elite' consensus. Cosmopolitanism and pearl-clutching anti-racism had become the "I've been to Bali too" of politics.
The gamesmanship over beliefs is essential within the Outer Party but the true elites recognise each other by more subtle cues: experiences of significant agency, psychic postures and expectations that are formed by the kind of privilege that mere strivers only dream of etc. Those who display luxury beliefs typically lack the depthless, unfeigned, confidence of their masters.
“Cosmopolitanism and pearl-clutching anti-racism had become the "I've been to Bali too" of politics.” Golden!
Great comment. Not much more to say really (salient to Australian subscribers).
Great.
I need a bunch of bullet points to put up in Michigan .
They can’t quite get the picture.
If Hillary hadn’t gotten drunk in public, she’d be on her second term. “Deplorables”… etc.
It's an important point that "elites" include not just a monetary/social elite. There are plenty of elite-wannabes embracing this stuff from the middle class and below because they want to be part of something special. Those are the most dangerous ones, the "ground troops" so to speak. I won't get an Ivy League person yelling at me, but an Identity Person with a state school education making 20k a year in line behind me at the bookstore? You better believe it.
There also are a number of firms named "Dominion Capital." "Dominion" is sort of a nickname for the state of Virginia, so not surprisingly there a Dominion Capital there.
Perhaps not as large as Vanguard though. Anyway, I like the new term better.
"With spread of the Dialectical Faith, post-Christian society is being punished—indeed reviled—for not offering a structure of salvation."
This is so deep right here, it could be the premise of a book.
All our deepest spiritual and communal needs have been bathed and drowned in the bright neon of our mall-ed societies, it's as if modern Westerners have all undergone a spirit-ectomy. The destruction of higher values is so complete that most people would find even the mention of them unintelligble, and where "ek-stasis" should be instead we have the spurious Self and all the other virtual baubles and battles that go into the making of 100% processed humanity. (I think this is the premise of Simone Weil's excellent "The Need for Roots".)
Thanks for giving me much to think about!
It turns out, wrestling with self-consciousness and why we engage in rituals can be startlingly helpful in understanding social patterns.
Homo sum!
I like the reference to 'corporate bureaucracies'. We like to think that the 'revolutionary left' can propagate their messages inside academia, govt etc. But the reality is that they can thrive in any environment where they can earn a living, pontificate to the 'unwashed' but never be held accountable for the consequences of their pontification. This is exactly the environment in corporations where the 'employee' is protected from the risk assumed by the corporation. Apply this to the 'revolutionary left' and think of such corporate roles as human resources, corporate affairs, government relations, media management and so on. Such roles are perfect protected bubbles for their ambitions. And what's the worst that can happen to them? They might risk being 'off hired' with a great big fat payout. How terrible!!!
This is the basis for the case for abolishing all anti-discrimination law. Or at least finding a way to rein back its metastasising tendencies.
There's a general principle of counter accountability that can be contemplated. Take schools for example... teachers applying for restraining orders against abusive, violent students and even their parents. Reverse thrust 'entitlement' attitudes. For ever action their can be a counter-action.
Whatever happened to humility and genuine wonder? Every half-wit is now an expert on everything. Intellectual curiosity and the capacity to ask meaningful questions has been tossed aside.
Quite.
Perhaps the advances in scientific "knowledge" have reduced the breadth of what one can truly wonder about - in my view largely reduced to:
1) the cosmos, galactic superclusters, relativity and quantum mechanics; 2) biology and microbiology/ biomolecular interactions; and 3) evolutionary and normal psychology and neuroscience attempting to address the emergent nature of a brain with 10^15 synaptic connections.
But with a reduction in "breadth" comes a drastic increase in the "depth" of what one might need to know or wish to know about these awe inspiring areas. There is then also the need for extensive educational and mental/physical/economic investments to begin to understand these specialized realms and potentially advance our knowledge about them in any meaningful way. Even laymen need to make some efforts in that direction. But these practices also require a major focus on reality and rationality [recent climate change "science" and issues with experimental replication not withstanding]. In the final analysis there is no faking your elite expertise if you explore advances in these arenas.
Genuine wonder still requires humility (in spades) but not a reliance on faith, per se.
Indeed. My worry is that the layperson does not make those efforts but outsources their "knowledge" to purveyors of simplistic sloganeering, with its concomitant instant elevation to morally superior status.
Hi. OT for this thread, which I will read later, but I was also on vacation so am now catching up.
I am now reacting to a Substack email with misc. comments and this one by Helen grabbed my attention for deeper follow-up:
"Helen Dale 2d
Like @Holly MathNerd, I’m incapable of religious belief (I don’t have the right software preinstalled). This piece of hers comes the closest I’ve seen to explaining why some people can’t do the supernatural. At all."
Helen, this states my situation as well, which I have been trying to understand over a lifetime. So I poked around Holly's Substack a little today but did not quite see something aligned with your comment. Can you please point me to the 1 to 3 or 4 posts where she addresses this idea? And any supportive evidence she explores. Thanks.
This is Holly's piece, to which I was responding: https://open.substack.com/pub/hollymathnerd/p/the-disappearance-of-secularism
I'm not sure how your Notes client looks, but Holly and I and a couple of other people have a useful chat on that Notes thread, if you can find it again!
Hi, for when you get a chance: I went to her site and had read that item; but for some reason related to getting bad or impolite commenters she had closed comments, with only two showing. I poked around the supposed Notes function, but I could not find the way to see the Notes related to this posting if they were available via a separate process (??). Substack is not yet quite what it ought to be, it appears. Unless I had to be a paid subscriber to her Substack to see her/those Notes??
Alas, this is all far beyond my technical skill, I'm afraid.
"Not only are workers and peasants not coordinating classes of the form required, the Dialectical Faith’s ranking of subjectivity over structure has little appeal for those who have to struggle with physical reality. It appeals most to those immersed in the social and the imagined. Industrial workers and land-owning farmers will forever be disappointments."
This idea is somewhat analogous to your assertions about the social being derivative from the biological (evolution) - both involve a recognition of a similar level of reality - except that it seems to take your "special sauce" to be able to connect those dots that all too many of the rest of us just don't happen to see without assistance.
"They also resist naming their belief system, apart from social justice. It’s presented as unalloyed moral righteousness. Any name risks reducing it to “just another point of view”. The point is precisely that it is no such a thing. It’s meant to be an Olympian viewpoint that judges all other viewpoints and so asserts authority over them."
AKA?
"Thou shall not have any God before Me!"
"I am that I am!"
No images of Allah or of Muhammad allowed.
Only "grace" and "faith" -- may -- lead to salvation - even good works do not/ will not count.
But of course: arbitrary and changing rules and "lawfare justice" is not justice at all.
And thinking about that, I am surprised our inherent sense of fairness vs. harm does not elicit greater rationality than it sometimes does.
The dominion capital game seems self-defeating to me. First, people not vying for status within the woke hierarchy are largely immune to cancellation. Indeed, cancellation may be seen as a badge of honor in non-woke circles.
Second, to ascend the woke hierarchy, climbers must continually try to one up each other in hopes of catching their competitors flatfooted. Failed attempts at oneupmanship can backfire, resulting in cancellation.
Either way, the constant winnowing of players must eventually weaken the game. And the effort to survive as players leapfrog each other into insanity must be exhausting.
Finally, institutions that have at least some grounding in reality must end the game or perish - thus the move by some companies to rid their HR departments of the DEI virus.