Thanks again Helen! I've been keeping my eyes open for a thorough explanation of liberalism, and now that I've read this piece, I intend to read Gopnik's book.
Excellent! Gopnik's is the best guide to the 'disposition' of liberalism, I'd have said. He gives a really good intuitive feel of it as a set of principles and goals you'll absolutely recognise as a cluster common in liberal democracies. The intellectual history of the philosophical tradition is probably best set out by Ian Dunt in "How to be a Liberal" and the history of it arising in different situations is best set out by Edmund Fawcett in "Liberalism: The Life of an Idea."
People love to point to the Civil War and American Revolution as examples of violence working out in the end. But if you bring those into the conversation you also have to accept other examples like the French Revolution, the Taiping Rebellion, the Russian Revolution and many, many, many other examples that did not lead to liberal democracy.
If one brings them into the conversation as an attempt to prove that any violence at all works out in the end, yes that's true. If one brings them into the conversation to show that the reasons for violence matter for the outcome, then of course the first two are not the same thing as the remaining examples and the point is demonstrated.
I for one welcome the French Revolution much more than the American one, andI believe its an anglosphere bias to think otherwise. Even Napoleon who betrayed those values actually contributed to spreading them to the whole Europe, you know that continent that exists beyond the Monarchy Islands and StarsAndStripes "oh so liberal" imperialists
True and the French retain their independence tinged with cooperative energy to this day. One only look at how they handle their street riots to see this. I mean that admiringly.
Defunding departments and legal action can both be done in a liberal way. Liberalism isn't just consciousness raising, it can have more teeth.
On defunding: one can hire someone at the head of a department whose main focus is scientific excellence.
Stopping activist judges: those verdicts can be challenged in a court of appeal.
If woke excesses are challenged in a liberal manner, the process takes a bit more time, but it's also a lot more durable. Where do you see problems so dire that the liberal method is insufficient?
I agree that cutting funding to a program/department is appropriate when the outcomes of those designated dollars aren’t being achieved, as might be the case in a university that has abandoned the search for truth and knowledge and replaced it with activism. But the reason and method for doing this also matter. If you cut funding just to put it into other departments that promote your preferred ideas, then you are just an ideological activist yourself. Both the method and the motive matter.
In other words there actually are people (maybe AI b0ts? and not real people?) that are so mentally dysfunctional that they are indulging themselves in intolerance and ILLIBERALISM in defense of "liberalism".
My guess is that people doing that aren't actually (classical) "liberals", they are neo-marxist totalitarians, or some other ideological cousin of leftist totalitarianism. Or just plain old nut jobs. Or all of the above.
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top web search result:
www. scientificamerican. com /article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/
Psych and DNA research show a correlation between radical/extremist "leftism" and sadism and other pathological personality traits and mental dysfunction.
musaalgharbi. substack. com /p/smart-people-are-especially-prone
Symbolic Capital(ism)
Exploring the relationships between social justice discourse, inequality, and the rise of the symbolic professions.
Smart People Are Especially Prone to Tribalism, Dogmatism and Virtue Signaling
The symbolic professions aggressively select for those who are highly educated and cognitively sophisticated. This is a key source of their dysfunction.
The classic anti-elite, anti-war left was absorbed, redirected, and co-opted by a combination of political pragmatism, neoliberal economics, cultural shifts, and corporate influence. The energy that once drove mass protests against the Vietnam War, corporate exploitation, and government overreach has been neutralized or redirected into safe, controlled, and often performative activism that is far less threatening to power.
That said, traces of the old left still exist—in some anti-war movements, labor organizing, and anti-corporate activism—but they lack the same mass appeal they once had. Ironically, some of the rhetoric and positions that were once leftist (such as skepticism of intelligence agencies, Big Pharma, and corporate influence) are now more commonly associated with the populist right.
Ultimately, the revolutionary left of the 1960s and 70s was a real threat to power, and power did what it always does—it adapted, absorbed, and neutralized it.
www. opendemocracy. net /en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
---
Objective facts, evidence and data will not convince people to abandon their subjective-emotive confirmation biases and favored narratives, even when wrong.
paultaylor. substack. com /p/psychologically-illogical-part-1
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... research published in Current Biology on December 18, 2018, confirms this feeling: people with radical beliefs actually think differently than those without. Specifically, radicals have less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Metacognition refers to the ability to be aware of and analyze one’s own thinking. Metacognitive sensitivity is similar, but more specific: it refers to the ability to distinguish between one’s correct and incorrect judgements. The new paper, titled “Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Holding Radical Beliefs,” shows that radicals have measurably less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Why "cultural leftism" (piety/status/virtue signaling "cancel culture") is a magnet for mental dysfunction and SADISM under postmodern social conditions.
Dark Triad experiment successfully replicated and enhanced (adding sadism).
yaschamounk. substack. com /p/the-cruelty-is-the-point
excerpts:
... the paper by Bates et al also adds the missing piece of the puzzle. The “willingness to assert victimhood,” they hypothesize, may also “be amplified by the motive of sadistic pleasure in the downfall of weakened opponents.” In other words, the people who invoke the need to defend victims in order to justify treating others poorly don’t necessarily have a concrete strategic goal in mind; some of them do so because they are looking for a socially sanctioned outlet for their sadistic instincts. In those cases, the cruelty is the point.
Every community, however noble its stated intentions and however progressive its purported values, needs a mechanism for defending itself against the small minority of people who are prone to exploit and manipulate their social environment. If yours doesn’t have one, it’s inviting the sadists, the narcissists and the psychopaths to run the show.
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PSYCH RESEARCH SHOWS CORRELATION OF LEFTISM TO SADISM
www. sciencedirect. com /science/article/pii/S0191886924004240
excerpt:
Highlights
•
Tested association of virtuous victim signalling with Dark traits
•
Two studies (N = 1500), preregistered hypothesis tests and open data
•
Strong association of virtuous-victim signalling with Dark Triad
•
Virtuous-victim signals strongly predicted by Narcissism & Machiavellianism.
•
Study 3 showed Sadism predicts attacking those accused of victimization.
...
---
Independent investigative Journalist Jesse Singal documents bizarre trolls, doxxing and death threats on the (leftist) "bluesky" social media platform.
Following its crushing defeat in the 2024 election, the Democratic Party might finally face its day of reckoning. The party markets itself as the champion of the working class and a bulwark against the party of the plutocrats. But this has been a lie for at least three decades.
Many of the comments by "the educated" under the above [farcebork] post are, ironically, perfect examples of the problem: the elite-left is a toxic echo chamber of people motivated by ideological tribalism (groupthink and scapegoating) and self-interest (including virtue and status signaling) that are incapable of rationally processing objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases and emotive-subjective victim/hate narratives.
Nassim Taleb's the "Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority" provides crucial insight into the far-left'S uses OF psychological terrorism to bully the center-left into conformity with leftist radical extremism and the "woke" cult.
Note that when these kinds of emotionally fragile people (borderline personality disordered, sociopaths, etc.) get into power, they abuse authority and become vicious and vindictive (see the Tabia Lee DEI case).
The Jim Jones suicide cult was leftist/multiculturalist, and supported by the same type of rich SAN FRANSICKO "leftists" that supported QueMala at the beginning of her career.
Most of the suicide cult victims were poor and working class black people.
Leftists are grossly incompetent an mentally dysfunctional.
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1960s BLACK RADICAL ANGELA DAVIS
THE "LEFT" DRINKS THE KOOL-AID
"Social justice" support for the Jonestown suicide cult.
The long history of Democrat Party organizational corruption (the "Tammany Hall" model)
The Pendergast Machine of Kansas City, Missouri (1900-1939)
by John E. Hansan, Ph.D.
Introduction: Political bosses and their “machine organizations” operating in large American cities at the turn of the century enjoyed strong support among the poor and immigrants, who returned the favor by voting for the bosses’ preferred candidates. Many immigrants saw bosses and political machines as a means to greater enfranchisement. For immigrants and the poor in many large U.S. cities, the political boss represented a source of patronage jobs. To urban reformers of the early 20th century, the bosses and their organizations personified political corruption.
static1. squarespace. com /static/64910384d2da1763d7156043/t/65bc5a78ab4aef10b9901a25/1706842827397/Psychopaths+Narcissists+Machiavellians+Toxic+Leaders+Coercive+Controllers++Subsets+of+One+Overarching+Dark+Personality+Type++MITCHELL+PHD+THESIS.pdf
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Social Justice Culture and Toxic Femininity
26/01/2021 Freya India Ager
... History bears testimony to the danger of demonising groups of people based on their immutable characteristics. Not only did this way of thinking lead to historical sexism against women (and continues to do so across the world), it also motivates anti-male attitudes today, giving rise to venomous trends like kill all men and men are trash.
I do not wish to argue that society is infected with toxic femininity, nor that all purveyors of social justice culture are female. Instead, I hope to add nuance to the discussion of toxic masculinity by showing that the line of reasoning many modern social justice leftists adopt and the methods they favour to bring about social progress correlate with typically female psychopathologies.
Looking at three key elements of social justice culture, I argue that our current zeitgeist—which normalises cancelling others, praises emotional reasoning and overvalues safety—aligns strongly with traits that are, in the aggregate, more predominant among women than among men.
Millennials, zoomers, and elites remain firmly on the side of DEI and cancel culture
... the woke agenda is being championed by the Democratic Party—the political party that represents America’s establishment elites. Christopher Rufo has documented how, under the Biden/Harris administration, the “federal government not only punishes and rewards individuals based on racial identity but also has dispensed billions of dollars toward building a DEI regime spanning government, academia, medicine, and contracting.” Kamala Harris, who is now the Democratic presidential nominee, is on video saying, “We have to stay woke, like everybody needs to be woke,” and then cackling. She released a campaign ad in which she explicitly endorsed the logic of wokism, asserting that “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” There is no context that I’m leaving out. Harris literally says “everybody needs to be woke,” she understands this to mean that we will achieve equity when we have equal outcomes, and the Biden/Harris administration has already put this agenda into practice in countless ways. Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, has repeatedly claimed that there’s no First Amendment right to “misinformation” or “hate speech” (i.e., speech that wokesters dislike). Harris has overwhelming support from both the elites and young people. She leads Trump 3 to 2 among voters with postgraduate degrees and 2 to 1 among voters under the age of 30.
A couple weeks ago, the New York Times published an article, “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?,” with the subheading, “A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever.”
theupheaval. substack. com /p/the-post-cold-war-apotheosis-of-liberal
excerpt:
... a detailed account of how and why the United States government decided it needed to surveil and control the bank accounts and financial transactions of the entire world in the name of fighting terrorism — and then authoritarianism… and then the hazy universal evil of “hate.” More generally, it’s the story of how
[--->] Western liberalism’s
former separation of public and private spheres of life was torn down, thrusting us into our current hellscape of technocratic “global governance,” in which dissidents are liable to find themselves debanked from the financial system in the name of inclusion.
With this account Pinkoski fills in some important gaps in the record by identifying and documenting some of the key figures and decisions-points that led us to where we are now. In particular, he expertly reveals just how
[->] bipartisan
the scheme to transform national “government” into global “governance” was, with the twin “neoliberal” and “neoconservative” sides of American politics working hand-in-hand to advance the same ambitious revolution after the end of the Cold War.
This includes uncovering some rather spectacular facts and quotes that I at least was unaware of, such as an open declaration by Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor that America’s post-Cold War strategy would be to “pursue our goals through an enlarged circle not only of government officials but also of private and non-governmental groups,” including “private firms” and “human rights groups,” in order to fight the “intolerant energies of racism” across the planet and isolate “backlash states” “diplomatically, militarily, economically, and technologically.” Which is exactly the foreign policy chimera we got and still labor under decades later.
DEMOCRATS/LEFTISTS (ANTI-TRUMPERS) MORE LIKELY TO SUPPORT/USE POLITICAL VIOLENCE
excerpt:
Of the 26 million who support political violence to keep Trump from being president again, 22 million have access to internet organizational tools, 9 million own guns, 6 million believe police officers who are violently attacked deserve it, 5 million attended a protest in the past 12 months, 3 million are militia members or know someone who is a militia member, and 2 million had prior military experience, the study found.
re: Liberalism (I'm using Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model of the historical origins of modernity and liberalism because Henrich is an anthropologist and economist, and he discusses genetics) and evolved human nature.
(Again) to clarify: liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
From an evolutionary viewpoint, as the NW European (Frankish-manorial) gene pool became outbred (after the early church banned cousin marriage in the peasant classes) pre-liberal, clannish-dynastic social forms began to decline. On average people stopped marrying and reproducing in their early to mid teens (as is the norm in all pre-industrial societies). As people deferred marriage and having children to have time to gain education and training for more complex social and intellectual tasks (literacy, numeracy, law, trade rules, improved agricultural methods, etc.), self-discipline, deferral of desires, increased.
There is an evolved, genetic basis for liberal personality traits that was increasingly selected for in the outbred NW European gene pool.
The core evolutionary feature of modernity and liberalism is high-social-trust in social institutions. Feedback loops with the secondary elements of W.E.I.R.D. culture (river and sea trade market economics, increases in education, literacy and numeracy, innovations in science and technology, modern, scientific rationalism, expansion of wealthy for the urban commoners, "middle" classes, the emergence of participatory politics that expanded property ownership, the advocacy of peasants' rights by institutions such as the Clunic Abbeys, the establishment of German Free Cities and the Hanseatic League all reinforced the selection for liberal personality traits and the evolution of high-social-trust in modern institutions such as Constitutional order (rule of law).
All of that, especially as an entire complex of W.E.I.R.D. stuff, was unique in human history. Historically, that genetic selection didn't happen anywhere else in the world. (See Unz on the genetics of China's meritocracy and high IQ and Lorenzo Warby for similar, but broader analysis.)
Put another way, any disruption of high-social-trust puts classical liberalism in danger of dis-integration and regression to pre-liberal modes of awareness (see Koestler's description of the Ghost in the Machine/Holons).
Classical liberalism, including secular liberalism, don't properly account for the human need for meaning and purpose.
That is odd in the sense that modern, liberal high-social-trust social forms are the most elaborate, complex systems of social cooperation in history. The explanation is that modernism-liberalism is inherently "agentic" in its values. It is a cult so to speak of individual achievement.
The pre-liberal belief that put communion and conformity to sacred order at the center of social existence for something like 95% of human history* was rejected as oppressive by modernity, liberalism and agentic values (the Enlightenment). The results of the progress brought by modernism and liberalism are of course astonishing. But:
Secular humanism eventually goes awry, becomes parasitic (neo-liberal economics) and succumbs to inevitable disruption by newly emergent ways of thinking, such as postmodern relativism.
Because it lacks anti-fragility to disruption, liberalism can't fully respond to postmodern social conditions such as the consumer economy and tech networks, or "structural wokeism".
A vacuum exists in the practical realm of tearing down pathological woke structures that mere consciousness raising doesn't fill. Like it or not, Trumpism fills that vacuum, and it does so more by invoking Druid juju and magical thinking than by using modern rationalism and systematic thought.
(thanks to anyone that endured the tedium of reading all the way to the bottom.)
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
So that is how the human species became dominant during the ice ages, and then spectacularly so after the ice ages. Tribalism and conflict and hostility between tribes resulted in "progress" toward greater social cooperation WITHIN tribes.
As tribes began to grow and exceed Dunbar's number in population, the sociobiology of human cooperation began to be disrupted. Agrarian societies became victims of their own success. New, more complex, hierarchical social forms, roles and rules emerged, especially after the Bronze Age collapse, that transcended tribal forms, beliefs and values, replacing them with new myths about a transcendent, monotheistic God and the renunciation of evil and sin. A war between city-states and tribes between monotheism and paganism (to vastly oversimplify) began that went on for 1,000s of years until recently (there are still echoes in places like Sudan).
Side note: one of the good things about postmodern relativism/pluralism/wokeism is that it allows people to potentially reconnect with the embodied awareness of "paganism".
Indeed. It may be prudent to use illiberal acts during war (for example, Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War), but it can't work for culture wars. When are you going to reinstate habeas corpus? When the illiberal left has been completely defeated? That never happens; culture wars can taper off sharply, but they're never completely over.
(this isn't about habeas corpus, at least not at this point.)
When a soldier fires a bullet at an enemy in battle, he/she/they doesn't submit a request to a commission to ensure that due process was exercised before firing his/her weapon (or using a club, bayonet, sword, knife, missile, 5 ton bomb, etc.). The circumstances of battle and survival require more rapid judgment (under broad command of superior officers and the so called rules of war). those circumstances also involve lots of potential for abuse of power, such as lining captured enemies up in front of firing squads, or just plain old field executions.
it is expected that the normal reaction to enemies is usually deep bigotry and hatred.
side note: but sometimes things get weird. one of my late grand-uncles was a B-17 co-pilot whose plane was shot down over Germany in WW2. Because his last name was dutch and he spoke some german, and was an officer, he was not mistreated in his POW camp. sometimes he got invited to dine with the german officers running the camp (I have no idea what their conversations were about, I never thought to ask him when I was a child. he married an east German woman who escaped communism, managed hotels after the war, owned gas stations and rented cars to Richard Nixon and was generally a very charming and talented individual).
The fire bombing of Dresden in WW2 is a classic example of the massive destruction of a (mostly) "innocent" civilian population in pursuit of "total war" against fascist totalitarianism.
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beyond the obvious: that liberalism should be defended in as civilized, tolerant a manner as possible, non-violent protest, free and open voting, consciousness raising, which Helen has brilliantly described and should be universally agreed on:
when such consciousness raising has little or no PRACTICAL short-term effect on social or political dysfunction, and politics overtake events:
winning a culture war requires:
- the defunding of thought police. and stopping any other government funding or support of the "woke" psychological pathology, including censorship*
- make the woke cult's use of bullying and harassment ("cancellation") a violation of HR policies.
- legally clarify that expression of woke public bigotry and discrimination against people with particular "immutable characteristics" [white/male/hetero/etc.] has real consequences.
- when their mentally dysfunctional woke cult engages in obvious acts of criminal violence (burning teslas) ensure that "activist" judges and prosecutors in "blue" jurisdictions don't use double standards.
- when their mentally dysfunctional cult censors independent investigative journalists, critics, dissidents and non-conformists, immediate legal action should be taken (in the USA) to protect the first amendment rights of the victims of woke censorship.*
those are just some semi-random thoughts, I have not systemically thought through all the possibilities.
I totally agree - in theory. I often found, however, that the theory does not suffice when confronted with reality. I would suggest, in the future, to cite a specific example of what illiberal means are advocated to achieve liberal ends, and conversely, how liberal means are being used to achieve liberal gains in illiberal conditions.
50 YEARS OF WARNINGS ABOUT THE LEFTS' ORWELLIAN TENDENCIES
50 years of (ignored) warnings by over 100 scholars (including Helen) that the radical-elite-left in academia was headed for disaster:
unsafescience. substack. com /p/we-tried-to-warn-you
excerpt:
Preliminary List of Articles that Attempted to Warn Academics and Other Scientists that their Politicization of Scholarship, Teaching, Funding, Hiring and Promotions Was Scientifically Unjustified, Morally Corrupt, Pragmatically Harmful and/or Likely to Produce a Political Backlash
The authors presumably didn't intend to profusely document why liberalism failed to bring about reforms, but that is the inescapable conclusion.
Liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
Liberalism doesn't adequately account for human nature, especially secular-liberalism. (I'm guessing that Helen was particularly annoyed, as an atheist, that I pointed that out. See archetypal and evolutionary psychologists Iain McGilchrist and John Vervaeke, non-conservatives.)
Thank you for writing this. How do you resurrect discourse with an opponent whose tactics explicitly call for rapid, radical change that renders discussion moot? The woke just seem like lunatics. I live amongst them. They make up my peer group. I am astonished at how their thoughts and actions have changed over the last decade without so much as a blink. These are people who will try to destroy businesses that express opinions they don’t like or cut off members of their own family for casting the wrong vote. They not only shout down people online but try to enforce speech and woke norms in small informal group discussions and individual conversations. They do all this while thinking that they are the vanguard, that they are smart and others are stupid, that they are righteous and others are bigoted. They have explicitly sought to embed themselves in institutions so that they can set rules in an attempt to engineer a revolution. While I agree with your arguments I can still understand the sentiment of your commenter, if not his conclusions.
LIBERALISM IS NOT INHERENTLY ANTI-FRAGILE TO DISRUPTION/POSTMODERNISM
She mischaracterized and lied about my "conclusions" (proving my point about regression in cults), so I made a few clarifications in the comments under the previous post that you might find interesting.
You make a crucial point. Psych and DNA research show a correlation between "leftism" and sadism and other pathological personality traits and mental dysfunctions.
"resurrecting discourse" is necessary but not sufficient.
The "meta crisis" (Schmachtenberger) is about the emergence of disruption and the resulting dis-integration of liberal institutions. Liberalism has to "culturally evolve" anti-fragility to disruption (Nassim Taleb).
It depends. The book is about online extremist groups (anti-vaxxers, incels, etc.), but it’s written from (at least what I consider to be) an authoritarian left-wing position, meaning that the author conflates these groups with extreme voices on the trans or immigration issues, meaning that it’s incredibly biased. The author is an authoritative voice on extremism research for groups like NATO, World Bank, Oxford University’s Extremism Lab, especially in the UK, hence why I asked.
Thanks Helen for your great work.
Well said!
I found this incredibly satisfying to read. Thank you Helen for being a beacon of light in what feels like dark times. Off to find Gopnik!
Thanks again Helen! I've been keeping my eyes open for a thorough explanation of liberalism, and now that I've read this piece, I intend to read Gopnik's book.
Excellent! Gopnik's is the best guide to the 'disposition' of liberalism, I'd have said. He gives a really good intuitive feel of it as a set of principles and goals you'll absolutely recognise as a cluster common in liberal democracies. The intellectual history of the philosophical tradition is probably best set out by Ian Dunt in "How to be a Liberal" and the history of it arising in different situations is best set out by Edmund Fawcett in "Liberalism: The Life of an Idea."
People love to point to the Civil War and American Revolution as examples of violence working out in the end. But if you bring those into the conversation you also have to accept other examples like the French Revolution, the Taiping Rebellion, the Russian Revolution and many, many, many other examples that did not lead to liberal democracy.
If one brings them into the conversation as an attempt to prove that any violence at all works out in the end, yes that's true. If one brings them into the conversation to show that the reasons for violence matter for the outcome, then of course the first two are not the same thing as the remaining examples and the point is demonstrated.
I for one welcome the French Revolution much more than the American one, andI believe its an anglosphere bias to think otherwise. Even Napoleon who betrayed those values actually contributed to spreading them to the whole Europe, you know that continent that exists beyond the Monarchy Islands and StarsAndStripes "oh so liberal" imperialists
True and the French retain their independence tinged with cooperative energy to this day. One only look at how they handle their street riots to see this. I mean that admiringly.
Point 👍
Defunding departments and legal action can both be done in a liberal way. Liberalism isn't just consciousness raising, it can have more teeth.
On defunding: one can hire someone at the head of a department whose main focus is scientific excellence.
Stopping activist judges: those verdicts can be challenged in a court of appeal.
If woke excesses are challenged in a liberal manner, the process takes a bit more time, but it's also a lot more durable. Where do you see problems so dire that the liberal method is insufficient?
I agree that cutting funding to a program/department is appropriate when the outcomes of those designated dollars aren’t being achieved, as might be the case in a university that has abandoned the search for truth and knowledge and replaced it with activism. But the reason and method for doing this also matter. If you cut funding just to put it into other departments that promote your preferred ideas, then you are just an ideological activist yourself. Both the method and the motive matter.
I like you, Josh. You are on fire right now. Thank you for adding your brain to my overflowings.
Well thank you Helen! That means a lot to me.
You have really helped me clarify a lot of my own thoughts and values, so thank you!
IRONY WARNING
Sadly, but not unsurprisingly, this is what this discussion reduces to:
---> endless [and cultish, petulant, intolerant, ILLIBERAL] ritualized bashing of Trump
In other words there actually are people (maybe AI b0ts? and not real people?) that are so mentally dysfunctional that they are indulging themselves in intolerance and ILLIBERALISM in defense of "liberalism".
My guess is that people doing that aren't actually (classical) "liberals", they are neo-marxist totalitarians, or some other ideological cousin of leftist totalitarianism. Or just plain old nut jobs. Or all of the above.
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top web search result:
www. scientificamerican. com /article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/
www. psychologytoday. com /us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202103/personality-traits-mental-illness-and-ideology
Personality Traits, Mental Illness, and Ideology
Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left.
Posted March 17, 2021
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202103/personality-traits-mental-illness-and-ideology
what?
Psych and DNA research show a correlation between radical/extremist "leftism" and sadism and other pathological personality traits and mental dysfunction.
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
bigthink. com /neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
excerpt:
Neuropsych — February 15, 2019
Why radicals can’t recognize when they’re wrong
...
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www. psypost. org /antagonistic-narcissism-and-psychopathic-tendencies-predict-left-wing-antihierarchical-aggression-study-finds/
https://www.psypost.org/antagonistic-narcissism-and-psychopathic-tendencies-predict-left-wing-antihierarchical-aggression-study-finds/
---
musaalgharbi. substack. com /p/smart-people-are-especially-prone
Symbolic Capital(ism)
Exploring the relationships between social justice discourse, inequality, and the rise of the symbolic professions.
Smart People Are Especially Prone to Tribalism, Dogmatism and Virtue Signaling
The symbolic professions aggressively select for those who are highly educated and cognitively sophisticated. This is a key source of their dysfunction.
Musa al-Gharbi
Dec 03, 2024
https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/smart-people-are-especially-prone
---
The classic anti-elite, anti-war left was absorbed, redirected, and co-opted by a combination of political pragmatism, neoliberal economics, cultural shifts, and corporate influence. The energy that once drove mass protests against the Vietnam War, corporate exploitation, and government overreach has been neutralized or redirected into safe, controlled, and often performative activism that is far less threatening to power.
That said, traces of the old left still exist—in some anti-war movements, labor organizing, and anti-corporate activism—but they lack the same mass appeal they once had. Ironically, some of the rhetoric and positions that were once leftist (such as skepticism of intelligence agencies, Big Pharma, and corporate influence) are now more commonly associated with the populist right.
Ultimately, the revolutionary left of the 1960s and 70s was a real threat to power, and power did what it always does—it adapted, absorbed, and neutralized it.
https://www.facebook.com/troy.preston.35380/posts/pfbid035KW8RoBpctoANFEobMzkr5M3YyicNfQXXR3QosxEpJY4f29sGRKf8AHWYtpSp6JTl
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Helen is a critic of "woke", but I'm including this to reinforce and summarize why:
DEI counterproductive, research findings "censored":
unsafescience. substack. com /p/why-was-this-groundbreaking-study
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/why-was-this-groundbreaking-study
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Regime change tactics and USAID money used by the "left"/Democrat Party elites against US government and the american people.
substack. com /@shellenberger/note/c-93258618
https://substack.com/@shellenberger/note/c-93258618
---
[I know, "Biden is not a leftist", but lots of "leftists" always defend D-party bs]
BIDEN VIOLATED US CONSTITUTION
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter
www. aaronmate. net /p/fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter
---
The radical/extremist "left" lacks the capacity for meta-cognitive awareness.
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
bigthink. com /neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
excerpt:
Neuropsych — February 15, 2019
Why radicals can’t recognize when they’re wrong
...
---
www. psypost. org /antagonistic-narcissism-and-psychopathic-tendencies-predict-left-wing-antihierarchical-aggression-study-finds/
https://www.psypost.org/antagonistic-narcissism-and-psychopathic-tendencies-predict-left-wing-antihierarchical-aggression-study-finds/
---
Black, heterodox PhD sociologist and researcher Musa Al-Gharbi:
How leftism/liberalism, high educational attainment, white race and female sex correlate to mental dysfunction.
[2023]
americanaffairsjournal. org/ 2023/03/how-to-understand-the-well-being-gap-between-liberals-and-conservatives/
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to-understand-the-well-being-gap-between-liberals-and-conservatives/
---
Yet another scholar/scientist explains why DEI/WOKEISM (postmodernist "culturalleftism") is literally out of touch with reality.
hxstem.substack.com/p/the-search-for-truth-at-cornell-university
hxstem. substack. com /p/the-search-for-truth-at-cornell-university
---
WHY THE (CORRUPT) "LEFT" IS CONTROLLED OPPOSITION
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE #2272 w/Mike Benz
YouTube: https://youtu.be/XPPc8OVNngg
JRE on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk
---
https://attackthesystem.com/2025/01/07/confessions-of-a-former-sjw/
attackthesystem. com /2025/01/07/confessions-of-a-former-sjw/
Anecdote about mental illness and radical SJW culture, infighting, backstabbing, etc.
---
Internal critic: leftism is a mentally dysfunctional hate cult:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
www. opendemocracy. net /en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
---
Objective facts, evidence and data will not convince people to abandon their subjective-emotive confirmation biases and favored narratives, even when wrong.
https://paultaylor.substack.com/p/psychologically-illogical-part-1
paultaylor. substack. com /p/psychologically-illogical-part-1
---
... research published in Current Biology on December 18, 2018, confirms this feeling: people with radical beliefs actually think differently than those without. Specifically, radicals have less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Metacognition refers to the ability to be aware of and analyze one’s own thinking. Metacognitive sensitivity is similar, but more specific: it refers to the ability to distinguish between one’s correct and incorrect judgements. The new paper, titled “Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Holding Radical Beliefs,” shows that radicals have measurably less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
[ https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)31420-9 ]
---
Republican pollster cites data about loss of social-trust.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/31/opinion/american-politics-trust-institutions.html
www. nytimes. com /2024/12/31/opinion/american-politics-trust-institutions.html
---
(cont.)
(cont. from above/previous comment)
Why "cultural leftism" (piety/status/virtue signaling "cancel culture") is a magnet for mental dysfunction and SADISM under postmodern social conditions.
Dark Triad experiment successfully replicated and enhanced (adding sadism).
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-cruelty-is-the-point
yaschamounk. substack. com /p/the-cruelty-is-the-point
excerpts:
... the paper by Bates et al also adds the missing piece of the puzzle. The “willingness to assert victimhood,” they hypothesize, may also “be amplified by the motive of sadistic pleasure in the downfall of weakened opponents.” In other words, the people who invoke the need to defend victims in order to justify treating others poorly don’t necessarily have a concrete strategic goal in mind; some of them do so because they are looking for a socially sanctioned outlet for their sadistic instincts. In those cases, the cruelty is the point.
Every community, however noble its stated intentions and however progressive its purported values, needs a mechanism for defending itself against the small minority of people who are prone to exploit and manipulate their social environment. If yours doesn’t have one, it’s inviting the sadists, the narcissists and the psychopaths to run the show.
---
PSYCH RESEARCH SHOWS CORRELATION OF LEFTISM TO SADISM
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886924004240
www. sciencedirect. com /science/article/pii/S0191886924004240
excerpt:
Highlights
•
Tested association of virtuous victim signalling with Dark traits
•
Two studies (N = 1500), preregistered hypothesis tests and open data
•
Strong association of virtuous-victim signalling with Dark Triad
•
Virtuous-victim signals strongly predicted by Narcissism & Machiavellianism.
•
Study 3 showed Sadism predicts attacking those accused of victimization.
...
---
Independent investigative Journalist Jesse Singal documents bizarre trolls, doxxing and death threats on the (leftist) "bluesky" social media platform.
https://www.thefp.com/p/jesse-singal-bluesky-has-a-death-threat-problem
www. thefp. com /p/jesse-singal-bluesky-has-a-death-threat-problem
---
THE WAGES OF SIN - THE "LEFT" AS CONTROLLED OPPOSITION
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/17/the-democratic-party-faces-its-day-of-reckoning/
www. counterpunch. org /2024/12/17/the-democratic-party-faces-its-day-of-reckoning/
excerpt:
Following its crushing defeat in the 2024 election, the Democratic Party might finally face its day of reckoning. The party markets itself as the champion of the working class and a bulwark against the party of the plutocrats. But this has been a lie for at least three decades.
...
---
https://www.facebook.com/newyorker/posts/pfbid03x4fwyVKZiyfYSo2XRbycCgiJjiAUhu8KYioEJVqwZS3t9kC5cdg9mkDRSqAzQwHl
re: reading comprehension fails
Many of the comments by "the educated" under the above [farcebork] post are, ironically, perfect examples of the problem: the elite-left is a toxic echo chamber of people motivated by ideological tribalism (groupthink and scapegoating) and self-interest (including virtue and status signaling) that are incapable of rationally processing objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases and emotive-subjective victim/hate narratives.
Nassim Taleb's the "Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority" provides crucial insight into the far-left'S uses OF psychological terrorism to bully the center-left into conformity with leftist radical extremism and the "woke" cult.
---
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-hispanic-voter-crash
www. liberalpatriot. com /p/the-democrats-hispanic-voter-crash
Election 2024
The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Crash
It’s not as bad as you think—it’s worse.
Ruy Teixeira
Dec 12, 2024
---
https://contracosta.news/2024/05/22/assembly-democrats-vote-to-protect-illegal-immigrant-pedophiles/
contracosta. news /2024/05/22/assembly-democrats-vote-to-protect-illegal-immigrant-pedophiles/
---
HR30 (Nancy Mace, 2025) has similar language. House Democrats overwhelmingly voted to protect illegal alien PEDOPHILES from prosecution.
---
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QtjfIkv5oWY
www. youtube. com /shorts/QtjfIkv5oWY
Note that when these kinds of emotionally fragile people (borderline personality disordered, sociopaths, etc.) get into power, they abuse authority and become vicious and vindictive (see the Tabia Lee DEI case).
---
Wilfred Reilly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxUdyYgVn_8
www. youtube. com /watch?v=qxUdyYgVn_8
A heterodox, black PhD social scientist, lawyer/HBCU professor/researcher (data wonk) explains (mostly leftist) social myths.
---
Deep dive into how the (postmodern) "woke" "left" is (still) destroying science.
https://quillette.com/2024/11/21/an-unscientific-american-sciam-laura-helmuth-resignation/
quillette. com /2024/11/21/an-unscientific-american-sciam-laura-helmuth-resignation/
---
(cont. below/next comment)
PRECURSOR TO LEFT-WOKEISM
The Jim Jones suicide cult was leftist/multiculturalist, and supported by the same type of rich SAN FRANSICKO "leftists" that supported QueMala at the beginning of her career.
Most of the suicide cult victims were poor and working class black people.
Leftists are grossly incompetent an mentally dysfunctional.
---
1960s BLACK RADICAL ANGELA DAVIS
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 long history of Democrat Party organizational corruption (the "Tammany Hall" model)
The Pendergast Machine of Kansas City, Missouri (1900-1939)
by John E. Hansan, Ph.D.
Introduction: Political bosses and their “machine organizations” operating in large American cities at the turn of the century enjoyed strong support among the poor and immigrants, who returned the favor by voting for the bosses’ preferred candidates. Many immigrants saw bosses and political machines as a means to greater enfranchisement. For immigrants and the poor in many large U.S. cities, the political boss represented a source of patronage jobs. To urban reformers of the early 20th century, the bosses and their organizations personified political corruption.
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/people/pendergast-machine/
socialwelfare. library. vcu. edu /people/pendergast-machine/
---
Iain McGilchrist, world class leading evolutionary psychologist:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/maybe-our-culture-is-literally-crazy/
www. theamericanconservative. com /maybe-our-culture-is-literally-crazy/
---
Soros propaganda schemes, documented. [tr0ll farms]
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/theyre-targeting-voters-under-the-guise-of-a-news-org-inside-a-soros-funded-fake-news-networks-9-million-digital-ad-blitz/
freebeacon. com /democrats/theyre-targeting-voters-under-the-guise-of-a-news-org-inside-a-soros-funded-fake-news-networks-9-million-digital-ad-blitz/
---
psychopathology, politics, propaganda, etc.
https://ponerology.substack.com/p/twenty-five-predatory-tactics
ponerology. substack. com /p/twenty-five-predatory-tactics
---
Psychopaths, Narcissists, Machiavellians, Toxic
Leaders, Coercive Controllers: Subsets of One
Overarching ‘Dark’ Personality Type?
Karen Mitchell
2024
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy
Swinburne University of Technology
School of Business, Law, and Entrepreneurship
John Street, Hawthorn Victoria 3122, Australia
Email: klmitchell@swinburne.edu.au
Email alternative: info@kalmor.com.au
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64910384d2da1763d7156043/t/65bc5a78ab4aef10b9901a25/1706842827397/Psychopaths+Narcissists+Machiavellians+Toxic+Leaders+Coercive+Controllers++Subsets+of+One+Overarching+Dark+Personality+Type++MITCHELL+PHD+THESIS.pdf
static1. squarespace. com /static/64910384d2da1763d7156043/t/65bc5a78ab4aef10b9901a25/1706842827397/Psychopaths+Narcissists+Machiavellians+Toxic+Leaders+Coercive+Controllers++Subsets+of+One+Overarching+Dark+Personality+Type++MITCHELL+PHD+THESIS.pdf
---
Social Justice Culture and Toxic Femininity
26/01/2021 Freya India Ager
... History bears testimony to the danger of demonising groups of people based on their immutable characteristics. Not only did this way of thinking lead to historical sexism against women (and continues to do so across the world), it also motivates anti-male attitudes today, giving rise to venomous trends like kill all men and men are trash.
I do not wish to argue that society is infected with toxic femininity, nor that all purveyors of social justice culture are female. Instead, I hope to add nuance to the discussion of toxic masculinity by showing that the line of reasoning many modern social justice leftists adopt and the methods they favour to bring about social progress correlate with typically female psychopathologies.
Looking at three key elements of social justice culture, I argue that our current zeitgeist—which normalises cancelling others, praises emotional reasoning and overvalues safety—aligns strongly with traits that are, in the aggregate, more predominant among women than among men.
...
http://web.archive.org/web/20210126190418/https://areomagazine.com/2021/01/26/social-justice-culture-and-toxic-femininity/
web. archive. org /web/20210126190418/ https : / / areomagazine. com /2021/01/26/social-justice-culture-and-toxic-femininity/
---
reactionary far-right view of leftism
https://ncofnas.com/p/wokism-is-just-beginning
ncofnas. com /p/wokism-is-just-beginning
excerpts:
Millennials, zoomers, and elites remain firmly on the side of DEI and cancel culture
... the woke agenda is being championed by the Democratic Party—the political party that represents America’s establishment elites. Christopher Rufo has documented how, under the Biden/Harris administration, the “federal government not only punishes and rewards individuals based on racial identity but also has dispensed billions of dollars toward building a DEI regime spanning government, academia, medicine, and contracting.” Kamala Harris, who is now the Democratic presidential nominee, is on video saying, “We have to stay woke, like everybody needs to be woke,” and then cackling. She released a campaign ad in which she explicitly endorsed the logic of wokism, asserting that “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” There is no context that I’m leaving out. Harris literally says “everybody needs to be woke,” she understands this to mean that we will achieve equity when we have equal outcomes, and the Biden/Harris administration has already put this agenda into practice in countless ways. Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, has repeatedly claimed that there’s no First Amendment right to “misinformation” or “hate speech” (i.e., speech that wokesters dislike). Harris has overwhelming support from both the elites and young people. She leads Trump 3 to 2 among voters with postgraduate degrees and 2 to 1 among voters under the age of 30.
A couple weeks ago, the New York Times published an article, “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?,” with the subheading, “A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever.”
...
"NS Lyons"
theupheaval. substack. com /p/the-post-cold-war-apotheosis-of-liberal
excerpt:
... a detailed account of how and why the United States government decided it needed to surveil and control the bank accounts and financial transactions of the entire world in the name of fighting terrorism — and then authoritarianism… and then the hazy universal evil of “hate.” More generally, it’s the story of how
[--->] Western liberalism’s
former separation of public and private spheres of life was torn down, thrusting us into our current hellscape of technocratic “global governance,” in which dissidents are liable to find themselves debanked from the financial system in the name of inclusion.
With this account Pinkoski fills in some important gaps in the record by identifying and documenting some of the key figures and decisions-points that led us to where we are now. In particular, he expertly reveals just how
[->] bipartisan
the scheme to transform national “government” into global “governance” was, with the twin “neoliberal” and “neoconservative” sides of American politics working hand-in-hand to advance the same ambitious revolution after the end of the Cold War.
This includes uncovering some rather spectacular facts and quotes that I at least was unaware of, such as an open declaration by Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor that America’s post-Cold War strategy would be to “pursue our goals through an enlarged circle not only of government officials but also of private and non-governmental groups,” including “private firms” and “human rights groups,” in order to fight the “intolerant energies of racism” across the planet and isolate “backlash states” “diplomatically, militarily, economically, and technologically.” Which is exactly the foreign policy chimera we got and still labor under decades later.
...
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-post-cold-war-apotheosis-of-liberal
DEMOCRATS/LEFTISTS (ANTI-TRUMPERS) MORE LIKELY TO SUPPORT/USE POLITICAL VIOLENCE
excerpt:
Of the 26 million who support political violence to keep Trump from being president again, 22 million have access to internet organizational tools, 9 million own guns, 6 million believe police officers who are violently attacked deserve it, 5 million attended a protest in the past 12 months, 3 million are militia members or know someone who is a militia member, and 2 million had prior military experience, the study found.
...
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/uchicago-professor-assassination-attempt-trump-rising-political-violence/
www. cbsnews. com /chicago/news/uchicago-professor-assassination-attempt-trump-rising-political-violence/
re: Liberalism (I'm using Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model of the historical origins of modernity and liberalism because Henrich is an anthropologist and economist, and he discusses genetics) and evolved human nature.
(Again) to clarify: liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
From an evolutionary viewpoint, as the NW European (Frankish-manorial) gene pool became outbred (after the early church banned cousin marriage in the peasant classes) pre-liberal, clannish-dynastic social forms began to decline. On average people stopped marrying and reproducing in their early to mid teens (as is the norm in all pre-industrial societies). As people deferred marriage and having children to have time to gain education and training for more complex social and intellectual tasks (literacy, numeracy, law, trade rules, improved agricultural methods, etc.), self-discipline, deferral of desires, increased.
There is an evolved, genetic basis for liberal personality traits that was increasingly selected for in the outbred NW European gene pool.
The core evolutionary feature of modernity and liberalism is high-social-trust in social institutions. Feedback loops with the secondary elements of W.E.I.R.D. culture (river and sea trade market economics, increases in education, literacy and numeracy, innovations in science and technology, modern, scientific rationalism, expansion of wealthy for the urban commoners, "middle" classes, the emergence of participatory politics that expanded property ownership, the advocacy of peasants' rights by institutions such as the Clunic Abbeys, the establishment of German Free Cities and the Hanseatic League all reinforced the selection for liberal personality traits and the evolution of high-social-trust in modern institutions such as Constitutional order (rule of law).
All of that, especially as an entire complex of W.E.I.R.D. stuff, was unique in human history. Historically, that genetic selection didn't happen anywhere else in the world. (See Unz on the genetics of China's meritocracy and high IQ and Lorenzo Warby for similar, but broader analysis.)
Put another way, any disruption of high-social-trust puts classical liberalism in danger of dis-integration and regression to pre-liberal modes of awareness (see Koestler's description of the Ghost in the Machine/Holons).
Classical liberalism, including secular liberalism, don't properly account for the human need for meaning and purpose.
That is odd in the sense that modern, liberal high-social-trust social forms are the most elaborate, complex systems of social cooperation in history. The explanation is that modernism-liberalism is inherently "agentic" in its values. It is a cult so to speak of individual achievement.
The pre-liberal belief that put communion and conformity to sacred order at the center of social existence for something like 95% of human history* was rejected as oppressive by modernity, liberalism and agentic values (the Enlightenment). The results of the progress brought by modernism and liberalism are of course astonishing. But:
Secular humanism eventually goes awry, becomes parasitic (neo-liberal economics) and succumbs to inevitable disruption by newly emergent ways of thinking, such as postmodern relativism.
Because it lacks anti-fragility to disruption, liberalism can't fully respond to postmodern social conditions such as the consumer economy and tech networks, or "structural wokeism".
A vacuum exists in the practical realm of tearing down pathological woke structures that mere consciousness raising doesn't fill. Like it or not, Trumpism fills that vacuum, and it does so more by invoking Druid juju and magical thinking than by using modern rationalism and systematic thought.
(thanks to anyone that endured the tedium of reading all the way to the bottom.)
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
Comment on that Darwin quote:
So that is how the human species became dominant during the ice ages, and then spectacularly so after the ice ages. Tribalism and conflict and hostility between tribes resulted in "progress" toward greater social cooperation WITHIN tribes.
As tribes began to grow and exceed Dunbar's number in population, the sociobiology of human cooperation began to be disrupted. Agrarian societies became victims of their own success. New, more complex, hierarchical social forms, roles and rules emerged, especially after the Bronze Age collapse, that transcended tribal forms, beliefs and values, replacing them with new myths about a transcendent, monotheistic God and the renunciation of evil and sin. A war between city-states and tribes between monotheism and paganism (to vastly oversimplify) began that went on for 1,000s of years until recently (there are still echoes in places like Sudan).
Side note: one of the good things about postmodern relativism/pluralism/wokeism is that it allows people to potentially reconnect with the embodied awareness of "paganism".
I stopped reading when you mischaracterized my previous comments and started lying about what I said.
You proved my point by slipping back into reactionary, tribal cultism and illiberal rhetoric.
See my comments on the previous post for a few clarifications about the limits of liberalism and why it is necessary, but not sufficient.
Indeed. It may be prudent to use illiberal acts during war (for example, Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War), but it can't work for culture wars. When are you going to reinstate habeas corpus? When the illiberal left has been completely defeated? That never happens; culture wars can taper off sharply, but they're never completely over.
re: BIDEN'S MULTI $BILLION SPEND ON THE WOKE CULT
(this isn't about habeas corpus, at least not at this point.)
When a soldier fires a bullet at an enemy in battle, he/she/they doesn't submit a request to a commission to ensure that due process was exercised before firing his/her weapon (or using a club, bayonet, sword, knife, missile, 5 ton bomb, etc.). The circumstances of battle and survival require more rapid judgment (under broad command of superior officers and the so called rules of war). those circumstances also involve lots of potential for abuse of power, such as lining captured enemies up in front of firing squads, or just plain old field executions.
it is expected that the normal reaction to enemies is usually deep bigotry and hatred.
side note: but sometimes things get weird. one of my late grand-uncles was a B-17 co-pilot whose plane was shot down over Germany in WW2. Because his last name was dutch and he spoke some german, and was an officer, he was not mistreated in his POW camp. sometimes he got invited to dine with the german officers running the camp (I have no idea what their conversations were about, I never thought to ask him when I was a child. he married an east German woman who escaped communism, managed hotels after the war, owned gas stations and rented cars to Richard Nixon and was generally a very charming and talented individual).
The fire bombing of Dresden in WW2 is a classic example of the massive destruction of a (mostly) "innocent" civilian population in pursuit of "total war" against fascist totalitarianism.
---
beyond the obvious: that liberalism should be defended in as civilized, tolerant a manner as possible, non-violent protest, free and open voting, consciousness raising, which Helen has brilliantly described and should be universally agreed on:
when such consciousness raising has little or no PRACTICAL short-term effect on social or political dysfunction, and politics overtake events:
winning a culture war requires:
- the defunding of thought police. and stopping any other government funding or support of the "woke" psychological pathology, including censorship*
- make the woke cult's use of bullying and harassment ("cancellation") a violation of HR policies.
- legally clarify that expression of woke public bigotry and discrimination against people with particular "immutable characteristics" [white/male/hetero/etc.] has real consequences.
- when their mentally dysfunctional woke cult engages in obvious acts of criminal violence (burning teslas) ensure that "activist" judges and prosecutors in "blue" jurisdictions don't use double standards.
- when their mentally dysfunctional cult censors independent investigative journalists, critics, dissidents and non-conformists, immediate legal action should be taken (in the USA) to protect the first amendment rights of the victims of woke censorship.*
those are just some semi-random thoughts, I have not systemically thought through all the possibilities.
---
* example
TEAM BIDEN VIOLATED US CONSTITUTION
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter
www. aaronmate. net /p/fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter
I totally agree - in theory. I often found, however, that the theory does not suffice when confronted with reality. I would suggest, in the future, to cite a specific example of what illiberal means are advocated to achieve liberal ends, and conversely, how liberal means are being used to achieve liberal gains in illiberal conditions.
This partly answers your questions:
50 YEARS OF WARNINGS ABOUT THE LEFTS' ORWELLIAN TENDENCIES
50 years of (ignored) warnings by over 100 scholars (including Helen) that the radical-elite-left in academia was headed for disaster:
unsafescience. substack. com /p/we-tried-to-warn-you
excerpt:
Preliminary List of Articles that Attempted to Warn Academics and Other Scientists that their Politicization of Scholarship, Teaching, Funding, Hiring and Promotions Was Scientifically Unjustified, Morally Corrupt, Pragmatically Harmful and/or Likely to Produce a Political Backlash
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/we-tried-to-warn-you
---
Note:
The authors presumably didn't intend to profusely document why liberalism failed to bring about reforms, but that is the inescapable conclusion.
Liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
Liberalism doesn't adequately account for human nature, especially secular-liberalism. (I'm guessing that Helen was particularly annoyed, as an atheist, that I pointed that out. See archetypal and evolutionary psychologists Iain McGilchrist and John Vervaeke, non-conservatives.)
Thank you for writing this. How do you resurrect discourse with an opponent whose tactics explicitly call for rapid, radical change that renders discussion moot? The woke just seem like lunatics. I live amongst them. They make up my peer group. I am astonished at how their thoughts and actions have changed over the last decade without so much as a blink. These are people who will try to destroy businesses that express opinions they don’t like or cut off members of their own family for casting the wrong vote. They not only shout down people online but try to enforce speech and woke norms in small informal group discussions and individual conversations. They do all this while thinking that they are the vanguard, that they are smart and others are stupid, that they are righteous and others are bigoted. They have explicitly sought to embed themselves in institutions so that they can set rules in an attempt to engineer a revolution. While I agree with your arguments I can still understand the sentiment of your commenter, if not his conclusions.
LIBERALISM IS NOT INHERENTLY ANTI-FRAGILE TO DISRUPTION/POSTMODERNISM
She mischaracterized and lied about my "conclusions" (proving my point about regression in cults), so I made a few clarifications in the comments under the previous post that you might find interesting.
You make a crucial point. Psych and DNA research show a correlation between "leftism" and sadism and other pathological personality traits and mental dysfunctions.
"resurrecting discourse" is necessary but not sufficient.
The "meta crisis" (Schmachtenberger) is about the emergence of disruption and the resulting dis-integration of liberal institutions. Liberalism has to "culturally evolve" anti-fragility to disruption (Nassim Taleb).
Great analysis as always!
A bit unrelated, but have you heard of Julia Ebner’s book “Going Mainstream”? And what do you think of it if you have?
I haven't, I'm afraid. Do you think it would be good if I did?
It depends. The book is about online extremist groups (anti-vaxxers, incels, etc.), but it’s written from (at least what I consider to be) an authoritarian left-wing position, meaning that the author conflates these groups with extreme voices on the trans or immigration issues, meaning that it’s incredibly biased. The author is an authoritative voice on extremism research for groups like NATO, World Bank, Oxford University’s Extremism Lab, especially in the UK, hence why I asked.
Hmmm. Yes, it does look potentially interesting. I have ordered it. The bias won't be a hindrance. That's interesting in itself.