Open Letter to Woke Students

[Gary Childress]

Some things aren't "provisional", Travel and communication require maintenance.

Things that "require maintenance" are provisional.

Telegrams and streetcars served their purposes in their day. And they required maintenance, because without it, they'd soon fall apart. But we don't need that technology now. We've moved on.

I see humanity as the keeper of reason, morality, ideals, and such.

Then explain the war in Ukraine. How did that happen, when on both sides there were only the "keepers of reason, morality and ideals"?

We are able to look at others that are not ourselves and reason how we would feel if we were in their shoes. In what way does God even do that?

You've never heard of the Incarnation, have you?

If we are "fallen" then what is "fallenness?"

It means that at one point we were created innocent; but we are not innocent now. It means that man was created for fellowship with God, but that now he has rejected that and is out of joint with the Source of all goodness, truth and light.

When I look at stuff like that, I see a fallen "god"...

That's because you mistakenly blame God for what men have done. But you don't really know what you're asking for: are you asking God to terminate the fallenness of man? If you are, you're calling for divine judgment. Do you want that? How soon?

Given that there is no evidence of there being a God at all,

That's plainly untrue. Sorry, Gary. And you have no way of knowing that, obviously.

What you must mean is "Gary doesn't know God." And I believe you. Why should I doubt your word?

Why not just bite the bullet and say, "There's no God" or else "I know nothing of God"?

You'd want me to lie to you, Gary? Does that seem "brave" to you? It doesn't, to me.

No. It's the flying spaghetti monster that created the world. If you don't believe in him, you'll go to hell. However, if you don't believe that then, "we'll just see which one of us is right." [/futile conversation with a religious nut job]

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Some things aren't "provisional", Travel and communication require maintenance.

Things that "require maintenance" are provisional.

Telegrams and streetcars served their purposes in their day. And they required maintenance, because without it, they'd soon fall apart. But we don't need that technology now. We've moved on.

I see humanity as the keeper of reason, morality, ideals, and such.

Then explain the war in Ukraine. How did that happen, when on both sides there were only the "keepers of reason, morality and ideals"?

We are able to look at others that are not ourselves and reason how we would feel if we were in their shoes. In what way does God even do that?

You've never heard of the Incarnation, have you?

If we are "fallen" then what is "fallenness?"

It means that at one point we were created innocent; but we are not innocent now. It means that man was created for fellowship with God, but that now he has rejected that and is out of joint with the Source of all goodness, truth and light.

When I look at stuff like that, I see a fallen "god"...

That's because you mistakenly blame God for what men have done. But you don't really know what you're asking for: are you asking God to terminate the fallenness of man? If you are, you're calling for divine judgment. Do you want that? How soon?

Given that there is no evidence of there being a God at all,

That's plainly untrue. Sorry, Gary. And you have no way of knowing that, obviously.

What you must mean is "Gary doesn't know God." And I believe you. Why should I doubt your word?

Why not just bite the bullet and say, "There's no God" or else "I know nothing of God"?

You'd want me to lie to you, Gary? Does that seem "brave" to you? It doesn't, to me.

No. It's the flying spaghetti monster that created the world. If you don't believe in him, you'll go to hell. However, if you don't believe that then, "we'll just see which one of us is right." [/futile conversation with a religious nut job]

Just stick to your guns ffs. He's a vulture. The second you show weakness he will peck out your eyeballs. At least do THAT in private. It's not something I want to witness.

[Immanuel Can]

[/futile conversation with a religious nut job]

So you say. But it's an off-topic conversation you initiated yourself. So you've only got yourself to blame, I guess.

So let's get back to Lindsay.

[Gary Childress]

Things that "require maintenance" are provisional.

Telegrams and streetcars served their purposes in their day. And they required maintenance, because without it, they'd soon fall apart. But we don't need that technology now. We've moved on.

Then explain the war in Ukraine. How did that happen, when on both sides there were only the "keepers of reason, morality and ideals"?

You've never heard of the Incarnation, have you?


It means that at one point we were created innocent; but we are not innocent now. It means that man was created for fellowship with God, but that now he has rejected that and is out of joint with the Source of all goodness, truth and light.

That's because you mistakenly blame God for what men have done. But you don't really know what you're asking for: are you asking God to terminate the fallenness of man? If you are, you're calling for divine judgment. Do you want that? How soon?


That's plainly untrue. Sorry, Gary. And you have no way of knowing that, obviously.

What you must mean is "Gary doesn't know God." And I believe you. Why should I doubt your word?

You'd want me to lie to you, Gary? Does that seem "brave" to you? It doesn't, to me.

No. It's the flying spaghetti monster that created the world. If you don't believe in him, you'll go to hell. However, if you don't believe that then, "we'll just see which one of us is right." [/futile conversation with a religious nut job]

Just stick to your guns ffs. He's a vulture. The second you show weakness he will peck out your eyeballs. At least do THAT in private. It's not something I want to witness.

Yes. Now I know who invented the motto, "kill them with kindness". I've noticed that there's compassion for people we can identify with as having made the same mistakes in life and then there's weaponized "judgment" for those who are "unwholesome" and did it all wrong according to the pious.

"Perfect" Christians will never truly have compassion for those they can't identify with. They'll lord over you the fact that you didn't take that moment to tell the walls how grateful you are to "God" when you went to bed at night--but they did. Being "wholesome" is like a full contact sport. And with "wholesomeness" comes a judgmental attitude. There's no harsher judge than humans and among them none harsher than ascetics who expect everyone else to be ascetics too.

But that's life. The Godless will always face the revenge of the God botherers. The Godbotherers will offer no concrete proof or evidence for their God because you can't prove their God isn't either. But they'll guilt you for the things they consider "unwholesome" according to "scripture". No way to reason with them. It's their way or the highway.

Were only there a real God to save all the rest of us from Christians.

[commonsense]

James Lindsay recently published this open letter to students trained in the universities and colleges. It deals with what he foresees the Wokies can expect from the success of their "Social Justice" advocacy and their educational prospects going forward.

Not to be missed, if you're a university student.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZ3QOIVW1w

OK, Lindsay declares that Wokism is bad. Supporting argument begins with declaring that Wokism is Maoism. Declaration upon declaration is simply unsupported opinion.

[Immanuel Can]

James Lindsay recently published this open letter to students trained in the universities and colleges. It deals with what he foresees the Wokies can expect from the success of their "Social Justice" advocacy and their educational prospects going forward.

Not to be missed, if you're a university student.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZ3QOIVW1w

OK, Lindsay declares that Wokism is bad. Supporting argument begins with declaring that Wokism is Maoism. Declaration upon declaration is simply unsupported opinion.

Except that Lindsay does support it, and support it very thoroughly. But you'd have to listen to others of his podcasts to know that.

Here's a short article on that, though: https://newdiscourses.com/2023/05/inter ... an-maoism/

[Gary Childress]

James Lindsay recently published this open letter to students trained in the universities and colleges. It deals with what he foresees the Wokies can expect from the success of their "Social Justice" advocacy and their educational prospects going forward.

Not to be missed, if you're a university student.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZ3QOIVW1w

OK, Lindsay declares that Wokism is bad. Supporting argument begins with declaring that Wokism is Maoism. Declaration upon declaration is simply unsupported opinion.

Yeah. Don't worry, IC doesn't have any idea what supports Lindsay's position either. Otherwise, he could tell you in his own words what supports Lindsay's position instead of referring you somewhere else. IC doesn't know shit other than listen to what people who match his opinion declare is true. He doesn't have the level of articulacy to actually understand the nuances of a well-reasoned argument. His world is an echo chamber. If it isn't stated in a 2000-year-old text then he thinks there's no evidence for it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Yeah. Don't worry, IC doesn't have any idea what supports Lindsay's position either. Otherwise, he could tell you in his own words what supports Lindsay's position instead of referring you somewhere else. IC doesn't know shit other than listen to what people who match his opinion declare is true. He doesn't have the level of articulacy to actually understand the nuances of a well-reasoned argument. His world is an echo chamber. If it isn't stated in a 2000-year-old text then he thinks there's no evidence for it.

I admit I skimmed at least some part of your recent forced give-me-therapy-dammit! session you enacted, skillfully as always, in this thread. I told you in another post that I have been praying over your Meds and have sent Mystic Light that would act beneficially on those marvelous chemicals. Have you felt nothing different?

But moving on to the actual topic of the thread: I must insist that you are very likely quite wrong about both Lindsay and what IC understands of the insidious nature of Woke Ideology. So allow me to make a statement that indicates my own relationship to the question of Wokeness: I regard many people who write on this forum as being very very good examples of those infected by the Woke Ideology. What this means though is that Woke Ideology has made notable in-roads within the culture at large. Lindsay speaks of the Motte & Bailey tactic in combination with the Trojan Horse tactic. So for example the word *diversity* which sounds lovely, fair and democratic, when used by the Critical strategist, has in truth a very different intentionality behind it. Same with the word "inclusion". These are true Orwellian and also Maoist terms and my present opinion is that their acceptance demonstrates how insidious are these thought-viruses. You cannot blame that *average person* for responding in good-faith to a call for diversity and inclusion -- but therein lies the trick. It is part of a mind-fuck that, to disentangle it, requires a fair amount of mental energy. It also may indeed require a *guide*: someone to help one out of the labyrinth.

You have made numerous false statements:

1) It is false that IC does not know why he agrees with Lindsay's analysis in general.

2) He could certainly explain in his own words why he does agree.

3) But he may not because it is always better for someone (those he presented the link to) to do first-hand reading rather than receive a digested version.

4) To say "IC doesn't know shit" because you do not agree with his religious commitments is too dismissive: he may very well know a great deal within other areas and may be able to articulate them quite reasonably.

5) The other statements you make about *the nuances of a well-reasoned argument* are also likely defective statements and seem to be prejudiced by your long-standing and notable anger not so much at IC but at the figure *Yahweh*. [Yahweh seems to have been behind the devilish shenigans of that bitch who absconded with your heart and your bank account -- that bastard!]

Here, your own confused thought processes are revealed: You cannot accept that a benevolent creator has allowed you to suffer, and you therefore hold *him* responsible. But then you also doubt that such a God does actually exist and so you end up arguing against what you seem to recognize as a phantasy.

So curiously, and you do this constantly, much of your discourse revolves around your existential conundrum and the Death-Wish Song with its mix of woeful minor notes and hopeful major notes. And time and again you manipulate others through a sick guilt-slinging to have to listen to your dreary tale of devastation. But simultaneously, and here your manipulations are genuinely underhanded, you refuse all *help*. And quite curiously you refuse the spiritual help that IC and any Christian (and certainly a Christian therapist and they do indeed exist) would offer you.

The issue then, at least as I see it, is that you are in a self-constructed prison and you (genuinely I think) can conceive of no way out of it. For me this is all *quite curious* (as I often say) because I am aware that in many areas we create our own prisons. We are the *authors* of a great deal of our own situations. Or, put another way, our perceptual structures which are upheld by our will resist alternatives. "Help me!" the sicko woefully cries, but when help is proffered he shoots it down. There is a whole area within the psychology/therapy profession that deals with people caught in this wretched loop.

So again -- and I say *curiously* once again -- many of us here have recognized ICs own intransigence about his own religious, spiritual, doctrinal and existential positions. He will not alter any part of these and, let's face it, people tend to get frustrated and angry with him because they cannot influence him to adjust or reject beliefs that so many are incapable of believing themselves. And then there is the implication, stated quite directly (though recently backgrounded) that failure to accept the crucial element at the core of the Christian belief system will result in a hellish future. It is basic and shall I say *hardcore Christian belief* of the Old School.

So then, we have two lunatics who have locked horns! And the Epic Battle rages!

Personally, I think there is a way around the conflict. But then in this I show, perhaps, my synthesizing tendencies.

Jesus Christ and God are in my view symbolic references to something that, by definition, remain abstract and non-understandable. I admit to relying on some of my Jungian background here. But it is the sort of understanding that arises when someone cross-references spiritual or religious concepts. If I refer to *the higher self* what in fact am I referring to? Who uses such terms? And do the terms have any validity? And what does *validity* mean then?

In the 12-Step Program they say "Turn it over to God" or "Let go and let God". These are people who, certainly, came to the end of their ropes and who found that they could not resolve their issues on their own. That is, their own will could not do it. They had to abandon the project, and they had to call upon what they refer to as their *Higher Power*.

I suggest that anyone with any experience living life is quite aware that life itself is mysterious. How things happen, why they happen, how things get resolved (or tied up in knots), how one finds the people one loves, how love operates, and how the roads of life and the flow of life are influenced by one's own core attitude and -- how to put this -- ones own prayer-center or meditation-center. Many people have, let's say, 'resorted to' a far more fluid relationship with *God* and also with spirituality and really with life's processes. How can this be talked about in fair but also rational terms?

The Ultra-Rationalists here (Veggie comes to mind but there are quite a few here) simply cannot conceive of a 'divine element' in life, or in the self, or in life's processes, and so in this sense if the recommendation were to *Let go and let God* they would crap their pants in dismay. "What?!? That's irrational nonsense!!" Literally, they cannot Grok it. They spent a great deal of time working against the dictatorial tendency in hard religious belief systems, with strongly defined dogmatic sets, that to consider other strategies is rendered impossible.

So we have 3 strange but interesting things to consider here. I am convinced they are not unrelated.

What is happening in our world that Woke Ideology is spreading like a bizarre and dangerous disease of the mind?

But what also is happening in our world where tens of thousands, millions, are suffering in the condition of incurable mental illness?

And what is happening in out world where Religious Orthodoxy and the need (or compulsion) to *return to* a rigid mode of living that had been sharply defined in the past, is presented as a proper and good alternative to self-dissolution in *a world going mad right in front of our eyes*?

It is like the pressure cooker is heating up and all the inner content begins to agitate. And one can surmise that -- eventually -- there will be an explosion. The pressure cannot continue to build.

[iambiguous]

Again, all of this "my way or the highway" Woke business. Conservatives pinning the label on liberals by and large.

You want Woke?

Okay, from my frame of mind, it revolves almost entirely around moral and political objectivism. And all up and down the ideological spectrum.

The various Woke "ists", left and right, embrace the dogmatic assumption that the world needs to "wake up" to the most rational manner in which to understand human interactions. The way these guys...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...do.

The way the objectivists do.

It's just that those like Alexis Jacobi with his "wall of words" above are merely content to keep their own Woke dogmas up in the intellectual clouds.

But make no mistake about it: he is no less Woke than those he'll accuse of being Woke himself.

He just refuses to bring his own Woke mentality down out of the "serious philosophy" stratosphere.

[Gary Childress]

Yeah. Don't worry, IC doesn't have any idea what supports Lindsay's position either. Otherwise, he could tell you in his own words what supports Lindsay's position instead of referring you somewhere else. IC doesn't know shit other than listen to what people who match his opinion declare is true. He doesn't have the level of articulacy to actually understand the nuances of a well-reasoned argument. His world is an echo chamber. If it isn't stated in a 2000-year-old text then he thinks there's no evidence for it.

I admit I skimmed at least some part of your recent forced give-me-therapy-dammit! session you enacted, skillfully as always, in this thread. I told you in another post that I have been praying over your Meds and have sent Mystic Light that would act beneficially on those marvelous chemicals. Have you felt nothing different?

But moving on to the actual topic of the thread: I must insist that you are very likely quite wrong about both Lindsay and what IC understands of the insidious nature of Woke Ideology. So allow me to make a statement that indicates my own relationship to the question of Wokeness: I regard many people who write on this forum as being very very good examples of those infected by the Woke Ideology. What this means though is that Woke Ideology has made notable in-roads within the culture at large. Lindsay speaks of the Motte & Bailey tactic in combination with the Trojan Horse tactic. So for example the word *diversity* which sounds lovely, fair and democratic, when used by the Critical strategist, has in truth a very different intentionality behind it. Same with the word "inclusion". These are true Orwellian and also Maoist terms and my present opinion is that their acceptance demonstrates how insidious are these thought-viruses. You cannot blame that *average person* for responding in good-faith to a call for diversity and inclusion -- but therein lies the trick. It is part of a mind-fuck that, to disentangle it, requires a fair amount of mental energy. It also may indeed require a *guide*: someone to help one out of the labyrinth.

You have made numerous false statements:

1) It is false that IC does not know why he agrees with Lindsay's analysis in general.

2) He could certainly explain in his own words why he does agree.

3) But he may not because it is always better for someone (those he presented the link to) to do first-hand reading rather than receive a digested version.

4) To say "IC doesn't know shit" because you do not agree with his religious commitments is too dismissive: he may very well know a great deal within other areas and may be able to articulate them quite reasonably.

5) The other statements you make about *the nuances of a well-reasoned argument* are also likely defective statements and seem to be prejudiced by your long-standing and notable anger not so much at IC but at the figure *Yahweh*. [Yahweh seems to have been behind the devilish shenigans of that bitch who absconded with your heart and your bank account -- that bastard!]

Here, your own confused thought processes are revealed: You cannot accept that a benevolent creator has allowed you to suffer, and you therefore hold *him* responsible. But then you also doubt that such a God does actually exist and so you end up arguing against what you seem to recognize as a phantasy.

So curiously, and you do this constantly, much of your discourse revolves around your existential conundrum and the Death-Wish Song with its mix of woeful minor notes and hopeful major notes. And time and again you manipulate others through a sick guilt-slinging to have to listen to your dreary tale of devastation. But simultaneously, and here your manipulations are genuinely underhanded, you refuse all *help*. And quite curiously you refuse the spiritual help that IC and any Christian (and certainly a Christian therapist and they do indeed exist) would offer you.

The issue then, at least as I see it, is that you are in a self-constructed prison and you (genuinely I think) can conceive of no way out of it. For me this is all *quite curious* (as I often say) because I am aware that in many areas we create our own prisons. We are the *authors* of a great deal of our own situations. Or, put another way, our perceptual structures which are upheld by our will resist alternatives. "Help me!" the sicko woefully cries, but when help is proffered he shoots it down. There is a whole area within the psychology/therapy profession that deals with people caught in this wretched loop.

So again -- and I say *curiously* once again -- many of us here have recognized ICs own intransigence about his own religious, spiritual, doctrinal and existential positions. He will not alter any part of these and, let's face it, people tend to get frustrated and angry with him because they cannot influence him to adjust or reject beliefs that so many are incapable of believing themselves. And then there is the implication, stated quite directly (though recently backgrounded) that failure to accept the crucial element at the core of the Christian belief system will result in a hellish future. It is basic and shall I say *hardcore Christian belief* of the Old School.

So then, we have two lunatics who have locked horns! And the Epic Battle rages!

Personally, I think there is a way around the conflict. But then in this I show, perhaps, my synthesizing tendencies.

Jesus Christ and God are in my view symbolic references to something that, by definition, remain abstract and non-understandable. I admit to relying on some of my Jungian background here. But it is the sort of understanding that arises when someone cross-references spiritual or religious concepts. If I refer to *the higher self* what in fact am I referring to? Who uses such terms? And do the terms have any validity? And what does *validity* mean then?

In the 12-Step Program they say "Turn it over to God" or "Let go and let God". These are people who, certainly, came to the end of their ropes and who found that they could not resolve their issues on their own. That is, their own will could not do it. They had to abandon the project, and they had to call upon what they refer to as their *Higher Power*.

I suggest that anyone with any experience living life is quite aware that life itself is mysterious. How things happen, why they happen, how things get resolved (or tied up in knots), how one finds the people one loves, how love operates, and how the roads of life and the flow of life are influenced by one's own core attitude and -- how to put this -- ones own prayer-center or meditation-center. Many people have, let's say, 'resorted to' a far more fluid relationship with *God* and also with spirituality and really with life's processes. How can this be talked about in fair but also rational terms?

The Ultra-Rationalists here (Veggie comes to mind but there are quite a few here) simply cannot conceive of a 'divine element' in life, or in the self, or in life's processes, and so in this sense if the recommendation were to *Let go and let God* they would crap their pants in dismay. "What?!? That's irrational nonsense!!" Literally, they cannot Grok it. They spent a great deal of time working against the dictatorial tendency in hard religious belief systems, with strongly defined dogmatic sets, that to consider other strategies is rendered impossible.

So we have 3 strange but interesting things to consider here. I am convinced they are not unrelated.

What is happening in our world that Woke Ideology is spreading like a bizarre and dangerous disease of the mind?

But what also is happening in our world where tens of thousands, millions, are suffering in the condition of incurable mental illness?

And what is happening in out world where Religious Orthodoxy and the need (or compulsion) to *return to* a rigid mode of living that had been sharply defined in the past, is presented as a proper and good alternative to self-dissolution in *a world going mad right in front of our eyes*?

It is like the pressure cooker is heating up and all the inner content begins to agitate. And one can surmise that -- eventually -- there will be an explosion. The pressure cannot continue to build.

Denouncing the entire left as "marxist" and "socialism" as "anti-democratic" is certainly not going to solve the problem any more than having "contempt" for the broken who aren't doing what you want us to do. It's not all our fault. And war is not going to solve anything either, though there's not much any of us can do if that's what the powers that be want.

[Immanuel Can]

Yeah. Don't worry, IC doesn't have any idea what supports Lindsay's position either.

Actually, he does. Go ahead: ask.

Denouncing the entire left as "marxist" and "socialism" as "anti-democratic"

You'd better show me where I did that.

In point of fact, Leftism today is usually associated with Socialism and Marxism, but things like "classical liberalism" are now counted, by the more radical Left, as "conservatism," ironically.

And I know exactly what the new radical Left quotes as their own progenitors. I know the history and theory of what they believe better than 95% of those that believe it, I'll warrant you. Some of them are so clueless, in fact, they've never even heard of Hegel or Marx...they just inherit their ideas and swallow them whole, without the faintest clue of where they came from, or what the problems with them are.

Today's broad "Left" is composed of several layers: the knowing theorists (I would estimate their number at maybe 1%, at most), the semi-aware radicals (maybe 10%, with some information but not the whole picture), and the rest of blind followers (what the rest would call "allies," their "useful idiots," the vast majority for sure) who know very little about what they're doing, and just want free stuff, but can be whipped up and mobilized in an ideological frenzy at a moment's notice.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Denouncing the entire left as "marxist" and "socialism" as "anti-democratic" is certainly not going to solve the problem any more than having "contempt" for the broken who aren't doing what you want us to do. It's not all our fault. And war is not going to solve anything either, though there's not much any of us can do if that's what the powers that be want.

I appreciate your insipid and even pathetic comments. Everything for you resolves back to your mental condition, and everything eventually becomes another extended therapy session for you. Despite appearances this does not bother me because I see your *illness* as generally cultural. And all my comments, or most, deal on *what is going on in our world* now, today.

Marxist economic and cultural theory are extremely real things. Honestly, I do not think you have any background to understand any part of this. Could you get that background? Yes. Will you? Doubtful. But if you did you'd be able to say relevant things about Socialism and about Marxism and Marxian praxis.

With that background then you could advance to a more general understanding of the various Critical Theories that have become prevalent since approximately the 90s.

So while it is true that the entire Left cannot be unfairly associated with the Critical leftwing, or the radical branches of activist Critical Theory, it is (what I have determined to be) a fact -- a stone cold and hard fact -- that Critical Theory is anti-democratic and extremely anti-Liberal. The primary counter-argument against the activist Critical Theories is that they tend to undermine and destroy Liberal traditions: of straightforward communication, of good-faith interchange and cooperation between segments and people with different interests, because Critical Theories tend to employ (or employ very strongly) what we know as 'cancellation'. The use of coercive and underhanded power to silence one's opposition. And to hurt them on all possible levels if it is carried out successfully. De-platforming, de-banking, and in a social and cultural sense destroying one's enemies livelihood, reputation, and much else. There is something markedly different about this new 'Critical' activism. And that is what Lindsay has dedicated himself to understanding and exposing. It is very coherent material. There are times when I have senses that Lindsay exaggerates (I still have this opinion) but the greater bulk of his analysis is sound.

And I will take anyone on here who wished to discuss/debate the issue.

You speak of a *problem*. What is that problem? I do not think you have any clear sense of what the *problem* is. Why is this? One, you do not care to know. Two, I think you mouth off at the same rate you jack the worm -- quite often and a few times a day. Just as I might recommend that you conserve your semen and let energy rebuild in your system, you pervert, similarly you should refrain from speaking of things about which you are ignorant. Build up knowledge. Arrive at better understanding. Then when you open your yap you'd make more sense.

It is hard to assess why the US has provoked the present war, and what it thinks it will gain from it. Formerly, as everyone knows, it was the Neocon establishment that set out on the course of war-making and the *remodeling of the Middle East* which has caused so much damage. What specific power-center or power-concentration (within the halls of American power) are responsible? It is a good question.

Presently though, and I think oddly, it is the Republican sector and even the MAGA sector that shows itself opposed to the Ukrainian war and also many MAGA-oriented commentators expose the corrupt players behind the adventure -- while simultaneously explaining the last 20+ years of constant war-making. Douglas MacGregor is a good example of an articulate opponent of irresponsible war-making and his critique of the Ukrainian fiasco is quite devastating. His argument in support of Trump is also coherent though he also voices reservations of the sort typically made.

[Immanuel Can]

...the various Critical Theories that have become prevalent since approximately the 90s.

They started much earlier, of course. You could rightly go back beyond the Frankfurt School, even, to Marx, and beyond him, to Hegel, then beyond him, to the Gnostics.

There's a long history there, and not a pretty one.

[Alexis Jacobi]

They started much earlier, of course. You could rightly go back beyond the Frankfurt School, even, to Marx, and beyond him, to Hegel, then beyond him, to the Gnostics.

I am aware that Lindsay delves into Gnosticism as a means to arrive at what is underhanded and subversive in Critical Theory, but it has seemed to me (in this) to be somewhat of a leap.

However, I would agree that generally Critical Theory involves a very cynical and ultra-pessimistic lens through which life and the world are perceived, and it is true that the Gnostics shared that core cynicism and pessimism, so in that sense he could be onto something.

Critical Theories do involve assigning a demonological status to those who oppose it, and on that note one can very easily locate the same accusations used by many of the (seemingly) rabid Lefties who bark and snarl here on our belovèd forum.

But here is the thing that is difficult to reconcile and as you well know: Christian theory is deeply involved in demonological theory!

So, it would serve the conversation if you'd talk about your own views of how the demons (Satanic powers) influence the deranged activism so prevalent in our present.

Some would see your views as similarly Gnostic (in the sense of determined by metaphysical theories that they cannot recognize as *true* and which are outlandish and paranoid).

[Gary Childress]

Denouncing the entire left as "marxist" and "socialism" as "anti-democratic" is certainly not going to solve the problem any more than having "contempt" for the broken who aren't doing what you want us to do. It's not all our fault. And war is not going to solve anything either, though there's not much any of us can do if that's what the powers that be want.

I appreciate your insipid and even pathetic comments.

I was lodging a valid complaint. I didn't even mention your name. It was constructive criticism, believe it or not. Your response above hardly shows attentive scholarliness. As Iambiguous has repeatedly indicated you lack real world experience outside your "scholarly" analyses of xenophobic and reactionary texts. You missed the boat yet again. Your personal ego precedes you everywhere and rips discourse to shreds before you analytical brain arrives to investigate or question the eyewitnesses in the trenches.

Since you won't listen to me, figure it out on your own, Mr. "war is glorious." Let us know how your theory works out, if any of us are left to analyse anything after this.