Philosophy Now Forum

LuckyR wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 10:17 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 9:55 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 9:42 pm

Still no citation. Waiting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grNLfzFwPpg&t=712s

Sounds like you don't know what a Journal citation is. Hint: it doesn't involve YouTube.

Sounds like you didn't look at it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:30 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 9:28 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2024 5:09 pmHow many of those references provide substantiation that Cultural Marxism is a "conspiracy theory"? I'll warrant you it's probably not even one.

It really depends on what you accept as substantiation.

Yes, I thought so. Not a one.

Which goes to show how you interpret things in ways that suit your beliefs, because how you have interpreted the above is not what it says.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:30 pmFor the very good reason that the term "conspiracy theory" is used by Leftism to discredit their critics without having to mount any sort of rational defense.

So "Leftism" conspires to to discredit their critics without having to mount any sort of rational defence, eh? Isn't that the sort of thing a right wing conspiracy theorist might believe?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:30 pmAnd I'm quite convinced that anybody who looks into the history of Cultural Marxism for himself will find there's good reason why they can't mount a real defense...there isn't one.

Well, unless Google is in on the conspiracy, what anybody who looks into the history of cultural Marxism for themselves will find is a raft of articles that denounce cultural Marxism as a conspiracy theory. For example:

"a conspiracy theory with an anti-Semitic twist, is being pushed by much of the American right."
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... m-catching

The New York Times says:

"Nothing of the kind actually exists...Originally an American contribution to the phantasmagoria of the alt-right, the fear of “cultural Marxism” has been percolating for years through global sewers of hatred."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/opin ... itism.html

The Oxford English Dictionary defines it thus:

"Used depreciatively, chiefly among right-wing commentators: a political agenda advocating radical social reform, said to be promoted within western cultural institutions by liberal or left-wing ideologues intent on eroding traditional social values and imposing a dogmatic form of progressivism on society. Later also more generally: a perceived left-wing bias in social or cultural institutions, characterized as doctrinaire and pernicious.
This sense has its origins in the anti-Semitic belief that Jewish intellectuals were behind an attempt to subvert western culture. In quot. 1938 (in the context of fascist ideology), this belief derives from the fact that Karl Marx's family were originally Jewish; in later use it is associated with the fact that the Frankfurt School (see note at sense 2) predominantly comprised Jewish philosophers, many of whom emigrated to the United States. Cultural Marxism is now also used more generally simply to criticize perceived left-wing bias. Owing to the term's history, such use is often regarded as controversial."
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cultural ... _n?tl=true

There are those "right-wing commentators" who are convinced that cultural marxism is really a thing:

"Unless Marxist thought is defeated again, today’s cultural Marxists will achieve what the Soviet Union never could: the subjugation of the United States to a totalitarian, soul-destroying ideology."
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/ ... -can-fight

Which to any sane person is laughable hyperbole. So, again, it just goes to show that the choice of who to believe is not made on objective grounds. For reasons I can only guess at, you choose to believe that socialism is an existential threat, whereas to me it just means the rich will have to pay taxes like the rest of us so that things like health, education and emergency services are better funded.

What's the easiest way to discredit something?

Call it an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

And add "alt-right" just to make sure.

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 12:56 pm What's the easiest way to discredit something?

Call it an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

And add "alt-right" just to make sure.

What a moronic c**t.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 12:00 pm Which goes to show how you interpret things in ways that suit your beliefs, because how you have interpreted the above is not what it says.

It is unfortunate, I have come to see, that Immanuel Can is the sole purveyor on this forum of a critique of Marxian thinking, and certainly of *Cultural Marxism*, as an infection of the intellect in our period.

In the same sense it is unfortunate that he is the only one here with enough foundation in Occidental intellectual categories to mount a defense of Christianity (his belief is based solely in sheer biblical realism), but that he in truth has no means at his disposal, no conceptual pathway that he can offer, that could carry a hardened modernist to a different position. From the modernist position the god-concept is dead (and buried). It is thoroughly unthinkable to entertain other notions.

IC's defense of Christian belief, his recommendations, have always seemed completely hollow. He does not realize, perhaps he cannot realize, that among those he preaches to -- nearly everyone on this forum! -- that the god-concept IC wishes to see re-inflated in you, his audience, cannot come back to life again within minds that have established the impossibility of such and which believe such a negating concept in a way that correspond to those *absolute truths* of the former dispensation.

Similarly, it seems to me, and because of having been labeled for his long-standing *performance* within Christian apologetics -- a largely failed performance as I say, having convinced no one and indeed having driven nearly all who read him farther away! -- he cannot make a successful case for the sensible need to pay attention to the penetration of Marxian thought, Marxian categories of viewing the world and cultural processes, into our shared perceptual system.

Just as his declaration that *you must simply believe in Jesus* (or else!) influences no one (there is no argument in it really), similarly he cannot make a case here of the sensible need to counter the insidiousness of Marxian thinking into all categories of our social life and our intellectual categories. But why should any of you consider as *insidious* any of these categories when, as it happens here, most of you (to indulge in generalisms) are yourselves on the cutting edges of a sort of radical Liberal-Progressivism? You would have to perceive some discomfort, you'd have to have come to a point where a critique of the general direction of the present has begun to irk you, or scare you, for the *intellectual turning* to take shape within your desire.

Marxianism, as a sheer materialistic mode of thinking and seeing, is actually your mode of thinking and seeing. It fits, therefore, into the way that you-plural are situated in the world. Marxianism in this sense has attacked and torn down the concept of *metaphysical categories* and, as it happens, within you those categories are largely in ruins. One must understand that the greatest opponent of Marxian categories has been (though it does not seem now to be) the Catholic Church. One must understand the root here: Christian thinking involves considering and *believing in* supernatural categories of reality. And for those who exist within the realness of such categories Marxianism, as hyper-materialism, is a declared enemy of those *invisible* (read non-existing, fabricated, "invented*) categories of perception and understanding.

Marxianism is therefore described as ultra-naturalism and, naturally, defines its enemy as anyone who believes in, who organizes perception and understanding though, those categories I label as 'supernaturalist'.

Within such *categories of naturalism* the entire premise that Christianity is founded on -- the revelation into this realm of non-substantial, supernaturalistic, ideas and values by a divine power beyond comprehension and possibly description -- collapses onto the ground in so many fragmented pieces. Once the naturalistic viewpoint is established -- it gets bound up within the personality and the way it identifies itself in this world -- all metaphysics is understood to disssipate into those invented categories, which is to say into the unreal.

So once again -- I tried to deal on this many months back -- in order to actually see the position we are all in requires a master metaphysician who could help us to simply get clear about what has happened to us as those modern perspectives gained tremendous ground and within which we are now ourselves largely grounded.

Cultural Marxism, therefore, can be understood to be an inevitable result of the collapse of belief in categories of supernatural thought and view. It is the only *philosophy* that could really kick-in when men sit among the *ruins* of a life-orienting, encompassing and guiding perceptual, and also moral system of general belief.

It seems to me that (here) James Lindsay does a formidable job of getting to the core of the way that Marxian insidiousness operates when he examines Critical Queer Theory:

At present, schools throughout North America are reproducing the youth radicalization program utilized by Communist dictator Mao Zedong. They're doing this by combining Critical Race Theory, Gender Theory (gender ideology), Queer Theory, and the other Critical Theories of Identity (Identity Marxism) to funnel kids into politically active, radical and revolutionary personal identities. They're doing it because it works: Marxism is the what, and Maoism is the how. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, James Lindsay condenses the argument in his popular Groomer Schools 3 podcast: The Creation of an American Red Guard (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/12/gro...) to explain Mao's strategy to radicalize and mobilize the youth against their existing culture. He then explains how the terms of Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, etc., are used to reproduce this in the intersectional (Identity Marxist) context here in the West for the same purposes.

Let's suppose that you-plural (Flash, the Lunatic Scotsman and so many other vibrating strings who resonate at similar frequencies) utterly hate what Lindsay stands for. Let the exclamation points fly through the intellectual air like retribution-darts! Aaaargggh! A hateful man!

OK, great, now you have a target at which to aim your fusillades! You see, even if you are revolutionary modernists and even if you *utterly hate* those categories of thought I define as supernaturalistic and metaphysical, doesn't it make sense to better understand how your Dread Opponents are organizing their ideas?

We construct something to oppose you and to defeat you!

Wilbur Boneman wrote: Which to any sane person is laughable hyperbole. So, again, it just goes to show that the choice of who to believe is not made on objective grounds. For reasons I can only guess at, you choose to believe that socialism is an existential threat, whereas to me it just means the rich will have to pay taxes like the rest of us so that things like health, education and emergency services are better funded.

This demonstrates, to me, that you cannot even see our present. You say it nicely: To see outside of the categories into which you are invested is mental illness. That is an axial therapeutic notion!

[Note that I am now opening up The Ten-Week Email Course to a new batch of disciples. Give me 10 weeks and I guarantee I will transform you from a drooling Scotsman (Sculptor) into a finely tuned and high reasoning facsimile of GK Chesterton! Don't you want that?! Isn't that better than to semi-exist in a state where all you do is drool onto your keyboards?!]

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Oh look! There's Iwannaplato! Where have you been, Old Boy?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 2:15 pmThis demonstrates, to me, that you cannot even see our present.

I just don't see it through your turd tinted glasses, Gus.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 2:33 pm

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Oh look! There's Iwannaplato! Where have you been, Old Boy?

Living more directly. Alas a temporary regression has occurred.

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 12:56 pm What's the easiest way to discredit something?

Call it an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

And add "alt-right" just to make sure.

Or the easiest way to be discredited is to be an alt-right, antisemitic conspiracy theory. If you hear a whooshing sound, that'll be my point going over your head.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 12:00 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:30 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 9:28 am
It really depends on what you accept as substantiation.

Yes, I thought so. Not a one.

Which goes to show how you interpret things in ways that suit your beliefs, because how you have interpreted the above is not what it says.

Show me where the substantiation of "conspiracy theory" in that list is, and I'll concede your point. Seems fair.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:30 pmFor the very good reason that the term "conspiracy theory" is used by Leftism to discredit their critics without having to mount any sort of rational defense.

So "Leftism" conspires to to discredit their critics without having to mount any sort of rational defence, eh? Isn't that the sort of thing a right wing conspiracy theorist might believe?

No, that's the Left projecting their own mendacity onto their opponents. They use things like "conspiracy theory" accusations, or silencing, or bullying, or using "dog whistle" terms, so they naturally assume their opponents must be up to the same things, and so they accuse them of what they, themselves, routinely do. That's how projection usually works.

All I can tell you is to read the book, Will. The unlike the "conspiracy theory" group, the documentation is all there. And it's backed with direct quotations from people ranging from Marx to Marcuse, and a host of others. And since I've read a lot of their theory myself, the Leftists' own theory, I know that Lindsay's being honest about what he says. I think you owe him at least a hearing.

You seem like a reader. But if you're not, there are podcasts, too. And again, you're going to find direct quotations and solid proof, not innuendos of "conspiracy." I think you owe yourself a look at the opposition. And if I can read a ton of Leftist stuff, I think you can stretch yourself to read just one good book from the opposition side, can't you?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:19 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 2:33 pm

Users browsing this forum: Alexis Jacobi, Iwannaplato, mickthinks, Skepdick and 7 guests

Oh look! There's Iwannaplato! Where have you been, Old Boy?

Living more directly. Alas a temporary regression has occurred.

Bravo! In my case my vision has become so refined that I actually see the leprechauns that inhabit the hillsides where I live. I haven’t yet opened a dialogue with them but I suppose that comes next …

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:19 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 12:56 pm What's the easiest way to discredit something?

Call it an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

And add "alt-right" just to make sure.

Or the easiest way to be discredited is to be an alt-right, antisemitic conspiracy theory. If you hear a whooshing sound, that'll be my point going over your head.

One would actually have to analyze the arguments to know which it is.

But that doesn't happen because the "alt-right antisemitic conspiracy theory" accusation immediately shuts down the discussion.

When white people use the term 'woke' it's cultural appropriation.
Just didn't want the irony missed.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:35 pm When white people use the term 'woke' it's cultural appropriation.
Just didn't want the irony missed.

I just woke , what's that now?

The defining feature of a "conspiracy theory" is that it cannot be falsified because any evidence which might falsify it is part of the conspiracy.