Trumpism

[Santiago Odo]

What a marvelous and productive conversation! You have completely avoided the topic for particulars of zero importance.

You've gotta be a genius to pull this stuff off...

[jupiviv]

Well it did not say "all", did it? Actually it was first: " certain ingrained, mostly Western "social constructs" but in the brushed up version it became against "ingrained, first world "social constructs" which are held responsible", leaving it a bit more ambiguous but still not needed to translate it implying to "all constructs". It should not need much imagination to realize that a fight against all social construct was not likely to be meant. But okay, the first version was perhaps better then.

So to be clear, you define Cultural Marxism as the struggle against first world or Western social constructs which are perceived as tools of oppression. But even this definition would include any struggle against Cultural Marxism itself! A definition of cultural/social struggle that is explicitly limited to the instances of such which are (perceived as) expressions of or influenced by a specific ideology, would therefore necessarily be premised on one's perspective of said ideology --which was my initial point.

If Cultural Marxism isn't as ingrained in society as money or religion, why is the discouragement of its usage alarming?

Not sure why or who you are asking that. Who is alarming about what?

Actually what's happening now, at least in my small country, is that the use of the term "Cultural Marxism" has been labeled as ultraconservative and as firmly embedded into xenophobe nationalism or even Nazi-speak. The fear for the specter of fascism, ironically raised by supporters of a nanny state controlling and safe guarding its people by increased monitoring and military operations abroad (and as such the very incarnation of Orwell's fears).

While I do not claim everyone uses the term in the same way, my definition certainly reflects the way it's being used right now in relevant places and should be understood for what it represents, if understanding of political discourse is the motive.

So how many of those "relevant places" advocate or lean towards the same flavour of politics? If it's more than, say, 3/4ths of the total then there is a valid argument for associating usage of the term with said politics.

The definition I gave is pretty good, as you'll soon realize and it's already improving!

From what I see the opposite will happen in the near future, i.e. "Cultural Marxism" will decline in usage because it is usually an all-purpose slur/argument aimed at left/progressive politics in general. 2019-22(-ish) will be the period when the "red pill left/centre" supersedes the "red pill right/centre" in prominence, if not insight and sanity.

After that will come the *real* shift to the right, because feeling proud and blaming immigrants will turn out to be easier/more feasible than job creation and bottom-up institutional change. Orotund, half-baked, reactionary terminology will lose out to the competition in public discourse (insofar extant). Models for the world after that include Syria, Venezuela, Haiti and North Korea. Best case scenario is a few places are enclaves while the rest is reduced to barbarism. Worst case scenario is everything reduces to barbarism. And the cars are going regardless of what anyone wants.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What a marvelous and productive conversation! You have completely avoided the topic for particulars of zero importance.

For some reason, not unlike Quinn these days, you are imagining I actually have or at least should have some political or ideological stake in this. Or some obsession with semantics. Or maybe you are looking for that yourself in some desperate act. But I'm just studying and facilitating opportunities to be truthful, thoughtful, self-corrective and so on. I guess it's the qualitative aspect: a mixture of reasonable intellect, common sense, proper objectivity where applicable, self-critique and healthy levels of detachment or impersonal examination. This only for the mind to prepare for even deeper challenges. Amen.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

So to be clear, you define Cultural Marxism as the struggle against first world or Western social constructs which are perceived as tools of oppression. But even this definition would include any struggle against Cultural Marxism itself!

Again why? Because you think that a struggle against cultural Marxism would quality as "social construct"? Let me repeat again, it would only qualify as social construct if there would be some sustained, ingrained position in relation to the whole structure of society, pervading many if not all aspects of it. That's how it's generally defined. One political or ideological stance or struggle does not quality. Some fashion or populist element neither. If you want the change the definitions to include all that, discussing this will become impossible.

A definition [...] would therefore necessarily be premised on one's perspective of said ideology

But still not quality as "social construct" just because it's a perspective. It's simply a construct, a thought, a popular term perhaps. Those are different things with different names for a reason.

If Cultural Marxism isn't as ingrained in society as money or religion, why is the discouragement of its usage alarming?

Not sure why or who you are asking that. Who is alarming about what?

Actually what's happening now, at least in my small country, is that the use of the term "Cultural Marxism" has been labeled as ultraconservative and as firmly embedded into xenophobe nationalism or even Nazi-speak. The fear for the specter of fascism, ironically raised by supporters of a nanny state controlling and safe guarding its people by increased monitoring and military operations abroad (and as such the very incarnation of Orwell's fears).

This is a simple description of what's happening. There's no alarm there from my perspective. Although I added the irony that the Orwellian fears are stated at times by proponents of the same Orwellian nightmare, if they at least had read the author.

While I do not claim everyone uses the term in the same way, my definition certainly reflects the way it's being used right now in relevant places and should be understood for what it represents, if understanding of political discourse is the motive.

So how many of those "relevant places" advocate or lean towards the same flavour of politics? If it's more than, say, 3/4ths of the total then there is a valid argument for associating usage of the term with said politics.

I'd say 3/4 stems from places nothing at all to do with the extreme-right, fascism, racism or anything like that. It does seem dominant with various types of cultural conservatives: those defending the very same ingrained social structures as were listed as under attack from those tarred with "cultural marxist". Politically I'd put them clustering slightly right of center, the center and scattered as well at the socially left who are increasingly, in Western Europe, not any more some kind of coherent block or having any single message in any case.

After that will come the *real* shift to the right, because feeling proud and blaming immigrants will turn out to be easier/more feasible than job creation and bottom-up institutional change. Orotund, half-baked, reactionary terminology will lose out to the competition in public discourse (insofar extant). Models for the world after that include Syria, Venezuela, Haiti and North Korea. Best case scenario is a few places are enclaves while the rest is reduced to barbarism. Worst case scenario is everything reduces to barbarism. And the cars are going regardless of what anyone wants.

What is now still called left and right already has most of its meaning. The whole "Alt-Right" and "Cultural Marxist" terms are signs of this ongoing collapse more so than adding any new clarity or divisions. The political landscape itself has fragmented and as a result some vague movements spontaneously arise and fall as people try to organize them around new ideas. The French gilets jaunes are to be studied and understood through that prism. Otherwise it won't make any sense to any one.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

we had Diebert spending copious amounts of energy defending Trump against the very idea that he colluded with Russia in the pretense that he knew what he was talking about, constantly trying to depict it as the so-called liberal disease of Trump Derangement Syndrome

.
And when doing that, it was done by referring to various sources who are outspoken libertarian (Raimondo), fully liberal (Glen Greenwald) and then we have a LGBT rights activist writing for NYT (Masha Gessen), Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) and various former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and Foreign Service diplomats.

And yet you try to turn this into some politically extremist, "weird" position. Or even now suggesting that it took "copious amounts of energy" to link and summarize this material in a forum designed to discuss it. Which is another type of framing.

Wake up David! If there's a disease, it's not liberal, it's simple brain rot in the ones campaigning and attacking the loudest or simply getting high on some form of social passion. And you might have been infected perhaps together with the people you hang out most with, who perhaps don't dare to disagree?

[jupiviv]

So to be clear, you define Cultural Marxism as the struggle against first world or Western social constructs which are perceived as tools of oppression. But even this definition would include any struggle against Cultural Marxism itself!

Again why? Because you think that a struggle against cultural Marxism would quality as "social construct"? Let me repeat again, it would only qualify as social construct if there would be some sustained, ingrained position in relation to the whole structure of society, pervading many if not all aspects of it.

If it is defined as a struggle against, say, traditional family structure or ownership of property, then it does have a relation to the whole of society. Perhaps you will object that this relation is seen as alien and not "ingrained", but the same can be said of different perspectives of other social constructs (gender or race).

A definition [...] would therefore necessarily be premised on one's perspective of said ideology

But still not quality as "social construct" just because it's a perspective. It's simply a construct, a thought, a popular term perhaps. Those are different things with different names for a reason.

As above, the same can be said of different perspectives of other things defined as social constructs.

Actually what's happening now, at least in my small country, is that the use of the term "Cultural Marxism" has been labeled as ultraconservative and as firmly embedded into xenophobe nationalism or even Nazi-speak. The fear for the specter of fascism, ironically raised by supporters of a nanny state controlling and safe guarding its people by increased monitoring and military operations abroad (and as such the very incarnation of Orwell's fears).

This is a simple description of what's happening. There's no alarm there from my perspective. Although I added the irony that the Orwellian fears are stated at times by proponents of the same Orwellian nightmare, if they at least had read the author.

There is certainly rhetorical alarm. You were equating the mere characterisation of "Cultural Marxism" as ultraconservative terminology with tacit support for an Orwellian dictatorship. In fact the same reasoning can be applied to the serious *usage* of the term "Cultural Marxism". After all, the processes or people identified with this term (again, in *actual* usage beyond this forum/thread) are characterised as authoritarian. Hell even you are a fascist by your own standard, i.e. you call people who call people who use the term "Cultural Marxism" fascists, fascists.

So how many of those "relevant places" advocate or lean towards the same flavour of politics? If it's more than, say, 3/4ths of the total then there is a valid argument for associating usage of the term with said politics.

I'd say 3/4 stems from places nothing at all to do with the extreme-right, fascism, racism or anything like that.

Can you cite, say, 4 examples of different news sources/publications that use the term "Cultural Marxism" in earnest, and does not also support a version of racism or fascism?

It does seem dominant with various types of cultural conservatives: those defending the very same ingrained social structures as were listed as under attack from those tarred with "cultural marxist". Politically I'd put them clustering slightly right of center, the center and scattered as well at the socially left who are increasingly, in Western Europe, not any more some kind of coherent block or having any single message in any case.

There is no reason to exclude racism or fascism from cultural conservatism, even if it applies to a social structure comprised of progressive characteristics. I'm not aware of any leftists who use "Cultural Marxism", unless their worldview is a combination of far right extremism and neoliberalism. These latter are very rare, even though disproportionately ubiquitous online, and their worldview is always incoherent and self-contradictory.

What is now still called left and right already has most of its meaning. The whole "Alt-Right" and "Cultural Marxist" terms are signs of this ongoing collapse more so than adding any new clarity or divisions. The political landscape itself has fragmented and as a result some vague movements spontaneously arise and fall as people try to organize them around new ideas. The French gilets jaunes are to be studied and understood through that prism. Otherwise it won't make any sense to any one.

What has lost meaning is the actual *practice* of traditionally leftist politics. The reason for that is a general movement towards the right for several decades. The exceptions are "cultural" issues which are primarily about creating spaces for underrepresented groups within a predominantly far-right and capitalist global order.

[Santiago Odo]

If there's a disease, it's not liberal, it's simple brain rot in the ones campaigning and attacking the loudest or simply getting high on some form of social passion. And you might have been infected perhaps together with the people you hang out most with, who perhaps don't dare to disagree?

The term 'liberalism' and 'Liberal' no longer function.

In fact my general position is Liberal in the true sense of the term. But to consider David and also Dan's position we need another term. Their 'liberalism' is really something else altogether. A good term is 'Hyper-Liberal' and 'Hyper-liberalism'.

One then has to consider the infusion into this modified and extremist hyper-liberalism of 'progressivism'. And progressivism, it would seem, has been infused with Marxism slash Cultural Marxism; at a doctrinal level perhaps but also as pure emotional contagion. (As evinced by the NYTs as a neo-Maoist Journal).

It is also plain that this hyper-liberal/progressive 'infection' has an unconscious enthusiastic element: it is neo-religious:

The noun enthusiasm comes from the Greek word enthousiasmos, from enthous, meaning “possessed by a god, inspired.” It was originally used in a derogatory sense to describe excessive religious zeal. Today both the religious and derogatory connotations are gone from enthusiasm, but the zeal has survived. Use it to describe great excitement or interest, like what you feel when you’re doing something that you really, really enjoy.

ENTHUSIASM. From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, "enthusiasm" was used in describing individuals or groups who claimed to have been the special recipients of divine inspiration. Originally having the neutral or positive meaning of "being possessed or inspired by a god" (from the Greek enthousiasmos ), the term assumed negative connotations after the Reformation. Protestant Reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) first used the word "Schwärmer" to describe such radical reformers as Thomas Müntzer (c. 1489–1525), Andreas Karlstadt (c. 1480–1541), and the Anabaptists, on account of their elevation of religious experience over the literal words of Scripture.

If we take 'their elevation of religious experience over the literal words of Scripture' and apply it to the Global Warming / Gender Dysphoria / Trump Derangement Syndrome, we have then the Scripture being superseded with a dynamic religious enthusiasm in a kind of social hysteria. But they do not see it as such. It is 'normalcy' for them.

[Santiago Odo]

For some reason, not unlike Quinn these days, you are imagining I actually have or at least should have some political or ideological stake in this. Or some obsession with semantics. Or maybe you are looking for that yourself in some desperate act. But I'm just studying and facilitating opportunities to be truthful, thoughtful, self-corrective and so on. I guess it's the qualitative aspect: a mixture of reasonable intellect, common sense, proper objectivity where applicable, self-critique and healthy levels of detachment or impersonal examination. This only for the mind to prepare for even deeper challenges. Amen.

I understand what you are saying, brother. Like you, in some sense, I am also 'facilitating' and 'mediating' as best I can, yet within different terms and predicates certainly. Therefore, I expect you, David and all persons to recognize their 'stake'. Stakelessness is not an option.

You already know that I see all of us *in desperate straights*. You know that I see David's choices, his giving himself over to progressive enthusiasm and the Trump Derangement Syndrome, as hysterical symptoms. And you also know -- it has been a constant -- that I strive to define a 'healed' 'balanced' individual in harmony with himself and, yes, the Kosmos. And you know that I know that you see these things as inconsiderable, outlandish, impossible.

Remember: I have latched on or I have been caused to latch-on to the ur-questions asked by our dear friends the QRS. These are the most essential questions and problems that can be faced. And you doubt the need to define and act out of a 'stake'?

I define you, Diebert, as being a unique intellectual crepuscular animal -- a heron if you wish -- who lives in perpetual dusk. You cannot completely die but neither can you come to birth. You're a metaphor of course. The tired, exhausted European. The 'ghost' who appear and reappears.

The term 'Cultural Marxism' has a specific meaning. The meaning has to be brought out into the light of intelligent reason.

If you see any substantial similarity between my project and that of David I will have to call you deliberately and willfully blind. But go ahead, push that it it serves you . . .

I'm just studying and facilitating opportunities to be truthful, thoughtful, self-corrective.

Sure, I get that. It is a unique service. But you do understand -- I always say it -- that you-plural always collapse into bickering non-sense while simultaneously avoiding the seriousness and the conviction to make real definitions.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If it is defined as a struggle against, say, traditional family structure or ownership of property, then it does have a relation to the whole of society. Perhaps you will object that this relation is seen as alien and not "ingrained", but the same can be said of different perspectives of other social constructs (gender or race).

Having a relation to society does not equal being ingrained within virtually all aspects of it. Like the classic gender definition in terms of male & female: it's ingrained in terms of toilet arrangement, titles of persons, job description, sport leagues, language constructs and grammar, fashion, name giving, standard biographic information, religious myths, casting of movies and theater, children books and so on. This is why it's called social construct as it's seen as something growing out of culture and how society organized but not directly out of some biological necessity. Of course there's a side that claims that the whole list is biologically necessary too. And then we have a discussion which is related to the construct but is not a social construct itself.

There is certainly rhetorical alarm. You were equating the mere characterisation of "Cultural Marxism" as ultraconservative terminology with tacit support for an Orwellian dictatorship. In fact the same reasoning can be applied to the serious *usage* of the term "Cultural Marxism". After all, the processes or people identified with this term (again, in *actual* usage beyond this forum/thread) are characterised as authoritarian. Hell even you are a fascist by your own standard, i.e. you call people who call people who use the term "Cultural Marxism" fascists, fascists.

Really all I did was trying to explain how the term was being used by others, thereby opposing what I view as popular misconceptions. And even with the Orwellian thing, all I did was showing pot and kettle elements. Where's the alarm?

Can you cite, say, 4 examples of different news sources/publications that use the term "Cultural Marxism" in earnest, and does not also support a version of racism or fascism?

The hard part of that will be the problem I tried to describe above: all serious sources already have been attacked and smeared with charges of racism and fascism without providing much reasonable evidence. Of course that's the secret of smearing: it does not require any, just the suggestion or vague associations and repetitions are enough. It's a hallmark of emotionality and buttons being pushed. You must have seen how it worked against Solway here, who is not a racist or fascist in any way, at least to my knowledge. Watch what happens when evidence is asked: some hollow vague hand waving follows. At that stage I've seen enough.

There is no reason to exclude racism or fascism from cultural conservatism

Well I didn't exclude them in terms of some individuals but that's a bit different from claiming racism and fascism as integral elements of what I broadly described as a culturally conservative orientation. It's not even organized as one group or party.

What has lost meaning is the actual *practice* of traditionally leftist politics. The reason for that is a general movement towards the right for several decades.

All that's left to say is that you're half right there :-)

[Santiago Odo]

Can you cite, say, 4 examples of different news sources/publications that use the term "Cultural Marxism" in earnest, and does not also support a version of racism or fascism?

The hard part of that will be the problem I tried to describe above: all serious sources already have been attacked and smeared with charges of racism and fascism without providing much reasonable evidence. Of course that's the secret of smearing: it does not require any, just the suggestion or vague associations and repetitions are enough. It's a hallmark of emotionality and buttons being pushed. You must have seen how it worked against Solway here, who is not a racist or fascist in any way, at least to my knowledge. Watch what happens when evidence is asked: some hollow vague hand waving follows. At that stage I've seen enough.

Here, the term racism is used inappropriately and too broadly. Because it is a 'hot' word, used by those who wish only to slander, it really does not have meaning. Therefore, the term and the entirety of the intellectual understanding that stands behind it need to be brought out. The same is true for 'fascism' which, as a term in popular discourse, and as used broadly in the media, is also meaningless because it is not carefully defined.

Racialism and race-realism, on the other hand, have definitions, and they are sound definitions that are part-and-parcel of classical Liberal thought. They can be brought out in an intelligent and fair conversation and are not 'abnormal' and they are definitely not immoral nor unethical terms. Nor is discourse on that topic. To see, to classify, to designate, to evaluate, to privilege differences in racial make up, cultural maturity, affiliation with civilization, as well as the somatic issue (which is not unreal), all these elements have been part of 'liberal' discourse.

In Hyper-liberalism and in Progressivism, tinged as they are by irrational currents of non-thought, that is, emotionalized thinking, it is not allowed to think with these terms, and it is forbidden to discuss such matters. But far worse -- indeed utterly morally reprehensible -- it is to organize one's life in accord with one's understanding of cultural, ethnic and racial differences (all of these operate together and no one of them can be intelligently examined when removed from a holistic group).

The present 'conversation' about race and culture going on for example at American Renaissance (Jared Taylor) is an example of a strict 'liberal' conversation that would have made perfect sense just a few short years ago. That is, before the assault by those of the Cultural Marxist school-of-thought. Again Cultural Marxism is linked to Progressivism and, as David Quinn indicates inadvertently it can take a semi-religious form, as in enthusiasm and something akin to religious hysteria.

Fascism as a term, as used here, is also an unfair and misleading term. Because a more rigid and strict 'liberalism' as I am defining it, capable of and recognizing the importance of hierarchical designation, will be unfairly described as 'fascism' by Hyper-liberal extremists. While a militant state fascism must be considered dangerous and destructive, a social movement that is restraining or even thwarting to Hyper-liberal extremism can be seen as a Rx to the latter.

Spiritual disciplines -- Christian, Buddhist, what-have-you -- are comparable to self-chosen 'fascism' and function similarly in microcosm to renovation movements when a given culture takes such up. We are now entering a phase, it seems, of confrontation with Hyper-liberalism. This is definitely the case in Poland and in Hungary, and there are native movements in every country of Europe right now, in Australia. NZ, in America and Canada, as well as in the Southern Cone of South America, that are beginning to implement reactionary forms that stand against 'liberal excess'.

'Fascism', if considered in the context of the QRS 'movement', would be taking an intellectual stand as the first order of business against out-of-control Hyper-liberal excess. Fascism then could be seen as a 'masculine imposition' or 'correction' of an excess of female and feminine liberality.

The only people that I am aware of that are advocating state fascism are, perhaps, Neo-Nazis. These exist but they are nearly completely marginalized. The Alt-Right and the New Right are capable of looking at National Socialism with less prejudiced eyes, which is the only proper way to look at it so to avoid the 'propaganda constructs' which dominate perception and thought. But no one that I have read is advocating for a Nazi-like social movement to secure its ends. However, they do recognize the need -- and they describe it as a genuine need, not a false need -- to begin to reverse the race-mixing trends that are part-and-parcel of Postwar cultural processes. Anyone can examine this position and weigh it. It is best expressed at Counter-Currents by Greg Johnson et al.

These ideas are indeed *radical* but only because our present has made certain ideas and discourses illegal and has cast them not only as immoral but as evil (unthinkable thought). But this is not so. (Once one has broken the spell of Hyper-liberalism and Hyper-progressivism within one's own mind by confronting the European grammar of self-intolerance, and once one has deconstructed it to some degree or other, one begins quite naturally to return to our traditional Liberalism, which has been seriously disrupted and contaminated. And this Liberalism is now made to seem as a form of right-leaning radicalism and extremism though it is not.

Quite a trick really.

Everyone else that I am aware of -- from Benoist to Taylor and even to Greg Johnson -- are trying to think rationally about what an alternative might be to the regime of Hyper-liberalism and its domination of ideas and perception. Note that I did write hyper-liberalism and I contrast this to sane, sensible Liberal forms of thought which can easily and coherently contain all that I have written without being 'extremist' nor immoral.

Jupi's *issue* is complex and not a little bizarre. He is an Indian man -- a brown man from a brown culture that had been dominated by the English and which is still working out its independence -- who was yet educated in Occidental traditions at a religious institution. The conversation about race & culture or 'race-realism' makes him uncomfortable. That is why he takes issue with it.

However, he is in this sense 'the victim' of that European imposition, and that cultural imposition operates similarly as it does among American aboriginals or Australian aboriginals, and in all places where European imperialism imposed itself and its 'categories'. It molds them, it gives them forms and content quite distinct from its own 'cultural traditions' (which are real and valid), but it also poisons them in strange ways. It leads to classic ressentiment. In this context, then, his use of the term 'racism' and also 'fascism' have to be considered.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Stakelessness is not an option.

Life at stake and die at the stake?

And you also know -- it has been a constant -- that I strive to define a 'healed' 'balanced' individual in harmony with himself and, yes, the Kosmos. And you know that I know that you see these things as inconsiderable, outlandish, impossible.

Not exactly that. Perhaps I'd call it more... childish. Or perhaps just all too common of a wish packaged in so many varieties. Other words that come to mind: bland, uninspiring, unambitious, vague, based on flimsy definitions, mechanical (this technology of the mind will make it work more efficiently & smoothly) and so on.

Remember: I have latched on or I have been caused to latch-on to the ur-questions asked by our dear friends the QRS.

That's what you need to believe. You're latched on because some strong subconsciousness drive to self-expose and then keep safely spinning around in this environment. It's an amazing sight, the energy, the hit & miss truth jolting, the darting, the whole fascination game. But a latch-on it is, like the mother of ticks. Then again, it's beyond good & evil; you have no category.

I define you, Diebert, as being a unique intellectual crepuscular animal -- a heron if you wish -- who lives in perpetual dusk. You cannot completely die but neither can you come to birth. You're a metaphor of course. The tired, exhausted European. The 'ghost' who appear and reappears.

And I don't even feel opposition to that beautiful, poetic, Zen like imagery. Personally I'm not that tired but for sure the culture is in some over-stimulated, over-concerned sense. With young children it ends in loud whining.

you-plural always collapse into bickering non-sense while simultaneously avoiding the seriousness and the conviction to make real definitions.

Nevertheless it seems to be the environment in which you have made your home.

[Santiago Odo]

As per the usual, you get stuck in superficials as you drench yourself with them.

But don't think I don't appreciate high-conceived insults! There is no better kind. One must get aphoristic with it!

My main point, and one of the major commentaries I have about you, is only that your own stance is like your own description: "bland, uninspiring, unambitious, vague, based on flimsy definitions, mechanical (this technology of the mind will make it work more efficiently & smoothly) and so on."

If you posit those, and they are as you say they are, you have to be able to posit their opposites. This is where you self-contradict. Because you imply that their antidote exists.

What is it? In truth you can't say. And that is what I mean about inhabiting a dusky landscape hunting small amphibians. You have resigned yourself to be The Hunter Diebertus . . .

Nevertheless it seems to be the environment in which you have made your home.

It is just one space or loka among numerous.

Yet as it pertains to dealing with ideas, and not mere nonsense and bickering over inanities -- Eric's recent post deserves a Tao-Cake! -- there is nothing wrong with my contributions.

[David Quinn]

You’re right. Most mainstream journalists are not political or
In any case, I'm still not clear as to what you mean by fascism in relation to experts. Here in Australia at least, most people do trust experts, but they don't do so blindly. For example, if a doctor tells them they have cancer, they usually push for a second opinion. They do their own research before they accept what the expert has to say. But even when this happens, there will always be a point where one has to step back and simply place one's faith in another's expertise, mainly due to the fact that one does not have the expertise oneself to fashion an alternative. I don't know how that can be avoided.

I don't understand why you would equivocate the interpretation of geopolitics and cultural/social trends with a technical field like medicine. Well actually I do - it's because your arguments lack substance.

As I say, the idea of distrusting experts has so many different meanings, depending on who is using it. I had no real idea what you meant by it. Your writing lacks clarity at times. But okay, now we have established that you are confining your distrust to those who comment on geopolitics and cultural/social trends.

Or to put it another way, there are issues involved with relying on authority figures. That’s obviously true. We all understand this. Ideally, one should never follow anyone else blindly. The part I still don’t get is the connection to fascism.

We had Kevin Solway regurgitating the same points, even the same phrases, that are used by the Brietbart commentariat, even to the point of chasing down Obama conspiracies and spouting falsehoods about Clinton and asserting the standard anti-liberal rubbish such as that all mainstream news is fake

Because like you Kevin plunged himself into these issues without developing a context independently. Unlike you, though, Kevin was open to reasonable criticism. I've been having an email exchange with Kevin for the last month or so, and my impression is that wants to interpret the general worldview of anyone critical of feminism in the most rational way possible. He also does repeat anti-SJW talking points without verifying them or examining their contexts. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that he isn't brainwashed or blindly trusting of anti-SJW intellectuals.

This does not compute. If he isn’t brainwashed, then why does he feel a need to litter his discourse with religious scripts from the alt-right cult? That does not make any sense.

If it really is his goal to “interpret the general worldview of anyone critical of feminism in the most rational way possible’ (and I do not believe this for a second; it’s just a bit of faff that he tells himself), then how does he expect to succeed if he remains deeply attached to the extreme and narrow-minded jihad that currently swamps his brain?

I just cannot take him seriously anymore.

It’s funny, but Dan, Kevin and I have hardly had anything to do with each other over the past few years. It’s been nearly a year since I last spoke to Dan, and I haven’t had any contact with Kevin at all since the forum stoush back in 2017. I think we all realized a few years ago that our once close collaboration had reached its natural conclusion.

Then perhaps a reunion is in order. The unpleasantness of the 2017 discussion could have been easily avoided if you had discussed those issues with Kevin before waxing outraged on this forum.

We had already discussed the issues at length. It was his cultish answers which led me to start the 2017 discussion on the forum in the first place.

You and Diebert seem to think I had a choice in bringing up that discussion. There was no choice. Kevin’s slide into the alt-right cult over the past few years would have eventually come to light, one way or another. You can’t hide something like that. And once in the light, my name, Dan’s name, the reputation of everyone here, and Genius Forum itself would have come to be associated with the alt-right. Something had to be done about it.

Anyway, I don't see the point in continuing on with this subject. It has been done to death. The Kevin Solway I once knew has gone and his replacement holds no interest for me.

[David Quinn]

In fact my general position is Liberal in the true sense of the term. But to consider David and also Dan's position we need another term. Their 'liberalism' is really something else altogether. A good term is 'Hyper-Liberal' and 'Hyper-liberalism'.

As a general rule, I am against all forms of illiberalism, yes. I wouldn't say that I am hyper-liberalist, though, as I still recognize the value of, say, the legal system.

Whenever I hear someone speak against liberalism or hyper-liberalism, I immediately ask myself, "What kind of illiberalism does this person want his superiors to introduce, and why? Who does he want to control and punish?"

[Santiago Odo]

Classic liberalism rose in specific circumstances, with established rules & regulations, with norms & limits. It is -- it was -- a sophisticated and evolved system that depended on the raising up, the cultivation of, a responsible citizen.

Our present 'hyper-liberalism' is something different, or it pertains to very different circumstances. The 'true liberal' can hardly be said to exist because the culture that produced him no longer exists.

In my view of *you* -- based on what I read of what you write -- I cannot see you but as an exponent of 'hyper-liberalism'. I think that to be a 'true liberal' one would have to have integrated the knowledge-set that produced it. I think you stand on a periphery of that. You are not 'firmly in it' but are 'marginally out of it'.

But you cannot *see* this (that is, your situation) simply because you are no longer a 'liberal man'. But this is true for many of us, to one degree or another.

Whenever I hear someone speak against liberalism or hyper-liberalism, I immediately ask myself, "What kind of illiberalism does this person want his superiors to introduce, and why? Who does he want to control and punish?"

You could also reverse this question and ask it of the *shadow* that produced it!

I am speaking against 'hyper-liberalism' as a sort of contagion. The sort of contagion that produces a man who talks and thinks as you have been talking and thinking recently. You *demonstrate* what it is. But one cannot gain from the demonstration a sense of 'what is wrong' in it. That would require -- quite literally -- a prolonged study.

The present regime, in the sense that the present media-conveyed system operates like a regime-of-thought, is a kind of illiberalism in action. It is tending among some to a socialistic semi-Maoist contagion which is destructive to the liberal base of our societies. Much of the activism against *the office of the president of the United States* shows illiberal hysteria in motion. The contagion is not instigated only by a restless populous but is handled by media elites.

But then so too is the illiberal culture that has been created through an array of machinations which also require certain study to grasp. This is why I say that the term hyper-liberalism is a useful one. Connected with it is a long process of 'social engineering' and hyper-liberalism seems to be one outcome of *all that*.

Though some of my suggestions or assertions (say 'race-realism' or immigration control or 'European renovation', et cetera) are received and interpreted as radical or extremist, I do not think that they are. They are correctives really. And they are liberally defensible. Each idea and assertion can be explained rationally and intellectually, but all that hyper-liberal illiberalism has -- like you! -- are emotional, henid-like sensational 'arguments'.

These realizations have come about in me specifically through having *punctured the ideological construct of hyper-liberalism*. I think it can only come to someone who reads a good deal. It is a historical perspective largely, but also one that is metaphysical. Once punctured, it does seem to *collapse* in front of one. Once one has reestablished sensible and common sense liberalism and liberally-based ideas, the Present -- and individuals like you who toss up their opinions -- seem peculiarly unbalanced. Even a little unhinged.

It is relatively recently that this perspective that I share here has coalesced in me. It really has taken me a number of years to do the background research, and to think things through, in order to be able to better see Our Present.

I am very grateful (as I often say) for having encountered GF simply for its intensity and what, pretentiously, it established for itself as an object. I can only suggest to you, David, that you review everything. But I know you won't. You can't in fact. It would undermine the very pretensions that now capture you and determine you.

But it is not impossible.

[jupiviv]

If it is defined as a struggle against, say, traditional family structure or ownership of property, then it does have a relation to the whole of society. Perhaps you will object that this relation is seen as alien and not "ingrained", but the same can be said of different perspectives of other social constructs (gender or race).

Having a relation to society does not equal being ingrained within virtually all aspects of it. Like the classic gender definition in terms of male & female

Social constructs don't have to originate from the whole society, just *imposed* on it somehow. Even if they are defined as having a pan-societal origin, many things included within Cultural Marxism would fit that bill. To reiterate: you dun goofed.

There is certainly rhetorical alarm. You were equating the mere characterisation of "Cultural Marxism" as ultraconservative terminology with tacit support for an Orwellian dictatorship. In fact the same reasoning can be applied to the serious *usage* of the term "Cultural Marxism". After all, the processes or people identified with this term (again, in *actual* usage beyond this forum/thread) are characterised as authoritarian. Hell even you are a fascist by your own standard, i.e. you call people who call people who use the term "Cultural Marxism" fascists, fascists.

Really all I did was trying to explain how the term was being used by others, thereby opposing what I view as popular misconceptions. And even with the Orwellian thing, all I did was showing pot and kettle elements. Where's the alarm?

The *posture* of alarm is in throwing "Orwellian" around as in ascribing the *usage* of a word to far right lunatics without taking into account whatever non-far right *usages* of said word you happen to be thinking of at the moment.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Social constructs don't have to originate from the whole society, just *imposed* on it somehow. Even if they are defined as having a pan-societal origin, many things included within Cultural Marxism would fit that bill.

But they are broadly defined as being shared, ingrained or permeating society. While whatever or whomever is targeted exactly with the term "cultural marxism" is definitely not. It's defined as a particular segment or ideology of a supposed "vocal minority" (and I'll probably need to add this to the definition now nearing perfection) which is perhaps attempting to become a new social construct by taking action to insist and permeate certain ideas or changes within the whole of society or culture. But a particular group just having some ambition to change a social construct does not mean the activity is a social construct already. Unless one argues like "cultural marxism as the ill of society is everywhere across the spectrum of politics and demographics and we need to somehow change all of that as small group of sane folks". But I don't see it argued like that at all. The people using the term link it to a very particular subset of media, political movements and organizations.

The *posture* of alarm is in throwing "Orwellian" around as in ascribing the *usage* of a word to far right lunatics without taking into account whatever non-far right *usages* of said word you happen to be thinking of at the moment.

Increased monitoring by the overarching state and supporting many military operations abroad ("perpetual war") are undisputed and literally what Orwell most famously wrote about in his work. It's how "Orwellian" as term is most commonly used. The irony I pointed out is that the same author and his imagery is being deployed by people who fear that fascism is creeping up. Hence, unless you want to make the case that perceived irony or pointing out contractions are some sign of alarmism, all that you demonstrate is that you were concluding too hasty. That said, I can always improve my prose to make it more difficult to draw conclusions from it that are opposite to the intended meaning.

[jupiviv]

Social constructs don't have to originate from the whole society, just *imposed* on it somehow. Even if they are defined as having a pan-societal origin, many things included within Cultural Marxism would fit that bill.

But they are broadly defined as being shared, ingrained or permeating society. While whatever or whomever is targeted exactly with the term "cultural marxism" is definitely not.

social construct
noun

A concept or perception of something based on the collective views developed and maintained within a society or social group; a social phenomenon or convention originating within and cultivated by society or a particular social group, as opposed to existing inherently or naturally.

In fact, the term "social construct" would be a contradiction-in-terms if defined as ingrained or permeating society to the extent of inseparability.

It's [Cultural Marxism] defined as a particular segment or ideology of a supposed "vocal minority" (and I'll probably need to add this to the definition now nearing perfection) which is perhaps attempting to become a new social construct by taking action to insist and permeate certain ideas or changes within the whole of society or culture.

Social constructs don't have to be permeated throughout all of society. Thus, even if Cultural Marxism were said to be limited to small sections of society, it would still *be* a social construct instead of "attempting to become" one (if the latter even made sense to begin with, which...no).

But a particular group just having some ambition to change a social construct does not mean the activity is a social construct already.

True, but irrelevant. Wheresoever current, Cultural Marxism is not generally seen as being a fringe activity without power or influence within larger society.

The people using the term link it to a very particular subset of media, political movements and organizations.

No the people using the term link it to mainstream media, large political movements, holding companies etc.

Increased monitoring by the overarching state and supporting many military operations abroad

Thanks for reminding me of that, because it's another example of the alarmist *posture* i.e. asserting that characterisation of a term as "far right" is necessarily accompanied by (or connected or comparable to) support for surveillance state and wanton militarism. I'm also surprised that you stopped at state instead of dragging in large corporations and banks. Well no I'm not - it's because you have no valid argument.

Hence, unless you want to make the case that perceived irony or pointing out contractions are some sign of alarmism

Yes inasmuch premissed on (in this case, a *posture* of) equivocating mundane and alarming things.

To sum up my position then: Cultural Marxism is a term borrowed from the work of the Frankfurt school and adopted by right wing public intellectuals to convince their audiences that *natural* yet often annoying or even disruptive trends within trivial domains of political discourse collectively represent a sinister conspiracy operated by those sections of the elite which are intended to be perceived and treated as wanton, degenerate and immoral. Although individual *motivations* for using the term vary greatly, the self-generated or experientially acquired *purpose* of doing so is almost without exception the obscuration of the general and natural shift towards the political and economic right, and the incremental confusion and disenfranchisement experienced as a consequence of the same by millions of people who believed the promises of infinitely increasing prosperity and stability told them by an elite progressive, liberal and capitalist class which - at least functionally - includes the creators and proponents of the conspiracy about Cultural Marxism.

[Santiago Odo]

Cultural Marxism is a term borrowed from the work of the Frankfurt school and adopted by right wing public intellectuals to convince their audiences that *natural* yet often annoying or even disruptive trends within trivial domains of political discourse collectively represent a sinister conspiracy operated by those sections of the elite which are intended to be perceived and treated as wanton, degenerate and immoral.

The term 'Cultural Marxism' was not borrowed from the Frankfurt School. It is a late term used to describe various things and is part of a complex counter-critique based, more often than not, on a limited reading of Critical Theory materials. On one end it is a general insulting term and can be used similarly to *racist* or *extremist* to brandish against the fabled SJW. Used that way it is limitedly intelligible and often obscuring.

On the other end it is a more carefully defined term that refers to the undermining influence of Marxist praxis generally, but to specific and more subtle variants that derive from genuine 'critical theory'. But what Cultural Marxism refers to, as far as the trends of society where its influence is strong, is not 'trivial'. Cultural Marxism could be described as an infection within academia and is connected to the Left's domination of the Universities and the 'minds of the young'. It is complex, multivalent and also profoundly psychological. It is hard to pin down because it is also emotional and sentimental.

Although individual *motivations* for using the term vary greatly, the self-generated or experientially acquired *purpose* of doing so is almost without exception the obscuration of the general and natural shift towards the political and economic right, and the incremental confusion and disenfranchisement experienced as a consequence of the same by millions of people who believed the promises of infinitely increasing prosperity and stability told them by an elite progressive, liberal and capitalist class which - at least functionally - includes the creators and proponents of the conspiracy about Cultural Marxism.

What a convoluted paragraph, my brownish son.

The shift to the right, so-called, and the rebellion and reaction against 'hyper-liberalism' is a confused and new arrival. It has numerous components. The Alt-Right and to some degree the Philosophical New Right is theoretical and not well-developed. Therefore its ideas and its positions, to the degree it has them, are unstable. It looks for a critical fulcrum through. It attempts to develop a critical discourse.

You sole argument, as is usual, is an economic one: It is located within this assertion about "millions of people who believed the promises of infinitely increasing prosperity and stability told them by an elite progressive, liberal and capitalist class". There is some merit there, obviously.

But this, even if it is true, has not a great deal to do with a definition of Cultural Marxism nor its function in the Occident, especially strongly in America, in the Postwar Era. The 1960s through the 1990s for example. In this sense 'Cultural Marxism' spins in on itself, just as the social hysteria we observe in the present seems to 'spin' within its own circumference while the economic world continues on.

Your definition has a limited value but is itself too reductive. You have an 'argument' -- you are a walking subcontinental argument with spines smoking a Calabash -- but you do not have enough of a 'topic'.

[jupiviv]

I don't understand why you would equivocate the interpretation of geopolitics and cultural/social trends with a technical field like medicine. Well actually I do - it's because your arguments lack substance.

As I say, the idea of distrusting experts has so many different meanings, depending on who is using it. I had no real idea what you meant by it.

My statement about letting experts do one's thinking immediately led you to infer that I am part of the alt-right and the alt-right defines fascism as trusting doctors? Obviously not, you just don't want to deal with arguments that can't be debunked with accusations of alt-right cultishness.

The part I still don’t get is the connection to fascism.

What is not to get? When the mass-broadcasting of information, policy-making and interpretation of events are monopolised by a few people, there is fascism. That also applies to practical/technical fields like medicine to the extent people in general don't understand and cannot control how it affects their lives. Fascism as I define it isn't necessarily morbid or unpleasant.

Because like you Kevin plunged himself into these issues without developing a context independently. Unlike you, though, Kevin was open to reasonable criticism. I've been having an email exchange with Kevin for the last month or so, and my impression is that wants to interpret the general worldview of anyone critical of feminism in the most rational way possible. He also does repeat anti-SJW talking points without verifying them or examining their contexts. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that he isn't brainwashed or blindly trusting of anti-SJW intellectuals.

This does not compute. If he isn’t brainwashed, then why does he feel a need to litter his discourse with religious scripts from the alt-right cult? That does not make any sense.

I guess you mean why Kevin uses arguments or phrases used by anti-SJW people on youtube and elsewhere. It's because, like you, he has limited himself to that cross-section of online news and commentary. Also, like you, he is desperately searching for traces of wisdom in mass culture without possessing (or being willing to use) the tools to properly interpret what is actually there. Still, there is no evidence of alt-right brainwashing.

Then perhaps a reunion is in order. The unpleasantness of the 2017 discussion could have been easily avoided if you had discussed those issues with Kevin before waxing outraged on this forum.

We had already discussed the issues at length. It was his cultish answers which led me to start the 2017 discussion on the forum in the first place.

In your (presumably) email conversation with him, did Kevin express agreement with the people who identify modern feminism as a general societal shift towards authoritarianism?

Observations on the Modern Situation

1.
The history of the sexes has always been one of mutual tyranny. The evolution of patriarchal institutions was the male response to the oppression he suffered under woman. An equilibrium was reached, with power being spread evenly between the sexes.

Now, woman has no intention of giving up her own power but is requiring man to shed his. The end result of this will be a tyranny so complete it would have Stalin turning in his grave, cursing that he had been born both a male and a century too soon.

4.
Modern Spiritual Wisdom [SJWs in the alt-right idiom, postmodernism in both your own and alt-right idiom--jupiviv] preaches: trust your emotions, allow them to be expressed spontaneously; free yourself from the rigidity of logic; listen to your deeper feelings and desires; reach out to somebody and make contact; let yourself go.

Modern Neo-Nazis [or "neomodern postmarxists" as the sage-professor Jordan Peterson would call them--jupiviv] preach: trust your emotions, allow them to be expressed spontaneously; free yourself from the rigidity of logic; listen to your deeper feelings and desires; reach out to somebody and make contact; let yourself go.

6.
What does the modern woman want? An egalitarian society? A society of individuals, each of unique worth, where gender is irrelevant? I, for one, would whole-heartedly welcome such a society. But - and this is no mere trifle - it would need individuals[the (selective) respect for which is the putative bedrock of alt-right philosophy--jupiviv] to comprise it.

7.
Women do not want to be individuals, they want to be - women! In fact, the role of woman has evolved precisely to minimize any genuine individuality. Conflict, a something fundamentally different from the norm, an intense and sustained suffering, a conquering and striving for lofty impersonal ideals - these are the qualities of an individual, qualities which woman regards as aberrations of character. She hates the individual, who necessarily undermines her world. She strives to make everyone like herself - open-minded, happy, tolerant, caring, sensitive to others, cooperative - that is, a non-entity.

[Etc. --jupiviv]

You dun goofed.

What really had (and has) to be done about Kevin's perceived betrayal of that world-renowned Genius philosophy is a thorough revision of said philosophy within yourself. At the very least, a clarification of those parts of it which seem to fit the alt-right/anti-SJW/anti-feminist paradigm so very well! For example, in no. 7 above, the contrast between an individuality of "lofty impersonal ideals" and an idyllic notion of femininity which is simultaneously attractive and dangerous/disquieting to the lone rebel thinker.

[Santiago Odo]

When the mass-broadcasting of information, policy-making and interpretation of events are monopolised by a few people, there is fascism. That also applies to practical/technical fields like medicine to the extent people in general don't understand and cannot control how it affects their lives. Fascism as I define it isn't necessarily morbid or unpleasant.

Your error is just here. A personalized definition disconnected to some degree from reality. You are merely describing domination of the means of communication and a certain control of the terms of discourse. It could be said to be fascist-like. But your personal definition is challenged when 'real fascism' is described:

The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43), and the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

A concept or perception of something based on the collective views developed and maintained within a society or social group; a social phenomenon or convention originating within and cultivated by society or a particular social group, as opposed to existing inherently or naturally.

Of course, when the focus would be the study of a particular social group, the social constructs of that group will refer to that group only or only indirectly relate to similar constructs in the society at large. However the context of a society is used by all the people related to this discussion like the ones using the term Cultural Marxist, the social activists as the most vocal elements representing the target group and myself since I try to address how people actually use terms and what they mean with it. You on the other hand seem to dream up all possible exceptions or other uses and then pretend you have some kind of rule here?

In fact, the term "social construct" would be a contradiction-in-terms if defined as ingrained or permeating society to the extent of inseparability.

Something being ingrained or permeating is a whole other thing than being inseparable, existing inherently or "natural". Of course that tension between them is the actual field of discussion around social construct of, for example, gender in society.

Social constructs don't have to be permeated throughout all of society.

It's kind of the definition that they are, if we still talk about the social constructs belonging to a society in some particular time frame. Again, this was the topic: how some people use the term "cultural marxism" to describe the activities to transform society as a whole, not one isolated section of it. Although I'm sure you can find an example of that too.

The people using the term link it to a very particular subset of media, political movements and organizations.

No the people using the term link it to mainstream media, large political movements, holding companies etc.

You mean yes! I guess you could link it to a very particular but still large subset of mainstream media.
It doesn't change my line.

Increased monitoring by the overarching state and supporting many military operations abroad

Thanks for reminding me of that, because it's another example of the alarmist *posture* i.e. asserting that characterisation of a term as "far right" is necessarily accompanied by (or connected or comparable to) support for surveillance state and wanton militarism. I'm also surprised that you stopped at state instead of dragging in large corporations and banks. Well no I'm not - it's because you have no valid argument.

Not sure why you drag the far right into this. Actually I'm not sure even where you are disagreeing with. The Western states, left or right, have been all increasing monitoring and are involved in multiple seemingly never-ending war efforts for reasons not many remember if you ask the guy on the street. This is not disputed much. And it's Orwellian in the sense that it represents something Orwell wrote about and worried about. And it's ironic when people are worried about fascism rising at the fringes or oppositional groups while not talking as much about whatever is dominantly in place, qualifying to a serious degree for the title just as well. This is following their logic, which seems to have little logic but a lot of hysteria in my view. But that view is already explained elsewhere, it's not really political or activist.

Although individual *motivations* for using the term vary greatly, the self-generated or experimentally acquired *purpose* of doing so is almost without exception the obscuration of the general and natural shift towards the political and economic right, and the incremental confusion and disenfranchisement

Why do you think anyone tries to obscure that with purpose even? This would be new to me.
M̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶.̶ The shift might be undeniable, it's mainly a shift to social or cultural conservatism, which fits only partly in the typical right. And again, the earlier context of the remark dealt with Western Europe as reference frame.

experienced as a consequence of the same by millions of people who believed the promises of infinitely increasing prosperity and stability told them by an elite progressive, liberal and capitalist class which - at least functionally - includes the creators and proponents of the conspiracy about Cultural Marxism.

Now you are just whining ;-)

[jupiviv]

A concept or perception of something based on the collective views developed and maintained within a society or social group; a social phenomenon or convention originating within and cultivated by society or a particular social group, as opposed to existing inherently or naturally.

Of course, when the focus would be the study of a particular social group, the social constructs of that group will refer to that group only or only indirectly relate to similar constructs in the society at large. However the context of a society is used by all the people related to this discussion like the ones using the term Cultural Marxist, the social activists representing the most vocal elements representing the target group and myself since I try to address how people actually use terms and what they mean with it. You on the other hand seem to dream up all possible exceptions or other uses and then pretend you have some kind of rule here?

Your definition of social constructs is not the same as that used in academia, i.e., they need not be omnipresent and originate from all/most people in a society to be considered a part of it. They just need to be present and operate within the society. No amount of sophistry can redeem your attempt to pass off cheap rhetoric as the "lone voice of sanity" ala David.

That said, the point I was building up to: that "Cultural Marxism" (CuMa) is *effectively* defined as a social construct attempting to destroy *other* social constructs - e.g. traditional/natural xyz - which are created and considered valuable by the anti-CuMaists. The anti-CuMaists don't admit/understand that their own, preferred social constructs (which they believe are threatened by CuMa) are precisely that. They instead think of them as traditional/natural/inherent things. CuMa itself is characterised either as immanent corruption or morbidity in immanent nature, i.e., as opposed to a social construct. And yet it *must* be a social construct given the real basis of their own worldview. Like all reactionaries, the anti-CuMaists are suffused with the premises of their enemies.

Something being ingrained or permeating is a whole other thing than being inseparable, existing inherently or "natural".

If an ingrained and at least partially untruthful idea permeates all of society then it can't even be identified as an idea within that society. It will be inseparable from the society and thus reality. Such a thing is impossible because reality and human beings don't work that way. Since most humanities professors aren't retards (despite many other faults), social constructs are not defined that way either.

Although individual *motivations* for using the term vary greatly, the self-generated or experimentally acquired *purpose* of doing so is almost without exception the obscuration of the general and natural shift towards the political and economic right, and the incremental confusion and disenfranchisement

Why do you think anyone tries to obscure that with purpose even? This would be new to me.

Because of what I said below that quote, which for some reason is whining...?

M̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶.̶ The shift might be undeniable, it's mainly a shift to social or cultural conservatism, which fits only partly in the typical right. And again, the earlier context of the remark dealt with Western Europe as reference frame.

The social/cultural conservatism exists to use the idiocies of social/cultural liberalism/libertarianism (=Mammon/Jews/Marxmodern Neopostists) which has sprung up in lieu of desire or ability to mount a critique of capitalism and indeed modernity itself. Neither are long for this world.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Your definition of social constructs is not the same as that used in academia

So why did you think I made an effort to construct a definition if I could have copied and pasted it from the Web? What I try to make clear is that your stated "academic" definitions from textbooks written way before the actualities is not how it's actually used in the context I'm exploring. This is not uncommon in language. Actually this forum always encourages to look a little bit further than dictionaries or encyclopedia, without just randomly modifying at will. This is why my definition, which will be entering its third version soon, is important to understand, at least to those trying to understand the intellectual discussion where the word is being introduced, instead of just replicating what some knee-jerk somewhere is thinking about it after five seconds of Google.

"Cultural Marxism" (CuMa) is *effectively* defined as a social construct attempting to destroy *other* social constructs - e.g. traditional/natural xyz - which are created and considered valuable by the anti-CuMaists. The anti-CuMaists don't admit/understand that their own, preferred social constructs (which they believe are threatened by CuMa) are precisely that. They instead think of them as traditional/natural/inherent things. CuMa itself is characterised either as immanent corruption or morbidity in immanent nature, i.e., as opposed to a social construct. And yet it *must* be a social construct given the real basis of their own worldview. Like all reactionaries, the anti-CuMaists are suffused with the premises of their enemies.

You're not realizing that your paragraph does not really matter at all even when taken as true. It doesn't challenge my definition and does not inform in any way about what's going on. You could say "it's all just opinion", all construct, all struggle between ideas. Yeah... d'oh! I think the participants are aware of that much.

And I actually already said the same thing in my last comment, only better: Of course that tension between them is the actual field of discussion around social construct of, for example, gender in society.

You need to understand, certain ideas not only have major consequences but also many complex, traceable origins. It's all about if one can get behind the perceived origins and the imagined consequences. This is the actual discussion, of course! For you it seems an argument against having it altogether? That's puzzling.

If an ingrained and at least partially untruthful idea permeates all of society then it can't even be identified as an idea within that society. It will be inseparable from the society and thus reality.

That's starting to get retarded. Ingrained does not mean at all impossible to distinguish or being inseparable. It's more something like firmly fixed or established; difficult to change. You warp it first (redefining again) to mean something extreme (a straw doll) and then find joy in burning it down as faulty argument. Do you really want to keep doing that? Too proud perhaps to back down? Ah, the spirit of youth, I remember it well! Yes, I played the age card on the forum, yet again, but then in reverse. Just because it's so likely to be close to the truth each time!

Okay, lets finish this with a third version, improved with the feedback I had and other insights during formulating responses.

The term Cultural Marxism used by for example culturally conservative intellectuals in the many current public discussions attempts to describe a specific modern identity-centered concerted campaign to expose, challenge and change those ingrained, first world "social constructs" which are held responsible for the suppression or discrimination of various vulnerable self-identified groups within society. The reason a term like "Marxism" is used has to do with the perceived link between class or gender relations and social conflicts, their denial or suppression, the general liberation movements on the political Left, the emphasis on "social transformation" within those particular movement and the implicit link with Communism like the often suggested breakdown of established culture based social classes or other power dynamics sustained, in part, by financial conservative networks.

[jupiviv]

Your definition of social constructs is not the same as that used in academia

So why did you think I made an effort to construct a definition if I could have copied and pasted it from the Web?

Because until now you were constructing your own definition of Cultural Marxism, not social construct. In fact it was you who appealed to the academic/conventional definition of the latter in response to what you claimed was my misuse of it. But never mind, this is just one more in a long list of nested red herrings you have forced down my throat.

"Cultural Marxism" (CuMa) is *effectively* defined as a social construct attempting to destroy *other* social constructs - e.g. traditional/natural xyz - which are created and considered valuable by the anti-CuMaists. The anti-CuMaists don't admit/understand that their own, preferred social constructs (which they believe are threatened by CuMa) are precisely that. They instead think of them as traditional/natural/inherent things. CuMa itself is characterised either as immanent corruption or morbidity in immanent nature, i.e., as opposed to a social construct. And yet it *must* be a social construct given the real basis of their own worldview. Like all reactionaries, the anti-CuMaists are suffused with the premises of their enemies.

You're not realizing that your paragraph does not really matter at all even when taken as true. It doesn't challenge my definition and does not inform in any way about what's going on. You could say "it's all just opinion", all construct, all struggle between ideas. Yeah... d'oh! I think the participants are aware of that much.

It informs us of what is going on because it establishes that the *stated* casus belli of the "culture wars" is fragile at best, and at worst cynical and disingenuous (mostly the latter). It's real function is DIY panem et circenses staged in dilapidated ideological amphitheatres, with occasional oversight and stimulus from the owners. It's like the mock arguments that break out between dysfunctional couples (or trios), serving as vents for chronic confrontations with the anger and confusion festering beneath.

Diebert, can we talk about *us* now?