The "Social Justice" Cult & Elite Overproduction

[Hugh Johnson]

You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong. The Cult Dynamic of Wokeness.

Before I got involved in studying Critical Social Justice like I do now, I mostly studied the psychology of religion. I took particular interest in the more authoritarian and cultish elements that can spring up within otherwise more reasonable faith traditions. Cult indoctrinations, in particular, tend to follow very predictable stages. First, there is initiation; then there is indoctrination; and then there is reprogramming. These three phases are distinct and must be understood on their own terms.​

The Cult Dynamics of Wokeness

I suggest reading that whole thing. It's enlightening.

The current SJ movement functions as a cult. The general physical, societal and psychological malaise people suffer from makes them vulnerable to predation by all kinds of cults and scam. At the moment SJ cult is the dominant one. However, I believe that this is not the whole story.

The other side of the story is elite overproduction, combined with high inequality. Meaning the colleges are producing far more Professional-Managerial Class (PMC) people than the society can employ, and the combination of high inequality and student debt means these people are highly motivated to get a PMC job.

Thus they are engaged in a bloody competition for position. PMC types use the SJ tools to take down competition and elevate themselves. This is why all the witch hunts for racism, sexism, transphobia etc. Many of them do believe this stuff and are full cult members, but it is also used as a tool by the more mercenary PMC members. Of course, the hallmark of a well schooled mind is believing in whatever benefits you at the moment.

On elite overproduction:
Why is political turbulence rising in America? An interview with Peter Turchin

SJ is the ideology of white progressives
Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture

"Highly educated white urbanites tend to perceive more racism against minorities than most minorities report experiencing. Rather than actually meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem to be to consolidate social capital in the hands of the ‘good’ whites."
Who gets to define what’s ‘racist?’ - Contexts

 

[LeeLemonoil]

Thanks man, always good to read categorized and subsummized descriptions of ongoing phenomena every once in a while

But where do such developments lead? Where or when comes some sort of turnaround? From within? Or a violent backlash. Some mixture.
In any case, these self-reinforcing elements of cults in all higher tiers of society is not to be unified with a liberal, secular system. Which is consequently in decline

 

[Yggr]

Superb thank you for posting this

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Thanks man, always good to read categorized and subsummized descriptions of ongoing phenomena every once in a while

But where do such developments lead? Where or when comes some sort of turnaround? From within? Or a violent backlash. Some mixture.
In any case, these self-reinforcing elements of cults in all higher tiers of society is not to be unified with a liberal, secular system. Which is consequently in decline

Collapse, not a complete one, is a likely outcome. Things will keep getting worse, with repeated economic and social crises from which the system never really recover. This does allow for alternative systems and arrangements in the fringes. However, that is not guaranteed and I have no idea.

 

[Brundle]

I think because the "commanding heights" of government and state and media control have all been captured by these people, there cannot be a healthy counter-reaction to obviously dysfunctional trends. So it just keeps on getting worse, society keeps getting sicker yet carries on doing the same thing. Like a malnourished vegan who decides to cure herself with an intensification of her detox.

It also doesn't help that all the most motivated and capable people seem to be on the SJW side. The opposition to the new dogma suffers from a lack of intelligence and courage. Hence why the modest backlash of 2016 produced leaders who are either feeble or ludicrous, which has only damaged the cause and strengthened the SJ Progressives and the forces of "Totalitarian Humanism" generally. Their censorship and hatred are more blatant now, and their opponents are demoralised.

 

[LeeLemonoil]

@Brundle
Acute and correct observation, well described. Thanks. Especially the dysfunctional, dusappointing backlash of 2016. Complete dysregulation instead of correction. A negative feedbackloop, Self-reenforcing, perpetuating. Just like a deranged, defunct organism

 

[Hugh Johnson]

The elites are not particularly bright. They are not the best and the brightest. They are first and foremost obedient.

Danny Roddy and haidut discussed this, I think. They noticed how difficult it is to even discuss things with college graduates.

These people are the administrative class and aspirational administrative class members. In the past the elites were quite capable, but collapsible societies have demented elites. That is why Trump managed to win presidency, because the elite who supported Hillary are idiots and completely out of touch.

They do have institutional power, and the reason they are given is largely because they are obedient and can not think for themselves. This makes them loyal servants.

There is also The Iron Law of Institutions:

The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.​

 

[Peatful]

Superb thank you for posting this

+1

OPs post brought to mind something I’ve heard before: “educated fools”.

 

[soul_rebel]

Great find on these readings

 

[Dustin94]

I attended a prestigious liberal-arts college in the northeast region of the US. At the time, I did not think a liberal college would be any issue given that I had a libertarian background (in fact, I assumed that liberals would be very open-minded and what not). From day one, there were orientations scheduled for incoming freshmen that indoctrinate students on social marxism and the idea of white racism. The college courses also indoctrinate students (with the exception of STEM), and the administration is in full support of marxist causes.

I would say that girls are more influenced by boys by marxist ideas - perhaps due to their caring nature in wanting to stop evil capitalism/white people - and I've seen innocent, sincere, long-haired girls turn into raging, nose-pierced, butch-cut feminists who denounce their very families due to their white skin color. In addition, I believe girls may be more influenced because they have grown up more apolitical than boys, and the indoctrination at these college campuses fill a void that the family has chosen not to.

I do not think parents know what is being taught to their children on these campuses, and we are beginning to pay the consequences this generation as marxists are beginning to flood the work force.

 

[yerrag]

There is also The Iron Law of Institutions:
The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.

This is so perceptive. I just think though that this is characteristic of the last wave in a decline. Each to his own as all hope is lost. There is no such thing as a shared sacrifice. No one responding to the promise of a new age. Perhaps it is that we are entering into a new cold cycle, and we are downregulating for a new societal hibernation.

 

[Orius]

This thread is very a propos for me, so thank you for posting it. I have my undergrad in international relations / international politics. I've lived in many countries and assimilated into many cultures over my lifetime, including second, third, and fourth language learning. I'm mentioning my qualifications because I'm a keen observer of social movements, especially in an historical context.

Lately I'm noticing a severe breakdown in discourse caused by both the extreme right and the extreme left. They both lack reason. For now I will focus on leftism whose social justice language is entirely predicated upon how people feel as well as the distortion of language. There are degrees of brainwashing. As a moderate, I'm able to converse with many effectively, even if we disagree. With others, it's impossible to talk without being accused of white privilege, white fragility, or being called an outright racist. It's impossible to asked for a nuanced discussion or for specific context. We can't talk about incidents or events; instead, people trot out the usual social justice talking points in an extremely vague way. When asked for definition of terms or context, they are never provided. This is because the language of the movement is based upon feelings. If I'm a person of color and call out racism, a white person can't use discernment or criticality to support or deny the allegation because the movement has moved the goal posts in such a way that POC are to always be believed based on their feelings. The reasoning is that the oppressor class (i.e. whites) can never truly see oppression and don't have the lived experience.

Can a white person say an accusation of racism is wrong, ever? No. They can't, according to this ideology. That's because the ideology is not based on contextual evidence. It's literally based on what we feel happened, and if you don't agree with what we feel, then you are an enemy to the cause. No different than right wingers calling everyone traitors to the nation if they support immigration or some other crap.

That's my problem. I've studied leftist movements in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. It always starts with the intellectual class who themselves are usually privileged. They teach their students a certain way of thinking and then those students become the vanguard (literally) who take the ideas out into society and try to experiment on society with them. If they gain enough power or momentum, the experiment becomes violent, as we are now seeing. In China, children would drag their parents into the streets, bind their hands, and hang signs of shame around their necks, while pelting rotten food and insults at them. Employees would do the same their bosses. Government officials who were deemed disloyal to the movement also got it, as long as the attacks were approved by their political enemies. The situation culminated in the Cultural Revolution which was a disaster for China. All their old heritage was destroyed, family relationships broke down into ideological warfare, and then the worst thing happened: students tried to go to the countryside to support their version of the proletariat, which were the farmers. Imagine, millions of students who know **** all about farming, going to farm. This, combined with ideological government policy, resulted in millions of people dying of starvation due to failed agriculture.

I think systemic racism is real. I think racism is a big problem in Europe and its offshoots. I also have seen with my own eyes that white privilege is a thing. And it's also contextual. Meaning, we judge things based on individual situations, but we shouldn't carte blanche anyone because of demographics or feelings. I also understand why some people are sick of talking about it after hundreds of years of tacit oppression from the dominant class. Decades of peaceful protest have done jack. The police are killing people, sometimes indiscriminately. I get it. That said, extremism is also a problem. When the meaning of words no longer matters or words are weaponized to destroy verbal discourse, then all we're left with is our fists. The common trust breaks down to a point where we can't even agree on meaning anymore, and we are in big trouble. This also happened in Rome as part of the complicated process of its fall. Their decadence and comfort meant that they were no longer exposed to the consequences of the natural world, so they entered an experiment of changing the meaning of words, customs, relations, and the notion of society itself. Then they got invaded and destroyed because they were bankrupt and no longer ideologically cohesive enough to band together and stop the invaders.

Every time I point this out to the leftists, I get accused of being in support of white supremacy, which isn't even true. What I'm actually in favor of is society not going off the deep end and getting into this call out culture where we start purging everyone based on demographics or ideological disagreements. I don't want to see the McCarthy era happen again. I don't want to see Inquisitions. I'm all for justice but we need to do that through proper reforms and not through tearing down the system as a whole. So far I have not seen anyone propose a better system than the one we have now, as flawed as it is. It's just white vs. black, literally!

Post-modern leftism loves to cite the civil rights movement of the 60's, but there are major differences. The civil rights movement didn't try to change the meaning of words to manipulate discourse, they simply used massive popular protest and obstruction to threaten the machinery of society itself. No word games necessary, they just caused enough dysfunction that politicians listened. But now the social fabric itself is being dismantled in a haphazard way that has only vague end goals, which, in my opinion, are not actually achievable. History proves it's not. You can't change culture at the edge of a sword, you can only oppress it by doing so, which only ensures the cycle of violence.

 

[Pet Peeve]

This thread is very a propos for me, so thank you for posting it. I have my undergrad in international relations / international politics. I've lived in many countries and assimilated into many cultures over my lifetime, including second, third, and fourth language learning. I'm mentioning my qualifications because I'm a keen observer of social movements, especially in an historical context.

Lately I'm noticing a severe breakdown in discourse caused by both the extreme right and the extreme left. They both lack reason. For now I will focus on leftism whose social justice language is entirely predicated upon how people feel as well as the distortion of language. There are degrees of brainwashing. As a moderate, I'm able to converse with many effectively, even if we disagree. With others, it's impossible to talk without being accused of white privilege, white fragility, or being called an outright racist. It's impossible to asked for a nuanced discussion or for specific context. We can't talk about incidents or events; instead, people trot out the usual social justice talking points in an extremely vague way. When asked for definition of terms or context, they are never provided. This is because the language of the movement is based upon feelings. If I'm a person of color and call out racism, a white person can't use discernment or criticality to support or deny the allegation because the movement has moved the goal posts in such a way that POC are to always be believed based on their feelings. The reasoning is that the oppressor class (i.e. whites) can never truly see oppression and don't have the lived experience.

Can a white person say an accusation of racism is wrong, ever? No. They can't, according to this ideology. That's because the ideology is not based on contextual evidence. It's literally based on what we feel happened, and if you don't agree with what we feel, then you are an enemy to the cause. No different than right wingers calling everyone traitors to the nation if they support immigration or some other crap.

That's my problem. I've studied leftist movements in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. It always starts with the intellectual class who themselves are usually privileged. They teach their students a certain way of thinking and then those students become the vanguard (literally) who take the ideas out into society and try to experiment on society with them. If they gain enough power or momentum, the experiment becomes violent, as we are now seeing. In China, children would drag their parents into the streets, bind their hands, and hang signs of shame around their necks, while pelting rotten food and insults at them. Employees would do the same their bosses. Government officials who were deemed disloyal to the movement also got it, as long as the attacks were approved by their political enemies. The situation culminated in the Cultural Revolution which was a disaster for China. All their old heritage was destroyed, family relationships broke down into ideological warfare, and then the worst thing happened: students tried to go to the countryside to support their version of the proletariat, which were the farmers. Imagine, millions of students who know **** all about farming, going to farm. This, combined with ideological government policy, resulted in millions of people dying of starvation due to failed agriculture.

I think systemic racism is real. I think racism is a big problem in Europe and its offshoots. I also have seen with my own eyes that white privilege is a thing. And it's also contextual. Meaning, we judge things based on individual situations, but we shouldn't carte blanche anyone because of demographics or feelings. I also understand why some people are sick of talking about it after hundreds of years of tacit oppression from the dominant class. Decades of peaceful protest have done jack. The police are killing people, sometimes indiscriminately. I get it. That said, extremism is also a problem. When the meaning of words no longer matters or words are weaponized to destroy verbal discourse, then all we're left with is our fists. The common trust breaks down to a point where we can't even agree on meaning anymore, and we are in big trouble. This also happened in Rome as part of the complicated process of its fall. Their decadence and comfort meant that they were no longer exposed to the consequences of the natural world, so they entered an experiment of changing the meaning of words, customs, relations, and the notion of society itself. Then they got invaded and destroyed because they were bankrupt and no longer ideologically cohesive enough to band together and stop the invaders.

Every time I point this out to the leftists, I get accused of being in support of white supremacy, which isn't even true. What I'm actually in favor of is society not going off the deep end and getting into this call out culture where we start purging everyone based on demographics or ideological disagreements. I don't want to see the McCarthy era happen again. I don't want to see Inquisitions. I'm all for justice but we need to do that through proper reforms and not through tearing down the system as a whole. So far I have not seen anyone propose a better system than the one we have now, as flawed as it is. It's just white vs. black, literally!

Post-modern leftism loves to cite the civil rights movement of the 60's, but there are major differences. The civil rights movement didn't try to change the meaning of words to manipulate discourse, they simply used massive popular protest and obstruction to threaten the machinery of society itself. No word games necessary, they just caused enough dysfunction that politicians listened. But now the social fabric itself is being dismantled in a haphazard way that has only vague end goals, which, in my opinion, are not actually achievable. History proves it's not. You can't change culture at the edge of a sword, you can only oppress it by doing so, which only ensures the cycle of violence.

It's done by design:

 

[Dustin94]

It's done by design:

An obligatory watch.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

The so called Left, is not leftist in any meaningful sense. Nor are these people Marxists. Some of them invoke Marx, but their actual philosophy has nothing in common with Marx.

These people are PMC neoliberals. The main reason for the left wing association is because identity politics makes class politics almost impossible. For example, the US is likely to have 20%+ unemployment rate. This is barely discussed because BLM protests, which demand police funding to be given to PMC causes like arts, is run by and for the benefit of the PMC.

This is also why few of those people know than MLK was assassinated because he started to advocate for the poor. White liberals we quite supportive as long as there was no class politics involved.

Most Americans are quite friendly to class politics, and by associating it with all kinds of weirdoes, perverts and extreme social policy, it makes the left unpalatable to normal people.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

From a NYT op we, by Douthat. It is clear that the social justice movement is lead by corporate capitalism, and these are not leftist. These are the people who hire death squads to take down union organizers.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

‘Left-wing’ Twitter can often be a miserable, dispiriting zone. Earlier this year, there were some high-profile twitterstorms, in which particular left-identifying figures were ‘called out’ and condemned. What these figures had said was sometimes objectionable; but nevertheless, the way in which they were personally vilified and hounded left a horrible residue: the stench of bad conscience and witch-hunting moralism. The reason I didn’t speak out on any of these incidents, I’m ashamed to say, was fear. The bullies were in another part of the playground. I didn’t want to attract their attention to me.

The open savagery of these exchanges was accompanied by something more pervasive, and for that reason perhaps more debilitating: an atmosphere of snarky resentment. The most frequent object of this resentment is Owen Jones, and the attacks on Jones – the person most responsible for raising class consciousness in the UK in the last few years – were one of the reasons I was so dejected. If this is what happens to a left-winger who is actually succeeding in taking the struggle to the centre ground of British life, why would anyone want to follow him into the mainstream? Is the only way to avoid this drip-feed of abuse to remain in a position of impotent marginality?
​

Exiting the Vampire Castle

These idpol fights have always been about class war. Same as with the rape accusations against Assange, the powerful use them to take out anyone who threatens their power or profits. PMC neoliberals and the idpol cultists are their footsoldiers.

 

[Dustin94]

From a NYT op we, by Douthat. It is clear that the social justice movement is lead by corporate capitalism, and these are not leftist. These are the people who hire death squads to take down union organizers.

To me, corporate capitalism is trying to take advantage of (capitalize on) social justice, in order to be more friendly, approachable, and agreeable with their customers. Companies believe this will earn them capital power. This is only natural - companies adopt popular culture because it sells. So I do not believe corporate capitalism itself is leading the social justice movement. If anything, liberals seem to despise corporations. They will buy Iphones from Apple while simultaneously demonizing its business practices. Instead, I believe social justice warriors are mainly fueled through universities, liberal news outlets (Reddit, Youtube, CNN, etc.) and entertainment media (movies, tv shows, etc.).

This current BLM movement does not seem to be centered around capitalism. Sure, people may be protesting in greater intensity because they may be out of a job, etc. but this is an uncertain situation due to the coronavirus. Alternatively, the movement seems to be centered around identity politics. And to dissect the issues raised by the movement is a whole can of worms.

 

[Gone Peating]

From a NYT op we, by Douthat. It is clear that the social justice movement is lead by corporate capitalism, and these are not leftist. These are the people who hire death squads to take down union organizers.

The same group of people fund corporate capitalism and communism. Both end up in with the same result: concentration of power in the hands of those funding them

 

[Energizer]

OP, you reminded me of this article which is relevant to the topic: The Bankruptcy of the American Left