People who think they had me all figured out are startled by my “change in views.” Much of this perception comes from young people who have been caught up in their entire adult lives in what they think is the left-style of thinking and, as such, thinking that should align with mine, which is openly and unapologetically Marxist. They hear me express an opinion, for example, on immigration, and they are disillusioned because I was expected, based on their understanding, to hold a different view—if I am who I claim to be. I am who I claim to be, so something is awry. But it’s not me. It’s them.
I try to avoid clichés, but, indeed, I did not leave the left, the left left me. Not the real left. That’s still there if you know where to look for it. I’m talking about the New Left. I cannot be a part of that mess. One can see how much the ground has shifted when one reflects upon the populist anti-corporatist/globalization protests at the turn of the century in comparison to the progressive protests of today, which in reality constitute a regressive mass act of violence bankrolled by global corporations. Both phenomena are self-described as “on the left.” Only one of them actually is.
When I share commentary on Facebook (my Facebook functions as a forward staging area for this blog) and say that in that commentary “they are making my argument,” I am not saying they are adopting my lines (although sometimes it is uncanny how similar the lines are). What I mean is that I am not alone when I make these arguments. I am trying to create mutual knowledge by letting friends know that they are not alone. I am not signing on to the entire agenda of whatever view I am sharing. I am sharing insights from various different perspectives.
Recently, I was listening to the populist right podcast War Room: Pandemic, and Curtis Ellis was down line (Steven Bannon was under arrest that morning, so he couldn’t make the program), making an argument using the same terms I have been using for years—corporatist, globalist, neoliberal, neoconservative, transnationalist, etc. But it was more than that. Ellis was advancing my analysis, which is a left-wing critique of corporate capitalism. And Ellis is American First! This happens routinely. Not just on War Room: Pandemic. Spiked is another program where my arguments routinely appear. Spiked is a left-libertarian online magazine in the spirit of classical Marxism.
I am not saying these folks are listening to me. Rather, I am remarking upon a current of thought that breaks down the left-right dichotomy and points instead to the real bifurcation points: populism-progressivism, democracy-technocracy, republicanism-corporatism, nationalism-globalism, liberalism-authoritarianism. I am pointing out how self-validating it is to know that you are not alone in thinking the things you think. And that is encouraging—even liberating. Independent confirmation of one’s views gives one confidence to share those views publicly. It creates community. In this case, it has the power to reconfigure popular power and struggle. Yet people will ask, “What are you now, a Bannonite fascist?” As if Bannon is actually a fascist. But, second, as if one cannot share insights from right-wing populism without being right-wing populist.
As a political sociologist, I find it fascinating how the analysis from the populist right is so Old Left, so historical materialist, so sociologically Millsian (I am here referring to C. Wright Mills, who published the landmark The Power Elite in 1956) even while railing against socialism. It’s as if the populist right is a network of alienated classical Marxists and left-libertarians. A “plain Marxist,” Mills called himself. That’s what Steve Bannon is when one gets beyond his Catholicism. Perhaps I should say this is Very Old Left. It’s just not Maoist. It gets past all this Leninist, Trotskyist, and Maoist nonsense.
Perhaps it’s their Christianism that gets in the way of rightwing populists knowing themselves. Steve Bannon openly proceeds dialectically—which is why his world historical analysis enjoys such a substantial degree of validity. It is so important for his audience to hear this, as it tears people away from the neoliberal-neoconservative perspectives that dominate establishment politics. At the same time, the religious beliefs of populists doesn’t cause them to try to cancel everybody with whom they disagree. That’s because they are small-“r” republicans. They remain substantially liberal. The New Left is anything but liberal. They are illiberal. Authoritarian. Moreover, the populist right is working class in the profound and organic way the New Left can’t be. Rightwing populism and New Left progressivism make a different choice of comrades: the former appreciates individuals independent of race and ethnicity; the latter puts race and ethnicity before people. On civil rights, the right and the left have swapped places. The recent Democratic and Republican conventions illustrate the flip. This is Trump’s Republican Party.
For those who are not experts in political economy and political sociology, how does one get to this place—or, for the self-conscious leftist, how does one get back to this place? My skill set advantages me in sorting through all this. What does a person do who does not have the luxury of knowing the currents they’re swimming in? Because of the way the establishment media, the administrative state, and the culture industry filter out information that does not align with the prevailing narrative, people must become aware of how widespread the alternative view is so they can know how to challenge the corporatist propaganda that misleads them.
By labeling populism as “rightwing” and “racist” propagandist keep folks who believe they are leftwing away from knowledge. Because very smart people on the right are not deranged by the Third Worldism and postmodernist framing of the New Left, they are often the best sources to turn to. At this moment in history, they see more clearly because; however much they remain deluded in other ways, they are not deluded in the same way the New Left is. The establishment means to keep it that way.
If I were interested in sticking with a brand, I might lie myself into New Left positions. I could be a fixture on the progressive circuit. I know the argot. I can make arguments. But the left today has become so absurd, such a useless source of knowledge, that it has become impossible to follow it into the vortex that promisingly threatens to swallow it. Frankly, I wish to see its demise. It’s a mess of woke jargon and the reified abstractions of moribund sociology. I am too much of a scientist to not see that. I think my age helps here. My thinking approach was forged before the mass epistemological deformation. But it’s also because being a Marxist is no more a brand than being a Darwinist.
So how does one get to a place of objectivity? Part of it is just realizing how deluded one becomes when sticking with a brand. But that can leave one feeling hopeless and alone. So one needs a positive plan of action. The best way to digest information in an objective fashion is to (a) identify the bias frame of the source consulted, extract the information, and reinstall it into a scientific framework, and that means avoiding confirmation bias (and this presupposes one has a scientific framework); (b) identify a group of super smart people right-of-center who still adhere to the values of humanism, liberalism, and secularism; and (c) find a constellation of podcasts that air different but high-quality opinions so you can escape your thought bubble.
For (b), here are a few suggestions: Heather Mac Donald, Douglas Murray, Roger Scruton, Victor Davis Hanson, and Lionel Shriver. Although I would not argue that he is necessarily right-of-center, Christopher Hitchens and John McWhorter are must-listens. For (c): The Glenn Show (Glenn Loury), War Room: Pandemic (Bannon), The Joe Rogan Experience, and, from Great Britain, Triggernometry, Spiked, and the Julia Hartley-Brewer. Do all that and take a test: If you can watch Tucker Carlson and grasp that he has a solid outlook on the world, you will know that you’re coming out of the delusions of New Left thinking. Don’t fear this. I’m a Marxist, and this has only strengthened my understanding of historical materialism. Indeed, I have gained an even deeper appreciation for Marx through this process of criticizing the deformations of Marxist thought.
Don’t trust the prevailing narrative, check things out, and report your findings irrespective of ideological expectation. That is my creed. It is bad form to take on faith something that either you or somebody else wants you to believe. The habit of taking on faith that which you or others want you to could mark you as an untrustworthy person. If you persist with faith-belief in the face of the facts, it suggests you cannot be reasoned with. This is particularly true when there is the possibility of falsifying that which you believe to be true.
Faith-taking in the face of facts is worse than faith-taking in the case of nonfalsifiable claims. I have sympathy for people who believe in God since there is no way to prove God’s nonexistence. I find the evidence convincing that humans created God, but what would count as definitive proof of something’s nonexistence? Of course, you risk believing in all sorts of things if you believe in that which cannot be supported with evidence. But sympathy is altogether misplaced when you believe in something demonstrably false.
I wish it didn’t matter that people continue believing in demonstrably false things. I would rather just pass by the fool on the hill. Who’s he hurting? But what if there are many fools all believing the same falsehood, and they come down from their hills? History is littered with corpses on their account.
freedom and reason 