tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post8368119293314392907..comments2024-03-28T10:44:57.324-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Hazony and Gottfried on wokeism and MarxismEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46496600797548996382023-06-23T06:50:05.875-07:002023-06-23T06:50:05.875-07:00I hope everyone has seen James Lindsay's podca...I hope everyone has seen James Lindsay's podcast lectures on his Youtube channel New Discourses. He has argued that both Marxism and Wokism are forms of Gnosticism. The Youtube channel TIKhistory has also shown how Nazism and all other types of socialism are actually Gnostic in their nature. Jonathan Lewishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16544588222060966241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65094805437590477882023-06-17T18:59:51.244-07:002023-06-17T18:59:51.244-07:00"It's definitely not a form of Marxism it..."It's definitely not a form of Marxism itself, because in general it seems to have a mind-boggling disregard of infrastructure, economic, organizational, or otherwise, which it replaces with a kind of economy of symbolisms." <br /><br />Whether one's mind is boggled or not by certain acts of disregard is a function of one's own economy of idea(l)s as it relates to that proposed in those perhaps mind-boggling acts. My sense is that Marxist 'dialectical materialism' is just as mind-boggling in its disregard for certain kinds of infrastructure, economic, organizational, human, spiritual, etc., which it too replaces, no less than wokeism, with a kind of economy of symbolisms, with the same kind of divorce (lack of dialectical exchange and rational integration) between modes of symbolisms ('materialistic' and 'idealistic') as one is apt to find in Marxism and liberalism. IOW, perhaps Marxism is just as in thrall to a lavish construction of symbolisms ('materialistic' ones), just as unconstrained by empirical reality checks (including the great traditions of human wisdom), as wokeism. And ironically both are more unconstrained by reality than 'dialectical idealism,' insofar as, fundamentally, the ontological and dialectical primacy of idea over matter (posited by idealism) is essentially correct.David McPikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54674590348985457232023-05-02T19:24:18.482-07:002023-05-02T19:24:18.482-07:00I have no problem with saying labor adds value, as...I have no problem with saying labor adds value, as long as you temper it with the addition of "certain", as in "certain labor adds value". That's because some labor <i>doesn't</i> add value: if kid A spends 10 years learning to play the violin, and kid B spends 10 years experimenting with scraping a spoon on cement, I am willing to spend some money on listening to a concert by A, and not for B. The fact that B spent as much labor on his effort is ONLY relevant if someone wants what he produces. Thus demand (i.e. the economic aspect of desire) <i>also</i> colors value. And: while labor cannot produce value independently of demand, demand can provide value independently of labor: if a banana falls into my hand because it is ripe and I am standing under the banana tree, my desire to eat it can exist without any labor being expended. <br /><br />The issue of what the laborer <i>works upon</i> is <i>connected</i> to the above issues, but is distinct from them. Whether the laborer works upon something that is <i>already</i> his through prior means, or works on something that is someone else's through prior actions, or works on something that is <i>nobody's</i> prior to his working on it, logically allows for 3 different results with respect to the allocation of the value after his work is done on it. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26159862890316693042023-05-02T11:23:42.286-07:002023-05-02T11:23:42.286-07:00See? That's why i say that one must study thos...See? That's why i say that one must study those arguments in detail. What is wrong that workers have ownership of the value they create? Nothing, if this is how the question is asked, but the point here isn't a problem of "equity" but of anthropological and analytic categories. The social (collective) ownership of the means of production is a staple of socialism. Marxist theory of Value is both a philosophical anthropology and a category of analysis of economic process inside the "criticism of political economy." There is a vast literature about value theory, the transformation of values in prices, and many other things. Locke is one step in the formation of those categories of modernity, an important step but one step only nonetheless; considering just the history of "value", it goes from the "physiocrates" (that hadn't this category explicitly) to Smith, Ricardo and Marx, the it goes much further; this is traced very well in a french book by Louis Dumont, "Homo Aequalis". And inside marxism there was the development of various currents about these themes, the role of hegelo-marxist dialectics, and many others. One of the most interesting contributions, for me, to these studies, is that of Claudio Napoleoni, a marxist economist that confronted the work of Sraffa to the point of investigating the philosophical basis of his discipline, opening to the thought of Heidegger and Emanuele Severino. But anyway, one must understand properly these categories to judge them, to accept at least in part their analytic value or reject it, etc. Again, one can think "i am for equity, what is the matter?" the matter is, this has nothing to do with "equity" ("equity" in these general terms means nothing), but with understanding the philosophical bases and analytical power of these theories and to confront the problems they pose: is the labor theory of value in its marxist form a good tool of analysis of capitalist society? Of human society as a whole? What vision of the human being it provides? What role it has in the vision of the whole, in the building of a marxist vision of the world at large (from Marx, to Engels philosophical work, to Lenin, etc.)? Must be integrated with other perspectives? Can it? Etc. Again, Del Noce does a very good presentation of marxist philosophical anthropology.Alam al-mithalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58369273261159319932023-05-01T23:40:08.857-07:002023-05-01T23:40:08.857-07:00Well if you insist mass shootings are a divine pun...Well if you insist mass shootings are a divine punishment for the US, that's up to you. Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35076928719453121882023-05-01T18:40:48.213-07:002023-05-01T18:40:48.213-07:00I thought the core thing about Marxism is the labo...I thought the core thing about Marxism is the labor theory of surplus value. I understand that many economists oppose a labor theory of value, substituting a market-drive theory, sc. that value is just a function of what buyers will pay. Still, even John Locke talked about how labor created value, and the value belongs to the laborer. Locke uses the example of an "Indian" who picks berries. Whose berries are they? The Indian's, because his was the labor. As I remember, Locke did not inject a notion of a lord who owned by grant of a king the land on which the berries grew.<br /><br />So can't the Marxist agenda be tied to workers' gaining the ability to dispose of the value that their labor creates? What's so bad about that?<br /><br />You may reply, well, the workers didn't own the machinery/inventory/land etc. Yet, their labor issued in an increase of value. If workers can determine how to distribute that value - e.g. to support aging parents - why is that bad?ficino4mlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00805116221735364590noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51276204544266327902023-05-01T07:28:08.205-07:002023-05-01T07:28:08.205-07:00Good comment. "Wokeism" is the ideology ...Good comment. "Wokeism" is the ideology of the new capitalist system, of the "technological society" according to Del Noce, which is the same as globalism in the Western world. That's why practically all public and private institutions had a conversion. The left and BLM are just spokesmen, although they don't know it.vdortahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07719603394483212541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-23640305641180197072023-04-30T13:49:52.132-07:002023-04-30T13:49:52.132-07:00"Woke" is a marketing term that started ..."Woke" is a marketing term that started on leftist social media and got picked up by conservatives as a slur. I think the modern left is best described in the terms provided by Augusto del Noce--a totally "bourgeois" society where individuals are fully alienated from others and defined by the ways in which they self-actualization their desires, the trans movement being the culmination of this thinking. However, due to the way political alliances and patronage systems work, a lot of the people who get called "woke" are really moderate black nationalists who think the problems in the black community can be solved with aggressive affirmative action, looser policing and sentencing of criminals, and reperations (as opposed to the NOI creating the Republic of New Afrika in hardcore black nationalism). BLM activists also usually believe in LGBT stuff, but that's just what left wing activists under 40 believe today. There isn't some "woke" ideological system connecting together the racial ideas and the sexual/cultural ideas, its just that given how the political alliances have shaken out, the left wing black nationalists and the gays are on the same side. Kind of like how the conservative movement is made up for foreign policy neocons, economic libertarians, and religious conservatives, even if there is no direct logical connection between these three schools of thought. <br /><br />The Black socialist Toure Reed wrote a book discussing Oscar Handlin's ideas of "ethno-pluralism". For Handlin, racism is bad, and racial groups should integrate, but groups should also retain their district identities, and indeed usually benefit by ethnic civil society organizations. The idea that businesses benefit by having workers from different ethnic backgrounds who see the world differently ("diversity is our strength"), comes from this. I think this explains much "woke" thinking --"diversity is our strength, but also the Blacks and the Asians and the Chicanos each need to their separate safe spaces". Mix this with basic lefty Howard Zinn history and you get the racial side of wokeness. As a socialist, Reed claims ethnic identity is unimportant, and argues that the problems that beset lower class blacks (and poor whites) are mostly economic and could be solved by a New Deal on Steroids--BLM is just a big distraction from economic issues by the hated neoliberals. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-6917028521815303832023-04-30T11:05:00.939-07:002023-04-30T11:05:00.939-07:00@Miguel Cervantes
Guns will not defend a populati...@Miguel Cervantes<br /><br /><i>Guns will not defend a population that already accepts a civil culture that kills them before they are born, and mutilates them as adolescents.</i><br /><br />No, the mass shootings are not a divine punishment for having partial state-by-state legalization of abortion. The Soviet Union, Japan, and China all had or have much higher <i>per capita</i> abortion rates than the USA but none of them experienced a mass shooting problem.<br /><br />And surely if the higher power judging the United States is just, then He would have seen that we partially reintroduced bans on abortion, and thus proportionately reduced the rate of mass shootings.HolyKnowinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06109864288446595298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35558595021050447772023-04-30T10:28:46.359-07:002023-04-30T10:28:46.359-07:00TB: That's why you should read Del Noce.TB: That's why you should read Del Noce.vdortahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07719603394483212541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61041150480584545252023-04-30T09:36:43.154-07:002023-04-30T09:36:43.154-07:00Yes, i think those are right questions and it is w...Yes, i think those are right questions and it is why i think studying Del Noce and other thinkers who saw this is a necessity. I do think it was something else entirely, namely, the triumph of unfettered capitalism and his shedding of the temporary alliance with Christianity (the Christian-bourgeois phase), since it is materialism the "natural" metaphysics of capitalism in his unfettered form, in which everything is converted in goods, values moving through space. In this view there is no need of agreeing with marxism as a system, or even feeling something different from hostility to it, to see how it has served historically during the XX century as a "katechon" to the unfolding of unfettered capitalism. Now, if this is in some form true, one can see how the not-so-Christian West, more precisely unfettered capitalism, subsumed in the process of his unfolding elements created in '68 and the '70s, in the "extreme left" and "critical marxist" field, from "Critical theory" to post-structuralism, ecc. Because the process of "unfolding" was also an anthropologic transformation from "classic bourgeois" capitalism to so called "neo-liberist phase". Now, this needs an essay, or various essays, so i would like to suggest also another book, "The new spirit of capitalism" of Luc Boltanski e Ève Chiapello that traces this process rather well; again, one has not to agree with their point of view to peruse and use their work.Alam al-mithalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-10116837644710290662023-04-30T09:11:17.421-07:002023-04-30T09:11:17.421-07:00What happens here, i think, is that there are thin...What happens here, i think, is that there are thinkers whose thinking is more complex of the influence of the same thinking. For example, while i think there is much to criticize in Marcuse thinking, there are also useful things (you can see this in the book MacIntyre dedicated to him; in spite of some of MacIntyre criticisms, in the long term, Marcuse was rights, or at least partially right, about various things, especially when he criticizes capitalism and wrong in many others, especially in his "constructive" side). So the thinking of Marcuse is, from a philosophical point of view, something with which having a confrontation could be useful, even while not agreeing with his premises or with the whole of his analysis, at least to answer differently to problems that he may have correctly identified, at least partially; another thing is the influence of his thinking on "woke" though and this must be studied and understood in partial separation from the first analysis; partial because if this influence can be traced there is something in his thought that lent itself to it; but in separation because his thought must be confronted also in his own terms, not only in relation with his partial influence on other thoughts.Alam al-mithalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38954874319871852742023-04-30T01:44:31.978-07:002023-04-30T01:44:31.978-07:00I’m surprised there was no mention of Puritanism h...I’m surprised there was no mention of Puritanism here. I think it’s difficult to deny that Marxism is at least the uncle of wokism. However it would seem wrong to ignore auntie Puritan. Sabine Hossenfelder yesterday released a video on the current science behind trans. It’s a fairly ‘impartial’ account that ignores any moral or philosophical questions, and looks at the problem (the disease of gender dysphoria) in terms of published scientific research. However unsurprisingly, the responses include many scientists outraged that Sabine has dared to even try to be impartial on the subject. This absolute and complete rejection of anything that even remotely questions the ‘new ideology’ is automatically seen as “cis” ignorance or even “cis” aggression. If you replace “cis” (or the equivalent in other areas of woke) with “popery”, the woke narrative seems to me to have clear similarities with the Puritans (Calvinists etc).<br /><br />Was Calvin the original ‘canceller’ ? Maybe wokism takes it’s intellectual tactics from Marxism, and has influences from the likes of Foucault and Derrida, but is ultimately driven by reformation assumptions and culture?<br />Simon Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08967831833822936845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-8877978746947921212023-04-29T23:39:40.352-07:002023-04-29T23:39:40.352-07:00InfiniteLite, the point is that making "tempo...InfiniteLite, the point is that making "temporal salvation" the sole end of civil society is incompatible with the faith. Nobody, rich or poor, can achieve it, let alone Burke or Kant's "species". <br /><br />If you live in one of those ghettos in the most advanced countries of the West, you will know that the inexistence of firearms will provide you with no security whatsoever. Even a kitchen knife can ruin one's day, as those Jihadi nutjobs prove frequently. <br /><br />The state banning guns is not a huge issue, apart from symbolism and a rallying cause for the left. Guns will not defend a population that already accepts a civil culture that kills them before they are born, and mutilates them as adolescents. Soldiering means discipline, obeying, and knowing what to fight for (guns come last), all completely lacking in right wing political culture today. The traditional West from late antiquity restricted the possession of all weapons. The right to arms for all is not a universal right in the Catholic world. Citizen militias might do when there is nothing else, but the most long-lasting countries in history were those with the best developed armies. Any tribe not protected by inaccessibility or diseased tropical climate etc was a gonner every time it came up against it.Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40219929997937973562023-04-29T17:30:48.719-07:002023-04-29T17:30:48.719-07:00Really? I mean really?Really? I mean really?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-36005501321049190302023-04-28T21:41:23.744-07:002023-04-28T21:41:23.744-07:00I think it would also be fruitful to actually read...I think it would also be fruitful to actually read Herbert Marcuse and his opinions about the economy. critical theorist like him do in fact, talk about the economy at great lengths, and how it affects culture in the broader sense. Based off of some of the comments that Feser makes, it doesn’t really seem like he’s finished a page from Marcuse’s most notable work, One-Dimensional Man.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29873068820471519302023-04-28T21:22:20.562-07:002023-04-28T21:22:20.562-07:00I'd like to point out that in the past two wee...I'd like to point out that in the past two weeks Pope Francis has condemned Gender Ideology and Abortion in very severe terms twice in a row. The first during that sit down and most recently during an address he gave. Self admittedly, I tend to follow only right wing figures who I trust and who uphold orthodoxy. Given the typical characterisation of him in these circles, I almost find it suprising when I see stern and unequivocal statements on such issues. I do feel though at times we are very polarised. There are obviously lots of issues with this papacy but how much of it is due to Pope Francis himself and how much of it is due to people falsely using the Pope as cover for their own ideological whims remains to be determined, for example in that sit down, the Pope seemed quite firm and aware of everything, the way in which he made it clear that accompanying a woman and justifying abortion are two different things does give one the impression that people are lying when they say Pope Francis told me this or that. Hence, I also think when the Pope makes unequivocal statements condemning what should be condemned, we should prop it up in order to counter the lies that are being spread. Also recently when Pope Francis was hospitalized many of the commentators I followed only retweeted the news without really offering any prayer for his well being. At the end of the day we are catholic, at times, we may not be too fond of the Pope but we should always be charitable at the very least with respect to matters of health and well being. That's my two cents.Normhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11561526052876064805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-87987588276741194782023-04-28T19:30:54.951-07:002023-04-28T19:30:54.951-07:00@Miguel Cervantes
Society, by building a new natu...@Miguel Cervantes<br /><br /><i>Society, by building a new nature", is a kind of temporal salvation for them.</i><br /><br />Temporal salvation is not nothing. You need temporal freedom from evil and security against violence if you want to increase your odds of procuring the graces necessary for eternal salvation.<br /><br />If you are an American and a Christian, you should pray that Jesus institutes a gun ban. He is a higher authority than the second amendment.HolyKnowinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06109864288446595298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84149377889714744362023-04-27T08:55:25.579-07:002023-04-27T08:55:25.579-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.HolyKnowinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06109864288446595298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51760763590408845032023-04-27T03:49:15.570-07:002023-04-27T03:49:15.570-07:00Michael, I think Left and Right: ideologies share ...Michael, I think Left and Right: ideologies share secularism. For "religious" Conservatism, religion is a means to achieve a temporal end. As for religious dogmas, Conservatism is profoundly sceptical. <br /><br />The Conservatism of Burke and de Maistre, which is what the ideology is all about, is anti-individual, in fact. Individuality itself (not just individualism) is the source of evil for them. Somehow, societies are the voice of God, and free of original sin, but only as long as they allow themselves to be determined by contingencies, rather than will or intelligence (thereby dismissing true religion). In de Maistre and Scruton, the notion of individual personality and soul is seriously questioned. <br /><br />Conservatism is like socialism, and unlike liberalism, in its belief that society must be determined by history. Conservatism aims to produce "better" human nature on earth. As with Kant, "perfection" can only be in the "species", not the individual. The afterlife is not relevant to civil society in all these authors. But for St. Thomas, Suarez and Bellarmine, the afterlives of society's individuals is the ultimate end of society, to which its proper ends should be subordinated. Conservatism can't work out what to do with natural law, because its authors believe this law relates to man's present condition (all iconic conservative spokesmen, when they spoke of "natural man", referred to him in Hobbesian terms as a brute), not his nature per se. At the back of their minds is a refusal to accept original sin; they think humanity has always been in its present state. Society, by building a new nature", is a kind of temporal salvation for them. Its all in their writings. Why are Christians so easily mislead by people who use religious vocabulary while reinventing its meaning? Two centuries of seduction by the Enlightenment's romanticist, conservative sirens...Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-50902345578874081362023-04-26T20:12:48.472-07:002023-04-26T20:12:48.472-07:00The more interesting question is how "Wokeism...The more interesting question is how "Wokeism" came to be ascendant in the West, particularly in America. Communism became the unquestionable state ideology in the USSR, which was at times totalitarian. What did the Soviet system seek to achieve under Marxist-Leninism, using the totalitarian state? Certainly the USSR was a brutal regime, but as Gottfried points out Marxist-Leninism was not nearly as anti-human as Wokeism and while it denied the validity of certain economic relationships it did not attack basic human nature the way Woke ideology does by stripping away the very definitions of human identity and asserting myriad paraphelias and mental disorders as somehow legitimate. Marxism did not seek to dismantle foundational relationships beyond class. What is it about 20th century American society that proved such fertile ground for Wokeism, and how did it come to dominate the Left and thus all of American culture? Was the Cold War the triumph of the Christian West over Atheistic Communism, or was it something else entirely?TBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07487507014273141828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28172227388956382372023-04-26T16:23:01.485-07:002023-04-26T16:23:01.485-07:00@infinitelight. That all sounds a bit like Charlie...@infinitelight. That all sounds a bit like Charlie Sheen’s “Tiger Blood” psychotic episode. <br /><br />I just watched the end of a series on Netflix called “The Diplomat”, which was pretty good, and so I looked for something similar and found “True Lies” on Disney. However the latter was absolute crap, beyond bad. The people making it presumably hoped they were making something equivalent to The Diplomat, but they simply did not have the ability. This is all capitalism really is, and turning it into some kind of religion is just weird. A sign of immaturity.<br /><br />Equally, democracy is weird. Most people are not capable of great understanding. However the people who are capable of great understanding are easily corrupted by power. So we’re left with the wisdom of ignorant crowds as a break glass solution. Benevolent and wise dictators as kings and queens would be far better, but no one has found a way to ensure benevolence. So we have democracy and capitalism as necessary frameworks that need to be controlled by limits, transparency and legislation to ensure sustainability and fairness to all creatures and environments. It’s not complicated ideology, it’s the only sane option when men and women are not reliably ordered.Simon Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08967831833822936845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56506651296966577782023-04-26T13:14:05.312-07:002023-04-26T13:14:05.312-07:00Miguel, Do you see post enlightenment "right ...Miguel, Do you see post enlightenment "right wing conservatives" and "leftist liberals" as having some of the same fundamental premises? If so, what are these? You mentioned in another post their joint rejection of natural law. In this, they seem to exalt an irrational will. For conservatives, it is the will of the individual. For leftists, it is a collective will of the group. Yet, neither are seeking to root the ordering of a society in laws of nature. To do so is to prioritize truth as having a binding force over the human will which undermines voluntarism. (It also undermines the nominalism that undergirds modernity).Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-87416235663070422932023-04-25T23:13:32.681-07:002023-04-25T23:13:32.681-07:00Hazony is not much help in the ideological mess of...Hazony is not much help in the ideological mess of the modern West, being just one more ideologue himself. His conservative ideological approach does not apply natural law to society. He talks about the Bible, but only as a "rule" for society, which can "interpret" this rule as it sees fit. Other societies will have other rules, of course. Just the romanticism side of the inter-Enlightenment debate. When will Catholics and Christians in general stop dialoguing with this stuff? The "modern" West (and Conservatism, in particular) did not appear till Aquinas, Suarez and Bellarmine were silenced, in the late seventeenth-century. There is nothing new under our modern sun, only the silence of these doctors whose social doctrine is no longer heard.Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67044780088504751172023-04-25T19:21:42.463-07:002023-04-25T19:21:42.463-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.HolyKnowinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06109864288446595298noreply@blogger.com