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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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This is the Moldbug fallacy A descends from B, therefore A is B, you don't like A therefore you must also not like B.

For this argument to be valid, the salient features of A do not actually carry over to B. You argue this:

Wokism does descend from marxism but in a sense it also represents disillusionment with it, with the failure of class consciousness to materialize in the west and with the fall of the URSS simultaneously.

...But this argument is based on a particular interpretation of which portions of Marxism are salient. Others disagree with that assessment, and dismissing their arguments out of hand is not a productive strategy for good-faith discussion.

Both Marxism and Wokeism are fundamentally revolutionary, and in a very similar way. The arguments they deploy have very similar shapes, make similar mistakes, are persuasive for similar reasons, appeal to similar groups, and result in similar failure modes and, it seems likely, final outcomes. The aim of both is to secure radical social change by fomenting class conflict. Specifics of the classes and their features and grievances do not seem terribly relevant to the question of how and why the ideologies operate.

To some extent, what we're talking about here is the difference between Marxism internally and externally. For a doctrinaire Marxist of some particular strain, I've no doubt that Wokeism is absolutely heretical bullshit. But I am not a Doctrinaire Marxist, and I in fact do not see how the doctrine is terribly relevant or important in any way to anything I care about, any more than an American Indian should care about the doctrinal disputes between Lutherans or Anglicans in the 1600s. With regards to how Marxism impacts me, there is no significant difference between the old version and the new version: they appeal to the same people, they're pushed by the same people, they attack the same important social structures in the same ways, and the arguments against them are more or less isomorphic. Pretending otherwise mainly seems to be an attempt to maintain the suppression of social antibodies to a monstrous ideology that should be exactly as taboo as literal swastika-and-sieg-heil naziism.

With regards to how Marxism impacts me, there is no significant difference between the old version and the new version: they appeal to the same people, they're pushed by the same people, they attack the same important social structures in the same ways, and the arguments against them are more or less isomorphic.

This is actually not true, but you'd barely know it because the actual Marxists are so weak and have had their theory so exploded and bypassed by time that it just doesn't make sense anymore. The Trotskyist 4th International was actually one of the first places to host major historians pushing back against NHJ's 1619 Project, and some of the most prominent contemporary Marxist economists like Adolph Reed have been vocal critics of the current cultural turn in left activism.

Both Marxism and Wokeism are fundamentally revolutionary, and in a very similar way. The arguments they deploy have very similar shapes, make similar mistakes, are persuasive for similar reasons, appeal to similar groups, and result in similar failure modes and, it seems likely, final outcomes. The aim of both is to secure radical social change by fomenting class conflict. Specifics of the classes and their features and grievances do not seem terribly relevant to the question of how and why the ideologies operate.

Not similar at all. Aim of Marxism is indeed radical social change, while aim of wokeism is preserving society as it is, only with more rainbow flags and transgender toilets.

When Marxists get their way, billionaires are expropriated. When wokeists get their way, billionaires are richer and more secure than ever before.

any more than an American Indian should care about the doctrinal disputes between Lutherans or Anglicans in the 1600s.

Actually existing Indians well understood differences between European colonialists and played them for their advantage as they could.

Your attitude is more like of the most hardcore and dumbest Salafist Muslims of today:

"Christianity and Hinduism? It is all idolatry, the same pagan filth."

I do not get why boomer conservatives insist on pushing "Marxist" straightjacket on everything, why they insist calling "Marxist" people who know nothing about Marx and never claimed to be Marxist.

If you asked woke activists about Marx, 90% would answer "What is Marx?" and 10% would say "Fuck this white racist colonizer".

Is it their childhood programming that taught them that Marxism is the worst thing in the world, and all bad things must be Marxist?

You do not have to be "doctrinaire Marxist" to understand it - here is what one lifelong hardcore Christian fundamentalist anti communist fighter Gary Kilgore North has to say.

Cultural Marxism Is an Oxymoron

Ignore Anyone Who Says Marxism Is a Threat

But this argument is based on a particular interpretation of which portions of Marxism are salient (...) Specifics of the classes and their features and grievances do not seem terribly relevant to the question of how and why the ideologies operate.

IMO the contention that the salient portion of Marxism is not economic class is a pretty contorted view of how marxism has been generally interpreted in the past 150 years.

they appeal to the same people, they're pushed by the same people,

They don't, communism appealed very much to the working class. You may not see this because communism was basically illegal in the US, but where it did exist the parties were staffed by working class people and that's where they received votes. Wokism main centers of power are journalism and HR.

they attack the same important social structures in the same ways,

What would that be? I don't know where you are going with this, but often people say "the family" so I'll pre-empt that. All strong ideologies "attack the family" to some degree:

  • in the 10 commandments, allegiance to the family comes after allegiance to God and to the Church

  • fascism followed suit, proclaiming allegiance to "God, country and the family" (Dio, patria, famiglia) in that order

  • Jesus says "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother" as well as many others to the same effect

  • Scientology practices disconnection from anyone who is declared SP, including family members if necessary

  • Isolation from family members is a common cult technique

and the arguments against them are more or less isomorphic

Maybe for you.