If I can indulge in some "identity politics" of my own, as a survivor of childhood trauma it infuriates me when the language of trauma is hijacked to try to shut people up.
Who’s Foucault!? When Yang defines his “successor ideology” he says “It comes from a transition, or succession, from a liberal account ... to a more Foucauldian account.” Yang is spot on. But how did a half-crazy French philosopher who died 36 years ago become be the key to wokism today?
First, thanks to the Persuasion Staff for distilling and posting this important interview. And thanks to Mounk and Yang for their incredibly perceptive discussion, and to the commenters below. I agree with them all.
But let me fill in some background that I discovered a year ago when I decided to include a chapter on identity politics and ended up with eight chapters and a whole new perspective on left politics. Connecting the backstory to the present was not easy without Pluckrose and Lindsay’s “Cynical Theories” (July 2020).
The Persuasion Staff introduces the discussion by pointing to “microaggressions” and “denunciations of whiteness.” These are the entry points. Dr. Derald Wing Sue, the utterly dominant theorist of microaggression theory cites (in his massive text for teacher training), as his first two ideological influences, Antonio Gramsci and Jacques Derrida. Robin DiAngelo, of “White Fragility” fame emphatically bases her analysis of “social justice” on the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory,” and mentions first of all, yes, … Michel Foucault, and second Jacques Derrida.
Gramsci co-founded the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and, while imprisoned by Mussolini, developed his version of Neo-Marxism. Dr. Sue’s microaggression theory was developed from Critical Race Theory, a special case of the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory.” The “Frankfurt School” developed the German version of Neo-Marxism.
What about Derrida, mentioned by both Dr. Sue and DiAngelo? Both Derrida and Judith Butler (the most prominent founder of queer theory) have received, in Frankfurt Germany, the Adorno Prize. Adorno was a leader of the Frankfurt School, and a co-developer of “critical theory.”
Butler is a postmodern professor at U.C. Berkeley, where she founded the Critical Theory Institute with a $1.5 million grant from Mellon Foundation. In her famous third-wave feminist book Gender Trouble, the first person she cites is, yes again, … Foucault.
All this fits Yang and Mounk’s discussion perfectly.
Yang’s Successor Ideology is Neo-Marxism filtered through postmodernism. (Yes, I’m aware that Neo-Marxists claim there’s no such thing, and postmodernists, claim postmodernism is dead. These are good cover stories.)
Mounk correctly notes that that Successor Ideology is saying, “it’s all one huge interlocking scheme of domination.” Exactly. That’s Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony.” And it’s Adorno’s “culture industry” and “false consciousness.” All of these are said to be ways in which the establishment dominates society’s world view for its own benefit. The goal of Neo-Marxism is to awaken the masses (that’s like taking the “red pill” in “The Matrix” — a deliberately postmodern film). Those who see through “false consciousness” and have taken the red pill, are already woke.
Of course, the far-right and Qanon, love the red-pill idea just as much — since they too hate liberalism and the Enlightenment,
According to Gramsci, awakening the masses is a matter of building a “counter-hegemony” to challenge capitalist power. That counter-hegemony — basically counter-thought-control — is exactly what Yang is describing when he says, “people have to be silent, .... repeat loyalty oaths, ... scourge themselves in public.” More broadly, as he explains, it is about “dismantling reason, about dismantling individualism.”
Dismantling reason and individualism is of course, as Mounk, Yang, and the Persuasion Staff say, an attack on liberalism. Or, you could say, an attack on the enlightenment. The Neo-Marxist Culture-Industry concept is described by Adorno in a chapter called “Enlightenment as Mass Deception." That’s the essence of Neo-Marxism — the Enlightenment and liberalism are mass deceptions.
Jean-François Leotard who, along with Derrida and Foucault, was part of the holy trinity of postmodernism, first defined it. He said postmodernism is the unwillingness to believe in grand narratives. And his primary example of such a narrative was … the Enlightenment.
So we see that the Neo-Marxists developed theories of “cultural hegemony,” “the culture industry,” and “false consciousness” in order to attack Enlightenment liberalism, reason, and science. And postmodernism introduced this attack into Western academia. From there it spread throughout society in the form of woke identity politics.
This explanation leaves out many other important ideological currents, but it sketches the path of the most enduring and powerful current in the tide of wokism. Understanding this can help immensely as we fight against it. After all, Neo-Marxism has such a bad reputation that even Neo-Marxists shun its name.
A simpler, quicker introduction to postmodernism than provided by “Cynical Theories” can be found in Part 5 of my book “Ripped Apart,” available as a free PDF here: https://zfacts.com/ripped-apart-v1/
Sorry for responding to you late, but is the Foucauldian account wrong or useless? I think the problem is when you try to see the world or history through one story or one analytical framework. That is when we become fundamentalists. Marxian class analysis (for example) is a useful tool in sociology or political economy, the problem is when we see the unfolding of history solely through the principle of class struggle. Then we loose all sense of complexity and nuance. We also lose doubt which I see as central to liberal thought. Fanatics are certain about what they believe in and they think critics must be motivated by malevolent intentions.
Dear Sinchan, You say "The idea that powerful people in society create the conceptual apparatus in terms of which we view the world seems valid and useful."
This sounds to me like postmodern ideology because (1) it fits the ideas of “cultural hegemony” and “false consciousness," (2) It fits the idea of not being woke, and (3) It is simple and extreme rather than nuanced.
I'm not saying you are intending all that. I don't know. You may be just repeating it because you see a kernel of truth in it. Here's why I say 1, 2, and 3.
(1) Cultural hegemony refers to "powerful people" creating the "conceptual apparatus" we use. And from your example, it's clear you see this leading to "false consciousness"
(2) If powerful people are creating my "conceptual apparatus" then I'm not really awake and I need to become woke to this fact. (I claim that the woke are arrogantly making that up.)
(3) The statement is extreme because it does not even hint that there are other sources of my, or anyone's, "conceptual apparatus." That's an extreme oversimplification.
You give an example of powerful people saying "free speech threatens democracy." Some say this but are mostly woke and not powerful. And not many say it. So this example shows the opposite of the PoMo/Woke ideology.
A large part of our "conceptual apparatus" is science. I know and study scientists, and they are not part of your "power people." QAnon ideology was used by Trump but was created by unpowerful people. Virtually every example I can think of contradicts the PoMo/woke/hegemony claim.
But powerful people do influence society, and maybe too much, so there is a kernel of truth, but it is nothing new. This has been studied for 100 years. So I don't see that the extremely simplistic version provided by PoMo/wokism is needed, or a help.
Dear Sinchan, I think I agree with all that you say. For example, I think Marxism has been a disaster, but there is something useful in thinking about economically determined classes. We should keep the good parts, but not because they add complexity. The world is complex, so we need complex ideas. But many complex ideas are nonsense. Foucault, like most of us, saw some real problems with how things are. Some of these ideas may be new and helpful.
But he famously studied punishment and discipline and he was such an extreme masochist that he decorated his walls with scenes of torture and when he was struck by a car and thought he would die, he felt it was a wonderful experience. And he advocated keeping one's personal views secret, and for a long time, he did. From what I can see, his followers -- those who learned the most from him -- have gone in very unhelpful directions, just like the standard Marxists.
So I would call his approach wrong, but I'm sure he said many true things (we all do) and probably some were new and useful.
But I would say that all of his work is suspect (especially due to his extreme personal biases in his area of research) until it is checked against logic and evidence. And the postmoderns don't value that approach.
Thanks for responding. I know much less about this than you do. The idea that powerful people in society create the conceptual apparatus in terms of which we view the world seems valid and useful. For example, powerful people in American society now don't believe that free speech serves their interests, so some of them say freedom of speech threatens democracy. But saying this doesn't invalidate any "model" or view of the world, we need more substantive arguments.
I wonder whether you like this review of "Cynical Theories".
This is a helpful summation. There is a lot of opaque language among the figures labeled "postmoderns' and Stoft appears to be a fair account. I do want to add that there are some strands that do not fit as neatly the anti-Enlightenment. Judith Butler, for example has developed some lines of argument that relate to violence and war. Her 2020 interview with Masha Gessen in the New Yorker mag (Feb 9 2020) on the role of violence in politics, making comments that are even more relevant now in our week of insurrection against the US Congress. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-rage,
For my money, "successor ideology" seems like an unnecessary descriptor when we already have perfectly good terms for what so many of us have addressed in this forum. What we have here in political language is left-wing authoritarian populism. It emanates from the academy and, more specifically, from the humanities, so it has an intellectual face. But if you don't care too much about how it's produced in the sordid process of post-structuralist exegesis, what comes out the other end is plain authoritarian populism. There's no need to guess where the intellectual leaders are on the questions many of us care about because they tell us plainly. They reject reason (just assume I've placed many of these terms in "quotes"), objectivity, free speech, rights, and liberalism (as a philosophy). They loathe the Democratic Party. As I've said before, the only thing more dangerous politically than the left right now is the right.
Left-wing authoritarian populism is a lot more direct and precise than the academic/abstract sounding Successor ideology. But what kind of left-wing? Many on the new Left reject the traditional idea of disadvantage based on class. In fact, it can be argued that modern left-wing politics is based on antipathy towards working class people, especially if they have the wrong skin colour. Some of the dynamics of this is explored in this article
Andrew Yang talks about how many ordinary, working class people have an instinctive, negative reaction to the Democrats. He experienced this when he campaigned. It makes him wonder why that is the case. That doesn't seem to be true for most American liberals. The idea that it primarily race, not class that determines disadvantage in one of the world's most multicultural and multiracial democracies is not persuasive. Almost a dozen non-white immigrant groups have superior social and economic performance relative to whites. In any case, this belief distinguishes the "woke" ideology from traditional Marxist thinking.
Hi Sinchan: I try to leverage the contradictions you raise when I'm teaching my radical left students. They do understand themselves to be on the side of and allies to non-white as well as working class and poor people, not just in the US but everywhere in the world. But you're right: when it comes right down to it, their race and class consciousness is highly internally contradictory. However, you say that working class people have an _instinctive_ negative reaction to Democrats, and I don't think that's right even if the general phenomenon is widespread in many times and places. First, religion, cultural conservatism (which can be detached from religion as well as being a symptom of religion), racism, authoritarianism, and some unique historical American factors all play a role in the predisposition of working class people to be susceptible to the invitation the Republican Party and conservative movement have tendered in recent decades. And then you have the factors on the left that alienate those working class people, which include orientations toward race/ism, feminism, support for gay and lesbian rights (before it was LGBTQ), and contempt for: patriotism, the military, police, religion, and traditional institutions. This dynamic isn't just American; versions of it are playing out all over the world. But calling it "instinctive" or assuming it's just caused by the left doesn't explain it or help us figure out what to do about it.
Thanks for your interesting comment. Before I respond, let me say I was wrong about Trump and Republicans on our previous thread. I am OK with what I said on foreign policy, but I failed to see the threat from Trump's authoritarian populism. I thought it would not amount to much beyond some tweets and whining about stolen elections etc which is disappointing but hardly a serious threat to American democracy. But the events of the past week proved me totally wrong. I never expected so many Republican Congressmen and Senators will object to the certification of results, it left me astonished. I think this has definitely damaged democratic norms and institutions in United States. I didn't see this coming, because I was interpreting the behaviour of Trump and Republicans within some rational actor framework common in Economics. But that doesn't apply here.
I agree there are multiple factors that caused (mostly white) working class people to move away from Democrats to the point that nearly half (if I remember correctly) of union households vote for Republicans. One way I interpret this is the fight between nationalism and globalism. Globalized cities and urban centres which have benefited the most from recent economic growth vote for the Left, and people in the left behind regions vote for the Right. We see the power of this divide when a working class Parliamentary constituency that went for Labour for the past 130 years now goes for the Conservatives after the realignment of British politics following Brexit.
On cultural issues, there is an overwhelming sense of contempt/judgement coming from American liberal elites directed towards ordinary people. It is possible to argue for gay rights or anything else without condemning people as individuals. After all, most liberals had the same attitudes only a few decades back. Minority voters, many of whom are more moderate/conservative than highly educated white liberals have the same beliefs, but are not censured and demeaned in popular culture in the same way. So it seems partly about politics.
I think modern left wing people speak in a cultural idiom/language that is deliberately alienating to most ordinary people and to some extent it is meant to be that way, it is a signal of their class status. Modern (establishment) left wing ideology is a form of cultural expression of the elites drained of substantive political content. I am not very good at discussing such things as my degree is in Economics, but this is just my feeling. Thanks for reading.
Hi, Sinchan. I agree with you here about the left, its language, and the corrosive contempt that too often characterizes the left's attitudes toward other Americans. Unfortunately, the current circumstances just ratchet up contempt and outright hatred and set the stage for even less reality testing and more moral righteousness. The thing is, the Republican Party has also been playing the contempt card with their voters for a couple of decades, so we have to be willing and able to differentiate between the actual phenomenon of contempt (which is there) and the way in which the specter of liberal/progressive contempt has been oversold to the conservative--now Trump supporting--right.
I totally agree, conservative talk radio is notorious for that. On both sides, there is a tendency to see the other group in terms of fixed, negative stereotypes. I lived in Australia for many years, the kind of rhetoric employed by both sides here would be unthinkable there, even though Australia has many racists/bigots and also has many decent people who condemn racism. As one critic argued, the idea that it is democracy that binds us together is wrong, democracy only works if we are already sufficiently bound together. American democracy is coming apart, because American society is coming apart.
You are right on target. But it's a particular kind of authoritarian populism, and works like the Chinese cultural revolution and not like, say some authoritarian Latin American populism. And it's important to know how it works. It was introduced into America during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, by many that were sympathetic to that revolution.
Yes, Steven Stoft, I agree that it's important to know how each kind of anti-democratic belief system works. And I agree that this one works in key respects like the cultural revolution. That's actually the model I often have in mind when I encounter elements of illiberalism in the university.
This will be the war heading into 2022 and 2024. In not pushing back even a little bit, the Democrats have become the party of the Woke and this potential authoritarianism. Some of us saw it coming and tried to warn them but we had not only zero pushback, but the press and big tech have emboldened and empowered the left on this front. Thus, they can't and won't inject any sort of liberalism into the party. Had Donald Trump won four more years, Democrats would have gotten a lesson on why this is a dangerous path. Voters decided Trump was the more dangerous path, which is fair. But in so doing, I fear, power is about to shift hard right. What you warned about, Yascha, is, I think, what happens when the left pushes the center to side with the hard right. Now, Democrats are in no position to stop it. No leader would even try, with Twitter there to shame them back down. So expect things to get a lot worse in the coming years.
I think you are exactly right. Like everyone, I've most wanted Trump to lose. But second, I've feared what the woke left and the Berniecrats will do to the Democratic Party. I think the Trumpsters will be back in 2024. But to fight the woke left see my post above.
You are exactly right, I fear. The near future is "...what happens when the left pushes the center to side with the hard right. Now, Democrats are in no position to stop it." The Dems can't stop it because they need the votes. Yasha, Yang and their kind might have a chance. If they can carve out a rock firm enough to stand on amongst the elite liberal whirlpools, others will climb aboard.
In what sense have Democrats become "the party of the Woke"? I don't see them setting their priorities or their governance agenda based on the woke ideology, however much it appeals to activists and some progressives. Wouldn't it be more correct to say that the Democrats are the party of Wall Street and elite American corporations (and increasingly the intelligence agencies and the national security state) and the woke ideology is just a cover for them? I am not saying Republicans are better in this respect.
Here are a few examples. Only one person in congress has addressed cancel culture -- that's AOC who voiced full support of it. The antiracism policies will be immediately reinstated. All of the elected officials, including Pelosi, have pledged they promise to forward the principles of equity. They removed the words "mother, father, grandmother" etc from the House rules. This is their platform. It is going to go hand in hand with progressivism. And written into policy. That makes the next four years very messy. Most Americans oppose this, by the way, and showed that in the down ballot races. But the Democrats do not appear to be heeding this warning in any way. This is a revolution in process and you will see the opposing side rising up against it...
AOC may have voiced support for "cancel culture", but she is just one person and she has not introduced any legislation to advance that. Which anti-racism policy are we talking about? Just curious. Anti-racism training for some federal employees? That is hardly a massively important issue. Most employees these days are used to sitting through long lectures on diversity etc delivered by self-important idiots. There is no proposal that I am aware of that writes any woke idea into policy. I agree Democratic losses in the House reflected the concern of many voters with the Left's ideas. If there is a revolution, that is happening at the social/cultural level and must be fought on those arenas, not Washington politics.
You are right that now it is mainly at the social/cultural level. And we certainly need to fight it at that level. But it is also in the government. See Mounk's post on the vaccine distribution problem. Yes, Neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory for federal employees is not now a big deal. But that is how the virus spreads. And Wokism knocked Amy Klobuchar out of the VP race, almost knock out Biden when Harris used it against him, and it is having a heavy influence on his cabinet choice.
Still, I see no severe damage yet. But that power was unthinkable even four years ago. So I agree with you for now, but I think Sasha Stone is wisely looking ahead. The movement has been growing for fifty years or (see my post above). And it's not about to stop.
I'm not comparing the two people. I am talking about the threat of what has just taken power and I already admitted it was less of a threat than Trump. They won't even admit Antifa exists. Not to mention Democrats and the media empire completely ignoring any of the violence we've seen for months now. They just pretend it isn't there or that it is justified and the only press anywhere about any group is the Proud Boys.
Haven't you heard? "Antifa is an idea, not an organization". But to answer your question with another - would Antifa ever give Biden the support the Proud Boys have given Trump? If Antifa had been out campaigning for Biden, I hope any sane human is able to acknowledge that he'd treat them at least as cozily as Trump treats the PBs.
But speaking of, to my knowledge Trump never even acknowledged the Proud Boys unless he was prodded to do so, like at the debate where they called the group, led by a half black, half Hispanic man "white supremacist". So while he didn't condemn them there, and rightly so IMO given the nature of that question, it's not like he's typically thrown them any bones.
The ideology is everywhere, the policies like Title IX redux (essentially a man's word being weighted less than a woman) et al will be coming not long after 1/20. Our vice president has pronouns in her Twitter bio and does a shoutout on "national transgender day of remembrance", whatever that is, about how it's especially sad that so many trans deaths are black or latinx. As opposed to white. And I'm sure there have been plenty of woke moments from her and others since that I missed being almost never on Twitter.
Here's AOC on the other side of the fence just the other day - "Probably an unpopular take but I think it's important the public knows what their public servants' financial & income streams are, regardless of gender or party."
Why would it be an unpopular take to treat examining financial records of male and female candidates equally, as did the Politico article on Yellen and others that caused all the ruckus? Because it isn't the woke thing to do. This is wokeness invading the cabinet picks at the highest levels of governance, and the policy fallout will be coming soon.
What's weird is how there is just plain cognitive dissonance with this on the left. People are privately concerned but won't come out publicly for fear of being called out.
To me the crucial question is how the Successor Ideology ( I'm not sure that "Successor Ideology" is the most intuitive way of conveying the view in question) interrelates with Trumpism. I believe it is far and away the most important cause. The next Trump will likely be less crazy, less corrupt, not a Russian asset and possibly less racist. But he or she will still be a right authoritarian, and in the US that is likely to prevail over left authoritarianism, at least in the political arena.
Great point that wokism is the most important cause of Trumpism. And I agree that right authoritarianism is more likely to win out (if we don't stop wokism).
Liked the interview, but I thought the end was missing something. In speculating where "Successor Ideology" might lead us what wasn't discussed is what the extreme-right-wing reaction to it would be. I don't want to live under "Successor Ideology" but I'm also scared of what it might result in - possibly fascism American-style. I think a lot of Trump's (continuing) support is attributable to the success so far of "Successor Ideology." Both extremes are awful and they totally encourage each other.
Why not just call them Marxists or New Marxists? It's not fully accurate but it's close. Reasonable folk need a radioactive label of our own to use against them.
Hi TH Spring: I agree with you on needing good (accurate, not just pejorative) language. But in many respects these left-wing authoritarians reject Marxism, and the theories are quite distinct. But I'm not thrilled with "successor ideology"--it's too academic and not descriptive enough to convey what's at stake.
You are right. They definitely reject Marxism because that's what Neo-Marxism was about from the start. And they are Neo-Marxists, though many don't know it. See my post long post above. The history is interesting and useful.
I agree. And New Marxists is very close, and takes care of the problem noted by C. Skala. See my long comment above. They are Neo-Marxist and they admit it. And Neo-Marxism was developed by Marxists who saw after WWI than Marx had failed miserably with his economic materialism. So they often hate Marxists.
Another good thought invoking article. Thank you. I would say another representation of soft Left totalitarianism and it’s shaming silencing coercive prospects.
If I can indulge in some "identity politics" of my own, as a survivor of childhood trauma it infuriates me when the language of trauma is hijacked to try to shut people up.
Who’s Foucault!? When Yang defines his “successor ideology” he says “It comes from a transition, or succession, from a liberal account ... to a more Foucauldian account.” Yang is spot on. But how did a half-crazy French philosopher who died 36 years ago become be the key to wokism today?
First, thanks to the Persuasion Staff for distilling and posting this important interview. And thanks to Mounk and Yang for their incredibly perceptive discussion, and to the commenters below. I agree with them all.
But let me fill in some background that I discovered a year ago when I decided to include a chapter on identity politics and ended up with eight chapters and a whole new perspective on left politics. Connecting the backstory to the present was not easy without Pluckrose and Lindsay’s “Cynical Theories” (July 2020).
The Persuasion Staff introduces the discussion by pointing to “microaggressions” and “denunciations of whiteness.” These are the entry points. Dr. Derald Wing Sue, the utterly dominant theorist of microaggression theory cites (in his massive text for teacher training), as his first two ideological influences, Antonio Gramsci and Jacques Derrida. Robin DiAngelo, of “White Fragility” fame emphatically bases her analysis of “social justice” on the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory,” and mentions first of all, yes, … Michel Foucault, and second Jacques Derrida.
Gramsci co-founded the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and, while imprisoned by Mussolini, developed his version of Neo-Marxism. Dr. Sue’s microaggression theory was developed from Critical Race Theory, a special case of the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory.” The “Frankfurt School” developed the German version of Neo-Marxism.
What about Derrida, mentioned by both Dr. Sue and DiAngelo? Both Derrida and Judith Butler (the most prominent founder of queer theory) have received, in Frankfurt Germany, the Adorno Prize. Adorno was a leader of the Frankfurt School, and a co-developer of “critical theory.”
Butler is a postmodern professor at U.C. Berkeley, where she founded the Critical Theory Institute with a $1.5 million grant from Mellon Foundation. In her famous third-wave feminist book Gender Trouble, the first person she cites is, yes again, … Foucault.
All this fits Yang and Mounk’s discussion perfectly.
Yang’s Successor Ideology is Neo-Marxism filtered through postmodernism. (Yes, I’m aware that Neo-Marxists claim there’s no such thing, and postmodernists, claim postmodernism is dead. These are good cover stories.)
Mounk correctly notes that that Successor Ideology is saying, “it’s all one huge interlocking scheme of domination.” Exactly. That’s Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony.” And it’s Adorno’s “culture industry” and “false consciousness.” All of these are said to be ways in which the establishment dominates society’s world view for its own benefit. The goal of Neo-Marxism is to awaken the masses (that’s like taking the “red pill” in “The Matrix” — a deliberately postmodern film). Those who see through “false consciousness” and have taken the red pill, are already woke.
Of course, the far-right and Qanon, love the red-pill idea just as much — since they too hate liberalism and the Enlightenment,
According to Gramsci, awakening the masses is a matter of building a “counter-hegemony” to challenge capitalist power. That counter-hegemony — basically counter-thought-control — is exactly what Yang is describing when he says, “people have to be silent, .... repeat loyalty oaths, ... scourge themselves in public.” More broadly, as he explains, it is about “dismantling reason, about dismantling individualism.”
Dismantling reason and individualism is of course, as Mounk, Yang, and the Persuasion Staff say, an attack on liberalism. Or, you could say, an attack on the enlightenment. The Neo-Marxist Culture-Industry concept is described by Adorno in a chapter called “Enlightenment as Mass Deception." That’s the essence of Neo-Marxism — the Enlightenment and liberalism are mass deceptions.
Jean-François Leotard who, along with Derrida and Foucault, was part of the holy trinity of postmodernism, first defined it. He said postmodernism is the unwillingness to believe in grand narratives. And his primary example of such a narrative was … the Enlightenment.
So we see that the Neo-Marxists developed theories of “cultural hegemony,” “the culture industry,” and “false consciousness” in order to attack Enlightenment liberalism, reason, and science. And postmodernism introduced this attack into Western academia. From there it spread throughout society in the form of woke identity politics.
This explanation leaves out many other important ideological currents, but it sketches the path of the most enduring and powerful current in the tide of wokism. Understanding this can help immensely as we fight against it. After all, Neo-Marxism has such a bad reputation that even Neo-Marxists shun its name.
A simpler, quicker introduction to postmodernism than provided by “Cynical Theories” can be found in Part 5 of my book “Ripped Apart,” available as a free PDF here: https://zfacts.com/ripped-apart-v1/
I wish there was an applause button. This content deserves so much more than a simple heart. Well done!
Matthew, I really appreciate that. Thanks so much. -Steve
Sorry for responding to you late, but is the Foucauldian account wrong or useless? I think the problem is when you try to see the world or history through one story or one analytical framework. That is when we become fundamentalists. Marxian class analysis (for example) is a useful tool in sociology or political economy, the problem is when we see the unfolding of history solely through the principle of class struggle. Then we loose all sense of complexity and nuance. We also lose doubt which I see as central to liberal thought. Fanatics are certain about what they believe in and they think critics must be motivated by malevolent intentions.
Dear Sinchan, You say "The idea that powerful people in society create the conceptual apparatus in terms of which we view the world seems valid and useful."
This sounds to me like postmodern ideology because (1) it fits the ideas of “cultural hegemony” and “false consciousness," (2) It fits the idea of not being woke, and (3) It is simple and extreme rather than nuanced.
I'm not saying you are intending all that. I don't know. You may be just repeating it because you see a kernel of truth in it. Here's why I say 1, 2, and 3.
(1) Cultural hegemony refers to "powerful people" creating the "conceptual apparatus" we use. And from your example, it's clear you see this leading to "false consciousness"
(2) If powerful people are creating my "conceptual apparatus" then I'm not really awake and I need to become woke to this fact. (I claim that the woke are arrogantly making that up.)
(3) The statement is extreme because it does not even hint that there are other sources of my, or anyone's, "conceptual apparatus." That's an extreme oversimplification.
You give an example of powerful people saying "free speech threatens democracy." Some say this but are mostly woke and not powerful. And not many say it. So this example shows the opposite of the PoMo/Woke ideology.
A large part of our "conceptual apparatus" is science. I know and study scientists, and they are not part of your "power people." QAnon ideology was used by Trump but was created by unpowerful people. Virtually every example I can think of contradicts the PoMo/woke/hegemony claim.
But powerful people do influence society, and maybe too much, so there is a kernel of truth, but it is nothing new. This has been studied for 100 years. So I don't see that the extremely simplistic version provided by PoMo/wokism is needed, or a help.
Dear Sinchan, I think I agree with all that you say. For example, I think Marxism has been a disaster, but there is something useful in thinking about economically determined classes. We should keep the good parts, but not because they add complexity. The world is complex, so we need complex ideas. But many complex ideas are nonsense. Foucault, like most of us, saw some real problems with how things are. Some of these ideas may be new and helpful.
But he famously studied punishment and discipline and he was such an extreme masochist that he decorated his walls with scenes of torture and when he was struck by a car and thought he would die, he felt it was a wonderful experience. And he advocated keeping one's personal views secret, and for a long time, he did. From what I can see, his followers -- those who learned the most from him -- have gone in very unhelpful directions, just like the standard Marxists.
So I would call his approach wrong, but I'm sure he said many true things (we all do) and probably some were new and useful.
But I would say that all of his work is suspect (especially due to his extreme personal biases in his area of research) until it is checked against logic and evidence. And the postmoderns don't value that approach.
Thanks for responding. I know much less about this than you do. The idea that powerful people in society create the conceptual apparatus in terms of which we view the world seems valid and useful. For example, powerful people in American society now don't believe that free speech serves their interests, so some of them say freedom of speech threatens democracy. But saying this doesn't invalidate any "model" or view of the world, we need more substantive arguments.
I wonder whether you like this review of "Cynical Theories".
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-postmodernism-really-worthless-review-of-cynical-theories
This is a helpful summation. There is a lot of opaque language among the figures labeled "postmoderns' and Stoft appears to be a fair account. I do want to add that there are some strands that do not fit as neatly the anti-Enlightenment. Judith Butler, for example has developed some lines of argument that relate to violence and war. Her 2020 interview with Masha Gessen in the New Yorker mag (Feb 9 2020) on the role of violence in politics, making comments that are even more relevant now in our week of insurrection against the US Congress. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-rage,
For my money, "successor ideology" seems like an unnecessary descriptor when we already have perfectly good terms for what so many of us have addressed in this forum. What we have here in political language is left-wing authoritarian populism. It emanates from the academy and, more specifically, from the humanities, so it has an intellectual face. But if you don't care too much about how it's produced in the sordid process of post-structuralist exegesis, what comes out the other end is plain authoritarian populism. There's no need to guess where the intellectual leaders are on the questions many of us care about because they tell us plainly. They reject reason (just assume I've placed many of these terms in "quotes"), objectivity, free speech, rights, and liberalism (as a philosophy). They loathe the Democratic Party. As I've said before, the only thing more dangerous politically than the left right now is the right.
Left-wing authoritarian populism is a lot more direct and precise than the academic/abstract sounding Successor ideology. But what kind of left-wing? Many on the new Left reject the traditional idea of disadvantage based on class. In fact, it can be argued that modern left-wing politics is based on antipathy towards working class people, especially if they have the wrong skin colour. Some of the dynamics of this is explored in this article
https://quillette.com/2018/08/17/a-closer-look-at-anti-white-rhetoric/
Andrew Yang talks about how many ordinary, working class people have an instinctive, negative reaction to the Democrats. He experienced this when he campaigned. It makes him wonder why that is the case. That doesn't seem to be true for most American liberals. The idea that it primarily race, not class that determines disadvantage in one of the world's most multicultural and multiracial democracies is not persuasive. Almost a dozen non-white immigrant groups have superior social and economic performance relative to whites. In any case, this belief distinguishes the "woke" ideology from traditional Marxist thinking.
Hi Sinchan: I try to leverage the contradictions you raise when I'm teaching my radical left students. They do understand themselves to be on the side of and allies to non-white as well as working class and poor people, not just in the US but everywhere in the world. But you're right: when it comes right down to it, their race and class consciousness is highly internally contradictory. However, you say that working class people have an _instinctive_ negative reaction to Democrats, and I don't think that's right even if the general phenomenon is widespread in many times and places. First, religion, cultural conservatism (which can be detached from religion as well as being a symptom of religion), racism, authoritarianism, and some unique historical American factors all play a role in the predisposition of working class people to be susceptible to the invitation the Republican Party and conservative movement have tendered in recent decades. And then you have the factors on the left that alienate those working class people, which include orientations toward race/ism, feminism, support for gay and lesbian rights (before it was LGBTQ), and contempt for: patriotism, the military, police, religion, and traditional institutions. This dynamic isn't just American; versions of it are playing out all over the world. But calling it "instinctive" or assuming it's just caused by the left doesn't explain it or help us figure out what to do about it.
Thanks for your interesting comment. Before I respond, let me say I was wrong about Trump and Republicans on our previous thread. I am OK with what I said on foreign policy, but I failed to see the threat from Trump's authoritarian populism. I thought it would not amount to much beyond some tweets and whining about stolen elections etc which is disappointing but hardly a serious threat to American democracy. But the events of the past week proved me totally wrong. I never expected so many Republican Congressmen and Senators will object to the certification of results, it left me astonished. I think this has definitely damaged democratic norms and institutions in United States. I didn't see this coming, because I was interpreting the behaviour of Trump and Republicans within some rational actor framework common in Economics. But that doesn't apply here.
I agree there are multiple factors that caused (mostly white) working class people to move away from Democrats to the point that nearly half (if I remember correctly) of union households vote for Republicans. One way I interpret this is the fight between nationalism and globalism. Globalized cities and urban centres which have benefited the most from recent economic growth vote for the Left, and people in the left behind regions vote for the Right. We see the power of this divide when a working class Parliamentary constituency that went for Labour for the past 130 years now goes for the Conservatives after the realignment of British politics following Brexit.
On cultural issues, there is an overwhelming sense of contempt/judgement coming from American liberal elites directed towards ordinary people. It is possible to argue for gay rights or anything else without condemning people as individuals. After all, most liberals had the same attitudes only a few decades back. Minority voters, many of whom are more moderate/conservative than highly educated white liberals have the same beliefs, but are not censured and demeaned in popular culture in the same way. So it seems partly about politics.
I think modern left wing people speak in a cultural idiom/language that is deliberately alienating to most ordinary people and to some extent it is meant to be that way, it is a signal of their class status. Modern (establishment) left wing ideology is a form of cultural expression of the elites drained of substantive political content. I am not very good at discussing such things as my degree is in Economics, but this is just my feeling. Thanks for reading.
Hi, Sinchan. I agree with you here about the left, its language, and the corrosive contempt that too often characterizes the left's attitudes toward other Americans. Unfortunately, the current circumstances just ratchet up contempt and outright hatred and set the stage for even less reality testing and more moral righteousness. The thing is, the Republican Party has also been playing the contempt card with their voters for a couple of decades, so we have to be willing and able to differentiate between the actual phenomenon of contempt (which is there) and the way in which the specter of liberal/progressive contempt has been oversold to the conservative--now Trump supporting--right.
I totally agree, conservative talk radio is notorious for that. On both sides, there is a tendency to see the other group in terms of fixed, negative stereotypes. I lived in Australia for many years, the kind of rhetoric employed by both sides here would be unthinkable there, even though Australia has many racists/bigots and also has many decent people who condemn racism. As one critic argued, the idea that it is democracy that binds us together is wrong, democracy only works if we are already sufficiently bound together. American democracy is coming apart, because American society is coming apart.
You are right on target. But it's a particular kind of authoritarian populism, and works like the Chinese cultural revolution and not like, say some authoritarian Latin American populism. And it's important to know how it works. It was introduced into America during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, by many that were sympathetic to that revolution.
Yes, Steven Stoft, I agree that it's important to know how each kind of anti-democratic belief system works. And I agree that this one works in key respects like the cultural revolution. That's actually the model I often have in mind when I encounter elements of illiberalism in the university.
This will be the war heading into 2022 and 2024. In not pushing back even a little bit, the Democrats have become the party of the Woke and this potential authoritarianism. Some of us saw it coming and tried to warn them but we had not only zero pushback, but the press and big tech have emboldened and empowered the left on this front. Thus, they can't and won't inject any sort of liberalism into the party. Had Donald Trump won four more years, Democrats would have gotten a lesson on why this is a dangerous path. Voters decided Trump was the more dangerous path, which is fair. But in so doing, I fear, power is about to shift hard right. What you warned about, Yascha, is, I think, what happens when the left pushes the center to side with the hard right. Now, Democrats are in no position to stop it. No leader would even try, with Twitter there to shame them back down. So expect things to get a lot worse in the coming years.
I think you are exactly right. Like everyone, I've most wanted Trump to lose. But second, I've feared what the woke left and the Berniecrats will do to the Democratic Party. I think the Trumpsters will be back in 2024. But to fight the woke left see my post above.
You are exactly right, I fear. The near future is "...what happens when the left pushes the center to side with the hard right. Now, Democrats are in no position to stop it." The Dems can't stop it because they need the votes. Yasha, Yang and their kind might have a chance. If they can carve out a rock firm enough to stand on amongst the elite liberal whirlpools, others will climb aboard.
In what sense have Democrats become "the party of the Woke"? I don't see them setting their priorities or their governance agenda based on the woke ideology, however much it appeals to activists and some progressives. Wouldn't it be more correct to say that the Democrats are the party of Wall Street and elite American corporations (and increasingly the intelligence agencies and the national security state) and the woke ideology is just a cover for them? I am not saying Republicans are better in this respect.
Here are a few examples. Only one person in congress has addressed cancel culture -- that's AOC who voiced full support of it. The antiracism policies will be immediately reinstated. All of the elected officials, including Pelosi, have pledged they promise to forward the principles of equity. They removed the words "mother, father, grandmother" etc from the House rules. This is their platform. It is going to go hand in hand with progressivism. And written into policy. That makes the next four years very messy. Most Americans oppose this, by the way, and showed that in the down ballot races. But the Democrats do not appear to be heeding this warning in any way. This is a revolution in process and you will see the opposing side rising up against it...
AOC may have voiced support for "cancel culture", but she is just one person and she has not introduced any legislation to advance that. Which anti-racism policy are we talking about? Just curious. Anti-racism training for some federal employees? That is hardly a massively important issue. Most employees these days are used to sitting through long lectures on diversity etc delivered by self-important idiots. There is no proposal that I am aware of that writes any woke idea into policy. I agree Democratic losses in the House reflected the concern of many voters with the Left's ideas. If there is a revolution, that is happening at the social/cultural level and must be fought on those arenas, not Washington politics.
You are right that now it is mainly at the social/cultural level. And we certainly need to fight it at that level. But it is also in the government. See Mounk's post on the vaccine distribution problem. Yes, Neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory for federal employees is not now a big deal. But that is how the virus spreads. And Wokism knocked Amy Klobuchar out of the VP race, almost knock out Biden when Harris used it against him, and it is having a heavy influence on his cabinet choice.
Still, I see no severe damage yet. But that power was unthinkable even four years ago. So I agree with you for now, but I think Sasha Stone is wisely looking ahead. The movement has been growing for fifty years or (see my post above). And it's not about to stop.
Is it even remotely possible that Biden would ever give antifa the sort of support that Trump had given the Proud Boys? That's the difference.
I'm not comparing the two people. I am talking about the threat of what has just taken power and I already admitted it was less of a threat than Trump. They won't even admit Antifa exists. Not to mention Democrats and the media empire completely ignoring any of the violence we've seen for months now. They just pretend it isn't there or that it is justified and the only press anywhere about any group is the Proud Boys.
Haven't you heard? "Antifa is an idea, not an organization". But to answer your question with another - would Antifa ever give Biden the support the Proud Boys have given Trump? If Antifa had been out campaigning for Biden, I hope any sane human is able to acknowledge that he'd treat them at least as cozily as Trump treats the PBs.
But speaking of, to my knowledge Trump never even acknowledged the Proud Boys unless he was prodded to do so, like at the debate where they called the group, led by a half black, half Hispanic man "white supremacist". So while he didn't condemn them there, and rightly so IMO given the nature of that question, it's not like he's typically thrown them any bones.
The ideology is everywhere, the policies like Title IX redux (essentially a man's word being weighted less than a woman) et al will be coming not long after 1/20. Our vice president has pronouns in her Twitter bio and does a shoutout on "national transgender day of remembrance", whatever that is, about how it's especially sad that so many trans deaths are black or latinx. As opposed to white. And I'm sure there have been plenty of woke moments from her and others since that I missed being almost never on Twitter.
Here's AOC on the other side of the fence just the other day - "Probably an unpopular take but I think it's important the public knows what their public servants' financial & income streams are, regardless of gender or party."
Why would it be an unpopular take to treat examining financial records of male and female candidates equally, as did the Politico article on Yellen and others that caused all the ruckus? Because it isn't the woke thing to do. This is wokeness invading the cabinet picks at the highest levels of governance, and the policy fallout will be coming soon.
What's weird is how there is just plain cognitive dissonance with this on the left. People are privately concerned but won't come out publicly for fear of being called out.
Great discussion.
To me the crucial question is how the Successor Ideology ( I'm not sure that "Successor Ideology" is the most intuitive way of conveying the view in question) interrelates with Trumpism. I believe it is far and away the most important cause. The next Trump will likely be less crazy, less corrupt, not a Russian asset and possibly less racist. But he or she will still be a right authoritarian, and in the US that is likely to prevail over left authoritarianism, at least in the political arena.
Great point that wokism is the most important cause of Trumpism. And I agree that right authoritarianism is more likely to win out (if we don't stop wokism).
Liked the interview, but I thought the end was missing something. In speculating where "Successor Ideology" might lead us what wasn't discussed is what the extreme-right-wing reaction to it would be. I don't want to live under "Successor Ideology" but I'm also scared of what it might result in - possibly fascism American-style. I think a lot of Trump's (continuing) support is attributable to the success so far of "Successor Ideology." Both extremes are awful and they totally encourage each other.
Why not just call them Marxists or New Marxists? It's not fully accurate but it's close. Reasonable folk need a radioactive label of our own to use against them.
Hi TH Spring: I agree with you on needing good (accurate, not just pejorative) language. But in many respects these left-wing authoritarians reject Marxism, and the theories are quite distinct. But I'm not thrilled with "successor ideology"--it's too academic and not descriptive enough to convey what's at stake.
You are right. They definitely reject Marxism because that's what Neo-Marxism was about from the start. And they are Neo-Marxists, though many don't know it. See my post long post above. The history is interesting and useful.
I agree. And New Marxists is very close, and takes care of the problem noted by C. Skala. See my long comment above. They are Neo-Marxist and they admit it. And Neo-Marxism was developed by Marxists who saw after WWI than Marx had failed miserably with his economic materialism. So they often hate Marxists.
Another good thought invoking article. Thank you. I would say another representation of soft Left totalitarianism and it’s shaming silencing coercive prospects.