Earlier this year I began to study History seriously so I can answer, for myself, exactly what the fuck these progressives and/or woke people are, where they came from, what they're doing, what their actual philosophy behind the lies are, etc. After seeing some discussion on this topic, I realized it would do me good to go back over everything I've now learned and link and summarize it here just to make sure it's solidified in my mind as well as so anyone here can debunk these ideas, or add to them, whatever.
(Odysee link because fuck Youtube y'all) https://odysee.com/@newdiscourses:9/antonio-gramsci,-cultural-marxism,:8
We start with Antonio Gramsci, the man whose Mussolini's party decided that they must imprison him to stop his brain from working as they literally lived in fear of this mans ideas, and for damn good reason. James starts out by stating that Gramsci is the lynchpin that ties together the classical material/economic Marxism, and builds the bridge to start moving towards Neo-Marxism. I'm rather sure that Marcuse defines and builds out these ideas explicitly, but the contributions from Gramsci shouldn't be skipped over.
I think why Gramsci is so important can be summed up with the quote that James picked for the beginning of the podcast, "Socialism is the precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity". It is from this one sentence, really, that you can derive almost every modern woke thought or action from. There is a reason we've ended up calling Woke a religion, and it's because we're correct. It's a Hegelian religion, but leaving that for now.
Specifically why he is a Neo-Marxist is because his divorce from later Marxist thinking. He redefines the revolutionary steps that Marx defined and instead state that the Maoist model is correct, you need is a Cultural Revolution first, then follow it with your Political Revolution. People on the right nowadays like quoting Breitbart on this (Culture -> Politics), but Gramsci takes it even further and says that Education is what proceeds Culture (Education -> Culture -> Politics). Which is exactly what the right wing is figuring out today, as they rail against their Marxist public schools. I just worry it's far too little too late, especially when you consider the fact that public schools have always been about propaganda and subjugation. America didn't even have public schools until it became politically expedient to the Prussian trained statists to "Christianize the Catholics" and they needed a tool to do so with. But, back to Gramsci.
He's a Leninist, which is an idea that the Proletariat will not wake up for themselves, so a rich bourgeois will steep themselves deeply in Marxism and shepherd the proletariat through the revolution. If you are ever confused why communists have idiotic shock troops, it's because that's basically Lenin summed up. It is by design that any attempt to have a conversation with any of these people will go nowhere, as they know nothing, on purpose. Their leaders no longer teach them, but lead them.
Gramsci blamed culture for the lack of communism's success. Every peoples that have attempted the societal shift to Communism didn't realize that the people they were trying to convince still had the ties to their past and ancestors and lifestyle in general and that people value those things. He said that there is a "Cultural Hegemony" that presides over basically all people that reinforces the capitalists lies. Gramsci is the one who realized that culture, simply, has to be dissolved for the revolution to take root. Once the culture has been eliminated, then the Party can successfully step in and lead the proletariat into and through the revolution as they will no longer be restrained by this Cultural Hegemony.
He is the source of the idea of "Seizing the means of cultural production", which should be a statement that sends chills down your spine as you look upon our world and can rapidly and easily determine that since this mans death, they have done EXACTLY that. Explicitly calling for the infiltration of churches which I can readily verify that for myself as well. All I have to do is drive by my local baptist church and see their advertisement for "Racism Awareness Training" plastered on their sign instead of a biblical quote or etc.
This is effective because, despite the line that I parroted over and over after reading the US Treaty with Tripoli as a teenager, America is absolutely a Christian nation, especially since the 1800's. Our cultural bedrock was the churches, what church you went to generally dictated your poltical party, and not the other way around. So these Neo-Marxists identified and destroyed them as proscribed by Gramsci in order to destroy their Cultural Hegemony and leave us vulnerable.
He re-invented the idea of Class Consciousness, he understood that you needed to indoctrinate and reprogram the working class to create "working class intellectuals" so that they can "express the proletarian view from within in an organic fashion". This is the root of the long march through our institutions, and he's saying it (fairly) plain as day. He wants working class intellectuals who have had their cultural hegemony destroyed and then who have been duped by communism into having a class consciousness (Nowadays they use the term Critical Consciousness) so that they can "express the proletarian view from within". That view, specifically being, that all of our society should burn to the ground due to it's inherent unfairness (And other general marxist shit).
I don't want to just rephrase everything James has said on each episode, so if what I've written intrigues you, I would urge you to listen to the linked episode. If anyone has any critiques or corrections, I'd love to hear them. My comments here summarize everything he talks about until he gets to Derrick Bell(Critical Theory) and the Combahee River Collective(Black Socialist Feminist Liberation) and the Frankfurt School(You should know the phrase Frankfurt School by now). He ties Gramsci to these ideas in a far more elegant way than I can in order to get you ready for the next videos on this topic (Marcuse). I believe he goes into far more detail in future videos on those topics as well and I'll do my best to summarize that then.
Also, as a little side note to try and bring these old and dusty ideas into modernity, Pete Buttigieg's father Joseph is the one who translated Gramscis works. If you ever wondered where the fuck that asswipe came from and why anyone cares who he is, it's because his Father translated and brought these ideas to America and began the complete destruction of our cultural means of production in order to start the Neo-Marxist revolution we are living through today. (Churches, Schools, Family, Law). If you look into what Joseph originally authored, it's just as revolting as Gramsci.
Individuals mentioned in this podcast but not super deep-delved into: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Max_Horkheimer https://wikiless.org/wiki/Derrick_Bell https://wikiless.org/Joseph_Buttigieg
I have continued to listen to James because what he has told me hasn't tripped any alarms put into place by Rothbard and Moldbug. I haven't read everything they've written, but I have consumed a fair amount of both now.
I know I still have much of liberalism running through my brain and have just begun to understand the historical picture. I'll look into what you've recommended, as it's exactly why I posted this. To further develop my thinking and allow critique rather than simply trust that he is correct. I did the exact same thing here after I read Moldbug for the first time trying to gauge peoples interpretations and reactions.
I have read An Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives, and I understand that he is speaking to me, despite the fact that I'm on "the right".
I'm aware that Cultural Hegemony is a False Consciousness, I deleted the paragraph I wrote about it to keep it short(er).
I have become very aware of just how much I was taught in public schools is lies, and so I'm trying to fix that, book by book. I'll add your authors to the list.
I have to question a little bit of talking about Moldbug's "GF". He was married for like two decades and she just died and he's been writing...poetry about it. So who, exactly, is this "girlfriend"? Looking into this briefly, he did do exactly that, and even voted for Obama previously and wrote an article about it.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2012/11/romney-he-sucks/
I'll have to read this and see what I think about it, but it doesn't seem to be how you said his reasoning was. Even then, I could see an accelerationist right winger voting Biden just to get the collapse over with, so, simply saying "He voted Biden", well, I'm gonna look deeper into that. Thank you for making me aware of it though.
I certainly agree that most of Politics are false choices designed to funnel you into voting for the Uniparty. Bernie trying to get me to vote for Hillary is what has led me down this road to begin with. It's certainly fair to criticize Rothbard's politics, I'm aware of the lack of impact his politics have had, and I much more prefer his historical and economic works (that I've read thus far). On that topic, do you know any Authors who look at the same areas of interest as Rothbard's "The Progressive Era", but take different outlooks or conclusions?
The way you speak is interesting, do you reject Menger's marginal revolution?
I'll take your word for it on the GF, that makes sense.
I agree about larping. I think the violence serves the kayfabe overall.
I find it hard to take voting as the main argument for not taking Moldbug seriously though. One of the things I am becoming more convinced of is that voting is simply not the way out of anything. Even if there was a viable alternative it wouldn't be allowed, is hard to argue against. I think Trump was allowed because he was old enough and not wise enough that he wasn't a true threat to much of anything, like anyone who you could genuinely call "conservative". I definitely agree with your arguments on voting and parties and even just after dipping my toes into Hoppe my feelings that tyranny of the majority is no sane way to run anything were very validated.
I agree with what he said in that video. I've made the exact same case to IRL friends that Trump cannot be "the next one" if I actually hate the media that much. Not that I care much about the next one that much.
I cannot follow you economically whatsoever. I see the marginal revolution like Christians can see God in everything and everywhere.
I read The Case against Racism, I don't think I found a sentence in there that was untrue or that I'd even take issue with. I liked the focus on the etymology of the word as an opener.