I've spent most of my youth as a militant Marxist and only recently (~1 year) abandoned it. I think your essay makes clear points about the spiritual state of most marxists (which I agree, in line with Kaczinsky, stems from inadaptation to class society) but I think it's not such a clear question overall as you and the authors may seem to paint it in some key aspects.
The disdain for tradition and the past is obvious in the modern left. And most glaringly, this disdain seems to have an evident target in the "biopolitics" that have sprouted for centuries on the base of what Marx would call "natural societies", and their struggle with nature. It's not a coincidence that the left has been obsessed since the 60's with the differences between man and woman, hierarchy and violence between men (which I'd say it's the most evident case of this "disdain for natural societies" and natural struggling).
I think the Mouse Utopia experiment says a lot more about the average modern citizen psychology (and the way that feeds into typically modern attitudes strongly championed by the left) than just attributing leftism to an anti-modernist modernism. The left wants from both the modern and the traditional anything that helps to soothe the difficulty, the need for strength, competition, manhood and resilience. Its staunch obsession with feminism, healthcare, anti-clericalism and anti-manliness is pure anti-"naturality". They only want from the past what dedifferentiates and emasculates, but there's a lot of that too in modern capitalism: it's in this sense that material like Mouse Utopia shines through to understand leftists. The towering skyscraper and the hospital were products of an authoritarian affirmation of man over Mother Nature, but today they are the framework in which mentally ill, weak and feminized men survive only because an entire world of infrastructure and medical technology allows them to. There's the key contradiction of the arch of society and nature.
Overall a good essay but wanted to give my feedback with this. Cheers and I'm glad to follow new voices like yours.
I think Russel is doing a good job at finding tensions and paradoxes across the current spectrum of left-right politics. Many of your points are also valid. I think the mistake is to assume there is one argument or cause to rule them all.
I agree, I've been following him in youtube for a year or so and he's made very good and refreshing work in some of his pieces and essays. And I also agree with your opinion on the one argument to rule them all. Humanity has stepped into a too complex of a net of intertwined contradictions, ruling out any possibility of such an argument
Thanks for the recommendation, just read it. It's not a bad descriptive piece on how the Longhouse has unfolded on society and it's a good read on an entry level to assess the problem. But we also need deeper inquires into it. It correctly points out to a very essential problem here: how the right has just "retreated into the classics", which is something as admittedly refreshing as probably condemned to be merely an alternative intellectual/cultural offer for the modern citizen when he goes to the theatre on Sundays.
What is this drivel? Listen, if anyone wants to read or dig into any valuable writings pertaining to civilizational development, go read J.D. Unwin or something, not this nonsense.
All matriarchies stagnate then collapse, all patriarchies progress then implode. Every single group that's attained high culture was neither of these but a blend of both.
"After a nation becomes prosperous, it becomes increasingly liberal concerning sexual morality. It thus loses its cohesion, impetus and purpose, which is irrevocable." - JD Unwin
Not advocating it because its barbaric but there is a reason kikes circumcise their males.
I'm confused about the timeline. Lewis Henry Morgan was writing about the Iroquois in the late 1870's, but influenced Karl Marx who was most active roughly 30 years earlier? (Not a Marxist historian by any means, I know much of Das Kapital was published posthumously, but it's TLDR.) And weren't the Iroquois belligerents in the French Indian wars of the 1750's? I would assume that whatever the Iroquois were like 120 years later was less "authentic" by the time Morgan visited them.
I smell a rat. Sounds like a Margaret Mead type of fiction masquerading as anthropology.
Marx engaged with the work of Morgan in his later years. Friedrich Engels discovered an annotated copy of Ancient Society in Marx's personal library. Engels used these notes, combined with his own study of Morgan's work, when writing ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.’
Engels claimed that Morgan lived with the Iroquois his whole life. This wasn’t true. He did some fieldwork, but mostly relied on info from others.
I actually just bought Derek Freedman’s book, Margaret Mead in Samoa. Looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for the reply. I've grown old and cynical, and anthropology is one of those things where I assume something is ghey until proven fake. I imagine the Iroquois as brutal and effective warriors, (rightly or wrongly) so it's a little hard for me to believe they were actually super-pussy-whipped indigenous communists. But maybe they were? 🤷
The ideas are very clear. I think I could follow them well. The writing is good, better than most I've seen. (Working on improving my own writing led me to style guides, so now I'm judging everything I read.)
Extremely well written and perceptive article deploying some of Cuddihy's most penetrative passages (ick) to great effect
Marxism is often accused of being founded on the same 'metaphysic of progress' as LibErAlisM--RW writers can be so very tiresome in their cookie-cutter repetition of half-examined thought--but here you get at the real truth of the matter. The Marxist view of history is cyclical...but with an endpoint. It's a longing for a final and notionally irrevocable RETVRN TO TRADITION. No thanks...
I will next listen with great interest to your series on history of Australia.
This is a sympathetic take on how the left came to the pathological hatred of modernity that is destroying the West. Mental illness explains but does not excuse their demoralized societal self-destruction.
Understanding their pathology may help us help them find their way back to sanity, which can help.
I've spent most of my youth as a militant Marxist and only recently (~1 year) abandoned it. I think your essay makes clear points about the spiritual state of most marxists (which I agree, in line with Kaczinsky, stems from inadaptation to class society) but I think it's not such a clear question overall as you and the authors may seem to paint it in some key aspects.
The disdain for tradition and the past is obvious in the modern left. And most glaringly, this disdain seems to have an evident target in the "biopolitics" that have sprouted for centuries on the base of what Marx would call "natural societies", and their struggle with nature. It's not a coincidence that the left has been obsessed since the 60's with the differences between man and woman, hierarchy and violence between men (which I'd say it's the most evident case of this "disdain for natural societies" and natural struggling).
I think the Mouse Utopia experiment says a lot more about the average modern citizen psychology (and the way that feeds into typically modern attitudes strongly championed by the left) than just attributing leftism to an anti-modernist modernism. The left wants from both the modern and the traditional anything that helps to soothe the difficulty, the need for strength, competition, manhood and resilience. Its staunch obsession with feminism, healthcare, anti-clericalism and anti-manliness is pure anti-"naturality". They only want from the past what dedifferentiates and emasculates, but there's a lot of that too in modern capitalism: it's in this sense that material like Mouse Utopia shines through to understand leftists. The towering skyscraper and the hospital were products of an authoritarian affirmation of man over Mother Nature, but today they are the framework in which mentally ill, weak and feminized men survive only because an entire world of infrastructure and medical technology allows them to. There's the key contradiction of the arch of society and nature.
Overall a good essay but wanted to give my feedback with this. Cheers and I'm glad to follow new voices like yours.
I think the longhouse is anti-nature, in that it represents the early stages of man's domestication
I think Russel is doing a good job at finding tensions and paradoxes across the current spectrum of left-right politics. Many of your points are also valid. I think the mistake is to assume there is one argument or cause to rule them all.
I agree, I've been following him in youtube for a year or so and he's made very good and refreshing work in some of his pieces and essays. And I also agree with your opinion on the one argument to rule them all. Humanity has stepped into a too complex of a net of intertwined contradictions, ruling out any possibility of such an argument
Read Lomez piece in First things….very good
Thanks for the recommendation, just read it. It's not a bad descriptive piece on how the Longhouse has unfolded on society and it's a good read on an entry level to assess the problem. But we also need deeper inquires into it. It correctly points out to a very essential problem here: how the right has just "retreated into the classics", which is something as admittedly refreshing as probably condemned to be merely an alternative intellectual/cultural offer for the modern citizen when he goes to the theatre on Sundays.
just followed 🧲💯
BAP is going to go down in history as the most influential philosopher since Plato.
It’s The Jews. You don’t have the Longhouse without the Longnose. BAP is Jewish.
What is this drivel? Listen, if anyone wants to read or dig into any valuable writings pertaining to civilizational development, go read J.D. Unwin or something, not this nonsense.
All matriarchies stagnate then collapse, all patriarchies progress then implode. Every single group that's attained high culture was neither of these but a blend of both.
"After a nation becomes prosperous, it becomes increasingly liberal concerning sexual morality. It thus loses its cohesion, impetus and purpose, which is irrevocable." - JD Unwin
Not advocating it because its barbaric but there is a reason kikes circumcise their males.
I'm confused about the timeline. Lewis Henry Morgan was writing about the Iroquois in the late 1870's, but influenced Karl Marx who was most active roughly 30 years earlier? (Not a Marxist historian by any means, I know much of Das Kapital was published posthumously, but it's TLDR.) And weren't the Iroquois belligerents in the French Indian wars of the 1750's? I would assume that whatever the Iroquois were like 120 years later was less "authentic" by the time Morgan visited them.
I smell a rat. Sounds like a Margaret Mead type of fiction masquerading as anthropology.
Marx engaged with the work of Morgan in his later years. Friedrich Engels discovered an annotated copy of Ancient Society in Marx's personal library. Engels used these notes, combined with his own study of Morgan's work, when writing ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.’
Engels claimed that Morgan lived with the Iroquois his whole life. This wasn’t true. He did some fieldwork, but mostly relied on info from others.
I actually just bought Derek Freedman’s book, Margaret Mead in Samoa. Looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for the reply. I've grown old and cynical, and anthropology is one of those things where I assume something is ghey until proven fake. I imagine the Iroquois as brutal and effective warriors, (rightly or wrongly) so it's a little hard for me to believe they were actually super-pussy-whipped indigenous communists. But maybe they were? 🤷
This makes so much sense actually, never heard this perspective before. Great post!
The ideas are very clear. I think I could follow them well. The writing is good, better than most I've seen. (Working on improving my own writing led me to style guides, so now I'm judging everything I read.)
Excellent article
Extremely well written and perceptive article deploying some of Cuddihy's most penetrative passages (ick) to great effect
Marxism is often accused of being founded on the same 'metaphysic of progress' as LibErAlisM--RW writers can be so very tiresome in their cookie-cutter repetition of half-examined thought--but here you get at the real truth of the matter. The Marxist view of history is cyclical...but with an endpoint. It's a longing for a final and notionally irrevocable RETVRN TO TRADITION. No thanks...
I will next listen with great interest to your series on history of Australia.
EDIT PS: Mine is 88th like!
Good piece
Interesting hypothesis, well argued.
This is a sympathetic take on how the left came to the pathological hatred of modernity that is destroying the West. Mental illness explains but does not excuse their demoralized societal self-destruction.
Understanding their pathology may help us help them find their way back to sanity, which can help.
Very good piece of writing many leftists/marxists don’t even know their own philosophy