This piece is both brilliant and courageous. It is consonant with lots of my thinking and doing over the last number of years.
I became a person of color at the age of 12. When my parents moved us from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts in order to join a still puertorican fundamentalist religious community.
Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X at the age of 15 “woke” me up to the discourse of race and gave me powerful language to contend with my experience.
This blend of racialized left ideology and my fundamentalist religious experience shaped my life and my career.
Until quite recently, I have been immersed in work as a facilitator in social movement spaces.
But growth, thought and spiritual development placed me in conflict with the “woke” “movement fundamentalism” of the space.
At the spiritual level I experience it as a pseudo-religious ideology that actually justifies and encourages resentment. Poison for the human soul.
I am not blind to economic AND racial injustice. I know them in my bones. But I could not be more clear that the elite approach to contend with these is not something that could possibly work. There is a sense of superiority at its very core.
An additional thing to note is the way in which too many of the still too few working class people of color that make it to and through university are actually initiated into the ways of the elite. We are the folks doing the dance of encouraging and manipulating social justice ideology “on behalf” of our people while also keeping our recently earned social status.
I often remind people I work with that my neighbors, in the poor and working class Black Boston neighborhood where I live, would look at me like an alien if I started talking about intersectionality instead of befriending them, talking about jobs, personal, even spiritual concerns, and social service needs.
Tuesday, my soon to be wife, and I, teach a class called “What Should White People Do?” Which is specifically designed as an alternative to the dominant discourse on DEI and Racial Justice.
The class is followed by an ongoing “Racial Justice Community of Practice” for people working in the field of philanthropy, a central tool for the social justice elite you describe here.
We will be bringing this piece you wrote into our next session.
This was beautiful to read. Just intellectual and poetic enough whilst remaining digestible. You put to words what I am unable to. Thank you for writing and exploring this societal complexity with humility.
As usual well done. However, since this is about the bigger picture, I would like to point out a critique that sits inside this well constructed analysis. If this essay is about elite capture of the left then you've hit the mark. However, if it is more broader than i think it misses a more in-depth analysis of how the right elite, as well as the working class cohorts play into this game. That is not to say you did not address right elites and it doesn't necessarily say that there has to be an equal distribution that is conveyed. Notwithstanding, i wonder how much we learn about this game without a deep assessment of this multipolar problem.
I think part of it is the overwhelming weight that is put on the social justice movement as an engine that is driving or exasperating inequality through their obvious faults. The analysis of these social problems in our polity is often constructed as a "working class" backlash to the flawed identity intersectional politics. Though it is quite apparent that this partly contributes to the illiberal environment we confront, it's hardly a stand alone or predominant driver. This group of elites is an easy target to pick off. However, i wonder if said analysis give too much credit to the left without similar deep dives of analysis.
What is often left off the table is an analysis of how working class politics play into this meta crisis. We make up reasons why they flea to a Trump or some other populist without examining their contribution and history as beneficiary or contributors to the meta crisis. We often make the working class persona into the ultimate victim ( ie, haven't received raise in 40 years or to seeing their jobs go away), which subsequently justifies their outrage. The working class leadership have faulted in their complicity with the said elites. The reality is that historically the working class (contributors, leaders, policymakers) have muddied the waters by advancing separatist policies in unionism, housing and politics. Today, their pension funds are managed by the elite with investments that are counter productive, sometime leading to offshoring. There needs to be more of an analysis of their origins and its relationship to elite capture.
Very interesting analysis Alexander. Quite thought provoking to take a zoomed out lens on the elite power games. Have you put much thought into the notion that social justice ideology is a form of post-Christian protestantism without any of the good stuff (i.e. forgiveness, love, God etc)? Tom Holland makes an interesting case at the end of his great book, Dominion, for example.
Really great essay. New to your work -- was sent your way by some of my own readers who said we had a lot of overlap. Turns out they're quite right: I argue something very similar in my upcoming book.
I think the only (very) minor disagreement with this otherwise profound analysis is regarding the origins of social justice identity politics / intersectionality. While it's become quite common to argue that there is a degree of "elite capture" of a lower-class liberation theory occurring, the initial theorists of intersectionality and social justice politics were themselves elite members of minority groups. That puts them much more in line with the other elites and the capitalist class than with the people their theories are supposed to help.
Thanks Rhyd - congrats on your upcoming book, looks great and I’m going to pre-order soon. Would love to hear more about your take on the origins of intersectionality - on first glance makes a lot of sense - thinking of Occupy and the progressive stack (would love to see a full history of that - sounds like your book will be a good port of call). Will send you a proper message when I’m back in a couple of weeks :)
Thanks! And yes, I cover a little about Occupy (for instance, a General Assembly that was shut down by someone bumped to the front of the speakers list through the progressive stack) and particularly the role its failure had in moving the left more to identity politics and away from broader solidarity around anti-capitalism.
Let me know if you'd like my publisher to send you a reviewer copy rather than pre-ordering it. :)
Alex, This article is one of your best and stimulators thought on many levels. The socio- economic problems facing the USA and similar western nations, have been festering since the 1980’s. On top of this we have the psycho- spiritual effects of an ideological system that raises individual material success and competition to a religion. Democratic decent citizenship with collective ideals has evaporated. Combine this with a psycho-spiritual thirst for meaning and purpose and you have a perfect storm for societal disintegration. Here in Australia wealth and income inequality is growing and ordinary blue collar workers are disillusioned and angry. Populists like Trump seem to be voicing their fears, concerns and prejudices. In tough times people look for available scapegoats to blame, as they are more easily identified than the root causes of their problems.
I particularly connected to the bit where you pointed out that it is often the same supremacist mindset that drives both bigotry and the shaming of earnestly unintentional expressions of ingrained bigotry.
I sometimes think of it as an expression of toxic masculinity, if you’re willing to entertain the western occult definition of “masculinity” as an active, analytical, aggressive force, while “femininity” is more of any given human’s innate receptive force. Meanwhile, “toxic” can be defined as a too-high dosage of a potentially helpful medicine.
Maybe this wont come across without the full context of the podcast intro I went into depth on it in (essay transcribed here: https://creekmasons.com/nodes-in-the-net/nitn-6/) but in a way it’s Terrance McKenna’s “dominator” energy to dunk on someone about a social faux pas.
Active, analytical energy can be useful, but too much, as when you’re shaming and ostracizing someone, potentially ruining their life over an honest slip, can be toxic. And we all have some masculine, just as we all have some femininity, in the archetypal sense; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a man doing the calling out.
ALL THAT SAID. There are certain contexts where one person’s trauma and oppression makes them a main character whose bullies I shouldn’t defend. If that traumatized person feels called to air their hostility in a vent of righteous anger, that’s their prerogative, and the “elite-aspirant” that I am (privileged in SO many contexts), I know I shouldn’t police those sincere tones. Part of the problem of being on the internet is that I’m broadcasting to people who are actively experiencing trauma and oppression just as much as I am to whoever might benefit from this balanced perspective.
Wow what a long comment!
Final thoughts.
What I really liked about your article was its nebulous political affiliation. You criticized both sides of the culture war adeptly, without too much minimizing of either side’s flaws. But because context isn’t absolute, as you pointed out, some people will be on the wrong wavelength to vibe with your nuance. How do you feel about that?
I think it is key not to take the bait of needing to be liked or approved of. Fine to want it at least to the degree required to be able to communicate successfully, to have some common ground, but not to give the shop away.
Hello Ali- I am looking forward to taking the non- ordinary course. I am already signed up. I am planning on doing a 6 rounds of ketamine therapy protocol and am sensing that waiting until after the course might be the most useful. Any thoughts on this?
That's what I figured- thank you for confirming. I am really looking forward to your course and your book is on the way. I'll make sure that I need that too before I do it.
Thank you for your work Alex! Love your breadth of work, drawing from multiple fields, especially cliodynamics which deserves more attention than it receives!
I come at it from a quantitative direction, emulated Turchin's earlier Ages of Discord, which is on the same topic. My biggest difference with Turchin is he thinks elites "volunteered" to resolve the previous episode of immiseration and polarization. I propose that these eras can end in either political crisis (e.g. civil war) or in financial/economic crisis. The last cycle resolution came in response to the stock market crash (it fell 85%) and Depression. I have several posts on exactly how this problem was resolved last time without any political strife.
This time we got out crash in 2008, and the elites handled it very well for themselves. SInce then they have taken pains to prevent any sort of economic crash forcing them to resolve the problem They seem pretty blase about the threat of Civil War, that when I started thinking about this stuff in 2000 seemed fantastical. And yet, here we are. It is getting a bit scary.
I am really happy I discovered your writing and conversations today! In response to some of the comments here, I think that as long as people primarily devote themselves to status seeking, assessments, comparisons and resentments, we aren’t going to find our way out of what amounts to a closed and very dangerous trap. So much of 20th century sociology and secular psychology, as in Alfred Adler, did see social status as the most important goal, to be achieved either by building your own up or tearing others’ down. I don’t feel that engaging in this “game” is wholly good and constructive even at the lower status end of the scale, even though it is easy to justify and even laud it here. There are other values, truths and purposes which make for happiness and meaning.
I think this problem would largely sort itself out if we had a truly logical benevolent reset of the global financial system.. and I'm grateful it looks like it's coming.
"Agenda47: A New Quantum Leap to Revolutionize the American Standard of Living"
This is a somewhat interesting article, but I do take umbrage with a particular point you brought up: " this pushback has increasingly become narrow-minded, oppressive and nasty".
The counter-culture is NOT becoming "increasingly narrow-minded". Go look at right-wing podcast hosts or guests, which are a far more racially diverse group than in, say, 2016. In general, the political "right"; are becoming a FAR more diverse and free-thinking group, just by the fact that - as you pointed out in the article, BTW - more and more groups are being disenfranchised. The "right" of today is not the right of QAnon.
Further, by what possible means are groups - who by your own admission are disenfranchised and without power - being "oppressive"? Oppressive to whom? Who *can* a working-class person without wealth oppress?
This article is well-written and it almost hooked me, but it stumbled just at the finish line to fall back on talking points instead of original thoughts, ideas, and connections
This piece is both brilliant and courageous. It is consonant with lots of my thinking and doing over the last number of years.
I became a person of color at the age of 12. When my parents moved us from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts in order to join a still puertorican fundamentalist religious community.
Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X at the age of 15 “woke” me up to the discourse of race and gave me powerful language to contend with my experience.
This blend of racialized left ideology and my fundamentalist religious experience shaped my life and my career.
Until quite recently, I have been immersed in work as a facilitator in social movement spaces.
But growth, thought and spiritual development placed me in conflict with the “woke” “movement fundamentalism” of the space.
At the spiritual level I experience it as a pseudo-religious ideology that actually justifies and encourages resentment. Poison for the human soul.
I am not blind to economic AND racial injustice. I know them in my bones. But I could not be more clear that the elite approach to contend with these is not something that could possibly work. There is a sense of superiority at its very core.
An additional thing to note is the way in which too many of the still too few working class people of color that make it to and through university are actually initiated into the ways of the elite. We are the folks doing the dance of encouraging and manipulating social justice ideology “on behalf” of our people while also keeping our recently earned social status.
I often remind people I work with that my neighbors, in the poor and working class Black Boston neighborhood where I live, would look at me like an alien if I started talking about intersectionality instead of befriending them, talking about jobs, personal, even spiritual concerns, and social service needs.
Tuesday, my soon to be wife, and I, teach a class called “What Should White People Do?” Which is specifically designed as an alternative to the dominant discourse on DEI and Racial Justice.
The class is followed by an ongoing “Racial Justice Community of Practice” for people working in the field of philanthropy, a central tool for the social justice elite you describe here.
We will be bringing this piece you wrote into our next session.
Deeply grateful for what you are up to!
gibranrivera.com
Beautifully expressed as always Gibrán - looking forward to discussing on the next community call 🙂
This was beautiful to read. Just intellectual and poetic enough whilst remaining digestible. You put to words what I am unable to. Thank you for writing and exploring this societal complexity with humility.
Thank you :)
Alexander,
As usual well done. However, since this is about the bigger picture, I would like to point out a critique that sits inside this well constructed analysis. If this essay is about elite capture of the left then you've hit the mark. However, if it is more broader than i think it misses a more in-depth analysis of how the right elite, as well as the working class cohorts play into this game. That is not to say you did not address right elites and it doesn't necessarily say that there has to be an equal distribution that is conveyed. Notwithstanding, i wonder how much we learn about this game without a deep assessment of this multipolar problem.
I think part of it is the overwhelming weight that is put on the social justice movement as an engine that is driving or exasperating inequality through their obvious faults. The analysis of these social problems in our polity is often constructed as a "working class" backlash to the flawed identity intersectional politics. Though it is quite apparent that this partly contributes to the illiberal environment we confront, it's hardly a stand alone or predominant driver. This group of elites is an easy target to pick off. However, i wonder if said analysis give too much credit to the left without similar deep dives of analysis.
What is often left off the table is an analysis of how working class politics play into this meta crisis. We make up reasons why they flea to a Trump or some other populist without examining their contribution and history as beneficiary or contributors to the meta crisis. We often make the working class persona into the ultimate victim ( ie, haven't received raise in 40 years or to seeing their jobs go away), which subsequently justifies their outrage. The working class leadership have faulted in their complicity with the said elites. The reality is that historically the working class (contributors, leaders, policymakers) have muddied the waters by advancing separatist policies in unionism, housing and politics. Today, their pension funds are managed by the elite with investments that are counter productive, sometime leading to offshoring. There needs to be more of an analysis of their origins and its relationship to elite capture.
So many good points here - thank you for these thoughts. I’m taking a day off today but will answer properly after the weekend!
Look forward thank you Alex
Very interesting analysis Alexander. Quite thought provoking to take a zoomed out lens on the elite power games. Have you put much thought into the notion that social justice ideology is a form of post-Christian protestantism without any of the good stuff (i.e. forgiveness, love, God etc)? Tom Holland makes an interesting case at the end of his great book, Dominion, for example.
Alexander, if you have not already done so, in regards to your work with psychedelics, I suggest you look into the work that German philosopher Thomas Metzinger has been doing and writing on this topic. https://www.matthewgeleta.com/p/thomas-metzinger-neuroethics-psychedelics
Thanks Jim - I’m aware of Metzinger and not sure he’s really into sociology but happy to check out that interview
Really great essay. New to your work -- was sent your way by some of my own readers who said we had a lot of overlap. Turns out they're quite right: I argue something very similar in my upcoming book.
I think the only (very) minor disagreement with this otherwise profound analysis is regarding the origins of social justice identity politics / intersectionality. While it's become quite common to argue that there is a degree of "elite capture" of a lower-class liberation theory occurring, the initial theorists of intersectionality and social justice politics were themselves elite members of minority groups. That puts them much more in line with the other elites and the capitalist class than with the people their theories are supposed to help.
Thanks Rhyd - congrats on your upcoming book, looks great and I’m going to pre-order soon. Would love to hear more about your take on the origins of intersectionality - on first glance makes a lot of sense - thinking of Occupy and the progressive stack (would love to see a full history of that - sounds like your book will be a good port of call). Will send you a proper message when I’m back in a couple of weeks :)
Thanks! And yes, I cover a little about Occupy (for instance, a General Assembly that was shut down by someone bumped to the front of the speakers list through the progressive stack) and particularly the role its failure had in moving the left more to identity politics and away from broader solidarity around anti-capitalism.
Let me know if you'd like my publisher to send you a reviewer copy rather than pre-ordering it. :)
Alex, This article is one of your best and stimulators thought on many levels. The socio- economic problems facing the USA and similar western nations, have been festering since the 1980’s. On top of this we have the psycho- spiritual effects of an ideological system that raises individual material success and competition to a religion. Democratic decent citizenship with collective ideals has evaporated. Combine this with a psycho-spiritual thirst for meaning and purpose and you have a perfect storm for societal disintegration. Here in Australia wealth and income inequality is growing and ordinary blue collar workers are disillusioned and angry. Populists like Trump seem to be voicing their fears, concerns and prejudices. In tough times people look for available scapegoats to blame, as they are more easily identified than the root causes of their problems.
Nice work bringing all these sources together!
I particularly connected to the bit where you pointed out that it is often the same supremacist mindset that drives both bigotry and the shaming of earnestly unintentional expressions of ingrained bigotry.
I sometimes think of it as an expression of toxic masculinity, if you’re willing to entertain the western occult definition of “masculinity” as an active, analytical, aggressive force, while “femininity” is more of any given human’s innate receptive force. Meanwhile, “toxic” can be defined as a too-high dosage of a potentially helpful medicine.
Maybe this wont come across without the full context of the podcast intro I went into depth on it in (essay transcribed here: https://creekmasons.com/nodes-in-the-net/nitn-6/) but in a way it’s Terrance McKenna’s “dominator” energy to dunk on someone about a social faux pas.
Active, analytical energy can be useful, but too much, as when you’re shaming and ostracizing someone, potentially ruining their life over an honest slip, can be toxic. And we all have some masculine, just as we all have some femininity, in the archetypal sense; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a man doing the calling out.
ALL THAT SAID. There are certain contexts where one person’s trauma and oppression makes them a main character whose bullies I shouldn’t defend. If that traumatized person feels called to air their hostility in a vent of righteous anger, that’s their prerogative, and the “elite-aspirant” that I am (privileged in SO many contexts), I know I shouldn’t police those sincere tones. Part of the problem of being on the internet is that I’m broadcasting to people who are actively experiencing trauma and oppression just as much as I am to whoever might benefit from this balanced perspective.
Wow what a long comment!
Final thoughts.
What I really liked about your article was its nebulous political affiliation. You criticized both sides of the culture war adeptly, without too much minimizing of either side’s flaws. But because context isn’t absolute, as you pointed out, some people will be on the wrong wavelength to vibe with your nuance. How do you feel about that?
I think it is key not to take the bait of needing to be liked or approved of. Fine to want it at least to the degree required to be able to communicate successfully, to have some common ground, but not to give the shop away.
Hello Ali- I am looking forward to taking the non- ordinary course. I am already signed up. I am planning on doing a 6 rounds of ketamine therapy protocol and am sensing that waiting until after the course might be the most useful. Any thoughts on this?
Hi Heidi! If you’re able to wait then that could be good as you’ll have more skills to navigate the experiences after the course :)
That's what I figured- thank you for confirming. I am really looking forward to your course and your book is on the way. I'll make sure that I need that too before I do it.
Haven’t read all the way through yet but I believe you have the Somewheres and Anywheres turned around.
Oh actually I noticed it in the email version but it appears to be correct here.
I found this article uplifting and moving. Thank You
Thank you for your work Alex! Love your breadth of work, drawing from multiple fields, especially cliodynamics which deserves more attention than it receives!
You might find my review of End Times useful.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/a-critical-review-of-end-times-by
I come at it from a quantitative direction, emulated Turchin's earlier Ages of Discord, which is on the same topic. My biggest difference with Turchin is he thinks elites "volunteered" to resolve the previous episode of immiseration and polarization. I propose that these eras can end in either political crisis (e.g. civil war) or in financial/economic crisis. The last cycle resolution came in response to the stock market crash (it fell 85%) and Depression. I have several posts on exactly how this problem was resolved last time without any political strife.
This time we got out crash in 2008, and the elites handled it very well for themselves. SInce then they have taken pains to prevent any sort of economic crash forcing them to resolve the problem They seem pretty blase about the threat of Civil War, that when I started thinking about this stuff in 2000 seemed fantastical. And yet, here we are. It is getting a bit scary.
I am really happy I discovered your writing and conversations today! In response to some of the comments here, I think that as long as people primarily devote themselves to status seeking, assessments, comparisons and resentments, we aren’t going to find our way out of what amounts to a closed and very dangerous trap. So much of 20th century sociology and secular psychology, as in Alfred Adler, did see social status as the most important goal, to be achieved either by building your own up or tearing others’ down. I don’t feel that engaging in this “game” is wholly good and constructive even at the lower status end of the scale, even though it is easy to justify and even laud it here. There are other values, truths and purposes which make for happiness and meaning.
I think this problem would largely sort itself out if we had a truly logical benevolent reset of the global financial system.. and I'm grateful it looks like it's coming.
"Agenda47: A New Quantum Leap to Revolutionize the American Standard of Living"
https://rumble.com/v2bksa4-agenda47-a-new-quantum-leap-to-revolutionize-the-american-standard-of-livin.html
"In preparation for the Global Currency Reset and arrival of the Quantum Financial System currently running parallel.."
https://occ.gov/search.html?q=quantum%20financial%20system#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=quantum%20financial%20system&gsc.page=1
This is a somewhat interesting article, but I do take umbrage with a particular point you brought up: " this pushback has increasingly become narrow-minded, oppressive and nasty".
The counter-culture is NOT becoming "increasingly narrow-minded". Go look at right-wing podcast hosts or guests, which are a far more racially diverse group than in, say, 2016. In general, the political "right"; are becoming a FAR more diverse and free-thinking group, just by the fact that - as you pointed out in the article, BTW - more and more groups are being disenfranchised. The "right" of today is not the right of QAnon.
Further, by what possible means are groups - who by your own admission are disenfranchised and without power - being "oppressive"? Oppressive to whom? Who *can* a working-class person without wealth oppress?
This article is well-written and it almost hooked me, but it stumbled just at the finish line to fall back on talking points instead of original thoughts, ideas, and connections