Interesting ideas. I think you're right regarding the necessity of religion as a unifying force. But I'm not sure that critical theory fully counts as a religion, and for that reason I don't think it has much longevity. It seems to make people incredibly miserable, unlike most traditional religions which tend to make them happier and fulfil their sense of meaning. I don't see it having much of a future.
On the relationship between biblical criticism and critical theory, I think you're right that there's an association but it needs fleshing out more. One clear intermediate is liberal Protestantism, which was heavily influenced by biblical criticism. It largely retained the morality of Christianity but eschewed most of its dogmatic beliefs.
>The type of belief I am speaking of is regarding faith. Moderates “believe” in centrist policies. But are they willing to die for these things? By the nature of the label, “moderate,” the answer is no. Tautologically, moderates can never inspire true belief, or faith, and idealism, which are required for humans to sacrifice their life for a cause.
I’m glad you wrote this. Indifferent affect is a component of moderate personality types. A friend and I had this exact conversation the other day. In college I was in a fraternity with multiple people who were very politically extreme, who went on to work in politics for the Democratic Party. They’ve assisted campaigns and done voter drives. I however, am less probabilistically confident in my political opinions such that I would not be comfortable working as a cog for a major party. Ultimately it’s the people who roll up their sleeves that get the job done - so I’m not going to sit here complaining that there are extremists in the party. I do hope that they remember me though and don’t throw me into the camps if the time comes.
But I’m not so sure that it will. Crit theorists are right about one thing: that there is an enormous amount of inertia in the system that propels it forward. If you say that the Global North has subjugated the South and exploits them, that’s like saying the galaxy has been taken over by the Empire. But the Empire was only destroyed in the movies, and even then it took actual magic.
Critical theory promotes the worship of black ideals and black culture over all others. Christianity has flaws and is declining, but still can not compare to the base level of degradation in critical theory. If you only care about whichever idea happens to be winning, then critical theory is the best only until it finishes chewing through every last load bearing wall. Attempts to generate some new ethos are otherwise more fruitful endeavors.
That is simply not true. I think you know what a critical theorist looks like, and you understand how it is distinct from black culture, but you are being willfully ignorant to satisfied your own fetish for doom. Liberals don't reproduce black culture, they infantilize and patronize it.
Genuinely curious, what policies and real world concrete outcomes does crit theory result in beyond the enrichment—in terms of relative status and wealth—of blacks and other undeserving subalterns?
One could argue that CRT/wokeness doesnt elevate authentic black masculinit a la tariq nasheed, and that it would privilege gays black women etc.
It is distinct from black culture for sure. But it does enrich elite blacks.
They also grant it status. George floyd as a national spiritual martyr, even if a patronizing one, and the resulting side effects has had a great deal of damage already occur, as opposed to your hypotheticals.
Why are you people so obsessed with blacks? Is this what it means to be traditional and superior? Too obsess over what Tyron is doing in Chicago and then complain incessantly about black crime statistics while completely ignoring elite migration from Asian countries.
You criticise the critics of critical theory for only tearing down without replacement, and for trying to have a society without religion, but thats also what critical theory does. The world of blood, soil, and religion is exactly what they are critical of, and if those are essential, you have a permanent criticism against society as such. Why is this not harmful in just the way you say Dawkins-types are, but with a megaphone attached?
This is a funny little semantic paradox you've created, but if you step back, it's just a cute "lawgic trap." CRT is a religion with dogmas, doctrines, goals, and teleology, which inspires fanaticism, activism, and moralism. Moderate agnostic libertarian utilitarianism is none of that. I am not against "criticism against society," and I state very clearly in the article that CRT is critical, much like Christianity before it. I am not against criticism. I am against agnosticism and the idea that we don't need a Civic Religion. The only substantial critique of CRT, from my perspective, comes from a religious perspective: Christianity, Islam, Naziism, etc.
>CRT is a religion with dogmas, doctrines, goals, and teleology, which inspires fanaticism, activism, and moralism.
It is, and it is also against those things. The pope can be rich, even as Christianity preaches poverty, and the content of that preaching does matter, even if its not instantly followed 100%.
Im not arguing that utilitarianism is just as good as CRT, Im arguing CRT isnt as good as other religions, because its opposed to what you want religions to do, even if it is one.
>I am not against "criticism against society,"
Criticism against society *as such*. The point is that the things its criticising are exactly those you think are a necessary part of society that a religion is demanded for. I guess you could say that that is criticism from a religious perspective, since the belief that those are necessary contradicts the doctrines of critical theory: What then is your religion?
You claim that moderates aren't willing to die for their beliefs because "By the nature of the label, 'moderate,' the answer is no". This is a three-card Monte Trick which takes advantage of the fact that the meaning of moderate hinges on the context. In your claim you use "moderate" to refer to the intensity of a belief, but when talking about political moderates we're referring to how they lie in the middle of the Left-Right spectrum. This does *not* describe how intensely moderates hold their beliefs, though given that we live in a political system which moderates are comfortable in this intensity typically doesn't manifest, or even need to manifest.
To give a concrete example: my politics are very moderate by American standards and I absolutely, 100% would be willing to give my life to prevent America from becoming a legitimately communist or fascist state.
My argument would be that there has never been a state without a religion, and all religions have fanatics or else they die. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a "pure democracy," or "democracy without religion." I go through extensive lengths to demonstrate how Switzerland and the HRE (relatively libertarian states for their time) provided the fertile ground for extremism of all types. You personally claim that you are willing to die for "democracy" in a very abstract and disembodied sense, but this is not true at all historically, and is merely an assertion. People die for blood, soil, and religion. Democracy might be an efficiency or laudable form of governance, but it doesn't inspire the fanaticism necessary to hold a system together at the margins. Democracy needs to be augmented with religion. A state requires fanatics at the margins, in the same way that a state requires violence at the margins.
Whiteness and Christianity didn’t seem to keep things too unified in 1861, so no. Motivations varied on the Union side but an overarching theme was the idea of preserving the American experiment.
I found the entire post interesting, intellectually stimulating, and enjoyable. That said, I would like to push back on some of the claims in the short section labeled Dogmatism.
While I agree with the claim in the final paragraph of this section that a functioning civilization requires a shared set of values and beliefs about the world, I don't see why these values and beliefs have to be dogmatic and religious. Religions did not create values; they simply institutionalized universal, shared moral sentiments that evolved through natural selection in the hominid line. I don't avoid raping and murdering because my religion instructed me not to engage in these behaviors. Rather, I find such behaviors repulsive at a visceral level. I don't cooperate and collaborate with others because my religion told me to be prosocial. Rather, I enjoy fruitful cooperation.
As for religious beliefs, are you kidding? This last thousand years of human history has debunked one religious belief after another. I understand that many early scientists were motivated by the idea that they were discovering the way the mind of God works as they searched for natural laws. But in the end, none of the wonderful technologies we enjoy today were derived from scriptures. Rather, it has been the empirical testing of ideas derived from the theoretical imagination of scientists that has given us the ability to harness nuclear energy, fly into space, communicate at a distance, and create blog posts on our laptops.
You claim to be an historicist, so look at the history of science and technology and its amazing track record. Yes, there has yet to be a complete, functioning civilization (whatever that is) that is 100% free of religious dogmatists. Even individual scientists can be extremely dogmatic and indifferent to empirical failures of their ideas. But science, as a subculture, is committed to striving for increasingly accurate models of reality through debates, reviews, and criticism. The result has been the historic progress in our understanding of nature and the concomitant production of increasingly sophisticated technologies. Along with scientific progress has been a movement toward secularization. Maybe more and more people are realizing that it was scientists, not ancient prophets, who made laptops possible.
I do understand that human beings are naturally drawn toward, and even crave, the kinds of deeper meanings and transcendent experiences promised by religion. But haven't you heard or read about the deep awe of the universe experienced by people like Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins? We scientists are not all empathy-deficient, unfeeling robots. Our jaws drop in wonder at the mysteries of the universe. We see great beauty in mathematics and empirical observations. We enjoy transcendent experiences and the feeling of being one with the universe. We also have faith: faith in the ability of the human mind to construct much cooler and more useful models of reality than those offered by ancient religious figures or modern political fanatics who have not done any serious introspection about what they are trying to accomplish and why. And it is not a blind faith, but faith supported by the historical record.
Will the successes of science ever make religion unnecessary? You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
It’s reasonable to define critical theory as a religion, and I think it should be. Officially! All the church and state legislation would swing into effect and we would see how it does in such an environment.
I link CRT with Marxism in this article by saying they are both descendants of Biblical Criticism. Of course they have a relationship with one another, but CRT is more related to Biblical Criticism than it is to Marxism for structural reasons.
I'll try to use an analogy to explain my point: is Protestantism a descendant of Catholicism? In a way, yes. But in another way, Protestantism seeks to return to the early church, and wipe out 1,000 years of Catholic tradition. In the same way, early CRT claims descent from Marxism, but in retrospect, it is clear that CRT is returning to the formula of Biblical Criticism, and ignoring the whole "working class proletariat" tradition of Marxism. This wasn't clear in the 1970s, but is very clear in the 2020s, with the emphasis on sexuality and race that didn't exist in Das Kapital, Leninism, Stalinism, or Maoism. The ironic thing here is that there were always Marxists who were focused on these issues, but they were a minority. Similarly, within the Catholic church, there were disagreements which ultimately exploded centuries later (See the investiture contest). So the tensions within Marxism regarding class and race were sublimated until the 1960s, probably related to the Sino-Soviet split.
Weren’t many seeing it as a more efficacious framework to get to same objective? I haven’t read a ton on various thinkers but it certainly seems like Marcuse viewed it that way, different vanguard etc.
I'll flesh out the analogy more: Martin Luther wanted to save the Catholic Church. He claimed to be a Catholic Reformer. He wanted to save Catholicism. Things got out of hand pretty quickly, however, and something completely different happened. So yes, Marcuse was Marxist, he was doing Marxism, but 40 years later something quite different happened. If you walk into a CRT setting right now and say "I'm an Orthodox Marxist" Jackson Hinkle style, you are the enemy. I'm not saying Hinkle actually is a Marxist, but I've literally tried this myself. I've walked into a CRT scene and said "Karl Marx had some good points" and I got passive-aggressively sniped as a white supremacist colonialist sexist.
Analogy is definitely helpful. Is the enemy thing a reflection of reality though vs. narcissism of small differences?
And I noticed you specify CRT, do you view that as separate from critical studies more broadly? I would assume some of the CRT criticism of any other lefty field would be along the lines of “not centering BIPOC voices enough.”
Thanks for responses btw. I think I disagree but the probing is informative regardless.
‘High I.Q. Isn’t everything. I’ll take a loyal, decent person with a 90 or 100 I.Q. over a ‘bright autist’ with a 120 I.Q. or a psychopath with ‘alpha leadership qualities’ with a 150 I.Q. The people inflicting the worst damage on our society are ‘the best and the brightest’ who feel themselves entitled and superior to ‘plebs’ like all of us out here.
Critical Theory originally came out of Marxism, which is competitive with Hitler's National Socialism when it comes to bloodthirstiness.
I was referring to the modern mutant form of Critical Theory, aka Critical Race Theory. Hitler whined about Jewish Physics. Modern Theorists whine about White Cis Gendered Male Physics.
Times were better when Progressives stuck to yoga and organic foods. They could be more open minded than conservatives back then. These days, the Fundamentalists at the Babylon Bee are more open minded than today's Progressives. Critical Theory as a religious hasn't sunk to the level of Moloch worship, but they're working on it.
Interesting ideas. I think you're right regarding the necessity of religion as a unifying force. But I'm not sure that critical theory fully counts as a religion, and for that reason I don't think it has much longevity. It seems to make people incredibly miserable, unlike most traditional religions which tend to make them happier and fulfil their sense of meaning. I don't see it having much of a future.
On the relationship between biblical criticism and critical theory, I think you're right that there's an association but it needs fleshing out more. One clear intermediate is liberal Protestantism, which was heavily influenced by biblical criticism. It largely retained the morality of Christianity but eschewed most of its dogmatic beliefs.
>The type of belief I am speaking of is regarding faith. Moderates “believe” in centrist policies. But are they willing to die for these things? By the nature of the label, “moderate,” the answer is no. Tautologically, moderates can never inspire true belief, or faith, and idealism, which are required for humans to sacrifice their life for a cause.
I’m glad you wrote this. Indifferent affect is a component of moderate personality types. A friend and I had this exact conversation the other day. In college I was in a fraternity with multiple people who were very politically extreme, who went on to work in politics for the Democratic Party. They’ve assisted campaigns and done voter drives. I however, am less probabilistically confident in my political opinions such that I would not be comfortable working as a cog for a major party. Ultimately it’s the people who roll up their sleeves that get the job done - so I’m not going to sit here complaining that there are extremists in the party. I do hope that they remember me though and don’t throw me into the camps if the time comes.
But I’m not so sure that it will. Crit theorists are right about one thing: that there is an enormous amount of inertia in the system that propels it forward. If you say that the Global North has subjugated the South and exploits them, that’s like saying the galaxy has been taken over by the Empire. But the Empire was only destroyed in the movies, and even then it took actual magic.
Critical theory promotes the worship of black ideals and black culture over all others. Christianity has flaws and is declining, but still can not compare to the base level of degradation in critical theory. If you only care about whichever idea happens to be winning, then critical theory is the best only until it finishes chewing through every last load bearing wall. Attempts to generate some new ethos are otherwise more fruitful endeavors.
That is simply not true. I think you know what a critical theorist looks like, and you understand how it is distinct from black culture, but you are being willfully ignorant to satisfied your own fetish for doom. Liberals don't reproduce black culture, they infantilize and patronize it.
Genuinely curious, what policies and real world concrete outcomes does crit theory result in beyond the enrichment—in terms of relative status and wealth—of blacks and other undeserving subalterns?
One could argue that CRT/wokeness doesnt elevate authentic black masculinit a la tariq nasheed, and that it would privilege gays black women etc.
It is distinct from black culture for sure. But it does enrich elite blacks.
They also grant it status. George floyd as a national spiritual martyr, even if a patronizing one, and the resulting side effects has had a great deal of damage already occur, as opposed to your hypotheticals.
Why are you people so obsessed with blacks? Is this what it means to be traditional and superior? Too obsess over what Tyron is doing in Chicago and then complain incessantly about black crime statistics while completely ignoring elite migration from Asian countries.
A being really bad doesn’t mean B is also bad. Both A and B are key features of critical theory government, regardless
You criticise the critics of critical theory for only tearing down without replacement, and for trying to have a society without religion, but thats also what critical theory does. The world of blood, soil, and religion is exactly what they are critical of, and if those are essential, you have a permanent criticism against society as such. Why is this not harmful in just the way you say Dawkins-types are, but with a megaphone attached?
This is a funny little semantic paradox you've created, but if you step back, it's just a cute "lawgic trap." CRT is a religion with dogmas, doctrines, goals, and teleology, which inspires fanaticism, activism, and moralism. Moderate agnostic libertarian utilitarianism is none of that. I am not against "criticism against society," and I state very clearly in the article that CRT is critical, much like Christianity before it. I am not against criticism. I am against agnosticism and the idea that we don't need a Civic Religion. The only substantial critique of CRT, from my perspective, comes from a religious perspective: Christianity, Islam, Naziism, etc.
>CRT is a religion with dogmas, doctrines, goals, and teleology, which inspires fanaticism, activism, and moralism.
It is, and it is also against those things. The pope can be rich, even as Christianity preaches poverty, and the content of that preaching does matter, even if its not instantly followed 100%.
Im not arguing that utilitarianism is just as good as CRT, Im arguing CRT isnt as good as other religions, because its opposed to what you want religions to do, even if it is one.
>I am not against "criticism against society,"
Criticism against society *as such*. The point is that the things its criticising are exactly those you think are a necessary part of society that a religion is demanded for. I guess you could say that that is criticism from a religious perspective, since the belief that those are necessary contradicts the doctrines of critical theory: What then is your religion?
Good point. What is in fact the object of worship under a crit theory regime?
You claim that moderates aren't willing to die for their beliefs because "By the nature of the label, 'moderate,' the answer is no". This is a three-card Monte Trick which takes advantage of the fact that the meaning of moderate hinges on the context. In your claim you use "moderate" to refer to the intensity of a belief, but when talking about political moderates we're referring to how they lie in the middle of the Left-Right spectrum. This does *not* describe how intensely moderates hold their beliefs, though given that we live in a political system which moderates are comfortable in this intensity typically doesn't manifest, or even need to manifest.
To give a concrete example: my politics are very moderate by American standards and I absolutely, 100% would be willing to give my life to prevent America from becoming a legitimately communist or fascist state.
My argument would be that there has never been a state without a religion, and all religions have fanatics or else they die. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a "pure democracy," or "democracy without religion." I go through extensive lengths to demonstrate how Switzerland and the HRE (relatively libertarian states for their time) provided the fertile ground for extremism of all types. You personally claim that you are willing to die for "democracy" in a very abstract and disembodied sense, but this is not true at all historically, and is merely an assertion. People die for blood, soil, and religion. Democracy might be an efficiency or laudable form of governance, but it doesn't inspire the fanaticism necessary to hold a system together at the margins. Democracy needs to be augmented with religion. A state requires fanatics at the margins, in the same way that a state requires violence at the margins.
A democracy held together thanks to violence and (justified) fanaticism in the Civil War.
You seriously think that the Union wasn't held together by whiteness and Christianity?
Whiteness and Christianity didn’t seem to keep things too unified in 1861, so no. Motivations varied on the Union side but an overarching theme was the idea of preserving the American experiment.
I found the entire post interesting, intellectually stimulating, and enjoyable. That said, I would like to push back on some of the claims in the short section labeled Dogmatism.
While I agree with the claim in the final paragraph of this section that a functioning civilization requires a shared set of values and beliefs about the world, I don't see why these values and beliefs have to be dogmatic and religious. Religions did not create values; they simply institutionalized universal, shared moral sentiments that evolved through natural selection in the hominid line. I don't avoid raping and murdering because my religion instructed me not to engage in these behaviors. Rather, I find such behaviors repulsive at a visceral level. I don't cooperate and collaborate with others because my religion told me to be prosocial. Rather, I enjoy fruitful cooperation.
As for religious beliefs, are you kidding? This last thousand years of human history has debunked one religious belief after another. I understand that many early scientists were motivated by the idea that they were discovering the way the mind of God works as they searched for natural laws. But in the end, none of the wonderful technologies we enjoy today were derived from scriptures. Rather, it has been the empirical testing of ideas derived from the theoretical imagination of scientists that has given us the ability to harness nuclear energy, fly into space, communicate at a distance, and create blog posts on our laptops.
You claim to be an historicist, so look at the history of science and technology and its amazing track record. Yes, there has yet to be a complete, functioning civilization (whatever that is) that is 100% free of religious dogmatists. Even individual scientists can be extremely dogmatic and indifferent to empirical failures of their ideas. But science, as a subculture, is committed to striving for increasingly accurate models of reality through debates, reviews, and criticism. The result has been the historic progress in our understanding of nature and the concomitant production of increasingly sophisticated technologies. Along with scientific progress has been a movement toward secularization. Maybe more and more people are realizing that it was scientists, not ancient prophets, who made laptops possible.
I do understand that human beings are naturally drawn toward, and even crave, the kinds of deeper meanings and transcendent experiences promised by religion. But haven't you heard or read about the deep awe of the universe experienced by people like Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins? We scientists are not all empathy-deficient, unfeeling robots. Our jaws drop in wonder at the mysteries of the universe. We see great beauty in mathematics and empirical observations. We enjoy transcendent experiences and the feeling of being one with the universe. We also have faith: faith in the ability of the human mind to construct much cooler and more useful models of reality than those offered by ancient religious figures or modern political fanatics who have not done any serious introspection about what they are trying to accomplish and why. And it is not a blind faith, but faith supported by the historical record.
Will the successes of science ever make religion unnecessary? You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
This is what I mean by Left Moldbuggism.
Really I was inspired more by Left Thomas Sowellism. "There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs."
It's a non-cladistic definition, to use Moldbug speak.
See this is why I'm definitely NOT a Moldbuggian, I have no clue what Cladistic even means, don't have an Urbit account, and I'm NGMI!
It’s reasonable to define critical theory as a religion, and I think it should be. Officially! All the church and state legislation would swing into effect and we would see how it does in such an environment.
What’s the short answer on why critical theory can’t be linked to Marxism?
I link CRT with Marxism in this article by saying they are both descendants of Biblical Criticism. Of course they have a relationship with one another, but CRT is more related to Biblical Criticism than it is to Marxism for structural reasons.
I had thought those like Marcuse were pretty open wrt critical theory being an evolution of more orthodox Marxism?
I'll try to use an analogy to explain my point: is Protestantism a descendant of Catholicism? In a way, yes. But in another way, Protestantism seeks to return to the early church, and wipe out 1,000 years of Catholic tradition. In the same way, early CRT claims descent from Marxism, but in retrospect, it is clear that CRT is returning to the formula of Biblical Criticism, and ignoring the whole "working class proletariat" tradition of Marxism. This wasn't clear in the 1970s, but is very clear in the 2020s, with the emphasis on sexuality and race that didn't exist in Das Kapital, Leninism, Stalinism, or Maoism. The ironic thing here is that there were always Marxists who were focused on these issues, but they were a minority. Similarly, within the Catholic church, there were disagreements which ultimately exploded centuries later (See the investiture contest). So the tensions within Marxism regarding class and race were sublimated until the 1960s, probably related to the Sino-Soviet split.
Weren’t many seeing it as a more efficacious framework to get to same objective? I haven’t read a ton on various thinkers but it certainly seems like Marcuse viewed it that way, different vanguard etc.
I'll flesh out the analogy more: Martin Luther wanted to save the Catholic Church. He claimed to be a Catholic Reformer. He wanted to save Catholicism. Things got out of hand pretty quickly, however, and something completely different happened. So yes, Marcuse was Marxist, he was doing Marxism, but 40 years later something quite different happened. If you walk into a CRT setting right now and say "I'm an Orthodox Marxist" Jackson Hinkle style, you are the enemy. I'm not saying Hinkle actually is a Marxist, but I've literally tried this myself. I've walked into a CRT scene and said "Karl Marx had some good points" and I got passive-aggressively sniped as a white supremacist colonialist sexist.
Analogy is definitely helpful. Is the enemy thing a reflection of reality though vs. narcissism of small differences?
And I noticed you specify CRT, do you view that as separate from critical studies more broadly? I would assume some of the CRT criticism of any other lefty field would be along the lines of “not centering BIPOC voices enough.”
Thanks for responses btw. I think I disagree but the probing is informative regardless.
‘High I.Q. Isn’t everything. I’ll take a loyal, decent person with a 90 or 100 I.Q. over a ‘bright autist’ with a 120 I.Q. or a psychopath with ‘alpha leadership qualities’ with a 150 I.Q. The people inflicting the worst damage on our society are ‘the best and the brightest’ who feel themselves entitled and superior to ‘plebs’ like all of us out here.
Are you a vegetarian or vegan?
nope
Do you eat pork?
Is playing MadLibs with Nazi propaganda that big an improvement over the original?
It's based on Christianity, not Nazi propaganda. Very poor genealogical fallacy.
Critical Theory originally came out of Marxism, which is competitive with Hitler's National Socialism when it comes to bloodthirstiness.
I was referring to the modern mutant form of Critical Theory, aka Critical Race Theory. Hitler whined about Jewish Physics. Modern Theorists whine about White Cis Gendered Male Physics.
Times were better when Progressives stuck to yoga and organic foods. They could be more open minded than conservatives back then. These days, the Fundamentalists at the Babylon Bee are more open minded than today's Progressives. Critical Theory as a religious hasn't sunk to the level of Moloch worship, but they're working on it.
The structure of CRT is literally derived from Christianity and has nothing at all to do with Naziism.