James Lindsay Lashes Out At Conservatives

September 4, 2020 Hunter Wallace Liberalism, Woke Supremacy 21

While I was on vacation, one of the things that you missed is that we finally had enough of James Lindsay’s dishonest shilling for liberalism:

James Lindsay couldn’t handle the criticism.

He quote tweeted and blocked everyone who pointed out an inconvenient historical truth: the idea that liberalism is somehow opposed to wokeness is laughable.

The Frankfurt School was brought to America and bankrolled by liberal foundations. Herbert Marcuse worked for the OSS during World War II. The liberal establishment backed and adopted these Western Marxists who became critical of Joseph Stalin and the Soviets in the 1930s. The Frankfurt School also returned in triumph to postwar West Germany. Liberals and leftists have been political allies for generations which is the reason why this garbage took root in liberal institutions in the first place. In contrast, conservatives have been systematically pushed out of these institutions.

James Lindsay has resumed the argument from behind his Twitter blocks:

According to James Lindsay, liberalism isn’t the problem. The fact that liberals were political allies with these people and hired them and promoted them within liberal institutions where they poisoned our culture for generations until Frankenstein turned on them means nothing!

It is true that liberalism is a disintegrating force in its own right. This is why liberals and leftists are political allies though. They share the same goal of rotting and demolishing the foundations of society.

I strongly disagree.

Liberalism has exhausted itself and its flaws are increasingly apparent which is why it is under siege. There isn’t a “postmodern world” either. There is only a Modern world. Postmodernism is nothing but an extension of Modernism. It is Modernism pretending to be something new. The natural end point of liberalism and modernism will be reached when it has finally succeeded in unraveling and demolishing the very foundations of civilization and our society lacks the coherence to function because there will be disagreement and division about everything. Think of it as like a melting ice cube.

How so?

If anything is true, the internet has empowered us and dissolved the power of the “mainstream” to push a narrative and maintain a consensus. That’s exactly like saying that radio made fascism “flatly unworkable.”

The prevailing ideology that James Lindsay subscribes to, which is to say, Center Left progressive liberalism, matched the film and television era of the 20th century. Its heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s.

James Lindsay’s critics are fully aware of the difference. It is also meaningless. Politically speaking, liberals and leftists are partners who pushed the same values into the mainstream.

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21 Comments

  1. None of his claims about liberalism are even true. He is confusing liberalism on paper versus liberalism in real life. Liberalism in real life has never been tolerant. It is a totalitarian ideology.

    And his assertion that liberalism is the only possibility after postmodernism and the internet is laughable and easily refuted by China and the middle east (along with other places).

    But that is part of the totalitarian nature of liberalism, flatly denying even the possibility of anything other than itself.

    • The French Revolution was the epitome of classical liberalism. Revolutionary France was also the first totalitarian dictatorship and a militaristic imperialist state that engaged in more aggressive wars in a short period of time than any other state in history, killing millions of people. That’s the reality of liberalism.

    • Both lib’s and supposed conserv’s have been infiltrated. THE answer is an all white enlarged Confederacy 2. We’d need agencies to prevent a lot of the BS we’ve experienced in this nation and make it very hard for this to happen –

  2. He sure is the image of weak male liberalism. A smug face sitting atop a body that needs a good disciplined workout as it walks around in the epitome of liberal mens’ fashion – a suit jacket, tie, and dress shirt with jeans and a belt. Let’s guess as to whether he is wearing dress shoes or Nike’s UNISEX LeBron 17 lows.

    This guy will go down with one punch….. from a senior.

  3. I would say arguing the difference between liberals and leftists is like arguing the difference between Republican and Democrats, to me they are different sides of the same coin. The rich get to do whatever they want with their money, it doesn’t matter which party is nominally in power.

  4. With an admittedly broad brush, let me sketch what liberals have been up to. From the 19th century down to today, liberalism has advanced through a series of coerced liberalizations, displaying a trajectory toward culminating in nihilism. In the 19th century, liberalism removed the state restraints on behavior that sustained the good life. In the 20th century, liberals warred now on man’s social nature: religion, family, and self-governing intermediate institutions. In the 21st century, the very biological conditions of being have become their current target. Children are optional inconveniences and disposal upon whim if small enough; men and women with a wish and a surgeon can become each other’s sex; we are all the same, but we must celebrate “diversity” etc, What comes next? Probably Jonestown, since Muggerridge was right, liberalism is a death wish.

  6. In regards to Mr. Lindsay, he sounds like an unpleasant fellow that thinks he’s smarter than he actually is…He also sounds like the type of person who has never done an honest day’s labor in their life.

    I’ve had my fill of liberals, leftists, marxists, whatever you want to call them because of their far reaching over-reaction to the coronavirus. These marxists want to take away your right to bear arms, take away the right to respect or even acknowledge God, the right to defend yourself from violence and mobs, the right to protect your property, the right to free speech, the right to assemble against their views, the right to live away from federalized section 8 housing, the right of freedom of association.

    I’m a right-wing populist that believes in high minimum wage, pro-union, low taxes, limited regulations, anti-free trade, isolationist, anti-war, pro-law enforcement, and anti-immigration / pro-strong borders.

    I sometimes worry the “dissident right” is steering away from populism and unintentionally steering towards marxism / leftism with ideas about Universal Basic Income. The reason I am skeptical about UBI is because we gave $1200 to every American because of the coronavirus along with payroll subsidies for just a few months and that added 3 trillion dollars to the debt. I know everyone pretty much thinks the debt at this point is just numbers on a screen, and it is, but at some point the debt will incur inflation and that hurts working-class people the most.

    Instead of supporting UBI and flirting with marxism, it’s more realistic to demand higher wages (and higher minimum wage) and strengthen unions. You get the same result as you would get with UBI except you won’t rack up enormous amount of debt and inflation. UBI will never become enacted so I think it’s pointless to advocate for it anyway.

    The “dissident right” has also flirted with fascism. We need strong and just leaders, we need safety, what we don’t need is people bossing us around telling us how to live our lives like how the left does. Richard Spencer made a mockery of himself saying he supports Biden and the left because he respects winners and strength and has no sympathy for martyrs. Only a fool would support those who persecute you and your allies just because they have power. You don’t need fascism in order to have a sense of community…

    • I think the only way UBI can ever be sustainable is if you have a robotic, automated workforce which is producing all the wealth….AKA Star Trek world.

  8. I was probably the first in our circles to start talking about this guy, and firing at him on twitter. He would never engage, because he doesn’t believe in debating “alt right types.” He is just like Jordan Peterson. Another guy pushing individualism. He calls himself a classical liberal, but he’s actually a moderate progressive. He supported the civil rights movement but somehow doesn’t understand that was exactly like what BLM is doing now. He’ll talk about the Frankfurt school, but can’t see the forest for the trees. He won’t consider that there is any jewish strategy taking place here. He also can’t engage the fact that every other race is ethnocentric (most clearly seen domestically in demographic voting trends) and can’t seem to face either group psychology or sociology.

    Lindsay is the ultimate product of academia™. He is incapable of seeing outside that box. Basic internet racists have a superior read of current events than all his degrees ever gave him.

    • If a person believes in blank slate liberalism, then how can he possibly argue against the concept of “systemic racism?” If there are huge group disparities between blacks and everyone else, how does a blank slate liberal explain that? The most obvious conclusion, of you deny race realism, would be that the group is discriminated against by the more populous group. Critical race theory just fills the explanatory gap that is left by blank slate liberalism.

  9. I am an identitarian authoritarian. I am not a leftist. lol.

    Conservatives are truly retarded. It is sad how delusional they are about what they even want. I dont blame them entirely.

    I know people who holler about meaningless tropes like liberty and freedom blah blah blah, and then in the next sentence say that large groups of people should be sterilized involuntarily. These people truly are nazis waiting to be awoken. I understand the jewish fear of even white liberals. Theyre right. Most decent white people could give two shits about empty constitutional freedoms and vague nothingness about liberty. They want healthy, homogenous, safe, comfortable communities that promote healthy human behavior and demote unhealthy human behavior, and they would care how this is achieved.

    This is a whitepill.

    James Lindsey and his liberal ilk are screaming into an ever widening void. Everything about his worldview is literal garbage.

    Great article.

    • Tell a so-called “liberal” that you don’t believe in democracy, that all men are not created equal, that there are natural racial differences in intelligence and temperament, that people have the natural right to freely associate with others and also exclude others arbitrarily, that the U.S. Government should withdraw from NATO, that those born in the U.S. whose parents came here illegally should be deported and see how “liberal” they are. The very idea that one could have fundamental disagreements with the wisdom of the Liberal Project, disagree with its fundamentally religious dogmas and believe that the Liberal Project will end in tears is simply unfathomable to those people. The average “liberal” can accept quibbling disagreements over means and measures but not over ends i.e. fundamental things.

      They are the most illiberal people of all. A grain of doubt about the fundamental wisdom of their precious “liberalism” sends them in to an incoherent, name calling rage. They actually are very narrow minded and are frightened of new (to them) ideas that call into question their fundamentally irrational beliefs. Liberalism is fundamentally a religion, a bad religion at odds with Nature itself. It quickly becomes a huge project of pounding square pegs into round holes.

    • “Conservatives are truly retarded…”

      “I know people who holler about meaningless tropes like liberty and freedom blah blah blah”

      Liberty and freedom are valuable concepts. Weak men require other men to lord over them. Just like how Richard Spencer basically said he is voting a straight democrat ticket because he respects winners and power and doesn’t admire martyrs and losers. He is weak because he needs some sort of morbid sense of “fash”, i.e. someone to lord over him, even if those lording over him are ones who persecute him and his allies.

      I would never argue that we live in a fair society but areas of the country that celebrate freedom and liberty the most (red states) have the most basic freedoms. Take pride in your community, loved ones, and work ethic. Take pride that you have choices that other men cannot take away from you.

      You don’t need your choices taken away from you in order to “promote healthy human behavior”.

  10. In large part, wokeism is J. S. Mill’s liberalism, evolved into the form: “You’re free to do whatever you want, as long as you don’t cause anyone *psychological* harm.” To defeat that, Lindsay has to explicitly argue against psychological harm, which is pretty much impossible in our trauma/harassment/counseling obsessed society.

    Conservatives believe social media censors them due to their political stance, and that blinds them to the woke perspective. The woke see their censorship as *liberal* and *principled* not political; following Mill’s maxim and protecting people from psychological harm. You can be banned for saying “fag” or misgendering someone not because that’s right-wing behavior, but because it causes psychological harm. Similar things can be said about the prosecution of Jack Corbin for words. Or investigation of signs saying “It’s OK to be white.” The Twitter department in charge of censorship is “Twitter Safety,” by which they mean psychological safety. Conservatives/Liberals/Libertarians miss the key point that all of this revolves around a hallowed liberal principle they claim to support. Flatly rejecting all claims of psychological harm would be an interesting tactic, but nobody is taking that route, as far as I know. Generally, they’re just mush-mouthed about the whole issue.

    On his blog, Lindsay has tried to open up some air between Wokeism and liberalism on psychological harm, e.g.,
    https://newdiscourses.com/2020/08/sticks-stones-coping-offensive-hurtful-insensitive-otherwise-unwelcome-speech/

    But his approach is very reminiscent of old-school conservatives like Buckley, or alt-lite libertarians like PJW/Cernovich. He’s going to “stand athwart wokeism yelling Stop!” and use proven techniques like “wokies are the real racists.” In fact, he faces the same quicksand as conservatives/libertarians. He and his “cynical theories” crew are fully on board with fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, etc. He just wants to do it Buckley-style, at a slower pace, with more respectable ground rules. The reality is that you can’t agree with the wokies on stamping out the “hate/bigotry” spectrum, and also stop them. It’s like trying to stop the bolsheviks while agreeing that capitalism is evil. You see this very clearly in his approach to trans issues. Instead of direct confrontation by championing a slogan like “transwomen are men” (for which he would be immediately deplatformed) he rallies his troops with dogwhistles like “2+2=4.” Meanwhile he’s grifting on Patreon (while claiming grifting “isn’t who I am”), selling the usual grifting goods, endlessly advertising his book, engaging in silly posturing beefs on social media to “own the wokies,” and so forth. His attacks on conservatives and the right are stupid and self-defeating. Who does he think will be his allies? It seems an important priority for him is not losing status by associating with vulgar Fox News trailer trash. Definitely a strong “deja vu” component to everything he’s doing. Like the whole thing is just a grifting/signaling/vanity project for a narcissist enjoying the social media limelight.

    A deeper point is the racial equality issue. A liberal colorblind meritocracy has been tried. That’s how we got here. The problem is that, under those conditions, some races greatly outperform others. If you admit that some races are more capable than others, you’re no longer liberal; you’re a straight-up racist, and liberalism is a de facto racial caste system. If you explain the difference with the concept of racism, then again you are no longer classically liberal: you’re woke.

    • Excellent analysis, RB. It’s incrementalism. The so-called moderate or conservative intellectuals give in a little here, some more there, and then after a few years they defend the status quo as defined by their supposed opponents. When you think about matters in the framing built by the other side, you’ve already lost. The only way to defeat such intellectual laziness on the right is to entirely reject the premises of the left.

    • Trump likely didn’t even know it was happening under his watch until he saw it on Tucker Carlson’s broadcast early last week. And it’s only for Federal Government agencies.
      Now let’s see him do an executive order to stop it in the private sector, Corporate America, and the public schools. If he would do that, and enforce it, I would vote for him again.

  12. Words do not mean anything until genetic white liberals decide what those words mean.

    “Good morning” mean that you shoot few Nazis before sunset. How can be morning good when racism runs amok ?

    Before dealing with genetic white liberals, all words and institutions are irrelevant. Because they will decide what means what.

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