The Synthetic Left

This is an interesting video.

The term that Caleb Maupin is searching for here to describe the liberal, middle class, bohemian radical type of socialist who is a cultural left-libertarian is “modernist.” I spent several months this year digging into the intellectual history of modernism and its arrival in the United States.

Caleb is correct that modernism is not derived from Marxism or socialism. It is an aesthetic that originated in Western Europe in the late 19th century and is equally compatible with anarchism, liberalism, conservatism, fascism, etc. There were Right Modernists like Ezra Pound. It is also true that the CIA sponsored modernism and waged a cultural Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Modernists are people who elevate their anti-traditional aesthetic sensibility – expressive individualism, cultural liberation, cultural egalitarianism or basically their rejection of all forms of collective cultural authority – above religion, ethics, ethnic loyalty, etc. In the case of socialism, they prioritize individual aesthetic self-expression above economics, which is why they alienate the working class by taking hyper aggressive positions on polarizing culture war issues like, say, transgenderism. They are people who are more interested in screaming about “white supremacy” and “bigotry” and arguing about “black trans liberation” than in advancing an economic agenda that benefits all working class people.

Modernists repulse the working class who either 1.) drop out of politics altogether or 2.) who flee into conservatism. It is a global phenomena. The demise of the Labour Party in Britain is the clearest example of it. It also explains the rise and fall of Donald Trump. It is worth observing that even though Trump lost the election due to White suburbanites he made deep inroads into the Hispanic vote who were alienated by all the Antifa and Black Lives Matter violence of this crowd and their “Latinx” messaging.

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14 Comments

  1. An excellent selection, Hunter.

    Maupin, a REAL communist, is always worth watching or reading. In this video he is saying exactly what I have said here, again and again, about the “fake left,” and “fake socialists/communists,” including Antifa: That they are “synthetic,” not real, left, socialists or communists at all. He brings out the absurdity that Antifa, and other fake/synthetic leftists/socialists, call real leftist/socialists “fascists.”

    In the video he also explains Stalin’s Russian ethno-national socialism perfectly.

  2. Caleb Maupin is literally antifa. He is always dishonest in his debates with White nationalists. Also, he fails to mention that most revolts are actually caused by elite factions. Worker’s revolts are rare, and rarely effective.

    • Yes, my endorsement above should have been qualified. He is certainly not correct about everything: He might be taken as “literally” Antifa, because his explanation of Charlottesville is very bad: His expression “ramming the car into” is inaccurate, and he agrees with the removal of historical monuments. He is better, however, on nearly all other issues than White Nationalism. He has written a book and articles and made speeches on the danger of Kamala Harris, joined the struggles of embattled Syria and Iran, is a regular commentator on Russia Today (RT) and other “alternative” news channels and publications, and has a large collection of videos on Youtube some of which you may find useful: https://www.youtube.com/c/CalebMaupinTV/videos

      Re: “he fails to mention that most revolts are actually caused by elite factions. Worker’s revolts are rare, and rarely effective”:

      Peasant revolutions are very rare, and they fail because of poor leadership. What Maupin says is that the vast majority of people are only motivated to revolt against capitalism when they are absolutely desperate, when they are suffering much more than usual, and that only a tiny percentage of the population, mostly young and almost entirely of middle and upper class background, is motivated to oppose the injustice at all times, and able to lead the workers when they revolt.

      Here is a video where Maupin speaks on his conservative Protestant upbringing, and his Christian Bible-based opposition to “Satanic Bible”-based capitalism: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/merry-christmas-maupin-capitalism-is-un-christian/ (I do not agree with him however, in his speech, that “religion is a personal choice” that does not matter. Which one does matter, because there is one true religion.)

  3. I started thinking about socialism differently after a debate between Carl Benjamin and Angela Nagle in 2018. Nagle recommended defining and defending socialism on minimalist, pragmatic grounds — a strong central state delivering services to provide a benefit — without being weighed down by the theoretical barnacles of class, revolution, false consciousness, the labor theory of value, etc. that have accumulated over centuries.

    Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus. Socialists usually make principled, fantastic, apocalyptic arguments about Justice. Socialism defended in a consequentialist manner in contrast is an intriguing possibility; it reminds of me of the big government right in the 19th century: Bismarck, Napoleon III, Disraeli, and Teddy Roosevelt. That conservatism’s first instinct today was to quickly retreat to the principled case (Sargon was outclassed, but his arguments against collectivism were typical) suggests the postwar conservative economic view no longer has even descriptive force.

  4. There’s been a gray haired boomer(?) “panhandling” at a highway exit, that I’ve seen a couple of times, with a sign that says “Homeless Lives Matter”. The guy looks like Santa Claus. LOL.

    With all the charity and “social service” programs, what is a White guy doing standing out in the cold begging? He may have mental problems, but, he’s no crazier than “Black Lives Matter”.

  5. Hitler should have done a lot more to form a strong alliance with Stalin against the West. Stalin admired Hitler and would have been willing to make concessions.

  6. “… an economic agenda that benefits all working class people.”

    There is no difference between that string of words and any string of words chosen at random.

    There is no substitute for the right not to spend.

    • “the right not to spend.”

      Trying to hide behind increasingly comical euphemisms isn’t going to save Americans from becoming increasingly proletarianized.

      https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/12/16/if-i-only-had-a-brain/

      You have no “rights” – they are a social construct. That includes property rights, of which you have none, outside of whatever the state grants you.

      The system you relied upon to defend your property rights has decided they would rather work for “the globalists” and not you.

      So, now what?

      • “You have no “rights” (…) That includes property rights, of which you have none”:

        American workers know that they don’t really OWN property. They can only dream of “someday” climbing to the top of the heap, where there are private property rights for the elites. And thanks to capitalist privatization, there is hardly any common, public property for the commons to share in.

      • BH: Could you imagine an effete old poof like Bonoconti trying to defend his property from mobs of BLM niggers? He would run away crying like a frightened little girl.

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