Why do Left-ish journalists and influencers - Matt Taibbi, Russell Brand, Glenn Greenwald, Joe Rogan, RFK - end up supporting, tacitly or explicitly, the Trump-ian Right?
We just finished reading Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger on the Creekmason Discord, so we’ve been thinking about these questions for months. Still, you’ve expanded my perspective on the phenomenon.
Klein suggests that the Doppleganger politics (exemplified by “turncoat” Naomi Wolf, who she was once frequently confused with) is a strategy in which the right brings in everyone who the left rejects for a big bear hug of welcome and clout. If you or your ideas are in some way cancelled by polite society, you have a home with Bannon, et al, who will megaphone your platform (even if it’s only for show and they don’t really believe in your ideals whatsoever, preferring the outcome of a fascist ethnostate).
Klein left us on the Discord a little underfed though. We were all rooting for a sweeping conclusion in the end suggesting we must all integrate our Jungian-shadowy doppelgängers. Loving them, and through them, the parts of ourselves that we often refuse to admit have in common.
Like Graeber said in your quote block, if there was a left who didn’t look condescendingly at people with W’s accent and mannerisms, maybe fewer people would have voted for him.
But your point about the systematic destruction via dirty tricks of any leftist movement that gains momentum provides a useful broader context. Can we hope to out-organize institutions that have been dismantling anything built by the counter-culture brick by brick for decades?
Here's my reductive diagnosis--it over simplifies a bit but does account for most of this: Collective psychosis is highly contagious and is on both the left and the right. The left version is more annoying and the right version is more dangerous. People originally on the left are exposed, based on their original social networks, etc. to more left psychosis and some will undergo an enantiadromia and rebel from it by embracing the collective psychosis on the right which is a better channeler of undifferentiated rage, hence there are far more migrations
https://deathisbadblog.com/mercedes-lackey-cancelled/ Here's an example, Mercedes Lackey, one of the first fantasy writers to have exemplary LGBTQ central characters, a known progressive and civil rights activist, spoke on a panel praising African American sci-fi great Samuel Delaney. An older woman, while praising Delaney, she used the term "colored" once instead of the approved "person of color," and was accused of using a racial slur. Both frail and in poor health, she and her husband were ejected from the conference. Samuel Delaney said he no problem with what she said, but the conference runners deleted the recording of the whole panel. The NAACP uses the term "colored" in it's name, and it was once consider the most respectful term, but now, a similar but more wordy version, "person of color" was arbitrarily decreed to be the. only correct usage. I have had many personal experiences with this attitude, and seen close friends and relatives who are college professors have their careers threatened for tiny word choices. They may have dreadlocks and septum rings, but many of these sorts of leftists are essentially church ladies in drag with crosses burning in their eyes, looking to get a power rush out of cancelling their betters over trivialities. For more on Woke racism see: https://zaporacle.com/hey-woke-folk-you-may-not-be-as-woke-as-you-think/
That Graeber video is a gem. What is not a gem is the 'spiritual bypass as excuse for tacitly endorsing Trump' that Eisenstein dumped on us today. jfc it's really bad and I'm having trouble believing how little pushback he's getting, considering the overload of cognitive dissonance in it (although he does at least get off the fence on Palestine, which is something).
I'm sure he's absolutely sincere in what he's writing; I don't doubt that at all. But the problem is that he's spiritually bypassing himself in order to make sense of essentially becoming the thing he hated, and so he's telling his audience what he's telling himself internally.
He's trying to be principled, but the net effect is normalising something which should never be normalised, only called out. *And* he's stifling those who try to call it out as 'othering' or 'projecting', 'falling into separation'. Is a judge who sends a murderer to prison 'othering' them, or just enacting justice? Not all condemnation comes from a deluded place.
As someone who edited and published Charles’ work (Sacred Economics) and supported his vision for years via my web magazine, I became increasingly disenchanted with his perspective a number of years back. There is a combo of willful idealism and naiviete with this Hamlet-like refusal to take sides, which is of course still taking a side. I felt he veered off track with his climate change book and further off track with his Covid writing. At this point he seems completely lost from any ethical standpoint. But the seeds of this crisis were there much earlier.
yes I agree. I'd actually given up reading him but then came back when he started working for RFK Jr because I was interested to see how that would play out. 'Badly' is the answer, and maybe 'very badly' if Trump loses and openly tries to start a civil war or other unrest. Or wins and starts acting ultra-draconian. Neither of those things is at all unlikely either, which makes CE's position extremely untenable.
And yes, he's acting like 'well RFK's gone over to Trump, what can I do?' - as you say, that in itself is a decision: not to take a stand and say 'so far and no farther'. Just go along with whatever, but write a load of platitudes as if he's above the whole thing.
It really looks like his shadow is controlling him - the superego won't take a side, while the unresolved material is siding with the bad guys. It's super disappointing, but as you say, not that surprising any more.
What is surprising is that a lot of people seem to receive fence-sitting (Switzerland in WW2-style) as some sort of enlightened position.
I half believe that if Charles were to tell his disciples that wandering around in rush hour traffic was a good idea, because they'd be living in the Spirit of the Gift with a trustful abundance mentality, a lot of them would do it.
CE is - if that's true, I haven't checked it - getting over $20k per month for working for RFK Jr. That's a significant incentive to keep writing 'both sides have valid points' essays for ever, rather than admitting he made a mistake and going back to Substack and speaking engagements for - I'm guessing - less than $100k per year. Unfortunately, sometimes things are just that simple. It seems like he and his boss have both made the same mistake of favouring power (in RFK's case) and money (in CE's case) over principle.
I think the seeds of his present egomania can be found in his lifelong inability to simply express an opinion AS just his opinion. His books, essays and speeches never feel like conversations between equals, among peers, they always feel like holy sermons delivered on high by the prophet Moses/Paul/Allah or whom you will. He can never ever talk WITH others, only AT them. He can never dialogue with anyone, only monologue (often at excruciating length) -- which is embarrassing in someone who always preaches the virtue of humility and of listening to others.
Still absorbing the historical revisionism of “The Dawn of Everything” and as a Canadian I can only watch US politics from a similar but different distance. As an other with a distinctly different point of view. Perhaps a liminal perspective, beyond the binary of the left and right dominator models. I do not choose sides and try to be corpus colosum of that political divide. Although I find myself drawing a distinct line regarding Trumpism. Charisma junkies, or as Robin Williams said, the crack house to the south of us. That said I was very disappointed in the lack of Mea culpa coming from Charles regarding Kennedy. My first social media unfollow, unfriend. Strange times. As my clan motto states, hold fast.
I'm not sure he needed to apologise. Had he just quit when RFK joined Trump, even without much comment, I think that would have been fine. Actions speak louder than massive long walls of text. But he has stayed and so a mea culpa may well be necessary in the future. If it matters by then.
Not so much an apology, but an honest personal assessment admitting that perhaps he has made a mistake, or misunderstood the implications of his decision to become involved. Instead a tiresome saintly perfectionism resulting in empty calories.
Or maybe not even an APOLOGY: simply an honest, detailed and forthright EXPLANATION of exactly how and why he's come to view Trump as "not even particularly right-wing," whereas in his previous writings about Trump he always saw him as a promulgator of "Neo-Fascism." How did you go, Charles, from Point A to Point B? But no, instead of explaining his thought process, he just scrubs his own memory clean! And expects everyone to just go along with him on his "spiritual" journey of further "enlightenment" as if no cognitive dissonance or cognitive fissure had even occurred!
I strongly disagree with your assessment of Taibbi and Greenwald. And Brand is a forgotten dream. I don’t know why you group them together, including RFK. Hillary lost because most political commentaries are out of touch with the majority of America, not because of Greenwalds reporting. People who voted for Obama voted for Trump. Both parties are run by the mafia. Plus there’s a lot more nuanced journalism out there than Taibbi and Greenwald. Lots of people have left the left who have no clue who they are. And no they are not right wing nor have they been captureed by the right wing. I think it is ridulous to say so and reductive in thinking. When all the liberal rags boycott you you have no where to go to get your message out. Look at the latest Rogen episode with Dr. Robert Epstein a lesson in cancel culture and what can happen. to you. The Clintons are just as dangerous. I really think you miss the bigger picture.
Hi Stacey, thanks for your thoughts. Who do you prefer for "nuanced journalism"? I didn't say they were captured by the right wing: I said they had reached a level of outrage with Dems that led to them giving the Right a free pass, more or less. The Clintons, Biden, Obama, Harris: I see very little difference, they are servants and protectors of the status quo, more or less Neoliberals, centrists who are in many ways more Republican than Republicans were in the 70s. The big issues are the domination of wealth, the need for serious progressive taxation and anti-trust legislation, to limit corporate overreach. Neither Dems or Reps have the capacity to take this on, due to their funding sources, so we drift.
Hi Daniel, thanks for replying and clarifying your position. Your writing always makes me think.
I don't see their outrage at the Dems as a pass for the Right. Their position may lean heavily on the hypocrisy of the Left, which at times can be reductive, but It's also the truth. I stand up for Greenwald and Taibbi because I still think they are integral journalists. They hold truth to power. I don't feel have they changed in politics or character and what they've done is prove there's an alternative for independent journalism. Clearly many people are under the impression the DNC are the good guys, or the lesser of two evils and this is only crazy making, why their work is still important. At the moment I really like Meghan Daum and her podcast The Unspeakable, she also does a podcast with Sarah Hader A Special Place in Hell. Nancy Rommelmann and Sarah Hepola, Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal, Michael Shellenberger, Marry Harrington, who you've quoted. I think Colman Hughes is one of our great new intellects. The Free Press and Unherd do a good job of bringing back in-depth debates as well as publishing dissenting and surprising voices. Unfortunately the backlash against Bari Weiss is based in "group think" dislike. In reality, I think most people live in the grey area, they're liberal here, conservative there, libertarian-lite, progressive on the side, whatever it is. I agree the Democrats are the new Republicans. Yet both parties are slaves to the corporate and billionaire class and both are inherently untrustworthy. So where does this leave us? Biden's administration is the first in a long time to enforce anti-trust laws yet everyone supporting Harris wants Lina Kahn fired. RFK is at least getting the country talking about the state of America's health, the crux from where all other issues spring, the statistics are frightening. I'm more than disappointed he's joined the GOP, but I also understand it. I don't like Trump but I also don't think the world is going to fall apart if he's elected. I think what the populous likes about him is they think he can change the status quo, and like you said, the alternative is the status quo. I know Dems and liberals who are terrible people and I know people who like Trump who are salt of the earth. And vice versa. You can't explain it. Personally, I don't think we need political parties, we should abolish them altogether, a pipe dream perhaps. But what I do know, hating the other side, demeaning the other side and blaming the other side is not a strategy or a solution. The circle only has one side.
I think you answer your own question pretty well when you write:
"If you have a Leftist agenda and you report on this situation long enough, you might start to despise the liberal establishment. You might start to hate the hypocrisy of the Democrats more than you hate the malevolence of the neo-Fascistic Right. I sometimes feel close to that, myself."
The rank hypocrisy of the Democrats, along with the destruction of anything that could be called a truly leftist political party in this country leaves many/most people feeling that, as Zappa put it, "Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex."
If it's all bullshit, why not support those who at least acknowledge that it's bullshit and who are more likely -- intentionally or not -- to bring it crashing down?
Personally, I think Eisenstein, Brand, and RFK are motivated more by ego than anything else. They go where they get most attention and are less likely to face critical scrutiny.
I'm not advocating, just channeling, as best I can. I'm sure they'd respond that both the American and French revolutions brought it crashing down, as has every other revolution in history. Some turned out better than others. Was it Jefferson who said something about the tree of freedom being nourished by the blood of revolutionaries? (paraphrasing) Corruption creep is definitely an issue, and some kind of violent uprising seems to be the only way to get a reboot -- especially since any kind of peaceful revolutionary who gets traction is eliminated in one way or another.
Yes but that was in the 18th Century when we didn't have an intricately interconnected electronics grid, nuclear weapons, in the US a massive amount of guns / assault rifles in private hands, when people were more connected to land, food sources, farming etc. Today if we do go into a civil war scenario, the carnage would be inconceivable.
So you think we're beyond war and revolution at this point? Doesn't seem so. Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza are both, in some ways, civil wars happening right now. Again, not advocating, but I think there's a significant segment of the US population that feels ignored at best, exploited at worst who are increasingly passionate about getting a change. Every election since Bush Jr. has been promising change ("and hope we can believe in") and not delivering. Clearly, the powers that be recognized the growing appetite for fundamental change, so they keep promising it and embodying it ("I'm black!" "I'm a woman!" "I'm an unhinged narcisist!" "I'm a black woman!"). But since they can't/won't deliver actual change, the calls grow louder and violence grows nearer.
"Personally, I think Eisenstein, Brand, and RFK are motivated more by ego than anything else. They go where they get most attention and are less likely to face critical scrutiny."
I don't know much about Brand, I've hardly ever listened to his podcast, but I definitely think this is true of Eisenstein. He's a totally ego-driven individual, despite his constant preaching of the virtue of altruism, the need to transcend the individual ego, and the importance of listening to others. For all his heady talk of the benefit of listening, he himself is one of the worst listeners out there. He can't stop talking and pontificating long enough to listen to anyone else.
As a long-time follower of both Daniel P and Charles E, I find this discussion fascinating and also little amusing. I am finding it funny in a cosmic joke kind of way that Dick Cheney is now endorsing a Democrat and a Kennedy is endorsing a Republican. What is happening here is the pole shift we have all been waiting for!
Charles's essay was hard to swallow. His number one and main point at all times is not to "other" people... His entire essay is, "don't 'other' me when I tell you that I'm supporting Trump!" BUT... the side he's gone to is THE LITERAL side of "othering" FFS. Trump is a known racist, from "black jobs" to his fear mongering over migrants, and Vance's "childless cat ladies". That's not "othering" Charles?
What Charles is careening towards is the paradox of tolerance (off Wikipedia) "The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance." Trump is intolerance personified, so our intolerance of him is out of respect and protection for all of those whom he has and will hurt with his policies and the direction he wants to take this country in. And Charles now joins their ranks. Baffling.
I gotta say, I find this whole bit an absurd exercise. Here's an essay by Daniel which effectively and essentially depicts the two political choices we have as something between minus 98 and minus 94 (where minus 100 is unalloyed awful) depending on which you choose. Everyone is looking at much the same picture--the turncoats and the still faithful dems--and assigning slightly different values to various points. But the overall vision is the same: we are sleepwalking into self-destruction or WWIII at an escalating pace and perhaps one side or the other may get us there a year or two earlier. And yet Daniel chooses to expend all this energy, all this analysis, to coming down clearly and definitively on one side, and excoriating the others for arriving at a different conclusion. What a waste. Over the smallest of functional differences--both choices are dreadful. Yet Daniel persists in condemning those who have made the often difficult decision to leave the fold, rather than focus his insights into the remarkable success of the structure that permits no good decisions, no possibility of positive change, and yet pits good people against each other, often with much ferocity.
But the ferocity here is Daniel's choice, and that's where I'm struggling. Because to me, it suggests that it's really personal and a bit unhinged, a betrayal by people he once knew, that rubs him in some deep place that he's not quite really explored. In the meantime, he's pretending that it's all coming from a high level of analytical integrity.
Indeed, the final paragraph is some sort of vapid psycho-analysis declaring that someone like Taibbi is threatened by cancel culture and MeToo because he fears being exposed for past transgressions, and that dynamic is pushing him further right. As though opposition to woke politics is so reducible. As though Taibbi's suspicion of the dems bullshit isn't deeply earned by his detailed coverage of the Twitter Files, and Russiagate, etc. over the last 8 years. As though reading the NYT's these days--once you step out of the blue bubble--isn't a terrifying experience of watching something you've read your whole life become a slick, loud, scolding voice of dem propoganda for seeding smug and knowing intolerance amongst most of our friends and family.
A lot of us have left the fold, many good life-long democrats, many of us not supporting Trump, but very much in the wilderness. From this vantage point, the world is far more complicated, and answers more elusive. I wish I could generate the certainly to know that if Kamala Harris wins, that would clearly be a better world and a better future.
Well… I still don’t see it as a small choice. But I agree the situation is frustrating. Please try to take your frustration out on the situation and the issues, not on me.
It seems to me that a lot of this "turncoat" phenomenon may ultimately be rooted in widespread and dubious ideas about the power of small groups to shift the macro narrative in the first place. When we think about changing "things," it seems to me that very, very few people have -- and perhaps no one has -- a truly deep apprehension of the dynamics of the "things" that they intend to change. Not because they're ignorant -- who am I to call someone ignorant? -- but because they underestimate the extent to which macro-level systems operate at scales that are fundamentally beyond the span of human apprehension. You can read all the books and think you know what a nation is, or what a system of global elites is, but I really think we underestimate the extent to which, even after one has read all the books, one's concept of any of these macro-level phenomena is still an abstraction, merely approximating the real thing. And that, as a result, most radical ideas about macro-level change are actually incredibly unrealistic.
The folks who have switched over from radical Left to radical Right seem to me to have in common the idea that macro-level change can be leveraged rapidly, by a small group -- which they suppose is probably located somewhere nearby themselves. RFK, Jr. clearly seems to me to be drawn to Trump because Trump appears to be the most powerful insurrectionist, and that's the vibe I get from many of the others Daniel's named above. But what is the historical precedent for this sort of revolution gone well? The French Revolution, followed by The Terror, followed by Napoleon? The Russian Revolution, followed by Stalin, followed by eventual chaotic collapse -- followed by Putin?
Ironically, I think Charles (Eisenstein) actually had one of the wisest things to say about this, when he said, basically, that any reform movement that has not done enough of its own shadow work is likely to reproduce some of the worst tendencies in whatever it replaces. I think this is really, really worth thinking about (including by Charles of today, frankly). It seems to me that the very idea that a small group is going to effect revolutionary macro-level change may be fairly direct evidence of the need to do more shadow work.
That I can see, the healthiest reform movements are the result of deep cultural change, effected at glacial, three-percent-per-year paces, over long periods of time -- and that these are occasionally underwritten by apparently (but perhaps not actually) sudden windfall moments like the SCOTUS sanction of gay marriage, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Working to create change in oneself, and to create small communities of folks working wisely and cohesively in the same direction, is the substrate of change that everyone should be looking for, I suspect. That's some of the best work we can do.
I think it's worth considering that Obama's vision of no vision is actually indeed the most visionary of all. (Incidentally, it seems to me that anybody who'd read "The Audacity of Hope" would have been totally unsurprised by who Obama turned out to be -- he turned out to be more or less exactly who he said he was in that book.) The highest halls are, as Obama says, mainly spaces to host the dialectic, and if you want meaningful change, then you have to build a deep, deep infrastructure of not just good-willing victims, but genuinely wise citizens. This is a dangerous idea to throw around -- because there are definitely forms of Empire that are widespread and bad, and they should be seen and denounced. But I do think it's worth always considering the extent to which our frictions with Empire are ultimately frictions within ourselves and frictions that are best addressed through long, long, and essentially local work. Much of a buzzkill as that may be.
"Ironically, I think Charles (Eisenstein) actually had one of the wisest things to say about this, when he said, basically, that any reform movement that has not done enough of its own shadow work is likely to reproduce some of the worst tendencies in whatever it replaces."
He says this, yet he seems to be incapable of applying it to himself and his own preferred narratives. There is a comment by a reviewer on Amazon of The Ascent of Humanity that I think is an accurate criticism:
"This book could have been subtitled "How Burning Man Will Save the World" or some other such nonsense. His solutions section reads to me like an ideologue would write, justifying every ridiculous idea anyone ever had as long as they are part of his tribe with no critical thinking whatsoever. Indeed having critically argued against critical thinking, he rejects logic and instead embraces salvation by faith in the weird leftish fringe. Even more ironically, Eisenstein talks of how we must find solutions to global environmental and economic issues by all working together while simultaneously raising up a tiny minority of the Left as the saviors of the world."
This is harsh, but essentially true (and it was written by a reviewer who identifies himself as a leftist). Charles talks out of both sides of his mouth all the time. He says we shouldn't valorize one's own tribe while demonizing other tribes, but he most definitely does romanticize certain movements and groups to an unhealthy degree. I honestly think Charles just likes to preach and pontificate. It's a lot more fun than actually doing any of the hard, painful shadow work he tells us we should all be doing -- but which he evidently, and wrongly, believes he himself has already done.
Yeah, I can understand the criticisms, tor sure. Personally, I think I will always be automatically and totally forgiving of Charles. “The Ascent of Humanity” wasn’t written that long ago, but in retrospect I think it was written at a very early time in the liminal period we’re in, and I think that book, plus “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible,” really helped a lot of everyday people name the situation that we’re all in, and take some bold steps into the unknown that previously seemed impossible. I can say, for sure, that when I read TAOH twelve or fourteen years ago or so, it had this effect on me, and reminded me that it was even possible to try to go to Hogwarts, so to speak, which I had known in my twenties and forgotten in my almost utterly soul-dead thirties. And Charles had a gathering in the Adirondacks in 2018 that was hands-down, the best retreat I’ve ever attended (it got extended three days because people were having such a great time), and to my taste he continues to gather some of the most sincere, clear-eyed folks doing any kind of work. I love him the way you’d love an older brother, and to me, he’s is likely to always be innocent.
Even his missteps seem innocent to me. Even though I feel like his spin with RFK, Jr., has been misguided, I can understand it. I’ve had a much, much smaller experience of that world of democratic political power, and I feel I can understand how intoxicating it can be. I appreciate that Charles is making his errors vulnerably, in plain view. I hold Charles and Daniel in very similar esteem, actually, and as I feel with Daniel, I can’t not see Charles as one of the Good Guys.
Great comment, reminds me of Thomas Björkman's work on social change in the Nordic countries, which has been evolutionary and with the aim of gradually increasing wisdom, rather than a teenage, ego-captured 'burn it all down' stance.
Yeah! I make my living as a math teacher, and our school is doing a book club on "The Nordic Secret" this fall, actually! I feel like I've learned a lot from that model, and it really does seem so wise. Maturity is freedom, and with maturity we make increasingly effective institutions. These seem to me to be major guiding lights.
This explores many of my own misgivings. I also feel uncomfortable with the left’s policies on immigration and the importance of having some form of moderate central culture to promote. As someone who has defended multiculturalism for decades, I also understand the need for still protecting aspects of European identity (at the very least in Europe.) While also aware of the fucked up history of the US and the importance of integrating that with Native American identity and African American identities in the US. I actually really don’t understand what is happening on this front, but stories of the federal government forcing enclaves of immigrants on local US populations, and cartels finding home in the US is disconcerting me. Almost ashamed to say it as a multiculturalist, but I don’t find the path to glabal harmony to be by dismantling European identity. Maybe that’s not what’s happening though. As I said I am confused on the issue
" stories of the federal government forcing enclaves of immigrants on local US populations, and cartels finding home in the US..." I think this is exaggerated. But as I wrote in another piece, some of this is also blowback. I have asylum seekers lining up on my corner for shelter space. Their country has been decimated by Hersheys and Nestle's, American corporations. Ivory Coast produces 50% of the world's chocolate. In the drive to produce chocolate, the country is now 80% deforested which means people can't live in their native environments anymore. Nestle and Hershey work with the corrupt government. The average chocolate farmer (apparently difficult and dangerous work) makes 78 cents a day. Hence they are desperate and moving North... a whole family will pool resources to fly one man to South America where he may walk for months or years up to the US, where if he can get across the border and make it to a city like NY, with luck he might get a delivery job making $10 - 15 an hour, which is still massive by the standards of their country, can support his whole family back home. This example of the Ivory Coast is what we would find, I am afraid, in different forms in every country sending migrants: US and European corporations stripmine and exploit these Third World countries for our consumers and for profit. With global warming and deforestation, they can no longer live in their indigenous places, so they are coming here - but our practices and our Capitalist system of domination is responsible for this catastrophe. This is the real background of the migration issue. In Europe, they are turning them back so they die at sea. For instance, the Syrian refugees who take boats or rafts into the Mediterannean. We will never know how many die. But for us to blame these immigrants, considering the truth of the situation, is disgraceful and wrong.
The movie, "Life and Debt," on Jamaica, is an excellent study in what we have done to countries across the Third World. In fact, I find it interesting that Kamala Harris' father was a Leftist economist who studied Jamaica and apparently some of his ideas have been responsible for an economic revival there. Maybe she has more up her sleeve than we know about yet.
I’m still looking to see if the truth is in the middle. I remember reading countless Western history books that stated the salafi extremism of the ME was partly due to colonization. In the last decade more research and translated texts have shown the extremism actually arose into fever pitch before Europeans started into the region. I understand and sympathize with the responsibility the first world has had with decimation of the third world. I also distrust the assumption that lays tacit that the same third world would have been a better place had the first world not decimated it. Reading about the African wars before colonization, infantacide in superstitious tribes in parts of South America where people were killed in duels if suspected of witch craft. But it doesn’t change that Trump is 100% not fit for office so democrats here we go. Still voting for Kamala.
Everything you write in this post might well be true, but Daniel is undoubtedly correct as well about American corporate exploitation.
I have a slightly more complicated view on the issue of multiculturalism. There seems to me a great deal of hypocrisy and dishonesty on the part of so many members of the so-called progressive left when it comes to multiculturalism. They seem less interested in truly exploring foreign cultures and more interested in disparaging the great achievements of European culture. For example, tedious -- and mostly false -- denunciations of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or any other great "white" writer as a racist and bigot. It's pathetic, because it's less about discovering important literary voices among visible minorities and more about highlighting or simply inventing flaws and failings in artists and writers who happen to be white. And then cancelling them for their alleged imperfections. This requires reading them in a sloppy and ungenerous manner so the full complexity of their vision is not taught to students. It's just a form of sanctimonious modern day Puritanism, and it's rife in academia.
What makes it offensive is you will find the most crude, willful, tone-deaf readings of Joseph Conrad, for example. Heart of Darkness is treated as a piece of racist bigotry, instead of what it truly was: an artistic expression of Conrad's horror over the Belgian exploitation and immiseration of the Congo at the behest of the loathsome psychopath-monarch King Leopold. Conrad was actually making his white contemporary readers uncomfortable in their complacency, but the neo-Puritan pseudo-multiculturalists of today would rather treat him as a racist apologist for imperialism, which he was not. In this way, they deliberately drive young students away from classic literature - and teach them that the great classics have nothing to say to them. That they can't learn from the masterpieces of the past -- if a white artist happened to produce them, that is. This is disgraceful, and it's rooted in Puritanical self-righteousness, not authentic progressivism. It has disastrous implications since it dissuades young people from familiarizing themselves with great works of art and literature that have the potential to expand their imaginative horizons.
The truth is that Conrad's worldview wasn't far from what Daniel has just expressed about corporations exploiting and stripping the Ivory Coast. But the academic pseudo-multiculturalists want to depict Conrad as nothing but a reactionary racist. Truth is, his books are highly sensitive to the facts of ruthless exploitation and dehumanization of the other.
There certainly were artists who had been canonized and who undoubtedly were virulent and paranoid racists whose racism is at the center of their work: like D.W. Griffith with Birth of a Nation. But his canonization always mostly had to do with his technical contributions as a pioneer of of the earliest cinema. An honest examination of his severe limitations and failures as an artist should be welcome -- but not a false history of the past that makes his extreme racist paranoia out to be the norm among great artists.
Where do find these attacks on Joseph Conrad and "Heart of Darkness"? I would be careful of over-generalizing... this is also a tendency now, where the most absurd things get hyped due to the "outrage machine" of social media. For instance Libs of TikTok: Sure, there are a few ridiculous idiots out there who behave like that, but that doesn't characterize the vast majority of Libs or queers or whoever else. I love Conrad btw! An incredible writer, like Nabokov in that English wasn't his first language but he became a total master of it.
I just used Conrad as an example. The attacks are not just on Conrad but on the entire canon of white European achievement in the arts, and they've been going on in academia for literally decades. As for Conrad, specifically, ever since Chinua Achebe accused him of being a "bloody racist" back in the mid-seventies, it has been a standard charge, once controversial, today frequently accepted as a self-evident truth:
I would agree with this. I haven't explained my own point of view very well but it coincides with this line of thought. I've told my friends for a while that I believe the problem is that for all of us, all cultures to come together, we have to come together from a place of inner strength and confidence. Teaching people to not be proud of positive sides of their heritage, including European, is not moving forward, not creating a partnership. Like I'll see people make jokes that because they are white they don't have rhythm and can't dance, Beethoven and Chopin didn't have rhythm? But I say as that that also gives equal due to what I've learned from other cultures.. I give respect where respect is due which is abundant in what I've learned from African, Middle Eastern, Native American states of thought. But the kid that was being taught that Europeans were the uncivilized white devils (what I was being taught 20 years ago)... No .. and I have numerous sources from the NOI to Muslim thinkers to African civilizational revisionist who will say that. And I feel that discourse lacking in the left. I had my Musicology prophessor once ask me if I didn't find the Western harmonic system oppressive lol. The chords of the music oppressive
When can we have the conversation that Trump, for all his callous incompetence, really might be the less dangerous option? When he makes a move towards tyranny the so-called liberals oppose it, but when a Dem does it they actively applaud and enforce it. Gaza is a perfect example — the unforgivable obsequiousness of the media (including, unfortunately, this newsletter) in the face of the worst of all crimes would be turned on its head were it happening under Don's watch.
His motive is clearly to expand and maintain his grift — more skyscrapers, more casinos, more real estate hustles, more hilariously bad merch. Theirs, by contrast, seems to be to drive the world on an inexorable path towards WWIII at the behest of their owners in the arms industry and their fascist world order collaborators.
For my money, neither Ukraine nor Gaza would be enduring the holocausts Biden/Harris are currently subjecting them to were Trump in office. Not because he's good, but because his game is about bringing ideologically adverse parties together under the banner of scammed-out deal-making. Israel would be cutting ribbons in Jerusalem and hosting conferences in Doha. Putin would be phoning Don to get NATO to back off and he might have made them listen. It's bad business — but its so much better than the death dealing that is the Dems bread and butter. There's a reason Cheney and Bush support Harris. It's not because they're suddenly the good guys.
Also, lumping Greenwald and Taibbi as turncoats just because they refuse to give the evils of the Democrat establishment a free pass is ridiculous. Watch System Update. It's real journalism. He's in the business to tell the truth. And the truth is that the Dems are deeply, deeply evil.
The only moral choices in this 'election' are Stein, Claudia, and Vermin fucking Supreme. Voting for Harris is voting for a genocidaire. There is really no excuse for supporting that.
Hi Sami, I appreciate the thoughtful comment even if I completely disagree with you. Trump didn’t cut the military budget and he also supports Israel. In fact, Trump giving Israel the green light to locate the capital to Jerusalem was responsible for the Gaza war, as it emboldened Jewish extremists to attack the Al Aqsa mosque which then led to the attack as reprisal. I think Trump’s foreign policy is far more dangerous - even though I really don’t like the Dems either. A lot of Trump’s main backers are Christian fanatics who want a war in Israel and the Jews to take the Temple on the Mount to start the Apocalypse.
As for Ukraine, I have many friends who have reported on Ukraine for many years and still spend time there. Plus Ukrainian friends. My view is that Putin is a classic psychopath dictator who will keep making war until he is stopped militarily. He invaded Georgia etc before this. He keeps upping the ante to see if the west has the guts to respond. I think it is crucial for Europe and the world that we support Ukraine to win or at least stalemate , but hopefully win. Trump is modeling his presidency on Victor Orban, dictator in Hungary, which has become a total kleptocracy since he took power. I know the Neoliberal corporate technocracy sucks but a Christian neofascist like Trump will simply be a lot worse for the US and the world.
This is not to ignore the many massive policy mistakes and failures of the US, but the question is what to do now? Trump and the republicans have no ideas except stop abortion, lower taxes on the rich and raise them on the poor and middle class, and try to take whatever they can.
I don’t the dems are driving the world toward WW3 anymore than the republicans and Trump are doing it. I feel people have taken a lot of ideological baggage from Twitter etc … it just feeds all the memes.
"A notable book that examines the psychology of individuals who shift between ideological extremes is “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer. In this classic work, Hoffer explores the psychological mechanisms behind why people are drawn to extremist movements—whether on the left or right—and how their need for certainty and belonging can lead them to switch between opposing ideologies.
"Hoffer argues that the mindset of a “true believer” is often more about the need for a cause, identity, and purpose than about the specific content of the ideology itself. As a result, people who are deeply committed to one extreme belief system may find it relatively easy to transition to another extreme belief system, even if it appears to be the polar opposite. Hoffer’s insights help explain how and why individuals undergo radical ideological transformations." From ChatGpT4
I'm regular reader of Charles Eisenstein's content since years. I'm a "leftist" since being involved in the Paris Mai 68 revolt and subseqent movements in the 70's in Germany like the nascent peace and green movement and so on (I'm also a "psychonaut" with and without substance, in India and elsewhere, I'm very interested in eastern/western philosophy, and recently quite intrigued by Kastrup's modern idealism, though Schopenhauer/Jung remain my top thinkers, and Graeber of course > the dawn of everything). I'm also a regular reader of your newsletter Daniel, enjoying your amazing eclectic approach, and I participate in your courses. Having said that, and being 74 years old now ... I think Charles has a point ... the concepts of a "Left" and "Right" are obsolete today, we must think/feel beyond/above dividing lines if we want to make sense of the dynamics of this at present incoherent multidimensional reality we're immersed/creating ... is "a more beautiful world at all possible"?. The Covid pandemic shifted the focus to basic issues like health<>bigpharma/biosphere distruction/control<>freedom/foreverwars and so on ... left/right does not help here. What's more, for me the "unthinkable" has happened ... that I think in this historic moment Trump would be (seen from accross the Atlantic) the disruptive force that may throw a stick in the spokes of the the US military-pharma-tech complex that is driving the world towards the collapse/apocalypse. That he would be the lesser evil (the healthy antagonist to these forces, something RFK seems to hope), and that the US system would be strong enough to digest and transform all the "horrible/ugly" things this "villain/crazy conman/guy" is said to be planning (maybe he is pretty "normal" if you take away the media coverage). Look forward to your next postings ... particularly on the question of Eros, sexuality and femininity ... which may deliver more insights into why we are in the mess we're in (why not reason about Trump/Harris from this point of view ... sanguine vs. sterile for example?). Only the best, Gio
When you're a longtime leftist and you really care about politics, and then you feel betrayed by your own party, you can either switch sides or take action to try and get your party back on track. I admire Taibbi because he's really focusing on the problems of the left not to tear them down and elevate the right, but to try to understand what went wrong and what the real problems are. I don't see his criticisms of the left as endorsing the right, but instead as a genuine act of caring what has happened and is happening to the Democrats.
This is exactly what I'm saying... he has always identified as left and so to see the left get so far away from him has made him ultra focused on that topic. I think there's something to be said for those who think critically about their own culture, instead of just criticizing the culture of others. There are endless people criticizing Trump and the Republicans in general, I think he finds it a lot more meaningful and important to examine and criticize his own party in hopes of better understanding what exactly went wrong. As someone who's always identified as left, I'm far more interested to learn about where and how the left lost the plot as opposed to reading criticisms of the right which to me are plain as day and not all that interesting.
Great read. I look forward to more. Nothing much to add other than Eisenstein's recent excuses are so pathetic for someone as smart as he is. Disapointing.
We just finished reading Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger on the Creekmason Discord, so we’ve been thinking about these questions for months. Still, you’ve expanded my perspective on the phenomenon.
Klein suggests that the Doppleganger politics (exemplified by “turncoat” Naomi Wolf, who she was once frequently confused with) is a strategy in which the right brings in everyone who the left rejects for a big bear hug of welcome and clout. If you or your ideas are in some way cancelled by polite society, you have a home with Bannon, et al, who will megaphone your platform (even if it’s only for show and they don’t really believe in your ideals whatsoever, preferring the outcome of a fascist ethnostate).
Klein left us on the Discord a little underfed though. We were all rooting for a sweeping conclusion in the end suggesting we must all integrate our Jungian-shadowy doppelgängers. Loving them, and through them, the parts of ourselves that we often refuse to admit have in common.
Like Graeber said in your quote block, if there was a left who didn’t look condescendingly at people with W’s accent and mannerisms, maybe fewer people would have voted for him.
But your point about the systematic destruction via dirty tricks of any leftist movement that gains momentum provides a useful broader context. Can we hope to out-organize institutions that have been dismantling anything built by the counter-culture brick by brick for decades?
Please watch the Sexton interview: he is great
Here's my reductive diagnosis--it over simplifies a bit but does account for most of this: Collective psychosis is highly contagious and is on both the left and the right. The left version is more annoying and the right version is more dangerous. People originally on the left are exposed, based on their original social networks, etc. to more left psychosis and some will undergo an enantiadromia and rebel from it by embracing the collective psychosis on the right which is a better channeler of undifferentiated rage, hence there are far more migrations
from left to right psychosis than right to left.
but actually, what are some examples of "left psychosis"? Like the gender pronoun obsession, Judith Butler, kind of thing?
https://deathisbadblog.com/mercedes-lackey-cancelled/ Here's an example, Mercedes Lackey, one of the first fantasy writers to have exemplary LGBTQ central characters, a known progressive and civil rights activist, spoke on a panel praising African American sci-fi great Samuel Delaney. An older woman, while praising Delaney, she used the term "colored" once instead of the approved "person of color," and was accused of using a racial slur. Both frail and in poor health, she and her husband were ejected from the conference. Samuel Delaney said he no problem with what she said, but the conference runners deleted the recording of the whole panel. The NAACP uses the term "colored" in it's name, and it was once consider the most respectful term, but now, a similar but more wordy version, "person of color" was arbitrarily decreed to be the. only correct usage. I have had many personal experiences with this attitude, and seen close friends and relatives who are college professors have their careers threatened for tiny word choices. They may have dreadlocks and septum rings, but many of these sorts of leftists are essentially church ladies in drag with crosses burning in their eyes, looking to get a power rush out of cancelling their betters over trivialities. For more on Woke racism see: https://zaporacle.com/hey-woke-folk-you-may-not-be-as-woke-as-you-think/
i like it !
That Graeber video is a gem. What is not a gem is the 'spiritual bypass as excuse for tacitly endorsing Trump' that Eisenstein dumped on us today. jfc it's really bad and I'm having trouble believing how little pushback he's getting, considering the overload of cognitive dissonance in it (although he does at least get off the fence on Palestine, which is something).
Spiritual Bypass is a good criticism of it. I’d like to believe he’s being spiritually principled, but it’s almost impossible to tell the difference.
I'm sure he's absolutely sincere in what he's writing; I don't doubt that at all. But the problem is that he's spiritually bypassing himself in order to make sense of essentially becoming the thing he hated, and so he's telling his audience what he's telling himself internally.
He's trying to be principled, but the net effect is normalising something which should never be normalised, only called out. *And* he's stifling those who try to call it out as 'othering' or 'projecting', 'falling into separation'. Is a judge who sends a murderer to prison 'othering' them, or just enacting justice? Not all condemnation comes from a deluded place.
As someone who edited and published Charles’ work (Sacred Economics) and supported his vision for years via my web magazine, I became increasingly disenchanted with his perspective a number of years back. There is a combo of willful idealism and naiviete with this Hamlet-like refusal to take sides, which is of course still taking a side. I felt he veered off track with his climate change book and further off track with his Covid writing. At this point he seems completely lost from any ethical standpoint. But the seeds of this crisis were there much earlier.
yes I agree. I'd actually given up reading him but then came back when he started working for RFK Jr because I was interested to see how that would play out. 'Badly' is the answer, and maybe 'very badly' if Trump loses and openly tries to start a civil war or other unrest. Or wins and starts acting ultra-draconian. Neither of those things is at all unlikely either, which makes CE's position extremely untenable.
And yes, he's acting like 'well RFK's gone over to Trump, what can I do?' - as you say, that in itself is a decision: not to take a stand and say 'so far and no farther'. Just go along with whatever, but write a load of platitudes as if he's above the whole thing.
It really looks like his shadow is controlling him - the superego won't take a side, while the unresolved material is siding with the bad guys. It's super disappointing, but as you say, not that surprising any more.
What is surprising is that a lot of people seem to receive fence-sitting (Switzerland in WW2-style) as some sort of enlightened position.
I half believe that if Charles were to tell his disciples that wandering around in rush hour traffic was a good idea, because they'd be living in the Spirit of the Gift with a trustful abundance mentality, a lot of them would do it.
😆
This comment is quite illuminating: https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/shades-of-many-colors/comment/68492724
CE is - if that's true, I haven't checked it - getting over $20k per month for working for RFK Jr. That's a significant incentive to keep writing 'both sides have valid points' essays for ever, rather than admitting he made a mistake and going back to Substack and speaking engagements for - I'm guessing - less than $100k per year. Unfortunately, sometimes things are just that simple. It seems like he and his boss have both made the same mistake of favouring power (in RFK's case) and money (in CE's case) over principle.
I think the seeds of his present egomania can be found in his lifelong inability to simply express an opinion AS just his opinion. His books, essays and speeches never feel like conversations between equals, among peers, they always feel like holy sermons delivered on high by the prophet Moses/Paul/Allah or whom you will. He can never ever talk WITH others, only AT them. He can never dialogue with anyone, only monologue (often at excruciating length) -- which is embarrassing in someone who always preaches the virtue of humility and of listening to others.
100% this. He's never in an inquiry, he's always in the mode of I have figured this out and will now elucidate it for you.
Still absorbing the historical revisionism of “The Dawn of Everything” and as a Canadian I can only watch US politics from a similar but different distance. As an other with a distinctly different point of view. Perhaps a liminal perspective, beyond the binary of the left and right dominator models. I do not choose sides and try to be corpus colosum of that political divide. Although I find myself drawing a distinct line regarding Trumpism. Charisma junkies, or as Robin Williams said, the crack house to the south of us. That said I was very disappointed in the lack of Mea culpa coming from Charles regarding Kennedy. My first social media unfollow, unfriend. Strange times. As my clan motto states, hold fast.
I'm not sure he needed to apologise. Had he just quit when RFK joined Trump, even without much comment, I think that would have been fine. Actions speak louder than massive long walls of text. But he has stayed and so a mea culpa may well be necessary in the future. If it matters by then.
Not so much an apology, but an honest personal assessment admitting that perhaps he has made a mistake, or misunderstood the implications of his decision to become involved. Instead a tiresome saintly perfectionism resulting in empty calories.
Or maybe not even an APOLOGY: simply an honest, detailed and forthright EXPLANATION of exactly how and why he's come to view Trump as "not even particularly right-wing," whereas in his previous writings about Trump he always saw him as a promulgator of "Neo-Fascism." How did you go, Charles, from Point A to Point B? But no, instead of explaining his thought process, he just scrubs his own memory clean! And expects everyone to just go along with him on his "spiritual" journey of further "enlightenment" as if no cognitive dissonance or cognitive fissure had even occurred!
I strongly disagree with your assessment of Taibbi and Greenwald. And Brand is a forgotten dream. I don’t know why you group them together, including RFK. Hillary lost because most political commentaries are out of touch with the majority of America, not because of Greenwalds reporting. People who voted for Obama voted for Trump. Both parties are run by the mafia. Plus there’s a lot more nuanced journalism out there than Taibbi and Greenwald. Lots of people have left the left who have no clue who they are. And no they are not right wing nor have they been captureed by the right wing. I think it is ridulous to say so and reductive in thinking. When all the liberal rags boycott you you have no where to go to get your message out. Look at the latest Rogen episode with Dr. Robert Epstein a lesson in cancel culture and what can happen. to you. The Clintons are just as dangerous. I really think you miss the bigger picture.
Hi Stacey, thanks for your thoughts. Who do you prefer for "nuanced journalism"? I didn't say they were captured by the right wing: I said they had reached a level of outrage with Dems that led to them giving the Right a free pass, more or less. The Clintons, Biden, Obama, Harris: I see very little difference, they are servants and protectors of the status quo, more or less Neoliberals, centrists who are in many ways more Republican than Republicans were in the 70s. The big issues are the domination of wealth, the need for serious progressive taxation and anti-trust legislation, to limit corporate overreach. Neither Dems or Reps have the capacity to take this on, due to their funding sources, so we drift.
Hi Daniel, thanks for replying and clarifying your position. Your writing always makes me think.
I don't see their outrage at the Dems as a pass for the Right. Their position may lean heavily on the hypocrisy of the Left, which at times can be reductive, but It's also the truth. I stand up for Greenwald and Taibbi because I still think they are integral journalists. They hold truth to power. I don't feel have they changed in politics or character and what they've done is prove there's an alternative for independent journalism. Clearly many people are under the impression the DNC are the good guys, or the lesser of two evils and this is only crazy making, why their work is still important. At the moment I really like Meghan Daum and her podcast The Unspeakable, she also does a podcast with Sarah Hader A Special Place in Hell. Nancy Rommelmann and Sarah Hepola, Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal, Michael Shellenberger, Marry Harrington, who you've quoted. I think Colman Hughes is one of our great new intellects. The Free Press and Unherd do a good job of bringing back in-depth debates as well as publishing dissenting and surprising voices. Unfortunately the backlash against Bari Weiss is based in "group think" dislike. In reality, I think most people live in the grey area, they're liberal here, conservative there, libertarian-lite, progressive on the side, whatever it is. I agree the Democrats are the new Republicans. Yet both parties are slaves to the corporate and billionaire class and both are inherently untrustworthy. So where does this leave us? Biden's administration is the first in a long time to enforce anti-trust laws yet everyone supporting Harris wants Lina Kahn fired. RFK is at least getting the country talking about the state of America's health, the crux from where all other issues spring, the statistics are frightening. I'm more than disappointed he's joined the GOP, but I also understand it. I don't like Trump but I also don't think the world is going to fall apart if he's elected. I think what the populous likes about him is they think he can change the status quo, and like you said, the alternative is the status quo. I know Dems and liberals who are terrible people and I know people who like Trump who are salt of the earth. And vice versa. You can't explain it. Personally, I don't think we need political parties, we should abolish them altogether, a pipe dream perhaps. But what I do know, hating the other side, demeaning the other side and blaming the other side is not a strategy or a solution. The circle only has one side.
I think you answer your own question pretty well when you write:
"If you have a Leftist agenda and you report on this situation long enough, you might start to despise the liberal establishment. You might start to hate the hypocrisy of the Democrats more than you hate the malevolence of the neo-Fascistic Right. I sometimes feel close to that, myself."
The rank hypocrisy of the Democrats, along with the destruction of anything that could be called a truly leftist political party in this country leaves many/most people feeling that, as Zappa put it, "Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex."
If it's all bullshit, why not support those who at least acknowledge that it's bullshit and who are more likely -- intentionally or not -- to bring it crashing down?
Personally, I think Eisenstein, Brand, and RFK are motivated more by ego than anything else. They go where they get most attention and are less likely to face critical scrutiny.
Hi Chris, I am not sure “bringing it crashing down” is the best idea… hasn’t worked in most places… leads to mayhem, mass murder, civil war etc
I'm not advocating, just channeling, as best I can. I'm sure they'd respond that both the American and French revolutions brought it crashing down, as has every other revolution in history. Some turned out better than others. Was it Jefferson who said something about the tree of freedom being nourished by the blood of revolutionaries? (paraphrasing) Corruption creep is definitely an issue, and some kind of violent uprising seems to be the only way to get a reboot -- especially since any kind of peaceful revolutionary who gets traction is eliminated in one way or another.
Yes but that was in the 18th Century when we didn't have an intricately interconnected electronics grid, nuclear weapons, in the US a massive amount of guns / assault rifles in private hands, when people were more connected to land, food sources, farming etc. Today if we do go into a civil war scenario, the carnage would be inconceivable.
So you think we're beyond war and revolution at this point? Doesn't seem so. Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza are both, in some ways, civil wars happening right now. Again, not advocating, but I think there's a significant segment of the US population that feels ignored at best, exploited at worst who are increasingly passionate about getting a change. Every election since Bush Jr. has been promising change ("and hope we can believe in") and not delivering. Clearly, the powers that be recognized the growing appetite for fundamental change, so they keep promising it and embodying it ("I'm black!" "I'm a woman!" "I'm an unhinged narcisist!" "I'm a black woman!"). But since they can't/won't deliver actual change, the calls grow louder and violence grows nearer.
"Personally, I think Eisenstein, Brand, and RFK are motivated more by ego than anything else. They go where they get most attention and are less likely to face critical scrutiny."
I don't know much about Brand, I've hardly ever listened to his podcast, but I definitely think this is true of Eisenstein. He's a totally ego-driven individual, despite his constant preaching of the virtue of altruism, the need to transcend the individual ego, and the importance of listening to others. For all his heady talk of the benefit of listening, he himself is one of the worst listeners out there. He can't stop talking and pontificating long enough to listen to anyone else.
As a long-time follower of both Daniel P and Charles E, I find this discussion fascinating and also little amusing. I am finding it funny in a cosmic joke kind of way that Dick Cheney is now endorsing a Democrat and a Kennedy is endorsing a Republican. What is happening here is the pole shift we have all been waiting for!
It may be a pole shift, but why is it the one we were waiting for? It doesn't seem to be going in any healthy direction.
Charles's essay was hard to swallow. His number one and main point at all times is not to "other" people... His entire essay is, "don't 'other' me when I tell you that I'm supporting Trump!" BUT... the side he's gone to is THE LITERAL side of "othering" FFS. Trump is a known racist, from "black jobs" to his fear mongering over migrants, and Vance's "childless cat ladies". That's not "othering" Charles?
What Charles is careening towards is the paradox of tolerance (off Wikipedia) "The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance." Trump is intolerance personified, so our intolerance of him is out of respect and protection for all of those whom he has and will hurt with his policies and the direction he wants to take this country in. And Charles now joins their ranks. Baffling.
I gotta say, I find this whole bit an absurd exercise. Here's an essay by Daniel which effectively and essentially depicts the two political choices we have as something between minus 98 and minus 94 (where minus 100 is unalloyed awful) depending on which you choose. Everyone is looking at much the same picture--the turncoats and the still faithful dems--and assigning slightly different values to various points. But the overall vision is the same: we are sleepwalking into self-destruction or WWIII at an escalating pace and perhaps one side or the other may get us there a year or two earlier. And yet Daniel chooses to expend all this energy, all this analysis, to coming down clearly and definitively on one side, and excoriating the others for arriving at a different conclusion. What a waste. Over the smallest of functional differences--both choices are dreadful. Yet Daniel persists in condemning those who have made the often difficult decision to leave the fold, rather than focus his insights into the remarkable success of the structure that permits no good decisions, no possibility of positive change, and yet pits good people against each other, often with much ferocity.
But the ferocity here is Daniel's choice, and that's where I'm struggling. Because to me, it suggests that it's really personal and a bit unhinged, a betrayal by people he once knew, that rubs him in some deep place that he's not quite really explored. In the meantime, he's pretending that it's all coming from a high level of analytical integrity.
Indeed, the final paragraph is some sort of vapid psycho-analysis declaring that someone like Taibbi is threatened by cancel culture and MeToo because he fears being exposed for past transgressions, and that dynamic is pushing him further right. As though opposition to woke politics is so reducible. As though Taibbi's suspicion of the dems bullshit isn't deeply earned by his detailed coverage of the Twitter Files, and Russiagate, etc. over the last 8 years. As though reading the NYT's these days--once you step out of the blue bubble--isn't a terrifying experience of watching something you've read your whole life become a slick, loud, scolding voice of dem propoganda for seeding smug and knowing intolerance amongst most of our friends and family.
A lot of us have left the fold, many good life-long democrats, many of us not supporting Trump, but very much in the wilderness. From this vantage point, the world is far more complicated, and answers more elusive. I wish I could generate the certainly to know that if Kamala Harris wins, that would clearly be a better world and a better future.
Well… I still don’t see it as a small choice. But I agree the situation is frustrating. Please try to take your frustration out on the situation and the issues, not on me.
It seems to me that a lot of this "turncoat" phenomenon may ultimately be rooted in widespread and dubious ideas about the power of small groups to shift the macro narrative in the first place. When we think about changing "things," it seems to me that very, very few people have -- and perhaps no one has -- a truly deep apprehension of the dynamics of the "things" that they intend to change. Not because they're ignorant -- who am I to call someone ignorant? -- but because they underestimate the extent to which macro-level systems operate at scales that are fundamentally beyond the span of human apprehension. You can read all the books and think you know what a nation is, or what a system of global elites is, but I really think we underestimate the extent to which, even after one has read all the books, one's concept of any of these macro-level phenomena is still an abstraction, merely approximating the real thing. And that, as a result, most radical ideas about macro-level change are actually incredibly unrealistic.
The folks who have switched over from radical Left to radical Right seem to me to have in common the idea that macro-level change can be leveraged rapidly, by a small group -- which they suppose is probably located somewhere nearby themselves. RFK, Jr. clearly seems to me to be drawn to Trump because Trump appears to be the most powerful insurrectionist, and that's the vibe I get from many of the others Daniel's named above. But what is the historical precedent for this sort of revolution gone well? The French Revolution, followed by The Terror, followed by Napoleon? The Russian Revolution, followed by Stalin, followed by eventual chaotic collapse -- followed by Putin?
Ironically, I think Charles (Eisenstein) actually had one of the wisest things to say about this, when he said, basically, that any reform movement that has not done enough of its own shadow work is likely to reproduce some of the worst tendencies in whatever it replaces. I think this is really, really worth thinking about (including by Charles of today, frankly). It seems to me that the very idea that a small group is going to effect revolutionary macro-level change may be fairly direct evidence of the need to do more shadow work.
That I can see, the healthiest reform movements are the result of deep cultural change, effected at glacial, three-percent-per-year paces, over long periods of time -- and that these are occasionally underwritten by apparently (but perhaps not actually) sudden windfall moments like the SCOTUS sanction of gay marriage, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Working to create change in oneself, and to create small communities of folks working wisely and cohesively in the same direction, is the substrate of change that everyone should be looking for, I suspect. That's some of the best work we can do.
I think it's worth considering that Obama's vision of no vision is actually indeed the most visionary of all. (Incidentally, it seems to me that anybody who'd read "The Audacity of Hope" would have been totally unsurprised by who Obama turned out to be -- he turned out to be more or less exactly who he said he was in that book.) The highest halls are, as Obama says, mainly spaces to host the dialectic, and if you want meaningful change, then you have to build a deep, deep infrastructure of not just good-willing victims, but genuinely wise citizens. This is a dangerous idea to throw around -- because there are definitely forms of Empire that are widespread and bad, and they should be seen and denounced. But I do think it's worth always considering the extent to which our frictions with Empire are ultimately frictions within ourselves and frictions that are best addressed through long, long, and essentially local work. Much of a buzzkill as that may be.
"Ironically, I think Charles (Eisenstein) actually had one of the wisest things to say about this, when he said, basically, that any reform movement that has not done enough of its own shadow work is likely to reproduce some of the worst tendencies in whatever it replaces."
He says this, yet he seems to be incapable of applying it to himself and his own preferred narratives. There is a comment by a reviewer on Amazon of The Ascent of Humanity that I think is an accurate criticism:
"This book could have been subtitled "How Burning Man Will Save the World" or some other such nonsense. His solutions section reads to me like an ideologue would write, justifying every ridiculous idea anyone ever had as long as they are part of his tribe with no critical thinking whatsoever. Indeed having critically argued against critical thinking, he rejects logic and instead embraces salvation by faith in the weird leftish fringe. Even more ironically, Eisenstein talks of how we must find solutions to global environmental and economic issues by all working together while simultaneously raising up a tiny minority of the Left as the saviors of the world."
This is harsh, but essentially true (and it was written by a reviewer who identifies himself as a leftist). Charles talks out of both sides of his mouth all the time. He says we shouldn't valorize one's own tribe while demonizing other tribes, but he most definitely does romanticize certain movements and groups to an unhealthy degree. I honestly think Charles just likes to preach and pontificate. It's a lot more fun than actually doing any of the hard, painful shadow work he tells us we should all be doing -- but which he evidently, and wrongly, believes he himself has already done.
Yeah, I can understand the criticisms, tor sure. Personally, I think I will always be automatically and totally forgiving of Charles. “The Ascent of Humanity” wasn’t written that long ago, but in retrospect I think it was written at a very early time in the liminal period we’re in, and I think that book, plus “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible,” really helped a lot of everyday people name the situation that we’re all in, and take some bold steps into the unknown that previously seemed impossible. I can say, for sure, that when I read TAOH twelve or fourteen years ago or so, it had this effect on me, and reminded me that it was even possible to try to go to Hogwarts, so to speak, which I had known in my twenties and forgotten in my almost utterly soul-dead thirties. And Charles had a gathering in the Adirondacks in 2018 that was hands-down, the best retreat I’ve ever attended (it got extended three days because people were having such a great time), and to my taste he continues to gather some of the most sincere, clear-eyed folks doing any kind of work. I love him the way you’d love an older brother, and to me, he’s is likely to always be innocent.
Even his missteps seem innocent to me. Even though I feel like his spin with RFK, Jr., has been misguided, I can understand it. I’ve had a much, much smaller experience of that world of democratic political power, and I feel I can understand how intoxicating it can be. I appreciate that Charles is making his errors vulnerably, in plain view. I hold Charles and Daniel in very similar esteem, actually, and as I feel with Daniel, I can’t not see Charles as one of the Good Guys.
lovely comment!
Great comment, reminds me of Thomas Björkman's work on social change in the Nordic countries, which has been evolutionary and with the aim of gradually increasing wisdom, rather than a teenage, ego-captured 'burn it all down' stance.
Yeah! I make my living as a math teacher, and our school is doing a book club on "The Nordic Secret" this fall, actually! I feel like I've learned a lot from that model, and it really does seem so wise. Maturity is freedom, and with maturity we make increasingly effective institutions. These seem to me to be major guiding lights.
ah that's funny... the model must be seeping out through what you wrote :)
Ha! No doubt! :D
Appreciate this analysis, as I was boggling over Eisenstein's essay just yesterday.
This explores many of my own misgivings. I also feel uncomfortable with the left’s policies on immigration and the importance of having some form of moderate central culture to promote. As someone who has defended multiculturalism for decades, I also understand the need for still protecting aspects of European identity (at the very least in Europe.) While also aware of the fucked up history of the US and the importance of integrating that with Native American identity and African American identities in the US. I actually really don’t understand what is happening on this front, but stories of the federal government forcing enclaves of immigrants on local US populations, and cartels finding home in the US is disconcerting me. Almost ashamed to say it as a multiculturalist, but I don’t find the path to glabal harmony to be by dismantling European identity. Maybe that’s not what’s happening though. As I said I am confused on the issue
" stories of the federal government forcing enclaves of immigrants on local US populations, and cartels finding home in the US..." I think this is exaggerated. But as I wrote in another piece, some of this is also blowback. I have asylum seekers lining up on my corner for shelter space. Their country has been decimated by Hersheys and Nestle's, American corporations. Ivory Coast produces 50% of the world's chocolate. In the drive to produce chocolate, the country is now 80% deforested which means people can't live in their native environments anymore. Nestle and Hershey work with the corrupt government. The average chocolate farmer (apparently difficult and dangerous work) makes 78 cents a day. Hence they are desperate and moving North... a whole family will pool resources to fly one man to South America where he may walk for months or years up to the US, where if he can get across the border and make it to a city like NY, with luck he might get a delivery job making $10 - 15 an hour, which is still massive by the standards of their country, can support his whole family back home. This example of the Ivory Coast is what we would find, I am afraid, in different forms in every country sending migrants: US and European corporations stripmine and exploit these Third World countries for our consumers and for profit. With global warming and deforestation, they can no longer live in their indigenous places, so they are coming here - but our practices and our Capitalist system of domination is responsible for this catastrophe. This is the real background of the migration issue. In Europe, they are turning them back so they die at sea. For instance, the Syrian refugees who take boats or rafts into the Mediterannean. We will never know how many die. But for us to blame these immigrants, considering the truth of the situation, is disgraceful and wrong.
The movie, "Life and Debt," on Jamaica, is an excellent study in what we have done to countries across the Third World. In fact, I find it interesting that Kamala Harris' father was a Leftist economist who studied Jamaica and apparently some of his ideas have been responsible for an economic revival there. Maybe she has more up her sleeve than we know about yet.
I’m still looking to see if the truth is in the middle. I remember reading countless Western history books that stated the salafi extremism of the ME was partly due to colonization. In the last decade more research and translated texts have shown the extremism actually arose into fever pitch before Europeans started into the region. I understand and sympathize with the responsibility the first world has had with decimation of the third world. I also distrust the assumption that lays tacit that the same third world would have been a better place had the first world not decimated it. Reading about the African wars before colonization, infantacide in superstitious tribes in parts of South America where people were killed in duels if suspected of witch craft. But it doesn’t change that Trump is 100% not fit for office so democrats here we go. Still voting for Kamala.
Everything you write in this post might well be true, but Daniel is undoubtedly correct as well about American corporate exploitation.
I have a slightly more complicated view on the issue of multiculturalism. There seems to me a great deal of hypocrisy and dishonesty on the part of so many members of the so-called progressive left when it comes to multiculturalism. They seem less interested in truly exploring foreign cultures and more interested in disparaging the great achievements of European culture. For example, tedious -- and mostly false -- denunciations of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or any other great "white" writer as a racist and bigot. It's pathetic, because it's less about discovering important literary voices among visible minorities and more about highlighting or simply inventing flaws and failings in artists and writers who happen to be white. And then cancelling them for their alleged imperfections. This requires reading them in a sloppy and ungenerous manner so the full complexity of their vision is not taught to students. It's just a form of sanctimonious modern day Puritanism, and it's rife in academia.
What makes it offensive is you will find the most crude, willful, tone-deaf readings of Joseph Conrad, for example. Heart of Darkness is treated as a piece of racist bigotry, instead of what it truly was: an artistic expression of Conrad's horror over the Belgian exploitation and immiseration of the Congo at the behest of the loathsome psychopath-monarch King Leopold. Conrad was actually making his white contemporary readers uncomfortable in their complacency, but the neo-Puritan pseudo-multiculturalists of today would rather treat him as a racist apologist for imperialism, which he was not. In this way, they deliberately drive young students away from classic literature - and teach them that the great classics have nothing to say to them. That they can't learn from the masterpieces of the past -- if a white artist happened to produce them, that is. This is disgraceful, and it's rooted in Puritanical self-righteousness, not authentic progressivism. It has disastrous implications since it dissuades young people from familiarizing themselves with great works of art and literature that have the potential to expand their imaginative horizons.
The truth is that Conrad's worldview wasn't far from what Daniel has just expressed about corporations exploiting and stripping the Ivory Coast. But the academic pseudo-multiculturalists want to depict Conrad as nothing but a reactionary racist. Truth is, his books are highly sensitive to the facts of ruthless exploitation and dehumanization of the other.
There certainly were artists who had been canonized and who undoubtedly were virulent and paranoid racists whose racism is at the center of their work: like D.W. Griffith with Birth of a Nation. But his canonization always mostly had to do with his technical contributions as a pioneer of of the earliest cinema. An honest examination of his severe limitations and failures as an artist should be welcome -- but not a false history of the past that makes his extreme racist paranoia out to be the norm among great artists.
Where do find these attacks on Joseph Conrad and "Heart of Darkness"? I would be careful of over-generalizing... this is also a tendency now, where the most absurd things get hyped due to the "outrage machine" of social media. For instance Libs of TikTok: Sure, there are a few ridiculous idiots out there who behave like that, but that doesn't characterize the vast majority of Libs or queers or whoever else. I love Conrad btw! An incredible writer, like Nabokov in that English wasn't his first language but he became a total master of it.
I just used Conrad as an example. The attacks are not just on Conrad but on the entire canon of white European achievement in the arts, and they've been going on in academia for literally decades. As for Conrad, specifically, ever since Chinua Achebe accused him of being a "bloody racist" back in the mid-seventies, it has been a standard charge, once controversial, today frequently accepted as a self-evident truth:
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/10/777675526/graphic-adaptation-of-heart-of-darkness-takes-on-canonical-racism-artfully#:~:text=%22A%20bloody%20racist.%22%20When%20African%20novelist
I would agree with this. I haven't explained my own point of view very well but it coincides with this line of thought. I've told my friends for a while that I believe the problem is that for all of us, all cultures to come together, we have to come together from a place of inner strength and confidence. Teaching people to not be proud of positive sides of their heritage, including European, is not moving forward, not creating a partnership. Like I'll see people make jokes that because they are white they don't have rhythm and can't dance, Beethoven and Chopin didn't have rhythm? But I say as that that also gives equal due to what I've learned from other cultures.. I give respect where respect is due which is abundant in what I've learned from African, Middle Eastern, Native American states of thought. But the kid that was being taught that Europeans were the uncivilized white devils (what I was being taught 20 years ago)... No .. and I have numerous sources from the NOI to Muslim thinkers to African civilizational revisionist who will say that. And I feel that discourse lacking in the left. I had my Musicology prophessor once ask me if I didn't find the Western harmonic system oppressive lol. The chords of the music oppressive
Well said.
When can we have the conversation that Trump, for all his callous incompetence, really might be the less dangerous option? When he makes a move towards tyranny the so-called liberals oppose it, but when a Dem does it they actively applaud and enforce it. Gaza is a perfect example — the unforgivable obsequiousness of the media (including, unfortunately, this newsletter) in the face of the worst of all crimes would be turned on its head were it happening under Don's watch.
His motive is clearly to expand and maintain his grift — more skyscrapers, more casinos, more real estate hustles, more hilariously bad merch. Theirs, by contrast, seems to be to drive the world on an inexorable path towards WWIII at the behest of their owners in the arms industry and their fascist world order collaborators.
For my money, neither Ukraine nor Gaza would be enduring the holocausts Biden/Harris are currently subjecting them to were Trump in office. Not because he's good, but because his game is about bringing ideologically adverse parties together under the banner of scammed-out deal-making. Israel would be cutting ribbons in Jerusalem and hosting conferences in Doha. Putin would be phoning Don to get NATO to back off and he might have made them listen. It's bad business — but its so much better than the death dealing that is the Dems bread and butter. There's a reason Cheney and Bush support Harris. It's not because they're suddenly the good guys.
Also, lumping Greenwald and Taibbi as turncoats just because they refuse to give the evils of the Democrat establishment a free pass is ridiculous. Watch System Update. It's real journalism. He's in the business to tell the truth. And the truth is that the Dems are deeply, deeply evil.
The only moral choices in this 'election' are Stein, Claudia, and Vermin fucking Supreme. Voting for Harris is voting for a genocidaire. There is really no excuse for supporting that.
Hi Sami, I appreciate the thoughtful comment even if I completely disagree with you. Trump didn’t cut the military budget and he also supports Israel. In fact, Trump giving Israel the green light to locate the capital to Jerusalem was responsible for the Gaza war, as it emboldened Jewish extremists to attack the Al Aqsa mosque which then led to the attack as reprisal. I think Trump’s foreign policy is far more dangerous - even though I really don’t like the Dems either. A lot of Trump’s main backers are Christian fanatics who want a war in Israel and the Jews to take the Temple on the Mount to start the Apocalypse.
As for Ukraine, I have many friends who have reported on Ukraine for many years and still spend time there. Plus Ukrainian friends. My view is that Putin is a classic psychopath dictator who will keep making war until he is stopped militarily. He invaded Georgia etc before this. He keeps upping the ante to see if the west has the guts to respond. I think it is crucial for Europe and the world that we support Ukraine to win or at least stalemate , but hopefully win. Trump is modeling his presidency on Victor Orban, dictator in Hungary, which has become a total kleptocracy since he took power. I know the Neoliberal corporate technocracy sucks but a Christian neofascist like Trump will simply be a lot worse for the US and the world.
This is not to ignore the many massive policy mistakes and failures of the US, but the question is what to do now? Trump and the republicans have no ideas except stop abortion, lower taxes on the rich and raise them on the poor and middle class, and try to take whatever they can.
I don’t the dems are driving the world toward WW3 anymore than the republicans and Trump are doing it. I feel people have taken a lot of ideological baggage from Twitter etc … it just feeds all the memes.
"A notable book that examines the psychology of individuals who shift between ideological extremes is “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer. In this classic work, Hoffer explores the psychological mechanisms behind why people are drawn to extremist movements—whether on the left or right—and how their need for certainty and belonging can lead them to switch between opposing ideologies.
"Hoffer argues that the mindset of a “true believer” is often more about the need for a cause, identity, and purpose than about the specific content of the ideology itself. As a result, people who are deeply committed to one extreme belief system may find it relatively easy to transition to another extreme belief system, even if it appears to be the polar opposite. Hoffer’s insights help explain how and why individuals undergo radical ideological transformations." From ChatGpT4
I'm regular reader of Charles Eisenstein's content since years. I'm a "leftist" since being involved in the Paris Mai 68 revolt and subseqent movements in the 70's in Germany like the nascent peace and green movement and so on (I'm also a "psychonaut" with and without substance, in India and elsewhere, I'm very interested in eastern/western philosophy, and recently quite intrigued by Kastrup's modern idealism, though Schopenhauer/Jung remain my top thinkers, and Graeber of course > the dawn of everything). I'm also a regular reader of your newsletter Daniel, enjoying your amazing eclectic approach, and I participate in your courses. Having said that, and being 74 years old now ... I think Charles has a point ... the concepts of a "Left" and "Right" are obsolete today, we must think/feel beyond/above dividing lines if we want to make sense of the dynamics of this at present incoherent multidimensional reality we're immersed/creating ... is "a more beautiful world at all possible"?. The Covid pandemic shifted the focus to basic issues like health<>bigpharma/biosphere distruction/control<>freedom/foreverwars and so on ... left/right does not help here. What's more, for me the "unthinkable" has happened ... that I think in this historic moment Trump would be (seen from accross the Atlantic) the disruptive force that may throw a stick in the spokes of the the US military-pharma-tech complex that is driving the world towards the collapse/apocalypse. That he would be the lesser evil (the healthy antagonist to these forces, something RFK seems to hope), and that the US system would be strong enough to digest and transform all the "horrible/ugly" things this "villain/crazy conman/guy" is said to be planning (maybe he is pretty "normal" if you take away the media coverage). Look forward to your next postings ... particularly on the question of Eros, sexuality and femininity ... which may deliver more insights into why we are in the mess we're in (why not reason about Trump/Harris from this point of view ... sanguine vs. sterile for example?). Only the best, Gio
When you're a longtime leftist and you really care about politics, and then you feel betrayed by your own party, you can either switch sides or take action to try and get your party back on track. I admire Taibbi because he's really focusing on the problems of the left not to tear them down and elevate the right, but to try to understand what went wrong and what the real problems are. I don't see his criticisms of the left as endorsing the right, but instead as a genuine act of caring what has happened and is happening to the Democrats.
can you give me some specifics, links? I mostly see him going after Dems and ignoring Reps as Jonathan Chait has written ... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/matt-taibbi-why-republican-trump-left-wing.html
also this... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-matt-taibbi.html
This is exactly what I'm saying... he has always identified as left and so to see the left get so far away from him has made him ultra focused on that topic. I think there's something to be said for those who think critically about their own culture, instead of just criticizing the culture of others. There are endless people criticizing Trump and the Republicans in general, I think he finds it a lot more meaningful and important to examine and criticize his own party in hopes of better understanding what exactly went wrong. As someone who's always identified as left, I'm far more interested to learn about where and how the left lost the plot as opposed to reading criticisms of the right which to me are plain as day and not all that interesting.
Great read. I look forward to more. Nothing much to add other than Eisenstein's recent excuses are so pathetic for someone as smart as he is. Disapointing.