Amos's River of Justice

Tag: progressive movement

  • Neo-Gnostic Myth in American Politics

    I may have found the book behind the 2016 attack on progressivism. It’s Guido Giacomo Preparata’s The Ideology of Tyranny: The Use of Neo-Gnostic Myth in American Politics. 1 It explains the outrageous backlash that brought us Donald Trump as well as the behavior of the Democrats. But there are a few gaps in the narrative.

    The Unspoken Fear of the American Establishment

    It doesn’t explain the timing of Donald Trump’s attack on the ‘Democrat’ Party or his lack of attention on the progressive movement.

    You will recall that it was the Democrats who fought Sanders most ferociously in the 2015-16 Democratic primary. The Party was not facing much criticism before that. In retrospect, this was probably due to the fact that Donald Trump was not a serious contender for power until after the rise of Bernie Sanders.

    During the general election he never focused on the progressive movement. He merely pranced around acting like Bernie while pretending not to notice him.

    The strangeness continues today. The Democrats don’t mention progressives except to burn them in effigy whenever they see fit. And all the while, Trump’s ire is focused solidly on the Democrats.

    Preparata’s Attack is Really Aimed at Liberalism

    Preparata’s description of the Democratic Party is accurate from a progressive point of view. However, it’s revealing that his views seem to have become a textbook for the radical right. You would think the Right would want to keep the Democratic establishment in place. One of the Party’s goals after all, according to Preparata, was to squash resistance to the Right while giving lip service to the poor and working class. But of course Donald Trump’s Right is another matter. It seems Preparata’s (and Trump’s) attack is really aimed at Liberalism.

    Preparata’s Trigger Words

    All of the trigger words that send the opposition into a rage are in this book: diversity, political correctness, feminism, academia. These words have become bogeymen in their own right, perhaps because Preparata traces them to occult beliefs. And while he insists that both parties are to blame, his focus gradually becomes clear. Liberalism in general is not worth saving. And the majority of the blame for this state of affairs goes to the Democratic Party.

    Why Do They Ignore Progressives?

    When I think of the hopeful days after we first discovered Bernie Sanders and Pope Francis I could cry. We represented the one new and living thing that happened in my lifetime and the establishment squashed it without batting an eye. And make no mistake, the progressive movement was the target of both parties.

    What Exactly are we Fighting?

    Much of the establishment’s behavior during those years fits Preparata’s scenario. Both parties colluded to keep Bernie out of the White House. His description of the Democrats is also accurate. They seem comically incapable of mounting a resistance to Trump. But what exactly are we fighting?

    If everything Preparata says is correct, there is no happy ending to the process Donald Trump has initiated. His reign has no redeeming qualities.

    The Curious Case of the Epstein Files

    The MAGA Movement clearly believes pedophiles operate within the Democratic Party. Preparata’s book might be the source of this belief. However, the Trump Administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files does not fit Preparata’s scenario. What can explain this?

    The ‘Democrat’ Party’s Genealogy According to Preparata

    Preparata traces the Democratic Party’s inability to resist authoritarians to Michel Faucault. And Faucault’s inspiration was Georges Bataille. For his part, Bataille was fascinated by violent pre-Christian orgiastic cults and wanted to infiltrate the collective mind of bourgeois society in order to confuse and redirect it.

    The final objective being that of disabusing the potential convert by reconciling him or her to the spontaneous brutality of life and nature. Finally, Bataille’s social dream was to see men, after they have undergone this kind of initiation, create communities that would celebrate the mystery of collective life much in the fashion of the ancient orgiastic cults, which fascinated him so deeply. (Preparata, p. 9)

    From Bataille to Foucault: the Politics of Diversity

    This project never took off in Bataille’s time, but it is influential today. Preparata argues that Foucault later became part of this movement and made it more respectable. Among other things, his efforts led to a division of the population into identities that were never meant to be reconciled.

    Thus, with uncommon disingenuousness, feminism, homo-sexuality, and nonwhite ethnicity have been granted by the white establishment peer status in the grand arena of public discourse–through, for example, proclamations, exclusive legislation such as Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, and ad hoc academic departments. (Preparata p. 10)

    I assume this argument is the inspiration behind MAGA’s rhetoric. But if we follow Preparata’s logic, it’s strange how useful the concept has been to Trump. It’s like a script for Trump’s authoritarianism, which Preparata claims to reject.

    Michel Foucault

    According to Preparata, the politics of diversity is an academic treatment of Foucault’s Power/Knowledge. Power/Knowledge is a re-elaboration of a creed invented by Bataille in the prewar era. This relationship of ideas gives Preparata leeway to focus solely on Bataille’s vision. In fact, he carries on as if Foucault is Bataille.

    Taking Preparata’s Word For It

    Perhaps the two men really are interchangeable. Most of us are not familiar enough with either one of them to say for sure. But it’s important to keep in mind that we are now talking about Bataille and not Faucault. And it’s not quite that simple. We are also talking about Bataille’s interpretation of James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, all of which, we mustn’t forget, has been kept alive in the ideas of Faucault.

    We will have to take Preparata’s word that these connections are real and that they support the picture he is presenting. In the process, we should take advantage of any clues he provides. For example, Preparata uses the word ‘polarities’. This concept is important to the radical right-wing.

    Polarities

    According to Preparata, sacredness, like Kali, might have two faces (or polarities)–a clean countenance and a foul underside. The two faces are divided by the barrier of the taboo, which is periodically broken during the saturnalia. Taboo was also broken in cyclical wars.

    “Sacred filth” is, say, menstrual blood, which has filled men with dread for a long time and given rise as a result to a variety of prohibitions (taboos) affecting pubescent females. (Preparata p. 17)

    Was Epstein the Head of a New Religion?

    Frazer claimed that modern civilizations have not given up these rites because they satisfy their archaic craving for scapegoating and solemn murder by executing criminals…

    Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as Leyden jar is charged with electricity: and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in a man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid.2

    From this, Bataille derived imagery that would become a type of theology–“a theology contemplating the clustering of a congregation around a sacred core by means of a peculiar bonding energy.” 3

    Foucault used this conception in his work, Power/Knowledge.

    1. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. ↩︎
    2. See Berube, Radical Reformers, p. 24.) ↩︎
    3. Kepel, A l’ouest d’Allah, p. 76. ↩︎

  • The Return of Liberalism?

    The Meritocracy Versus Just America

    I recently watched George Packer talk about his new book, Last Best Hope.  I agree with most of what I heard in this interview (although there are hints that he is not an ally of progressives).  Parker is calling for the return of liberalism.  On the positive side, he thinks the goal for the country should be equal citizens governing themselves.  He stresses that he doesn’t define equality in the sense of equal outcome, but in the sense of no one being born and dying in a permanently subordinate class.  And when he says citizens should govern themselves, he means they should participate in the current democratic system.   My main concerns are the rivalry he sets up between liberalism and progressivism, and his belief that we actually have a self-governing system.

    The root of our problems, Packer says, is that we’ve been unable to make an equal America across race and class lines.  We have to create conditions of equality, mostly through government intervention, through breaking up monopolies, by empowering workers, by rebuilding the safety net, by making education more equal.

    I agree with all of these proposals.  However, I would argue that the attempt to achieve these goals has lead to the divisions he is trying to heal.  But Packer believes his policies would allow the temperature to go down so that people could work together again.

    Packer does mention progressives.  He credits Elizabeth Warren as the leader of progressives who want to rein in monopolies.  But progressives are not listed in his four divisions of America, and the category that would seem to include progressives is not invited to participate in the return of liberalism.  Below is Packer’s list of four rival Americas which have arisen since the 1970s:

    The four Americas are Free America; Real America; Smart America; and Just America.  Free America is conservative to the point of libertarianism.  Real America is Sarah Palin’s America, and the direct rival of Free America. Smart America is the professional class or meritocracy.  Smart America is separate from liberalism.  Just America is the chief critic of Smart America.  Packer does not think Just America has any benign attributes.  It is associated with social intolerance and cancel culture.

    According to Packer, Just America sees the United States as nothing but a caste system.  For this group everything about American history is white, and whiteness is on trial.  He illustrates this by citing Ta-Nehisi Coates’s statement that America is a unitary malignant force.  But Packer’s so-called illustration is misleading, because Coates has been criticized by progressives.

    Packer also claims that Just America’s focus on race makes them unwilling to talk about class.  What is needed, in his opinion, is two people of different races to spend several hours together in a room.  He seems unaware that Bernie Sanders and Killer Mike met together in just this way.

    Packer also criticizes Just America’s denial of black violence in black communities, as well as its support for defunding the police.  On the other hand, he speaks approvingly when he calls Black Lives Matter a movement for oppressed people.  This is a contradiction because Black Lives Matter is the most prominent voice for defunding the police.

    In case you are not convinced that Just America is on the firing line, I’ll share Packer’s summary of the four divisions of America:  Free America lauds the energy of the unencumbered individual; Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change; Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits; and Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid.

    The Return of Liberalism Needs the Left

    If the changes listed by Packer can be accomplished, I won’t object to the dismissal of the progressive movement.  But Packer’s false definition of the left makes success unlikely.  The accomplishments of progressives have to be acknowledged and appreciated and built upon if we’re going to achieve the equality George Packer is talking about.

    A Supporting View

    Packer’s misidentification of progressives is summed up by Eric Levitz in a June 15 article for Intelligencer.

    There are many problems with Packer’s essay.  For one, its characterization of Just America is a tendentious description of one ideological tendency in a single segment of the millennial left.  There are no small number of racial-justice advocates whose vision is unabashedly universalist…

    But an even bigger problem with Packer’s schema is this: It completely ignores the majority of Democratic voters who are neither professional-class meritocrats nor millennial anti-racists.  Packer hasn’t described the central division within Blue America but the generational cleavage within his own professional circle.

    The Return of Liberalism and Self-Governance

    Packer wants this country to remain self-governing.  I share his concern, but it’s important to acknowledge that the system needs improvement.  After all, it gave the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016 even though he had 4 million fewer votes than his opponent.  More importantly, it has silenced the voices of many generations who have tried to warn us about the climate crisis.  We need a system capable of being influenced by the voters, and we need voters who are willing to participate.  We can do a better job of self-governance.

    Tim Black on The Black Left

    Lynn Parramore on the Coup – and the corporations- That Destroyed the Black Middle Class

    Radical Universalism, on the Jacobin Show

    Zero Books: Identity Politics is Right Wing

    Gresham College: Food Oppression

    Bad Faith: What to do with Inconvenient Truths

    Glenn Greenwald: Canceling Comedians While the World Burns

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