Great analysis from you and great insights from Rufo. But you both manage to describe a profound transformation in IDEAS without mentioning that from the 70’s (1) the demographic of the country has changed drastically, and (2) the balance of power between sexes has shifted. These two facts may explain why the social and legal impact of the deep leftist ideas has moved from being confined to academia in the 70’s to society today, and why the political culture in Europe was on the left compared to those in the USA in the 70’s, and is instead on the right compared to the USA today.
May I suggest the expression The Deep Left to refer to what you and Rufo are trying to address. The Deep State is a subset of The Deep Left. And I see you as arguing that a strategic approach can take away some of the institutional sources of power of The Deep Left.
I agree with the point that you made on a recent podcast about human nature, and suspect it offers an answer to the titular question here. In the absence of the dire necessity of the natural world demanding excellence in the pursuits of life (whether hunting, agriculture, or warfare), most would prefer to have things made as easy for them as possible. As you say, it is apparently human nature for people to want the government to give them money from other people's pockets. So too is it natural for the unworthy to agitate for equality or special treatment. As you say, it is natural to want to give in to women's tears. So too is it natural to try to be kind to the less fortunate even if the solutions they propose are insane. Conservatism has been asleep for decades, due partially to a complete misunderstanding of human nature or perhaps an unwillingness to be honest about it. The people who thought about it hundreds of years before the rise of anything resembling modern political systems recognized that the purpose of state power is to force citizens to do hard things that are good for them against all of their base inclinations. What we see these days is what we get in the complete absence of such a thing. Some unfortunate, effeminate, soft bodied, disabled misfit isn't pushing for a transformation of society to make his life easier because of ideological Marxism. Low IQ folks who are terrible at tests and can't meet standards don't agitate for the removal of tests and standards because they are communists. Rather, weakness, laziness, perversity, ugliness, and inferiority are their own reasons, and require no intellectuals to create them.
“White guilt is real and organic — it didn’t need Marxist intellectuals to deform our political culture.”
Kevin MacDonald’s (of _Culture of Critique_ infamy) last book was about Western individualism and universalism. He, too, stresses white guilt as a big factor. But there is no gainsaying the fact that left-wing Jews remade academia in their image after WWII and contributed enormously to blank slatism, the civil rights juggernaut, and Wokeism (although some Jews may regret how far it’s gone). Would this have happened if the Frankfurt School had never arrived on our shores? Possibly. It’s that possibility that allows many anti-woke folks to ignore the wildly disproportionate Jewish influence among this intellectual movement. Marcuse begat Davis, not the other way round.
Great article. I think the power of language is an important aspect of this ideological movement. It works well in eliciting white guilt. Add to that the increased activism of college educated women who tend to be more empathetic.
I am constantly amazed at how many people think DEI is a good thing. It plays on their feelings. I suspect a significant majority of the population don't know the difference between equality and equity. When I ask them about what diversity or inclusion means, I get vague answers. Questions such as: how do you determine if diversity is achieved? Why is that always desirable? Do you include only 'marginalized' groups? Most people don't even realize that the term 'marginalized' means not white (christian) heterosexual males.
Wokesters are winning by using language as a weapon against an apathetic, affluent society. It can also as a stick by ridicule and social isolation. I think challenging people to consider the meanings of woke terms will go a long way towards reducing it's reach.
You don't quite spell it out. Is the idea here to abolish all equality/discrimination laws?
It doesn't seem all that hard to predict where things go even if that goal is achieved because they're already going there today. Even in the case of pure conservative victory in which all this law is rolled back, the ideology is one of radical equality of outcome so they will just move on to migrants, dating, salaries, anywhere else they can attack disparate outcomes. Civil rights law only covers a small part of it. You make a compelling case it's important, but communism long pre-dates US affirmative action judgements.
"This would be the basis of my case that Rufo and other conservatives have a tendency to overestimate the importance of intellectuals."
I think we need to define the term "intellectuals." Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coats, and their Neo-Marxist predecessors in academia and elsewhere, would be considered to be intellectuals by their followers whether or not those who oppose their ideas agree with it. These Leftists generated the racial Marxism concepts, developed the practical discussion points, and wrote the books for their audience to consume.
The current prevailing "woke" culture is thus born from the intellectuals in academia. The core concepts were taught in education to impressionable minds and then practiced by the adherents in our society. We went from "all viewpoints are valid" in the 70s/80s, cross-cultural appreciation, and political correctness to strict adherence to "words are violence," "cultural appropriation," and "anti-racism" in the course of 50 years. It requires a series of intellectuals to move forward the movement from within academia to the broad application into the daily lives of average citizens.
"Rufo’s book is built around intellectual biographies of four activist-scholars: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell"
It would be difficult to imagine four more irrelevant people to the current state of academia. Let alone the state of the world. Unserious people can always drum up baddies, and impute to them power that they never had. But why would anyone take such a thing seriously?
"during the Cold War, some of the leading lights of modern academia were openly in favor of distant regimes that were engaging in mass killings in the name of equality." Notice the language: "openly in favor of"! Wow. Not "supported financially." Not "caused to happen." Nothing like that. So, Mr. Hanania, let me ask you: have you yourself ever "been openly in favor of a distant regime engaged in mass killings"? Russia, say? Oh, you will insist: I don't "openly support" Russia! Or, I only supported them BEFORE they engaged in mass killings. Or something. But let's be serious. This is the weakest sauce ever.
I'll come out and say it. I have, at one time or another, also been openly in favor of regimes that carried out mass killings. Not *because* they carried out mass killings, but *despite* it. I am, among other things, in favor of the United States. (Please deny that we've ever carried out any mass killings.)
It'd be as if I wrote a book explaining that the United States is in a crisis, and we must act NOW NOW NOW because ... well, let's find four random Republicans who openly support four different murderous states. Jared Kushner supports the Saudis, whose murderous history is legion. Donald Trump supports China, which has exterminated Uyghurs. Tucker Carlson supports Russia, which is massacring Ukrainian children. OK that's only 3 off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with one more.
"Yet Rufo also reminds us that it was Marcuse’s third wife Erica Sherover-Marcuse who designed courses that became the prototypes for DEI trainings across institutions." Come on, man. That has to be a troll sentence. Marcuse's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes!? That's supposed to be impressive? Scary? If it turned out that ... let's pick someone as obscure as Marcuse ... Dinesh D'Souza's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes for homeschoolers promoting Christian nationalism ... and therefore there's this deep connection and so we must all support radical new polices ... you would laugh in my face. And rightly so.
"In his conclusion, Rufo gives some thoughts on what a healthier society would look like. The common citizen will have the space for inhabiting and passing down his own virtues, sentiments, and beliefs, free from the imposition of values from above."
Yeah, that's what they're up to in Ron DeSantis' Florida. Making sure there's no imposition of values from above. For DeSantis, the only values that matter are Republican values. Rufo is clearly on board with that. Are you?
I had surmised that Chris Rufo was a joke. This review seems to confirm it. But I had thought you were intelligent and insightful. I still do, actually. This piece is just a misfire. Right?
"The American education system, or at least the field of education itself, was taken over by literal communists."
Incorrect. Communists didn't take over any specific aspect of America, America is a communist country. More precisely, communism is the default ideological operating system of a technologically advanced country with a large and open oligarchy.
A good exercise to do is to go through the Wikipedia pages of the Frankfurt School and note down the ones who spent large amount of time working for a branch of the U.S. government. Of course, it would be easier to make a list of those who didn't - you wouldn't even need a pen! The working theory of the Rufos of the world is that these were canny subversives and the CIA were their chumps and that this just keeps happening for some reason. But there is a more parsimonious model. Or, in short, just read Unqualified Reservations already!
"Communists, Critical Race Theorists, and feminists are in the same tradition of smart people with big ideas about the world, with the main difference between them and the major figures of the Enlightenment happening to be that they’re wrong."
When the word 'copium' makes it into the encyclopaedia, this should be the prime illustration.
"It’s important to remember that while the figures profiled by Rufo were undoubtably influential, their ideas were in certain cases not all that different from what was previously accepted as mainstream liberalism. "
So close, but yet so far. The eternal quest of the liberaltarian to notice.
I won't speak to what's going on at the college level, although I'm sure it's overstated. But k-12 is not in any way taken over by communism. As others have said, the inclusion of Freire bits to read is equivalent to indoctrination is fricking moronic.
Ed school is not indoctrination. It's not a how-to in anything. It's a year spent thinking about how to teach--not being taught how to teach, mind you, just finding one's own way. I'm sure it's far more woke than it was a while back, and there's no question that it's the wise student who doesn't disagree too vehemently with the pabulum that gets vomited out. But no one buys it. Surveys consistently show that 1 in 3 teachers are Republicans, and most surveys also show that teachers are a bit left of center, not wildly woke.
Public schools aren't doing what they do because of teachers, but because of laws and voters. Most people convinced otherwise have vanishingly little knowledge about education law and policy.
Politics is downstream of Culture and Culture is downstream of Philosophy. So yes, intellectuals matter. A lot. Even if the vast majority are unaware of them, because they drive the elites.
"Rufo and other conservatives have a tendency to overestimate the importance of intellectuals."
Well that's an understatement. Even Rufo himself had to acknowledge that when they actually looked into how much time and resources went into DEI at New School it was a lot less than he and others assumed. Read about it here - it is hysterical:
And this was at supposedly one of the most liberal schools in the country. The idea that these Marxist theorists from the 60s and 70s have much meaningful influence on the day to day of schooling is barely true in some of the crazier corners of academia, and nonsense in terms of your average student being forced to sit at a desk all day in high schools and elementary schools around the country. But Rufo has made a good living scare-mongering us, so kudos to him.
Yes, at some point if you get an education degree or go to enough in-service workshops you'll be exposed to Freire, Bell, etc. And then most teachers go back to doing what they were going to do anyway - which unfortunately is enforcing a system primarily meant to teach kids how to follow rules. Ironically, New School seems to have been a rare case of an institution that took the freedom and intellectual curiosity of its students seriously. But it attracted weird kids who tend to be liberal, and it's small so it made a great target for the radical conservative activists.
I'm opposed to much of the DEI nonsense too, but Rufo et al are exaggerating the problem and deserve much of the criticism they are getting.
Didn't the U.S. have de jure equality since the end of the Civil War and the passing of the 14th Amendment? Certainly that's true on the federal and state level. I think the big novelty of the 1960's was the outlawing of various kinds of discrimination by private parties.
Great analysis from you and great insights from Rufo. But you both manage to describe a profound transformation in IDEAS without mentioning that from the 70’s (1) the demographic of the country has changed drastically, and (2) the balance of power between sexes has shifted. These two facts may explain why the social and legal impact of the deep leftist ideas has moved from being confined to academia in the 70’s to society today, and why the political culture in Europe was on the left compared to those in the USA in the 70’s, and is instead on the right compared to the USA today.
How Angela Davis still has any credibility left after she openly supported Jonestown before their mass suicide astounds me.
“To talk about the free speech rights of a public school teacher on the job is akin to defending the right of a bus driver to go wherever he wants.”
This line made me lol. Well played.
Though I do wonder what you would say about the Scopes trial.
You and Rufo are legends. The American woke revolution is the same as the Chinese cultural revolution. Think you’ll enjoy my pieces on them and an interview with my father, who has lived through both: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/tiananmen-square-massacre-cultural-revolution
May I suggest the expression The Deep Left to refer to what you and Rufo are trying to address. The Deep State is a subset of The Deep Left. And I see you as arguing that a strategic approach can take away some of the institutional sources of power of The Deep Left.
I agree with the point that you made on a recent podcast about human nature, and suspect it offers an answer to the titular question here. In the absence of the dire necessity of the natural world demanding excellence in the pursuits of life (whether hunting, agriculture, or warfare), most would prefer to have things made as easy for them as possible. As you say, it is apparently human nature for people to want the government to give them money from other people's pockets. So too is it natural for the unworthy to agitate for equality or special treatment. As you say, it is natural to want to give in to women's tears. So too is it natural to try to be kind to the less fortunate even if the solutions they propose are insane. Conservatism has been asleep for decades, due partially to a complete misunderstanding of human nature or perhaps an unwillingness to be honest about it. The people who thought about it hundreds of years before the rise of anything resembling modern political systems recognized that the purpose of state power is to force citizens to do hard things that are good for them against all of their base inclinations. What we see these days is what we get in the complete absence of such a thing. Some unfortunate, effeminate, soft bodied, disabled misfit isn't pushing for a transformation of society to make his life easier because of ideological Marxism. Low IQ folks who are terrible at tests and can't meet standards don't agitate for the removal of tests and standards because they are communists. Rather, weakness, laziness, perversity, ugliness, and inferiority are their own reasons, and require no intellectuals to create them.
“White guilt is real and organic — it didn’t need Marxist intellectuals to deform our political culture.”
Kevin MacDonald’s (of _Culture of Critique_ infamy) last book was about Western individualism and universalism. He, too, stresses white guilt as a big factor. But there is no gainsaying the fact that left-wing Jews remade academia in their image after WWII and contributed enormously to blank slatism, the civil rights juggernaut, and Wokeism (although some Jews may regret how far it’s gone). Would this have happened if the Frankfurt School had never arrived on our shores? Possibly. It’s that possibility that allows many anti-woke folks to ignore the wildly disproportionate Jewish influence among this intellectual movement. Marcuse begat Davis, not the other way round.
Great article. I think the power of language is an important aspect of this ideological movement. It works well in eliciting white guilt. Add to that the increased activism of college educated women who tend to be more empathetic.
I am constantly amazed at how many people think DEI is a good thing. It plays on their feelings. I suspect a significant majority of the population don't know the difference between equality and equity. When I ask them about what diversity or inclusion means, I get vague answers. Questions such as: how do you determine if diversity is achieved? Why is that always desirable? Do you include only 'marginalized' groups? Most people don't even realize that the term 'marginalized' means not white (christian) heterosexual males.
Wokesters are winning by using language as a weapon against an apathetic, affluent society. It can also as a stick by ridicule and social isolation. I think challenging people to consider the meanings of woke terms will go a long way towards reducing it's reach.
You don't quite spell it out. Is the idea here to abolish all equality/discrimination laws?
It doesn't seem all that hard to predict where things go even if that goal is achieved because they're already going there today. Even in the case of pure conservative victory in which all this law is rolled back, the ideology is one of radical equality of outcome so they will just move on to migrants, dating, salaries, anywhere else they can attack disparate outcomes. Civil rights law only covers a small part of it. You make a compelling case it's important, but communism long pre-dates US affirmative action judgements.
"This would be the basis of my case that Rufo and other conservatives have a tendency to overestimate the importance of intellectuals."
I think we need to define the term "intellectuals." Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coats, and their Neo-Marxist predecessors in academia and elsewhere, would be considered to be intellectuals by their followers whether or not those who oppose their ideas agree with it. These Leftists generated the racial Marxism concepts, developed the practical discussion points, and wrote the books for their audience to consume.
The current prevailing "woke" culture is thus born from the intellectuals in academia. The core concepts were taught in education to impressionable minds and then practiced by the adherents in our society. We went from "all viewpoints are valid" in the 70s/80s, cross-cultural appreciation, and political correctness to strict adherence to "words are violence," "cultural appropriation," and "anti-racism" in the course of 50 years. It requires a series of intellectuals to move forward the movement from within academia to the broad application into the daily lives of average citizens.
"Rufo’s book is built around intellectual biographies of four activist-scholars: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell"
It would be difficult to imagine four more irrelevant people to the current state of academia. Let alone the state of the world. Unserious people can always drum up baddies, and impute to them power that they never had. But why would anyone take such a thing seriously?
"during the Cold War, some of the leading lights of modern academia were openly in favor of distant regimes that were engaging in mass killings in the name of equality." Notice the language: "openly in favor of"! Wow. Not "supported financially." Not "caused to happen." Nothing like that. So, Mr. Hanania, let me ask you: have you yourself ever "been openly in favor of a distant regime engaged in mass killings"? Russia, say? Oh, you will insist: I don't "openly support" Russia! Or, I only supported them BEFORE they engaged in mass killings. Or something. But let's be serious. This is the weakest sauce ever.
I'll come out and say it. I have, at one time or another, also been openly in favor of regimes that carried out mass killings. Not *because* they carried out mass killings, but *despite* it. I am, among other things, in favor of the United States. (Please deny that we've ever carried out any mass killings.)
It'd be as if I wrote a book explaining that the United States is in a crisis, and we must act NOW NOW NOW because ... well, let's find four random Republicans who openly support four different murderous states. Jared Kushner supports the Saudis, whose murderous history is legion. Donald Trump supports China, which has exterminated Uyghurs. Tucker Carlson supports Russia, which is massacring Ukrainian children. OK that's only 3 off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with one more.
"Yet Rufo also reminds us that it was Marcuse’s third wife Erica Sherover-Marcuse who designed courses that became the prototypes for DEI trainings across institutions." Come on, man. That has to be a troll sentence. Marcuse's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes!? That's supposed to be impressive? Scary? If it turned out that ... let's pick someone as obscure as Marcuse ... Dinesh D'Souza's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes for homeschoolers promoting Christian nationalism ... and therefore there's this deep connection and so we must all support radical new polices ... you would laugh in my face. And rightly so.
"In his conclusion, Rufo gives some thoughts on what a healthier society would look like. The common citizen will have the space for inhabiting and passing down his own virtues, sentiments, and beliefs, free from the imposition of values from above."
Yeah, that's what they're up to in Ron DeSantis' Florida. Making sure there's no imposition of values from above. For DeSantis, the only values that matter are Republican values. Rufo is clearly on board with that. Are you?
I had surmised that Chris Rufo was a joke. This review seems to confirm it. But I had thought you were intelligent and insightful. I still do, actually. This piece is just a misfire. Right?
"The American education system, or at least the field of education itself, was taken over by literal communists."
Incorrect. Communists didn't take over any specific aspect of America, America is a communist country. More precisely, communism is the default ideological operating system of a technologically advanced country with a large and open oligarchy.
A good exercise to do is to go through the Wikipedia pages of the Frankfurt School and note down the ones who spent large amount of time working for a branch of the U.S. government. Of course, it would be easier to make a list of those who didn't - you wouldn't even need a pen! The working theory of the Rufos of the world is that these were canny subversives and the CIA were their chumps and that this just keeps happening for some reason. But there is a more parsimonious model. Or, in short, just read Unqualified Reservations already!
"Communists, Critical Race Theorists, and feminists are in the same tradition of smart people with big ideas about the world, with the main difference between them and the major figures of the Enlightenment happening to be that they’re wrong."
When the word 'copium' makes it into the encyclopaedia, this should be the prime illustration.
"It’s important to remember that while the figures profiled by Rufo were undoubtably influential, their ideas were in certain cases not all that different from what was previously accepted as mainstream liberalism. "
So close, but yet so far. The eternal quest of the liberaltarian to notice.
Hilariously hysterical article. Rufo's a hack.
I won't speak to what's going on at the college level, although I'm sure it's overstated. But k-12 is not in any way taken over by communism. As others have said, the inclusion of Freire bits to read is equivalent to indoctrination is fricking moronic.
Ed school is not indoctrination. It's not a how-to in anything. It's a year spent thinking about how to teach--not being taught how to teach, mind you, just finding one's own way. I'm sure it's far more woke than it was a while back, and there's no question that it's the wise student who doesn't disagree too vehemently with the pabulum that gets vomited out. But no one buys it. Surveys consistently show that 1 in 3 teachers are Republicans, and most surveys also show that teachers are a bit left of center, not wildly woke.
Public schools aren't doing what they do because of teachers, but because of laws and voters. Most people convinced otherwise have vanishingly little knowledge about education law and policy.
Politics is downstream of Culture and Culture is downstream of Philosophy. So yes, intellectuals matter. A lot. Even if the vast majority are unaware of them, because they drive the elites.
"Rufo and other conservatives have a tendency to overestimate the importance of intellectuals."
Well that's an understatement. Even Rufo himself had to acknowledge that when they actually looked into how much time and resources went into DEI at New School it was a lot less than he and others assumed. Read about it here - it is hysterical:
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/local/sarasota/2023/02/28/new-college-has-first-board-meeting-with-president-richard-corcoran-sarasota-desantis-diversity/69954368007/
And this was at supposedly one of the most liberal schools in the country. The idea that these Marxist theorists from the 60s and 70s have much meaningful influence on the day to day of schooling is barely true in some of the crazier corners of academia, and nonsense in terms of your average student being forced to sit at a desk all day in high schools and elementary schools around the country. But Rufo has made a good living scare-mongering us, so kudos to him.
Yes, at some point if you get an education degree or go to enough in-service workshops you'll be exposed to Freire, Bell, etc. And then most teachers go back to doing what they were going to do anyway - which unfortunately is enforcing a system primarily meant to teach kids how to follow rules. Ironically, New School seems to have been a rare case of an institution that took the freedom and intellectual curiosity of its students seriously. But it attracted weird kids who tend to be liberal, and it's small so it made a great target for the radical conservative activists.
I'm opposed to much of the DEI nonsense too, but Rufo et al are exaggerating the problem and deserve much of the criticism they are getting.
"The 1960s saw us achieve de jure equality."
Didn't the U.S. have de jure equality since the end of the Civil War and the passing of the 14th Amendment? Certainly that's true on the federal and state level. I think the big novelty of the 1960's was the outlawing of various kinds of discrimination by private parties.