Never mistake Postmodern neo-Marxism for Cultural Marxism
Tabatha Southey at MacLeans explains about Jordan Peterson.
“Postmodern neo-Marxism” is Peterson’s nemesis, and the best way to explain what postmodern neo-Marxism is, is to explain what it is not—that is, it is entirely distinct from the concept of “cultural Marxism.”
“Cultural Marxism” is a conspiracy theory holding that an international cabal of Marxist academics, realizing that traditional Marxism is unlikely to triumph any time soon, is out to destroy Western civilization by undermining its cultural values. “Postmodern neo-Marxism,” on the other hand, is a conspiracy theory holding that an international cabal of Marxist academics, realizing that traditional Marxism is unlikely to triumph any time soon, is out to destroy Western civilization by undermining its cultural values with “cultural” taken out of the name so it doesn’t sound quite so similar to the literal Nazi conspiracy theory of “cultural Bolshevism.”
Ha. good to know. I’ve wondered in the past what “Cultural Marxism” might be, without feeling motivated enough to google it. It was a popular epithet among the he-man skeptics for awhile…or maybe still is.
To be clear, Jordan Peterson is not a neo-Nazi, but there’s a reason he’s as popular as he is on the alt-right. You’ll never hear him use the phrase “We must secure a future for our white children”; what you will hear him say is that, while there does appear to be a causal relationship between empowering women and economic growth, we have to consider whether this is good for society, “‘’cause the birth rate is plummeting.” He doesn’t call for a “white ethnostate,” but he does retweet Daily Caller articles with opening lines like: “Yet again an American city is being torn apart by black rioters.” He has dedicated two-and-a-half-hour-long YouTube videos to “identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege.”
A Peter Boghossian type, in other words, except he’s had way more success at making it pay.
As far as I can tell, Jordie—and not the cool “Geordi” from Star Trek either— rewards the devotion of his Patreon patsies with regular rants against “political correctness,” and relationship advice I can only call “Angry Oprah Says.” For USD $29.99, Petersonites can get access to the Self Authoring Suite (a USD $119.92 value!). Those looking for further opportunities to give him money can pay USD $9.99 for “100 question phrases” which “can be found, along with similar question sets, elsewhere on the web” so that they might learn how your personality compares to 10,000 others.
Pro tip: just take a personality test from the back of an issue of Glamour; you’ll only be out about five bucks, and you might find a free perfume sample.
He also gives book recommendations apparently drawn from a high-school English-class reading list. If somehow you missed them, Mistress Peterson is the portal to such obscure works as Animal Farm, OfMice and Men, and that cornerstone of the Western canon, Flowers for Algernon.
There is no polite way to put this, but since Peterson claims that “If you worry about hurting people’s feelings and disturbing the social structure, you’re not going to put your ideas forward,” I’m just going to say it: Spend half an hour on his website, sit through a few of his interminable videos, and you realize that what he has going for him, the niche he has found—he never seems to say “know” where he could instead say “cognizant of”—is that Jordan Peterson is the stupid man’s smart person.
That too is familiar. The he-man skeptics seem to be fatally drawn to them.
It’s easy to assume Peterson is deserving of respect. A lot of what he says sounds, on the surface, like serious thought. It’s easy to laugh at him: after all, most of what he says is, after fifteen seconds’ consideration, completely inane. But in between his long rambling pseudo-academic takes on common self-help advice and his weird fixation on Disney movies, is a dreadfully serious message.
What he’s telling you is that certain people—most of them women and minorities—are trying to destroy not only our freedom to spite nonbinary university students for kicks, but all of Western civilization and the idea of objective truth itself. He’s telling you that when someone tells you racism is still a problem and that something should be done about it, they are, at best, a dupe and, at worst, part of a Marxist conspiracy to destroy your way of life.
Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream?
I’ll see your General Ripper and raise you a Bat Guano:
youtube.com/watch?v=ud9zBKJJQe4
Can we trot out “cultural fascism” for this lot? “Pre-modernist neo-fascism”, perhaps? “Pretentious Neanderthalism”?
Cultural Spenglerism maybe?
Fundamental Assholism.
“Cultural Marxism” was Anders Behring Breiviks excuse for shooting teenagers at a summer camp.
Tabitha Southey explains nothing because this is a hatchet job not a real engagement with arguments.
I’m dubious about the term “Cultural Marxism” but right now I’m far more concerned about the phenomenon being described. Peterson’s argument is that postmodernism appeared when Marxist doctrines became untenable because it was impossible for even the most ardent apologists to deny communist atrocities. People on the left then turned to identity politics and divided the world into oppressor and oppressed. This has lead to the current situation where social justice enthusiasts are becoming increasingly authoritarian and dogmatic, using a very simplistic “privilege” discourse to understand society.
I’m not sure how accurate Peterson’s analysis is (I wasn’t even born in the 1970s when it all started) but there is at least some truth. I think he overlooks the fact that many positive gains were made in women’s rights, anti-racism and gay rights. I think part of the reason the left has become obsessed with identity politics is because that is where it has had the most success. However, it is true that left-wing politics has become bogged down in a very toxic strand of identity politics.
Regardless of that, Ophelia, you have been documenting for ages the way social justice activists have become increasingly toxic and authoritarian. You left FTB over it. I think Peterson is right about a lot of that. For example, his rise to fame started over gender neutral pronouns.
This is what Southey has to say in this very article.
“Now, as I’ve said, I failed to get in on the ground floor of the “not using a person’s chosen address” industry which, in a simpler time, was known as “calling people names” and was considered bad manners. But since calling a certain University of Toronto professor “Jordan Pea-Headerson” is apparently the only thing standing between us and non-stop collectivist potato farming, I’ll do my part for the resistance.”
Now, this is misleading because Peterson’s objections were not about names, they were about third person pronouns. No-one addresses others in the third person unless they talk like Gollum. Specifically, he objected to legislation that could lead to people being fined for not using a person’s preferred pronouns. We’re not just talking about singular they either, there are loads and many people would find it impossible to get to grips with using them anyway. Southey is just refusing to address the arguments here and resorting to childish name-calling.
I’ve been watching a lot of Peterson’s stuff lately. There are things I agree with, there are things I definitely don’t and there times when he comes out with really bizarre things. (The stuff you quoted earlier about violence is a prime example and it was weird because he keeps telling his supporters not to use any violence if there is trouble at his events, not even if there is provocation). However, Southey doesn’t really want to address what any of this is really about.
I’m irritated here because this is precisely why I am sick of social justice discourse. People rely too much on character assassination, misrepresentation of a person’s position and straw man arguments. I’ve seen this done to you, Ophelia and I’m seeing it done to more and more people. I think free speech matters a lot and it horrifies me when proponents of social justice want to piss all over it. It horrified me recently to realise that I am afraid of disagreeing with people who are into the left-wing identity politics but not scared of people on the right. OK it’s partly because I don’t associate with people on the far-right but it’s also because of the way the left is so willing to trash dissenters. I would fear career consequences if I was posting under my real name and for that reason I am extremely cautious with Facebook use.
So, in summary, by all means disagree with Peterson. I disagree with plenty of what he says. However, please stick to what he actually says not crap written by people who have no real interest in the truth of the matter.
Myrhinne:
As Christopher Hitchens so rightly observed in his Youtube debate with his far more to the right and evangelical Christian brother Peter: “without the Left we’d still be living under feudalism.” (Or words to that effect; I have no transcript.)
The ‘Old Left’ of western social democracy Leninist communist parties and syndicalist (eg the IWW) and anarchist movements, was a product of the First World War. The communist part of it quickly degenerated with the rise of Stalin in the USSR. But it attacked western imperialism and colonialism, which had risen and consolidated since around the time of Henry VIII. (The fact that England got such a head start in that project is reflected in the area of the world maps that used to be coloured red.)
Though not many defend colonialism today, the 19thC and post-WW2 colonial wars had a profound effect on western youth, and particularly over the issue of Vietnam and the rise of the Black Power movement in the US. Vietnam and the rebellion it sparked against conscription and the draft created the whole western counterculture, youth rebellion, the rock music and drug scenes, and from there feminism, gay liberation and whatever I’ve left out.
Peterson from what I have experienced mentions none of that, though I will be interested to see what he has to say about it in his forthcoming book. I suspect very little. Instead he concentrates on one branch of it: the easy low-hanging fruit of postmodernism (PoMo), Derrida and Foucault, and ‘Cultural Marxism’.
PoMo, in my opinion, has had its foundations well and truly pounded into sludge, brick by gooey brick, by this site’s Ophelia Benson, and her colleague Jeremy Stangroom. (Why Truth Matters; Does God Hate Women?)
Myrhinne – I know what you mean. I get stuck in an “a plague on both your houses” situation a lot of the time. I hate the kind of sanctimonious bullshit that came down like a ton of bricks on Lindsay Shepherd, but at the same time I also hate blind venomous loathing of anything that can be labeled “Social Justice Warrior.” That means I’m frequently interrogating myself about whether I’m being inconsistent and/or hypocritical.
I probably do agree with Peterson on some things…but on the other hand he’s playing up the whole Hero to the Anti-SJW Crowd thing, and the Anti-SJW Crowd is packed to the rafters with mean bullying assholes. I’m wary of anyone who’s that popular with those people.