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You're moving the goal posts and assuming your conclusion. "baseless, sweeping antisemitic conspiracy theories are bad" was never the question. The question i

You're moving the goal posts and assuming your conclusion. "baseless, sweeping antisemitic conspiracy theories are bad" was never the question. The question is whether cultural Marxism as a concept is in fact a "baseless, sweeping antisemitic conspiracy theory". Don't just assume the answer is yes. Don't just try to associate the words with people you've labeled as bad. Make the actual case that the content of cultural Marxism, as it is presented by its fairest and best proponents (not the worst extremist fringe hangers-on), is itself antisemitic, baseless, sweeping, and a "conspiracy theory".

jacobolus 5y ago
> question is whether cultural Marxism as a concept is in fact a "baseless, sweeping antisemitic conspiracy theory When motohagiography’s direct (evidence-free) claim is that there is “zero controversy” in saying that the scholars (which he compares to liquid sewage) downstream of a (nowadays fairly obscure, 4-decades dead) Jewish scholar have secretly taken over all of academic social science – and thence the whole “public sector”, as well as tech and finance – and are sabotaging western culture/society as part of an OSS conspiracy, that becomes a baseless, sweeping, bigoted conspiracy theory. Which is also, by the way, a complete non sequitur in the context of this discussion; it’s comparable to replying to an article about the operation of the Swiss patent office with a theory that Einstein was trained by said office to subvert academic physics departments on the way to sabotaging American engineering and technology firms. (This kind of nonsense is entirely in character for folks spouting anti-semitic conspiracy theories, who throw them into conversations whenever they can, however irrelevant in context. See that Sartre quotation.) Whatever someone else’s more measured and careful claims about Marcuse (or the Frankfurt school, or Marxism, or social science, or the OSS, or ...) might be in some unrelated conversation is irrelevant.
- jlawson 5y ago
  You invented a lot of stuff here. I think you didn't do it intentionally; it's classic argument-hallucination, so I'll help you see where you are confabulating: MotoH never said that anyone had "secretly" taken over academic social science; to me it seems clear MotoH believes that it's all out in the open. MotoH never said they were 'sabotaging western culture/society', which would imply some extreme coordination and direct intent - only that the idea complex exists and is totalitarian and dominant. MotoH never said they were doing anything in present tense "as part of an OSS conspiracy"; the OSS was only part of the origin story many decades ago. MotoH never said the scholars were effluent; they compared their ideas to effluent. The above are strawmen. You made up a caricature of what MotoH said and then jumped straight to your conclusion with no argumentation in between (which seemed justified because your caricature was absurd). --- I think it would be great if you reread the last line of my post above (argue against the strong not weak/fringe version of the belief) and tried that. I can help though. Here are the claims for you to oppose: 1. Social justice ideology has become dominant over academic/corporate/media/cultural instutitions. 2. Social justice is a deconstructionist ideology that seeks to dismantle major parts of western society/identity and/or capitalism. 3. Social justice descends from the ideas of thinkers decades back mentioned earlier in this thread. Which do you think are wrong and what's your argument? Again I'll remind you: I've never heard anyone argue against the idea that cultural marxism exists so it'd be a real contribution if you were the first to do so!
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    You provided zero evidence, argument, or any support whatsoever for claims (1), (2), or (3). I think all of these claims are somewhere between mostly false and abjectly absurd. But this general topic has been discussed at length elsewhere (if you want to know about it, you can go do your own research), and is entirely off topic in a conversation about the OSS or industrial sabotage. It is a waste of time to make up pretend “stronger” (more realistically, just as weak but not quite as overtly bigoted) claims to replace a wild bigoted conspiracy theory with a slightly less wild, slightly less bigoted conspiracy theory in a public conversation, so as to have a debate vs. myself only loosely related to the original off topic nonsense. It isn’t going to convince the conspiracy theorist (who will say that replacing his claims with invented substitutes is disingenuous), and no one else reading along cares. P.S. when you tell your interlocutor that they are “confabulating” and “hallucinating” (i.e. accuse them of mental illness), it is hard to see your comments as representing good faith conversation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation

jacobolus 5y ago

> question is whether cultural Marxism as a concept is in fact a "baseless, sweeping antisemitic conspiracy theory When motohagiography’s direct (evidence-free) claim is that there is “zero controversy” in saying that the scholars (which he compares to liquid sewage) downstream of a (nowadays fairly obscure, 4-decades dead) Jewish scholar have secretly taken over all of academic social science – and thence the whole “public sector”, as well as tech and finance – and are sabotaging western culture/society as part of an OSS conspiracy, that becomes a baseless, sweeping, bigoted conspiracy theory. Which is also, by the way, a complete non sequitur in the context of this discussion; it’s comparable to replying to an article about the operation of the Swiss patent office with a theory that Einstein was trained by said office to subvert academic physics departments on the way to sabotaging American engineering and technology firms. (This kind of nonsense is entirely in character for folks spouting anti-semitic conspiracy theories, who throw them into conversations whenever they can, however irrelevant in context. See that Sartre quotation.) Whatever someone else’s more measured and careful claims about Marcuse (or the Frankfurt school, or Marxism, or social science, or the OSS, or ...) might be in some unrelated conversation is irrelevant.

jlawson 5y ago
You invented a lot of stuff here. I think you didn't do it intentionally; it's classic argument-hallucination, so I'll help you see where you are confabulating: MotoH never said that anyone had "secretly" taken over academic social science; to me it seems clear MotoH believes that it's all out in the open. MotoH never said they were 'sabotaging western culture/society', which would imply some extreme coordination and direct intent - only that the idea complex exists and is totalitarian and dominant. MotoH never said they were doing anything in present tense "as part of an OSS conspiracy"; the OSS was only part of the origin story many decades ago. MotoH never said the scholars were effluent; they compared their ideas to effluent. The above are strawmen. You made up a caricature of what MotoH said and then jumped straight to your conclusion with no argumentation in between (which seemed justified because your caricature was absurd). --- I think it would be great if you reread the last line of my post above (argue against the strong not weak/fringe version of the belief) and tried that. I can help though. Here are the claims for you to oppose: 1. Social justice ideology has become dominant over academic/corporate/media/cultural instutitions. 2. Social justice is a deconstructionist ideology that seeks to dismantle major parts of western society/identity and/or capitalism. 3. Social justice descends from the ideas of thinkers decades back mentioned earlier in this thread. Which do you think are wrong and what's your argument? Again I'll remind you: I've never heard anyone argue against the idea that cultural marxism exists so it'd be a real contribution if you were the first to do so!
- jacobolus 5y ago
  You provided zero evidence, argument, or any support whatsoever for claims (1), (2), or (3). I think all of these claims are somewhere between mostly false and abjectly absurd. But this general topic has been discussed at length elsewhere (if you want to know about it, you can go do your own research), and is entirely off topic in a conversation about the OSS or industrial sabotage. It is a waste of time to make up pretend “stronger” (more realistically, just as weak but not quite as overtly bigoted) claims to replace a wild bigoted conspiracy theory with a slightly less wild, slightly less bigoted conspiracy theory in a public conversation, so as to have a debate vs. myself only loosely related to the original off topic nonsense. It isn’t going to convince the conspiracy theorist (who will say that replacing his claims with invented substitutes is disingenuous), and no one else reading along cares. P.S. when you tell your interlocutor that they are “confabulating” and “hallucinating” (i.e. accuse them of mental illness), it is hard to see your comments as representing good faith conversation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation