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Ok yes. I definitely understand and agree with minimally this point that, indeed, such a formulation of indoctrination is silly, and that, yes, what you call l

Ok yes. I definitely understand and agree with minimally this point that, indeed, such a formulation of indoctrination is silly, and that, yes, what you call left liberalism (many might call the same thing neoliberalism) is the operative ideology of the day and as such squirms itself explicitly and not into things like education and the media. I agree too that global empire is important here, but it seems strange to me to characterize liberals as somehow distinctive with regards to needing people to "believe they are a force for good." It's kinda always like that right? I know it has broader use, but "indoctrination" to me has a connotation of force, of some active aligning of the subject's consciousness with a particular belief system/conviction, especially when invoked in this particular context (and just, you know, the way TV republicans talk about it right now). Propaganda is more broad though, certainly. A lot of what, at least, Chomsky talks about is the propaganda of distortion and omission: its not about telling people what to think per se, but making sure they don't think about XYZ, or at least don't care too much about it. This kind of propaganda feels like the truly distinctive thing about the emergent modern liberal order: they don't need us to fight any wars, there is no more communists really, they don't actually care if we are woke and think the Iraq war was a terrible crime, they just need us to go to work and then later order stuff from Amazon. This is ultimately I think why, yes, the conspiratorial aspects are hugely overblown: it just seems so strange to look around our world right now and believe that what's important is what everyone merely thinks. It's clearly "what we do anyway" that matters! I think in this its somewhat too optimistic to think what we are seeing is any kind of "breakdown" between the ideological levers neoliberalism employs and the people who, e.g., watch the news. It is not like there is something else disgruntled citizens can flock to, and the system has proven at this point it can tolerate and/or incorporate every atom of dissent quite efficiently. It's a well oiled machine that Obama and Trump and all of them always slot into quite well at the end of the day. Why else is it that everything always seems to resolve down to inane culture wars that go back and forth contesting rights and privileges that ultimately do nothing to actually push the needle of our collective freedom or prosperity? But this all truly begs the question for me: what were you even talking about to begin with? What, in this vein, did parents realize about their child's education during covid? If it isn't the silly conspiratorial stuff, I just can't imagine what you are talking about, much less how any of this situation is actually going to change with simply a new president or budget cuts.

ctrlp 2y ago
The thing I was talking about was what I said. Parents expected classroom education to be somewhat like what they had experienced in school. Reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, but also something vaguely pro-American. The forms of myth-building that took place in the 80s and 90s were, if not more true, then quite a bit less overtly political. Having the kids home on zoom classes was the window into progressive indoctrination technique. I wouldn't subsume progressivism under neoliberalism. I would class neoliberalism as the "new world order" or post-war consensus of global power, first during the Cold War, and then with the unipolar US hegemony. Very much about geopolitics. Progressivism is what is being taught to kids in school and it effectively just is one side of the culture war. Simply put, I'm referring to egalitarian identity politics. It refers to a way to think about people, their place in society, new values, etc... the contrast might be the old "melting pot" values their parents were taught. Or, further back, an identitarianism centered around ethnic pride in tension with a "civil religion" defining what it is to be an American. You can quibble with the truth of these claims but there must be some governing myths uniting a people or else what are they? The myths being promulgated to children (indoctrination) are "far left" progressive (aka "woke"). Culture is downstream from politics. The changing of the political order can absolutely change the culture. Trump 1.0 wasn't able to do it because the entrenched neoliberal (global american imperialists) forces were too powerful and the Trump admin too inexperienced, naive, or infiltrated with enemies and grifters. It happens to be the case that the domestic politics of the governing class of the Global American Empire is Progressivism. Progressivism is not itself neoliberalism/imperialism/globalism, but is used as a tool of domination by the imperial administration abroad. Hence why we teach Progressive values to Afghani women, or insist on sexual liberation policies in exchange for Western foreign aid. The players from 2016 are a decade older and wiser. Trump 2.0 came in with a new playbook and flooded the zone to blitz the "deep state" before they could muster. Will it succeed? TBD. Lawfare and friendly judges are being rallied in opposition to Trump 2.0 as we speak. The entrenched interests see themselves as the defenders of the unipolar US hegemony, and Trump as a harbinger of declining US power abroad. It's not just that they believe he'll be bad for the existing revenue sources (forever wars, multilateral trade deals, human trafficking), but that he's bad for the Global American Empire. They see him as an existential threat to US global dominance. Hence why the most extreme Never Trumpers came from the foreign policy establishment (State Department, CIA, DoD). The budget cuts are to neuter Trump's political opponents, which will change the culture if successful. I've commented about this elsewhere in this thread.

ctrlp 2y ago

The thing I was talking about was what I said. Parents expected classroom education to be somewhat like what they had experienced in school. Reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, but also something vaguely pro-American. The forms of myth-building that took place in the 80s and 90s were, if not more true, then quite a bit less overtly political. Having the kids home on zoom classes was the window into progressive indoctrination technique. I wouldn't subsume progressivism under neoliberalism. I would class neoliberalism as the "new world order" or post-war consensus of global power, first during the Cold War, and then with the unipolar US hegemony. Very much about geopolitics. Progressivism is what is being taught to kids in school and it effectively just is one side of the culture war. Simply put, I'm referring to egalitarian identity politics. It refers to a way to think about people, their place in society, new values, etc... the contrast might be the old "melting pot" values their parents were taught. Or, further back, an identitarianism centered around ethnic pride in tension with a "civil religion" defining what it is to be an American. You can quibble with the truth of these claims but there must be some governing myths uniting a people or else what are they? The myths being promulgated to children (indoctrination) are "far left" progressive (aka "woke"). Culture is downstream from politics. The changing of the political order can absolutely change the culture. Trump 1.0 wasn't able to do it because the entrenched neoliberal (global american imperialists) forces were too powerful and the Trump admin too inexperienced, naive, or infiltrated with enemies and grifters. It happens to be the case that the domestic politics of the governing class of the Global American Empire is Progressivism. Progressivism is not itself neoliberalism/imperialism/globalism, but is used as a tool of domination by the imperial administration abroad. Hence why we teach Progressive values to Afghani women, or insist on sexual liberation policies in exchange for Western foreign aid. The players from 2016 are a decade older and wiser. Trump 2.0 came in with a new playbook and flooded the zone to blitz the "deep state" before they could muster. Will it succeed? TBD. Lawfare and friendly judges are being rallied in opposition to Trump 2.0 as we speak. The entrenched interests see themselves as the defenders of the unipolar US hegemony, and Trump as a harbinger of declining US power abroad. It's not just that they believe he'll be bad for the existing revenue sources (forever wars, multilateral trade deals, human trafficking), but that he's bad for the Global American Empire. They see him as an existential threat to US global dominance. Hence why the most extreme Never Trumpers came from the foreign policy establishment (State Department, CIA, DoD). The budget cuts are to neuter Trump's political opponents, which will change the culture if successful. I've commented about this elsewhere in this thread.