and, of course, much of the "erotic chaos" of the 1960s was also sponsored by the CIA, through their widespread distribution of LSD throughout the counterculture. Timothy Leary had an unusual background and mysterious resources for a counterculture folk hero, to take just one example.
this is why i can't abide people who think the hippy tactics of the 1960s are worth preserving today. they didn't know then, and don't know now, who they're supposedly resisting and how little the cultural signaling matters.
True liberation is freeing our hands, bodies, eyes and the time we have to do beautiful things - good work, family, friends, helping others, local community, crafts, art, music, singing, dance, writing, worship/religion/ spirituality, being in the land,sky, and sea! I am a fan of Chestertonian distributism with sympathies toward anarchism.
Heh, this is kind of terrifying but also I feel vindicated in having so far been too lazy to read most of these people. Fanon is someone I wanted to eventually get to, but now maybe I even won't. I'm surprised he is on that list, but I suppose it is because he is introspective instead of practical
Fanon’s connections are especially at the end of his life. But his usefulness to the CIA was in his opposition to Africa adopting communism as an alternative to American and French imperialism. Essentially, he argued for a third way, which is exactly what the CiA had encouraged in the New Left.
I would argue that you have skipped over something extremely important--that is partially to account for the present collapse of the Left.
"The Dialectic of Enlightenment," essentially argued that modernity and the Enlightenment were responsible for the catastrophic involutions of Stalinism and Nazism and the New Deal. Horkheimer and Adorno's arguments could only be sustained by reconnecting with traditions (like religious belief) that had been condemned by Enlightenment thinkers as merely pre-modern superstitions that needed to be transcended. Consequently American Left thinking came to feed right into the belief that all social problems could be blamed on lingering pre-modern residues whose systemic elimination was hypothesized as the only "progressive agenda."
In my opinion this kind of critique was immensely more sophisticated than the relatively simple Marlxist-Lenninist critique of capitalism and seems to resonate with the search for meaning taking place among many different groupings in 2025.
Like you wrote, this doesn't mean that everything these people wrote is useless or "pro-CIA", but it certainly gives one a different perspective to know that the CIA had an interest in promoting their thought. Boils down to "divide and conquer", I guess. Think Hamas, Bin Laden etc.
In Germany, the Frankfurt school was very influential in the formation of the "anti-german left" after the re-unification, "communists" who saw their main task in defending Israel and the US against the "antisemitic left". Even went so far as being pro Iraq war...
Nowadays their main "enemy" seem to be "conspiracy theorists", and just mentioning the three-letter agency might be enough to be considered such.
Reading your essay, Guy Debord immediately came to mind - I think he would not be surprised, especially if we read his later "comments on the society of the spectacle". Which also seem to be a little too "conspiracy theory" for many leftists.
You're absolutely correct about the influence on the German left. It's such a wild thing that the left there has been so much in support of the police crackdowns on all protests against Israel's occupation, and only the Frankfurt School's inversions really explain this.
And also, yes on the "conspiracy theorists" being the primary threat to civil society. This relates a bit to the article I'll eventually discuss.
And re-reading Debord really helped reorient myself last year as I tried to make sense of what's become the left...
Opposition to iIdentity politics comes from the left not just the right. Eg Kenan Malek Opposing domestic violence against women, suoporting gay lesbian rights, indigenous movements aren't id politics. Identity politics is a fixation with narrow impoverished views of Identity. It is also atomised and divisive.
and, of course, much of the "erotic chaos" of the 1960s was also sponsored by the CIA, through their widespread distribution of LSD throughout the counterculture. Timothy Leary had an unusual background and mysterious resources for a counterculture folk hero, to take just one example.
this is why i can't abide people who think the hippy tactics of the 1960s are worth preserving today. they didn't know then, and don't know now, who they're supposedly resisting and how little the cultural signaling matters.
There’s evidence of a connection between the CCF and MkUltra apparently. Makes sense, especially with the focus on consciousness “expansion”
True liberation is freeing our hands, bodies, eyes and the time we have to do beautiful things - good work, family, friends, helping others, local community, crafts, art, music, singing, dance, writing, worship/religion/ spirituality, being in the land,sky, and sea! I am a fan of Chestertonian distributism with sympathies toward anarchism.
Damn, this is so good my lips are tingling after reading it, like I just ate chilli.
Assuming it's the adrenaline of reading something real.
Heh, this is kind of terrifying but also I feel vindicated in having so far been too lazy to read most of these people. Fanon is someone I wanted to eventually get to, but now maybe I even won't. I'm surprised he is on that list, but I suppose it is because he is introspective instead of practical
Fanon’s connections are especially at the end of his life. But his usefulness to the CIA was in his opposition to Africa adopting communism as an alternative to American and French imperialism. Essentially, he argued for a third way, which is exactly what the CiA had encouraged in the New Left.
I would argue that you have skipped over something extremely important--that is partially to account for the present collapse of the Left.
"The Dialectic of Enlightenment," essentially argued that modernity and the Enlightenment were responsible for the catastrophic involutions of Stalinism and Nazism and the New Deal. Horkheimer and Adorno's arguments could only be sustained by reconnecting with traditions (like religious belief) that had been condemned by Enlightenment thinkers as merely pre-modern superstitions that needed to be transcended. Consequently American Left thinking came to feed right into the belief that all social problems could be blamed on lingering pre-modern residues whose systemic elimination was hypothesized as the only "progressive agenda."
In my opinion this kind of critique was immensely more sophisticated than the relatively simple Marlxist-Lenninist critique of capitalism and seems to resonate with the search for meaning taking place among many different groupings in 2025.
Yes, you're correct on this. I think also the terror of "populism" is relevant here -- this can really be traced also to the Frankfurt School.
Like you wrote, this doesn't mean that everything these people wrote is useless or "pro-CIA", but it certainly gives one a different perspective to know that the CIA had an interest in promoting their thought. Boils down to "divide and conquer", I guess. Think Hamas, Bin Laden etc.
In Germany, the Frankfurt school was very influential in the formation of the "anti-german left" after the re-unification, "communists" who saw their main task in defending Israel and the US against the "antisemitic left". Even went so far as being pro Iraq war...
Nowadays their main "enemy" seem to be "conspiracy theorists", and just mentioning the three-letter agency might be enough to be considered such.
Reading your essay, Guy Debord immediately came to mind - I think he would not be surprised, especially if we read his later "comments on the society of the spectacle". Which also seem to be a little too "conspiracy theory" for many leftists.
You're absolutely correct about the influence on the German left. It's such a wild thing that the left there has been so much in support of the police crackdowns on all protests against Israel's occupation, and only the Frankfurt School's inversions really explain this.
And also, yes on the "conspiracy theorists" being the primary threat to civil society. This relates a bit to the article I'll eventually discuss.
And re-reading Debord really helped reorient myself last year as I tried to make sense of what's become the left...
An interesting and insightful piece.
Opposition to iIdentity politics comes from the left not just the right. Eg Kenan Malek Opposing domestic violence against women, suoporting gay lesbian rights, indigenous movements aren't id politics. Identity politics is a fixation with narrow impoverished views of Identity. It is also atomised and divisive.
"suoporting gay lesbian rights, indigenous movements aren't id politics."
It seems to me these are routinely dumped into the IDPOL bucket. Maybe that's just Fox News and friends, but I run into it all the time.