Sorry to hear all of this. I hope you will draw whatever lessons from it seem fruitful to you.
For my part, though I was never as 'leftist' as you, my break with the left came in similar circumstances, and over time. I had come to accept that whatever 'good left' there had once been (the working class left of my Methodist great grandfathe…
Sorry to hear all of this. I hope you will draw whatever lessons from it seem fruitful to you.
For my part, though I was never as 'leftist' as you, my break with the left came in similar circumstances, and over time. I had come to accept that whatever 'good left' there had once been (the working class left of my Methodist great grandfather being my gold standard) had been consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts. It's only got worse since then. I think the left is now a poison in the veins of the culture. You do not need to be 'on the right' to acknowledge this. Running away from them is a sane choice.
As a Christian, by the way, I agree with what you say about the puritans and iconoclasts. I've long thought that wokeness was the sermon on the mount minus love, forgiveness or God. Christians are at their very worst when they forget the instruction to love their neighbour first, which is presumably why it was given.
Speaking of vicious ideologically crazy brownshirts it seems to me that that is a very apt accurate description of the benighted denizens promoting this project -many/most/all of whom are Christians
Brownshirts tend to march down the street, smash shop windows, burn city blocks and shoot people. I can't see some Republican think tankers being active enough to make that happen. But maybe I am misreading America.
There have definitely been a few roving gangs (the Proud Boys, for example), but they mostly just go to Portland to brawl with equally thuggish antifa gangs in what's become a civic religious festival of street fighting.
Yes, in my opinion you very much do misread the state of American culture, or what remains of it.
A slightly modified quote from the 1963 book Culture Against Man by Jules Henry. A book which was quite influential in its time.
"In Western culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e with death ... Where is the culture of life? The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened and confused, are wondering 'where will it end'.
Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - the people who long for peace and sanity - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wooly-minded, overwhelmed by their (seeming) impotence. Death struts about the house while Life cowers in the corners."
Sixty years later the situation thus described is muchly more advanced - potentially catastrophically so! In my opinion the Heritage (lies, lies and more lies) Foundation which has created the 2025 project is one of the leading edge vectors of that "culture" of death - satanic barbarians all the way down!
In my opinion it is also in one way of another associated with the phenomenon described in the book by Chris Hedges titled American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War Against America.
See also my other comment on this site re the nature of the morphogenic pattern and the world-wide "culture" of death created and propagated the 800+ US military bases.
I tend to disregard any comment which uses the word 'fascist' to refer to people who are not actually fascists. It's the equivalent of 'conspiracy theorist', and has been useless since at least 1946. If we can't accurately pin down what people are and what they do, we are just name-calling. 'Satanic', by the way, is even worse - and I speak as a Christian.
I would be no fan of the Heritage Foundation or its views, but to associate it with the brownshirts, and also to attempt to smear Christians by association with it, is not helping anything anywhere. It only reflects on you.
In my view, people on all sides should try to calm down and call a spade a spade (rather than a 'fascist'). Then we might see what was happening. It's hard enough as it is, without the hysteria.
One reason I appreciate Rhyd's writing is that, while we come from quite different places, he is a man who tries to accurately portray the world and say what he means. If he disagrees, he tends to do so calmly and with an explanation. This kind of thing is much needed from all quarters.
This comment here, and then coming from a person who called the entire modern left "consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts" and "a poison in the veins of the culture"?
Fair comment, that was hyperbolic language. But the word 'consumed' was the key word. It feels to me that the left has been eaten by something bad and dangerous. Not that everyone 'on the left' is like this - obviously they're not, or Rhyd would not be under attack himself. But the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and I do see 'the left' as a whole as a poison at this point. Personally I think this was always likely - because it happens throughout history. But it also happens to other politics tribes, and regularly to religions.
Calling oneself a "Christian" doesn't mean one's life philosophy has anything to do with the Christ, as we all know. It's as frustrating as watching in horror as people excuse horrendous suffering through choosing to see all Muslims as inherently evil. The people you speak of clearly aren't "Christians" in anything but name and membership to an at times very powerful man-made institution. Round and round it goes.
With respect, Helen, isn't that the No True Scotsman fallacy? Where one claims that unpleasant examples of a certain group are somehow not actually part of the group. One might as well also say that the people who harassed Rhyd aren't actually leftists.
Does this depend on how you define the group, and who gets to define it, or even whether it's sensible to start using group identity at all? Maybe group identity is always just a tool of manipulation? This is complex because Jesus didn't tell people to call themselves "Christians" and following Jesus does not have to mean belonging to a church: if I follow his example quietly for myself I could still call myself a Christian, or not, as I wish. Or I can call myself a Christian but pick and choose about where I follow his example, if at all (or so it would seem). Do all these people belong to the same group? Very, very loosely, based on the lowest common denominator of perhaps believing Jesus was the son of God, or maybe even just that he was a wise man whose example I wish to follow? I was raised in a Christian family and have lived in several different Christian communities, but feel I have very little in common with e.g. high Catholics or charismatic Evangelicals. I possibly have more in common with you. Do we need some Venn diagrams?
Well, I push back against that logic, because a conversation environment where each person gets to pick and choose whom they accept as belonging to their favorite group would descend into weasely meaninglessness soon. Criticism of concepts with group identities attached would become impossible.
Do you mean that whoever assigns themselves an identity which has the same name as one you have either been assigned or choose to assign yourself automatically has to be accepted by you as having that very same identity you have?
This comment thread started with Kingsnorth bashing all of leftism (and quite explicitly, all of it), based on the bad examples that Rhyd mentioned in his article. Under that framing, I have to insist on Christians not weaseling out of bad examples of Christianity either.
Now, from you (but not from Kingsnorth) I could accept that you don't consider rightwing Neocons actual Christians. Then I would reply that woke cancellers aren't actual leftists either. That would be fair as well.
Sorry to hear all of this. I hope you will draw whatever lessons from it seem fruitful to you.
For my part, though I was never as 'leftist' as you, my break with the left came in similar circumstances, and over time. I had come to accept that whatever 'good left' there had once been (the working class left of my Methodist great grandfather being my gold standard) had been consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts. It's only got worse since then. I think the left is now a poison in the veins of the culture. You do not need to be 'on the right' to acknowledge this. Running away from them is a sane choice.
As a Christian, by the way, I agree with what you say about the puritans and iconoclasts. I've long thought that wokeness was the sermon on the mount minus love, forgiveness or God. Christians are at their very worst when they forget the instruction to love their neighbour first, which is presumably why it was given.
Keep going!
A poison injected into those veins, maybe...
Speaking of vicious ideologically crazy brownshirts it seems to me that that is a very apt accurate description of the benighted denizens promoting this project -many/most/all of whom are Christians
http://www.project2025.org
Brownshirts tend to march down the street, smash shop windows, burn city blocks and shoot people. I can't see some Republican think tankers being active enough to make that happen. But maybe I am misreading America.
There have definitely been a few roving gangs (the Proud Boys, for example), but they mostly just go to Portland to brawl with equally thuggish antifa gangs in what's become a civic religious festival of street fighting.
If only they could all stay there. It could be a kind of political burning man. We could build a big wall around it.
Yes, in my opinion you very much do misread the state of American culture, or what remains of it.
A slightly modified quote from the 1963 book Culture Against Man by Jules Henry. A book which was quite influential in its time.
"In Western culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e with death ... Where is the culture of life? The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened and confused, are wondering 'where will it end'.
Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - the people who long for peace and sanity - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wooly-minded, overwhelmed by their (seeming) impotence. Death struts about the house while Life cowers in the corners."
Sixty years later the situation thus described is muchly more advanced - potentially catastrophically so! In my opinion the Heritage (lies, lies and more lies) Foundation which has created the 2025 project is one of the leading edge vectors of that "culture" of death - satanic barbarians all the way down!
In my opinion it is also in one way of another associated with the phenomenon described in the book by Chris Hedges titled American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War Against America.
See also my other comment on this site re the nature of the morphogenic pattern and the world-wide "culture" of death created and propagated the 800+ US military bases.
I tend to disregard any comment which uses the word 'fascist' to refer to people who are not actually fascists. It's the equivalent of 'conspiracy theorist', and has been useless since at least 1946. If we can't accurately pin down what people are and what they do, we are just name-calling. 'Satanic', by the way, is even worse - and I speak as a Christian.
I would be no fan of the Heritage Foundation or its views, but to associate it with the brownshirts, and also to attempt to smear Christians by association with it, is not helping anything anywhere. It only reflects on you.
In my view, people on all sides should try to calm down and call a spade a spade (rather than a 'fascist'). Then we might see what was happening. It's hard enough as it is, without the hysteria.
One reason I appreciate Rhyd's writing is that, while we come from quite different places, he is a man who tries to accurately portray the world and say what he means. If he disagrees, he tends to do so calmly and with an explanation. This kind of thing is much needed from all quarters.
This comment here, and then coming from a person who called the entire modern left "consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts" and "a poison in the veins of the culture"?
Fair comment, that was hyperbolic language. But the word 'consumed' was the key word. It feels to me that the left has been eaten by something bad and dangerous. Not that everyone 'on the left' is like this - obviously they're not, or Rhyd would not be under attack himself. But the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and I do see 'the left' as a whole as a poison at this point. Personally I think this was always likely - because it happens throughout history. But it also happens to other politics tribes, and regularly to religions.
Calling oneself a "Christian" doesn't mean one's life philosophy has anything to do with the Christ, as we all know. It's as frustrating as watching in horror as people excuse horrendous suffering through choosing to see all Muslims as inherently evil. The people you speak of clearly aren't "Christians" in anything but name and membership to an at times very powerful man-made institution. Round and round it goes.
With respect, Helen, isn't that the No True Scotsman fallacy? Where one claims that unpleasant examples of a certain group are somehow not actually part of the group. One might as well also say that the people who harassed Rhyd aren't actually leftists.
Does this depend on how you define the group, and who gets to define it, or even whether it's sensible to start using group identity at all? Maybe group identity is always just a tool of manipulation? This is complex because Jesus didn't tell people to call themselves "Christians" and following Jesus does not have to mean belonging to a church: if I follow his example quietly for myself I could still call myself a Christian, or not, as I wish. Or I can call myself a Christian but pick and choose about where I follow his example, if at all (or so it would seem). Do all these people belong to the same group? Very, very loosely, based on the lowest common denominator of perhaps believing Jesus was the son of God, or maybe even just that he was a wise man whose example I wish to follow? I was raised in a Christian family and have lived in several different Christian communities, but feel I have very little in common with e.g. high Catholics or charismatic Evangelicals. I possibly have more in common with you. Do we need some Venn diagrams?
Well, I push back against that logic, because a conversation environment where each person gets to pick and choose whom they accept as belonging to their favorite group would descend into weasely meaninglessness soon. Criticism of concepts with group identities attached would become impossible.
Do you mean that whoever assigns themselves an identity which has the same name as one you have either been assigned or choose to assign yourself automatically has to be accepted by you as having that very same identity you have?
This comment thread started with Kingsnorth bashing all of leftism (and quite explicitly, all of it), based on the bad examples that Rhyd mentioned in his article. Under that framing, I have to insist on Christians not weaseling out of bad examples of Christianity either.
Now, from you (but not from Kingsnorth) I could accept that you don't consider rightwing Neocons actual Christians. Then I would reply that woke cancellers aren't actual leftists either. That would be fair as well.