Comment by narrator
13 hours ago
If you want to read someone the article author characterizes as #1 (Objects to Marxism) and #2 (Knows enough to carefully and reasonably refute Marxism) I'd recommend James Lindsay's New Discourses podcast and website. He's read all the leftist books and is deeply familiar with all their ideas and terminology, but is about as anti-communist as they come. Interestingly, he has a lot of people on what he calls the "Woke Right" (e.g Tucker Carlson) who also hate him.
> Interestingly, he has a lot of people on what he calls the "Woke Right" (e.g Tucker Carlson) who also hate him.
Is that interesting? I get accused of being a labour supporter in conservative areas and conservative in more left leaning areas.
It's all part of the problem being discussed. If you don't precisely agree with someone, you must be one of 'them', and when you're in the middle, or have nuanced views, both extremes disagree with you.
> Conspiracy theory promotion
> Lindsay has promoted several conspiracy theories. He is a proponent of the LGBT grooming conspiracy theory and has been credited as one of several public figures responsible for popularizing "groomer" as a slur directed at LGBTQ educators and activists by members of the political right. Lindsay has referred to the Pride flag as "the flag of a hostile enemy".
> In 2021, Lindsay wrote on Twitter that "there will be" a genocide of whites if critical race theory "isn't stopped." His statement was met with widespread criticism, including from founder of libertarian anti-identity politics magazine Quillette Claire Lehmann who wrote: "James Lindsay is now peddling White Genocide Theory. Implying that a genocide against whites in the U.S. is imminent has the potential to inspire racist violence. Such comments are extreme, reckless, and irresponsible. They should be denounced." Lindsay has also promoted the far-right Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, which alleges a concerted effort by Marxist critical theorists to undermine Western civilization using Marxism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Lindsay?wprov=sfla1
Anti-Marxists really aren't sending their best. I don't see how this guy can produce a thoughtful response to Marxism if he believes that there exists a secret cabal trying to push "Cultural Marxism" on the West to destroy it.
To respect TFA's point, I will not use this moron's existence as evidence that leftist economics are correct.
He reads difficult dense books that are the academic foundation of leftism all the way through and takes them seriously. When prominent theorists write books and these books are taught to 10s of thousands in universities, this is what leftists actually believe.
Leftists make the stuff in their dense jargon heavy books so extreme that it becomes anti-mimetic. People say that the statements he reads out of these books, once translated from very dense jargon, are conspiracy theories, but that's basically gaslighting to get people to not pay attention to acknowledged leftist tactics and to disbelieve what's actually in the books they are teaching to kids and are using to train the next generations of teachers and leftist policymakers.
Communists get voted in because people don't really think their extreme rhetoric is serious, but once they seize power they actually behave just like they say they would in their books.
You're also not engaging with his argument. You're just saying someone said he said a category of things I don't like, but if he read it out of a popular leftist theory book then that's just reporting on what the actual left is saying and to say that repeating that is somehow being a conspiracy theorist is how this stuff comes into actually being implemented. People refuse to believe communists like Hasan Piker are serious until it's too late.
Lindsay does not adhere to basic honest critical inquiry. Marxism deserves much better critics! As a sample this text by Matt McManus shows some of the deep problems with one Lindsay's books https://archive.is/psCEw