This is a wonderful article. 70 years ago Benjamin Lee Wharf's "Language, Thought and Reality" explained how language shapes thought. That led to the General Semantics movement and similar groups showing this. I was sorry to see an irrelevant attack on Whorf and others in this line by Noam Chomsky, arguing that the language function was inherent in the human brain. Somehow, that movement distracted attention from the Orwellian idea of Doublethink. Glenn's article restores this approach in the clearest way that I have seen in the last 70 years.
Glenn's criticism of post-modernism only works if the 'elites' actually BELIEVE what they are saying.
Take the full-spectrum attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, as an example. The entire panoply of the Establishment (Minus the queen and a rare couple of others), along with the entire range of corporate mass media, launched an attack that ticks every one of Glenn's boxes.
But the claim was essentially that a life-long anti-racist campaigner, who had won global medals for his dedication, who was adored by his LOCAL constituency Jewish communities, was an anti-Semitic racist.
Anyone who defended him was equally branded a racist, anyone questioning the narrative also, and indeed the witch-hunt was so great that the victims of it more often than not were not even told what their 'crime' was. It was moral Manichaenism, and extremely, extremely effective.
Literally everything that Glenn described as "Post-Modernist".
But did they believe it? Or was it actually just a series of known lies, mistruths and distruths, in order to further an agreed political agenda - the same as has happened for millennia beforehand, albeit now amplified by mass corporate media, instant communications between participants, and an ideological 'purity' created by US/Atlanticist 'Think Tanks' putting their own cult members into key positions of authority?
While conservatives - and especially religious conservatives - like to think their current 'reality' is based on, well, reality, the fact is humans have created wildly different models. See Graebers works for excellent examples.
Po-mo like all movements and theories should and must be critiqued, but it is best to do so from an accurate position.
Are these people in charge across Europe REALLY such numbskulls, or are they liars in a well-funded network? While the average is trending downwards, I do not believe all those 'elites' really are as incorrigibly stupid as Liz Truss. They simply know which side their bread is buttered, and have no compunction in lying for political ends.
This seems to me a much simpler explanation. Than that they are all captured by some nebulous interpretation of what is pretty much a mainstream theory, these days.
Chomsky was far too certain of his linguistic premises, but his real reputation has been his above-average honesty regarding IntRel and highly readable books.
The number of times Europe has attempted to destroy Russia through treachery throughout history is numerous. The Russians must accept that at some point a relationship with Europe is impossible, other than to treat them aggressor. Russia can now choose to leave behind those who have historically rejected them to the point of seeking their destruction and embrace the majority that will welcome their leadership.
I suspect that Russia has finally come around to acceptance of this reality, based on statements made over the last year or two when the Russia-China meetings were taking place.
We are kin. The sooner we start acting in our regional interest the better. If you look at many other parameters outside of US/ NATO interference in Ukraine Russia and Europe were drawing closer together and integrating trade pre 2022 despite the sanctions onslaught post Crimea's decision to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia after the coup in 2014 and decades of neglect and corruption...
I would say that we all have to learn that a relationship with the European ruling class is impossible other than to treat them as an agressor. The European ruling class doesn't even has the excuse that they organize production, as capitalists traditionally did, the just extract a rent from the economic circuit.
I think if a number of European states take it upon themselves to rethink a security architecture that includes Russia, "defying" the odious narratives/ double speak prevailing now they will make the opening needed for the rest to follow when they need to. I am surprised actually that "Europe" doesn't deliberately have such a strategy already in place. What fool could take NATO seriously.... I am still astounded that they, whomever they are, are buying their own rhetoric. How did Europeans move from having a healthy cynicism about "benevolent" US imperialism to being these zombies. It doesn't feel "real" it feels like Europe is a non- entity. I don't completely buy it.
"Trust me" ? No disrespect - but I think that everyone who's been listening to a vast range of highly informed and invariably vindicated geopolitical truth-tellers for years/decades has no need to "trust" just one particular comment-poster this late in the blood & BS game/horror show. We've all heard, exhaustively researched and triple-cross-checked countless well-documented facts and sources and therefore really don't need to put our faith in mere "trust" - indisputable facts v lies, cover-ups and deafening silences speak for themselves for those who're willing to do the full-spectrum research eg. as everyone here clearly is and does. (I won't ask you to "trust me").
I wonder if it could be taken further by dissecting what is "Europe"/"Europeans" and what each "nation" is? That thought is sparked by this passage in the article:¨
".....In the absence of acceptable narratives, the Europeans simply keep silent and do not defend their national interests. The narrative of liberal democracies united by values rather than divided by competing interests must be defended from inconvenient facts....."
Looking closer at that, what I see is declining democracy and hijacked political institutions. European national governments and EU are run by corrupt tools and sometimes outright foreign assets. So what the nominal "leaders" do and say, is disengaged from any interest in the best interest of the European masses, who in turn are largely blinded thoroughly propagandised on mainstream social media, of which they are among the world's most intensive users.
Nonetheless, there is a growing split in the EU leaders and masses, as reflected in steading declining trust levels of the politicians and media - people dont trust leaders who clearly dont serve them and people that tell blatant lies:
But all of what you have pointed out is only going to get worse from here on out. At the EU level, a lot of people overlook that the EU actually has a FORMAL agreement to be subservient to what NATO (read: the USA) says and wants:
"Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation by the President of the European
Council, the President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Signed at Brussels on 10 January 2023 in triplicate.
Charles Michel - President of the European Council
Ursula von der Leyen- President of the European Commission
Jens Stoltenberg - Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization"
Since the time of that agreement you can see even more self-harm, such as the growing action by the EU to "de-risk" or "decouple" from trade relationships with China, and related actions like EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
The circle of lies and the gap to reality is rapidly expanding. And this is going to cause a rupture shortly - the distortion is far too much.
As evidenced by this article, it’s abundantly apparent that the brilliant way in which Glenn Diesen takes a sobering look at what’s lead to the current debacle in Europe could be used and extrapolated into analyzing the root causes of the problems at hand.
The analysis of the root of these political problems can in turn be extrapolated into analyzing and figuring out the root and solutions to all of the problems that plague humanity.
It’s this type of rational analysis that’s required to both understand the problem and come up with the required changes in both our mindsets and behaviors that will be required in order for us to overcome these problems.
And, believe it or not, this is what my “course” does…
And I might add that the way in which the United States has conducted itself, and continues to conduct itself, in its foreign policy is exactly opposite of the way in which it should be conducting itself.
And this is a big problem.
Not only is it obviously a big problem in and of itself, but also the absolute foolishness that has typified US foreign policy is a great impediment to trying to accomplish all of the things that we desperately need to be trying to tackle as a species.
This points to the fact that that one of the themes in my course, as people like the late Isaac Asimov pointed out, is the fact that because of technological advancements we as a species are now in the position of being able to write our own history. We have the capacity to do what needs to be done to right the ship it’s just a matter as to whether we have the wisdom and will to do so.
And in order to try to accomplish what will be required in order for us to try to survive and thrive into the future it will take a vision as to what needs to be done and very good leadership in order to try to do it. This is all spelled out in my “course”.
The sad fact of the matter is that things aren’t looking too good. We have the capacity to make the necessary changes in our mindset and behavior but it will take very good leadership to get it accomplished.
And not to get to get too far into the weeds but it could be that when a species gets to a certain technological competency there could be a pattern in the universe where that technological competency is largely responsible for the demise of that species.
And without getting into too much of a discussion on this topic, this is why my “course”, in its totality, is the only guide, roadmap, playbook, or way in which we can try to overcome what otherwise might be a self terminating outcome.
Another way to put it is that my course is the vehicle with which we as a species need to use to try to make a hard turn in order to avoid entering into a evolutionary cul-de-sac.
This might sound crazy but my “course” needs to be used as humanities’ spiritual non-religious religion, its basis for a political platform that leads to good outcomes and as the basis for the operating system for artificial intelligence.
I know that all sounds crazy and far fetched but it’s actually the logical extension and extrapolation of the kind of logic and sensible way of thinking that people like John Mearsheimer and Glenn Diesen use for their analysis of geopolitics.
And so once again, if you’d like to assist me trying to advance my “course” so that it can be put to good use please let me know.
It’s a worthy cause. It’s in our collective interest to advance it and have it win the day.
The question I have is at what point do the leaders stop being unwitting slaves to the rhetoric and instead become aware of the lies but use them to manipulate the whole to go along? Macron level? Who reads the Atlantic and see's it calling for the decolonization of Russia and links that to Western resource companies desire to own Russia's resources? Or Blackrock's recent purchasing of Ukrainian farmland which may or may not survive a peace deal?
Or is it all highly self unaware people all the way to the top?
The concept of a rhetorical trap explains very well why people on the fence, or people who simply find geopolitics boring, choose to believe in the liberal narrative. "Putin is evil? Yeah, okay, whatever..." But it does not explain why political leaders themselves believe in the fallacy.
If you have no say in the matter, as is the case for most of the electorate, you go with what you perceive is the general consensus. But when you are in a position of power, where your decisions can actually make a difference, the rhetoric trap doesn't really explain that much. And if you listen to the rhetoric of most state leaders in Europe, you - or at least I - get the impression, that these leaders really believe in what they are saying.
Why is that? I fear we have to dig a step deeper, and utilize psychological concepts like "group think" and "Stockholm Syndrome" to fully explain this phenomenon. The realistic school of international relations is a structural explanation, and as such has no concept of the political individual.
The thesis of the rhetorical trap provides at best a linguistic link between international relations and individual psychology, but what is needed for a full explanation is a study, a mind map, if you will, of individual leaders and the reasons why these individuals make the decisions that they do.
Maybe this flawed decision making can be explained in terms of economic corruption and bought-off politicians, but I doubt it. As a Dane, I can relate to a guy like Stoltenberg, and I simply do not believe that he is corrupt in the way I believe American politicians, or EU-politicians, are. Something deeper is at play - I am pretty sure that Stoltenberg, and before him Anders Fogh Rasmussen, isn't doing it for the money; I believe that they are really believing their own words.
Why is that? The rhetoric trap partly explains this phenomenon, but it does not explain fully why the least corruptible nations on Earth still produce politicians who behave almost exactly as if they were corrupt. My guess is that we might find an explanation by utilizing certain methods from the fields of individual psychology and the sociology of religions. But this is just my guess.
Anyway, thank for an excellent write-up on all the neo-Orwellian phrases that have become a mainstay in contemporary politics. Now dig deeper!
"Something deeper is at play - I am pretty sure that Stoltenberg, and before him Anders Fogh Rasmussen, isn't doing it for the money; I believe that they are really believing their own words."
I think you're right. As for what the "something deeper" might be, at least some of it has to be rooted in the deeply embedded Anglo-American worldview that was so utterly pervasive during the Cold War. Back then, to many in the west it was entirely natural to think of the stand-off of NATO and the Soviet Union in Manichaean terms. Very few doubted that we were the white hats.
Add to that the formative experiences of many current European (and Australian, Canadian and Kiwi) leaders who often were groomed and moulded by the US through scholarships, high-level contacts, internships and so forth, to the point where the "rules-based order" became their lodestar, far more than the interests of their own nations. It didn't do any harm that their own careers flourished through this allegiance.
Untangling all that in order to face a new reality which casts doubt on their deepest beliefs (and personal interests) is, to put it mildly, a lot to ask.
P.S. I found your mild objectivity about post-modernism refreshing. It's become a new Manichaean battleground, it seems, with little patience for considered, grey opinions. Nope, you're either with us or against us . . . on both sides of the argument.
"...Manichean terms..." - a better understanding of this concept and the reasons why so many people tend to watch the world as black and white may be part of a more full explanation. Why do so many people see the world as a place where people are exclusively good or exclusively evil?
Maybe they really are in it only for the money, and the power, and the prestige. But I doubt it. Something has happened to the way we give meaning to the world. It is probably not something totally new, but the way it is manifesting itself these days, with radical liberals agitating for suspending the liberal values in order to uphold said liberal values, seems to be quite unprecedented.
Back in Germany in the thirties of last century, a lot of people, both on the left and the right, didn't like the concept of democracy, as it manifested itself in the Weimar Republic. So they got rid of democracy. Not a lot of cognitive dissonance there. Nowadays everybody loves democracy, and the people that seem to love democracy the most, are the ones trying to suspend it.
This is crazy. But "crazy" isn't really an explanation, as much as it is a way to confess that I don't understand what is happening.
A few thoughts, for what they're worth. I see patient zero as the US. Its self conception as the exceptional, indeed indispensable, nation certainly isn't new but took on a sort of feverish register after 9/11 . . . wounded, scared, angry and vengeful. Viz: "You're either for us or against us".
It also saw itself as having won the Cold War. Russia, on the other hand, saw itself as an equal partner in peacefully defusing that long twilight period. These radically opposing perceptions laid the groundwork for mutual incomprehension. More so, I think, on the American side where they couldn't (or wouldn't) accept that Russia had legitimate security interests.
It doesn't help that the US (and, in large part as a consequence, much of the rest of the west) has an almost cartoonish view of good and evil. George Beebe (former head of Russia analysis at the CIA) touched on this in an excellent discussion with Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen:
"What has happened is we've fixated on one particular type of international relations problem. What Bob Jervis called in his book, Perception, Misperception in International Relations, the deterrence model problem.
You know, this is the Nazi Germany prototype, where you've got an aggressive expansionist actor who is intent on aggression and must be deterred. And, you know, the one thing you don't do with a problem like that is attempt to negotiate and compromise because that is perceived as weakness. It feeds aggression.
And we have internalized that model as a universal truth in international relations. We believe every problem that we're facing is that deterrence model problem where everything is Nazi German. Everything is Hitler.
There is, I think, another crucial element. A growing awareness that its position of unchallengeable might is slipping away must haunt many of the decision-makers in the US. The temptation to push this thought away and continually double down must be great.
A rhetorical trap is simply a semantic device in aid of an ideology. You don't seem to have grasped that postmodernism is the key. The fallout from postmodernism explains everything very well. It's an essential component of woke left ideology, and all European leaders are woke.
You still haven't explained why postmodernism has become the ideology of our time. Postmodernism was a correction to the structuralist theories of modernism, and not a stand-alone theory. How did what was essentially a qualifier and a correction become a full-blown creed?
You are fixated on postmodernism, but that's not the whole story, nor even the main issue here. Postmodernism is just one component of woke leftism, and leftism itself has been dominant in western civilization ever since the Enlightenment. The latest instantiation of leftism is wokism, which is a witches' brew of postmodernism, postrealism, progressivism, and most importantly, egalitarianism.
The reason wokism (not just postmodernism) has become the ideology of our time, is for the same reasons that, in the last century, communism and socialism became overwhelmingly dominant. In less than 100 years, those versions have morphed into wokism as the exemplar of leftism.
Why? Because it's all and always about morality. Egalitarianism insists that equality is a supreme moral virtue. And everyone wants to be moral, in order to overcome their self-hatred and the lurking suspicion that their lives are pathetic.
Meanwhile, traditional Christianity has been deprecated, revised into various heresies, and otherwise essentially come to be reviled.
'When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.' G.K. Chesterton
And if you have read the postmodernist classics, you would know that most postmodernists don't talk about morals at all. What they talk about is the death of the grand narratives, and how power structures determine what is considered to be truth.
Glenns article exposes how liberal thought is still very much caught in a grand narrative, and it demonstrates very well how the rhetorical trap is a key component in the upholding of said narrative. How power - political power, media power - is trying, and very much succeeding, in defining what is true and what is not.
But the article does not explain why some people believe in the narrative, and why some people do not.
I, for one, do not believe in the grand liberal thesis of Western imperial benevolence, but why is that? I have read all the postmodern classics, and I still believe that postmodern thought is a valid and very useful correction to modernist thought. I am an egalitarian, and have always been. And I am on long stretches a progressivist. But somehow I still don't buy the tall tale of a coming liberal paradise on earth. What makes me different?
It is of course an important step in the search for an explanation to pinpoint the various linguistic tricks that liberals use to brainwash people, but if we want to fight this ideology, it is also important to find out why it works on some people and doesn't work on others.
It is not a question of morality, because if it was, there would be an universal consensus condemning Israels very visible genocide in Gaza. Also, I have my own personal ethics, like I am sure that you have, and almost everyone else has. So why am I not, in spite of being a moral person, buying the grand narrative of universal liberal goodness, when so many others are?
It may be a question of the death of God, as you suggest and Nietzsche claimed, but still it doesn't explain why you and I are not smitten by liberal metaphysics, when so many others are. I don't believe in any god, but still I am not buying into the liberal narrative. Why is that? What makes me special?
There is more at play than self-loathing. And there is also no reason to believe that I am immune to brainwashing just because I am smarter than everybody else. I know quite a few very smart people who nevertheless believe in the grand liberal tale.
I don't know what makes you and me different. And this is why I find the rhetorical trap inconclusive as an explanation. Because why am I not caught in this trap?
You are so fixated on postmodernism that you don't even realize it.
Postmodernism is quite the laugh, anyway, because the fallout from it is that each person can subjectively define it and anything that applies to it.
They can pretend they're right and everyone else is flawed, oh excuse me, "not authentic" or some such rot. That's the essence of the thing, subjectivity is king, say anything you want and you're ok because postmodernism says it can't be denied. And in the end, postmodernism has to fall back on an objective idea of overwhelming physical power, anyway, in order to hold the whole mess together from each individual bozo and their clashing subjective opinions.
As for morality, it should be fairly obvious that there is not just one version floating around in the world. There are many moralities. Wokism is one, traditional Christianity is another, Christian heresies are another, Islam is yet another, and on and on. And guess what? If one of them, in this case wokism, says that it is the supreme morality, and also says that every other morality is an existential threat, then wokism will wage war, taking everything down with it if it loses. Wokism constitutes a secular religion, a cult of the hivemind. And western civilization is in the throes of a religious war, declared unilaterally by woke leftism. If the idea of religion and morality is beneath your pseudo-intellectual dignity, then tough luck, because while you're oblivious to it, it's ruling your society and your life.
I did not mention postmodernism, you did. I just asked a question. And I get the impression that you believe you already have the answer. Good for you.
You can pretend that your faith is right, and everyone else is flawed, but that still does not answer my question.
The watershed year was 2003, when European countries except UK, which is by and large not a European country, have refused to endorse and join in the US attack on Iraq, making this entreprise an illegal war from an internalional UN stand point.
Since then the US has poured enormous resources in grooming future European leaders (and Canadians as well). Scolarships, felloships, all sorts of bribes, all sorts of files for potrntial blackmails have been created for hundreds and thousands of individuals in Europe. This was confirmed to me (because before was just personal inductive logic), by some statements made by Ret. Lt-col Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, statements that confirmed the US efforts for the past 20 years to create a leadership class in Europe that when asked by the US to jump, they will say "How high?!"
Lawrence Wilkerson was "at the table" himself, running the State Department, when the decision was made to interfere "overtly and covertly" in European elections.
"Does Europe have the rationality, political imagination and courage to critically assess its own mistakes and contribution to the current crisis, or will all criticism continue to be denounced as a threat to liberal democracy?" Quite evidently, no... It must be said that, in general, to gain "the rationality, political imagination and courage to critically assess its own mistakes" requires a heavy beat up, and sometimes that's even insufficient or counterproductive, so hopes are minimal
Mr Diesen, I think you answer your own questions, but are perhaps reluctant to face those answers. Leaders in the West have been acting irrationally for quite some time now, and not just in the sphere of international relations. In almost aspects of poltical policy making - ie gender, race relations, DEI, energy policy (aka climate change), deindustrialisation, misinformation, media control. anti-individualism, anti-humanism, immigration, war making - the list goes on and on. This is not a bug, it is a feature. And it is a feature of a new quasi-religion that I don't buy into. And so I am apparently a dangerous right winger these days, albeit my views have moved left from the 1980's when I was mainstream centre-right. This is what comes of not understanding the impact that religion and belief has on our societies - IMHO anyway. These people are literally crazy because they share a belief system that cannot accept dissent -even though internally it makes no sense whatsoever. Theirs is a black and white world, good and evil. You might want to call it post-modernism or something, I am not au fait with the academic language. To me it is voodoo pure and simple. They think they are liberals and democrats, but they are dangerous fundamentalists with their own religion, based on ever changing doctrine and tenents. Watch how they act, not what they say.I don't want to come over as a loon here in my comments, but to me the only explanation for their consistent irrationality is not stupidity (though that plays a part) but a fundamental difference in world view. All their decisions are consistent with religious doctrine, none with real politik or rational behaviour.
There's so much more to say about what's wrong with the EU and its leadership. Or the collective west in general, they all are trapped in this fantasy world with wishful thinking.
I think we have to go whole the way, the complete destruction of the EU. The politics and institutions are a system, you feed it a kind of person and it chews out the kind of person you want or need. There's no room for change or produce a different outcome in this system. You become the system or are rejected.
For many years I've been telling others that there's something mentally wrong with our leaders. I always had interest in psychology and observed and analysed people and these leaders have a mental illness. I have no hope for them. Only a revolution can bring a better future, the system has to be destroyed and all these people have to be removed.
Glen, your conceptual distinctions are so vitally useful. Your arguments seem to suggest a petulant drive to semantic dictatorship behind the smug, lesson teaching west, and their hostility to criticism, as if mental weakness were now a liberal virtue. The schoolmarm attitude also seems to explain Baerbock's adolescent petulance towards foreign minister Lavrov- she was peevishly ordering him into the corner under a dunces hat when she refused to greet him like a person in an important government position.
The " circle of friends" reminds me of the martians in the movie " mars attacks " who run after the earthlings firing their rayguns and calling out " don't run, we are your friends!"
It seems astonishingly ironic how the anti-power- apparent-peace lovers feel they have to construct our new linguistically purified consciousnesses with jackboots and bombs, i suppose when we're all genderless and compliant robots, we'll thank them for saving (us?)(what?)
How blocking any mutual understanding of differing perspectives can be a good thing seems only possible under a conception of goodness that is so limited and ethically enervated it necessarily evokes its opposite, as demonstrated by the SMO. Those idiots who refused all dialogue with the real Russia are the ones who should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, once the dust settles. I now understand all the pictures i see of van der leyen waving her little lifted hands like the antennae of an agitated insect, as signalling unconscious distress at the cognitive dissonance she has to repress arising from her absolutised constructivist relativity, and also the nervousness she feels at perhaps having to demonstrate her freedom from all actuality by urinating with a swagger from her risen hind legs into some elevated porcelain receptacle in an archaic pissoir barbarically set aside for exclusive (male) use.
Slight niggle re: para two and "Most European politicians would feel 'morally'(!?) compelled etc". Morally? Surely Glenn means 'self-preservingly compelled'...
Hei. Ido not agree with the philosophical explanation of the current crisis of the elites. The truth is more dangerous. The concentration of wealth and power has played us into the arms of a group that thrives with war and war industry . The greens have failed to make a realistic plan to get out the the climate crisis. The greens were may be manipulated to get to power to become more mainstream, pro nato , etc. The Green Party founders now mostly dead or reduced were critical of the green parties and some left them at retirement age. Industry lost its chance in the 90 ties to stay leading and perform the ecological transition. Existing national Elites were disempowered by the Eu. For decennia decisions were taken in Brussels with the national media and national elites deeply asleep. Once the eu decision arrived on the national arena the elites learned they could only pretend they had some influence . That is what the got used to, faking power and knowledge without doing the real investigative work. In face, the western progressive elites lost their intelligence after 1989. They were dependent on big brother in the east in the entire post war period. Pretended they created peace and the welfare state but the truth is, the power of that eastern big brother did. They social democrats etc lived in a huge illusion of power that did not survive when we needed it for real. Now peace and doc welfare are destroyed and they peep helpless like puppies. The money now is in international funds easy to move around and the result is that no one with money cares about their national state any more. Nationalities are easily bought. So the states can be destroyed, we now expect bankruptcies of states. They annoy the super rich with their social and ecological laws. Big companies are forced to grow nonstop. Winner takes it is all is the moral. Not postmodern philosophy. Some developed malign strategies and none stopped them. Big pharma, fossil industry are some examples. neoliberalism is to blame I believe , and the lack of social and ecological values in the state planning; the stock market system, not some postmodern philosophy. This misunderstood postmodern philosophy is just another scapegoat to hide the naked emperor and defend the widespread laziness to investigate what what is going on. Now with Ai we can reduce the number of workers even more. No need even for highly educated masses any more. We have work to do, people’s le democratic power will win
"Greed", "money", "power", these are simply the obvious old shibboleths. If all problems could be reduced to only those causes, the solutions would be rather straightforward. But instead, there is an ideology in play here, that of woke leftism, of which postmodernism is one essential element. Because where there is ideology, you'll find morality lurking underneath.
Morality morality morality, it's all about morality. And once you start questioning people's morality, you are questioning their very identity, which they will defend with violence and many times to the death. Now consider that wokism has taken over every western society in its "march through the institutions". Fighting it is going to take considerable effort and understanding of the enemy. If instead you are mired in old paradigms of money, greed, and power, you are definitely going to lose.
"...But instead, there is an ideology in play here, that of woke leftism...."
You are reaching for the same old nonsense. Von der Leyen, Schøltz, Bærbock Rutte, Tusk, Starmer, Meloni, Macron, Stoltenberg, etc are not "woke left". They are not even left at all. No one on the left identifies with them. They range from establishment conservative to outright fascist.
And it is among the right wing, the neoliberals, that money and markets are idols - worshipped to the detriment of all else in society. THERE is your morality gap. Right there.
And you are fixated on fascism as the be-all and end-all explanation. I seriously doubt that you even understand the differences between fascism, naziism, and woke leftism. You are obviously mired in kneejerk accusations and media-enforced political labels.
Fascism stands solely for a nation of a single homogeneous people. It promotes their interests through the state's guidance, which includes control of organizations and large businesses. "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." Mussolini
In order to promote the interests of a homogeneous people, fascism seeks to have their families multiply with children of the same ethnic background, which absolutely does not include importing incompatible immigrants and catering to minorities. Fascism is also incompatible with LGBTXYZ, which is anathema to raising families of the nation's homogeneous people. As a final consideration, fascists cannot be globalists; each nation state is not interested in spreading largesse to other nation states via some godforsaken world government.
I hear this fascism nonsense repeated time after time from people who know nothing about history or ideologies. Woke leftism is the enemy, and western countries are marinated in it. That includes apparatchiks such as Von der Leyen, Schøltz, Bærbock Rutte, Tusk, Starmer, Meloni, Macron, and Stoltenberg. The political labels conferred on them by the mass media are pathetic lies that mask any true understanding of their mindset, training, and overall ideology.
As a final consideration, understand that wokusts are indeed tyrants, but just because tyrannical methods are the same from one ideology to the next, does NOT mean they are the same ideologies. I wish people would stop spouting nonsense and go learn some history and philosophy. If you don't know who the enemy is, then you'll never be able to defeat her.
I wrote a few words in that post, and the word "fascist" appears once. You'd better worry about your money-worshipping culture. It's destroying the world. Its the tyranny.
".....I despise what western societies have turned into....."
The west as a concept is itself built on exploitation and money worshipping. It hasn't "turned into" anything else - its a malign concept from the start. You're lost.
I don't know how useful it is to buy into polarization. I think what we have is infiltration and cooption. It's being going on for a long time and was part of the cold war strategy, steer grassroots movements and civil society, fund them take over then systematically dismantle them. It has been shocking to observe how quickly this process now takes place. I feel like in this kind of information space we have to become "unknowable" deliberately practice seeing beyond the frameworks offered us, strengthen ties across many different groups. Because we will be wielded and made to serve power despite our best intentions if we get stuck in the highly controlled algorithms of any echo chamber.
Read up on the Africa to Americas slave trade to see what money can do. And that money ultimately came from sugar and indigo dye, of all the frivolous things in this world! Or read about the violence associated with the cocaine and other drug businesses in Mexico and Columbia.
Yes, it's possible to have brief ideological movements that overwhelm the influence of money temporarily. Ukrainian people went crazy recently, for example. But that craziness lasted under 2 years for all but a few fanatics, then money entered the picture and is now dominating the situation. Ukrainian elite and their hired goons are making big money in this war and can't afford to see it end, and USA military businesses also want war for money reasons. Wokists don't stand a chance against goons armed with weaponry unavailable to the masses, even if the wokists outnumber goons 100:1. Have you ever been in a real situation of violence, like lots of people being killed with guns? As with your lack of experience with money, I didn't think you had any experience with real violence driven by money motivations...
Money is a symptom, and an easy candidate for blame. But money per se is neither good nor bad. The underlying motivations that drive someone to have more money than they need are much more complex. For example, all the prominent globalists have more money than they know what to do with in 10 lifetimes. Why should they want more? Is that their real motivation? I don't think so. I don't buy such simplistic explanations. But if you, personally, are fixated on money, then you're welcome to whatever theories drive your obvious rage about not having enough of it. Good luck with all that.
Post modernist philosophy is the vehicle that has driven the West off the cliff. It's the engine that kickstarted the mess that the West finds itself in.
The elitist scum we see in the West today are the children of post modernist philosophy. They are the monsters that it created.
What is post modern philosophy? To be precise, it's the subversive idea founded by French philosophers in the 1970s/1980s (Foucault - a despicable, depraved individual, Derrida - an intellectual con artist extraordinaire, Barthes etc) that all truth is subjective, ergo that there is no such thing as objective truth.
'Relativism' and 'subjectivity' aka nihilism & malign narcissism, on steroids.
If nothing is true, if truth is impossible, then nothing matters. What you say is true is true just because you say it, even if it's demonstrably false.
We in the West know the toxic sludge this produces. We see it all around us, every day.
Males can be females, and vice versa. Texts written in the past can be reinterpreted any way you want, 'just because'. Math is racist, because I say so.
Western society is evil because it's based on (insert nonsensical BS theory here).
Etc etc etc.
All lies, of course, but hey it's all true, because...well, just because.
Post-modernism has always been utter nonsense. It's always bern junk philosophy.
How such an infantile argument was ever taken seriously is anyone's guess. It is ridiculous on its face - after all, its core argument - that all truth is subjective and that no objective truths exist - is itself posited as an objective truth, which contradicts the core argument.
It's ridiculous.
But somehow this Orwellian garbage was taken seriously in western universities. Like a virus, it infected western societies.
The destructive impact of such a way of thinking - the self doubt it can produce in individuals and societies - is profound.
And very useful, in the hands of bad people. It quickly became a very useful platform for grifters and ideologues to take down the objective, rational principles, beliefs and systems that once made western societies strong.
And to enrich and empower said grifters and ideologue, who now call the shots in western societies.
For the moment, at least. The reality is that their ability to keep their little house of cards up, is very fragile.
To preserve and expand their power & wealth, these elites must keep populations in a state of wilful blindness, if not total delusion, about objective reality and cold, hard facts.
They must also be able to bribe populations to remain docile.
That's why it's fascinating to be in the West right now. The ability of these elite scum to keep populations in a state of wilful blindness is slipping. It's slipping fast, hence their desperate panic to create new categories of 'truth' and 'untruth' eg 'misinformation', a word that no one had ever heard of 5 years ago.
It also explains their fevered efforts to censor, vilify and punish anyone who parts ways from their false narratives.
Their control of the narrative is slipping. Bit it gets worse. Their collapsing economies are also making it harder for them to bribe populations.
The reality is that no society can survive if it is built on a foundation of lies. No society can thrive if it's population is wracked by self doubt & confusion about what's true and what isn't.
Cold, hard, objective reality - truth - the one thing that these crooks fear - always wins in the end.
That's what we are going to witness in the West. Hopefully, the majority of good people will be able to emerge unscathed, or not too badly damaged, although sadly many will suffer in what's coming.
As for the scum that brought the West to its knees to line their own pockets, and/or to increase their power? The people of the lie?
They are facing a dark and very uncertain future.
In reality, we are witnessing their last days.
When collapse comes in their societies, which it will, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.
This is a wonderful article. 70 years ago Benjamin Lee Wharf's "Language, Thought and Reality" explained how language shapes thought. That led to the General Semantics movement and similar groups showing this. I was sorry to see an irrelevant attack on Whorf and others in this line by Noam Chomsky, arguing that the language function was inherent in the human brain. Somehow, that movement distracted attention from the Orwellian idea of Doublethink. Glenn's article restores this approach in the clearest way that I have seen in the last 70 years.
Glenn's criticism of post-modernism only works if the 'elites' actually BELIEVE what they are saying.
Take the full-spectrum attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, as an example. The entire panoply of the Establishment (Minus the queen and a rare couple of others), along with the entire range of corporate mass media, launched an attack that ticks every one of Glenn's boxes.
But the claim was essentially that a life-long anti-racist campaigner, who had won global medals for his dedication, who was adored by his LOCAL constituency Jewish communities, was an anti-Semitic racist.
Anyone who defended him was equally branded a racist, anyone questioning the narrative also, and indeed the witch-hunt was so great that the victims of it more often than not were not even told what their 'crime' was. It was moral Manichaenism, and extremely, extremely effective.
Literally everything that Glenn described as "Post-Modernist".
But did they believe it? Or was it actually just a series of known lies, mistruths and distruths, in order to further an agreed political agenda - the same as has happened for millennia beforehand, albeit now amplified by mass corporate media, instant communications between participants, and an ideological 'purity' created by US/Atlanticist 'Think Tanks' putting their own cult members into key positions of authority?
While conservatives - and especially religious conservatives - like to think their current 'reality' is based on, well, reality, the fact is humans have created wildly different models. See Graebers works for excellent examples.
Po-mo like all movements and theories should and must be critiqued, but it is best to do so from an accurate position.
Are these people in charge across Europe REALLY such numbskulls, or are they liars in a well-funded network? While the average is trending downwards, I do not believe all those 'elites' really are as incorrigibly stupid as Liz Truss. They simply know which side their bread is buttered, and have no compunction in lying for political ends.
This seems to me a much simpler explanation. Than that they are all captured by some nebulous interpretation of what is pretty much a mainstream theory, these days.
Chomsky was far too certain of his linguistic premises, but his real reputation has been his above-average honesty regarding IntRel and highly readable books.
The number of times Europe has attempted to destroy Russia through treachery throughout history is numerous. The Russians must accept that at some point a relationship with Europe is impossible, other than to treat them aggressor. Russia can now choose to leave behind those who have historically rejected them to the point of seeking their destruction and embrace the majority that will welcome their leadership.
I suspect that Russia has finally come around to acceptance of this reality, based on statements made over the last year or two when the Russia-China meetings were taking place.
We are kin. The sooner we start acting in our regional interest the better. If you look at many other parameters outside of US/ NATO interference in Ukraine Russia and Europe were drawing closer together and integrating trade pre 2022 despite the sanctions onslaught post Crimea's decision to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia after the coup in 2014 and decades of neglect and corruption...
I would say that we all have to learn that a relationship with the European ruling class is impossible other than to treat them as an agressor. The European ruling class doesn't even has the excuse that they organize production, as capitalists traditionally did, the just extract a rent from the economic circuit.
Trust me, as a former “Yugoslav”, I know NATO wanted to destroy my country since 1981 and they have been preparing for war with Russia since 1991
Yes, as I wrote, Ukraine is just the latest logical (attempt) of continuation of Nato imperialism after the Cold War, beginning with Yugoslavia.
So what to do to contain Nato?
BRICS may have potential. Do anyone see other realistic potentials?
I think if a number of European states take it upon themselves to rethink a security architecture that includes Russia, "defying" the odious narratives/ double speak prevailing now they will make the opening needed for the rest to follow when they need to. I am surprised actually that "Europe" doesn't deliberately have such a strategy already in place. What fool could take NATO seriously.... I am still astounded that they, whomever they are, are buying their own rhetoric. How did Europeans move from having a healthy cynicism about "benevolent" US imperialism to being these zombies. It doesn't feel "real" it feels like Europe is a non- entity. I don't completely buy it.
"Trust me" ? No disrespect - but I think that everyone who's been listening to a vast range of highly informed and invariably vindicated geopolitical truth-tellers for years/decades has no need to "trust" just one particular comment-poster this late in the blood & BS game/horror show. We've all heard, exhaustively researched and triple-cross-checked countless well-documented facts and sources and therefore really don't need to put our faith in mere "trust" - indisputable facts v lies, cover-ups and deafening silences speak for themselves for those who're willing to do the full-spectrum research eg. as everyone here clearly is and does. (I won't ask you to "trust me").
This was a very good article.
I wonder if it could be taken further by dissecting what is "Europe"/"Europeans" and what each "nation" is? That thought is sparked by this passage in the article:¨
".....In the absence of acceptable narratives, the Europeans simply keep silent and do not defend their national interests. The narrative of liberal democracies united by values rather than divided by competing interests must be defended from inconvenient facts....."
Looking closer at that, what I see is declining democracy and hijacked political institutions. European national governments and EU are run by corrupt tools and sometimes outright foreign assets. So what the nominal "leaders" do and say, is disengaged from any interest in the best interest of the European masses, who in turn are largely blinded thoroughly propagandised on mainstream social media, of which they are among the world's most intensive users.
Nonetheless, there is a growing split in the EU leaders and masses, as reflected in steading declining trust levels of the politicians and media - people dont trust leaders who clearly dont serve them and people that tell blatant lies:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1465116517723499
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/blog/2022/trust-national-institutions-falling-data-behind-decline
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/news/2022/trust-institutions-continues-fall-eu-despite-declining-unemployment-and-phasing-out
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-survey-on-drivers-of-trust-in-public-institutions-2024-results_9a20554b-en.html
https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-05/2024%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer_Europe%20Report.pdf
But all of what you have pointed out is only going to get worse from here on out. At the EU level, a lot of people overlook that the EU actually has a FORMAL agreement to be subservient to what NATO (read: the USA) says and wants:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/attachment/874309/EU-NATO%20declaration_EN.pdf
"Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation by the President of the European
Council, the President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Signed at Brussels on 10 January 2023 in triplicate.
Charles Michel - President of the European Council
Ursula von der Leyen- President of the European Commission
Jens Stoltenberg - Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization"
Since the time of that agreement you can see even more self-harm, such as the growing action by the EU to "de-risk" or "decouple" from trade relationships with China, and related actions like EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
The circle of lies and the gap to reality is rapidly expanding. And this is going to cause a rupture shortly - the distortion is far too much.
As evidenced by this article, it’s abundantly apparent that the brilliant way in which Glenn Diesen takes a sobering look at what’s lead to the current debacle in Europe could be used and extrapolated into analyzing the root causes of the problems at hand.
The analysis of the root of these political problems can in turn be extrapolated into analyzing and figuring out the root and solutions to all of the problems that plague humanity.
It’s this type of rational analysis that’s required to both understand the problem and come up with the required changes in both our mindsets and behaviors that will be required in order for us to overcome these problems.
And, believe it or not, this is what my “course” does…
And I might add that the way in which the United States has conducted itself, and continues to conduct itself, in its foreign policy is exactly opposite of the way in which it should be conducting itself.
And this is a big problem.
Not only is it obviously a big problem in and of itself, but also the absolute foolishness that has typified US foreign policy is a great impediment to trying to accomplish all of the things that we desperately need to be trying to tackle as a species.
This points to the fact that that one of the themes in my course, as people like the late Isaac Asimov pointed out, is the fact that because of technological advancements we as a species are now in the position of being able to write our own history. We have the capacity to do what needs to be done to right the ship it’s just a matter as to whether we have the wisdom and will to do so.
And in order to try to accomplish what will be required in order for us to try to survive and thrive into the future it will take a vision as to what needs to be done and very good leadership in order to try to do it. This is all spelled out in my “course”.
The sad fact of the matter is that things aren’t looking too good. We have the capacity to make the necessary changes in our mindset and behavior but it will take very good leadership to get it accomplished.
And not to get to get too far into the weeds but it could be that when a species gets to a certain technological competency there could be a pattern in the universe where that technological competency is largely responsible for the demise of that species.
And without getting into too much of a discussion on this topic, this is why my “course”, in its totality, is the only guide, roadmap, playbook, or way in which we can try to overcome what otherwise might be a self terminating outcome.
Another way to put it is that my course is the vehicle with which we as a species need to use to try to make a hard turn in order to avoid entering into a evolutionary cul-de-sac.
This might sound crazy but my “course” needs to be used as humanities’ spiritual non-religious religion, its basis for a political platform that leads to good outcomes and as the basis for the operating system for artificial intelligence.
I know that all sounds crazy and far fetched but it’s actually the logical extension and extrapolation of the kind of logic and sensible way of thinking that people like John Mearsheimer and Glenn Diesen use for their analysis of geopolitics.
And so once again, if you’d like to assist me trying to advance my “course” so that it can be put to good use please let me know.
It’s a worthy cause. It’s in our collective interest to advance it and have it win the day.
kevincflynn1@gmail.com
The question I have is at what point do the leaders stop being unwitting slaves to the rhetoric and instead become aware of the lies but use them to manipulate the whole to go along? Macron level? Who reads the Atlantic and see's it calling for the decolonization of Russia and links that to Western resource companies desire to own Russia's resources? Or Blackrock's recent purchasing of Ukrainian farmland which may or may not survive a peace deal?
Or is it all highly self unaware people all the way to the top?
The concept of a rhetorical trap explains very well why people on the fence, or people who simply find geopolitics boring, choose to believe in the liberal narrative. "Putin is evil? Yeah, okay, whatever..." But it does not explain why political leaders themselves believe in the fallacy.
If you have no say in the matter, as is the case for most of the electorate, you go with what you perceive is the general consensus. But when you are in a position of power, where your decisions can actually make a difference, the rhetoric trap doesn't really explain that much. And if you listen to the rhetoric of most state leaders in Europe, you - or at least I - get the impression, that these leaders really believe in what they are saying.
Why is that? I fear we have to dig a step deeper, and utilize psychological concepts like "group think" and "Stockholm Syndrome" to fully explain this phenomenon. The realistic school of international relations is a structural explanation, and as such has no concept of the political individual.
The thesis of the rhetorical trap provides at best a linguistic link between international relations and individual psychology, but what is needed for a full explanation is a study, a mind map, if you will, of individual leaders and the reasons why these individuals make the decisions that they do.
Maybe this flawed decision making can be explained in terms of economic corruption and bought-off politicians, but I doubt it. As a Dane, I can relate to a guy like Stoltenberg, and I simply do not believe that he is corrupt in the way I believe American politicians, or EU-politicians, are. Something deeper is at play - I am pretty sure that Stoltenberg, and before him Anders Fogh Rasmussen, isn't doing it for the money; I believe that they are really believing their own words.
Why is that? The rhetoric trap partly explains this phenomenon, but it does not explain fully why the least corruptible nations on Earth still produce politicians who behave almost exactly as if they were corrupt. My guess is that we might find an explanation by utilizing certain methods from the fields of individual psychology and the sociology of religions. But this is just my guess.
Anyway, thank for an excellent write-up on all the neo-Orwellian phrases that have become a mainstay in contemporary politics. Now dig deeper!
:-)
"Something deeper is at play - I am pretty sure that Stoltenberg, and before him Anders Fogh Rasmussen, isn't doing it for the money; I believe that they are really believing their own words."
I think you're right. As for what the "something deeper" might be, at least some of it has to be rooted in the deeply embedded Anglo-American worldview that was so utterly pervasive during the Cold War. Back then, to many in the west it was entirely natural to think of the stand-off of NATO and the Soviet Union in Manichaean terms. Very few doubted that we were the white hats.
Add to that the formative experiences of many current European (and Australian, Canadian and Kiwi) leaders who often were groomed and moulded by the US through scholarships, high-level contacts, internships and so forth, to the point where the "rules-based order" became their lodestar, far more than the interests of their own nations. It didn't do any harm that their own careers flourished through this allegiance.
Untangling all that in order to face a new reality which casts doubt on their deepest beliefs (and personal interests) is, to put it mildly, a lot to ask.
P.S. I found your mild objectivity about post-modernism refreshing. It's become a new Manichaean battleground, it seems, with little patience for considered, grey opinions. Nope, you're either with us or against us . . . on both sides of the argument.
"...Manichean terms..." - a better understanding of this concept and the reasons why so many people tend to watch the world as black and white may be part of a more full explanation. Why do so many people see the world as a place where people are exclusively good or exclusively evil?
Maybe they really are in it only for the money, and the power, and the prestige. But I doubt it. Something has happened to the way we give meaning to the world. It is probably not something totally new, but the way it is manifesting itself these days, with radical liberals agitating for suspending the liberal values in order to uphold said liberal values, seems to be quite unprecedented.
Back in Germany in the thirties of last century, a lot of people, both on the left and the right, didn't like the concept of democracy, as it manifested itself in the Weimar Republic. So they got rid of democracy. Not a lot of cognitive dissonance there. Nowadays everybody loves democracy, and the people that seem to love democracy the most, are the ones trying to suspend it.
This is crazy. But "crazy" isn't really an explanation, as much as it is a way to confess that I don't understand what is happening.
Yes, it's a perplexing time.
A few thoughts, for what they're worth. I see patient zero as the US. Its self conception as the exceptional, indeed indispensable, nation certainly isn't new but took on a sort of feverish register after 9/11 . . . wounded, scared, angry and vengeful. Viz: "You're either for us or against us".
It also saw itself as having won the Cold War. Russia, on the other hand, saw itself as an equal partner in peacefully defusing that long twilight period. These radically opposing perceptions laid the groundwork for mutual incomprehension. More so, I think, on the American side where they couldn't (or wouldn't) accept that Russia had legitimate security interests.
It doesn't help that the US (and, in large part as a consequence, much of the rest of the west) has an almost cartoonish view of good and evil. George Beebe (former head of Russia analysis at the CIA) touched on this in an excellent discussion with Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen:
"What has happened is we've fixated on one particular type of international relations problem. What Bob Jervis called in his book, Perception, Misperception in International Relations, the deterrence model problem.
You know, this is the Nazi Germany prototype, where you've got an aggressive expansionist actor who is intent on aggression and must be deterred. And, you know, the one thing you don't do with a problem like that is attempt to negotiate and compromise because that is perceived as weakness. It feeds aggression.
And we have internalized that model as a universal truth in international relations. We believe every problem that we're facing is that deterrence model problem where everything is Nazi German. Everything is Hitler.
We can't possibly negotiate.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-duran-podcast/id1442883993?i=1000674537352
There is, I think, another crucial element. A growing awareness that its position of unchallengeable might is slipping away must haunt many of the decision-makers in the US. The temptation to push this thought away and continually double down must be great.
All in all, a toxic mix.
I for one have lost track of all the “Hitlers” I have been assured by “my betters” that I must dread since the advent of “the unipolar moment.”
Meh.
Yes, that currency is without doubt being radically devalued. 😋
A rhetorical trap is simply a semantic device in aid of an ideology. You don't seem to have grasped that postmodernism is the key. The fallout from postmodernism explains everything very well. It's an essential component of woke left ideology, and all European leaders are woke.
You still haven't explained why postmodernism has become the ideology of our time. Postmodernism was a correction to the structuralist theories of modernism, and not a stand-alone theory. How did what was essentially a qualifier and a correction become a full-blown creed?
You are fixated on postmodernism, but that's not the whole story, nor even the main issue here. Postmodernism is just one component of woke leftism, and leftism itself has been dominant in western civilization ever since the Enlightenment. The latest instantiation of leftism is wokism, which is a witches' brew of postmodernism, postrealism, progressivism, and most importantly, egalitarianism.
The reason wokism (not just postmodernism) has become the ideology of our time, is for the same reasons that, in the last century, communism and socialism became overwhelmingly dominant. In less than 100 years, those versions have morphed into wokism as the exemplar of leftism.
Why? Because it's all and always about morality. Egalitarianism insists that equality is a supreme moral virtue. And everyone wants to be moral, in order to overcome their self-hatred and the lurking suspicion that their lives are pathetic.
Meanwhile, traditional Christianity has been deprecated, revised into various heresies, and otherwise essentially come to be reviled.
'When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.' G.K. Chesterton
I didn't mention postmodernism, you did.
And if you have read the postmodernist classics, you would know that most postmodernists don't talk about morals at all. What they talk about is the death of the grand narratives, and how power structures determine what is considered to be truth.
Glenns article exposes how liberal thought is still very much caught in a grand narrative, and it demonstrates very well how the rhetorical trap is a key component in the upholding of said narrative. How power - political power, media power - is trying, and very much succeeding, in defining what is true and what is not.
But the article does not explain why some people believe in the narrative, and why some people do not.
I, for one, do not believe in the grand liberal thesis of Western imperial benevolence, but why is that? I have read all the postmodern classics, and I still believe that postmodern thought is a valid and very useful correction to modernist thought. I am an egalitarian, and have always been. And I am on long stretches a progressivist. But somehow I still don't buy the tall tale of a coming liberal paradise on earth. What makes me different?
It is of course an important step in the search for an explanation to pinpoint the various linguistic tricks that liberals use to brainwash people, but if we want to fight this ideology, it is also important to find out why it works on some people and doesn't work on others.
It is not a question of morality, because if it was, there would be an universal consensus condemning Israels very visible genocide in Gaza. Also, I have my own personal ethics, like I am sure that you have, and almost everyone else has. So why am I not, in spite of being a moral person, buying the grand narrative of universal liberal goodness, when so many others are?
It may be a question of the death of God, as you suggest and Nietzsche claimed, but still it doesn't explain why you and I are not smitten by liberal metaphysics, when so many others are. I don't believe in any god, but still I am not buying into the liberal narrative. Why is that? What makes me special?
There is more at play than self-loathing. And there is also no reason to believe that I am immune to brainwashing just because I am smarter than everybody else. I know quite a few very smart people who nevertheless believe in the grand liberal tale.
I don't know what makes you and me different. And this is why I find the rhetorical trap inconclusive as an explanation. Because why am I not caught in this trap?
You are so fixated on postmodernism that you don't even realize it.
Postmodernism is quite the laugh, anyway, because the fallout from it is that each person can subjectively define it and anything that applies to it.
They can pretend they're right and everyone else is flawed, oh excuse me, "not authentic" or some such rot. That's the essence of the thing, subjectivity is king, say anything you want and you're ok because postmodernism says it can't be denied. And in the end, postmodernism has to fall back on an objective idea of overwhelming physical power, anyway, in order to hold the whole mess together from each individual bozo and their clashing subjective opinions.
As for morality, it should be fairly obvious that there is not just one version floating around in the world. There are many moralities. Wokism is one, traditional Christianity is another, Christian heresies are another, Islam is yet another, and on and on. And guess what? If one of them, in this case wokism, says that it is the supreme morality, and also says that every other morality is an existential threat, then wokism will wage war, taking everything down with it if it loses. Wokism constitutes a secular religion, a cult of the hivemind. And western civilization is in the throes of a religious war, declared unilaterally by woke leftism. If the idea of religion and morality is beneath your pseudo-intellectual dignity, then tough luck, because while you're oblivious to it, it's ruling your society and your life.
I did not mention postmodernism, you did. I just asked a question. And I get the impression that you believe you already have the answer. Good for you.
You can pretend that your faith is right, and everyone else is flawed, but that still does not answer my question.
Very well said. I would add to the language critique what I consider Orwell's greatest contribution: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/
This too, it strips bare how this happens throughout society and daily life - its not just the sphere of explicit politics where this is effected:
Language in Thought and Action - Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_in_Thought_and_Action
Thank you!
The watershed year was 2003, when European countries except UK, which is by and large not a European country, have refused to endorse and join in the US attack on Iraq, making this entreprise an illegal war from an internalional UN stand point.
Since then the US has poured enormous resources in grooming future European leaders (and Canadians as well). Scolarships, felloships, all sorts of bribes, all sorts of files for potrntial blackmails have been created for hundreds and thousands of individuals in Europe. This was confirmed to me (because before was just personal inductive logic), by some statements made by Ret. Lt-col Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, statements that confirmed the US efforts for the past 20 years to create a leadership class in Europe that when asked by the US to jump, they will say "How high?!"
Kouros,
Do you have the reference for the Wilkerson interview? I had it then erased it by mistake. Wilkerson was very clear and convincing.
I haven't kept the link, but I think it was either with Nima or with Duran (Mercouris and Genn Diessen)
Just found it!
It was indeed on the Duran on August 6, 2024 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnPl1ETy_C8, beginning at 41:48.
Lawrence Wilkerson was "at the table" himself, running the State Department, when the decision was made to interfere "overtly and covertly" in European elections.
"Does Europe have the rationality, political imagination and courage to critically assess its own mistakes and contribution to the current crisis, or will all criticism continue to be denounced as a threat to liberal democracy?" Quite evidently, no... It must be said that, in general, to gain "the rationality, political imagination and courage to critically assess its own mistakes" requires a heavy beat up, and sometimes that's even insufficient or counterproductive, so hopes are minimal
Mr Diesen, I think you answer your own questions, but are perhaps reluctant to face those answers. Leaders in the West have been acting irrationally for quite some time now, and not just in the sphere of international relations. In almost aspects of poltical policy making - ie gender, race relations, DEI, energy policy (aka climate change), deindustrialisation, misinformation, media control. anti-individualism, anti-humanism, immigration, war making - the list goes on and on. This is not a bug, it is a feature. And it is a feature of a new quasi-religion that I don't buy into. And so I am apparently a dangerous right winger these days, albeit my views have moved left from the 1980's when I was mainstream centre-right. This is what comes of not understanding the impact that religion and belief has on our societies - IMHO anyway. These people are literally crazy because they share a belief system that cannot accept dissent -even though internally it makes no sense whatsoever. Theirs is a black and white world, good and evil. You might want to call it post-modernism or something, I am not au fait with the academic language. To me it is voodoo pure and simple. They think they are liberals and democrats, but they are dangerous fundamentalists with their own religion, based on ever changing doctrine and tenents. Watch how they act, not what they say.I don't want to come over as a loon here in my comments, but to me the only explanation for their consistent irrationality is not stupidity (though that plays a part) but a fundamental difference in world view. All their decisions are consistent with religious doctrine, none with real politik or rational behaviour.
There's so much more to say about what's wrong with the EU and its leadership. Or the collective west in general, they all are trapped in this fantasy world with wishful thinking.
I think we have to go whole the way, the complete destruction of the EU. The politics and institutions are a system, you feed it a kind of person and it chews out the kind of person you want or need. There's no room for change or produce a different outcome in this system. You become the system or are rejected.
For many years I've been telling others that there's something mentally wrong with our leaders. I always had interest in psychology and observed and analysed people and these leaders have a mental illness. I have no hope for them. Only a revolution can bring a better future, the system has to be destroyed and all these people have to be removed.
Glen, your conceptual distinctions are so vitally useful. Your arguments seem to suggest a petulant drive to semantic dictatorship behind the smug, lesson teaching west, and their hostility to criticism, as if mental weakness were now a liberal virtue. The schoolmarm attitude also seems to explain Baerbock's adolescent petulance towards foreign minister Lavrov- she was peevishly ordering him into the corner under a dunces hat when she refused to greet him like a person in an important government position.
The " circle of friends" reminds me of the martians in the movie " mars attacks " who run after the earthlings firing their rayguns and calling out " don't run, we are your friends!"
It seems astonishingly ironic how the anti-power- apparent-peace lovers feel they have to construct our new linguistically purified consciousnesses with jackboots and bombs, i suppose when we're all genderless and compliant robots, we'll thank them for saving (us?)(what?)
How blocking any mutual understanding of differing perspectives can be a good thing seems only possible under a conception of goodness that is so limited and ethically enervated it necessarily evokes its opposite, as demonstrated by the SMO. Those idiots who refused all dialogue with the real Russia are the ones who should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, once the dust settles. I now understand all the pictures i see of van der leyen waving her little lifted hands like the antennae of an agitated insect, as signalling unconscious distress at the cognitive dissonance she has to repress arising from her absolutised constructivist relativity, and also the nervousness she feels at perhaps having to demonstrate her freedom from all actuality by urinating with a swagger from her risen hind legs into some elevated porcelain receptacle in an archaic pissoir barbarically set aside for exclusive (male) use.
Deficits Don’t Matter™️ American Republican Party motto since 1979
Slight niggle re: para two and "Most European politicians would feel 'morally'(!?) compelled etc". Morally? Surely Glenn means 'self-preservingly compelled'...
Hei. Ido not agree with the philosophical explanation of the current crisis of the elites. The truth is more dangerous. The concentration of wealth and power has played us into the arms of a group that thrives with war and war industry . The greens have failed to make a realistic plan to get out the the climate crisis. The greens were may be manipulated to get to power to become more mainstream, pro nato , etc. The Green Party founders now mostly dead or reduced were critical of the green parties and some left them at retirement age. Industry lost its chance in the 90 ties to stay leading and perform the ecological transition. Existing national Elites were disempowered by the Eu. For decennia decisions were taken in Brussels with the national media and national elites deeply asleep. Once the eu decision arrived on the national arena the elites learned they could only pretend they had some influence . That is what the got used to, faking power and knowledge without doing the real investigative work. In face, the western progressive elites lost their intelligence after 1989. They were dependent on big brother in the east in the entire post war period. Pretended they created peace and the welfare state but the truth is, the power of that eastern big brother did. They social democrats etc lived in a huge illusion of power that did not survive when we needed it for real. Now peace and doc welfare are destroyed and they peep helpless like puppies. The money now is in international funds easy to move around and the result is that no one with money cares about their national state any more. Nationalities are easily bought. So the states can be destroyed, we now expect bankruptcies of states. They annoy the super rich with their social and ecological laws. Big companies are forced to grow nonstop. Winner takes it is all is the moral. Not postmodern philosophy. Some developed malign strategies and none stopped them. Big pharma, fossil industry are some examples. neoliberalism is to blame I believe , and the lack of social and ecological values in the state planning; the stock market system, not some postmodern philosophy. This misunderstood postmodern philosophy is just another scapegoat to hide the naked emperor and defend the widespread laziness to investigate what what is going on. Now with Ai we can reduce the number of workers even more. No need even for highly educated masses any more. We have work to do, people’s le democratic power will win
"Greed", "money", "power", these are simply the obvious old shibboleths. If all problems could be reduced to only those causes, the solutions would be rather straightforward. But instead, there is an ideology in play here, that of woke leftism, of which postmodernism is one essential element. Because where there is ideology, you'll find morality lurking underneath.
Morality morality morality, it's all about morality. And once you start questioning people's morality, you are questioning their very identity, which they will defend with violence and many times to the death. Now consider that wokism has taken over every western society in its "march through the institutions". Fighting it is going to take considerable effort and understanding of the enemy. If instead you are mired in old paradigms of money, greed, and power, you are definitely going to lose.
"...But instead, there is an ideology in play here, that of woke leftism...."
You are reaching for the same old nonsense. Von der Leyen, Schøltz, Bærbock Rutte, Tusk, Starmer, Meloni, Macron, Stoltenberg, etc are not "woke left". They are not even left at all. No one on the left identifies with them. They range from establishment conservative to outright fascist.
And it is among the right wing, the neoliberals, that money and markets are idols - worshipped to the detriment of all else in society. THERE is your morality gap. Right there.
And you are fixated on fascism as the be-all and end-all explanation. I seriously doubt that you even understand the differences between fascism, naziism, and woke leftism. You are obviously mired in kneejerk accusations and media-enforced political labels.
Fascism stands solely for a nation of a single homogeneous people. It promotes their interests through the state's guidance, which includes control of organizations and large businesses. "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." Mussolini
In order to promote the interests of a homogeneous people, fascism seeks to have their families multiply with children of the same ethnic background, which absolutely does not include importing incompatible immigrants and catering to minorities. Fascism is also incompatible with LGBTXYZ, which is anathema to raising families of the nation's homogeneous people. As a final consideration, fascists cannot be globalists; each nation state is not interested in spreading largesse to other nation states via some godforsaken world government.
I hear this fascism nonsense repeated time after time from people who know nothing about history or ideologies. Woke leftism is the enemy, and western countries are marinated in it. That includes apparatchiks such as Von der Leyen, Schøltz, Bærbock Rutte, Tusk, Starmer, Meloni, Macron, and Stoltenberg. The political labels conferred on them by the mass media are pathetic lies that mask any true understanding of their mindset, training, and overall ideology.
As a final consideration, understand that wokusts are indeed tyrants, but just because tyrannical methods are the same from one ideology to the next, does NOT mean they are the same ideologies. I wish people would stop spouting nonsense and go learn some history and philosophy. If you don't know who the enemy is, then you'll never be able to defeat her.
I wrote a few words in that post, and the word "fascist" appears once. You'd better worry about your money-worshipping culture. It's destroying the world. Its the tyranny.
My culture? I despise what western societies have turned into.
If your fight is with all the moneyed interests, then you're welcome to it.
But since the real enemy is something else, you're going to lose. Good luck with all that.
".....I despise what western societies have turned into....."
The west as a concept is itself built on exploitation and money worshipping. It hasn't "turned into" anything else - its a malign concept from the start. You're lost.
I don't know how useful it is to buy into polarization. I think what we have is infiltration and cooption. It's being going on for a long time and was part of the cold war strategy, steer grassroots movements and civil society, fund them take over then systematically dismantle them. It has been shocking to observe how quickly this process now takes place. I feel like in this kind of information space we have to become "unknowable" deliberately practice seeing beyond the frameworks offered us, strengthen ties across many different groups. Because we will be wielded and made to serve power despite our best intentions if we get stuck in the highly controlled algorithms of any echo chamber.
Do you have a lot of money? I didn't think so...
Read up on the Africa to Americas slave trade to see what money can do. And that money ultimately came from sugar and indigo dye, of all the frivolous things in this world! Or read about the violence associated with the cocaine and other drug businesses in Mexico and Columbia.
Yes, it's possible to have brief ideological movements that overwhelm the influence of money temporarily. Ukrainian people went crazy recently, for example. But that craziness lasted under 2 years for all but a few fanatics, then money entered the picture and is now dominating the situation. Ukrainian elite and their hired goons are making big money in this war and can't afford to see it end, and USA military businesses also want war for money reasons. Wokists don't stand a chance against goons armed with weaponry unavailable to the masses, even if the wokists outnumber goons 100:1. Have you ever been in a real situation of violence, like lots of people being killed with guns? As with your lack of experience with money, I didn't think you had any experience with real violence driven by money motivations...
Money is a symptom, and an easy candidate for blame. But money per se is neither good nor bad. The underlying motivations that drive someone to have more money than they need are much more complex. For example, all the prominent globalists have more money than they know what to do with in 10 lifetimes. Why should they want more? Is that their real motivation? I don't think so. I don't buy such simplistic explanations. But if you, personally, are fixated on money, then you're welcome to whatever theories drive your obvious rage about not having enough of it. Good luck with all that.
Sociopaths care nothing for ideology except as a tool.
I get your point, but respectfully disagree.
Post modernist philosophy is the vehicle that has driven the West off the cliff. It's the engine that kickstarted the mess that the West finds itself in.
The elitist scum we see in the West today are the children of post modernist philosophy. They are the monsters that it created.
What is post modern philosophy? To be precise, it's the subversive idea founded by French philosophers in the 1970s/1980s (Foucault - a despicable, depraved individual, Derrida - an intellectual con artist extraordinaire, Barthes etc) that all truth is subjective, ergo that there is no such thing as objective truth.
'Relativism' and 'subjectivity' aka nihilism & malign narcissism, on steroids.
If nothing is true, if truth is impossible, then nothing matters. What you say is true is true just because you say it, even if it's demonstrably false.
We in the West know the toxic sludge this produces. We see it all around us, every day.
Males can be females, and vice versa. Texts written in the past can be reinterpreted any way you want, 'just because'. Math is racist, because I say so.
Western society is evil because it's based on (insert nonsensical BS theory here).
Etc etc etc.
All lies, of course, but hey it's all true, because...well, just because.
Post-modernism has always been utter nonsense. It's always bern junk philosophy.
How such an infantile argument was ever taken seriously is anyone's guess. It is ridiculous on its face - after all, its core argument - that all truth is subjective and that no objective truths exist - is itself posited as an objective truth, which contradicts the core argument.
It's ridiculous.
But somehow this Orwellian garbage was taken seriously in western universities. Like a virus, it infected western societies.
The destructive impact of such a way of thinking - the self doubt it can produce in individuals and societies - is profound.
And very useful, in the hands of bad people. It quickly became a very useful platform for grifters and ideologues to take down the objective, rational principles, beliefs and systems that once made western societies strong.
And to enrich and empower said grifters and ideologue, who now call the shots in western societies.
For the moment, at least. The reality is that their ability to keep their little house of cards up, is very fragile.
To preserve and expand their power & wealth, these elites must keep populations in a state of wilful blindness, if not total delusion, about objective reality and cold, hard facts.
They must also be able to bribe populations to remain docile.
That's why it's fascinating to be in the West right now. The ability of these elite scum to keep populations in a state of wilful blindness is slipping. It's slipping fast, hence their desperate panic to create new categories of 'truth' and 'untruth' eg 'misinformation', a word that no one had ever heard of 5 years ago.
It also explains their fevered efforts to censor, vilify and punish anyone who parts ways from their false narratives.
Their control of the narrative is slipping. Bit it gets worse. Their collapsing economies are also making it harder for them to bribe populations.
The reality is that no society can survive if it is built on a foundation of lies. No society can thrive if it's population is wracked by self doubt & confusion about what's true and what isn't.
Cold, hard, objective reality - truth - the one thing that these crooks fear - always wins in the end.
That's what we are going to witness in the West. Hopefully, the majority of good people will be able to emerge unscathed, or not too badly damaged, although sadly many will suffer in what's coming.
As for the scum that brought the West to its knees to line their own pockets, and/or to increase their power? The people of the lie?
They are facing a dark and very uncertain future.
In reality, we are witnessing their last days.
When collapse comes in their societies, which it will, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.