A dark mirror shows features one would rather not see. You gaze at the repulsive visage in the picture frame, the caricature of everything despicable, only to realize with dawning horror that you are looking not at a portrait but at a mirror.
The political defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a crossroads for the quasi-political movement grouped loosely around the QAnon conspiracy myth and, more broadly, around Trump himself. Because the man and the movement were a dark mirror for the whole of society, it is also a crossroads for society.
For those unfamiliar with it, the QAnon movement started early in the Trump administration when a mysterious person, calling himself Q and claiming to be an administration insider, began posting cryptic messages on internet message boards, particularly 8Chan. These consisted of hints and promises that Donald Trump was executing a masterly plan to vanquish his enemies, uproot the Deep State, and restore America to greatness. Their mantra, by which followers (call QAnons) kept the faith, was “Trust the plan.” However bad it looked for Trump, victory was just around the corner.
At the present writing (late November, 2020) it would seem that the QAnons would have no choice but to abandon the faith. Not so. In various corners of the right wing alternative media, one may still read desperate theories about how Trump’s apparent defeat is a ploy to set up his master stroke. Even after he is deposed, even if he goes to prison, the myth will only change shape, since it is merely an outcropping of a much larger, long-established mythos, driven by repressed social and psychological forces. The same holds for Trumpism generally. It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden; otherwise we will face one of two grim possibilities, each worse than the other. (1) In a few years a new and more formidable demagogue will arise to channel the repressed forces toward a fascist coup. (2) A neoliberal corporatocracy, costumed in the garb of progressive values, will consolidate its already well-developed powers of surveillance, censorship, and control to establish a techno-totalitarian state that will attempt to repress those forces forever.
I would like to offer another alternative that becomes possible when we look into the mirror and meet the aforementioned repressed forces at their source. Healing, rather than victory, is its formative ideal. I call it the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
A Comforting Mythology
It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on. Yet it is also true that the incoming Biden administration is rife with Wall Street insiders, neocon war hawks, intelligence agency officials, prison-industrial complex cheerleaders, and representatives of Big Pharma, Big Data, and pretty much Big Everything. Neither Joe Biden nor the Democratic Party has been a particularly effective champion of racial equity, environmental protection, economic fairness, or world peace for a very long time. Biden himself cavorted with overt racists in his early career, was a key architect of mass incarceration, has been a consistent supporter of America’s foreign wars, and has done numerous favors for Wall Street. An unpleasant surprise awaits anyone who thinks that much will improve now that the bad guys are out and the good guys are in.
It would be convenient if the problem with America were Donald Trump, bad people who worked with him, and ignoramuses and dupes who supported him. If so, we could breathe a sigh of relief that with the election a victory over evil has been won.
Ironically, the ideology of QAnon is an exaggerated version of this same basic thoughtform. It says that a group of diabolical people are responsible for the evil in the world, and that if they could be expunged, the world could be healed. In QAnon’s mythology, the locus of evil is the Deep State, an elite cabal interpenetrating government, corporations, banks, and other elite institutions, and the champion of Good is Donald Trump who, with superhuman subtlety, foresight, and skill, wages a 4D chess struggle against them.
The QAnon mythology offers three degrees of comfort. First, at a time of social and economic breakdown, it assuages the discomfort of uncertainty by making the world understandable. Second, it absolves its followers of complicity in the problem (in contrast to blaming reigning systems, which implicate pretty much everyone to some extent and admits no ready solution). Third, it offers a hero, a savior, a Good Father who will set things aright, and upon whom one might project one’s own unfulfilled expression of greatness.
It is so tempting to personify good and evil, to locate each in the person of whomever appears most conspicuously in the dramas offered for our consumption. One side holds Donald Trump in exactly the same way that the other holds George Soros and Bill Gates. Personifying evil offers the comfort of knowing at least in principle how to solve the world’s problems. There is someone to destroy, to expunge, to defeat, to cancel, or to silence. Problem solved. The standard Hollywood movie script is also the script for war and also, it seems, the script for a lot of today’s political discourse.
I have been counseled to issue a public denunciation of QAnon, to which I reply that I am not in the business of denouncing anyone. In clarifying who is friend and who is foe, denunciation reduces the target to the status of enemy. I won’t take sides in the culture war, not because I think both sides are equal or that all viewpoints are equally true, but because (1) I believe that the blind spots both sides share are more significant, and more dangerous, than their disagreements, and (2) Beneath the conflict is a hidden unity that will emerge when all parties humbly try to understand the other.
QAnon has done considerable damage to people’s lives and to the body politic in the context of Trumpian neofascism and persistent systemic racism. Yet to reduce it and its followers entirely to those terms is to commit the same error – and derive much the same comfort – that QAnon itself does in its reduction of a complex situation to a drama of good versus evil. In doing that we sacrifice real understanding in favor of a narrative that divides the world into good guys and bad guys.
Daniel Schmactenberger puts it well when he says, “If you feel a combination of outraged, scared, emotional, and very certain with a strong enemy hypothesis, you have been captured by somebody’s narrative warfare, and you think it’s your own thinking.” Visit the enemy territory, he counsels, and see what the world looks like from there.
Who among their critics asks, “What hidden truth seeks expression in the QAnon phenomenon? What truth rides upon its myths?” In an essay last spring, I catalogued some truths that ride the New World Order conspiracy myth (of which QAnon is a variant); for example, that an inhuman power rules the world; that those we call leaders are its puppets; that established authority has betrayed our trust. In it I wrote:
The conspiracy myth embodies the realization of a profound disconnect between the public postures of our leaders and their true motivations and plans. It bespeaks a political culture that is opaque to the ordinary citizen, a world of secrecy, image, PR, spin, optics, talking points, perception management, narrative management, and information warfare. No wonder people suspect that there is another reality operating behind the curtains.
That QAnon is rife with Islamophobia, racism, and other flavors of bigotry does not erase the validity of these basic intuitions. It does, though, illustrate the tragic nature of the QAnon phenomenon, which diverts an authentic populist revolt onto vain dreams and ready divisions. This is also, in part, the tragedy of Donald Trump. Much of what I will say about QAnon applies to Trumpism in general.
The simplifying explanation for why so many people voted for Donald Trump is that he gives vent to their covert racism, hate, and fear. Certainly, the United States is home to many inveterate racists, and racism to this day exerts a baleful influence on American society. However, the caricature of the racist Trump voter resentful of his declining status relative to people of color and hoping to uphold his dominance and privilege against progressive social trends leaves out a lot. It does not explain why millions of Obama voters voted for Trump in 2016 and presumably 2020. It does not explain why Trump won a greater percentage of minority votes than any Republican candidate since 1960, while his support among white men declined from 2016 to 2020. Invoking racism to explain away the Trump phenomenon prevents us from looking at an anti-establishment sentiment so intense that 74 million people would vote for a man who so often gives the appearance of being coarse, boastful, ignorant, phony, vain, corrupt, and incompetent.
If we continue to leave out all these things, I fear that sooner or later we will be confronted with an aspiring fascist who is younger, smoother, more charismatic, and more competent than Donald Trump. If we don’t accurately understand and address the root cause of Trumpism, that is what will happen in 2024. If Trump could almost win in 2020, imagine what such a man or woman could accomplish if the repressed forces that elevated Trump intensify.
Addictions and Cults
Hungry for what? Obviously something much more nourishing than what Q’s stories provided. That is why QAnon and the mythology from which it draws is so addictive (anything can be addictive that temporarily quells the pain of an unmet need without actually meeting it). Thus, QAnons went down the proverbial rabbit hole, eagerly awaiting their next fix of a Q post, shedding friends, alienating family, losing sleep, squandering countless unproductive hours to get one hit after another of indignation, feelings of superiority, assurance that they are right, and the above-mentioned comfort. Friends and family speak of losing loved ones to QAnon just as they speak of losing them to an addiction or a cult.
QAnon indeed displays many features of a cult. It draws people into an alternate reality, estranges them from friends and family, and exploits their need to belong. It attaches them to an in-group of believers, membership in which is completely dependent on what one says and believes (rather than acceptance for who one is). However, to understand QAnon and cults in general as parasites on the social body risks ignoring the conditions that invite those parasites in to begin with. Do we want merely to suppress the current outbreak? What will it take to heal the social body on a deeper level?
Cults prey upon the vulnerable. What makes someone vulnerable? First, a disintegration of a belief system that told a person who she is, how the world works, and what is real. Second, an unmet need to belong. The perfect candidate for cult recruitment is someone whose world has fallen apart, leaving them lonely and confused. It isn’t weak and stupid people who fall into cults. Anyone who holds a sanctimonious attitude toward QAnons and “conspiracy theorists” is deluding themselves.
I say this to remedy any sense of superiority one might obtain from reading my description of the false comforts of the QAnon mythology. Does it feel good to diagnose others’ spiritual pathologies? If so, it could be because we ourselves suffer a version of the same hunger we see in the dark mirror of QAnon. But really, who among us today has not suffered a breakdown in meaning or an unmet need to belong?
Today, a majority of society are prime candidates for cult recruitment. Our societal meaning-generating stories are in disarray. Fifty years ago, a broad mainstream of Western society believed in the march of progress. The world was getting better year by year and generation by generation. Soon, technological progress, liberal democracy, free market capitalism, and the social sciences would eliminate the age-old scourges of humankind: poverty, oppression, disease, crime, and hunger. Within that story, we knew who we were and how to make sense of the world. Life made sense within a linear narrative of progress that told us where we came from and where we were going.
The mythology of progress, of which the United States of America was the foremost paragon, told us life was supposed to get better with each generation. Instead, the opposite has happened. The mythology of progress told us of an age of plenty, yet today we have extreme income inequality and persistent or growing poverty in the West. It told us we would be healthier with each passing generation; again, the opposite has happened, as chronic diseases now afflict all age groups at unprecedented levels. It told us that the onward march of reason and rule of law would bring an end to war, crime, and tyranny, but levels of hate and violence have not dropped in the 21st century. It told us of an age of leisure, yet the workweek and vacation time has stagnated since the mid-20th century. It promised us happiness, yet today rates of divorce, depression, suicide, and addiction rise with each passing year.
Adding to all of this an undeniable ecological crisis, it is hard now to fully embrace the mythology of progress as a source of meaning and identity. With its failure to deliver on its promises, the wellspring of meaning for modern society now runs dry.
The resulting crisis in sense, meaning, and identity doesn’t just push people into cults and conspiracy theories, it also makes mainstream belief systems more cult-like. To some degree, major news outlets and social media provide exactly what the QAnon addiction did (indignation, feelings of superiority, assurance that they are right…) They also tend to “draw people into an alternate reality, estrange them from friends and family, and exploit their need to belong.” How many family gatherings are ruined, how many family members are no longer on speaking terms, having dissociated into separate realities?
Indulge me for a moment in a little rhetorical exaggeration. In the United States, two dominant cults apply the tools of information warfare to vie for public loyalty: (1) the Democratic Party, New York Times, MSNBC, NPR, CNN cult, and (2) the Republican Party, Fox News, Breitbart cult. Each offers its followers the same comforts as Q: they offer a narrative that makes sense of the world in the midst of change; they offer a diagnosis of social problems that exculpates themselves, and they offer people to cheer for, champions for the cause of victory over evil. They also offer a sense of belonging. Have you ever felt a sense of homecoming when you tune into your favorite pundit or website?
Cults, armies, and police states depend on the control of information. As warring parties weaponize facts, we learn to discount all sources of information. We wonder what agenda lies behind a given “fact.” Knowing that narrative warriors select, distort, or invent facts, the canny citizen tends to ask “Who said it?” before asking “What did they say?” and then to disbelieve what they said if it serves a disagreeable party or purpose. In such circumstances, how is any conversation possible?
The routine mendacity of politicians over the last few decades has desolated the civic commons, once a rich domain of broad agreements about what is real, what is important, and what is legitimate. We can’t blame only the politicians of course. From corporate PR campaigns to intelligence agency psy-ops, from internet censorship to government secret programs, we are awash in lies, deception, secrets, half-truths, spin, fraud, and manipulation. No wonder we are so prone to believe in conspiracies. Their building blocks are everywhere.
Here is the dark mirror. The rise in conspiracy theories reflects a power establishment shrouded in lies and secrets, which viciously persecutes anyone who, like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, pulls aside the veil.
This crisis in communication and sense-making has been long in the making. The attempt to bend truth to serve other ends has harmed the soul of language, diverting the creative power of word toward the maintenance of illusions. Consequently, our society as a whole is helpless to change its course. That would require agreement, the building blocks of which have turned to sand. I have watched this paralysis intensify for 20 years now. In 2007 I wrote an essay called The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies, in which I said, “As we acclimate to a ubiquitous matrix of lies, words mean less and less to us, and we don’t believe anything any more. As well we shouldn’t! We are facing a crisis of language that underlies and mirrors all the other converging crises of the modern age.”
Our main engines of knowledge production – science, journalism, and the arts – once enjoyed robust, near-universal social legitimacy. Now each cult gleans through the stubble of the knowledge commons for grains of still-agreed upon fact to add to its army’s granary. The warring parties swiftly requisition any new crops the independent scientist, journalist, or philosopher might sow. If they resist, their crop is burned to the ground. Thus it is that the best journalists today are all independent or contribute to marginal publications: Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Diana Johnstone, Seymour Hersch…. They defy both cults’ narrative (Right and Left) and therefore, because they disabuse us of the caricature taped over the mirror, give us a chance to see some dark truths.
When Hate Hijacks Anger
The crisis in meaning has direct economic causes. It is hard to believe in the social project when one is economically insecure, politically disenfranchised, stripped of dignity, and cut off from participation in society as a full member. This has long been the condition of African-American and other brown people in America, along with women and those who deviated from social norms. Today, the same economic forces that required their oppression and profited from it have turned toward the white middle class. The Machine that once depended on white racism to maintain a brown underclass now devours its own, chewing up vasts swaths of middle America and spitting the gristle and bones onto the trash heap of disenfranchised irrelevancy.
Do I hear the reader protest at my drawing an equivalency between oppressed minorities, who have only external circumstances to blame for their poverty and despair, and the mostly white QAnons who, despite having so much more privilege, wallow in their white fragility, blaming everyone but themselves for their dead end lives, their involuntary celibacy, and their video game addictions? This kind of sanctimonious assessment, which is common in left-leaning social media comment threads, mirrors exactly standard racist canards about lazy, irresponsible black people who blame the system and refuse to take personal responsibility. Both refuse to look at the conditions that generate the choices they condemn.
The relevant question here is not who has suffered more, who is the biggest victim, who is the most oppressed and therefore the most deserving of compassion. The question is rather, What are the conditions that gave rise to Trumpism, and how do we change those? We must ask this question, unless our strategy is to be endless war against those we deem irremediably evil.
Watching an interview with the extremely penitent founder of 8chan (QAnon’s main forum), Frederick Brennan, I was moved by his description of typical 8chan users, particularly the “Incels” and those who’ve swallowed the “black pill.” The former term refers to men who are involuntarily celibate; the latter refers to nihilism. These by no means define the entire QAnon movement, but they offer a window to some of the social traumas driving it.
Displaying varying degrees of misogyny, the Incels draw a lot of condemnation. They are denounced for believing themselves “entitled to sex,” and reviled for displacing blame for their own failings onto women. We can denounce them and fight them online, call them out and cancel them, but can we see them as human? Can we see their frustrated yearning to love a woman, to raise a family, to contribute meaningfully to life? Frustrated desire naturally turns to violence, directed at others or oneself or both.
Again I hear a protest, “Fine for you as a straight white male to call for compassion for these perpetrators and their avatar, the perpetrator-in-chief Donald Trump, but what about compassion for the victims? They need it even more.” To that I say: as a matter of sheer practicality, it is precisely compassion for the victims that requires compassion for the perpetrators. Compassion enables us to quell the violence at its source. Compassion isn’t the same as giving someone a free pass or allowing them to continue harming others. Compassion is the understanding of another being’s inner and outer condition. With this understanding, one can effectively change the conditions that generate harm. It is precisely the same logic that leftists use when talking about crime. Instead of waging an endless war on criminals, let’s look at the conditions that breed crime. What makes someone a drug dealer, a robber, a gang member? What conditions of trauma and poverty? Following the trail of these questions, one may arrive at root-level responses.
Whether we are talking about the inner city youth growing up in extreme trauma and deprivation, or the white Incel living in his parents’ basement with only his despair, his student debt, and his video games for company, we must be careful not to impute helplessness onto these victims of circumstance. There is no circumstance too oppressive for the human being to transcend. There is a place for messages like “Stop being a victim. Take ownership of your life. Stop asking for charity.” Crucially though, these messages will be useless, counterproductive even, if they come from a place of superiority or disgust. It cannot be, for example, the privileged white person telling the ghetto dweller to get his act together. Such messages have to come from a full appreciation of the anguish and misery of the oppressed condition, and a genuine vision of the greatness of those in it. Yes, greatness. It is hypocritical and pointless to call someone to greatness without believing in their greatness. And this belief cannot be a mere spiritual ideology. For these reasons, usually it is only other black people who can effectively exhort African-Americans to take responsibility for raising themselves up, and it is usually other men who can do the same for the Incels. I know people who say their lives were saved from addiction and despair by this kind of “tough love.” We just have to keep in mind both words of that phrase: the love as well as the toughness. If you secretly despise those you are trying to help with your tough love, you will hinder not help. To transcend one’s conditions requires courage. It is a lot easier to be brave when someone knows you are brave.
One of my favorite quotes, by Viktor Frankl, will help illustrate these points: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” One can feel truth ringing through these words. Yet obviously, their application would not be to visit a concentration camp, quote it to the prisoners, and then walk away. The right application is to one’s own circumstances. The words ring the bell of bravery; having acted from it, one may then ring it for others who may be in similar circumstances.
Let’s be clear that compassion is not the absence of anger. I am not asking the abused or the oppressed not to be angry. Quite the contrary – anger is a sacred force. It arises in response to confinement, violation, or threat (to oneself or in witness to another). It is key to social change, because it supplies the energy and courage to break free of familiar holding patterns.
Hate is the result of a narrative hijacking anger and channeling it onto convenient enemies. Hate preserves the status quo. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.”
Once anger becomes hate, one no longer has an accurate understanding of the situation. Hate interposes a projection in front of an adversary, making them appear both more terrible and more contemptible than they actually are. Therefore, hate is an obstacle to victory in a fight. To win, one must be in reality, accurately understanding the opponent. With that understanding, the fight may no longer be necessary – another response may present itself. Or not. Sometimes forceful intervention is necessary to prevent harm. Sometimes the abused, the persecuted, the oppressed need to fight back, go to court, run away, or enforce a boundary. Sometimes they need allies in doing that. Sometimes abusers need to be physically restrained so that they do no further harm. But when it comes from hate rather than anger, the goal of force undergoes a subtle shift. It becomes no longer to stop harm, but to inflict harm – to avenge, to punish, to dominate – in the name of stopping harm. To quote Dr. King once again, “Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.” Please meditate on these words. It looks to me like such a cancer is spreading in America, with precisely the effects on its national “personality” that King predicted.
In the end, the formula for “saving the world” cannot be victory in an epic battle of Good versus Evil. (That in fact is QAnon’s formula.) Since the two sides appear, from the close election, to be nearly equal, if it comes to war then Good, in order to overcome Evil, must become better at war than Evil – better at violence, better at manipulation, better at propaganda, better at deception. In other words, it must cease to be Good. How many times have we seen this play out in history, when the people’s liberation movement becomes the new tyranny?
Already it is happening. In my youth it was the conservatives who were the main instigators of censorship, burning Beatles albums, removing evolution from science textbooks, suppressing sexuality in literature. They were also the main manufacturers of consent, manipulating the media to maintain a state of constant war. Now it is the “left” who has most enthusiastically taken up the weapons of information warfare, with its deplatforming campaigns, cancel culture, and suppression of dissent. I put “left” in quotation marks because the actual left was the first victim of the new censorship, which began with the demotion of socialist and anti-war websites in Google search and social media. Facebook and Google still suppress this type of website by giving weight in their algorithms to “authoritative sources”; that is, the voice of the authorities. Now the ranks of the censored expand to include alternative medicine sites, vaccine skeptics, critics of 5G technology, and dissenters from Covid-19 public health policy.
Surely, some of those censored are purveying false information; just as surely, not all of it is false. True or false, the suppressed viewpoints have one thing in common – they clash with the narratives and interests of established corporate and political powers. Properly speaking, opposition to those powers defines the left, not the right. It is as if we are approaching a political pole reversal. As with reversal of earth’s magnetic poles, considerable chaos precedes such a realignment. It hasn’t happened yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years the Republican Party becomes the party of the poor and working class, while the Democratic Party becomes the chief representative of the elites, Wall Street, large corporations, and the military-industrial complex. Judging by Joe Biden’s cabinet picks, this process is well underway. That would be a welcome change from the situation of the past 30 years, in which both parties give lip service to the people while serving the interests of the corporate-financial-military elite.
Redeeming the Black Pill
Earlier I used the term the “Black Pill.” Nihilism, of course, is no mere philosophical position, but the intellectual window-dressing on a psychological state of despair. In fact, this despair is always latent in modern society, because (1) Its reigning reductionism renders the universe into a meaningless scribble of atoms and void; (2) Its reigning theory of life tells us we are here to survive and reproduce; (3) Its reigning economics directs our creative energies toward unfulfilling work and mindless consumption, and (4) Its dominant social patterns cut us off from nature, community, place, and the experience of belonging. For a while, rapid increases in wealth and dazzling technical achievements kept the despair at bay. But it was there all long, a gnawing void at the heart of the ideology of progress. It was there all along, an inner poverty mirroring the destitution progress had wreaked upon other cultures and non-human beings. It was there all along, our own shadow that followed us as we raced toward a Utopia ever just at the horizon. Now as the glamour of progress dissolves, as our exhaustion mounts, and as we face the sobering realization that the horizon grows no closer no matter how fast we run, despair overtakes us at last.
Nihilism is a natural response to the shoddy and tired myths offered to us as sources of meaning. How many of us have had experiences directly contradicting what our main epistemic authority (science) tells us is possible? How many of us sequester narrative-busting data points in a separate mental compartment, living more or less in official reality but unable to wholeheartedly believe in it?
One reason that cults and conspiracy theories are so compelling is that they gather threads snipped away from official reality and weave them into another fabric. Some of those threads may have been snipped because they are simply untrue, and have no place in anyone’s reality. Others may have been snipped because they clash with the color scheme of the main fabric; that is, they disturb reigning institutions and paradigms. These are the threads we must weave into any tapestry of meaning that could be a satisfying successor to today’s dominant political narratives.
What I am saying is that some of the claims that weave through the conspiracy narrative merit attention. The delusional nature of the narrative does not invalidate all of its threads, and we should not dismiss everything conspiracy theorists say just because they said it – especially when our information gatekeepers malign and suppress genuine dissent as conspiracy theories, disinformation, and Russian propaganda.
Starting in 2017, the US government issued a series of disclosures of numerous UFO sightings by trained military observers, sometimes accompanied by video. Basically, it confirmed a theory that it and the mainstream media had for decades vigorously ridiculed as the province of cranks, crackpots, and conspiracy theorists. This revelation joins numerous other publicly acknowledged government and corporate conspiracies: COINTELPRO, Operation Paperclip, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Iran-Contra, the CIA’s running of drugs into American inner cities, the FBI’s sabotage of civil rights groups, and many more. Despite this record, the media and government pretend all this is in the past and they are not today deceiving the public in service to their own power. Come on, people. Can we exercise a bit of skepticism when it comes to the narratives of established power?
When the meaning offered us excludes obvious facts, direct experience, and our hearts’ recognition of truth, no wonder so many of us lapse into nihilism, thinking that life and the universe itself is meaningless. That nihilism and the latent despair that drives it was QAnon’s spawning ground. The same ground spawns mindless consumerism, technology fetishism, the hypnotic myth of progress, and the spectacular psuedo-dramas of politics, sports, and entertainment. These are the spawn and also the ground, comprised within what Guy Debord named “The Society of the Spectacle.” Any edifice of meaning collapses around the hollow core of its fundamental inauthenticity.
The hunger for the real that gnaws at the Spectacle’s subjects cannot be met from within the Spectacle itself. Online experiences may assuage the nihilism and despair, but they cannot fully meet it. Only direct, sensory, multi-dimensional relationship can. Ultimately this, and not intellect, is the source of meaning.
The Black Pill is the distillation of cultural despair. It spreads from one dispossessed person to another, leaching its poison into the body politic. The frustrated desire of the Incels morphs easily into racial hatred and sexual violence. The nihilism of the Black Pills finds relief in grandiose fascist stories of past and future greatness.
The situation is closely analogous, as Chris Hedges describes it, to 1930s Germany, where just as today “…the spiritually and politically alienated, those cast aside by the society, [were] prime recruits for a politics centered around violence, cultural hatreds and personal resentments.” Their rage, he observes, then as now, was directed in particular at the liberal political intellectuals who had abdicated their proper role within capitalism, which is to soften its rough edges, mitigate its worst tendencies, and wrest a fair share of its wealth for the working class. American liberals performed that role admirably from the 1930s through the 1960s and even into the 1980s, before, as Hedges puts it, they “retreated into the universities to preach the moral absolutism of identity politics and multiculturalism while turning their backs on the economic warfare being waged on the working class and the unrelenting assault on civil liberties.” In the 1990s the Democratic Party (like Labour in the UK and various social democratic parties in Europe) began to romance Wall Street and the transnational corporations. They consummated their marriage in the Obama era and bore a child called totalitarian corporatism, which vies with its rival, Trumpian neofascism, for our future.
The closeness of the election shows that these two futures hang in near perfect balance. Is there a third option? There is, but it depends on building bridges across the most forbidding fault lines of our fragmenting social landscape.
The Incels, Black Pills, and QAnons show us in magnified form the dispossession of a vast swath of middle America (dispossessed of hope, meaning, and belonging, and increasingly economically dispossessed as well). They join the traditionally dispossessed racial and ethnic minorities, but not, tragically, as their allies. Instead they turn their rage on each other, leaving little energy to resist the continued plunder of the commons. The two main cults each offer their followers a proxy target – a caricature of the other side – for their rage.
In light of this tacit collusion, one wonders if both are not two arms of the same monster.
The Tide of our Times
For any of this to change, we must be willing to see past the caricatures. Caricatures are not without truth, but they tend to exaggerate what is superficial and unflattering while ignoring what is beautiful and subtle. Social media, as described in Netflix’s documentary The Social Dilemma, tends to do the same, chiefly by herding users into reality-proof echo chambers and keeping them on-platform by hijacking their limbic systems. They are part of the apparatus that channels popular rage – a precious resource – into populist hate. QAnons and Black Lives Matter protesters actually have a lot in common, starting with a profound alienation from mainstream politics and loss of faith in the system, but having been maneuvered into false opposition they cancel each other out. That is why compassion – seeing the human beneath the judgments, categories, and projections – is the only way out of the social dilemma.
Compassion is the tide of our times. Perhaps that is why increasingly furious attempts to sow hatred are required to maintain the psychic conditions for a control-based society. It takes more and more propaganda to keep us divided. A person in the online community I host described her stint going door to door in Iowa as an Andrew Yang campaign worker. Her strongest impression was of an intense desire among these common folks for unity, an end to the strife. Maybe we are closer to social healing than online behavior, with its vitriol and venom, would indicate. Hate is usually louder than love – in society and within ourselves. What will happen if we listen to the quieter voices?
Underneath the distorted and betrayed hopes of the QAnons lies the authentic hope that had to be there in order to be betrayed and distorted in the first place. It is the same hope that came out with Obama’s election: change, a new beginning. It is the same hope that Trump invoked: Make America great again. Today the same perennial hopefulness rises again among Biden voters.
How can the same hope animate forces that seem diametrically opposed? It is because the distorting lens of us-them thinking diffracts it into two, making us think that change will come through defeat of the enemy presented us. Dehumanization is a primary weapon of war (making the enemy despicable), just as it is the template of racism, sexism, and the reduction of all that is sacred. It is precisely the opposite of what is needed if we are ever to pull together.
For cliches about solidarity, unity, coherence, and reconciliation to become real, we have to look into the dark mirror of all we judge. We have to learn to draw meaning from a new story that isn’t about triumph over the Other. We have to put down the lenses of judgment and ideology, to see with new eyes the people and information our stories had banished. That is how we will forge an unstoppable populism. Let the unlearning begin.
Wow, so many insights and original ideas presented so flawlessly. I don’t wish to become a sychophant, but that was impressive. And the conclusion seems very nurtritive.
This is amazing, Charles. Bravo.
I had to stop reading this essay midway through, it was yet another mess of intellectually incoherent bilge from the increasingly irrelevant and insubstantial New Ager Eisenstein.
The stuff about Trump is almost entirely nonsense, demonstrably so – he is not any more of a demagogue than the various demagogues that today dominate the left, including the violent, psychopathic freaks of Antifa and the lying, racist Stalinist power hungry zealots of Black Lives Matter. Or the various Far Left liars and propagandists who have dominated academia for decades (starting with the sixties radicals whom Eisenstein relentlessly and nauseatingly overpraises and who once they entered the universities ended up destroying the humanities as a field of study). Trump has every right to fight illegal immigration by every means necessary, but the actual fact is he separated fewer families than Obama did. Trump is also the only American president in several decades (including false prophet of hope and change Obama) who didn’t launch a war in his first term in office. Trump was certainly a better choice of president than either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden, both of whom are Deep State swamp creatures through and through.
The one thing you can legitimately criticize Trump for is he is a massive narcissist who craves adulation and the worship of the masses. However, since Eisenstein is also obviously a flaming narcissist who craves adulation, and whose every word is written to gather the fawning overpraise of his zombie fans, thats not something Eisenstein has any right to look down on.
It’s long past time EIsenstein stopped pretending he’s some universal genius capable of illuminating the depths of every topic he touches. The actual fact is that he’s a deeply inadequate thinker who has no clue what he’s talking about half the time. It would help if he tried doing some actual research into the topics he writes about instead of assuming he can simply wing it. I’m not talking about his writing about currency or climate change, where he is obviously knowledgeable, but being knowledgeable about certain topics does not suddenly make you a universal expert across the board.
I didn’t believe at the time that Eisenstein could possibly sink any lower than his godawful Coronation And Conspiracy Myth essays, both of which were utter tripe with no cogent, substantive points being made, but he’s outdone himself with this latest piece of pretentious, rambling garbage.
I once read a negative review of a famous literary critic’s book that contained the following caustic passage:
“It is not so much the jargon that annoys one, though it is tiresome enough, as the extraordinary vanity of the discourse, its assumption that we are interested not only in its conclusions but in every wavering thread of cognition that leads up to these conclusions…It seems impossible to arrest the text, to stem the flow of words, to grasp a single point that can be simply weighed and tested. Gradually one’s eyes glaze over, the mind goes numb.”
Impossible to grasp a single point that can be simply weighed and tested…. sadly, that’s an all too true description of Eisenstein’s writing as well. There is nothing to either agree or disagree with here, since nothing of substance is being said in the first place. Just reams of hollow, empty verbiage that can neither be refuted nor confirmed, since that would require more precision and specificity than Eisenstein is willing to offer. A detractor on Facebook claimed Eisenstein’s writing was too vaporous and “etheric,” and sadly, I’ve come to see that she was right.
No more Eisenstein for me. I’ll never buy another one of his books. There’s simply no there there.
To Chris: Thank you for perfectly illustrating the entire point of his essay. No looking in the mirror for you!
I did try and see if there was any constructive information counter to what Charles essay offered in Chris’ comment, but I only made it as far as “Gradually one’s eyes glaze over, the mind goes numb”. There’s somthing about someone accussing another of the very same thing being done in their accusing, that is deadening.
Thank you for the intelligent comment. Einstein is under the brainwashing of MSM and is deluded and clearly impressed by what he thinks is his intelligent insights. He is blathering nonsense. Halfway through I had to get out as I felt I was drowning in his unexpressed pain…
I find it surprising that the most negative comments come from people who, admittedly, stopped reading halfway through. Hmm. I think your emotional responses are making his case. It seems as though you are happy being negative and confrontational. I wish people would look from both sides and think, instead of reacting emotionally. As a united front, we could all make much better progress, rather than being conveniently divided and missing the entire point as it all slips by us. Both parties are against the people, and we are supporting their agenda as we argue amongst ourselves.
Hi Chris,
I understand where you are coming from. I know a lot of people who would agree with your assessment. However, it might be worth noting that this essay rings true for many, many people. Yet, for yourself, you say that it is essentially new-age babble. Do you think that the people who resonate with this article are mindless? Do you think they’re creating meaning where there is none? I don’t think it’s that simple. Much like the Trump/Biden supporter divide, I suspect that something similar is going on with you and others here. Put simply, you may be too clouded by your own unconscious biases to be able to empathize and place yourself within Charles’s mindset in order to really see what he is saying — regardless of how accurate it may or may not be.
I must confess that I found this article to be extremely elucidating. I’m not a Republican; I’m also not a Democrat. But from my perspective, those who try to dismiss Charles’s ideas as “etheric” simply lack the empathy or desire to understand them. I think that you and others are more than intelligent enough to grasp his ideas — judging by how you write, you demonstrate that. But I suspect that there is a deeply held belief somewhere within you that you cling to so tightly that to question it would provide a shockwave to your ego and to your sense of reality. And therefore it’s easier for you to dismiss Charles’s ideas with a wave of the hand, rather than to genuinely attempt to commune with them. I hope that one day you might be able to loosen your grip on your beliefs enough so that might understand where Charles is coming from.
I suspect that you will find this message to be condescending, and for that I apologize. I’m just out here doing my best to assess what I see.
Cheers,
David
Thank you for trying, David. Genuinely, thank you. It is a perennial problem that those of us who strive to understand the ‘other’ side always risk appearing weak to those who cleave to unilateral dogma.
Good points, Chris.
I’m a long time follower of Charles’ work, but as I said in a direct comment to the article, this was really the nail in the coffin for me in terms of looking to him as a legitimate and relevant thinker to our times.
He’s totally out of touch, arrogant and his new agey softness bleeds over into his perspective on the topic.
Hi Chris. I think you make some valuable points. It does seem like Charles has bought into much of the main stream talking points regarding Trump, including referring to him as “Neo-fascist.” I live in a heavily blue-leaning city (there were parties in the streets when it was announced that Biden won), but I consistently find that when I talk with Trump supporters they are much more insightful and thoughtful than the media portrays them. They also seem to be much more open to accepting good faith criticism. Of course this is just my anecdotal experience, but the numbers seem to suggest that there is an incredible amount of diversity among his supporters. Trump is one of the great artists of our time. His election in 2016, if nothing else, was proof that we can achieve things that seem totally impossible – an incredibly important message in a time of impending crisis.
All of that said, I still think that the main point Charles is making here is incredibly important. The goal is for us to open our hearts to each other. We HAVE to do this. I know many on the left who cannot see Trump supporters as anything other than racist/fascist. While Trump’s supporters may be misrepresented in this article, it is still coming from a place of empathy and attempting to build a bridge to connect with them. If we can just open up that bridge, we can correct misconceptions further down the road. We have to open our hearts to each other. Each side is really good at looking at the other side’s shadow and avoiding it’s own. I agree with you that Charles probably has many readers who are willing to support him unquestioningly. The same is true with Trump. There is much that is positive that the Trump “movement” (for lack of a better description) has brought that can continue on regardless of whether or not he is president. When making it all about him there is a danger of falling into the cult of personality that you are concerned about with Eisenstein’s readers.
I agree with a lot of what Chris has said about Charles Eisenstein’s essay and disagree with some of it. Eisenstein clearly comes down in the liberal camp, even if he himself wouldn’t choose that label (my father, an ardent “[modern]liberal“ if there there ever was one—he has not and probably never will vote for a Republican— despises the term as applied to him; maybe I should have him read this essay to examine his “dark mirror”). Yet he makes an effort unlike almost anyone on the Left to examine the other side as if he were a conservative. I give him a lot of credit for this. I disagree with some of Charles Eisenstein’s language as it applies to Trump voters and supporters. I, for one, have both voted for Trump and still support his efforts to at least give election fraud a fair hearing, something that is simply not possible in the overwhelming majority of US media outlets. As a former liberal myself, I have long since recognized the dark mirror of my own personality in the blaith, social justice mindset I once embodied. This mindset is simply that of the Progressive ruling class which has dominated America and the world since the end of World War II. The reason why this mindset is now in crisis is that it has almost reached fruition. This is a good insight that Mr. Eisenstein recognizes early on in his essay. The mass censorship of right wing media going on today is an effort by the Progressive Left to achieve complete domination over anything Trump-related. Trump, a libertine at heart, has recognized this and staked his life on opposing it. But Charles Eisenstein errs when calling Trumpism fascist. Trump is merely trying to turn back the clock to the 1980’s perhaps, when gay marriage was still illegal, or perhaps to the 1960’s, when abortion was legal only in individual states. He is not calling for the end to divorce or the rights of women in the workplace. But he is emphatically siding with the social conservatives and fiscal liberals that believe in traditional gender roles. The fact that such a boorish man is now our champion speaks to the late and desperate hour we now are in.
Thanks for your perceptive reply Chris….I stopped reading it too. I always thought Charles excelled at Nonviolent communication, but now reading his rather violent judgement toward Trump without obviously even trying to understand the narrative, I felt he’s not really paying attention to what is really going on–not that Trump is perfect by any means but it’s about having eyes to see beyond the very dark predictive programming that calls Trump a Fascist and the old trick of labeling someone derogatorily in an attempt to hide you’re doing it yourself and censoring everyone that doesn’t agree. There’s still a lot of awakening to be done to transform our world and I’m confident if we keep speaking up and standing in our truth, things will get sorted out. Discernment to me means uncovering a broad range of views to get a beam on what’s ringing true. It certainly doesn’t help to enable or ignore what actually needs clarity and honest educated opinions in the mix to gain perspective, so thanks for speaking up.
There is a nice Idea- a common one, also used for raising children and there is nothing bad about it:
Compassion.
We may take this and try around
Bravo! Just read this out loud with my friends. Once again, you’ve eloquently articulated something nuanced & complex which really needed to be said. Thanks for this beacon of clarity & compassion. I’m affected.
“QAnon and Black Lives Matter protesters actually have a lot in common, starting with a profound alienation from mainstream politics and loss of faith in the system, but having been maneuvered into false opposition they cancel each other out.”
Typical false equivalency from Eisenstein, who never met a false parallel he didn’t like. In the first place, most Trump supporters are non QAnon supporters, though many obviously are. But many clearly do NOT believe in Q and didn’t vote for him whatsoever on that basis.
Furthermore, Q supporters are not going around violently assaulting and killing people, smashing windows and burning down businesses as violent BLM and Antifa activists are doing. The two are NOT equivalent. And at this moment in time, Far Right white supremacists like Richard Spencer are not remotely welcome in the mainstream or the Republican Party, whereas the Democrats, the universities and the MSM have welcomed, embraced, and weaponized the most extreme Far Left zealots and hatemongers, and have made racialist identity politics the new backbone of the party, while leaving working class whites out in the cold, with nothing to hope for and no protection, which naturally means they would gravitate to Trump – why wouldn’t they? At least he acknowledges they exist and are human beings with needs.
“They consummated their marriage in the Obama era and bore a child called totalitarian corporatism, which vies with its rival, Trumpian neofascism, for our future.”
Actually, the “marriage” did not start when you think it did. It started with the very sixties radicals and leftists you naively romanticize, who were not the wise and deep thinkers you portray them as, but a bunch of selfish, naive, smug arrogant dolts for the most part who had a catastrophic influence on the larger culture. With their emphasis on being hip and cool and fashionable and the generation gap, they inadvertently increased, not decreased, the power of the corporations. They made the world more, not less, materialistic and consumerist. And when they took over the universities (the Long March through the institutions described by conservatives like Allan Bloom and Roger Kimball) they effectively ruined the humanities departments and corrupted the study of great art, philosophy, and literature, replacing literary greatness with identity politics. It became more important to study leftist propaganda than Plato. This is how the shift to rabid identity politics Uber alles came about. When you simultaneously romanticize all things Sixties in book after book, while simultaneously bemoaning the modern leftist obsession with ideological purity, you show you don’t even grasp how this shift came about. You make it seem like it just happened, some random inexplicable wring turn, instead of tracing it to its roots.
And Trump isn’t a very successful “neofascist,” since he has the entire deep state and MSM dead set against him. What specifically has he done that is deeply fascist in nature? Being an asshole or a sexist jerk in ones personal life does not of itself make one a fascist. It wasn’t Trump who stole the election via ballot harvesting and systematic voter fraud, that was the Dems.
Chris….I think you totally missed the point. Geez.
I have my own issues with Charles as well- I think it’s fair to describe him as an overly vague and “romantic” author much of the time. He often prefers to deal in generalizations instead of concrete facts (especially when it comes to “conspiracy theories,” many of which I happen to think are plausible, though he’s certainly not alone in that failing). But may I say that his line about “popular anger ‘a precious resource’ being twisted into populist hate” seems like it couldn’t apply more perfectly to your posts? This frankly bizarre hostility towards “pointy-headed liberals” is deeply misguided, as well as far out of date. I very much doubt that postmodern professors have much to do with whatever it is that so grinds your gears about the world today (and for someone making accusations about lack of clarity, it’s really not clear exactly what you think the problem is).
I’ll state an interest and admit that my favorite “leftist” intellectual is Chomsky, who I assume would set your teeth on edge at least as much as Charles. The ironic thing is that he’s every bit as opposed to the totalitarian forces that are ruining the world as any Trump supporter, if not more so, and he has the distinction of being fair-minded about it- he criticized Obama for example just as harshly as Bush. And moreover he’s got suggestions that actually answer to the world we live in, since he believes the only answer to the totalitarian “globalism” being imposed by the masters is a genuine global movement that seeks international unity, as well as national sovereignty (if you find that far-fetched, read his criticism of neoliberal policies, and his support of “protectionism” as opposed to exploitation by multinational corporations).
Now to many on the right, this may seem like a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. But the problem is that you can’t go backwards to address the complex problems of today’s world. The only way is something that answers the concerns of pointy-headed postmodernists as well as those of the “common man,” and much as a reconciliation between both sides would be desirable, I’m afraid it’s primarily those on the “left” that are even attempting the project.
Chomsky is smart and says many true things, and he is in many respects superior to Eisenstein, but he has his own flaws. Although much of his sharp criticism of the United States is valid, some of it is not. Worse, he often romanticizes and sentimentalizes whoever he regards as an opponent of the U.S. or Israel. For example, he stubbornly refused to believe in the reality of the Killing Fields in Cambodia and even engaged in genocide denial until the truth could no longer be concealed. And he never apologized for his mistake.
You should be able to critique U.S. foreign policy, much of which has been disastrous, and the war in Vietnam without having to mount an apologia for a regime as murderous as the Khmer Rouge.
This website contains many critiques of Chomsky, I’ve read a few of them and they seemed to be quite solid, in particular the ones dealing with Cambodia:
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html
As for Eisenstein, well, you said it yourself:
“I have my own issues with Charles as well- I think it’s fair to describe him as an overly vague and “romantic” author much of the time. He often prefers to deal in generalizations instead of concrete facts (especially when it comes to “conspiracy theories,” many of which I happen to think are plausible, though he’s certainly not alone in that failing).”
What more can one say? Vague and dealing in generalizations, however, isn’t what most major philosophers and first class intellectuals do. His addiction to vagueness and lack of reference to anything concrete is a serious flaw. Not coincidentally, the best piece of writing he’s done in years is his negative review of one of Steven Pinker’s books. Eisenstein, for once, addressed himself to specific assertions made by a specific author, Pinker, whom he quoted verbatim. This was hands down one of his strongest pieces of writing, since it forced him to be specific, direct and precise in his objections, instead of critiquing some nebulous, vague straw man of his own imagining, which is what he usually does.
Thank you, Charles Eisenstein for your bravery and perseverance. I posted more in the NAAS community.
In regards to the previous 2 posts- I understand that there are key words and names that elicit strong reactions-defensiveness, anger, fear, judgement… yet the medicine is in the text. He is ultimately calling out the long history of the War-mentality that has caused us to react to Different as Other and Enemy. He asking us to lay it down. Your responses are completely understandable and yet very disheartening in that you are continuing to engage in that warfare. It’s not that you Must agree or comply (quite the opposite!), but to recognize and reconcile with your own tendencies to react to “other” people, ideas, situations in dualistic, war-like, fearful or hateful ways. As long as your reaction is to lash out rather than look inwards, you haven’t yet understood what is being asked and you, like so many of us, have much more to UnLearn. I wish you all the best.
Thank you yet again, Charles, for taking thoughts I have been having over the last 9 months, thoughts that I was unable to fit to any understandable vision of reality, and woven them into something that makes sense. I also appreciate your courage in saying some of the things you have said. I have been sitting in that space for several years now and it’s been confusing and uncomfortable, so looking up and finding that I have you as company in this strange space is incredibly comforting. I am coming now to be fairly certain that we are not alone, and that you are giving comfort to many others who are fortunate enough to discover your writing. Bless you.
My sentiments exactly. And I am comforted.
A deep bow of appreciation for this, Charles. I sense the place you wrote this from and am truly touched by it.
Deeply appreciate how you combined the awareness of the micro realities of the heart and how they are translated into macro realities of societal trends.
I think it requires a truly deep level of sensitive observation and insight in order to see these things and make those connections, and I am grateful that you gave expression to that.
From all my experiences and observations of what is going on, in me and around me , it seems clear to me that “solutions” to our predicament can never be found in the head (that is, in conceptual formulas),
nor can they be found in the strategies that a pain-filled and unconscious psyche employs in order to feel safe and comfortable and certain, namely the immature ego-boosting strategies we see all over the media and social media (and even in this comment section) of trying to ‘win an argument’ and ‘crush/destroy the enemy’ and show that ‘I am right and you are wrong’ (and so you need to humiliated and obliterated),
but rather, it seems to that true “solutions” can only come from a combination of two qualities:
One is Awareness and Maturity of spirit – paying attention to what is happening inside of me before retaliating, slowing down before lashing out, noticing, paying attention, and truly seeing how I function, how my psyche functions, how a hurt psyche seeks superiority in mental arguments in order to feel safe and comfortable (and by the way, that seems to me like the mindset from which the venom-filled pain-filled comments from Chris above were coming from).
And the other quality naturally arises from the first one and that is authentic (un-contrived) empathy and compassion.
Or more accurately – truly meeting and understanding the pain in me leads to a deep sensitivity, a softening (a loosening of the walls around the heart), and a capacity to truly sense and see and understand the pain in you.
Not conceptual empathy/compassion but visceral compassion/empathy, that is born out of the maturity of meeting the pain in me, meeting all that was unmet and unconscious in me, which leads to truly sensing/understanding what you are going through that makes you act the way you do, what makes you hold on to certain beliefs.
In other words, it seems to me, based on my observations and experiences, that true in-sight into how I function, that meeting all parts of myself (in an authentic visceral way, not just conceptually), that having the capacity to truly hear all parts of myself, that these are the keys that create the capacity in me to also hear another on a deep level, truly hear, beyond the labels and concepts and judgements and images. Truly sense the pain that moves them, which is the pain that seems to move the entire humanity.
And this authentic empathy, this authentic compassion (born out of a true sensitive meeting of all of my self, and the natural softening and opening that comes from this) seems to me like the only “thing” that can save humanity from ruin, from being consumed and destroyed by the war mentality (which is the immature ego mentality, which is the mentality of unmet and unhealed pain).
The war mentality that seems to be born out having huge parts of ourselved remain unconscious (and so, dictating our lives, choices and beliefs).
The war mentality that seems to be born out of not meeting the immense pain inside, not being conscious of how we function, not being conscious of what moves us (and so, easily susceptible to propaganda, demagogues, media, religions and cults that exploit and use any pain/fear/frustration that is unmet and unconscious in us as a “hook” to draw us in).
PS. Besides Charles’ insights, I found this also to be very valuable in becoming clearer of the micro and macro movements in ourselves and in society:
culturalptsd dot org
Thank you for a beautiful articulation, helping me to organize my thoughts and feelings in a much better way then I have to this point.
To all those that don’t agree with this view or want to fight it for what ever reason. We see you, we feel your pain and we love you…unconditionally.
Thank you Charles. I am reflecting upon a lived and familiar truth I have experienced.
To empower the individual: To be heard and seen: To listen and bear witness to the human undertones of connection and interbeing. In circle; here is where I have healed and where the collective wisdom emparts its power.
Enjoyed this piece. I think we must guard against turning into the monster we are fighting. Thank you for sharing your insights.
I have to say that Chris, above, makes some good points. My thoughts while reading this essay from a thinker I have long held in high esteem were that Charles hasn’t done the research. He hasn’t entered the perspective of those he thinks that he studied. He draws his information from observers, not from the source.
If anyone actually reads the Q posts, the picture of a cult seeking to incite violence dissolves. Charles has conflated Q and Anons with the stereotypes of 4-Chan and 8-Chan pols. Please note that the information warfare environment has left very few outlets for criticism of the power structures. The population interested in Q drops is diverse, largely peaceful, joyful and hopeful for a return to a representative republic.
I hope that Charles checks his unconscious biases and enjoys the journey to open perception, and the compassion for which he strives.
Spot on. What could be more apt and more fundamentally true than acknowledging that there is a common root issue/dis-ease that produces vast angst and chaos? And why does it spur such contempt? Because it mirrors a truth that is being denied for self-preservation? Because contempt covers the vulnerable hurt that must stay buried for the self to survive? Although manifest in seemingly opposite forms, rhetoric, and action (“left” and “right”) it seems obvious that the dis-ease stems from the SAME root of delusion, fear, hurt, confusion, and need to belong. So, to your point, let’s address THAT! Who can legitimately argue? The long critical comment above is that very reflection from the dark mirror with the veil of separation, and therefore confusion and denial, fully in force. It produces a genuine hurt in my heart that the joy, which is also fundamental in our being, is quashed in the perception that comes from the confusion of separateness. There is such wonder, awe, joy, love, and connection available to us all, that it saddens me when anyone deprives themselves of such a treasure. It is always and already there for the unveiling.
@Chris…..hmm, seems you have a lot to say for someone that didn’t make it through the entire essay. And when I don’t care for someone’s writing style, I just stop reading their works altogether. I don’t write them to tell them so. Because behind that writer is a human being. A human that from all accounts that I can tell from his talks and writings, is compassionate, kind, curious and thought provoking. He has children and a wife. And seems to be an all around good human. Why the angry tone and hurtful words? You’ve clearly stayed around long enough to read more of his works, so something drew you in. Would you say these things to him in person, if you really knew him? It’s easier to hate from afar, behind a faceless avatar than to love up close. I will say I commend you for being vulnerable to express yourself on a page where others might not agree with you. But it is the tone and language that seems to create more separation.
Which is where I think you’re missing the biggest message in this essay, as well as many of his recent works….the suggestion to connect once again in order to instill hope that we move forward towards a collective good. You might have received the message had you finished the essay.
“Hate is the result of a narrative hijacking anger and channeling it onto convenient enemies. Hate preserves the status quo. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.””
You know, I’m a health care worker and one of my patients was so angry at Trump one day that he couldn’t even focus during our session. He was besides himself and almost fell because he wasn’t focused. Then he died 2 weeks later. He spent his precious last breaths and specks of energy of his 96 year old life being angry. And for what? He wasn’t out protesting for all to see, or influencing anyone on social media or testifying before Congress. He won’t see the outcome, won’t know how it all pans out. It was such an eye opener for me. Because that is the temporary nature of life. And if I have 2 weeks left to live in this body, I don’t want to spend it angry….towards Trump, towards Blue or Red, towards the media, and certainly not Charles Eisenstein who has only created thought provoking curiosity through his writing and discussions.
So I ask you, if you could do it again….would you say it to the person right in front of you? A person that you might have more in common with than you know, or allow yourself to know.
As Charles wrote here, “How can the same hope animate forces that seem diametrically opposed? It is because the distorting lens of us-them thinking diffracts it into two, making us think that change will come through defeat of the enemy presented us. Dehumanization is a primary weapon of war (making the enemy despicable), just as it is the template of racism, sexism, and the reduction of all that is sacred. It is precisely the opposite of what is needed if we are ever to pull together.”
Thank you Charles for your continued work and keeping us thinking in new ways.
Re Critical Chris — I find myself hoping that Critical Chris is actually Charles, writing his own worst case review. Not to distract from a wonderfully intelligent and loving essay. I’ve been practiceing a simple and beautiful empathy circle process that is a useful tool. It has shown me that being fully heard kind of neutralises any desire to be ‘right’ in any opionions I may have . At the risk of being seen as kow-towing , I love you, Charles.
“The long critical comment above is that very reflection from the dark mirror with the veil of separation, and therefore confusion and denial, fully in force.“
This is nothing but patronizing, condescending bullshit which says far more about you than about me. I was very specific and justified in my criticisms (as Angela Sparks above corectly notes, Eisenstein gets the “Q” cult all wrong and evidently didn’t bother to do his research), whereas you just throw around a lot of vague charges laced with passive aggression. But of course you don’t even notice your own passive aggressive tendencies or your need to worship at the feet of an all-knowing, flawless guru instead of thinking for yourself. I’ve noticed similar passive aggressive little digs and snide attacks levelled at everyone who leaves a negative review (not by me) at Amazon.com over one of Eisenstein’s books. I’m not surprised as this patronizing tone is one the disciples learned from the master himself. Eisenstein actively encourages this cult of personality surrounding himself. His acolytes evidently can’t tolerate anyone not worshipping the ground their guru walks on – and invariably they don’t honestly address the specifics of the complaints about his books but instead level ad hominem attacks at the critic.
While I found this piece thought-provoking, I’m here by accident, having never heard of CE before…
What I do want, is to read more from you Chris as I think you make some solid points, if I look past the angry tone coming through your writing. You articulated many of my thoughts about the demise of this culture since the supposedly ‘hip’ and ‘freedom’ 60’s, and I wasn’t even there. I grew up in an age that taught me the 60’s were the best time to be alive, and that I owe much to those who were there. As an adult looking around at what it’s all come to, I’m not buying it. Would you be able to point me to some good reading or resources?
Chris,
Serious question here: if Charles’s writing infuriates you so much, why are you engaging with it? Why are you posting insulting replies here? I’m not offended or bothered by you doing so; it is of course your right, and I commend you for at least engaging with those who have a different perspective than you do. That is something that fewer people seem willing to do these days…
Yet, I am genuinely curious as to why you do so because you clearly seem upset and bothered by what Charles and his audience believes and expresses here. Do you hope to teach us something? Do you hope to show us another path? Or do you enjoy the conflict? Do you like arguing? Is this cathartic for you?
Again, this is a genuine question. I literally have no idea what motivates you to post here, hence my curiosity and question. Either way, I wish you the best.
Regards,
David
David, I would sometimes happen upon conservative or libertarian essays and feel the need to engage in the comments just as Chris is here. I like doing research and I like shouting facts at people and I would answer proudly yes to all the questions you asked him. I’d been a quiet person and held back my opinions in the past so I justified it in my head that I deserved this catharsis and if I swayed just one person… Eventually, I had to admit I was just a passive aggressive troll and that it wasn’t healthy for me so I left facebook- but it was for me an exercise in finding courage to speak and then figuring out when it was useful took longer. While I disagree with Chris on his assessment of the situation, I understand his urge to be heard by the community here. I also understand from his comments that sharing this article won’t help my right wing friends and family members understand where I’m coming from, it will only create more division between us.
bravo, Charles. I see this, too, but made clearer by you and now others. I desire to listen to the Proud Boys. Yes, their world is a toxic world. May they find the courage to escape hate to small actions of love with their children, intimates, neighbors. May we have the courage to love them in small acts of love.
Heather, you are simply not listening to what I (or any critic of Eisenstein) are saying. Eisenstein gets basic facts wrong – about the very nature of Q, about the nature of BLM and the modern Left, and about why Trump has resonated with so many – and that is what I’m criticizing. Eisenstein is constantly making assertions in his various essays and books that do not stand up to scrutiny if you actual know something about the subject in question, yet he and his fans expect automatic assent to his views anyway because, apparently, his heart is in the right place.
My hostility is not just based on this one essay, it’s based on reading most of his books and published essays and becoming increasingly frustrated and exasperated by his refusal to hold himself to any rigorous standards of research and knowledge. More and more, he simply “wings it” rather than do any research and fact checking before publishing. More and more, he seems less content to write about the subjects he’s carefully researched (and where he DOES do good work) and now seems to want to be seen as a polymath and genius who can write brilliantly about anything under the sun. Angela Sparks below is correct: Eisenstein has failed to enter into the minds of most MAGA voters and Trump supporters and offers a ludicrous caricature instead. And he will not stop romanticizing the left, instead of seeing the truly ugly underbelly of much of leftist thought as it was shaped by the sixties. Much of what BLM protests is actually NOT caused by the right but by leftists’ paternalistic type of racism – the failed Great Society programs of the 1960s and so on, which have had a catastrophic effect on the black family. Or look at how the PC left has forced the canonization of Saint Nelson Mandela on the world – aided and abetted by the MSM, when in reality Mandela and Winnie Mandela were violent terrorists who used (eagerly and avidly in Winnie’s case) “necklacing” (putting a gasoline doused rubber tire around your victim and lightning him on fire) to dispatch political opponents (most of their victims were black BTW). Thanks to dishonest and malicious leftists, the true causes of racial inequality today are not allowed to be discussed.
The previous posts criticizing this essay are missing the point. Charles is asking all of us to take a look in the mirror, in hopes we can see ourselves in each other. This is the starting point to understanding and finding common ground. “Stating facts” is easier than agreeing on them. I don’t give a ____ who is most to blame for climate change, poor health care, economic and racial inequality, etc. I care that there is a genuine desire to improve our serious challenges. Showing compassion and seeing the good inherent in the other is not a nonsensical, esoteric waste of time. It will lead to real solutions that can improve the Human condition.
Yes. The facts of the past are not what this essay is about… and Chris, you seem to be focusing on those facts, and having a hard time hearing the message. There is no time to hate or benefit to be derived from it. Our only way forward that offers any hope is to operate from a place of loving, hearing and respecting each other. I hear you Chris… I hear your pain and disappointment that Charles isn’t living up to your expectations. Can we take the gist of the message regardless of any factual inaccuracies and find a common ground in what we want to create going forward?
This will be shared in my classroom with the high school seniors populating our Humanities course. One thing that is very difficult right now with “remote learning” (instead of School) is getting students to see each other as human beings since all they experience of each other is a series of one-inch images (with faces hiding in hoodies or cameras tilted to show an incredible array of ceiling fans). Building trust without “in-person” classes is really taking a lot of effort and showing little in the way of results. And physical separation is adding to their social-emotional separation. For “solidarity, unity, coherence, and reconciliation to become real,” we will need to get this next generation to look into the dark mirror – Yes! – but also to learn new ways to get to know each other, trust each other, respect each other, listen to each other (after we re-teach them how to speak), and to find the comfort and appeal of this new place called Compassion.
I wholeheartedly support your desire to resolve the cultural dichotomy in our time, but, either due to my inability to understand your argument or perhaps a lack of continuity in your argument, I can’t but come up with an unsatisfactory emptiness. Yes, we will not resolve our conflict without arriving at some kind of common ground. That common ground, I feel and as you imply, will have to be found in an entirely new paradign that is mutually created through some kind of dialogue between willing members of both groups.
I also find a false equivalancy between people who are willing to respect the differing opinions of others and those that want to defeat or extinguish those that believe differently from themselves, as if there is only one reality.
I believe everybody wants happiness, love, security, respect, and, if we just start there and forget the ideologies, maybe we would get somewhere.
I also feel that a source of our troubles has to do with our synthetic human world devoid of the exigencies that a peasant life used to impose on us that gave us clarity and purpose. I’m for a simpler life defined by nature rather than the artificial life our fertile brains and our hubris have chosen instead. That’s not to say that we retreat into the past, but that we practice some humility and try to live more within the limits and rythms that the rest of the natural world recognizes and respects. How far into collapse do we need to go before we will be willing to let go?
Thanks for having the courage to approach this subject. It has made me think and, if we keep at it, we may resolve it yet.
Some readers might imagine after reading Charles’ piece that the right was heavily populated by Q-Anon supporters and Incels. A long (long) term leftie now recovering, I’ve been watching a lot of conservative youtubers and speakers over the last couple of years and have hardly seen Q-Anon and Incels mentioned at all. Conservatives are far more commonly united around free speech and identity politics than Q-Anon. (I learned about half of what I know about Q-Anon in Charles’ essay just now.)
Yet I’ve heard a lot of nuanced and lively exchange of ideas from people who occupy the right side of the spectrum, respectful and intelligent, but especially honest and free conversations. Thomas Sowell, Douglas Murray, Larry Elder, Brett and Heather Weinstein, Heather MacDonald, Camille Paglia, Coleman Hughes, Candace Owen, Dennis Prager, Jordan Peterson and many more. In the UK, New Culture Forum, Unherd and much more . . . oh just get started, you’ll be amazed, as I was, at what I’ve found. Many of these are black people and you can sense in there the reason that black and Latino people are drifting right: They see themselves as individuals looking forward, not as members of an identity group looking back.
Q-Anon and Incels are safe caricatures of who the right is. Blessings upon them, they hardly represent the living edge of what’s up. On the other hand, there’s a vast swath of people on the right that are connected, engaged and willing and eager to talk. People like we aspire to be. If we dare to meet them, that could be where the mirror comes alive for us all.
These are good points. I agree that there is a lot of nuanced conversation happening on the “right” these days. Brett Weinstein and his brother Eric have been particularly insightful in my opinion over the last few months, along with some of the others you mentioned. The Trump phenomenon is so much more diverse than it’s portrayal in this article and the main stream in general. That said, I still think that Charles’ main point in this article is spot on. I know many on the left who cannot understand how anyone could be a Trump supporter without being a fascist/racist. We HAVE to find some way to break through this and convince people to open their hearts to each other.
Chris, do you have a reliable source behind your accusation that Nelson Mandela was engaged in necklacing?
One thing I find missing in your piece is antisemitism, which is blazing up among groups on the left and the right. Here’s just one article: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/hate-cant-be-contained
Hi Chris
So what are your thoughts on how we can unite humanity and move forward as a race of beings on planet earth
?. What outcome would you like to see emerge from all this chaos ?
Karen, please grow the hell up. I did NOT miss the point, you missed the point because you are a fawning worshipper of the guru Charles Eisenstein who thinks he can do and say and think no wrong.
“Stating facts” is easier than agreeing on them. I don’t give a ____ who is most to blame for climate change, poor health care, economic and racial inequality, etc.”
Yes, and in that sense you’re an all too typical New Ager. You don’t care about mere “facts,” you care about your subjective “feelings,” and whatever makes you feel good is true for you. This sort of wallowing in feel good subjectivity is nothing new, it’s one of the main reasons the sixties “Age of Aquarius” fantasies and hopes of a utopia just around the corner failed so miserably. Intellectual laziness and self indulgence on a mass scale has very real and negative consequences for society. That’s precisely why Eisenstein’s dishonesty and treacly sentimentality surrounding the progressive left is so dangerous.
Foolishness results and always has resulted from vaporous and inchoate thinking. We do not need more celebration of our own subjective feelings, we need far more rigour and clarity of thought. We need knowledge and real wisdom, not New Agey feel good platitudes.
My point stands. Whether you give a damn or not, Eisenstein is completely ignorant about much of what he writes about, including BLM and quote unquote “racism.”
Not trying to place blame doesn’t mean focusing on feelings, it just means that placing blame won’t help us solve the problem so why put energy there? We often want to punish people and then feel like a situation is resolved when nothing was fixed and the new damaged people just step up to replace the old ones doing ill in the world and problems are exacerbated instead of fixed. Facts are important. An example in regards to the drug war- treating drug users like criminals- blaming and punishing them only makes drugs a bigger problem for everyone. If we copied society’s like Portugal and instead looked to heal drug users we could have greater success. Looking at the facts from historical examples and research instead of giving in to our feelings is what’s needed and it’s what CE seems to be advocating for us to do even if you think he is mistaken on some of his facts.
“So I ask you, if you could do it again….would you say it to the person right in front of you? A person that you might have more in common with than you know, or allow yourself to know.”
Yes I would. I would have no problem criticizing Eisenstein’s work to his face, although according to other people who have met him (you can find their remarks on Facebook), he was patronizing and condescending in person and didn’t respond well to having his ideas challenged. I can believe that.
Chris,
I am glad you are here. I really liked Heather’s comment to you, and wish the same for you too. Anywho–
It seems like you have been waiting to say some of these things for a while; it also appears as though you are trying very much to convince others of your beliefs/opinions/views evidenced by your own multi-comment reviews and activated critique on his website. I believe you although I don’t agree with you.
Charles Eisenstein’s points and beliefs and opinions are valid just like yours. The thing that gets me writing on CE’s website to you is, I think you are a really good writer and I can actually feel your activation through the computer (or maybe it’s mine in response, not sure I digress).
You don’t have to love Charles, agree with, or like him, or physically seek his opinion or view of the world, so why do you? Asking with curiosity, not judgement. Why do you keep trying to be swayed (you’ve read all his books, essays, and actively seek out his work), but when you are not in agreement, become seemingly angry. Plus you’re amazingly illustrating one of the main points that I took away from the essay. I hope you find what you’re looking for!
Charles, thanks for this. If you ‘hate the haters’ doesn’t that make you a hater too? There is a common ground we share along with our longstanding hopes and dreams. It’s a magical, very short space in time. It’s enchanting, it’s real. It’s Now, the only place in time that exists. And so we necessarily are All Here Together. The official English term is Life.
And this on hate. Fear, anger, frustration – such emotions are part and parcel of human existence. Hate is a metastasized form of fear and anger, and when one is lost in it, they’ve lost their ability to heal. Trauma and hate have much in common.
Thank you for your work, Charles! Layers of “sensitive observation” as one commenter put it. So much vulnerability and authenticity comes through your work and this essay proves no different. Fascinating to me how others can experience your work any or so differently; but I have to believe and validate them even when I don’t/can’t agree with them. At least I think that is what you are saying; and that feels better than casting them aside.
An integral responsibility we each have is to abandon the belief of “good” and “bad” and (from what I took away in your article among other things) adopt both a root- and omni-view curiosity to understand each other and openness to validate each others’ experiences and being in the world. Western society thirsts for healthy and constructive validation, which is why it may be difficult to love someone beyond our understanding of or agreement with them. Because of its cyclic nature , i.e. abused becomes abuser, many times it is difficult to even validate and love ourselves, thus impossible to do so with others who are “bad” or “wrong.”
There is so much truth in the many variations of “heal yourself to heal the world.”
Rachel Derham,
I recommend you read this discussion thread, but in particular the reply by Desiré Dapschev and the reply by Jim Stockley in which he quotes from the Guardian’s obituary for Nelson Mandela:
https://www.quora.com/Did-Nelson-Mandela-ever-condemn-necklacing
“ . . . It has been long assumed that Mandela, in prison, would have strongly condemned necklacing. Indeed, it was reported, and widely believed, that after Winnie had raised the issue – in 1986, when she declared that South Africans would liberate themselves with matchboxes and tyres – her husband had summoned her to Pollsmoor prison, in Cape Town and reprimanded her for it. It has emerged, however, from a document that circulated among journalists and academics in South Africa, and which finally dribbled into print in 2005, that Mandela condoned his wife’s statement. The document, the minutes of a meeting between Mandela, Winnie and Ayob inside Pollsmoor prison, said: “NM approved of WM’s necklace speech. He said that it was a good thing as there has not been one black person who has attacked WM.” ……”
The full Guardian obit is here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/nelson-mandela-obituary
There can be little doubt that he supported necklacing and terrorism in general, though he was never as vocally enthusiastic as the bloodthirsty Winnie.
Again, for Rachel Durham,
The key portion of Desiré Dapschev’s reply:
“Nelson Mandela wore two hats… one for the international press and another for the ANC and MK.
He did make a token condemnation… but long after many innocent black civilians were brutally murdered in this barbaric method… and then only after hearing media condemnation of these atrocities.
But this was hypocritical as he had previously suggested that those black dissidents who were apposed to the ANC (during the struggle) should have their noses cut off. Winnie’s suggestion of necklacing was just as acceptable.
Nelson Mandela could have and should have done more to openly condemn these atrocities… but chose not to. It must be remembered that contrary to ANC Propaganda, they were not the only organization fighting against the apartheid regime. They were however the best schooled in propaganda by the Soviet Union and in particular in Vietnam in the terrorist“art” of coercing civilian support.”
This is the most important part:
“…contrary to ANC propaganda, they were not the only organization fighting against the apartheid regime.” They were like the Bolsheviks, triumphant due to their far greater ruthlessness and lust for power, not because Apartheid couldn’t have fallen without them. Mandela also did not spend his life in jail because of his opposition to apartheid, but because he refused to relinquish terrorism. He would’ve been released decades sooner had he been willing to publicly condemn the use of terrorist tactics. But that he would not agree to do, because he fundamentally believed in the rightness of terrorism to achieve his ends – including the murder of women and children, and of his own fellow blacks who did not support the ANC to his satisfaction.
Chris mate, you are acting like a twat. Good luck with your warfare. Thanks Charles, Great piece – wish I was as good at you at respecting everyone’s views!
Charles, you have the admirable ability to stand in the full sun with your truth, your risk-taking. Everything illuminated by sunlight throws a shadow–in this instance, the space in which shadowy accusers like Chris operate anonymously lacking the courage and depth to be seen. Their avatars are featureless.
“It is hypocritical and pointless to call someone to greatness without believing in their greatness.“ This is it for me, to see the greatness and call it forth.
A little Taoist thought from Chuang Tzu:
THE PIVOT
Tao is obscured when men understand only one of a pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest.
Hence the wrangling of Confucians and Mohists [and Conservatives and Liberals]; each denies what the other affirms, and affirms what the other denies. What use is this struggle to set up “No” against “Yes,” and “Yes” against “No”? Better to abandon this hopeless effort and seek true light!
There is nothing that cannot be seen from the standpoint of the “Not-I.” And there is nothing which cannot be seen from the standpoint of the “I.” If I begin by looking at anything from the viewpoint of the “Not-I,” then I do not really see it, since it is “not I” that sees it. If I begin from where I am and see it as I see it, then it may also become possible for me to see it as another sees it. Hence the theory of reversal (9) that opposites produce each other, depend on each other, and complement each other.
However this may be, life is followed by death; death is followed by life. The possible becomes impossible; the impossible becomes possible. Right turns into wrong and wrong into right—the flow of life alters circumstances and thus things themselves are altered in their turn. But disputants continue to affirm and to deny the same things they have always affirmed and denied, ignoring the new aspects of reality presented by the change in conditions.
The wise man therefore, instead of trying to prove this or that point by logical disputation, sees all things in the light of direct intuition. He is not imprisoned by the limitations of the “I,” for the viewpoint of direct intuition is that of both “I” and “Not-I.” Hence he sees that on both sides of every argument there is both right and wrong. He also sees that in the end they are reducible to the same thing, once they are related to the pivot of Tao.
When the wise man grasps this pivot, he is in the center of the circle, and there he stands while “Yes” and “No” pursue each other around the circumference.
The pivot of Tao passes through the center where all affirmations and denials converge. He who grasps the pivot is at the still-point from which all movements and oppositions can be seen in their right relationship. Hence he sees the limitless possibilities of both “Yes” and “No.” Abandoning all thought of imposing a limit or taking sides, he rests in direct intuition. Therefore I said: “Better to abandon disputation and seek the true light!”
~from Thomas Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu
I love this, thanks for sharing
Other Chris mate, you are acting like a twat yourself. Idiot.
In case you haven’t noticed, my various responses have been to OTHER POSTERS REQUESTING YET ANOTHER REPLY from me. Or they are in response to passive aggressive psychoanalysis of me from Eisenstein’s hypocritical fans purporting to be able to see my “wound of separation” and how I really need to embrace the true Messiah Eisenstein.
Even after it has been mentioned and repeatedly described by multiple different individuals on this discussion thread exactly how Eisenstein has FAILED to “respect everyone’s views” (i.e. showing how he has misrepresented the QAnon issue and offered a “caricature” rather than an accurate picture of the right) you just can’t resist writing your little smug send off.
You, in a nutshell, are exactly why I have growing contempt and loathing for New Agers. None of you practice what you preach, at all. You pretend to be so kind, compassionate, open-minded, and “open to the light,” but what you generally are is PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE and PATRONIZING. Grow up and take a good look in the mirror. Eisenstein’s characterization of the QAnon issue was fundamentally ignorant and inaccurate, period.
I’m late to this party, but see the situation much the same way as Charles, despite some quibbles. No, all Trumpsters are not mesmerized by QAnon, not part of the conspiracy-generating agitator. Most are not any more insane than the rest of us. Asked why they support Trump’s Quixotic assailing of the election counts, after thought, some respond to the effect that they want “the system” to collapse sooner, rather than later.
What we are seeing is a loss of trust in the institutions of the United States, and not just the government ones. Don’t trust courts, education, pharmaceuticals, MSM journalism, research, finance…none of it. Trust the military, but not endless wars. Don’t have a clear idea what they want, but it isn’t what they’ve got.
A big fraction of the electorate is not inclined to let the Biden administration try to “go back to normal.” They did not like “normal,” even before Covid-19. Regardless of the blitherings of political pundits, we’re in for a rough ride. Probably not a civil war with pitched armies, but certainly civil unrest. The big question is whether democracy, as we ideally imagined it, is up to navigating this turmoil. Democracies in gridlock are unlikely to pass that stress test.
Covid-19 and its fallout are just the start of turmoil.
“Asked why they support Trump’s Quixotic assailing of the election counts, after thought, some respond to the effect that they want “the system” to collapse sooner, rather than later.”
No, that is certainly and indubitably NOT why they support Trump’s entirely just and legitimate demand for, not simply a recount, but actual auditing and serious investigation of criminal fraud. Even to phrase it as a “Quixotic assailing” in and of itself betrays your own bias, your intellectual laziness and incuriosity, and your fundamental smugness, arrogance, and unwarranted sense of superiority.
There is an enormous amount of evidence that the election was indeed stolen. I realize for individuals who lack basic cognitive faculties, and basic literacy and numeracy skills, which evidently includes you, this might be hard to grasp, but the electoral results simply do not add up. The anomalies are numerous and extremely suspicious. There are over 1000 signed affidavits attesting to anomalous and suspicious – and illegal – activity.
You can start here:
https://www.deepcapture.com/2020/11/election-2020-was-rigged-the-evidence/
And here:
https://theredelephants.com/there-is-undeniable-mathematical-evidence-the-election-is-being-stolen/
And here:
https://democracyinstitute.org/reasons-why-the-2020-presidential-election-is-deeply-puzzling/
These are incredibly strange, bizarre and anomalous results with no prior parallel in all of electoral history except in state tyrannies like North Korea, combined with sworn affidavits by numerous Republican poll watchers in the contested who swear under penalty of perjury they were blocked and prevented from observing the vote count, kept too far away to be able to see or kicked out of the room altogether!
Imagine being so smug, arrogant, and clueless as reduce all of this to a Quixotic tilting at windmills, or mere sour grapes and bitterness, while wilfully disregarding the fact that there does indeed exist very significant evidence pointing to voter fraud, a corrupt government and judiciary, and a stolen election! The mind boggles.
Hey Chris!
I hear and see you. I love the sentiment of Charles’ essay but agree, I don’t feel as though he’s sought out the source on many of these topics and draws a few false equivalences.
This may be naive, but all challenges have a solution. All challenges have a constructive solution. It’s been the reality of my long life. I volunteer for an entity that tries to help children who have become victims to a degenerating system, which affects every aspect of their lives. I cry a lot. Whatever we choose, as the adults in this scenario, it will hopefully be a solution that will nurture the innocent citizens in our midst. But this aspect always seems to go unheard. Fascinating.
Thanks Charles for being brave in sharing your observations of society in this moment. I really enjoyed reading the extremely harsh bashing of your essays too, it reminds me of my favorite Kayne West quote,”Your haters are your biggest fans.” The fact you are causing such a strong reaction in very articulate people, you must be onto something….
Keep ’em coming Charles!
Thank you for this narrative. There is contrast and validation to what Einstein is showing in the polarization and judgement in these comments. Einstein shined the light on these and they reared their head.
I have voted both parties in various elections and have listened to both sides a lot in this election. I have listened to Q-Non and other theories ( I no longer use the term “conspiracy”). I believe we need to know what is going on or being talked about out there. I cannot get behind either side and yes, I question everything now except, respect and common decency.
Where did agree to disagree go?
Because I am open to hearing both sides and I do not aggressively respond to other’s positions, I have found that most of us want the same things. And they are not the things that the current technocracy wants. More of us are in the middle than most people realize. Being judgmental instead of finding common ground gives our power away and defeats everyone’s quest for change for the better.
No thank you for a response. I do not need anymore illumination on the current polarization, judgement, and hate that has been in our faces for months now and has shown up in these comments.
I will always be grateful to hear differing points of view and theories as long as they are respectful. Thank you Charles for writing this.
You keep asking people to see the big picture and understand that everything is interconnected. You’re asking people to transcend duality. I haven’t met many people who can do it. All they see is the bits where it seems you’re defending the enemy (either / any side) and therefore must be aligned with the enemy. That’s not your problem. And you can’t fix it. If they can’t see it, they can’t see it. No matter how clearly you try to write it. But that’s okay. Keep writing for the people who can see it or who are close to seeing it.
I don’t know how to bring the conversation down to the 3D / duality level so more people can understand it. You almost have to have already seen the big picture to understand what it’s showing.
I don’t envision us transcending into a third option. I think we’re headed for corporate rule. I don’t want that, but it’s where I think this is going to go next.
What’s a third option that’s reachable when everyone you talk to seems to have joined a side already? I’m relieved Trump is out, but I’m not naive enough to think we’ve solved anything. I don’t know how to solve it unless a lot of people experience some kind of personal awakening. I’m also not sure everyone has it in them to experience such an awakening. Have you ever looked into Dabrowski’s theory of disintegration and what he calls the 3rd factor? It’s one intriguing possible explanation for why some of us remake ourselves and see the world differently and why some of us don’t or can’t.
I enjoy reading your thoughts, so please keep sharing them!
An intricate tapestry you’ve woven together here, Charles.
Nice work. As always. We loveses you 🙂
I think my new favourite description of you, Charles, is “Eisenstein, who never met a false parallel he didn’t like”. I know that commenter meant it as disapproval, but I can totally see how that quality is actually a gift. Your core message here and throughout all your work is very sweet and simple, beneath all the impressive details: the route to personal and planetary kindness and happiness is to feel all your feelings, question everything, always recognize any “other” as a part of yourself, and align with what feels good. I can jive with that!
The message of the article, as I read it, is wash your own dirty laundry before you critique the stench of someone else’s. Charles is a writer. He’s not your personal psychologist. To take him to task at such an intense level is beyond ludicrous. It’s insane. Chris needs to do some serious soul-searching and get to the root of all this misplaced rage.
This is easier said than done. However, it is at the heart of our societal woes. The culture is made up of individuals. This means each individual must do their own soul-work alone. No one else to blame. No one else to save them. The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off royally. Get used to that feeling. Feel it burn. And someday you may actually have something of value to offer someone else. Sit in quiet stillness for long enough (alone) and you will begin to see what is at the source of all your anger. I cannot tell you what that is; only you can. That is the work each of us must do as individuals.
I agree with Charles. Most of us are helplessly entangled in one form of violence or another, as witness, victim, or perpetrator in a cultural disease of addiction to control. It could be systemic, inter-personal or internal violence, spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical violence. Recovery from fear, distrust and out-of-control extremes of abusive human behavior, including rage at the micro level and national acts of war at the macro level are part of normal, predictable learning patterns that can lead to stability and security, but only when there is new information, hope and mutual support available. The multiple cascading crises from which we all suffer is pushing us into deep, dark despair. When we move out of the despair within ourselves, we end the cycle of addiction to control. When I change my inner world, my external behavior shifts to match, and I become a creative source of systemic change through teamwork. I know from my own experience that I cannot be self-centered and participate in a collaboration. I must surrender my ego, my vanity and most of all, my distrust. I must acknowledge and release my self-centeredness. This is the key to not only personal recovery but also the cultural recovery from a dependency on control, domination and violence.
The recovery process described in my book, “Love Always Wins,” didn’t teach me to love directly, it guided me to places of safety where I could let go and get out of my own way. http://www.lovealwayswins.us/p/more-about-love-always-wins.html
Brilliant assessment of today’s situation in the US. Watching from afar it’s quite an insight, I like the balanced reporting and the fact that there is no black and white, right or wrong. Instead we have to transcend all the noise and find our own peace within. It is only then that the peace outside will have a chance to manifest. Stop looking for salvation by politicians, they are only servants of the establishment, which is rotten and corrupt at its core and in need of an overhaul.
Great essay Charles, I always enjoy your point of view, which seems to be consistently resistant to the politics, hyperbole, and divisive hysteria that seems to be the hallmark of this particular point in history. Thanks for your lucid and insightful commentary. I don’t always completely agree of course, but always appreciate what you have to say, as well as how you say it. Not sure what’s up with the “intellectual bilge” guy here, but you seem to have gotten him sufficiently enraged that he’s made a full-time hobby of tearing you down, apparently along with anyone else who values the idea that there might be a better way of relating to the world and each other. I’d take that as a sign you’re on the right track. Cheers, brother!
To me the destructive comments here are saying – Charles’ gentle plea to end divisiveness, and to learn coming together is either not understood? or is still so alien to many of us that the primal impulse is to shoot the messenger at all cost, to attack and or find fault in the detail rather than allow the sentiment that I might be wrong, or I might be right, but ultimately I am no different to the one I despise…Once we allow it I think it’s a sweet feeling…Thank you, Charles, to me you are the bringer of insight and hope.
Thanks, you Charles, for a deep, thoughtful, and loving essay. I am glad you decided to publish it. Much appreciated. Circling it to as many people as i can find that are willing to read something different.
I am not an intellectual, so this is a somewhat simplistic response to Charles Eisensteins verbose and intellectual ramblings. Quite obviously he has done absolutely no research. Were he to go back a few hundred years, and explore history in depth, he would alter, or he might alter, his rhetoric considerably. He obviously has merely paid lip service, if that, to the unspoken ‘truth’ of WW2 – and the biggest lie about at – not to mention other wars. His probing into the lives and affairs of the Obamas, the Clintons, the Bush’s, and more much more, and thus to be more informed as to what he writes, is seriously lacking. He sits well on the fence – although, should he have voted, its pretty obvious as to how he would have voted. Yes, you’re very good at rambling. Were you able to put your lengthy diatribe into one sentence I wonder what it would be?
Hello world. This is my 2 cents worth. You probably won’t like it. Don’t shoot the messenger. 🙂
I am not an American so you can disregard my analysis if you choose. I live in New Zealand and don’t vote. Many people forward stories, this was one of them. Thank you to Charles for his efforts. I was intrigued when a friend told me of an “aware heart-based economist” attempting to see QAnon Anons as people with needs rather than deplorables.
Straddling a divide that may be shaping towards civil war is laudable and important. But, I was disappointed and understand why Charles is getting hate from both sides. The political left and mainstream (“fake news”) media has spent the last 4 years demonizing Trump and those who follow him. Establishment figures have taken every opportunity to oppose, confront, slander and investigate the Trump administration as if he were Hitler. Like Hitler, Trump enjoys profound support and 74 million Americans voted for him. In the last couple of weeks before the election Trump rallies saw 1.2 million attendees while during that time Biden’s rallies totaled 2000 attendees. Because of rejection by mainstream networks, Trump supporters get news and communicate elsewhere. These alternate media streams are growing and many of the supporters are aware of a counter narrative.
Charles’ essay recites familiar negative criticisms and articles of leftist faith (racism & bigotry) – possibly as an attempt to cover the author against inevitable attacks to be suffered for trying to open a dialogue with the devil. Cancel culture is harsh and reactionary. The extreme left will never condone dialogue, For them Trump is Hitler and his followers are Nazis – they are evil.
The dutiful recitation of common slurs against Trumpists also does nothing to endear the author to MAGA crowd readers. Many of the slurs are often repeated but not true or deserved. Why is it that 74 million votes were counted for Trump – the highest ever for a sitting president – even after allegedly several million votes were stolen.
Out of morbid curiosity of a former lawyer, I have been following the evidence of electoral fraud. You do not see it reported mainstream, but do not doubt that millions of Trump followers are up to date and aware of the blatant corruption, lies and suppression. If you do not understand this, you may be shocked at what transpires across the country if Biden is allowed to progress his claims. The author simply referring to Trump’s lost election does respect or do justice to a dialogue. You will not show honor with a Trump supporter if you refuse to ever look at the mountains of evidence.
From a vantage point well away from pandemic hysteria and relatively free of network broadcast brainwashing, I see a struggle between nationalism and globalism, and a struggle for global dominance. For 30 years or more anyone who is anyone in business sought international business. Maximize profits by outsourcing offshore or importing. This shift gutted America’s jobs and hollowed out communities while military adventurism sought to project power and stabilize the petrodollar world order. Average Americans are reduced to the service economy while waves of migrants compete for remaining jobs. Lobbyists took up residence in the halls of power. Parties and politicians, needing finance to win mandated popularity contests, prioritized interests of those funding campaigns ahead of constituents.
Obama promised Hope and Change but dropped more bombs than Bush Jr. And you wonder why Americans took a gamble on Trump in 2016? He promised them the resurrection of American pride. He wasn’t a career politician but a successful builder and entertainer. From accounts I’ve seen, he is also connected with the Sicilian and Jewish mafias. Roy Cohen was the link.
From a geopolitical perspective, I would not be surprised if Trump was tapped for the role by a central banking cartel. (I understand the QAnon narrative is a group of patriot generals including Flynn convinced Trump to run.) If you look back in history at how the British Empire dispatched competitors and potential usurpers, they were ruthless. Since the early 1970s when China was welcomed back into the international order, the power elite have expected that capitalism will change China, that it will integrate within the established hierarchy. But China remains an ancient civilization with deep roots despite being decapitated and gutted during the 20th century. Since 2000 it has been fairly obvious to those with vision that China is seeking to be a dominant force in world affairs.
I believe the spirit of America to stand against adversity had been degraded in accordance with the Marxist subversion playbook – Stage 1 is “Demoralization”. I’d been predicting conflict with China since early 2000s. Bush Jr called it with reference to the “Axis of evil”. Look at a map, you will see the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation countries around Bush’s axis. By 2014 it seemed that take-over by China was almost inevitable. Obama talked about needing a “magic wand” to bring back jobs in 2016. China is the world’s factory. If you look at the loans and money coming into America from China, many in the political classes, business leaders and academics have taken their 30 pieces of silver. They cannot be relied upon to speak or stand against China.
If I were a Western banking cartel leader or crown corporate strategist based in London, I would absolutely not be prepared to lose control of the world economy and monetary system without a fight. Those people are more invested than anyone and for them war is a mode of business. Economists should understand this.
I see Trump and the MAGA movement as the best move elite globalists had to resurrect American fighting spirit in order see off China. Global alignments shifted dramatically against China under Trump. China is weakened and the Great Reset is now openly discussed. Not sure how this will play out, but if Bretton Woods 2 can be finalised while China is diminished and a western framed and sponsored Central Bank Digital Currency is introduced, the monetary order will secured for the next 50 years or so without Chinese ascendancy.
Whether a Trump 2nd term is part of the plan I can’t say.
The MAGA movement want Trump and believe he will prevent the Great Reset. The Anons seem to believe that Trump will save America by replacing Federal Reserve issued debt with Treasury issued credit, much as Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy tried to do before their demises. I suspect they will be disappointed.
Regarding the election, they also point to an executive order signed in May 2018 about securing elections from foreign interference. If you read the order, you will see there are sweeping powers and penalties. From what I can tell those Anons believe this election cycle has been allowed to unfold as it has because 1. just as you can’t arrest a shoplifter until they leave the shop, you can’t prosecute election fraud until it has been committed. And 2. you don’t know who is on which side until they declare allegiance. So from the last month or so, people have declared themselves exposing their positions.
Pursuant to the executive order DNI Radcliff is to file an intelligence assessment regarding election interference within 45 days of the election. If that report declares foreign interference, then sweeping powers are activated to clean up the perpetrators. The next couple of weeks are going to be interesting. It is possible that we will see a great purging of America, a return to McCarthy-esque trials of ideology. Again, Roy Cohen is the link.
In reply to Chris: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ca/0b/95/ca0b95ebbf8d84724f7f266cd4faebdb.jpg
Chris, I like your comments. But I also liked Charles essay. And I also disagree with the description of QAnon. Because I push myself to be in different bubbles, I am also now and then in QAnon bubble. Just like I am in the bubble of established narrative, in the bubble of progress, in the bubble of science, in the bubble of light workers, in the bubble of new era, in the bubble of animism, in the bubble of islamophobia, in the bubble of antivax and God know what else. As Charles noticed they have some common ground, but in my humble view there is no way how to reconcile them.
Thank you for your work and in all you do. You are a very much needed voice at the moment.
Wow ! What a fascinating thread…
I wonder: Am I the only one here who in effect kind of RESONATES with both Charles’ inquiring voice and Chris’ unrelenting countervoice in the comments?
What Chris says about the condescending and patronizing vibe of beautiful soul idealists is no mere ad hominem I think. Apart from the unsubtle vitriolic overtones I find his countervoice quite refreshing and informative as well.
At the same time, I cannot deny the spiritual authority conveyed through Charles’ voice when he invites us to PAUSE. This line, for instance, is tremendous: “I believe that the blind spots both sides share are more significant, and more dangerous, than their disagreements.”
Maybe this here is, in fact, as close as we can ever get to that elusive thing called Dialogue?
No, Kaposvari, you are not the only one.
Descriptions of stances, now so deeply polarized and begging scrutiny, need to be made, and can be true only when there is no judgment. Kindness and compassion arise naturally from the heart,
when description is willing and able to look from within the heart, seeing the essentials we share with all others. The evolution of our awareness is always asking us to see and live the essential truths of a generous and reciprocal life of care and gratitude for all others and the planet.
Thank you, Charles.
Dear Charles,
I experience most of your writings as works in progress. Living, breathing snapshots of consciousness as you can best capture and render the present moment of your perception and comprehension. When I read what you write I feel myself stepping into a stream of consciousness and I allow myself to be carried along, seeing through your eyes and hearing with your ears. I make the choice to explore with you without losing the sense of myself as the SELF making that choice to surrender, to listen and to see as you do. Most of what I observe and experience as I float along the river of your thoughts, is familiar to me. What makes the journey through your thoughts meaningful to me is how you rearrange or reposition what is familiar so that new facets and greater dimension become visible and available for me to experience. Thank you.
As I read the comments of others above and sense into the ironic duality (based on the mirror theme of your essay) still so alive in the comments, I find myself wondering about a couple of unmentioned elements that might help to tie together and integrate all the elements your essay has surfaced so far. The suggested elements are: 1)Death or Death Anxiety as related to the need for belonging and fundamental to the perpetuation of us/them . . . And 2) What in you personally has been dying, surrendering and transforming as this stream of consciousness travels through you?
While I know my suggestions may complicate the topic at first glance, perhaps a few sentences or one additional deeply developed paragraph might balance the call to compassion with the understanding of the tremendous feat the cultivation of compassion will be for most of us who live in unconscious slavery to self-loathing and self-hatred, perpetuated by the all the many elements your essay addresses. Fear of seeing my own self-rejection in the mirror and finding no compassion in my own reflection is primarily what stops me from owning more fully the reflection your essay is holding up for me. How are you navigating this territory yourself? What in you is dying or must die in the name of unlearning?
Thank you for this piece, Charles. I would love for you to explore the praxis (theory + practice) of compassion ie. along the lines of transformative justice. Black liberation movements, the abolition movement and various faith-based social/environmental justice movements practice compassion in the form of circle processes, collective nervous system regulation with somatic practices, prayer, meditation, and rupture/repair processes for addressing the spectrum of harm to abuse. As you say, “Only direct, sensory, multi-dimensional relationship can [meet nihilism and despair]. Ultimately this, and not intellect, is the source of meaning.” Along these lines, I would love to see you explore the the practices of compassion, which includes slowing down, co-regulating in relationship and being with the despair and grief of harm. Check out Mariame Kaba, Mia Mingus, and adrienne maree brown for their writings on the practice of compassion in a systemically racist, sexist and classist society. Blessings to you.
https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/
I would like to go a bit further than Charles’ cautious analysis. Both the DNC and QANON are propaganda and data mining narratives. Trump is every bit as indebted to Rothchild bankers as HRC. Culture wars are a divide and conquer (and confuse) tactic.
Trump was brought in to entertain, just like a circus ringleader, and the whole media is being led by the nose.
The financial controllers (please do not call them elite) decided to deindustrialize the US in the 90′ (see Catherine Austi Fitts) and did so.
The same tactics of colonization; destroy language, culture, family, move people off the land and into the monetary system and enslave them, has been turned onto western cultures.
Now, colonization has gone very intimate. They want to colonize you, and especially the young, mind and body. With ‘smart’ phones and meters, with injectible prophelactics, nano chips, etc.
Its a sick fantasy gone mad, concieved by people who are spiritually sick and disconnected to an extreme degree. They want control, because they have lost trust, faith, and connectin to life. They want to chip and track everything because they have lost their senses; every living thing interacts, communicates, and uses intricately tuned feedback mechanisms. You must be spiritually alive and awake to access these perceptions.
This is an assault on life. Ironic that viruses are nature’s internet; how living beings send and recieve bits of updated info, in order to adapt and evolve. So, we are supposed to fear and erase that?
I encourage folks to read the excellent research of Cory Morningstar at wrongkindofgreen.org, Whitney Webb at unlimitedhangout.con, and Alison McDowell at wrenchinthegears.com. Also argusfest at youtube hosts panels that are enlightening.
We need to educate, fast. Stop argueing, judging, even giving our life giving and nurturing attention to 90% of the nonsense that is produced to manipulate our minds and create false narratives. Time is short. We need to decentrilize and localize, and care for one another.
The election wasn’t close, except that those who jiggered it made it so to keep our attention and belief in that reality. Those machines have 16 security vulnerabilities; they were designed to rig. We have not had a clean election in 20 years. Its the banker’s PR show.
They want to consolidate control, and we can stop it.
The other big con is carbon. They want you to focus on carbon, so you don’t focus on the chemicals in your food, water, air, bodies, and children.
The climate crises is in the immanent pole shift and its getting closer. We have ten years, maybe 20 on the outside, to get resilient and prepare for major changes and much unavoidable loss of life and biodiversity. It happens every 12,000 or so years.
No government policy can stop the climate catastrophe, or a virus, for that matter.
So, lets get together and love, dance, share food and music, and put our hands to the wheel. We have everything we need to make a beautiful life.
I really really appreciate this essay, and feel it does an excellent job of stepping out of our current culture war to name the real problem behind the war itself. It asks the question that must be asked if society is to move forward – what’s the real cause for the delusional thinking so many are engaging in, and how does the other “side” take responsibility for how our own thinking is pushing people to go there?
My biggest lesson in the era of Trump, QAnon, and conspiracy theory is that the world is complex, the fantasies are built around core truths that need to be addressed, and that the real problem is seeing the other side as evil. The truth is that no one is evil, and most of us actually want the same things, and are suffering in the same ways.
I also very much appreciate you being willing to name things as they are, and level criticism where criticism is due – which I wasn’t really seeing in your last couple essays. As you said, anger and boundaries don’t need to be abandoned in order to have compassion and step out of antagonistic, black and white thinking.
There is just one blind spot that I’m still seeing in your work here, Charles, and that is your stance toward science. You are correct that our institutions have failed us and that the people have lost faith in them for a good reason. But I think you err in equating “science” with these institutions.
I am a shamanic practitioner with a deep belief in, and rich relationship with, the invisible world. And I have never seen, nor felt, a contradiction between that and “science”, because I have a science background and understand it.
Thinking that science tells people what’s real and what isn’t, and that anything they haven’t proven to be real isn’t real, doesn’t understand science. In fact, that viewpoint honestly feels like a projection onto science, probably because of scientific figures in a person’s life having that “shutting down” effect. But it isn’t science, because real scientists understand that science can only prove the existence of something, it can’t DISPROVE anything. The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.
My shamanic teacher also has a science background (a chemistry major), and she similarly doesn’t see any conflict between science and shamanism. She draws upon science as a tool that is useful for certain things, just like shamanism is a useful tool for other things. They aren’t actually in opposition, regardless of how many flawed human scientists out there might act arrogant and denounce the invisible world out of their own ignorance and beliefs.
It’s true that modern medicine is problematic and has been co-opted to serve the interest of profit. And scientific research institutions as well have been similarly co-opted to a certain degree (as has everything in our capitalistic society). But that isn’t “science”, and real scientific inquiry has always been a force for positive social change throughout history, challenging the status quo with data and evidence. (The status quo almost never likes that). Climate change is a great example – researchers are at the forefront of those warning that we must change our ways immediately, for the sake of humanity. That is science done right, true to the scientific method.
Very important topic, thanks.
For a great read on this subject, find Paul Levy’s book, “Dispelling Wetiko.” All about looking in the mirror.
Thank-you Charles for your continuing bravery to put yourself out there. I always look forward to your writing and interviews, and treasure the insights and support. Your compassion, your unique persistence at naming the story of separation, are so valuable.
Charles, “From QAnon’s Dark Mirror, Hope” is excellent; period. Intellectually incoherent bilge, your analysis is not.
It is reasoned, logical, nuanced, and thoroughly covers an extremely complex, emotional topic. I can see why you struggled with it, and are so in the Forrest of it, that there are no trees.
You are one of the finer writers I’ve found; thank you, generously.
I have one more comment actually, after further reflection. I understand that to make your larger point (which I agree with), you must necessarily criticize both sides for how they are demonizing the other side and thus engaging in the same us-versus-them, good-versus-evil way of thinking that is the real problem underneath it all.
And that criticism is fair. Yet, when I feel into it and reflect on my own experience, I haven’t actually experienced the same level of hatred from both sides. What I feel from my progressive friends who are deeply critical of Trump and today’s conspiracy thinking, and in myself when I go inward, isn’t so much hatred as it is anger. Yes, I have seen some hatred coming from the left toward Trump, and meanness against Trump supporters, and that’s something to guard against.
But most criticisms people have against him are fair, based on what he’s actually DOING, not on who he is. And most criticisms of Trump supporters that I’ve heard are fair – things like a blind allegiance to their chosen leader, an almost cult-like belief in anything he says in the face of all evidence, and indulging in racism and projection instead of being willing to see their own racism.
I get that that isn’t the whole picture of who those people are and why they believe the things they do, and you bring up very important points about those things that we all need to consider. But them being human, vulnerable, suffering in the same way we all are and wanting the same things we all do, doesn’t magically negate the other problematic aspects of their behavior and belief system. (As I’m sure you are aware).
So I appreciate your distinction between anger and hatred, but I also think that in some ways you are conflating the two. Yes, conservatives aren’t just full of hatred toward the left, but are also very angry toward the left. But I find it hard to add “for legitimate reasons”, because really, what reasons do they have to be angry? They are angry because they have leaned to blame the left for all of their problems – for the decline of the middle class, for the struggles they face in their own lives – but “the left” is not to blame for that any more than “the right” is. (And one can very easily argue that the Republican party has advanced the corporate agenda even better than the Dems, though both have done so for sure).
Conservatives blame “the left” for not being able to say what they want anymore (ie racist, misogynistic, homophobic jokes) but is that really a legitimate thing to be angry about? They are angry at “the left” for wanting to take away their guns, but in reality Democrats only want to ban certain types of firearms and institute things like registration. In general the things they angry at “the left” for aren’t things they actually doing. It’s all a story. And the fair criticisms you bring up (about the Democratic Party moving society toward a totalitarian corporatocracy) can absolutely be said about the Republican Party too.
So I understand why you’re creating a perceived equivalency between both sides, but I also don’t think it’s entirely accurate. And I find it absolutely hilarious (and very telling) how the people who are accusing you of false equivalency are the ones unwilling to step out their hatred toward “the left”, and accept even a hint of criticism toward their chosen leader. To me, that’s what hatred looks like. Not anger.
More on cults as indicators of deeper distress, from an ex-cultist: https://helenzuman.com/how-cults-like-weeds-can-help-us-heal
Hi Charles,
I have long held respect for your work and your thoughts, and your longing to unify the fields. And… I am finding that with a few of my other teachers these days, I am doing deep work of holding them in a field of compassion, and not “cancelling” them, but wish I could sit down, and have a deeper conversation.
One issue I will take with you, (as I have recently taken with another dear teacher), is where you speak to African Americans raising each other up. This thought, this idea of “tough love” and “not playing the victim”, shouldn’t even be breathed by you or me. I say this with full awareness that from your perception I might be seen as censoring your free speech. I said “shouldn’t”, not “can’t”, or “aren’t allowed”. What I mean is, the full reality of the history, and current reality of what is is like to be black in America has not been named, nor remotely imagined, by the dominant culture, nor is it being named or remotely imagined, by many (a terrifying number, in fact) in the world of nondual consciousness. I don’t see systemic racism itself as part of a culture war, but as a sheer historical reality. Certainly, the white neoliberal likes to create a dramatic decoy from their own complicity – which is a massive problem, but I’m talking about especially those of us in the wellness or nondual world who think we can avoid naming it altogether (or just see it as a “side”).
What I have noticed increasingly in my world, as a regenerative agriculturalist, and as someone who wants to breathe in the soil and life around me, is a pretty major unwillingness to bear witness, and outright name, systemic racism. We are showing our impatience … a genuine longing for wholeness, but are unwilling to get in to do the heavy-lifting of the truth and reconciliation it will require to get there.
You are a story man. And stories are what we need. But not just a new/ancient narrative of unity, but a confession of the evils caused by the story of separation. Not so much good vs evil, as an admission of wrongs done.
I come from Canada. We still have a very long way to go with the work of truth telling and reconciliation. But in your country, you have yet to do really any of that heavy lifting. Over the span of the 10 years that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission gathered once a year, where we as church people/European immigrants, attended, in order to listen with compunction, to the stories of abuse, rape, and genocide. Out of that, there gradually began to be a collective snowball effect of how many people became aware of residential schools, of the ’60’s and ’90’s scoop, of incarceration, and the assimilation, and attempted genocide of the culture and the people. We still have a long way to go here, but more and more people have begun to really listen. The forgiveness that took place, as a result of being heard, was palpable, and I will forever marvel at bearing witness to it. There is still much work to do with policy, and outdated legislation that is … deeply systemically racist… but I think there is a growing critical mass of understanding and change, that would not be present today, if it weren’t for the work of truth and reconciliation.
I am saddened truly, that we in the culture that is schooled in nonduality, or “integral theory” are afraid to say that something is so, as though saying it, is dualistic. It is not.
I know your essay is about the phenomenon of Qanon, but I wonder if all of these mutations are the result of dominant America, continuing to work out its own neurosis, anywhere but within. That is probably what you’re getting at. But that neurosis won’t go away until deep self-examination and truth telling occurs. Including and beginning with, the area in yourself that is feeling decentered right now. And… to name white supremacy is not the same as denouncing a conspiracy. It is getting to the heart of the matter.
Maybe we can’t control the narratives within conspiracy, but perhaps we can live in a way that offers an answer, to the reason they mutate in the first place: Because the real stories weren’t told. This is why people at the margins will continue to bring down the statues… because no one was willing to tell the truth about assimilation, or about the slave labour, or the mutation of the lie of white supremacy. I think our answers are in rich storytelling, rooted yes, in compassion… but all real compassion is willing to hold privilege to its flame.
I see myself as doing the work of confessional ancestral recovery. I am a daughter of colonization, and reaching farther back, a colonized daughter. I am also currently a daughter of capitalism, and I have to find ways to both name the systemic racism within my own government’s policies, AND see that the whole lot of us, including those still oppressed by policy, use far-off slave labour for cheap goods. One does not erase the other, however.
I think Cornel West has said it well lately: “What we got to vote for was the mediocre, milquetoast neoliberal centrist because he’s better than fascism, and a fascist catastrophe is worse than a neoliberal disaster,” West said of his decision to vote for Biden in the election. “Now, we’ve just got to come to terms with the neoliberal disaster.”
Anyway, I really do wish we could have a conversation in person. I am deeply concerned that many of my favourite people are going to “choose their hill”, with a very intact blind spot. (Joel Salatin is one of my favourite farmers… but as an Elder and as a privileged white man, why doesn’t he just stay home on his successful farm, and whenever someone like Joe Rogan or another person with a powerful platform, calls for an interview, he could point to Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm and say “did you know that fastest growing demographic of young people interested in farming in America, are people of colour? You gotta know about Leah Penniman! She’s doing amazing work… not only in soil regeneration, but land reparations!!! It’s incredible!” And then he could hang up, put his arm around Teresa, and sit back and enjoy the sunset while the great work continues and perpetuates. But instead… I think he’s in grave danger of choosing the wrong hill, by thinking that the pressure for him to pass the mic, is him being cancelled.) We in this alternative world are the first ones to preach about Elderhood, but when the time comes, will we know how to be Elders?
Charles… I totally appreciate so much about the work you have done. Your willingness to not just look at what is in front of you, is why you’ve been able to see the complexity of the climate crisis. It is why you’ve been able to see economics in the way that you do, too. But I will ask… what is required of humanity to surrender into the whole? Certainly for starters… naming the reality that white supremacy is insidiously interwoven in and through our way of thinking. The whole will never come to pass without that truth. The unity we’re looking for will not transpire unless we summon confession first, and are willing to spot the difference between being cancelled or unvoiced, and being decentered (read: made equal). In other words, maybe there is a pride in our “alternative” world that needs to be examined, and truly seen, and confessed, or we’re running a high risk of telling a story that won’t contribute to the gathering harmony we all long to join in with. That harmony is going to require a considerable amount of kenosis from the most comfortable, and I dearly hope some of us won’t waste our time misinterpreting it. The problem with comfort is that when it is asked to empty, it interprets that as persecution.
There is a philosophy from Medieval Christian mysticism that says of the Divine presence: “whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”, and I might add my own metaphysical theory… that the roots of decentering, come from an intuition for equity at the deepest, most spiritual level.
Alana
Thank you Alana for this response. I have been watching this thread for more about systemic racism, truth and reconciliation, land reparation, genocide of people who lived in this continent first, and colonization to name some of what I’m curious about. I suspect that so much of what is happening in the world has to do with the history that we are all part of now.
I’m interested in “confessional ancestral recovery” If you can please provide more information about this, I will be greatly appreciative. This sounds like something that might be helpful. I looked on line and didn’t find anything useful.
Thank you~
Warm regards.
To Magus from New Zealand:
I am about as “extreme left” as it is possible to be (when I took the Political Compass test I was in the extreme bottom left corner), and I do not demonize Trump or consider him to be the embodiment of evil. I think he’s a wounded person who has done some harmful things to our society. I criticize the Democratic party almost as much as I criticize the Republicans. And most progressives I know think as I do.
That statement, combined with your anti-Marxist rhetoric (somehow equating Marxism with globalism?) seems to perfectly illustrate just how easy it is to fall into the black and white, good versus evil type of thinking Charles talks about – while believing that one is above it, safe in the land of rational and impartial political analysis.
And as an aside, how (as a former lawyer) do you not find it fishy that none of the “mountains of evidence” that there is claimed to be for voter fraud has actually been presented as evidence in court? Maybe because there are legal consequences to lying to a judge, and none to lying in a YouTube video? How do you explain this, other than the fact that you want to believe it?
Thank you again for the clarity, and thank you for the difficult work that this took
I enjoyed this read and to me it echoes the tragedy of the failing of the non align movement after the second world war, due to the aggressive tug of war between the left and right. What a different world we could have now had people seen the kind of sense you outline here. I think it is hopeful and probably too undramatic for some but I feel that you have nailed it. The black Pill is reminiscent of the sentiments of Paulo Freire on neoliberal fatalism. We have become what he feared because of our refusal to look at the conditions that breed inequality and our failure to consult with those who experience the effects of it.
Charles, in your essay you write: “The relevant question here is not who has suffered more, who is the biggest victim, who is the most oppressed and therefore the most deserving of compassion. The question is rather, What are the conditions that gave rise to Trumpism, and how do we change those? We must ask this question, unless our strategy is to be endless war against those we deem irremediably evil.”
Yes, the better question is what are the complex conditions in so many contexts—economic, health, educational, familial, and so on—that have given rise not just to Trumpism, but to the suffering and loss of dignity spreading everywhere. Seeing (if only some of) the transcontextual interrelationships within living systems can unleash compassion. Perception is an action and antidote to good and evil narratives. When we see the poop on the sidewalk, we automatically act to avoid it.
I suggest that the question: “How do we change the conditions?” is not helpful because it falls into the trap of thinking individuals, institutions, strategies or policies can change culture. That’s the prevailing mechanical, reductionist, fragmented, problem-solving narrative that has created the mess we’re in. It’s more likely that culture change precedes policy change. And the kind of culture change you and many others hope for can only arise within living systems when people, in communities, are able to reclaim their dignity and vitality. It’s an organic process within the system. External direct interventions from (ostensibly) well-meaning experts are part of the problem, the ecology of us and them.
The question for me is whether the light side (as expressed so eloquently by you and others) can catch up with the dark side—those who are using (misusing?) complexity theory to generate fear, division, borders and a fortress mentality. It is clear, especially to the dark side (I won’t name names) that the writing is on the wall—that economic, climate and environmental collapse are inevitable, and that a large portion of humanity will die out. Therefore, the logical thing to do is create a sanctuary for canny survivors. They may be right. But my question is, even if this were possible, who would want to live in such a world? I’m going to continue working for the light side. Of course, there are no binaries in nature, but our social world has binaryitis! Bucky Fuller’s prescient observation comes to mind: ultimately, there are no winners and losers; we either all win or or all lose.
1:
Thank you Magus for your thoughtful, incisive, thought-provoking, complex, and eloquent post. I don’t agree with every last point you make, but you’ve obviously given this topic a lot more serious and penetrating thought than Eisenstein ever did.
2:
Thank you Kaposvari Mark for being able to see more than one side. I do not expect everyone to agree with me but I do expect people to see the irony in patronizingly “diagnosing” someone else’s supposed character defects while being utterly oblivious to their own. New Agers are generally not as enlightened and wise as they think they are.
I too used to be a fan of Eisenstein’s (which is why I’ve read so much of his work) however I have become totally disillusioned with him in recent years, since it’s obvious that he simply WILL NOT ADMIT that he is ever wrong about anything, or ever truly practice what he preaches. Just because he isn’t engaged in cancel culture and talks a good talk about reaching across the aisle doesn’t mean he’s building any true and sturdy bridge between sides. Magus did a good job explaining precisely why Eisenstein’s piece is “disappointing” and analytically unsatisfactory.
(And I am not even a conservative except in the same sense somebody like Allan Bloom was: Bloom even denied being a conservative but was labelled as one – and as a hateful bigoted reactionary – despite being a gay Jew from a working class background – because he refused to go along with the radical Left’s plan to reshape the academy by booting out the classics – the dreaded Dead White Males – and filling the syllabus with shrill, didactic leftist propaganda instead. If Eisenstein really wants to know why we now live in a world of cancel culture and leftist hysteria and leading leftists openly fantasizing about sending MAGA voters to re-education camps, why everyone must now pledge allegiance to Antifa and BLM – both terrorist organizations – or face the wrath of the mob – he should take a good look at what the sixties really wrought – what Allan Bloom was entirely right to condemn.)
In another piece where Eisenstein thinks he’s being so compassionate, and reaching across the aisle, entitled “A Little Heartbreak,” we are treated to this little gem,
“The events in Yemen, Guatemala, and Cameroon are in some sense theoretical, impacting me mostly via stories. I have not witnessed those events. Instead, I am shown a little boy, hurt and shamed by the people he is biologically inclined to trust the most. Through him, I can feel a whole world of hurt because all of these phenomena are part of each other. Alienated, traumatized, damaged little boys grow up to be the kind of men who launch drone campaigns and genocide. A world where small children experience a violation of their sovereignty is inevitably a world where the rainforests, whales, soil, and water suffer a similar violation.
I saw that boy, his tenderness and openness, his perplexity at the seemingly random violence from those he loves, his valiant attempt to understand why he is not trusted and why playtime is so short. So small he was, doing his best to make sense of a wrongness far beyond his ken. I peered into his future of classrooms and doctor’s offices, ADHD prescriptions and anxiety meds, addiction, and self-blame. What will he become when his dismay and perplexity turns to depression? When his depression turns to rage? When his rage turns to entitlement?
Maybe someday he will become a perpetrator in his own right. Maybe he will be like Brett Kavanaugh, a drunken frat boy shoving his penis in women’s faces.”
Do you see what Eisenstein did there? He offered a plea to be “compassionate” to the likes of Bret Kavanaugh (forgive them Father they know not what they do) while failing to realize that there’s no evidence Kavanaugh even is the sexual assaulter he was accused of being by Christine Blasey Ford. Zero. None. Didn’t Eisenstein ever bother to familiarize himself with the report issued by Investigative Counsel Rachel Mitchell showing how weak and flimsy the case against Kavanaugh was?
Here it is:
https://www.jimhopper.com/pdf/mitchell_memo_highlighted.pdf
I quote:
“In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A “he said, she said” case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that. Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.”
And she goes on to painstakingly show what a house of cards the whole sham show trial was (once again demonstrating the sheer odiousness and downright stalinist nature of the modern Democratic Party, and of fanatical radical feminists and leftists in general, for whom the end always justifies the means).
The facts are these: there never was any evidence that Kavanaugh had ever met Blasey Ford let alone sexually assaulted her 30 years prior. The Dems and the media callously exploited an obviously disturbed, troubled, mentally ill woman and demonized an innocent man solely with the intention of blocking his nomination to the Supreme Court.
Yet Eisenstein gullibly swallows their bullshit narrative hook line and sinker! And thinks he’s being so very kind and compassionate in yet another treacly “let’s reach across the aisle and sing kumbaya together” thinkpiece! What he actually ended up doing was libel and defame Kavanaugh yet again.
Yes I am too! For me it’s about perspective and compassion. As Charles writes ” Compassion is the understanding of another beings inner and outer condition” We don’t need to agree just understand.
In an Australian Aboriginal Dreaming story of Baiame, an ancient spirit, he says ” There is much we do not know about. But why at this moment in time, do we find a restlessness within us and the need to know these answers? What has happened to us, that after all these eons we now find the need to question things? But this I do know…..this unexplainable restlessness within us makes us want to seek knowledge and experience new things. We have found that we are lacking the strength of knowledge among ourselves, thus we must seek these things from outside sources.”
Great story about the Tao as well, the people from millennia ago also sort this knowledge.
I see this parallel today in the very dialogue happening on this thread and am given to hope that we can overcome ourselves and seek to create a world where we are not pawns in the game of the technocratic corpocracy.
Great work people!!
Great
Absolutely!
Chris, once you start the trafficking in ad-hominem debate points, you lose all credibility and integrity.
Except that’s not what I’ve done. I suggest you brush up on your logical fallacies 101 list. And I suggest you pay more attention to the passive aggressive attacks on me instead of wallowing in convenient double standards to make yourself feel better.
I notice you still, like the others, don’t have any real defence of Eisenstein’s treatment of the Kavanaugh case or QAnon, since he very plainly got both wrong.
Ad hominem (AH):”…New Ager Eisenstein…”
AH: “…psychopathic freaks of Antifa and the lying, racist Stalinist power hungry zealots of Black Lives Matter…”
AH: “…Yes, and in that sense you’re an all too typical New Ager…”
AH: “Other Chris mate, you are acting like a twat yourself. Idiot.”
AH: “… but what you generally are is PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE and PATRONIZING…”
AH: “…despite being a gay Jew from a working class background …”
Well I liked it. And I also like reading the criticisms. Keeps me on my toes. Thank you CE and thank you critics.
I find little to argue with in this heart-felt analysis of the psychic cesspool we are immersed in. The main point I make is that the substantial difference between QAnon and Black Lives Matter is that, while both are responses to conspiracies of a sort, one is a response to real, historical and ongoing injustice while the other is some sort of recently engineered flim-flam with no basis in reality, whatever common psychological processes it takes advantage of.
As an old nihilist of sorts, I have recently found myself turning back towards cynicism. The simplest explanation of all that we are seeing, and thus the most likely to be even vaguely truthful, is that the human mind is seriously flawed. We think we’re so wonderful but, in practice, there’s a backdoor into our psyche that is relatively easy for the unscrupulous to access. Hence, all this conspiracy idiocy and hierarchical manipulation of our better selves. We’re not all the same whatever innocent hopes so many of us have (perhaps a propagandistic ploy in itself) and it is pointless to pretend so. The questions are, do you want to play the game? Do you want to win if you play? Or should you surrender to the flow and leave the game playing to others?
Further, I’ll add, noting the obvious, that telling something approaching the truth on psychological issues of derangement is unlikely to make you friends with either of those sides who feast on the psychosis and rather than letting sleeping dogs lie prefer to poke them with sticks. Politics are not the solution; they’re the symptom of underlying dysfunction.
https://www.priorunity.org/excerpt-no-enemies
Worthy of your consideration, the essay “No Enemies”, by Adi Da from the book Prior Unity.
Thank you for a message of hope in the darkness. The negative comments above are a sad reflection of how deeply nihilistic some minds have become in this Age of Despair.
‘Those who tell the stories rule society.’ – Plato
Thank you for this Charles. There are parallels here to another article that like yours I found electrifying, both for its argument and turn of phrase:
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/the-prophet-of-the-revolt
In their separate ways – the other article hinges on the role of communication technology – these arguments seem to encapsulate perhaps most fundamentally the political challenge we face right now, which is one of communication towards common purpose (and the other by a former CIA operative, no less!). The inherited narratives have been revealed to be false, yet our elites today cling to them ever more tenaciously and fearfully, insisting on them with ever greater violence, lest their flimsy premise to authority be questioned. It has already crumbled, and the results are everywhere for us to see, in the confusion that reigns in the political sphere.
On a tangential but related note, the film adaptation of Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital In The 21st Century’ makes for complementary viewing. This too I would commend to curious readers, as arguably it ties in directly with this thread, addressing the economic dimension of dispossession in society. Moreover, it is a clever and effective piece of entertainment and agitprop. Notions of privilege have a narrative power. These it appears are breaking down. The privileged have historically been called upon to dismantle their own privilege, or to have it forcibly dismantled for them.
Not sure whether all the comments from ‘Chris’ are by the same person, but if so, methinks he doth protest too much! Thanks again for your courageous insights.
Thank you Charles for this text. I was going to comment on points in your text and got distracted by the attacks and name calling in one of the person’s comments. My question is now how in this specific case, Charles will you or can you engage in a dialogue with a person who attacks you personally and goes as far as questioning your intellectual commitment and authenticity ( “a lot more serious and penetrating thought than Eisenstein ever did”). Is this anger or is this hate? This is a great case study of what you’re describing and that we see being played constantly on social media. Should I begin to imagine the circumstances that led this person feel such anger towards you and confuse disagreement with personal attacks?
Much love to you all. x
G’Day Charles! Whew!!!! Thank You for taking the time to allow these insights to flow through your conduit and then publish them! As a Zen Peacemaker, Beloved Earthling, Practitioner within the White Plum Assangas and Plum Village Sangha, I approach all things with ‘not-knowing mind’. Bearing Witness to your insights is truly profound and poignant. If I had time I would respond to each of your paragraphs in kind. For now, I offer gratitude to you and all of those who cultivate the seeds of understanding and compassion. 108 Deep Respectful Bows, Luminous Dana of the Heart/Lumi a.k.a. Lisamarie
Josh, you are uninformed about what an ad hominem argument is or is not. Your statements are incorrect. Please read this:
https://www.quora.com/q/theeducationalblog/Ad-Hominem-A-Fallacy-misunderstood
Although I do find it interesting that when someone calls me a “twat,” it doesn’t even register with you, but when I reply in kind it suddenly becomes a sign that I have lost “all credibility and integrity.” Highly revealing of your own essential hypocrisy and indulgence of blatant double standards.
Perhaps, Chris. Thanks for your infographic.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+an+ad+hominem&oq=what+is+an+ad+hominem&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l6j0i22i30.5380j1j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
ad ho·mi·nem
/ˌad ˈhämənəm/
adjective
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
“vicious ad hominem attacks”
adverb
1.
in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
“these points come from some of our best information sources, who realize they’ll be attacked ad hominem”
2.
in a way that relates to or is associated with a particular person.
“the office was created ad hominem for Fenton”
Definitions from Oxford Languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
I definitely concede Chris, I’ve been using AH in an over-simplistic manner and technically incorrect manner. I appreciate the information.
I wasn’t looking at whoever was responding to you, so I don’t know what they did or did not call you. I was looking at your comments; fair enough on the double standard criticism.
Bottom line-
All Einstein is saying is that each side needs to listen to the other, employ a bit of empathy and understanding of the other and to stop making the other wrong in service of oneself being right/correct.
Pretty simple, straightforward forward, and human. I wish you well in service of that.
…last was for Chris. Sheesh, forgive all my typos, lol.
Wow! I see what you mean after reading some comments about you getting a load of opposition! I don’t think they could have understood your message, as they went tooth and nail into that, “you’re the enemy who’s got it wrong”, mode. Bless ’em! 🙂 Thank you for an insightful piece of writing. I see it mostly as the polarities between serving life, the living, or pursuing money. Money divides. I read in an article in the “Guardian” by someone from a remote tribe in Brazil who’d only recently come into contact with money, and found it only caused strife. They call it, “sad leaves” (in their language), for that reason. Life’s, love’s light’s eternal, time’s an illusion, eternity the only reality, that’s my never failing well! 🙂
Dear Charles, in my view this essay is some of your very best writing yet… It is a profound message that really needs to be broadly shared…
P.S… Someone really needs to be curating these comments… The Chris fellow above is clearly a troll, and every reply to him only motivates him further…
Ok, thanks Chris for recommending the articles and then spelling them out for me just in case I missed the important points. Thanks for spelling my name right the first time at least. Are you an Afrikaner? I’m intrigued by the passion with which you speak about the Mandelas and struggle. Were you there? Did you read the comments of another white Afrikaner after Dapschev’s article? Jo Stolp wrote:
‘After Mme Winnie’s death, there has been a lot of revisiting the past, and what been reasonable.I have been wondering how far I’d go to keep my children safe. No matter how I look at it, the answer is ‘to death. Mine or someone else’s.’ I think Ntate Mandela and Mama Winnie sacrificed their lives, their children, their private selves (certainly, their marriage) for the people of South Africa.’ That’s an honest perspective at least.
It’s just too simple to take any one version of events unless it’s based on actual first hand experience – just because someone claims to be a researcher doesn’t mean they’re any good at it. It doesn’t mean that research is not subject to personal opinion and assumptions. I will talk to an old friend of mine who was a reporter for the UK Channel 4 news during the whole time of that struggle. See what she has to say.
Like some others have expressed here, I appreciate Charles’ words because he so often articulates the thoughts, intuitions, and insights that I have generated within myself, from the evidences around me. I believe it takes a great deal of courage to say some of the things Charles has said here, from so visible a patch of ground as he stands upon these days. I thank you for that courage, Charles, because you give voice to something in me that hasn’t got your ability to language it.
Thought some of the rudeness is jarring to me, I thank the dissenting voices here, too. They provide life to this exchange of ideas. If there were only harmonic agreement here, the forum would be exactly the lifeless thing we hope to avoid in our larger, social forum.
What Charles said about the 3D, living experience of the world being the real source of truth we can build upon, is my main takeaway from this essay. It’s the hope I see in all this. Ideas are useful, and I like the world of ideas, but you can lose yourself, your people, your life, in their maze without ever finding the truth. Experience is all we have, in the end. The meanings we make of experience can change over time, but the raw, direct experience simply is. The ideological warfare going on right now is just so exhausting. It’s a relief to be reminded that what is real is this lived experience of breathing, eating, sleeping, working, playing, being…whether pleasant or unpleasant in any given passage of time. That is something I can cope with. One foot in front of the other.
The essay was very perceptive and thought provoking, and obviously generates strong responses from readers of each polarity.
What if the Left is half right and the Right is half wrong?
I believe these political and cultural forces are manifesting the inescapable fundamental
principles of polarity (Yin and Yang) found throughout the universe. The pendulum may always swing, but we can moderate it with cooperation, empathy and wisdom avoiding the destructive extremes of blind polarized conflict.
Perhaps an answer may be a “Middle Way” (or third party?) which selectively embodies
the truths and valid points of BOTH sides (Democrat/Republican,Liberal/Conservative, Left/Right), while rejecting the selfish, false and imbalanced distortions of each.
If we look for the good and true on each side (and it is surely there) we will find it, and perhaps can create a healthy path forward that the majority could agree upon.
The “Middle Way” will not be a third party but rather well designed and facilitated deliberative citizen forums (the increasingly popular Citizens Assemblies are good prototypes) in which diverse (not “both sides”) people are helped to hear each other and to collectively reflect on diverse information and perspectives and to come to a level of shared understanding. The capacity to achieve this is related to the quality of the process, the design, and the facilitation, but even mediocre processes, designs and facilitation often demonstrate the power of this approach and the uplifted energy of citizens who participate who’ve never experienced anything like this. Our diversity in such forums becomes a resource (for greater understanding and possibility) instead of a problem. Instead of part-ies, we need whole-ies (holies?) where the context promotes mutual learning, shared understanding, and collective co-creativity. I sense the possibility of a true We the People in that approach….
I appreciate Charles Eisenstein’s work, and I found this essay disappointing, partly uninformed and outright biased. It’s the underlying perception of someone who happens to like Trump which goes through the whole piece which bothers me the most. It looks like intellectual brilliance, but it has a taste of utter arrogance. As a German, I’ve been watching the rise of the political party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) and the reception of its voters by the mainstream media and political establishment. It’s very similar to how Trump supporters are being treated: as somehow misguided individuals, seduced by populism, who are in need of empathy and direction from those who are on the right side of life. As if great critical thinkers like Scott Adams and Ben Shapiro or libertarians like Dave Rubin and Tim Pool with Millions of social media followers wouldn’t have voted for the very man the enlightened liberal loves to see as orange Hitler. Second, the whole framing of Trump. Charles opens:
“It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on.”
This introduction makes me wonder if Charles’ essay is an actual attempt to understand and reconcile or just a well-worded piece of high level virtue signaling. I honestly don’t know. Starting to portray Trump with two of the most toxic, most debunked myths of his presidency – the children in cages and the fueling of racism (as in the “fine people” of Charlottesville or the “all Mexicans are rapists” hoaxes) – as if there wasn’t any doubt of these to be facts, could as well derive from the same partisan program CNN is feeding a Trump-hating audience on an hourly basis. It left me with an awkward taste for the remaining read. (Ironically, today there’s news of a high-profile democrat member of congress being compromised by a Chinese spy, which makes Trump “needlessly provoked Russia and China” an almost naive statement) There’s more, like “the context of Trumpian neofascism and persistent systemic racism” as if both were unquestionable facts outside the world of a left-leaning person. “And so on.”
Coming from these premises – Trump bad and his QAnons delusional – I just don’t buy the self-critical “black mirror” perspective. I can’t really see that Charles would include himself and those who refuse Trump when he is talking about the blind spots on both sides. The same applies to describing QAnon as basically driven by myths. What about the myths of the left? Did you watch Michael Moore’s latest production “Planet of the Humans”? What happens when the core myth of Q – Trump’s presidency being a sting operation against the Deep State – turns out to be real? Is this even a possibility? If not, why not? Most of the people who voted for Biden think right now that there’s zero proof for a widespread election fraud by the democratic party. They are sure it’s a myth, like Antifa. What if this turns out to be wrong? How would that change their perception of the people they trusted and voted for? How would that change their perception of Trump, of QAnon? I don’t know about you, but my mind has been blown several times in 2020 by many things. This essay wasn’t one of them.
Dear Charles, I have been trying to make sense of what is happening in the US from Europe and your words resonate immensely. So many parallels to what could happen here and important pointers for how to avoid it. You are right that we, as humanity, is at an important cross-road and that we need a radical shift that transcends political and other lines of polarisation. Grateful for your honesty and for not bypassing the underlying truth. Charles, my hero of today. Heart greetings from Amsterdam.
Rachel’s hostility is quite amusing to behold. Rachel, you asked me for a source for my contention, I provided a few sources including an article published in the Left-wing newspaper The Guardian, the sources said exactly what I claimed, that the Mandelas were advocates of the use of terrorism and torture to achieve their goals, and now you get all offended and snarky!
So it appears you didn’t ask in good faith, but were engaged in one upmanship. The quote by Jo Stolp is an irrelevant non-sequitur and does not change the true fact that the Mandelas were undaunted supporters of terrorism and torture (AND necklacing is one of most gruesome forms in existence, AND most of the victims they used it on were black people, not racist whites). Nor does it change the fact that leftists all over academia and the mass media constantly censor this fact or downplay it and deliberately falsify the historical record to romanticize and sentimentalize and sanctify the Mandelas as much as possible. They are dishonest propagandists, not truthful and responsible historians and reporters.
“P.S… Someone really needs to be curating these comments… The Chris fellow above is clearly a troll, and every reply to him only motivates him further…”
Apparently it escaped your attention that numerous other posters, most of whom announce themselves as prior fans of Eisenstein, also found the essay to be a poor one, and have also been very precise about its very real failings. What shame you can’t accept that and now want the negative comments to be “curated” (i.e. censored).
You couldn’t be more of a confirmation of my contention that New Age types tend to be extremely passive aggressive if you tried.
“Wow! I see what you mean after reading some comments about you getting a load of opposition! I don’t think they could have understood your message, as they went tooth and nail into that, “you’re the enemy who’s got it wrong”, mode.“
You mean the same way Charles Eisenstein immediately went into “you got it all wrong” mode when he encountered Stephen Pinker’s work, and felt compelled to write a review dismantling Pinker’s research and arguments?:
https://www.tikkun.org/new-yorkers-pinker-ny-times-nicholas-kristof-wrong-about-things-getting-better-and-safer-1-charles-eisenstein-2-jeremy-lent
So when Saint Charles goes to town trashing someone else’s inadequate research and faulty logic, it is just another sign of his brilliance and integrity, evidently, but when any of us on this thread point out the specific and very real faults of Eisenstein’s own writing, it’s just that we failed to “understand his message” and the failure just MUST lie in us! Stephen Pinker is able to have blind spots but somehow the infallible Saint Charles possesses none. Gotcha.
Jesse, thank you for your contribution. I think you are spot on with your description of eisenstein’s essay: “It looks like intellectual brilliance, but it has a taste of utter arrogance.“
Unfortunately, Eisenstein in my opinion has written scores of pieces in recent years that fit that description. At some point he seems to have abandoned the notion that he needs to research his subjects before writing about them, and now instead just plies his readers with his ungrounded, vaporous “deep thoughts” instead.
Chris –
Have you noticed that your troll-like vitriol has been tolerated here? Would you have the same tolerance were this your website? I highly doubt that you would. Notice how Charles and friends have let you speak your vitriol without deletions. Not that you can find a place of kindness or respect in relation to that. And I’m sorry for that. I really am. You cannot be reached with a message that evokes or invokes compassion, as your toxic load of anger, resentment and bitterness is just too big for that. Isn’t it? Tell the truth? I wonder if you can.
Yes, his load of anger and resentment obviously is too big for him to be reached. And you know it! Everything you said is true, but you make everyone else look like patronizing bullshit artists with your comment. But I get it, it’s hard not to poke someone with a stick who’s clearly come asking for it.
Chris, all the ‘evidence’ in those articles was conjecture. There was not one source that said, ‘Nelson Mandela told me he condoned necklacing I heard him say, right on, Winnie, go out and stick a tyre round that guy’s neck and set him alight.’ It looks like she said it at public gatherings, so we would have to accept that as a fact. And that’s my point. It’s a hot topic right now. What sources do you trust? We all make judgements based on how we ‘feel’ about something, where our natural leanings take us, seldom do we have a piece of information without it being presented through the lens of some background agenda. In fact, there are probably precious few indisputables such as the sun rising in the east etc that we can rely on. Anything that is a ‘he/she said/did…’ judgement on human behaviour is open slather – unless you were there. I mentioned the comment following Desire’s because it showed how we view and JUDGE things very differently depending on all the myriad of experiences that make us who we are- and that is precisely what Charles Eisenstein comes back to when discussing how we can create a peaceful world. You coming into this forum with your views is very brave really. Most of us, I’m sure, would love to understand who you are, what you do, what you think about life, love and the world you live in. But you won’t even give us your full name. People are always getting my name wrong – Derham/Durham which is why I commented on that in my reply. That was small of me I know but I’m very flawed. Mostly, we don’t bite, though a few of us are licking our wounds from your barbs. You are presenting us with an opportunity to get to know you and maybe through a more pleasant dialogue, we can reach a greater understanding about your POV. You might even ‘win’ some people over. I’m a 57 year old mother of 5 sons, gardener and tai chi/qigong teacher. Hello.
James Martin, have you noticed that you are calling for effusive praise and admiration for Eisenstein to be the only acceptable response?
Have you noticed the ludicrous implication of your views, that Eisenstein is being especially generous and kind by not deleting harsh criticisms of his views? Have you noticed the various snide comments directed my way? Have you noticed that most of my posts are direct RESPONSES to challenges and questions directed my way by other posters? Have you noticed that NONE of Eisenstein’s fans and acolytes address the specific complaints levelled by myself and numerous other posters, but instead toss out repeatedly the claim that some people are not enlightened, that they are suffering from the wound of separation, that they are trapped in illusions of separation, that I need to work on myself, that they feel deeply sorry for me, and other passive aggressive ploys to avoid dealing with the specific details of our complaints, such as my correct and factual observation that Eisenstein defamed Brett Kavanaugh in one of his pieces? And my equally correct claim that Eisenstein feels free to criticize and dismantle the writings of other writers when he doesn’t like them?
James Martin, are you so oblivious to your own nature that you don’t recognize what a pile of hostile condescension your post is, and did you fail to read that another poster upthread thought that my charge that New Age “beautiful souls” tend to be full of unconscious passive aggressive and patronizing tendencies was NOT an ad hominem but a valid observation?
“Have you noticed that your troll-like vitriol has been tolerated here? Would you have the same tolerance were this your website? I highly doubt that you would.”
Well that would never happen, because if it were my website, I would quickly respond to a harsh critique that took issue with specific claims I had made, and if it turned out the other person was right, I would concede that they were right and I was wrong. Eisenstein, however, when Daniel Pinchbeck wrote a critical response to Eisenstein’s Coronation essay taking issue with most of it, Eisenstein conceded nothing and denied even holding positions Pinchbeck accused him of holding. He claimed Pinchbeck had misread him. So I went back and reread parts of a couple of his books and it turned out Pinchbeck was right! Eisenstein HAD argued exactly what Pinchbeck had asserted he had, only Eisenstein was now denying it! So either he couldn’t remember what he himself had written, or he was not being honest.
I’m glad you responded to the implication that anyone should be praised for “tolerating” critiques (intelligent and well articulated ones, at that) of their public work. It is truly infuriating that constructive criticism is no longer seen as something to be welcomed, a call to be and do better, a perhaps needed poke in the eye of one’s blind spots… And if none of these, at the very least, an open invitation to correct any misconceptions. Knowing nothing of Mr. Eisenstein outside of what I’ve gleaned from this essay and the ensuing commentary, I would think it against the beliefs he espouses to censor critical comments of his writing. As for the language, well, not to be juvenile, but ‘they started it’. LOL.
Coming across this thread to read your well thought out responses has been a highlight, and I do hope you saw my previous comment. I am desperately concerned about the rising hysteria on the far left, and the MSM, academia and establishment complicity. The near dogma of anti-fact (because who cares about facts and reality when there are feelings! Compassion!) and anti-Enlightenment thought, the increasing ruination of art, culture, and the humanities is frightening.
While I seem to share some of the concerns that Eisenstein clearly articulates regarding where the divisions could lead to, I agree with nearly everything you say regarding our culture. Truthfully, I’m trying to learn more, and I have a ways to catch up. Please share more, although hijacking this thread doesn’t seem to be the right way to do it.
Chris –
Much of what you say is just not true — not factual. I will not list them, but I will provide as one example your first paragraph in your response to me. Can you acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever for your statement in that first paragraph? You’re obviously intelligent enough to know that reasoning on the basis of false premises, presented as facts, results in enormous errors of fact and reasoning.
Other claims you make in your response to me are equally false. See if you can find them.
What you have offered in relation to Eisenstein’s essay is hyperbolic vitriol, not a reasonable and rational critique. You seem to be motivate in your writing by seething and bitter contempt. Even your response to me carries this tone.
I agree with the poster who suggested that you’re behaving like an internet troll. I will not say that you ARE a troll. I will say what you write exhibits some of the characteristics frequently attributed to those creatures known as internet trolls. For this reason, I will not engage with you any further. Rage on, brother. Enjoy it!
1:
Once again, James, you ignore the fact that SEVERAL other posters disagree with you, and have stated they find my posts refreshing, useful, or illuminating. Yes, some have said my tone is too vitriolic and aggressive, they have also, however, said my posts were frequently valid and made legitimate criticisms.
You don’t get to play this game, James. You don’t get to ignore the numerous positive responses my posts have received just because you find my response to be “hyperbolic vitriol, not a reasonable and rational critique.” Why is anyone obligated to accept your view (given that you provide no evidence for your view), rather than, say, Jesse’s view, that I’m “making pretty good, uncomfortable points”? You’re not saying anything of substance.
2:
Stella Sue, thanks for your comments. A good book to read, though it was published a long time ago, is Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, about the corruption of higher education in the universities. Roger Kimball’s The Long March and other works are also good, but Kimball is a lot more right-wing so you have to take some of what he says with a grain of salt. He has a very sarcastic and tendentious tone too. David Horowitz is a conservative former Marxist and red diaper baby who wrote a memoir about his political odyssey. Again, like Kimball he is too far to the right for my taste but he has very chilling stories to tell about the Black Panthers and a woman named Betty Van Patter whose murder he, Horowitz, blames himself for, because he introduced her to the Panthers:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/695
Thomas Sowell is a black conservative who has argued in many places that the Great Society and civil rights era policies and programs have done lasting and significant harm to the black community. Heather Mac Donald, Camille Paglia, and Christina Hoff Sommers are feminists and former feminists who have written eloquently about the corruption of the universities by political correctness and radical left ideologies in the classroom instead of the traditional goal of exposing students as many great writers and thinkers as possible and letting them determine their own political views. Political indoctrination has replaced humanistic study.
Thanks again for your support.
You are literally proving Chris’ points about you with everything you say.
Tolerance – I always thought of this virtue being a hidden power play, because it implies that I’m in the position of rightness, and it can be granted but also quickly retracted.
This said, even though I can see Chris coming across a bit rough to some people here, I thought he’s making pretty good, uncomfortable points.
Also, I found Rachel’s latest comment remarkable and loving. I would add a heart icon if I could.
I loved the comment thread. Because of Chris’ remarks, the comment thread was more interesting than the essay!
Not to generalize but the comments told me a lot about Charles Eisenstein’s fans. It clearly seems a bit cult-like that they feel the need to defend him so fiercely.
I love the New Age hypocritical psychological flip some of you did here. “Chris needs to do the work. Maybe this is the mirror he needs to gaze into.” and the best is, “I still love you unconditionally.” A lot of really patronizing digs at Chris which imply “Oh poor Chris is hurting. HE’S the one with the problem.” I think this is why people like myself and Chris among others, have dumped these “wokeness” communities. You all claim to be more woke than the next guy, more spiritual, on some utopian higher road, but you actually read and sound like you’re all really judgmental!
As for the essay, it’s way too long and only speaks to people that like long, verbose word salads because it makes them feel more analytical and academic. I’m not sure what the purpose was except to say “look within.”
The best part was the King quote. I suggest Charles take some flash essay courses.
Well said Rose. Let’s date.
Hey Rose,
I think your observation that there is a lot of judgement and virtue signaling in “woke” or “spiritual” communities is fairly accurate. However, I would invite you to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Something I have discovered in my own journey into more transpersonal modes of consciousness is that there is often a regression back to earlier, less conscious states. However this is often unrecognized, so people feel they are standing on top of a mountain when they’re really peering out from the swamp, recalling the mere memory of standing on the mountain. So it goes. That doesn’t mean the vantage point from the mountain doesn’t exist, just that it’s ephemeral and no one (myself included) likes to admit they’ve stumbled onto lower ground. I do feel there is much inner work all of us have to do for human consciousness and societies to evolve into something less based on hierarchy and power-over. Clinging to hierarchy is simply outdated at this point: our dominion over nature has been shown to have a time limit.
At least that’s how I see things, but I wouldn’t presume to be any further ahead or better than anyone else in undergoing that transition. Not that I don’t lapse into feeling so at times, but I tend to end up being humbled sooner or later. I find the comments in the vein of “clearly so and so has more work to do, or so and so proves the point of the article” unhelpful. I did enjoy the essay however, but perhaps because it makes me feel more analytical and academic as you said. I certainly hope not, but again, I tend to be humbled, and my inner critic tells me there’s a ring of truth to what you say.
Who here is old enough to remember Iraqi soldiers taking incubators from a Kuwait hospital and letting babies die? Who here is informed enough to know that this story, which helped start the Gulf War, was a complete propaganda hoax?
Google “Nayirah testimony” and “Hill & Knowlton”.
I’m posting this here because we are talking about myths.
I am bemused and not at all surprised by the reaction to Charle’s essay. Another essay by another thinker straddling essential issues. Taking no side while justifying why one shouldn’t take a side isn’t brave, new, or imaginative. It’s safe.
The truth of a situation or event, past or present, is. It just is! The facts should be left to stand in their nakedness. Each person can come to a conclusion based on their hearts, not their brains. Unless one is mentally challenged, incapable, or unwilling, the truth is a feeling more than thinking. Why is there such resistance to feelings?
Theorizing about the rightness of the right or leftness of the left serves no other purpose than to have people take sides. Isn’t this essay about not taking sides? Lofty ideas and messaging proclaiming the realization of a higher self; therefore, a new story is questionable. Global consciousness will be possible when collectively, we stop being so spiritually-grounded that we’re no earthly good.
I liked the essay and thought that it raised useful insights into the modern polarized perspectives emerging in our culture and offered some response in how to deal with this, i.e. compassion for all. Whether the content of what was raised was fully true, I doubt, whether it holds partial truths, I think very much that it does. I found some of the criticisms also useful and challenging to some of the content, holding again some partial truths in their narratives. I think Chris is right in some of the criticisms against him for raising his perspective, but feel that people are showing consideration, concern and love for him, along with some patronizing and condescending views.
I don’t know whether trying to interpret what is happening in our culture currently useful and the sense making approaches appear to be useful at least, but I doubt their efficacy in changing much. As Karl Marx highlighted the point in philosophy is not to interpret the world but to change it. How we change the world is the key as many of the leftist approaches have seriously failed, and there appears no cohesiveness in modern society to create any type of movement. Integral perspectives feel useful in understanding some of the levels of issues faced within society but again offers very little with respect to how to change the world for the better. What it does offer is that everyone has something to offer, all perspectives hold partial truths, what them truths are need to be worked through and held, hopefully offering some sense of synthesis or holding in both/and positions.
I think Charlies is offering some of this approach in his work and this is something to admire and celebrate. Whether sense making through the felt sense of collapse of modern society is some thing that is useful I don’t know. What is on the other side and whether something is emergent from the chaos, lets hope so.
Stay tuned, connected and allow for the differences to be challenging, held with love
You have reasonable insights, but if you want to speak to the entire country I would recommend a more efficient and easily consumable communication style.
Yes to that!
I almost want to share this as it clearly explains much of how I feel, but it seriously could be edited for clarity and would come across as so much less pompous. It’s so damn tedious, it takes too much away from the message.
I think I know why you suddenly have “far right” (or just non-Liberal?) commenters engaging in such frenzied posturing in your comment thread: You wrote an essay that aimed to see two sides of the same coin, but you titled it “From QAnon’s Dark Mirror — Hope.” Much as you tried to remain neutral, you betrayed your own alliance with the BLM side by suggesting that QAnon believers are the ones in the mirror.
No judgment here, just noticing. I think it’s like how you said that white people can’t tell black people (compassionately) to pull up their bootstraps because they don’t understand the black experience. I think you fell into the same trap, in a way. You tried to tell QAnoners to look in the mirror, as if you yourself weren’t their mirror.
Anyway, maybe my observation helps somebody.
Charles, I have followed your work since 2012.
You helped me tremendously at some point, but this article was really the nail in the coffin in terms of me looking to you as a legitimate, relevant voice for these times.
You are completely out of touch with what’s happening, and your article comes off as completely arrogant, patronizing and condescending.
I’m not going to spend the time deconstructing your points, but you are completely out of touch with what’s happening.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your posts.
Just a heads up, the Navarro Report, a 36 page report outlining the scope and scale of the election fraud, has been released. The cumulative evidence is massive and utterly damning of an orchestrated coup and conspiracy, which contra Eisenstein is no myth.
Just follow the link and click on the subsequent highlighted link to get the PDF file:
https://thebingethinker.com/2020/12/the-navarro-report-the-immaculate-deception/
“Ironically, the ideology of QAnon is an exaggerated version of this same basic thoughtform. It says that a group of diabolical people are responsible for the evil in the world, and that if they could be expunged, the world could be healed. In QAnon’s mythology, the locus of evil is the Deep State, an elite cabal interpenetrating government, corporations, banks, and other elite institutions, and the champion of Good is Donald Trump who, with superhuman subtlety, foresight, and skill, wages a 4D chess struggle against them.”
This observation looks downright laughable in light of the mounting and already mountainous evidence of a cabal-directed election coup. This is akin to someone purporting to be an important commentator on Russian politics in 1917 and being completely oblivious and unaware that the Russian Revolution was going on around him. Such an individual, by that fact alone, loses any right to be taken seriously as an important thinker for his time. And has been pointed out by others, QAnon barely factored into most political discussions in conservative circles, whereas the Russian conspiracy hoax was paraded all over the mainstream media and lapped up by tens of millions of anti-Trump voters. Even to frame the issues in this fashion demonstrates Eisenstein’s lack of insight.
Eisenstein offers an utterly false dichotomy between the most extreme conspiracy theorists and naive Trump worshippers, who think everything that happens is directed from above, on the one hand, and his own naive and largely ignorant framing of issues on the other. But that isn’t the only choice. There are also people who never bought into Q yet who still believe in, broadly speaking, a kind of Deep State that engages in collusion and conspiracy to attain its ends. The Navarro Report offers damning and powerful evidence that this collusion exists, and swung the election in favor of Biden. The more modest conspiracy theorists, not the extreme over-the-top David Icke types, have, contra Eisenstein, been thoroughly vindicated, whereas he himself now has egg on his face. Eisenstein would do well to try and purge these sorts of glaring logical fallacies from future essays.
Also, the stuff about addictions and cults applies at least as well to Eisenstein’s own tiresome cult of personality as to Trump. Physician, heal thyself!
TYPO? Looks like a sentence or two were accidentally dropped at the beginning of the Addictions and Cults sections?
Beautifully thoughtful and well observed. Thank you.
A hostile review of the 2001 film Chocolat that is pertinent to Eisenstein’s character and his methods:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/02/3flm-f21.html
“In Chocolat Vianne Rocher (Binoche), the enigmatic candy-maker, intervenes in the lives of a number of townspeople. She helps the wife of a brutal cafe-owner set out on her own. She matches an elderly lady and gentleman. She brings joy to the life of her aging landlady, and reunites the latter with her grandson; the two have been kept apart by the landlady’s uptight daughter. Vianne comes into conflict with the Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina, who is fine), who is mayor and the chief local big shot. The count, whose wife is off in Italy enjoying herself apparently, leads a life of self-deprivation. He is offended by Vianne’s hedonism and her refusal to observe Lent, with its fasting. He urges the nervous young priest to sermonize against her. When a roving band of river gypsies arrives, things go from bad to worse. A crisis erupts, and finally the count too gives way to his sensual side. A new spirit reigns in the town, and Vianne gives up her wandering.
There is at least one line in the film that rings true. After Vianne has brought Armande, the landlady, and her grandson together, the old lady (Judi Dench) fires off: “Stop looking so damned pleased with yourself!” If only Binoche could, for an instant, the film might have half a chance! Not that it’s principally the performer’s fault. Her all-knowing, Cheshire Cat smile is simply the physical expression of the film’s inner being. Everything here blends into one sweet, sticky river of liberal self-satisfaction. Vianne is one’s nightmare of an intrusive social worker or school official, who inevitably knows what’s best for everyone. The ability of the townspeople to figure or fight out anything for themselves is excluded from the start. They are all putty in her hands.
In interviews the film’s creators make much of the fact that Vianne is ‘helped by others as much as she helps them.’ But only because she, in her wise and patronizing manner, has made it possible. She is the demiurge who goes on helping others until they help themselves in self-defense.”
Unfortunately, Charles Eisenstein, in his own “wise and patronizing manner,” has elected to become the real life, male version of Vianne.
Thank you Charles for lending (and leading) your perspective…lets all face it, the validity of “truth” will never be reached in our current state as a collective of information…we are all in a individual dream spell based on beliefs that have been orchestrated from distant locations outside our felt fact of immediate experience…I appreciate your exploration along the edges of these systems, as they are fascinating to observe from the non dual perspective….the organized chaos that is our “civilization” is running out of steam and can no longer manifest new original ideas in the mainstream… Hopefully we can all really find the core fundamental values that overcome our petty differences and start taking care and reconnecting with beautiful Mother Earth….simply slowing down and walking barefoot to “ground” myself has really taken out all the turmoil that rises up in me when I go down the rabbit holes…you’re so spot on in the self recapitulation internal aspect of healing first, then that will organically lead in the external shift….we all can change this thing around very quickly with where we choose to focus our attention/intention….
Thanks to Charles for writing this essay and thanks to Chris and other astute commenters for expanding into the nuances of this discussion.
Charles’ essay contains mostly broad strokes of abstract idealistic thought and rather laborious explanations. While it is relevant and reads like a plea for people to exit this climate of polar warfare, the way it is written, it seems clearly positioned as a piece that is pandering to a left-leaning audience. I feel Charles migrating to and from his own inner anchored truth in order to get people to disentangle themselves a bit from the trance they are in. He uses buzzwords and commonly-thrown-around concepts that have been painted by mematic mainstream consciousness over the reality of things. As a writer myself, I can suppose upon the usefulness of this as a tactic. Perhaps it will help to massage some peoples minds into sense-making? I’m not convinced. I think the times we are living in call for firm, clear voices carrying conviction.
Unlike some other commenters who assume Charles is out of touch, I sense that he does have a deeper clarity about what’s going on than what he’s expressed here. But for whatever reasons, this wasn’t the place where he openly shared that.
In my humble opinion, the time to tell unequivocal truths grows thinner as a lack of civil liberties closes in upon us globally. I understand many people are still in a trance-like confusion of denial. But as writers, it’s not our duty to play to that. If you can see through the veil, say what you see. If you don’t entirely know, ask people who have the facts to weigh in and educate.
I appreciate the educating that came through from the collective here. It’s too bad so many other commenters felt allergic to the counterpoints presented. We’ve got a lot of learning ahead of us – and unlearning, as Charles concludes.
“I think the times we are living in call for firm, clear voices carrying conviction.”
Yes, like this essay for example:
https://tessa.substack.com/p/great-reset-dummies
She writes with a refreshing clarity, passion, urgency, and succinctness. When I read Eisenstein now (I used to be a fan), I can read a whole essay and half an hour later I can’t even remember anything that was said. One of the few things I remember from his recent work is that Covid has gifted us with a reset. Throwing around words like reset, using a lot of feel good nebulous language that is indistinguishable from that employed by the Davos class, isn’t he concerned about unwittingly becoming a pied piper and leading readers astray? Because the reset he wants looks nothing like the technofascist utopia / dystopia envisaged by the architects like Klaus Schwab of the Great Reset.
Luckily, there are countless other writers now writing about the same topics as Eisenstein, but doing a much better job.
Another huge problem: Eisenstein came out enthusiastically for the Greta Thunberg phenomenon. He put out a video showing his support. But journalist Cory Morningstar wrote a book dismantling the whole Greta craze and showing it to be a crafty corporate bait and switch:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51043120-the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg
These are the sort of people we need to be supporting and paying attention to, serious reporters, not self-styled gurus pretending they have the answers when they don’t. Eisenstein’s perpetual gullibility and naïveté, a quality of his that has been noted and criticized by virtually all his critics, does no one any favors.
Well-written, incisive, and seemingly left-wing negative review of Sacred Economics can be found here, the writer makes many persuasive criticisms of Eisenstein’s New Agey approach to addressing social problems:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RUCNBDP70B2DI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004ZZNNKU
I think it was a good essay. It is clear that the polarisation and divide that the people are feeling can only be healed through compassion. I agree. Forgiveness is essential and compassion is the only way. We need to see ourselves as the other, Jesus put it well and easy; you should treat others the way you wish to be treated! I can also add that the universal laws make sure anyway that you will be treated exactly the way you treat others, it is known as KARMA..
Anyway, Thank you Charles for taking the time to try and make sense of what is going on. I support a constructive and mature solution and I think you put it well by saying;
“BENEATH THE CONFLICT IS A HIDDEN UNITY THAT WILL EMERGE WHEN ALL PARTIES HUMBLY TRY TO UNDERSTAND THE OTHER.” C.E 2020
Hi Charles, I like your work and this essay but found myself surprised at the comparison between Qanon supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters (if you have said antifa I would have found it a more apt comparison). You might be surprised to find that the BLM movement is founded on similar principles of compassion that you are talking about and also is imbued with somatic and psychological awareness. You or anyone else can check out this podcast done by a somatics practitioner who was part of BLM with BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-4-creativity-and-leadership-with-patrisse-cullors/id1519965068?i=1000490427287
Sigh. One of the most prolific writers in this comments thread, as articulate as he is with his good punctuation, grammar, spelling and vocabulary…, would apparently know a truly intelligent thought if it sat down for breakfast with him. (He probably knows I’m talking about him. He’s clever, but without actual intelligence.) He almost certainly voted for trump, and believes trump when trump says that the election was a fraud and a hoax. Just wow. It’s a shame that so much talent has to be used against intelligence and truth.
Sigh. One of the most obnoxious and patronizing commentators on the threads, who goes by the name of James Martin, apparently thinks his condescending remarks constitute some sort of coherent argument. For the record: They don’t.
Apparently James thinks he can continue to ignore the existence of NUMEROUS commentators who ALSO found the essay unpersuasive and unsatisfactory.
Apparently James thinks if he just buries his head in the sand the evidence of election fraud detailed in the Navarro Report magically disappears. It doesn’t.
Have you read the report? I don’t believe the evidence was stolen because Trump says so, I believe it because the evidence exists, and it’s exhaustive. But predictably, that evidence is greeted with a wall of silence. Guess how many rebuttals of Navarro’s Report have been written? Zero. Those, like James, who think Biden was legitimately elected base their belief on precisely nothing at all. They don’t reply to the tremendously strong case for election fraud, they simply ignore it. Hence the media blackout.
Hey Chris, it’s great that there are people like you out there. Keep fighting! And thanks for the links about the election fraud. Very illuminating.
Wow … I received my ‘Charles has a new essay’ email on my birthday and have only had time to get to it today (several weeks later) … I’ve read a few of his books (yes, shedding salty water from my eyes and vowing to encourage more to join me in that beautiful new world my heart (actually) always knew was possible)…. I’ve watched/ listened to his talks. I’ve sung his praises far and wide. I’ve even sorta plagiarised his words in my poetry. I am no longer neither here nor there when it comes to politics but I am a truth addict and will devote and devour all things ‘light bulb-esque’ that I can get my biodynamically grubby little mitts on …. Inspiration comes to me in many forms, and reading Charles has provided me with timely inspiration for which I am truly grateful … So … This evening I sat down to mull over Charles’s musings, hot chocolate in hand, ready to pick my cherries from his text. I started reading. My comfort turned to discomfort and then to boredom and then to disdain laced with disbelief. I couldn’t even be bothered reading beyond something he wrote about the demographics of the platforms that host the dissident voices of a certain ‘movement’. And now it’s all just a blur … a discourse I am utterly uninterested in, because it’s based on half baked truths and raw lies … and not a single freakin’ cherry because (apart from its apparent political leanings), it’s sprouting nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing inspiring. What happened Charles? When did you become so … how to say it tactfully … ignorant ? … Is it because I don’t follow a single shred of MSM? Is it because I am a fence leaping black sheep who is attuned to standing alone in my sanity pants? Does my connection to my earth as a van-living foreigner, traipsing around a beautiful country for the past 10 months mirror the dark side of a majority disconnection to ‘the truth’? Does it matter? Nup, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. But I’d wasted my hot chocolate on this little ‘treat’ from Charles, darn it!! … BUT THEN… I did something I NEVER EVER do … I scrolled straight down to the comments section and hit the ‘read comments’ tab … and I started reading. I became immediately riveted thanks to Chris. My hot chocolate wasn’t wasted after all! … I became instantly addicted, like a Macdonalds/cocaine/daytime soap opera/new-age guru/hot-chocolate addict! Backwards and forwards the comments flew! Peace, love and passive aggression from the newby cager lefties V Truth, facts and humorously passionate discourse from the enlightened intelligentsia. Thank you so much to all of the dissenters, you made my foray into Charle’s essay worthy! Perhaps I’m just less tolerant of discussions rooted in trite narratives these days … truth be told, not only did I not finish reading the article, I also scrolled through most of the CE fanmail, hunting for the juicy bits of ‘go you free thinking shag-on-a-rock’ comments while I sipped the last of my now cool hot beverage …
… Hey Charles, hope you’re well and happy … OK, so my last comment (thankfully) wasn’t ‘approved’ (it was poorly written at an hour I should have been asleep), so here is a revised edition. Polished. Perfect in its imperfection.
I received my ‘Charles has a new essay’ email on my birthday at the start of the month and I’ve only had time to get to it today … I’ve read several of your books and shedding salty water from my eyes (blurring the beautifully constructed words on the pages), is a fond memory I’ll keep with me, along with (at the time) vowing to encourage more to join me not only in that beautiful new world my heart always knew was possible, but in the gifting economy I’ve been espousing for well over two decades. I’ve been gripped watching and listening to your talks and interviews for the past few years. I’ve operatically sung your praises far and wide and I truly appreciate your contribution to our earth. That said, I am no longer the left wing political activist I was attached to in my 20’s and I’m neither here nor there when it comes to politics. However, I am a truth addict and will devour all things ‘light bulb-esque’ that I can get my biodynamically grubby little mitts on. Inspiration comes to me in many forms, and indulging in your contributions has provided me with timely inspiration for which I am grateful. So, this evening I sat down to mull over your musings (hot chocolate in hand), ready to pick my cherries from your text. I started reading. My comfort turned to discomfort and then to boredom and then to disdain laced with disbelief. I couldn’t even be bothered reading beyond something you wrote about the demographics of the platforms that host the dissident voices of a certain ‘movement’. And now your essay is all just a blur of discordant words about a discourse I am utterly uninterested in. Why?Perhaps because your theory is based not only on half-baked truths, but on raw lies. As a story teller I like to keep ’em guessing – is it bullshit laced with truth, or truth laced with bullshit?, but, I am a story teller and am utterly entitled to my own artistic license. I’m not an essayist making what ‘should’ be informed and balanced observations and conclusions. So I got bored and stopped reading your thing on dark mirrors and walked away with not a single freakin’ cherry because (apart from its apparent political leanings), your essay is sprouting nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing inspiring. What happened Charles? Why did you choose to (how to say it tactfully?), ignore the overwhelmingly obvious information that juxtaposes the foundations of your essay? Maybe it’s because I don’t follow a single shred of main-stream-media. Perhaps it’s because I’m a fence leaping black sheep who is attuned to standing alone in my sanity pants in this crazy, inverted world? Possibly my connection to my earth (as an Australian van-lifer, traipsing around a beautiful foreign country for the past 10 months) has enabled me to ignore the the dark side of a majority disconnect from a truth that is (actually) in plain sight, under neon lights, with horns blaring? Does any of it matter? No, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. My path is my path and when others in this world choose paths of ignorance, or destruction, or despair, that’s really none of my business, but regardless of feelings, and paths and mirrors and ignorance, the fact remains – I’d wasted my hot chocolate on this little ‘treat’ from you Charles, darn it!! … BUT THEN… I did something I NEVER EVER do … I scrolled straight down past the unread paragraphs of your somewhat trite piece to the comments section and I started reading. I became immediately riveted. It seems my hot chocolate wasn’t wasted after all! As soon as I read Chris’s initial comment I became instantly addicted to the little narrative that had appeared beneath your own narrative, just like I imagine a Macdonalds/ cocaine / daytime soap opera/new-age guru addict would be! Backwards and forwards the comments flew! Peace, love and namaste-you-fool (from the new cage lefties!) V Truth, facts and f*&k-you (from the enlightened intelligentsia). Man V Man. Narrative V Narrative. Feelings V Feelings. Construct V Construct. Tit-for-tat, to-and-fro, backwards-forwards, round-and-round. So Charles, I thank you for your piece (as mundane and poorly referenced as it is), because it not only opened the door for all of the better researched dissenters to step through, but also for me to indulge my darkened mirror desire to be heard by a fractal of the world in that weird microcosm -‘The Comments Section’! Perhaps I’m just less tolerant of discussions rooted in obtuse narratives these days. Perhaps the dark mirror of boredom I felt reading both the essay and the fan-mail-esque commentators who jumped in tooth and passive aggressive nail to defend you was the excitement I felt reading the juicy bits provided by those who (like me) didn’t get off on your essay. Those ‘free thinking shags-on-rocks’ whose comments I devoured while I sipped the last of my now cooled down hot beverage … Thanks to all of you dissenters! Keep on disobeying, our earth desperately needs all of you right now! …and Charles, I don’t want to remain bored by you and your offerings so I will perhaps continue to check in on what you dish up, but it seems your choices to kowtow to a narrative that is based on fraud, lies and dis-information at this point in your trajectory means a parting of our collective etheric company. All the best to all and I very much look forward to a world without mirrors … narcissism’s not really all that cool … looking at yourself is not only boring, it distracts you from the fabulousness of being with your earth…
Charles Kunstler offers some interesting insight into the outcome of the elections and the shape of the coming year:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2021-chinese-fire-drills-with-a-side-of-french-fries-jacobin-style-and-russian-dressing/
I wonder what some of the nay commenters now think after the events of the past week?
Tom,
After the last week, I and the other naysayers have been thoroughly vindicated, all across the board, whereas Eisenstein has so much egg on his face all you can see is yoke.
It would take forever to pore over his essay again showing all of his mistakes, so I’ll keep it brief. First, if you read some of the alternative press takes on the storming of the Capital, by eyewitnesses who were there, they argue convincingly that this has many hallmarks of a typical false flag / black flag operation. In which case, the fault for whatever violence occurred would lie firmly with the lying, treasonous swamp and not with Trump (though Trump can be faulted for failing to drain the swamp as he promised). Again, it may or may not be a black flag, but the mainstream media’s refusal to even consider any of the evidence gathered, like its refusal to consider the very, very substantial evidence for election fraud, is inexcusable and proves them to be ruling class propaganda and not news.
Secondly, whether it was a black flag or not, the only real violence was some minor vandalism apart from one of the MAGA protesters, Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by a cop. So the homicidal violence went the other way. The violence wasn’t even in the same ball park as the massive, year long violence perpetrated by ANTIFA and BLM which consisted of incessant arson and vandalism, the destruction of countless businesses, and at least around two dozen deaths so far. These violent organizations receive Democrat funding and publicly expressed support from almost all the same politicians and institutions that rabidly, insanely condemned the Congress vandals as insurrectionists and terrorists. Thus, these vipers stand exposed as double standard promoting liars and hypocrites.
Further, they falsely claimed Trump called on the protesters to invade, when in fact he urged non-violent protest both in his main speech and in his speech afterwards and in tweets after the event (“go home, be safe, go peacefully”). Twitter then took down his tweets and banned him and lied about him promoting violence, when in fact the screenshots show he did not encourage violence in the deleted tweets at all! Twitter falsely promoted the implication that Trump had called for violence and that’s why they had to ban him and delete the offending message. But that’s not what’s in the tweets, and they’re lying.
Further, there was a massive turnout, probably close to a million protesters that day, out of which a few hundred hoodlums at most (possibly led by ANTIFA false flaggers) stormed Congress. The rest – the vast majority present – did not break the law or engage in violence or vandalism that day. Far from confirming the MSMs hysterical, borderline insane (and pre-scripted, pre-planned) coverage, the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters that day behaves civilly and honourably, even with possible black flag agitators in their midst.
Last but not least, Eisenstein constantly in his essay associates fascism with Trump and Trump style populism. This is his biggest blunder, because Trump didn’t introduce any fascist legislation in his entire term in office. But Biden isn’t even formally inaugurated yet, and he (or his controllers, since he seems to have dementia) have already labelled Trump supporters “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists” who must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if they step out of line. They’ve already drafted legislation, that will be approved, redefining protesters (i.e. anyone who questions the election results) as domestic terrorists! Only one week into his presidency and the Biden regime has already done more genuinely, without any exaggeration, “fascistic” things than Trump did in four years!
Trump’s administration was never fascist. But the Biden administration is going to show what American-style fascism looks like.
Eisenstein failed to see the real and obvious fascism right under his nose the whole time. It wasn’t coming from Trump, whatever Trump’s failings as a president.
Black Mirror Wednesday the 6th. Yup. Thanks for the prophetic essay Charles. A piece of the politics of experience fell from the sky and landed on our word picnic here.
Prophetic LOL!!
Eisenstein missed the mark so badly he was firing in the wrong direction. He nattered on so long about “Fascist” Trump he failed to note the obvious signs of fascism coming from the anti-Trumpers in Washington. Biden hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and the Trump hating reporters and politicians have already labelled MAGA protesters “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” One blue checkmark has already called for America to be “cleansed” of MAGA types and another called for them to be arrested and sent to re-education camps. This is obscene – and anyone paying attention to what’s been brewing in leftist institutions for decades could have seen it coming. But Eisenstein couldn’t – because he could only see what was wrong with the right.
Wu-tang forever (for ever_ ever? For _ever_ ever?)
A few thoughts…
1. Charles writes:
“The hunger for the real that gnaws at the Spectacle’s subjects cannot be met from within the Spectacle itself. Online experiences may assuage the nihilism and despair, but they cannot fully meet it. Only direct, sensory, multi-dimensional relationship can. Ultimately this, and not intellect, is the source of meaning.”
Therefore, by trying to do peace work by writing an essay and putting it on the internet, Charles is forever hoist by his own petard. Charles knows this, but still thinks there is value in speaking and writing to that end. I agree (words are weapons – don’t hex yourself).
2. Kudos to Chris and others for shedding some light on the shadows (with caveats – too boring and obvious to close readers to detail here)
3. Doing peace work necessitates taking up a position that those with entrenched positions may characterise as “fence-sitting”. But a close reading of this piece reveals that Charles is not actually on the fence on all issues. For instance he gives credence to the idea that phenomena that have had a “divide and rule” effect have suited/been encouraged by/been intentionally created by governmental forces intent on controlling the masses (with his line “In light of this tacit collusion, one wonders if both are not two arms of the same monster” and the link to the Matt Taibbi piece)
4. Going back to the shadow, a subtle reading reveals that while Charles offers a hand to both sides he has one foot in the world he describes as the “Democratic Party, New York Times, MSNBC, NPR, CNN cult”. I’m from the UK and similar dynamics play out here, with my parents, for instance, broadly being in the “Labour party, Radio 4, Guardian cult”…To be fair, having a foot somewhere, “grounds” the piece and allows it to potentially reach a large audience that is not ready for, or interested in, purely metaphysical/esoteric readings of culture and society that might promote peace. It’s my perception that people that earnestly want peace above all else tend to come from left-leaning backgrounds but obviously not exclusively. Many are misguided, and subtly or not so subtly, promote the things they report to disavow. They are subject to the same left-brain dominant, Rationalist, Materialist dogma that is the unifying feature of our culture. If Charles has a target audience in mind it is probably this well-meaning, ultimately misguided, group of “lefties”… One has to navigate Charles’ own “shadow-side” too of course… Maybe you should do something radical Charles? And find someone born and raised; steeped, in the “right-wing” cult who, like you, genuinely wants an end to the culture war and for some kind of unity — Team-up with them, or at least have them on your podcast…? (united we stand, divided we fall)…
5. Esp. in the wu-tang forever period, the Rza of WTC put the culture’s shadow of war mentality and violence centre stage ultimately in order to go *through* that to the “sunshower” underbelly of peace and love on the other side.
“a Life Savor, I’ll Jawbreak ya, Boston Bake ya
Then plant my sunflower seed on every square acre”
That’s a very different approach to peace. I think there is a place for both approaches. But we would be wise to think on Charles’ words, here:
“In the end, the formula for “saving the world” cannot be victory in an epic battle of Good versus Evil. (That in fact is QAnon’s formula.) Since the two sides appear, from the close election, to be nearly equal, if it comes to war then Good, in order to overcome Evil, must become better at war than Evil – better at violence, better at manipulation, better at propaganda, better at deception. In other words, it must cease to be Good. How many times have we seen this play out in history, when the people’s liberation movement becomes the new tyranny?”
At this point the culture is so saturated with war mentality and good versus evil/ “Us and Them” memes that, to my mind, Charles’ approach (however flawed) deserves a lot more attention, perhaps with a dose of Rza on the side…
Thank you Andy for your contribution. Your discussion of fence-sitting (in a positive sense of peace-making) versus offering “a hand to both sides” while having a foot on one side felt very relevant. So did discussion of war mentality versus peace and love – and whether the former can ever be a route to the latter. And as for the rationalist materialist paradigm being dominant in our culture – well that feels centrally relevant too.
When I read comments to the effect of “what we need now is voices that carry conviction and Charles’s doesn’t”, I think: his doesn’t seem to carry conviction precisely because he is stepping outside of the dominant paradigm, not just in what he says but in the manner in which he says it. That doesn’t mean, of course, means he shouldn’t be called out for wrong or caricatured representations of people, as other commenters have done.
I felt a subtle discomfort after reading Charles’s essay, which grew as I read through the comments. I found much that echoed my existing thoughts precisely, as I usually do with Eisenstein’s work, but felt it read a bit like a rambling diary entry, full of genuine and deeply felt insights but poorly structured – by society’s standards for a “good essay”. And Perhaps only understandable to those who already resonate with it already.
What I’m seeing more clearly is that something like Eisenstein’s writing – however it might resonate with me personally – is just one tiny part of the whole movement towards the transformation of society. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen in many ways and on many levels simultaneously, with each person giving what they feel called to give. Each individual contribution will necessarily be highly imperfect and open to criticism – it should be so. When paradigms are shifting it should be expected to be so.
Thanks Jack for your observations.
“ I found much that echoed my existing thoughts precisely, as I usually do with Eisenstein’s work, but felt it read a bit like a rambling diary entry, full of genuine and deeply felt insights but poorly structured – by society’s standards for a “good essay”. “
Probably the main reason I have come to dislike so much of Eisenstein’s writing, despite my former admiration, is that I don’t think great writing ever “echoes my existing thoughts precisely.” If it does that, there’s probably something wrong with it. For example, when I read the great, classic philosophers like Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, I don’t feel like I’m seeing my own thoughts reflected back. I feel startled and shocked into new perceptions I never had before. And it’s not about agreeing with everything they say either, because much of what they say is designed to unsettle and provoke, to challenge and startle, not to “resonate.”
“And Perhaps only understandable to those who already resonate with it already.”
I don’t evaluate essay writing so much based on whether I resonate with it already, but on whether I feel the person is mounting astute, good faith arguments or not. For example, I’ve read movie reviews and book reviews that panned things I liked, or praised things I disliked. But since the reviewer delved into the themes and artistry with great attention to detail and accuracy, I still admired the review and got something out of it. On the other hand, I’ve read bad critics who do theirs job poorly because they are obviously just praising or dispraising works of art based on whether their favourite actors starred in it or not, or whether they agree with the artists’ politics or not. Even if I ended up liking the same book/movie the reviewer liked, it’s not for any meaningful, substantive reason. It’s just a fluke.
I actually do resonate with Eisenstein’s call for better communication and understanding between sides of a cultural war, but I reject his overall analysis of what is unfolding, and also his explanations in general for why we are at this terrible impasse. I now reject many of the arguments he made in The Ascent of Humanity I used to find convincing. I think a fair number of his assertions about why things are so bad and what caused our present problems are untrue. While his writing contains genuine insights and astute observations, it also contains reams of unsubstantiated assertions about all manner of things that, in my view, simply don’t stand up to close scrutiny. Today, I would only recommend The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics with strong caveats.
To Charles, this is a wonderful essay, thank you.
To all the commenters in this now-impressive comment thread, a reminder: Don’t feed the trolls.
“Chris” kicked things off with his long diatribe which said very little, and can be summed up thusly: “I do not like this essay, it’s wrong about politics, and I do not like Charles Eisenstein.” “Chris” continued on to answer many critics with variations on this theme with increasingly inflammatory language.
At best, “Chris” is a troll with nothing better to do than sit around throwing bombs at people trying to have a discussion. At worst, “Chris” is paid for this work by an actor that benefits from the destabilization that arises when people are exposed to hate.
Given the proliferation of proforma “Hey, yeah, I agree with you Chris” responses in the comments, I’m going to guess it’s the latter. It’s a classic troll playbook. Trolls work in teams, these days.
I understand why “Chris” has his hackles up about this post. It cuts right through the bullshit and offers a clear and articulate antidote to the hate and division that the trolls have been using to such devastating effect on the polity. To quote the essay, “Compassion is the tide of our times. Perhaps that is why increasingly furious attempts to sow hatred are required to maintain the psychic conditions for a control-based society. It takes more and more propaganda to keep us divided.”
Indeed, Charles.
And another quote that rings true: “Maybe we are closer to social healing than online behavior, with its vitriol and venom, would indicate. Hate is usually louder than love – in society and within ourselves. What will happen if we listen to the quieter voices?”
Charles, allow me to put this question back to you: how can we listen to the quieter voices in these comments? This was a very well-written, and desperately needed essay. It’s disappointing to see it besmirched by learned, eloquent, mean and nasty comments lacking in substance and ignoring the rules of civil discourse. Would you be willing to curate the comments section so it’s easier to see the real discussion among your readers with quieter voices?
Completely, utterly laughable response from a delusional Eisenstein fan.
I can assure you I have no idea who my supporters are, I’ve never met any of them in my life, and I’m sure all of us said what we said for the same reason: we genuinely, sincerely did not like Eisenstein’s essay. Your paranoia and conviction that our posts were somehow all coordinated is odd coming from an Eisenstein fan, given how much he criticizes conspiratorial mindsets.
And, Scott, the point you repeatedly miss is that I criticized Eisenstein NOT for advocating “love” over “hate,” or for desiring more olive branches, but rather for failing to PRACTICE what he incessantly PREACHES. In essay after essay, he demonstrates a woeful ignorance of what “the other side” believes in the first place! He seems to have never interviewed a smart conservative like Heather Mac Donald or Thomas Sowell, or have the first clue why they oppose so many liberal / Democrat policies. He thinks he knows what motivates them but he doesn’t.
He isn’t just often wrong about what conservatives think, he’s also often wrong about what people on the left think outside of the New Age / Age of Aquarius contingent of the left. He can’t seem to grasp a kind of Leftism that isn’t as enamoured of the hippies or the Sixties as he is, or which doesn’t believe the struggles facing the black community are due to straightforward “racism.”
Eisenstein writes,
“It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden; otherwise we will face one of two grim possibilities, each worse than the other. (1) In a few years a new and more formidable demagogue will arise to channel the repressed forces toward a fascist coup. (2) A neoliberal corporatocracy, costumed in the garb of progressive values, will consolidate its already well-developed powers of surveillance, censorship, and control to establish a techno-totalitarian state that will attempt to repress those forces forever.”
The “fascist coup” has already happened, with the obviously stolen election (and no one has been willing and able to refute the arguments laid out by those who believe the election was stolen) and targeting, by law, of all MAGA protestors as “domestic terrorists” or “enemy combatants” guilty of treason. One blue checkmark mainstream reporter even tweeted out his wish for America to be “cleansed” of such vermin. This is not some fringe voice, this was a mainstream news media writer saying this.
The two, the fascist coup and the neoliberal corporatocracy, are actually one and the same. It’s just that you were looking in the wrong place for one of them. You actually took seriously the nonsense about Trump’s campaign being demagoguery and saturated with racism (he actually got more racial minority votes than any Republican candidate in decades). His real failing was that he failed to drain the swamp like he said he would and was not smart or tough enough to take on the nest of vipers. His bark was more than his bite.
Chris, you dont seem to be looking down the telescope that sees that our leaders (on both sides) are but puppets of unwholesome systems and ideologies (the “nest of vipers” if you will) born of worn-out stories of self and world (the “swamp”)… The Trump phenomena may have been “revelatory” in terms of showing us where we are (like the covid pandemic is doing) but it was never going to offer any real solutions to our predicament.
On a related note, I like Charles’ point about having to deal with nihilism at its root if we’re to avoid being captivated by the “spectacle” of myths that point to truths… I agree more or less with Charles that that means re-connecting to each other, the natural world and our own bodies…
Eisenstein is not saying anything new when he talks about nihilism being at the root. Nietzsche called nihilism the ultimate issue and the uncanniest guest back in the 19th century, but that didn’t stop Eisenstein from giving Nietzsche a one sentence brush off in The Ascent of Humanity. In general, Eisenstein is pretty dismissive of most major philosophers and I was surprised to read he minored in philosophy in college, since he seems largely uninterested in what they have to say, or simply not to understand what they were saying.
Eisenstein can’t really offer a satisfactory analysis of what ails us because he’s too much of a Rousseauist at heart. His biases are the same as Rousseau’s, and he has no answers that go beyond Rousseau’s very significant limitations as a thinker. Thus, he utterly fails to understand the real reasons Incels hate feminism, since he doesn’t realize how much modern feminism and other social justice movements are motivated by “ressentiment” envy and spite in the first place. Like I said, he’s never come to terms with the dark side of the left, and he even puts “left” in quotation marks to describe the censorious, disdainful, class snobbish type of Leftism he dislikes, and tells us this “left” has nothing in common with the real left. He writes:
“In my youth it was the conservatives who were the main instigators of censorship, burning Beatles albums, removing evolution from science textbooks, suppressing sexuality in literature. They were also the main manufacturers of consent, manipulating the media to maintain a state of constant war. Now it is the “left” who has most enthusiastically taken up the weapons of information warfare, with its deplatforming campaigns, cancel culture, and suppression of dissent. I put “left” in quotation marks because the actual left was the first victim of the new censorship, which began with the demotion of socialist and anti-war websites in Google search and social media. Facebook and Google still suppress this type of website by giving weight in their algorithms to “authoritative sources”; that is, the voice of the authorities.”
Thus, he can deceive himself the Leftism he likes is actual Leftism, while the deplatforming, puritanical Leftism is fake Leftism. But this is self deception. Conservatives often do the same thing (the Christianity of the Inquisition and Crusades was not “real” religion). But a startling number of socialist and anti-war websites, demoted by Google or not, were among the worst promoters of Covid hysteria and demands for never ending lockdowns and quarantines. Even Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky of all people shockingly bought into the pandemic hysteria and wouldn’t budge. At any rate, I’ve reread the essay, this time without skipping anything, and I still find it seriously lacking and unsatisfying. I think he simply doesn’t understand what conservatives believe or even what leftists and progressives believe who aren’t on the same New Agey wavelength as himself.
Chris,
You make some good points that have expanded the conversation and shed light on some blind spots but I would refer you to LaVerge’s comment above from the 19 December: — This essay wasn’t exactly aimed at you. Did that make it flawed in bringing the two sides together? and patronizing to Trump supporters? — yes…. Does that mean it is a worthless, irrelevant essay? — no, in fact it contains a number of extremely important insights into the “blind spots both sides share” and the “hidden unity that will emerge when all parties humbly try to understand the other.”
Ultimately if we can’t loosen ourselves from entrenched positions (unlearning) we will remain divided, and we will fall….
Andy, I appreciate your perspective, and thanks for bringing up LaVerge again, however, I would have to remind you that LaVerge also said this:
“He uses buzzwords and commonly-thrown-around concepts that have been painted by mematic mainstream consciousness over the reality of things. As a writer myself, I can suppose upon the usefulness of this as a tactic. Perhaps it will help to massage some peoples minds into sense-making? I’m not convinced. I think the times we are living in call for firm, clear voices carrying conviction… In my humble opinion, the time to tell unequivocal truths grows thinner as a lack of civil liberties closes in upon us globally. I understand many people are still in a trance-like confusion of denial. But as writers, it’s not our duty to play to that. If you can see through the veil, say what you see. If you don’t entirely know, ask people who have the facts to weigh in and educate.”
So what is she saying? Obviously she didn’t hate the essay like I did. But her assessment of the essay ultimately suggests that Eisenstein’s approach is rather ineffectual. Her post, taken as a whole, is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
All men/women have feet of clay…but I am grateful for when the Light shines through each of us. I know many folks from the 60s…New Agers who have never stopped doing their good work. Growing their gardens, saving seeds and building dreams for us all. In the time I have left, I choose not to waste life energy in endless ping pong games of back and forth duality.
What I seek is a clear vision of that Better World we all Dream of. That green vision nurtures me, gives me hope and strength. Who cannot want a Tree of Life to heal and nurture all?
Charles, I hope you are close to your original Muse. Her first whisperings through you are pure, earnest and deep and gave me hope and clarity. I miss that comforting presence in many of the current writings. You have paid a deep price for truth found. May your Beginner’s mind ever be with you. Thank you – Marco
I don’t understand someone talks so deeply about cults, but barely mentions religion/catholicism. A large part of the reason Trump received so many votes from minorities was because of his and Pence’s view on homosexuality/transgender rights.
Politics, religion and vaccination are the third rails of modern public discourse. Touch them and risk getting electrocuted. I fear Charles has touched the third rail of politics and he has now incurred the shocking response. Charles, I support you for your bravery in daring to tread into this dangerous territory. Perhaps you were a bit overly idealistic in believing your readers would see the wisdom of your insights through the fog of emotion that beclouds dissent. Whether you are right or wrong in your political assessments, I can see your message, which is that unity, love, and connection must imbue our communications and our actions for the healing of our social schisms to take place. Judging from the vitriol underlying many of the responses to your thoughtful essay, I think this message was lost in the sauce. I hear your message and support it. Those who attack and condemn you did not get the message. I encourage you to keep trying to get this message across. In an age of partisanship, shaming, censorship, and separation, it can be hard to be heard. Yet some will be there to hear your message and will put their own deep personal pains that are reified on the political stage aside long enough to hear that love, truth and unity are your messages and that these are messages of much needed healing.
You seem to be wrong in many points. In my research as an investigative journalist there is Q and there are anon’s, there is no ‘QAnon’. People are encouraged to think for themselves. Most anons are Christian and have a strong to connection to God, Jesus, Justice and Truth. You seem to be way off with your analysis.
I am a left wing progressive who is very alternative and when I read this all I can think is you have gained your knowledge of Qanon and Trumpsters vía left wing propoganda.
To talk with authority about something you need to actually experience it. I went down the Qanon rabbit hole last year for 3 months and I did NOT find a sniff of racism. You would know that if you had actually done real research. The racist charge is pure left wing media propaganda. Of course Qanon is ridiculous but when you are down the rabbit hole it is emotionally captivating. The idea of a hero to get us out of this mess is compelling. Qanon targets human sex trafficking and pedophelia just like BLM targets racism. Both deeply repugnant to most people.
Qanon is patently not racist – I still have friends down that hole (most surfaced) and not one of them is racist. A charge made up by media and repeated by the brainwashed. You should have down better research.
I’m not saying there aren’t racists who are Qanon’s, just like you can’t say there aren’t any antifa who are pedophiles. Racists and pedophiles exist in all movements. However Qanon was ALL about bringing pedophiles to justice. Something that is kept hidden by main stream media.
Why would you write about something from second hand knowledge from their enemy? It makes no sense at all.