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Jul 16, 2021 • 2h 40min

Herbert Marcuse's "New Sensibility"

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 44 Liberation Series, Part 2 of 4 Herbert Marcuse is one of the most influential Leftist thinkers of the 1950s and 1960s, and for that reason he is often regarded as the father of the "New Left," which is reaching something of a crescendo in the Woke Movement of today. His goal was straightforward: liberation. In 1969, he wrote an influential essay (or short book) called "An Essay on Liberation" in which he explains what liberation looks like and how we should achieve it. So that you can better understand the moment we find ourselves in, James Lindsay has been reading "An Essay on Liberation" (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.htm) for the New Discourses Podcast in full, with his explanation and commentary. This is the second part of that series, reading through part two of Marcuse's infamous essay, "A New Sensibility." In the first part of the essay, Marcuse lays out a case that we need to change mankind at the "biological" (meaning, it seems, mostly psychological and instinctual) level to make way for a liberated socialism. In this part of the essay, Marcuse explains that man will need to develop a "new sensibility" and even a "new rationality" (Critical Consciousness) in order to break the cycle of repression that he believes characterizes free, liberal societies (i.e., those that aren't Communism). His argument is that what people consider "sensible" constrains and represses their imagination, so a new (liberated, read: communistic) "sensibility" is needed and must replace the old sensibility. Then we will understand how sensibility and reason constrain and repress us and prevent previous (Communist and French) revolutions from succeeding at producing true liberation. It's a truly shocking piece of work, and it is obvious upon understanding it that its general thrust defines the ethos of radical Leftism today in the Critical Social Justice movements that have derived from it. Part 1 of this series, "A Biological Foundation for Socialism?", can be found here: https://newdiscourses.com/2021/06/biological-foundation-socialism/ Another series on Marcuse's work, featuring his essay "Repressive Tolerance," begins here: https://newdiscourses.com/2021/01/how-not-to-resolve-the-paradox-of-tolerance/ Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jul 12, 2021 • 30min

Critical Race Praxis and the Weakness of Liberals

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 43 What's happening in our schools? It's obvious to everyone that Critical Race Theory (and the other Theories of Critical Social Justice) have been incorporated into them at virtually every level and in most subjects all across the nation, but the line is that "Critical Race Theory isn't being taught in our schools." To unpack this lie, we have to understand that Critical Theories require praxis, so while the formal and narrow theory of Critical Race Theory may not be being taught in specific, Critical Race Praxis (CRaP) is throughout our schools. It was brought in by Critical Pedagogy, which is the application of Critical Theory to education, which also requires the implementation of Theory, which is known as "praxis." Once you understand this, it's far easier to understand one of the big reasons that (classical) liberals are so ineffective at fighting back against Critical Theories and other forms of Critical Philosophy: it's because they think the argument is about ideas rather than implementation. Praxis is the religious duty of Critical Theorists, and they can keep liberals busy arguing about whether or not the Theory should be taught or banned or not taught or not banned or its details or whatever other thing that doesn't matter while they still go forward applying Theory via praxis in whatever setting. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay breaks down the distinction and intrinsic relationship between Critical Theory and Critical Praxis and thus why almost the entire discussion of what to do about this problem coming from liberal quarters misses the point and remains ineffective. Join him here to learn where the target is and how to fight this pernicious ideology more effectively. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jul 6, 2021 • 1h 11min

The Woke Manipulation of Democracy

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 42 Many of you will already be very familiar with the fact that the Woke manipulate language, often by meaning more than one thing by a term. One meaning will be quite milquetoast; the other quite radical. Much of Woke activism works by equivocating between these two meanings in a strategic way: boring everyday meanings to gain access and win arguments; specialized meanings to do their activism once they have the power. Among the words that the Woke have strategically manipulated in an important way is democracy. Of course, in nations like the United States and the other contemporary parliamentary democracies, we use democracy to enable republics, to which the Woke are generally strongly opposed. This isn't the only reason for their incessant push for "democracy," though, which is only comprehensible when you understand the relationship between equity (or communism) and democracy. To the Woke, if anyone or any group has any more power, money, or privilege than anyone else (as they see it), there is no equality, thus democracy is skewed. That is, for them, democracy presupposes equity (or communism). In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay walks you through more pieces of the Woke, neo-Marxist, and Marxist literature to make the case that when the Woke are calling for "democracy," they mean something that demands a very radical agenda along with it. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jun 23, 2021 • 40min

Why Critical Race Theory Is Un-American | OnlySubs with James Lindsay, Ep. 49

This episode of the OnlySubs Podcast with James Lindsay is available for FREE to everyone! To get access to all past and future episodes, consider becoming a contributor. Learn more by clicking here: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/12/announcing-new-subscribers-only-podcast-james-lindsay/ Critical Race Theory tries to bill itself as the continuation of the Civil Rights Movement, which was a true achievement of the American Experiment, but is it? Of course it's not (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/02/no-critical-race-theory-does-not-continue-the-civil-rights-movement/). To understand more about this, in this episode of my subscribers-only podcast, James Lindsay OnlySubs, I go through the first paragraph of Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic's Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (https://amzn.to/3zVLOOW) line by line and make it completely clear that Critical Race Theory rejects everything about America while mostly misrepresenting itself. Join me as I take a deep-dive into just what Critical Race Theory sees itself as rejecting. -James Lindsay Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: https://newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-discourses/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jun 22, 2021 • 1h 46min

A Biological Foundation for Socialism?

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 41 The Critical Theorist and neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse was one of the most influential radical Leftist thinkers of the 20th century, and this fact is evident throughout his writing. The depth of his radicalism can be seen quite clearly in several of his essays, including his 1965 "Repressive Tolerance" (https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html), which has been featured on the New Discourses Podcast before in a four-part series (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/01/how-not-to-resolve-the-paradox-of-tolerance/). It may stand out even more prominently in "An Essay on Liberation" (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.htm), written in 1969. In this longer essay, Marcuse lays out what he believes liberation requires, especially at the level of what he refers to as preconditions for that utopian possibility. In this four-part series, James Lindsay presents "An Essay on Liberation" with his commentary. In this first part of the series, he reads through the introduction to the essay and its first of four parts, "A Biological Foundation for Socialism?", in which Marcuse makes the case that to achieve a liberated utopia, man will have to be changed at the level of his fundamental needs, his instincts, and his biology, and that this can be accomplished by making him live in a society that "introjects" a new critical morality into him. It's a truly alarming piece of work, and the resonances of it can definitely be felt today. Join James as he begins to explore this essay by Marcuse on the New Discourses Podcast. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: https://newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-discourses/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jun 12, 2021 • 2h 2min

The Virus of Critical Social Justice

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 40 It is not normally appropriate to liken one's ideological opponents to something like a virus, but what should we do when the people who hold that ideology liken themselves to viruses like HIV, Ebola, and SARS? This circumstance may seem strange and unlikely, but it is exactly what we encounter with Critical Social Justice. In 2016, two feminist scholars, Breanne Fahs and Michael Karger, both of Arizona State University, published a bizarre academic paper doing exactly that. They called this paper "Women's Studies as a Virus: Institutional Feminism, Affect, and the Projection of Danger" (https://www.hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/generos/article/view/1683), and in it, they (almost unbelievably) characterize viruses like those named above and also cancer as an ideal metaphor for what their ideology hopes to accomplish and how it should do it. This has to be seen (or heard) to be believed, so in this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay reads through the entire paper, offering his commentary as he goes. Join him to hear this unbelievable characterization of Critical Social Justice (that is, Woke) ideology in its own words. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: https://newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jun 10, 2021 • 2h 39min

Why You Can Be Transgender But Not Transracial

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 39 One of the more peculiar features of the Theory of Critical Social Justice for many people is why it is acceptable under Theory to be trangender but absolutely forbidden to be transracial. The short answer to this question, which is sometimes given (usually after someone steps on the landmine of thinking they can pull off a transracial argument or identity), is that Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory approach the issue of identity differently. This is correct on a superficial level but facile to the way that the overarching Critical Social Justice ideology thinks about power and its interaction with identity. Understood more deeply, both Theories are doing the same thing in different ways. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay goes through all of this heavy Theoretical detail to explain why it is, from within Theory, that you can be transgender but not transracial. He then shifts to explain how and why these Theories likely developed the way that they did by investigating the proximate incentive structures that motivated their developments. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: https://newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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Jun 3, 2021 • 1h 17min

A Summary of Neo-Marxism

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 38 At the heart of the "Woke" (Critical Social Justice) movement is the abuse of language, which is perpetrated in order to abuse power. Therefore, at the heart of the New Discourses project is a Critical Social Justice Encyclopedia, Translations from the Wokish (https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/), that documents these abuses and helps to decode them so that everyday people won't be taken in by them. One of the projects taken up by James Lindsay and the New Discourses team with that Encyclopedia is to document the theoretical underpinnings of the Critical Social Justice ideology so that people can understand not just the words but also why they are given the particular distorted meanings they have. In line with that, and because it is the heart of the "Woke" (Critical Social Justice) movement is the concept of Neo-Marxism, which is the school of thought brought to the world by (communist) people like György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/01/antonio-gramsci-cultural-marxism-wokeness-leninism/), Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/01/how-not-to-resolve-the-paradox-of-tolerance/), and Angela Davis. It's almost impossible to understand the Woke ideology without understanding this precursor. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, join James Lindsay as he reads through and adds nuance and detail to the relevant "neo-Marxism" entry (https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-neo-marxism/) in his Critical Social Justice Encyclopedia so that you can better understand where Wokeness comes from and how it thinks and operates. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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May 28, 2021 • 3h 50min

Hegel, Wokeness, and the Dialectical Faith of Leftism

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 37 Is Critical Race Theory Marxist, as many insist, or is it not? What is the relationship between Marxism, neo-Marxism (Critical Theory), and Wokeness? All three criticize one another, and yet all three have a great deal obviously in common. Is there some common underlying thread between these clearly similar yet obviously different worldviews? The answer is yes, and by tracing back to one of the most influential speculative idealist philosophers of the early 19th century, namely George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, we can gain a great deal of insight into how these decidedly leftist movements—the Marxist Old Left, the neo-Marxist New Left, and the intersectional Woke Left—share at least one deeper philosophical architecture in common. From Hegel, the Left since his time has, wittingly and not, adopted several of the pillars of Hegelian philosophy, these including his statism, historicism, and, much more importantly, his dialectical approach and metaphysical worldview. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay takes a long, deep dive into the ways that Hegel's philosophy is at the root of the entire "Dialectical Left" since, naming the dialectic the "operating system" of all activist Leftism since the early 1800s. In this episode, Lindsay takes considerable time explaining Hegel's view of dialectical thought and then reveals in many examples, reaching up to the present day, how consistently the dialectic appears as the functional underpinning of Leftism ever since, at the latest, the 1830s. He makes the case that Leftism since Hegel thinks dialectically, moves dialectically, and applies dialectical thought not just to its targets but to everything, including itself and even its own dialectic. He then switches gears and explains how the dialectic is central to Hegel's underlying Hermetic (or alchemical) worldview and explains his mystical metaphysics so that this long arc of Leftist activism can be understood as evolving denominations within a single religious faith. With this theoretical groundwork laid, he then tackles how Hegel's historicism and statism arise as key features of his philosophy, with both of these characterizing activist Leftism up to the present day. Join him for his longest and most in-depth discussion yet, taking on how Hegel is a key progenitor of communism, liberationism, and ultimately Wokeness, how this philosophy must be understood so that it can be countered, and why it should be thought of in the same way that Hegel thought of it: as a religion in its own right, with its own notion of deity, metaphysical commitments, soteriology, and eschatology. Support New Discourses: paypal.me/newdiscourses newdiscourses.locals.com/support patreon.com/newdiscourses subscribestar.com/newdiscourses youtube.com/channel/UC9K5PLkj0N_b9JTPdSRwPkg/join Website: newdiscourses.com Follow: facebook.com/newdiscourses twitter.com/NewDiscourses instagram.com/newdiscourses https://newdiscourses.locals.com pinterest.com/newdiscourses linkedin.com/company/newdiscourses minds.com/newdiscourses reddit.com/r/NewDiscourses Podcast: @newdiscourses podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-…es/id1499880546 bit.ly/NDGooglePodcasts open.spotify.com/show/0HfzDaXI5L4LnJQStFWgZp stitcher.com/podcast/new-discourses © 2021 New Discourses. All rights reserved.
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May 20, 2021 • 1h 10min

Bourgeois Overproduction and the Problem of the Fake Elite

Dive into the concept of elite overproduction, exploring how sending too many to higher education creates underemployment and social instability. Discover insights on the harsh realities faced by graduates and the clash of bourgeois values with societal needs. The podcast critiques Marxist interpretations of class, revealing tensions within today's media landscape where talent often collides with sensationalism. Join a thought-provoking discussion on the implications of a 'false elite' and the cultural challenges that arise from these dynamics.

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