Daily Archives: April 6, 2021

In a 2019 essay entitled Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production, the Columbia sociologist Musa al-Gharbi describes one of the most striking developments of the past few years: the way that a series of ideas, drawn from postmodernism and critical theory, has achieved a surprising degree of hegemony within large segments of the academy, the foundation and museum worlds, HR departments, and the national media.

Terms barely known a decade ago are now commonplace not only among activists, journalists, the intelligentsia or students at elite liberal arts campuses, but among the undergraduates in college classrooms nationwide, raising really fascinating questions about the flow of ideas: how a discourse, once associated with such figures as Derrick Bell, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Kimberl Crenshaw was diffused, disseminated and dispersed.

You know those words and phrases: cultural appropriation, implicit bias, intersectionality, microaggressions, systemic or institutional racism and sexism, white privilege, and woke.

None of those terms is truly new. Most trace their roots to the 1970s, 80s and 90s. But it is only recently that these ideas gained traction in the national press.

This shift in language is not merely of linguistic interest. We are in the midst of a cognitive and moral revolution unmatched since the mid- and late 1960s, when ideas drawn from neo-Marxist and feminist thought, anticolonial and national liberation thinkers, liberation theology, and the Black Power movement posed an earlier challenge to conventional liberalism, or when, in the wake of world war, psychoanalytic and existential ideas dominated the discourse of the professional class.

What we are witnessing is a paradigm shift, as a new generation of thought leaders grapples with some of the pressing issues of our time, and as a new cohort of activists, on campus and elsewhere, deploys a new language to advance a variety of causes, from climate change to transgender rights.

I do not invoke the phrase paradigm shift lightly. I am convinced that we are witnessing something like what Friedrich Nietzsche meant when he wrote about a transvaluation of values -- a shift that has provoked alarm among the many academics associated with the Heterodox Academy or the journalists who publish on Substack.

Why would this be the case? Because of a genuine shift in attitudes toward free speech, sexual and gender identity, consent, and the value of incremental reform. There is a growing sense among many students that:

Today, any discussion of this new discourse inevitably raises the specter of a supposedly intolerant cancel culture with its purportedly rigid strictures of political correctness. This is a view summed up in the title of a recent book by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity -- and Why This Harms Everybody. Youll recall that Pluckrose and Lindsay sought in 2018 to discredit a whole set of programs in gender, race and sexuality studies by submitting a number of bogus articles to academic journals in those fields.

The new discourse has also generated a political backlash -- a war on woke -- as state legislatures, including those in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, West Virginia and even New Hampshire (plus some leading French politicians), seek to suppress the teaching of critical theory or critical perspectives on U.S. history under the guise of preventing the propagation of divisive concepts.

There is the call, in Georgia, for every public college and university to identify every course that focuses on privilege and oppression, or the proposal in South Dakota, to bar schools from using any content associated with efforts to reframe this countrys history in a way that promotes racial divisiveness and displaces historical understanding with ideology.

So let me be clear: I am not here to decry this paradigm shift as a retreat from historic liberal values of free speech and freedom of inquiry, or as a symbol and symptom of cultural and intellectual decadence and stagnation.

Arguments like those found in Cynical Theories grossly oversimplify the arguments advanced by figures like Derrida, who was quite right in doubting grand narratives of progress, recognizing the indeterminacy of many truth and fact claims, and asserting the limits of rational inquiry.

The issues that this new paradigm and discourse seek to address are real and pressing, and the questions that it seeks to answer are excruciatingly difficult:

In a very different context, I have described youth as a cultural avant-garde, as the agents of change and transformation who have, historically, been responsible for the creation and actualization of new sensibilities and value systems. That kind of cultural ferment is visible around us today and is creating lots of discomfort as new boundaries of acceptable behavior remain to be delineated.

At times, pushback is not only appropriate, but necessary, especially when viewpoint diversity, open inquiry, constructive disagreement and academic freedom are at risk. But we also need to recognize that at least since the late 18th century, cultural reinvention is youths historic task and wild exaggeration is often the form that this process takes.

It certainly an overstatement to claim that "Each generation goes to battle against the ones that came before." But the historical process is dialectical, and those of us who are academics should feel blessed to have a front-row seat as a set of values appropriate to an extraordinarily diverse society is debated and defined.

I only wish that the campuses offered many more courses that explicitly addressed the issues that our students are confronting -- especially those involving identities, inequities, intimacy and interpersonal interactions -- from an academic perspective.

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

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What Starts in the Academy Doesn't Stay There | Higher Ed Gamma - Inside Higher Ed

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday warned that anti-white racism might be building in the United States and said that political correctness "taken to the extreme" would have lamentable consequences.

In an interview with political scientists broadcast on national television, Moscow's top diplomat saidRussiahad long supported a worldwide trend that "everyone wants to get rid of racism."

"We were pioneers of the movement promoting equal rights of people of any skin color," he said.

But Lavrov stressed it was important "not to switch to the other extreme which we saw during the 'BLM' (Black Lives Matter) events and the aggression against white people, white U.S. citizens."

Founded in the United States in 2013, Black Lives Matter is a movement which became a rallying cry after the killing by U.S. police of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, last May.

The movement has led to a major debate about race, rights of people of color and the toppling of statues of figures linked to slavery or colonization in countries including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Lavrov accused the United States of seeking to spread what he called "a cultural revolution" around the world.

"They have colossal possibilities for it," he said in the interview.

"Hollywood is now also changing its rules so that everything reflects the diversity of modern society," he said, calling that "a form of censorship."

"I've seen Black people play in Shakespeare's comedies. Only I don't know when there will be a white Othello," Lavrov said.

"You see this is absurd. Political correctness taken to the point of absurdity will not end well."

Originally posted here:

Russia Warns of Anti-White 'Aggression' in US - The Moscow Times

My friend is taking a couple of vacation days this week. Three, to be exact. Asked what he intended to do those three days, he replied, "Lie down on my couch and watch the Masters. What could be better than that?"

There aren't many things in life that are perfect just the way they are. Maybe Mona Lisa's smile. Maybe "It's A Wonderful Life." Most Beatles songs. Hellman's Mayonnaise. A church choir singing "Silent Night" by candlelight on any Christmas Eve.

Then there's Augusta National, the most perfect 345 acres of real estate on God's green earth.

Like my friend, I haven't missed watching the Masters on television, at the very least, since 1966. That's the year the Golden Bear himself, Jack Nicklaus, won his second straight green jacket in a Monday playoff with Tommy Jacobs and Gay Brewer.

At that time, my family's television a black-and-white number, I had no idea the breathtaking beauty of the flora and fauna throughout the course. The green jacket was dark gray on my TV. Not until years later when my parents broke down and got a color set in the mid-1970s did I begin to fully appreciate that spectacular golf was no more than half of the allure of the place.

Then came 1985. My former boss at the Chattanooga News-Free Press, Roy Exum, called me into his office one April morning and told me, "You're going to the Masters for two days. Take a sketch book. Try to come up with something for the Sunday paper."

A few days after that, back on my own couch, I watched the methodical some would say agonizingly slow German, Bernhard Langer, claim that '85 title on a rain-soaked course.

But regardless of the winner, the Masters never lays an egg. It's sometimes quaint (the Iowa native and Prairie Golf Tour alum Zach Johnson in 2007) and often spectacular (Nicklaus' 17-under 271 in 1965, Tiger Woods' 18-under 270 in 1997). It can be eerily quiet on the front nine and deafeningly loud on the back.

It's both crushing (Greg Norman's 1996 collapse and Argentina's Roberto De Vicenzo signing a scorecard in 1968 that had him charged with a 4 on No. 17 instead of the birdie 3 he made, thus costing him the championship by a stroke) and cathartic (an older, more humble, less overwhelming Tiger winning in 2019).

It's also the club occasionally shoveling ice around the azaleas to keep them from blooming too soon if spring comes early. It's dying the water in the ponds and creeks a deep, smoky blue. It's wrapping all the sandwiches, including egg salad and pimento cheese which top out at $3, by the way, never a penny more in deep green paper so that should uncouth soul drop the wrapper on the ground, it will blend in until one of the 3,000 workers on Masters week sweeps in to remove it a minute or two later.

It's not allowing electronics on the course, which means that when the crowds gather around Amen Corner, the majestic and menacing 16th or the 18th green, they're actually glued to the golfers instead of Tweets from LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes.

It's enjoying the best cheeseburger and clam chowder imaginable in the clubhouse grille, the tables and waiters both dressed in heavily starched white cotton as real silverware and china make their distinctive ringing sounds, almost like a handbell choir.

It is, first and foremost, a yearly nod to a more civilized, cultured, mannerly time, political correctness be darned.

This is not to say the Masters is not without social awareness. Lee Elder, the first Black to play the Masters in 1975, will join Nicklaus and Gary Player as this year's honorary starters.

Yet there's also something to be said, whether you agree with it or not, for the private club not being blackmailed into moves it prefers not to make, such as when Martha Burke tried to force a Masters boycott in 2003 because of its all-male membership.

Said chairman Hootie Johnson of that attempt: "There may well come a day when women will be invited to join our membership, but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet."

Touche! And true to his word, Johnson nominated Darla Moore in 2012 to become one of the first of the private club's six current female members.

This year's tourney begins at Thursday's dawn. Can defending champ Dustin Johnson win his second Masters in five months, having captured the fan-less, COVID-19, 2020 version back in November? Can Jordan Spieth follow last weekend's drought-ending win in San Antonio with another green jacket performance to match his 2015 title? Can the expected limited crowds of 12,000 sound as loud as the pre-COVID crowds of 40,000 or more come Sunday's back nine?

For those of us of a certain age (BT, as in Before Tiger), there may never be a greater Masters moment than Nicklaus winning the 1986 tourney at the age of 46, his son Jackie on his bag, the two of them exiting the 18th green that Sunday, arms around each other, both men in tears.

The final key moment in that sixth and final Masters triumph for the Golden Bear occurred on the 17th green, Nicklaus eyeing a 12-footer for birdie. Jackie thought the tricky putt would break right, Jack argued that Rae's Creek would pull it left. Jack's judgement earned him the birdie.

Decades later, Jackie told Golf Digest: "In the years after that, Dad and I stuck tees in the ground at the spot where the hole was, trying to make that putt again. We haven't made itnot once."

That's the Masters. Golfing magic you've never seen before and may never see again. And if you're not glued to your couch this week, you just might miss another moment in golf history never to be repeated.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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Wiedmer: The Masters is the only sporting event that always delivers - Chattanooga Times Free Press

It was a short speech and is regarded as one of the best speeches of all time. I dont think they read it now in college, much less that students are advised to think about the hopes and fears therein.

Ben Franklin said that they gave us a republic if we can keep it. That was a good aphorism.

Freedom of speech is one of the postulates, nay a bedrock of the country. You simply have to be able to say what you think even if somebody finds it objectionable, or the country is basically lost.

There is no philosophical concept that advises that exchanges of ideas must be muted if it irritates somebody, whether it is a pressure group, China, Russia, the WHO, or Louis XIV.

People are always going to be offended if you disagree with them.

There is no rational argument to support the idea that although we have freedom of speech nobody can ever say anything which subjectively offends any other person or group of people or that the founders would ever have endorsed that notion.

Political correctness is a sham by which certain groups intend to obtain preference while denigrating others. Due to basic cowardice of many of our ruling elites and financing by powerful people who do not really have the good of our country in mind, they seem to be getting their way.

Nevertheless, I do not intend to abide by it. Like Walt Whitman, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world; that is what this country is about, not kneeling to the press nor to mobs.

David Marohl, Sun Prairie

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Letter to the Editor: On the Gettysburg Address | DeForest Times - HNGnews.com

Speaking to Car and Driver, AMG CEO Philipp Schiemer hinted that we shouldnt expect any future projects like the Project One hypercar as the company will instead pay more attention to women and younger buyers.

A big role will be played, then, by the P3 plug-in hybrid platform. The new underpinnings are designed to work with either a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine most likely the one found inside the Mercedes-AMG A 45 and a twin-turbo, 4.0-liter V-8 familiar from AMGs higher echelons.

Either way, the system - marketed under the E Performance moniker - mixes a 4.8-kWh battery pack, an electric motor, plus a two-speed transmission.

It is enormously difficult to meet the regulatory requirements, and we want to build cars that are street legal everywhere,

explained Schiemer, who went further to add that there will never again be such an extreme project as the AMG One hypercar and that every AMG will have a form of hybridization, including 48V mild-hybrid setups that arent of the plug-in ilk.

The AMG boss also reiterated that the incoming SL will be an out-and-out AMG project, just like the GT. What is more, the SL, once launched, will replace the AMG GT roadster. AMG, however, will not phase out the likes of GT coupe or GT four-door. Instead, these models will get a facelift and the P3 powertrain in conjunction with the 4.0-liter V-8 mill.

We still dont know when will the new SL debut, yet theres reason for excitement. The original car had its roots deeply sunk into the field of motorsport, and Schiemer hints that the new one will pay tribute to that without sacrificing its grand tourer attributes.

Source: Car & Driver

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AMG wont abide by political correctness with its new plans, but will try to poach customers from other demo - Top Speed

The generation gap is back.

Vanity Fair is certainly correct when it writes, At many newsrooms and media offices, and in the culture at large, this is a moment of generational conflict not seen since the 1960s.

A report from the Pew Charitable Trust argues that diversity lies behind the new generation gap, which pits a mostly white baby-boom culture against a more globalized, multicultural ethos among the young, which is reflected in a cultural divide in attitudes toward immigration, race, gender and sexuality.

Too often, the very phrase generation gap results in gross generalizations and grotesque stereotypes: about a tech-savvy, social media-addicted, psychologically fragile, economically challenged Generation Z, oversensitive to slights and slurs, preoccupied with self-esteem, mental health and unconscious bias, and prone to favor restrictions on speech that might make any group feel uncomfortable, offended or excluded.

In fact, many of the attributes associated with todays students resemble the cryptic prophecies of the Oracle of Delphi: our students, we are told, crave structure yet also desire flexibility, want to be autonomous but also like to work in groups, seek feedback but also expect positive affirmation.

But we do need to recognize that the academy, like the business, media and tech worlds, has generational gaps along multiple dimensions, demographic, economic and attitudinal, and that its on senior faculty to address these gaps.

Theres the gap between tenured faculty and their more junior colleagues, many without tenure or the prospects of tenure. Theres the gap between faculty and students in terms of ethnic and racial composition and life experience. Then, there are gaps in language (think gender pronouns) and in familiarity with youth culture.

Given how obvious the generation gap is today, it comes as a surprise to realize that as recently as 2006, New York magazine pronounced the generation gap dead. With middle-aged adults looking, talking, acting and dressing like 22-year-olds, the magazine declared, there is no fundamental generation gap anymore.

Reports of the gaps death soon proved to be grossly exaggerated. Within a decade, authors like Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning and Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, in The Rise of Victimhood Culture and The Coddling of the American Mind, decried political correctness run amok and disparaged those young people who increasingly demanded safe spaces and trigger warnings.

The new generation gap differs greatly from its 1960s predecessor. It isnt about dress or hairstyles or drug use; it is, as Brigid Delaney wrote in The Guardian, about about language and battles over inclusivity, diversity and power structures.

By the mid-2010s, a new vocabulary became widespread on campuses and in the media. Neologisms like "cisgender," "intersectionality," "mansplaining," "microaggressions," "nonbinary," "safe spaces," "toxic masculinity," "traumatizing," "trigger warnings," "whiteness" and "woke" began to appear frequently in The New York Times.

These terms, drawn from an interlocking assortment of postmodern, critical and neo-Marxist theories, treat interactions and institutions as arenas of power and privilege; lay bare the power of discourse to injure, offend and marginalize; deconstruct categories and norms (for example, those involving gender and sexuality) that conceal complexity, reify abstractions and obscure inequities; and problematize concepts (like consent or whiteness) previously treated without sufficient nuance.

Too often, this new vocabulary is dismissed as a cynical power play, a weapon wielded in various struggles for dominance and influence, and an attack on objective reality. In fact, it represents a cognitive, moral, political and epistemological revolution -- which pays close attention to how society affects how we know and what we (think) we know and which treats perceptions, lived experience and felt emotions seriously.

Thus, identities are now viewed as culturally constructed, which in no sense implied that these were not real. In fact, what makes them deeply felt is precisely memory, personal experience and the "residues" of past experience: inequalities, power differentials, enduring disparities, cultural stereotypes, socialization and deep-seated cultural assumptions.

By unmasking issues of power and privilege unduly ignored, a younger generation has exposed inequities that were, for far too long, uncontested; forced issues, like sexual harassment, into the public domain; challenged previously undisputed assumptions about sexuality and normality; and put institutions, including colleges and universities, on the defensive.

Every generation revolts against its fathers. Lewis Mumfords quip certainly speaks to this historical moment, when many aging baby boomers are stunned to realize that their generation has become an object of disdain, and when a new generation of college students quite rightly sees themselves as a cultural avant-garde, striving for a language, narratives and politics that speaks to the incredibly diverse yet precarious world they inhabit.

How, you might ask, can we speak of todays youth as a generation, given deep partisan, ethnic and racial, gender, religious, and regional divides? The answer is that irrespective of those differences, youth today does share a common vocabulary, popular culture and, above all, set of historical experiences.

We sometimes think of generations as caricatures or cultural stereotyping or products of Mad Men-like executives in the business of promoting products and services to ever narrower market niches. But the concept speaks to a fundamental truth: that a cohort of people often share certain shaping experiences, economic or developmental challenges, childrearing patterns and cultural touchstones, which, in turn, breed a distinctive outlook and leave a lasting imprint on behavior and attitudes.

The notion that society is divided into distinct generations is an old one. In their sermons, the New England Puritans drew a negative contrast between the founding settlers and the rising generation, which had supposedly strayed from their elders religious faith. The Romantic movement gave added impetus to the notion of generations, contrasting "fuddy-duddies" and "old fogies" (pejorative terms for the older generation) with the vibrancy and creativity of youth.

But it was not until the middle of the 19th century, when a French lexicographer defined a generation in 1863 as "all men living more or less in the same time," that a recognizably modern use of the word "generation" emerged, partly reflecting the rise of military conscription, in which young men were called into military service by age.

The influence of Darwinian evolution was apparent in the late-19th- and early-20th-century argument that the clash of generations was one of historys driving forces. It was the German sociologist Karl Manheim who, in a 1923 essay, advanced a formal theory about the origins of generational consciousness and the role of generational cohorts as agents of change.

It is easy to dismiss the concept of generations as itself a glaring oversimplification. After all, diversity based on gender, class, ethnicity and politics makes any sweeping generalizations problematic. The politics of an age cohort generally vary widely. In the late 1960s, more young people supported the conservative Young Americans for Freedom than the left-wing SDS.

Only rarely are generations clearly delineated, in the way that the baby boom generation of the 1950s and early 1960s was, reflecting the depressed birth rates and delayed marriages of the 1930s, the disruptions of World War II, and rapid postwar economic growth. Also, generationally defining events -- such as the deprivation, skewed sex ratios and delayed schooling in Europe following World Wars I and II -- are unusual.

Despite their enormous diversity -- in terms of race, geographical residence, gender, ethnicity, education and class -- it is not wrong to speak of todays young people as a generation. They have confronted certain shared experiences, from the seemingly never-ending war on terror to the Great Recession, the most divisive presidency since Richard Nixons, the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Theyve had to wrestle with the impact of certain widely shared generational experiences, notably their parents high divorce rates and slow economic growth, and increasing levels of economic inequality and volatility, which have bred pessimism about stable relationships and upward economic mobility.

As a historian, I am reminded of the late 18th century, that period of Sturm und Drang when youth was first recognized as the driver of societal and cultural transformation and when literature began to see the transition to adulthood as lifes supreme drama.

Its up to us, their professors, to do all we can to help this new generation prepare for its rendezvous with destiny. We can do this best, I think, by reimagining our courses and our curriculum.

That will require us to design classes that tackle the issues that are much on our students minds, involving societal and global inequities, climate change and sustainability, public health, and the ethical, economic and political issues posed by new technologies and the information economy. We also need to do more to ensure that they acquire the skills, credentials and experience they need to thrive in a volatile and uncertain economy.

Most important of all, we must engage forthrightly in conversations that need to take place involving values that our own generation held dear -- free speech, academic freedom, tolerance and nuance -- even as we heed the wisdom of Bob Dylans refrain: Your sons and your daughters/Are beyond your command For the times they are a-changin.

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

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The Higher Ed Generation Gap | Higher Ed Gamma - Inside Higher Ed

Following the enlightenment era, a new incarnation of politics created a uniquely democratic, liberal, egalitarian structure of government in Western democracies. In recent years, there has been an erosion of these qualities in favor of alternate ideologies such as Right-Wing Populism. Fundamentally, what is the appeal of these ideologies that are diametrically opposed to liberal democracy? I argue that multiple factors are catalyzing the growth of this Right-Wing Populism worldwide. Firstly, the structural weaknesses in democratic governance itself. Secondly, contemporary societal conditions that exist in certain western democracy whether it be through globalization or deindustrialization. Finally, the historical imperial legacies omnipresent in certain societies. Through examining the United States and France, one can draw a clearer picture of how this ideology begins to grow and spread, and what the future may hold.

Beginning in the post-enlightenment era, a new generation of politics brought together a uniquely democratic, egalitarian structure of government. This new governance emerged to create new political dimensions that had not been seen before in the monarchical structures that were omnipresent in the Western world. This Left-Right Axis began to shape politics from the very onset of democratic governance. Though these political dimensions may not have encompassed the same ideological overlap in different contexts, left and right parties began to diverge over which outlook was most beneficial for society. On the left, equality, social justice, civil liberty evolve. Conversely, the right has been shaped by moral universalism, individualism, and European Exceptionalism. As these two philosophically warring counterparts tugged at each other at various points in history, the fringes of both umbrella ideologies began to develop into movements and organizations that were seen as divergent from mainstream thought.

Throughout the ebb and flow of history, these groups fluctuated power and influence over the political system. In the 21st century, a notable dearth of extreme left parties has given way to a meteoric rise of extreme Right-Wing parties all over the Western world. From the United States and France to Hungary, Poland, Germany, Italy, and Greece, all have shown significant increases in radical right vote share. Why is the radical right so much more appealing than the radical left in todays society? Multiple factors are catalyzing the growth of this ideology worldwide, such as structural weaknesses in democratic governance, contemporary societal conditions, and the historical legacies omnipresent in certain societies. Through looking at the United States and France, analysis of right-wing movements show rapid growth in popularity due to these underlying factors, as well as current trends that impact the way people understand the world around them.

While there has been a plethora of literature surrounding the proliferation of Right-Wing parties and ideologies in the 21st century due to external societal factors, specific weaknesses of governmental structures of industrialized democracies are another factor that catalyzes the growth of populist Right-Wing movements. One of the most important aspects of a democracy is the ability to cultivate citizens, institutions and a public sphere that is conducive to democratic thought. (Rosenberg, 2019) Inherently, democracy requires certain prerequisite assumptions about societal arrangements. Dahl (1971) theorizes that at a fundamental level, citizens must be able to formulate coherent preferences, signify these preferences to other citizens and government structures through individual and collective action and have these preferences weighed evenly among citizens. These fundamental citizenship skills are contrary to far-right populism that has weaved its way into society. The radical right thrives on divvying up the populace into different groups, and is disinterested in debating the merits of their relative position in society and dividing resources equitably. Through a self interested lens, they are fundamentally contradicting Dahls classifications. (Charalambous, 2019) Though these democratic values are not inherently partisan, it is clear that the most intense ideological challenge to this hegemonic governing philosophy in the Western world has come from the extreme-right. To understand how radical parties can proliferate under such universal democratic norms, one has to examine the individual.

Uniquely in democracies, the citizen has immense power to shape the system to their interpretation of the world; however, citizens interpretation of the world could be lacking important prerequisites. Democracy is fundamentally difficult; it demands participants to respect those on the opposite side of the political spectrum and evaluate complex information in the context of an obtuse web of institutional frameworks. Democratic elites, using their civic awareness and gatekeeping power, have been able to successfully maneuver the expansive responsibilities of self-rule for hundreds of years. (Rosenberg, 2019) However, this democratic elite has been losing control of these valuable institutions to competing ideologies that offer simple solutions, often in the form of authoritarian or populist action.

This breakdown, as Rosenberg describes, is due to incompetent democratic citizens who lack the requisite cognitive and emotional capacities to assimilate its cultural definitions and norms, to function in its institutional organizations and to participate in its public sphere. Rosenberg is not the only one with this observation about individual citizens. In a similar but less explicit categorization of the modern American psyche, Greven (2016) describes Right-Wing populisms appeal in the United States along a similar construction. Promises for easy solutions to intricate and multi-faceted dilemmas without the need for compromise or negotiation that are only workable in a fantasy world. Greven continues by pointing out that this fantasy world is highly appealing to a disaffected section of the American public against a supposedly hegemonic political correctness. (Greven, 2016) Greven does draw similarities in his connotation of a disaffected public but his theory is more nuanced about this democratic consciousness in society being only limited to a certain subset, rather than inherent in humans as a whole. Prooijen (2019) suggests that extreme actors in society view the social world in a simplistic binary, when in fact it is much more complex.

This mirrors the incompetent citizen and creation of a fantasy world described by Greven and Rosenberg. These views illustrate a particular pattern that is appearing in the United States and Europe that values simplistic systems of thought being constructed in the place of complex democratic ideals. The breakdown of this democratic society has left a void that has increasingly been filled with right-wing populists who, conversely to democratic citizens, don't possess the ability or will to do the diligent work that democracy requires. These citizens are asked to comprehend that what holds them together is not their shared objective attributes but rather their legal definition and integration into an intricate system of societal and governmental relationships. (Rosenberg, 2019) Due to the failure in the implementation and fostering of these civic values over the last 40 years in our education systems, (Quigley, 1998) we live with citizens who are unable to interact with the system properly, and inevitably, they will turn toward more radical right figures who make issues more readily comprehensible, morally sensible and personally satisfying. (Rosenberg, 2019) This idea that democracy is unnatural and humans will inevitably resist democratic values leaves the more personally fulfilling ideologies like Right-Wing populism to proliferate in democratic societies.

In addition to Rosenbergs examination of the structural weaknesses in democracy and its vulnerability to Right-Wing Populist appeals, current economic and social situations lead Right-Wing parties to have further appeal in developed Western countries in the 21st century. Trends clearly show increases in immigration in the United States (Nunn, 2018) and France. (The Local, 2019) Moreover, there is a significant increase in the interconnectedness of modern societies (globalization). (Ghemawat, 2019) These factors trigger societal reactions that lead to an increase in Right-Wing support. In an analysis by Hogan (2015), it is posited that external factors such as immigration and increasing globalization are some of the most salient issues that the far-right use to gain power and legitimacy. The demonization of freeloaders and parasites in society sets up an us vs them populist message. (Muller, 2017. Hogan, 2015) This understanding lets these populist leaders delegitimize political opponents who side with the given other in the society. Aligning with Hogans demonization of external factors like immigration and globalization, Shmuck (2017) argues that a combination of anti-neoliberal globalization and anti-cultural diversity allows Right-Wing populist parties to make simple moral judgments in line with an imagined socio-cultural hierarchy, that is perceived to be under threat. These symbolic threats about the loss of Western civilization (Smith, 2018) are far more salient than perceived economic threats that have been the backbone of moderate parties of both dimensions. (Shmuck, 2017)

To participate in mainstream politics, these radical right groups do not want to be considered racist or exclusionist outright. Instead, they cloak their exclusionist policies under the guise of freedom, security, democracy and heritage. (Hogan, 2015) This guise makes far-right groups able to engage in mainstream politics, even while sending a dog whistle to their white constituents that the selected outgroup will be combated. This allows them to garner more support and continue making electoral gains. From a psychological standpoint, especially among people on the political right, socio-cultural fear can lead to a growing salience of extreme political ideologies. (Prooijen 2015) Often, this fear of the outgroup represents immigrants or elites who are perceived to threaten the base of the populist right (working-class whites). (Heiss, 2019) This notion of the other is vital to the success of these Right-Wing populist movements. Through identifying the enemies in a polity and attributing any ill in the community to them, extreme-right groups can raise the political saliency of these societal conditions to mobilize support for their cause. This process is how Right-Wing groups can galvanize support out of external societal factors like immigration or globalization.

In addition to the democratic and contemporary societal explanation for the radical right, another reason for its prevalence in society today is the unique historical context that most Western nations sit in today. Former colonial powers (like France) or racially hierarchical societies (like the United States) in the West leave a lasting residue in the fabric of society that is difficult to fully scrub from todays psyche. Veugelers (2020) argues that the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized create a legacy that contributes to support of the far-right in France. Using the former French territory Algeria, Veugelers touches upon a palpable reverence for the old world among the former colonizers who now make up a consistent coalition in far-right parties. Values like nativism, nationalism, and xenophobia accompany a sense of frustration with Frances historical decline. (Veugelers, 2020) This amorphous subtext that Veugelers identifies can be viewed through the lens of certain historically privileged members of society as a sensation of relative loss in social standing. This can be damaging because it can distort how an individual engages with democratic politics if relative social standing in society is misjudged. This could further lead to erroneous assumptions made about outgroup members, in which Right-Wing populists parties thrive. However, these feelings alone do not garner enough support for far-right parties; Veugelers posits that under certain conditions of voluntary self-isolation in a subculture of homogenous like-minded individuals, these historical attitudes breed supercharged identities that support Right-Wing parties more routinely.

Drawing a parallel to Veugelers Southern French constituencies, the party migration of Conservative Southern white Democrats to Republicans offers similar outcomes. A new analysis by Kuziemko (2018), it was found that after the mid 20th-century Democratic-led Civil Rights legislation in the United States, revvance for a traditional racial caste system, proved even more important than economic interests, lead them to migrate to the Republican party. (Kuziemko, 2018) Moreover, these racially conservative views accounted for virtually all of the Democratic voter loss in the former slave-owning regions during that period. (Kuziemko, 2018) This shows a distinct pattern of admiration of previous social hierarchie[1]s similar to the ones Veugelers pointed out in Southern France. Due to the contemporary demographics of the United States, this white Southern coalition is the base of the radical right parties today. This furthers the theory that reverence for unequal racial or ethnic hierarchies of the past is at least one determining factor of support for the radical right.

These three theories, explaining some of the conditions that make the radical right popular today, interact with each other in important ways. Specifically, the connection between Rosenbergs paper that outlines a need for a civically educated elite to maintain a democratic liberal system and the modern aspects of ingrained ethno-racial superiority brought on by changes in modern society that are present in some citizens. Attempting to understand why people seek out these views about immigration or historical legacies comes back to the inability of certain citizens to properly identify their position in society comprehensibly, which is a fundamental requirement of liberal democracies. (Rosenberg, 2019) This dislike of the outsider could be deeper than just animosity toward other races and nationalities--rather it could be a new electoral expression of whites relative loss of power through colonization or racial constructions collectively. This new expression could lead to dangerous effects in the political realm like appeal to more ideologically extreme parties or the erosion of democracy itself. These specific economic and social conditions together, coupled with the analysis of the incompetent citizen, create a nuanced framework for understanding Right-Wing radical appeals and why they are thriving in todays political climate.

In French Society, the National Front (FN) (later amended to the National Rally, NR) party has dominated the radical populist right for decades in France. After its formation in the early 1970s that was shrouded in neo-nazi rhetoric, the party slowly moderated to have relatively significant electoral success. (Bnard, 2017) As the National Front became more organized in the 1990s, a more coherent, nuanced nationalistic message began to trump some of the more outright racial supremacy. This trend was emphasized as Marine Le Pen took over her fathers (Jean-Marie Le Pen) role as leader of the party to appeal to a more mainstream message without some of the explicit anti-semitc and racist tendencies of her father. (Bnard, 2017) Marine Le Pen additionally sharpened the economic message of the NR during this time. This inevitably leads to more mainstream electoral success. Unlike the American far-right, (Cox, 2014) the National Front Party was not birthed with dogmatic economic policy so it had to rely more on cultural and social issues to gain traction in the political sphere. This movement created a base that was deeply connected both through ethnicity and social identity to mobilize a strong coalition that culminated in a close defeat in Frances runoff election to centrist Emmanual Macron. (Aisch, 2017)

One of the most important political explanations for the rise of this group in France is Veugelers observed reverence for colonial times. In an analysis by a French newspaper, Jean-Marie-Le Pen, the former leader of the National Front Party, built up a significant coalition of support in the Southern Provence-Alpes-Cte dAzur (PACA) region. Uniquely to other regions in France, the PACA was populated by a lot of former French-Algerian settlers who returned from a polarizing and comprehensive loss in Algeria in the 1960s and 70s. (The Local, 2017) Similarly to his coalition of supporters, Jean-Marie-Le Pen himself was a former fighter in the Algerian war on the side of the colonial French power. The support among those who fought in the Algerian War is a strong indicator of popular Right-Wing support due to their yearning for an antiquated era of French colonialism. (Veugelers, 2020) More specifically, these disenchanted voters and Le Pen himself yearned for the reinstatement of French nationalism by colonial means. This perverted colonial social structure stuck with many of those who returned home from the war and shapes the outlook and policies of far-right parties in France to this day. (Cook, 2017)

Digging deeper into the mentality of these citizens, a clear list of grievances with present-day society emerges. The author Christophe Guilluy conducted a geographical study entitled The Peripheral France. (Vinocur, 2014) In this analysis of contemporary socio-economic conditions in France, one of the notable findings is an appeal for certain citizens to take their country back and relive Frances previous glory. Guilluy describes the sentiments of these French citizens subjected to the vast, hidden, forgotten part of the country. (Vinocur, 2014) This notion of forgottenness is adopted by many Right-Wing parties. (Cowie, 2016) And this appeal is important because it galvanizes support for a populist leader who will fight for the forgotten man or the real people in society. Guilluy goes further; he contends that those people not feel forgotten but they feel vulnerable because, in their view, the country has divested from them economically and socially compared to prior decades. Using the salient issues like immigration or globalization, far-right parties can garner support from these frustrated individuals using these societal conditions that are present to mask blatant sentiments of xenophobia and nativism. They figuratively wrap themselves in a unitary French identity, while calling outsiders freeloaders and criminals. (Whitney, 1997) This coincides with Hogans analysis that points out how Right-Wing parties pull together a politically salient mix of nostalgia and xenophobia that makes Right-Wing nationalist parties in France powerful among certain circumstances in certain constituencies.

Unlike mainstream neo-liberal left or right parties who are seen by some in France as the architects of native French peoples decline, (Vinocur, 2014) Right-Wing movements are able to pick up where traditional parties are weak. Inevitably, this call to a prior France is symbolizing a frustration with changing race demographics and economic patterns that have left more rural parts of the country behind. This unique messaging compared to mainstream parties gives voters another option. The idea that certain members of the French population feel forgotten is similarly important because, inherently, this implies a return to a more racially, ethnically, and politically homogeneous time. Mainstream parties consciously ignore these claims, and some people feel that the only way to electorally make themselves heard is to blow up the system that keeps undermining them. These sentiments are echoed almost verbatim in far-right politics all around the world. In the United States, Trump mirrors Le Pens empowering populist language by tweeting The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. (Trump, 2017) When examined closely, these populist appeals raise legitimate anxieties felt in certain populations who feel that the system is not working for them. However, these citizens--by backing these extreme parties--are getting wrapped up in rhetoric that can fundamentally break down the liberal democratic tradition that has made their country so powerful in the first place and has progressed society forward.

To appeal to these disillusioned (PACA region) voters who believe the colonial hierarchies in France was more attractive, the National Rally must stick to stringent definitions of who is considered French. Marine Le Pens vision for France includes ending birthright citizenship and making this citizenship based on hereditary rather than geography. (Vinocur, 2017) The National Rally also extends these sentiments into more blatant discrimination of foreigners through the targeting of Muslim people directly. Whether this comes in the form of a Mayor urging schools to serve Pork in their cafeterias (McAuley, 2018) or stopping the construction of a new mosque, (Fieschi, 2020) this more ideological, partisan center of the movement lurking just beneath the surface.

When all of these economic and social anxieties are omnipresent in an advanced Western nation like France, Rosenbergs hypothesis about how democracy itself gives way to Right-Wing populism is evident in tangible political changes. In his work, Rosenberg notes of the Right-Wing populist citizen (like the constituents in Le Pens party): they do not want a democracy of diverse citizenry, and interconnected relationship in the continent nor do they have the capacity or will to deeply engage with complex institutions that have to deal with the will of their ideological enemies. These citizens feel like the European Union and liberal city centers have sapped from them their rightful stake in French society and they turn sharply to someone with more simplistic radical ideas to break down the system. Emmanual Macron, Le Pens victorious centrist opponent in the national elections of 2017, echoed this tone in a comment to Le Pen: I respect all of your voters because they are angry and disheartened.but you don't have any answers, you manipulate their anger. (France 24, 2017) As Macron rightly points out, National Rally constituents feel fed up with a system that is not working for them individually. Unfortunately, democracy fundamentally requires citizens not to think as individuals, but as groups put other peoples needs before themselves. Radical Right-Wing parties fight these values, and in the case of France, are actively trying to break down inclusive democratic culture in favor of policy-driven strictly by self-interest politics.

In the United States, similar to France, there has been significant growth in radical right ideology. However, this ideology has become the mainstream to a greater extent compared to European politics. This is primarily because the United States has a two-party system, so each major party must act as a catchall for a wide range of different issues. This has coupled with other factors that make major governing coalitions more susceptible to shifts in political culture, unlike other multi party-systems. (Greven, 2016) Where in France, Le Pens National Rally Party only made up roughly third of the voting base, the United States is split almost evenly between Democrat and Republican. This, coupled with extreme ideological sorting makes partisan identification powerful. (McCarty, 2019) This means that any salient ideology on either side of the political spectrum can be expressed in a major governing party if public support is strong enough. This exact process occurred in 2009, following Obamas election.

Unique to other Liberal Democracies, the United States has one of the most extreme major governing parties. This trend, driven by the asymmetric polarization of the Right, has produced historic conditions of ideological consistency and affective polarization which have further radicalized and entrenched the views of both parties. (Greven, 2016. McCarty, 2019) This has only served to further elevate and legitimize far-right mainstream government in a two-party system. Today, according to an analysis from the Manifesto Project, the American Conservative party (Republicans) is farther to the right ideologically than its French counterparts. (Chinoy, 2019) To illustrate the extremism compared to parties in Europe, todays Republican Party is equidistant from the National Rally Party (center right) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) which is considered a neo-Nazi Party by some observers. (Aderet, 2018) (Graph of Right-wing parties on left-right continuum, pictured above) These underlying institutional factors and electoral conditions (like sorting and polarization) are vital to understand the rise of the radical right because Trump was able to easily push aside the biggest threat to his ideology: the moderate establishment inner-party members. Through having a relatively favorable opportunity structure (Edwards, 2018) in government, this allowed Trump and his coalition to overtake the previously dominant establishment wing of the Republican party. This, coupled with weaknesses in democracy and historical legacies and social grievances pave the way for successful Right-Wing populist leaders like Donald Trump to build a massive coalition to win the White House.

The mechanics of this rise of the extreme-right in the US can be attributed to similar factors as in France, however, there are notable changes in the formation and ideology of these extreme parties. Widely accredited with catalyzing the first far-right agenda in the United States (the Tea Party) CNBC reporter Rick Santelli described how the country was a tinderbox and I lit the fuse to catalyze the American far right movement. This is America! Santelli remarked. How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgages [when they have] an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? (Perlberg, 2014) This modestly conservative economic sentiment morphed into a strikingly popular political message that appealed to neo-nazis and centrists alike and took over the Republican party. Over time, this message morphed from a strictly fiscal message to a populist message that lambasted immigrants, stoked nationalism, and lamented social hierarchies of the past all wrapped in a radical right message that our country is slipping away. (OnTheIssues.org) This paved the way for leaders like Trump to proclaim that he alone could fix the problem, and offer the classic simple solutions that are commonplace in radical Right-Wing ideology.

Understanding this mindset and motivation has proved difficult due to the large ideological variation among the Republican party, (Bacon, 2019) however, similarly to France, one of the key issues that galvanize support for radical right parties is the dislike of outsiders. Hogans (2015) Right-Wing populist playbook is still applicable in the context of American society. By constructing a threatening view of immigrants and other outsiders, white constituencies are made to seem under threat. Working against this threat through ideological frameworks, however, is more implicit in the United States than in France. Hocrschild (2012), uncovered the psyche of these individuals as feeling their way of life is jeopardized by the modern, globalized world. Using an analogy of waiting in line, she speaks from the perspective of those on the Right: Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you! Youre following the rules. They arent. As they cut in, it feels like you are being moved back. (Hocrschild, 2012) This conceptualization invokes an almost identical sentiment to those certain French people after the Algerian war, a palpable loss of social position. Similar to the analysis in Guilluys Peripheral France, these people feel forgotten and lost in modern politics, which leads them to support radical parties. And this feeling of forgottenness and loss of social position is not merely theoretical, similar to institutions in colonial France, the United States has had explicit forms of social hierarchies that have slowly been dismantled over the past five decades.

Similar to Veugelers observations about French settlers returning from post-colonial lands, lamenting past social structures is a precursor to joining the radical right; and this notion is further confirmed by the American case as well. In the U.S. it wasn't colonial dominance like the French, but rather a white slave-owning class (or just poor non-slave owning whites) that felt padded by their superiority in the system. Compared to antebellum times, these white constituencies have felt a relative loss in society. Expounding upon Hocrschilds categorizations of the line cutters, these individuals, just like the French, felt like their country was divesting from them in favor of multiculturalism and globalization. In a profile on Americans who waved the Confederate flag, a traitorous symbol of slavery, a similar theme of reverence for a different time was noticeable. A consistent sentiment of poverty and a symbol of loss in class in society was documented: What it boils down to is black people are just trying to overrule us. He went further, If we cant get white people to stand together, its going to be another civil war. (Ladd, 2018) Though the sharpness of these statements varies in different conservative groups, the general sentiment of longing for the old societal order is almost always present in some form in the radical rights rhetoric. These groups play to this statement by promising to Make America Great Again, implying that we need to bring America back to an inevitably whiter, homogenous society. As far-right groups construct this subjective portrait of history, these calls to bring back society to its European Christian Culture is simply a pseudonym for ethno-racial homogeneity. (Alt Right: Age of Rage, 2018)

However, even the radical nature of the extreme-right in the U.S. has to moderate its racial message to appeal to a broader audience. They have done this by using calls to put America first (America First Policies, 2020) by crafting a racialized message of deservingness. (Sides, 2019) This welfare chauvinism is a substantial part of the appeal to radical right parties. These views are reactive to societal factors and are finding a way to slice the pie in the most advantageous way for his swath of the American populace. This messaging proved quite effective, coalescing around the simple, easily digestible, personally satisfying message to conservative-minded voters. Importantly, this messaging is even more effective because populists insist they are the only ones who represent the real people so anyone infringing on their view of how society should look to them is threatening to their grip on power. (Mller, 2020) This sentiment threatens the very foundation of democracy by de-legitimizing the opposition, breaking core norms of governance. (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018) Coupled with trends of an extremely divided and ideologically sorted public, (McCarty, 2019) Right-Wing populist parties--like the Republican party--catapulted to power. At its core, the party used the emotional appeal of divisive politics and produced a more popular message among white constituencies than the traditional left-wing party in the United States.

Once again, drawing similarities to France, and expounding off of analysis done by Rosenberg, it is clear that these radical populist ideologies present the world in a system of simple binaries of good and bad. These distorted categorizations undermine democratic culture which in turn lets Right-Wing populist ideas fill the void of angst and uncertainty among a population. Making sense of the Republican partys efforts to build a wall on the southern border to supposedly curb immigration, (Crossley, 2019) or pull out of a historic multilateral climate change agreement because it didn't put America first, (Vitali, 2017) is only possible through the lens of the Right-Wing populist individual. The particular policies appealed to these individuals because they expunged the perceived bad guy (immigrants and elites respectively) in society without regard for other complex implications. This can be aligned with Rosenbergs argument that these individuals lack the ability to critically synthesize information beyond self-interest, in a governing structure that requires citizens to do so. These previously lost and confused citizens jump to an ideological understanding that does not require conceptual comprehension of complex institutions, but rather simple, and satisfying ideas that affirm their misguided, preconceived notions about the world that offer supposedly simple definitions of what is true and right. (Rosenberg, 2019)

Both in France and the United States, these radical right groups have latched on to a salient political message demonizing the outgroup in society. Whether the outgroup is immigrants, the poor, or globalists, these Right-Wing parties can latch on to this distinctly populist rhetoric and further validate their world view. This could be due to Rosenbergs incompetent democratic citizen that lacks the capacity to properly participate in complex democratic institutions. Or, it could also be partly due to the threat of multiculturalism and interconnectedness that is perceived to damage an imagined cohesive polity noted by Hogan. And it could even be due to Veugelers observed reverence of historical social structures, that carries an antiquated view of membership and equality in society. Through a combination of the theories listed above and countless other factors, the rise of these ideological styles in the world today demonstrates the inherent appeal of the radical right among a certain demographics. The trend of the 21st century has been marked by democratic decline and a rise in authoritarian Right-Wing leaders all over the world defined by misinformation, revisionist history, xenophobia, and racism. Centrally, Right-Wing populist parties reject the notion of Democracy for all once they have to actually practice what this entails. These potent ideologies have all merged to create a strong backlash to the hegemonic neoliberal doctrines that have ruled over society since the end of World War II. A brewing cultural war, lead by Right-Wing populists, on political correctness, egalitarianism, and metropolitanism, threatens the very foundation of tolerant interconnected societies. And more grimly, a political war could be on the horizon that threatens the very nature of democratic governance itself. However, the constituencies who make up these Right-Wing parties are not acting irrationally, and to fight these trends the world must listen to their legitimate economic and social anxieties--not ignore them. We must build competent citizens, and address systemic inequalities while embracing natural changes in society. To get to this place of shared understanding of values, our political world must diverge from the current, dangerous, path we find ourselves on and embrace a new direction for the future.

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1.) This is not to suggest that a conservative cannot be a democratic elite. It is just that Right-Wing ideology is more vulnerable to be radicalized and taken over by populism recently.

2.) Additionally, while both the extreme left and right have been responsible for this decline in democratic thought, the right-wing coalition is much more effective and organized todays societies. (https://fpif.org/sieg-heil-deja-vu-understanding-the-global-rise-of-the-extreme-right/)

3.) The demographics of radical Right-Wing movements across the world are overwhelmingly white. (https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-demography-of-the-alt-right)

4.) Picture caption: What Happened To Americas Center of Gravity? Retrieved from: (Chinoy, 2019) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html

5.) These trends are not inherently wicked, or wrong, as some on the right would point out, rather they are simply a product of modern society.

6.) This racialized message of deservingness can be seen in the Tea Party and current Republican partys willingness to support entitlements, (like Social Security) but only to those who have earned it; or more aptly, their base of older white Americans. On the same token, they clearly discourage other handouts and entitlements for those they deem unworthy such as immigrants or poor people. (https://www.ontheissues.org/Tea_Party.htm)

Aderet, O. (2018, April). 'Nazis in the Reichstag': All eyes on far-right AfD party as Germans vote in national election. Retrieved from https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/nazis-will-speak-in-the-reichstag-for-the-first-time-in-over-70-years-1.5452834

Aisch, G., Bloch, M., & Rebecca, K. K. (2017). How France Voted. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/07/world/europe/france-election-results-maps.html

Alt Right: Age of Rage. (2018). Directed by: Adam Bhala Lough. Grauitas Ventrues. Netflix.

America First Policies. (2020). Retrieved April 26, 2020, from https://www.americafirstpolicies.org/

Bacon, P. (2019, March). The Five Wings Of The Republican Party. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-five-wings-of-the-republican-party/

Bnard, L. (2017). A History of the National Front. Vice News. Vice. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/9aebdp/a-history-of-the-national-front

Charalambous, G., & Christoforou, P. (2018). Far-Right Extremism and Populist Rhetoric: Greece and Cyprus during an Era of Crisis. South European Society and Politics, 23(4), 451477. http://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2018.1555957

Chinoy, S. (2019, June 26). What Happened to America's Political Center of Gravity? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html

Cook, S. A. (2017). Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-french-debacle-algeria-shaped-rise-marine-le-pen-and-what-america-can-learn-it

Cowie, J. (2016). Donald Trump and History's Competing Visions of America's 'Forgotten Man'. TIME. Retrieved from https://time.com/4567949/forgotten-man-donald-trump/

Cox, J. (2014). 5 years later, Rick Santelli tea party rant revisited. CNBC. NBC Universal. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/24/5-years-later-rick-santelli-tea-party-rant-revisited.html

Crossley, P. K. (2019, January). Walls Don't Work. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/03/walls-dont-work/

Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy participation and opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Pr.

Edwards, G. (2018). "Closer or Context? Explaining Donald Trumps Relations with Congress. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 48(3), 456479. http://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12475

Emmanuel Macron to Le Pen: "You manipulate the French people's anger!". (2017). France 24 English. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAxfCIdsfp8

Fieschi, C. (2020). Muslims and the secular city: How right-wing populists shape the French debate over Islam. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/muslims-and-the-secular-city-how-right-wing-populists-shape-the-french-debate-over-islam/

Ghemawat, P., & Altman, S. A. (2019). The State of Globalization in 2019, and What It Means for Strategists. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-state-of-globalization-in-2019-and-what-it-means-for-strategists

Greven, T. (2016). The Rise of Right-wing Populism in Europe and the United States: a Comparative Perspective. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Retrieved from https://www.fesdc.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/RightwingPopulism.pdf

Heiss, R., & Matthes, J. (2019). Stuck in a Nativist Spiral: Content, Selection, and Effects of Right-Wing Populists Communication on Facebook. Political Communication, 126. http://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1661890

Hochschild, A. R. (2012). Strangers In Our Own Land.

Hogan, J., & Haltinner, K. (2015). Floods, Invaders, and Parasites: Immigration Threat Narratives and Right-Wing Populism in the USA, UK and Australia. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36(5), 520543. http://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2015.1072907

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The Growing Popularity of the Radical Right: Comparing Institutional, Societal and Historical Explanations in the United States and France - Inquiries...

(Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

It was around that time that I, a decidedly aimless and apathetic 15-year-old, would stumble upon a still somewhat blossoming TheRubin Report, along with The Joe Rogan Experience and Sam Harris podcast Making Sense.

Nearly three years agoin May of 2018Bari Weiss authored a piece in The New York Times recognizing for the first time in any mainstream publication a certain group of loosely affiliated thinkers. This group was, of course, the counter-narrative force that Eric Weinstein had termed the Intellectual Dark Web. In the time since Weiss article ran, quite a lot has changed, and the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) has been anything but spared from the seemingly unhaltable chaos of our age, despite its original conception as a force for making some ordered sense out of it all. Indeed, in many ways, the original members of this informal alliance against the dogmatic arrogance, general corruption, and cleverly-veiled coerciveness of the legacy media (and the intellectual dishonesty and laziness of blind adherence to ideology) have been unable to escape the very forces they had sought to oppose.

The IDWs origins could perhaps be traced back to 2015, to the creation of Dave Rubins YouTube showThe Rubin Report and then to the subsequent rise in notoriety of Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, and Bret Weinstein for each of their respective scandals or, more precisely, for their impressive and necessary acts of moral courage. Still, it was not until these thinkers, along with Ben Shapiro, Eric Weinstein, and others, began having considerable and frequent discussions with each other that the IDW would fully come into its own in 2017 and 2018.

It was around that time that I, a decidedly aimless and apathetic 15-year-old, would stumble upon a still somewhat blossoming TheRubin Report, along with The Joe Rogan Experience and Sam Harris podcast Making Sense. This was an unlikely turn of events that I owe primarily to the controversy which befell former games journalist and podcaster Colin Moriarty for his 2017 tweet in which he made an innocuous joke on one of several now-sacred social justice holidays, International Womens Day. Following the fallout of his withdrawal from the company and talk show he helped to create, he made appearances on The Rubin Report and The Joe Rogan Experience. What I had not realized at the time was the significance of the corner of the Internet I had fallen into: the larger world into which I had unwittingly stumbled. Making sense of the culture wars became my new favorite pastime. Indeed, I previously had no idea that people and their intellectual differences could be so interesting or that extended discussions about ideas could be so uniquely captivating.

Before I heard those such as Ben Shapiro and Rubin speak about problems of the modern, progressive left, I knew of no other ideas about how the world was (or could be), apart from those presented to me by any and every source that a passive participation in our dominate culture naturally exposes one to. (I had only had a vague sense that political correctness and its corresponding demands did not rest well with my conscience.) Prior to listening to Weinstein and Peterson converse, I was unaware such careful and intellectually sound discussion was even possiblethat such things even occurred. I should think to blame this at least partly on the failure of my education, but the IDW, for all its faults, provided me with a springboard into not only leading social and political discussions but, also, to exploring the entire world of ideas. For this, I am forever grateful.

This is also why it has been so painfully disappointing to see the momentum the IDW once had dissipate. This is not to say that important discussions have stopped occurring but, rather, that the original coalition (to the degree it ever was one) did not evolve together or change in the same (and correct) direction. From its relative peak in 2018, with lively discussions such as one in June of 2018 featuring Weinstein, Peterson, Shapiro, and Rubin all together, the IDW started to decline. This was likely at least the partial result of conversations devolving into a circular meta-analysis (speaking about the fact that a discussion was taking place), as well as the stagnation of the discourse in endless critique, a critique almost exclusively directed toward the same elements of the same ideology.

At a certain point, it began to seem as though the IDW was able only to offer one thing: more conversationbut always in the same way, about the same things. Although not a terrible offer by any means, it became certainly an insufficient and ultimately uninspiring one. The demise of what was would truly come in April of 2019, after Peterson made his final public appearance of significance until recent months in his discussion with Slavoj iek in Toronto. Peterson and his familys tragic health problems forced him into private recovery, and his absence forced the well-being and relevance of the IDW project to drop off massively. Following his departure from the discussion, great fragmentation occurred. Without Petersons guiding hand, Rubin fell ever-deeper into an echo chamber of the shallow conservative strain of thought associated with Dennis Prager and Fox News commentary. In doing so, he became just as ideological as his enemies on the Left. Both Weinsteins started their own (very high quality) podcasts and distanced themselves from Rubin. Harris allowed an unwavering obsession with the threat of former President Donald Trumps re-election to overwhelm his thinking and arguably compromise his previously stated principles.

And so, things are quite different now from the last time Peterson offered the world 12 Rules for Life. What the IDW wasand what it was supposed to beis ultimately not what it became or could sustain. The vibrant, diverse, high-level thinking it was meant to foster and embody has moved outside its original center. Its participants are each cozied into their own niches with enough comfortability that they, in many cases, need no longer take on the risks of engaging with one another. Or, perhaps, doing so is no longer plausible or, worse, is uninteresting.

It is no coincidence that the spaces Peterson, Douglas Murray, and the Weinsteins occupy have remained the more compelling and intellectually stimulating. They always had more to offer than the likes of Shapiro and Rubin, as original thinkers with deeper concerns than todays culture war disputes. They consistently offer insight that transcends the contemporary moment, and, because of that, they can also best address it as it unfolds. It is the fundamental distinction that made the grouping untenable; some were there to apply the knowledge and experience obtained from their true efforts to the discourse, and others made the discourse itself their bloodline.

As Peterson has stated regarding his explosion in popularity, They came for the scandal and stayed for the content. This was certainly true for me, as it was for so many others. It became increasingly obvious that Peterson, like the Weinsteins and others, had something to offer beyond cultural commentary or a critique of the authoritarian left. Their dissent was born of a more sophisticated motivation than transient opportunism or seeking clout or heterodoxy for their own sake. This, after all, is why they have been able to remain so consistently present.

Those who positioned themselves to be focused entirely on the IDW and its counter-narrative efforts against the mainstream and legacy media became unable to contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way. This was precisely because their participation in the discussion had always come with a prerequisite of there already being some passing controversy or new radical woke proposal to discuss. Their relevance always relied upon some immediate issue to lament over, some reaction to react to. Those without a calling other than to social and cultural conflict itself inevitably become uninteresting.

The decline of the discoursepaired with the incredible divide between those once involvedis further evidenced by the increasing relevance and inclusion of figures of the staunchly pro-Trump right, who are there to fight against the woke left. Candace Owens and Bret Weinstein, for instance, are not even playing the same game. Nor are Charlie Kirk and Coleman Hughes, or Donald Trump Jr. and Douglas Murray. Some are obviously more interested in the true free exchange of ideas and the unwavering pursuit of truth than others. The divide goes beyond mere personal opinion or conviction and extends to motive, self-awareness (or lack thereof), and, of course, depth of thought.

What a new cultural movement needs to be, what the IDW (or something like it) could be, is an effort that makes true strides in our collective intelligence and sensemaking, including a deeper understanding of ourselves as a preliminary requirement. This is an ideal David Fuller hasoutlined. These efforts are taking place atRebel Wisdomand are also being imagined by many leading thinkers in the Game B, alt-but-not-alternative space. Many of these thinkerssuch as Jordan Hall (previously Greenhall)provide models and frameworks that are often more workable than any articulated by the IDW; they offer more encompassing and substantial diagnoses of the problems. Such complexity of thought is not so grounded in the political as to be swept up and ripped apart by a single presidential election.

In the end, all critique has a net effect of zero without the creation of new, better things. Otherwise, how are we to know we are, indeed, any smarter than we were? If we cannot create more functional and effective ways of thinking, more adaptable systems to change, better structures of incentive, and more inspiring art and inventions, what is it all for?

The miscarriage of the mission of the IDW was primed from the start without a defined ideal for something more apt to replace our various current systems, structures, and dogmas. Without a shared vision, when push came to shove, it could only crumble under the weight of its own prescribed task, which was itself a noble and still necessary one. The necessity of a renewed culture of open inquiry (and abandonment of ideology and mere self-interest) remains a problem to be solved, and, for what it is worth, the IDW did reveal to the world many truly worthwhile people who are properly aimed at and capable of doing just that. But it will take more than mere articulation of what we do not find interesting, compelling, or even truthful. It will take some real thinking and reflection.

The great Roger Scruton, who left us all too soon, noted this fundamental truth: Good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. I believe this truth to be foundational to any effort (individual or collective). This awareness is necessary when reexamining and reimagining our thoughts, ourselves, and our world to address, with any effectiveness, the growing list of existential issues we face. It must be that the IDW was the first sprouting flower in a garden of essentially new thoughtnew thought not bound by the limiting dogmas of our ignorant, decaying institutions. Insteadand going forwardthought along these lines must be grounded in the wisdom of the past, paired with an openness to fundamentally new and visionary ideas about how to live and how to die. The permanence of our civilization may itself depend upon it.

Jordan Stout is a freelance writer in New Jersey.

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Growing Up with the Intellectual Dark Web - Merion West