Last year Tim Keller published a short booklet called How to Reach the West Again, about how to do evangelism in our post-Christian age. He also recently did a podcast version of it, in which he reads a section of the booklet at the beginning of each episode, followed by others pastors discussing application in their context.
Good question. I actually don't think the average person should dive into the Frankfurt School since they are famously difficult to understand. But I might suggest Googling for reviews of Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man.
Wanted to ask about something here that I feel like has come up MULTIPLE times in the past few months:
"One reason that the Dissident Right has attracted so many followers in recent years is that they are effectively deploying a form of critical theory. They constantly critique the “Globalist American Empire” as a fundamentally illegitimate “regime,” deriding its ugliness, oppressiveness, moral perversity, and growing incompetence.
For example, they use terms like “clown world” (or “bugman” or “longhouse”) to describe various aspects of our society, such as Sports Illustrated putting fat swimsuit models on the cover. Or the World Economic Forum telling us we’ll own nothing and love it. Or the odd push by the media to promote eating insects."
But then the next paragraph starts with -
"I would not suggest adopting the Dissident Right approach."
In other words, it sounds like there is some idea of "There is a counter-ideology (the dissident right) which is actually effective at fighting and beating the prevailing ideology (whatever term you want to use for the people who cancel you for saying "all lives matter"), but I don't suggest them. Because they are in some way (not extraordinarily defined) bad."
I suppose that there was an article a few months ago discussing the way that some parts of this movement directly channel Nietzsche, and that to me seems bad.
But what is the route forward? If the Spirit of the Age is what it is (again, I don't know what term you prefer to identify those who cancel others for saying All Lives Matter), and people respond well to the critiques brought against that from the people you are calling the dissident right, what are you suggesting?
I suppose one thing I have noticed is simply that much of what I see online that I think you would call Dissident Right (I am not a big online person, going to deeper and deeper internet forums in search of stuff or anything like that), seems to actually utilize what might be called Symbols, or Eternals, or some weird philosophy term, in their posts/memes. Basically, they do NOT really argue that much (in the sense of logical argument), but rather simply overpower, blow out of the water, etc. So if they don't like a fat woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated, they put an SI cover model from 1976 that is sexy and a cover model from 2020 that is fat right next to each other and say, "Look what they have taken from you."
Overall, I am questioning the use of the term "Approach" in your sentence, "I would not suggest adopting the Dissident Right approach."
To me, the APPROACH is actually exactly spot on. Do not ARGUE with the absurdity of cancel culture, CREATE in it's stead.
The issue appears to be the aims and overall theology/philosophy (again, if it is Nietzschean it will eventually be Nihilistic), but not the APPROACH. The approach to me IS the guideplan to fighting the war.
Thanks for the note. I actually do think some of the Dissident Right's critiques are correct. To the extent that they are getting things right, there's nothing wrong with taking it. The problem is that they come from a metaphysically materialist and often neo-pagan point of view. Some of them are also quite hedonistic. So I think much of their solution set is bad. The bigger issue is that Christians have effectively ceded this space to them because of an unwillingness to truly critique the culture in a fundamental way.
I agree with you on the approach. A big problem is that most high profile Christian leaders have abandoned this space to the Dissident Right. I follow several Dissident Right people, very few of the most prominent bash Christianity. The Woke Preacher Clips account is doing a great job of exposing people like Phil Vischer and other Gospel Coalition types for their adherence to globohomo. To me, this is a similar form of resistance and ridicule to what the DR is doing from a Christian viewpoint.
Most of the Christians I see offering pushback are working more towards the withdrawal from society models. This can help build solid communities, but they are not effective against these global schemes. We need more resistance than that to stop this madness. Considering the Dissident Right allies as long as we working against the same enemy and using their approach where it helps make sense.
I feel like the Catholic Traditionalists, TLMers, and/or RadTrads are the equivalent of this Dissident Right. They are very conservative, very low tolerance for heterodoxy and can lash out to a fault. The problem is these are Catholic movements so naturally, the Vatican has cracked down on them hard. I fear this has little to do with unity and or liturgy wars and more to do with the fact the Vatican is scared at the large amount of interest by conservatives in it, They are getting a large amount of people entering seminary that are/were interested in learning the Traditional Latin Mass and hold very Orthodox conservative views.
Do you have any suggestions for someone wanting to learn about critical theory without reading a library of books? Thanks!
Good question. I actually don't think the average person should dive into the Frankfurt School since they are famously difficult to understand. But I might suggest Googling for reviews of Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man.
Hey Aaron!
Wanted to ask about something here that I feel like has come up MULTIPLE times in the past few months:
"One reason that the Dissident Right has attracted so many followers in recent years is that they are effectively deploying a form of critical theory. They constantly critique the “Globalist American Empire” as a fundamentally illegitimate “regime,” deriding its ugliness, oppressiveness, moral perversity, and growing incompetence.
For example, they use terms like “clown world” (or “bugman” or “longhouse”) to describe various aspects of our society, such as Sports Illustrated putting fat swimsuit models on the cover. Or the World Economic Forum telling us we’ll own nothing and love it. Or the odd push by the media to promote eating insects."
But then the next paragraph starts with -
"I would not suggest adopting the Dissident Right approach."
In other words, it sounds like there is some idea of "There is a counter-ideology (the dissident right) which is actually effective at fighting and beating the prevailing ideology (whatever term you want to use for the people who cancel you for saying "all lives matter"), but I don't suggest them. Because they are in some way (not extraordinarily defined) bad."
I suppose that there was an article a few months ago discussing the way that some parts of this movement directly channel Nietzsche, and that to me seems bad.
But what is the route forward? If the Spirit of the Age is what it is (again, I don't know what term you prefer to identify those who cancel others for saying All Lives Matter), and people respond well to the critiques brought against that from the people you are calling the dissident right, what are you suggesting?
I suppose one thing I have noticed is simply that much of what I see online that I think you would call Dissident Right (I am not a big online person, going to deeper and deeper internet forums in search of stuff or anything like that), seems to actually utilize what might be called Symbols, or Eternals, or some weird philosophy term, in their posts/memes. Basically, they do NOT really argue that much (in the sense of logical argument), but rather simply overpower, blow out of the water, etc. So if they don't like a fat woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated, they put an SI cover model from 1976 that is sexy and a cover model from 2020 that is fat right next to each other and say, "Look what they have taken from you."
Overall, I am questioning the use of the term "Approach" in your sentence, "I would not suggest adopting the Dissident Right approach."
To me, the APPROACH is actually exactly spot on. Do not ARGUE with the absurdity of cancel culture, CREATE in it's stead.
The issue appears to be the aims and overall theology/philosophy (again, if it is Nietzschean it will eventually be Nihilistic), but not the APPROACH. The approach to me IS the guideplan to fighting the war.
n_n!!
Thanks for the note. I actually do think some of the Dissident Right's critiques are correct. To the extent that they are getting things right, there's nothing wrong with taking it. The problem is that they come from a metaphysically materialist and often neo-pagan point of view. Some of them are also quite hedonistic. So I think much of their solution set is bad. The bigger issue is that Christians have effectively ceded this space to them because of an unwillingness to truly critique the culture in a fundamental way.
I agree with you on the approach. A big problem is that most high profile Christian leaders have abandoned this space to the Dissident Right. I follow several Dissident Right people, very few of the most prominent bash Christianity. The Woke Preacher Clips account is doing a great job of exposing people like Phil Vischer and other Gospel Coalition types for their adherence to globohomo. To me, this is a similar form of resistance and ridicule to what the DR is doing from a Christian viewpoint.
Most of the Christians I see offering pushback are working more towards the withdrawal from society models. This can help build solid communities, but they are not effective against these global schemes. We need more resistance than that to stop this madness. Considering the Dissident Right allies as long as we working against the same enemy and using their approach where it helps make sense.
I feel like the Catholic Traditionalists, TLMers, and/or RadTrads are the equivalent of this Dissident Right. They are very conservative, very low tolerance for heterodoxy and can lash out to a fault. The problem is these are Catholic movements so naturally, the Vatican has cracked down on them hard. I fear this has little to do with unity and or liturgy wars and more to do with the fact the Vatican is scared at the large amount of interest by conservatives in it, They are getting a large amount of people entering seminary that are/were interested in learning the Traditional Latin Mass and hold very Orthodox conservative views.