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.
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.
Do you have any suggestions for someone wanting to learn about critical theory without reading a library of books? Thanks!
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!!