What are your thoughts re Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church?

[Falco Underhill]

As for the whole "neomarxism" stuff? That is all YOU overlaying the writings of an old irrelevant 1960s leftist writer Herbert Marcuse (who died over 40 years ago) onto a present day movement. And who obviously was NOT writing about the social justice movements of today, two generations after his death.

Well, congratulations Ken! You have finally convinced me you are not a socialist.

Ain't no way any real socialist could be that ignorant about Critical Theory.

[Ken]

As for the whole "neomarxism" stuff? That is all YOU overlaying the writings of an old irrelevant 1960s leftist writer Herbert Marcuse (who died over 40 years ago) onto a present day movement. And who obviously was NOT writing about the social justice movements of today, two generations after his death.

Well, congratulations Ken! You have finally convinced me you are not a socialist. No way any real socialist could possibly be that ignorant about Critical Theory.

I know a lot of people who are interested in social justice and racism. Not one of them is remotely a socialist.

[Falco Underhill]

As for the whole "neomarxism" stuff? That is all YOU overlaying the writings of an old irrelevant 1960s leftist writer Herbert Marcuse (who died over 40 years ago) onto a present day movement. And who obviously was NOT writing about the social justice movements of today, two generations after his death.

Well, congratulations Ken! You have finally convinced me you are not a socialist. No way any real socialist could possibly be that ignorant about Critical Theory.

I know a lot of people who are interested in social justice and racism. Not one of them is remotely a socialist.

I can see why a lot of people might suspect persons who self-identify as liberal as closet Marxists though. So many tend to parrot a lot of socialist dogma without even thinking about it.

[Ken]

Well, congratulations Ken! You have finally convinced me you are not a socialist. No way any real socialist could possibly be that ignorant about Critical Theory.

I know a lot of people who are interested in social justice and racism. Not one of them is remotely a socialist.

I can see why a lot of people might suspect persons who self-identify as liberal as closet Marxists though. So many tend to parrot a lot of socialist dogma without even thinking about it.

Not really. At least not from what I have observed. It is actually sort of the opposite. The socialist wing is more or less Bernie Sanders and his whole Democrat Socialist movement and the biggest criticism they faced was that they were WAY to focused on class issues rather than race issues and that is why African-Americans overwhelmingly voted for Biden. From the Democratic Socialist point of view as represented by Sanders, every problem in the US is due to class inequality and the 1%. Which is an entirely different point of view from the social justice movements like BLM which viewed systemic racism as a bigger problem than class inequality.

[Falco Underhill]

I know a lot of people who are interested in social justice and racism. Not one of them is remotely a socialist.

I can see why a lot of people might suspect persons who self-identify as liberal as closet Marxists though. So many tend to parrot a lot of socialist dogma without even thinking about it.

Not really. At least not from what I have observed. It is actually sort of the opposite. The socialist wing is more or less Bernie Sanders and his whole Democrat Socialist movement and the biggest criticism they faced was that they were WAY to focused on class issues rather than race issues and that is why African-Americans overwhelmingly voted for Biden. From the Democratic Socialist point of view as represented by Sanders, every problem in the US is due to class inequality and the 1%. Which is an entirely different point of view from the social justice movements like BLM which viewed systemic racism as a bigger problem than class inequality.

Coincidentally, Herbert Marcuse has also been criticized for his rejection of class conflict theory. Yet, the Frankfurt School Critical Theory was based on Marx's Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory is a further development of Marcuse's Critical Theory. (There are basic principles that unite them all.)

Although Neomarxism departs from Marx regarding class conflict theory (in a way, not totally) it is still solidly within the Marxist tradition, at least in my opinion.

[Ken]

I can see why a lot of people might suspect persons who self-identify as liberal as closet Marxists though. So many tend to parrot a lot of socialist dogma without even thinking about it.

Not really. At least not from what I have observed. It is actually sort of the opposite. The socialist wing is more or less Bernie Sanders and his whole Democrat Socialist movement and the biggest criticism they faced was that they were WAY to focused on class issues rather than race issues and that is why African-Americans overwhelmingly voted for Biden. From the Democratic Socialist point of view as represented by Sanders, every problem in the US is due to class inequality and the 1%. Which is an entirely different point of view from the social justice movements like BLM which viewed systemic racism as a bigger problem than class inequality.

Coincidentally, Herbert Marcuse has also been criticized for his rejection of class conflict theory. Yet, the Frankfurt School Critical Theory was based on Marx's Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory is a further development of Marcuse's Critical Theory. (There are basic principles that unite them all.)

Although Neomarxism departs from Marx regarding class conflict theory (in a way, not totally) it is still solidly within the Marxist tradition, at least in my opinion.

I think most people don't actually engage in "theory" at all. That is more esoteric academic nonsense from people who write about stuff instead of doing things. That is the same for people on the both the right and left.

But let me give you a simple stereotypic example of what I'm talking about. The Sanders campaign had a LOT of white people who would go around the south and other places with large African-American populations and lecture people about how it was the 1% that was the problem in American society. Blah, blah, blah. You can watch any old Sanders speech and he uses the term 1% about 25-times per speech. However the actual lived experience of many African Americans, especially those of a certain age and not student activist types, is it isn't at all the 1% or "corporate America" who has been holding them back or being an obstacle to their progress. It is the racist white foreman down at the factory who promotes his white buddies ahead of them. Or the loan officer who denies their mortgage application for mysterious reasons. Or the apartment manager who says that they don't have apartments available when in fact they actually do. Or the fact that the schools in their neighborhood receive less funding and resources than the wealthier mostly white schools in the suburbs. It is all those little bits of daily racism that act as a cumulative drag on their lives and it is all mostly middle class white neighbors, associates, etc. doing it and not some rarefied 1% or corporate overlords pulling strings from above.

Point being, class and race are really not the same thing at all in this country. And a lot of the socialists types like Sanders tend to miss that essential point. Sure they know how to talk a good game about racism. But when it comes down to brass tacks and policy it's all about class warfare (taxing the 1%) and not addressing racism.

[temporal1]

Coincidentally, Herbert Marcuse has also been criticized for his rejection of class conflict theory.
Yet, the Frankfurt School Critical Theory was based on Marx's Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory is a further development of Marcuse's Critical Theory. (There are basic principles that unite them all.)

Although Neomarxism departs from Marx regarding class conflict theory (in a way, not totally)
it is still solidly within the Marxist tradition, at least in my opinion.

There is both innocent ignorance, and dedicated ignorance. i applaud your patience, and the patience of others present who offer so much. Thank you.

[Falco Underhill]

Point being, class and race are really not the same thing at all in this country. And a lot of the socialists types like Sanders tend to miss that essential point. Sure they know how to talk a good game about racism. But when it comes down to brass tacks and policy it's all about class warfare (taxing the 1%) and not addressing racism.

You seem to be pointing to systemic racism as the problem problem here, which tells me you're more influenced by these neomarxist ideologies than you let on. If you're really not influenced by CRT why does it sound like you're pulling a page straight out of a CRT textbook?

So what exactly do you propose as a solution to racial inequality?

[Ken]

Point being, class and race are really not the same thing at all in this country. And a lot of the socialists types like Sanders tend to miss that essential point. Sure they know how to talk a good game about racism. But when it comes down to brass tacks and policy it's all about class warfare (taxing the 1%) and not addressing racism.

You seem to be pointing to systemic racism as the problem problem here, which tells me you're more influenced by these neomarxist ideologies than you let on. If you're really not influenced by CRT why does it sound like you're pulling a page straight out of a CRT textbook?

So what exactly do you propose as a solution to racial inequality?

I think there are a lot of problems in this country. Income inequality is one. Racism is another. A distorted tax code that incentivizes the wrong things is a third. I don't buy simplistic solutions to complex problems like "TAX THE ONE PERCENT" for example. Or bring back prayer in schools to address "moral decay"

The obvious solution to racial inequality is to promote policies for racial equality. At one level it really is that simple. But doing that requires examining and understanding things like systemic racism. Such as inequitable funding of public education that results in wealthy suburban schools having far more resources and support than urban and rural schools. Or inequities in the distribution of public infrastructure investments between wealthy and poor communities. Or unequal justice depending on if you are rich or poor or black or white. I'm not sure why any of this is controversial. It all exists and is easily documented and understood.

There is also a lot of overlap between class divisions and racial divisions. It isn't all neat and tidy. There are lots of rich and powerful Black and Hispanic people and lots of powerless poor white people. Consequently solutions are equally difficult and complex. And mostly amount to hundreds or thousands of small everyday type of solutions rather than big government programs. And amounts to people in every walk of life across the country being willing to leave things better than they found them. I'm not a believer in big government solutions for most of this. Like reparations or most affirmative action. But I do think the government should incentivize justice and equality for all rather than doing the opposite. I think we can talk about very specific solutions to very specific problems. Such as school inequality in Texas. Or criminal justice inequality in Louisiana. Or housing inequality in California. But there aren't big sweeping one-size-fits-all solutions to any of it.

None of this is Marxist or "neomarxist" or whatever label you are using. It goes straight to the heart of what this country is ideally about from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution to the Sermon on the Mount.

[Falco Underhill]

None of this is Marxist or "neomarxist" or whatever label you are using. It goes straight to the heart of what this country is ideally about from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution to the Sermon on the Mount.

I didn't say it was.

I did describe Herbert Marcuse and CRT as neoMarxist, but Herbert Marcuse would be described as Neomarxist by any University, it's not a "conservative" label.

CRT I'm not so sure, but I'm not certainly not alone in that either.