Posted on 02/12/2025 5:08:01 PM PST by Pelham
With the left depressed in 2025, much of the cultural energy belongs to the right. But where’s it going to go?
One increasing possibility appears to be that newly self-confident right-wingers are getting into various kinds of New Age woo, the occult, gnosticism, RFK Jr. junk science, paganism, Indian esotericism, Chinese numerology, health food fads, etc. In other words, all the old craziness satirized by Umberto Eco in Foucault’s Pendulum, plus some new innovations like AI cults and God knows what else.
G. K. Chesterton supposedly said, “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.” (Note that Chesterton never quite said that: This most famous Chestertonian epigram is actually an admirably succinct paraphrased summation of G. K.’s train of thought by his admirer Émile Cammaerts.)
The current right-wing coalition between tech bros and chuds opens up all sorts of possibilities, both highbrow and lowbrow.
For example, Silicon Valley is into psychedelic drugs lately.
And much of New Age is motivated by physical discomforts suffered by aging humans, which they like to blame on poisoning. Hitler blamed race poisons, others blame seed oils and microplastics.
(Excerpt) Read more at takimag.com ...
Steve Sailer?
LOL!
Good to see someone with actual memory of conservative journalism. The internet and cable TV era has dumbed everything down considerably judging from the replies to this article, assuming any even bothered to read it.
They have a point here. There’s a disturbing trend in the bro movement (Rogan et al) where they adovcate the use of illegal or pschodelic drugs to be “enlightened”. Many of them are dabbling in the demonic realm.
“The tone I’m reading is he’s searching, brainlessly, for any way to disparage MAGA.”
That may win top prize for the most clueless take. Steve Sailer, like Sam Francis, was writing MAGA essays long before MAGA had a name.
Yeah having lived through the ‘60s this trend spooks me. Nothing good will come of this. I can think of so many musicians whose lives were derailed by psychedelics, and for each one of them there must have been hundreds of anonymous little people.
Look for some of these “bros” to become Pied Pipers like Timothy Leary, Baba Ram Dass etc.
I used to read my folk’s copy of National Review back then. When I got married they got me my own subscription. It killa me how the wheels came off after Buckley passed.
Someone who knew the old NR well said that the real heart of NR had been Buckley’s older sister Priscilla. She was the managing editor actually running the magazine, choosing whom to publish. When she stepped down the magazine began its decline. William F. didn’t do much other than act as the official greeter. He never wrote any articles, which you may have noticed. I subscribed from 1977 until about 1992. By then it was no longer worth reading and Chronicles was where proto-MAGA was being born with Sam Francis as its prophet.
He's talking about Silicon Valley ( since WHEN ARE THOSE TYPES CONSERVATIVES? ), YOGA ( which has been around for a very long time and never really being popular with some ), astrology, paganism, (I doubt that you'll find many Trumpers involved in any form of THAT! ), etc.!
Science Fiction has also NEVER gone out of style; however, I don't think that many young adult Trumpers are into that now.
Old people talking about "poisons" in food? REALLY? How many "old" people are blaming that ( not even talking about the Chinese Flu shots! ) what ails them on that; especially conservatives? And Bobby Kennedy Jr. is something of a crackpot LEFTY, even though he is aboard the Trump Train.
“He’s talking about Silicon Valley ( since WHEN ARE THOSE TYPES CONSERVATIVES? )”
Peter Thiel. Joe Rogan. Elon Musk. Maybe you just haven’t kept up with the microdosing of psychedelics by rightwing tech bros. It’s not new.
https://www.vox.com/2024/2/14/24067911/a-brief-history-of-silicon-valleys-fascination-with-drugs
“And Bobby Kennedy Jr. is something of a crackpot LEFTY, even though he is aboard the Trump Train.”
I think that’s Sailer’s point. Cultural left weirdness is now finding fans among people who think they are on the right.
What amuses me is Chesteron did write about this same cultural goofiness afflicting England over a hundred years ago. And a lot of it was big in California in the 1960s. And now the same stuff is finding fans on what passes for 2025 Right, especially among the MAHA crowd.
Many—maybe most folks here have no idea who Sailer is...they live kinda sheltered lives.
Astronomy, numerology, fad food cults, "dope" ( opium, morphine, and alcoholic beverages ) tarot cards, etc. for 100s of years, on and off, though mostly in Europe, for some of that, and not only amongst lefties.
The New England Fox sisters were at it, with "spiritualism" quite a few years PRIOR to the Civil War here!
Cagliostro was at it, in Europe, in the mid 18th century and had many an Aristo and Royal followers!
A LOT of that all was BIG all over America in the 1960s; NOT just in California! And it was also around in the 1940s and '50s, but more hidden from view.
OTOH...these things are NOT all that "BIG" in the general public, with most GenZers now.
And those crazy people who believed that the best thing you could give a child to drink was a broth rather then beer.
It’s a fascinating history and California ended up with more than its share after 1900. Jack Parsons of Caltech, NASA fame was in the middle of it all.
A lot of freepers have no knowledge of anything pre-internet or pre-cable tv conservative info-tainment. It’s a different world from when we read magazines and watched The McLaughlin Group or Crossfire.
In addition most folks here have no idea about many of the younger folks who are our allies—and might be freaked out by their beliefs on a wide range of topics.
Here is one example—hard core President Trump supporters but with very unconventional ideas on everything else—these guys are in their thirties:
Seriously. I’ve thanking God ever since the election for this.
As I stated, these things come & go and have done for 100s of years. He just picked one small group to dwell on.
Millions of GenZers, who are rabid Trumpers, are NOT into drugs, fad diets, the occult and such, nor are they adherents of/believers in Bobby Jr.'s crazy ideas.
The author of this drivel is a Californian. He's all rah rah this stuff. That doesn't mean that he's correct; it's his opinion, which doesn't prove anything nor impress me.
But it’s self evident that I wasn’t referring to his previous writings.
“these things are NOT all that “BIG” in the general public, with most GenZers now.”
I noticed the same flaw in his approach. The writer’s perspective is limited by his focus on elite pop culture which feeds his belief, or perhaps his desire, that this tiny slice of our culture designs the rest of it.
Yoga might have gone away and later come back among the elites, but for the culture at large it simply continued to grow the whole time.
It’s important to keep in mind that pop culture trends, especially pertaining to areas like religion and music, have been orchestrated through the military intelligence wing of the occultist global cabal.
The cabal’s tentacles are firmly placed into internet discussions and are frequently activated to discredit statements like mine in this post.
You're also somewhat off kilter, re your conspiracy theory" pertaining to WHO/WHAT is in charge of our culture and trends, which does you a disservice; sadly, on an important topic.
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