So basically the Radical Dualist Gnostics were the Leftists of the ancient world?
Oddly enough, the first time I ever saw the word "Manichaean" in print was in reference to George W. Bush, some twenty years ago. It was in an article I found on a radical leftist website, attacking the plans then underway for a war against Iraq, and the whole "You're with us or with the terrorists" worldview of the Bush Regime and Conservatism Incorporated during those years.
One of the great disappointments in my life has been the way that the Left of the 2010s and 20s turned into the Right of the early 2000s, right down to the Manichaeism.
Their mistake though is to claim a genetic connection between the two, when it fact the evidence for this is practically nonexistent.
You can probably make a somewhat forced claim about how Gnosticism is popular in Hollywood, as demonstrated by Gnostic allegories like The Matrix, or about Kenneth Rexroth being influenced by G.R.S. Mead's translations of Gnostic texts and then going on to midwife the Beat poets in the 50s. Actually I'm sure someone is out there making a claim like that.
I'm pretty sure there is a much more direct connection between the contemporary Left, especially in its most hysterical phase, and New England Puritanism. A while back I saw a book at a book store, one of these racist kämpfe that are acceptable because of the race of the author, entitled "Sermon to White America." I immediately thought, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-11-29 08:42 pm (UTC)Oddly enough, the first time I ever saw the word "Manichaean" in print was in reference to George W. Bush, some twenty years ago. It was in an article I found on a radical leftist website, attacking the plans then underway for a war against Iraq, and the whole "You're with us or with the terrorists" worldview of the Bush Regime and Conservatism Incorporated during those years.
One of the great disappointments in my life has been the way that the Left of the 2010s and 20s turned into the Right of the early 2000s, right down to the Manichaeism.
You can probably make a somewhat forced claim about how Gnosticism is popular in Hollywood, as demonstrated by Gnostic allegories like The Matrix, or about Kenneth Rexroth being influenced by G.R.S. Mead's translations of Gnostic texts and then going on to midwife the Beat poets in the 50s. Actually I'm sure someone is out there making a claim like that.
I'm pretty sure there is a much more direct connection between the contemporary Left, especially in its most hysterical phase, and New England Puritanism. A while back I saw a book at a book store, one of these racist kämpfe that are acceptable because of the race of the author, entitled "Sermon to White America." I immediately thought, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."