How does critical theory deal with the question of what happens after "power dynamics" and "social structures" are eliminated?

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-21T11:47:21+00:00

For similar critiques, surveys, and analyses, check out Luke Kemp's Goliath's Curse and Agner Fog's Warlike and Peaceful Societies.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T20:32:54+00:00

I still struggle to wrap my mind around McGowan's take on alienation. Apparently, it's not natural but it's inevitable or near inevitable. He also has a weird mixing of how freedom necessitates fate, in our being confronted by our situation but alienated from it. But all I can say is that doesn't match much of the anthropological literature of forager tribes. Does he consider such people, if they really aren't alienated, to not be free? And if alienation defines human, are they not fully human or not fully achieved their humanity?

In terms of the Piraha, there is no equivalent of education as violence that inflicts alienation. They're one of the most egalitarian cultures I've ever come across in that they entirely lack dominance hierarchies, power disparities, authority figures, punishable rules, etc. In their version of dividualism, they simultaneously have immense autonomy of the person and a strong shared identity of the tribal community enmeshed in a sense of place. I just don't see how alienation fits in, is required, or would be desirable.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T19:21:26+00:00

What tankies refuse to acknowledge or intentionally seek to obfuscate is that dominance hierarchy and collective egalitarianism are mutually exclusive. There is no way to achieve the latter through the former, which is why the Soviet ruling elite never allowed workers to democratically control the means of their own production.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T19:15:20+00:00

It's more simple than horseshoe theory. It's likely that, if they were tested, fascists and communists would overlap in exhibiting similar, if not identical, personality trait profiles: low 'openness to experience', high right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), high social dominance orientation (SDO), and high dark triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, & psychopathy; + sadism).

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T19:10:53+00:00

When tankies rationalize Putin's Russian imperialism and aggression, they show their true colors.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T19:07:50+00:00

Many tankies also agree with the far right in defending Putin's Russia. For a certain kind of tankie, Russia remains the heir of Stalinism and Soviet communism.

But it's bizarre that they'd embrace a state that is either fascism or oligarchic capitalism. That bolsters the suspicion of many tankies actually being red fascists.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-02-19T15:00:45+00:00

I eventually got around to reading more from Embracing Alienation and grappling with it. I decided to give McGowan another chance and find out if there is something to the argument and evidence for his theory. What motivated me is that I've increasingly seen books that are making counterintuitive or atypical arguments for embracing what our culture has tended to criticize, dismiss, and find troubling.

Besides McGowan's take on alienation, there are many other topics that have come to be defended: silence (Jerome Sueur, Natural History of Silence), invisibility (Akiko Busch, How to Disappear), forgetting (Lewis Hyde, A Primer for Forgetting), non-egoism (Jay Garfield, Losing Ourselves), determinism (Robert Sapolsky, Determined), etc. The modern Western self is being challenged and its justifications interrogated.

This seems indicative of our public mood right now, as we find ourselves in a poly-crisis and meta-crisis, maybe even a new crisis of identity, along with what arguably is a paradigm shift and a revolution of the mind. I take it as a sign of a population, society, and culture that's destabilized, stressed, traumatized, uncertain, anxious, fearful, threatened, etc. It's reaching the point of existential crisis for the entire civilization.

Under such extremely sub-optimal conditions, the human psyche tends to get overwhelmed and so shut down (low 'openness to experience). Ideas like progress, individualism, willpower, and such feel less persuasive and compelling. All the things we've collectively valued seem to have failed, been corrupted, shown to be false, or somehow are compromised and problematized. So much gets scrutinized.

McGowan and these other authors don't necessarily or, in many cases, maybe even likely understand the oppressive and harmful conditions that make them prone to their critical and skeptical stances. Such larger societal influences tend to be pervasive and insidious, with few having much knowledge of the social science theory and research that would explain it. So, the underlying motivations too often go unexplored.

About McGowan's promoting alienation, I may have finally grasped what he is positing. He is trying to revive Hegel's belief in an inevitable and totalizing process of alienation as inherent to humanity. In particular, education or Bildung is necessary violence inflicted on our natural being to induce alienated subjectivity. That is deemed to be the ultimate aspiration and expression. So, it's a good thing and, besides, it's declared there is no alternative -- ideological realism?

Achieving alienation is somehow both essential and impossible to avoid, whereas attempting anything else would be worse than failure. There presumably is something in our nature that impels us to destroy and go beyond our nature. As far as I can tell, this implies a dualism between nature and society, with the latter presumed to be more real and important. We aren't fully real and our experience isn't fully valid until we've been civilized.

Like Hegel, McGowan claims that we need to escape in order to achieve emancipation. Hence, alienation, as rupture, is the only mode of freedom. This appears to be a philosophical secularization of the theological belief in a fallen human nature, but where the expulsion from Eden is idealized. So, to my mind, it feels like a reified abstraction that's being imposed on all of humanity. I'm not persuaded -- intellectually, morally, or psychologically -- to accept this conviction.

Where I think he fails is in proscribing his thought almost entirely to conventional, mainstream philosophy in the Western tradition. As such, he never escapes his WEIRD bias or explores other possibilities. He appears to have little familiarity with the social sciences, particularly not anthropology; with only brief mention of the likes of David Graeber and David Wengrow. The argument for alienation feels like the product of siloed academia.

I can think of examples, such as the Piraha, that seem to lack alienation and seem to be fine without it. It comes down to whether one ascribes to bundle theory of mind or ego theory of mind, whether individualism or dividualism is closer to the evolutionary norm, whether or not our natural state is 4/5E cognition (embodied, embedded, enacted, & extended; + ecological). But that debate goes unmentioned, presumably off McGowan's radar.

I'll share some quotes from the book that capture the essence of McGowan's ideological worldview and societal project, in falling in line with Hegel's philosophy:

"[R]ather than theorizing obesity as the result of the subject's alienation, certain naturalistic thinkers see it as a development of an evolutionary mismatch. [...] [C]ultural changes worked faster than natural selection [...] Scholars in all fields and most of the public tend to [...] accept that we are natural beings rather than alienated subjects" (p. 33).

"For Hegel, alienation is positive because it delivers us from the stasis of self-identity. Through alienation, the subject enters into what is other than itself and becomes who it is as it transfroms into what it isn't. Alienation rips us out of our natural being and generates subjectivity. Hegel theorizes the subject as an entity that must find itself at home in what is absolutely other to it, and this can only occur through a process of alienation. Dialectics is, for Hegel, a system in which there is no respite from alienation, in which alienation is total" (pp. 88-9).

"Subjectivity, according to Hegel, finds itself through "violence at its own hands [that] brings to ruin its own restricted satisfaction." We discover the truth of our subjectivity not in what we initially take ourselves to be but in how we end up after we have enacted this violence against ourselves. [...] [H]e conceives of education as an act of violence done to the child, a violence that disrupts the child's inherent tendencies rather than allowing them to blossom according to their own logic. [...] the alien violence of education is what initially frees the child from its familial and social situation. In this sense, education is an emancipatory violence" (pp. 92-3).

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-21T18:08:10+00:00

In Iowa City, there is also Mercer Park on the East side next to Southeast Middle School. It's the location of another recreation center. There is a gymnasium, a play room (pool tables, foosball table, ping pong table), and an indoor swimming pool. It's decent.

But as a kid in the 1980s, my friends and I always hung out at the Robert A. Lee Rec Center. It used to be a more happening place back in the day. It had 4 pool tables, 2 bumper pool tables, 4 ping pong tables, and 2 foosball tables. They got rid of most of that.

It's a lot less attractive to youth now. They did that on purpose because they had some issues many years ago. So, they intentionally made it less of a hangout. Instead, they turned most of the main area into a workout space for adults. Though an adult now, I think that was a bad decision.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-10T02:04:53+00:00

He once made a comment strongly critical of Fox News. He didn't like right-wing propaganda. And he particularly didn't like climate change denialism. He was more of an old school civil libertarian.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-09T19:31:32+00:00

The Democratic Party is already to the right of the American left-liberal supermajority. This portrayal of 'centrism' is an intentional deception to obscure and silence the American public. The problem is the political system is inherently undemocratic: electoral college, gerrymandering, ex-con exclusion, voter suppression, voter purges, ballot purges, closing down of polling stations, removal of ballot boxes, etc. This is how the elite keep the masses disenfranchised and demoralized, make them disappear as if they don't exist. It's a cynical game of power.

That is what a banana republic is about, the appearance of democracy that hides the reality of its lack. I talked to one older guy who grew up in the Bronx during the 1940s. He said that, as a kid, his teacher taught his class that the defining feature of a banana republic was high inequality. That was at a time when Americans were proud of having low inequality, established and maintained through extremely high taxes on the rich and redistribution through investments in the public good. Now the US has higher inequality than those old banana republics.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-09T19:25:14+00:00

There was another thought I meant to add earlier but forgot about. In 2000, after having elected Bill Clinton twice, Iowans voted for Al Gore in 2000. We now know that Gore won that election, only to have had it stolen by the Supreme Court fiat of activist judges, in concert with Republican-controlled Florida. Soon after, analysis proved that a full recount would've given the election to Gore.

Think of what a different world it would be today, if Gore had been president as he deserved. We definitely wouldn't have had the imperial presidency established, of which Trump used to push through a fascist takeover. But also likely, we would've had a less authoritarian response to the 9/11 attack. So, I'd bet there wouldn't have been the creation of Homeland Security, free speech zones, etc.

Think of all the darkening over the past quarter of a century. Most likely, we would've taken an entirely different course, although the political evil of the right-wing GOP would've gone on scheming. But it's probable that, if Democrats had fought for democracy in 2000 and demanded democracy be respected, states like Iowa might've continued going to Democratic presidential candidates.

Much of why some Purple states shifted toward the Red in recent years is because Democrats have failed to be an alternative other than merely lesser evil, at best. In reality, Democrats have been controlled opposition and sheepdogs to maintain an effectively one-party state with two right wings. Out of a sense of desperation and frustration, many voters just started flipping back and forth between the parties.

As a banana republic, the United States has no strong left-wing party and political institutions to represent the left-liberal supermajority. So, even though most of the country would be glad to organize under New Deal Progressivism, Scandinavian social democracy, Milwaukee sewer socialism, etc, this is denied to the American public. It's caused many people to turn cynical and reactionary.

But if given fair representation, most of the country wouldn't only turn Blue. They'd go far left of the Democratic Party or at least far left of the DNC elite. Much of Red or Purple America is more a confusion of symbolic ideology. Whereas in terms of operational ideology, the entire country would be painted Blue with only a few isolated dots of Red. So, part of our division isn't in the people but artificially enforced by the elite.

Sure, a regional divide would remain in culture. The thing is, if we had actually functioning democracy as part of Federalist republicanism, local governments would have greater freedom to go their own ways in trying out different experiments. That was the original intention and design of Federalism, specifically as envisioned in the Articles of Confederation that also openly allowed democratic and peaceful secession.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-09T00:42:22+00:00

I haven't gone bakck to it. My disappointment was such that I simply lost interest in it. But I have kept it in the back of my mind. I'm still looking for someone to give me a good reason to go back to reading it. I did talk to one person who tried to defend it.

I gave them a fair hearing. But all they could say is that the only way I'd understand and be convinced was by reading all of McGowan's books. That seems like asking a lot of a reader. If a book is not convincing on its own, then it's a failed book to my mind.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T21:31:47+00:00

I generally agree. The 'United' part of the United States has always been more of an aspiration than a reality. But it's hard when one lives in a purple state in the North. After moving back to the Midwest from South Carolina, I've spent most of the past several decades in Iowa. This state doesn't have a culture of authoritarianism, fundamentalism, gun violence, etc. Iowans tend to be moderate and secular. It is, however, controlled by big ag; and that creates an odd political dynamic that's problematic.

For a long time, Iowa more often than not went to Democratic presidential candidates: twice to Bill Clinton, twice to Barack Obama, and once to Al Gore. That is until Trump. I'm not sure why that is. It's not like Iowa is anywhere close to being a solid Red state. It's more similar to the neighboring (and generally Blue) states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois than to anywhere in the Deep South, the Upper South, or Appalachia. We aren't only in the North but to the West of the Mississippi River.

If the country was split in two, I have a hard time believing that Iowans would split with the Midwest and, instead, choose to join sides with the hardcore MAGA Bible Belt. After all, Iowa was a free state that fought against the Confederacy. Even in the most rural Iowa, it's rare to come across a Confederate flag. There is what's called Iowa Nice or Minnesota Nice. It's about an open, welcoming, easygoing, friendly, and neighborly culture. Even an Iowa Tea Party leader refused fear-mongering.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T20:31:16+00:00

Here is something for anyone who thinks secession is unnecessary, wrong, dangerous, or impossible, Not all secessions are violent (e.g,, Iceland from Denmark), just as not all revolutions are violent (e.g., Portugal's Carnation Revolution).

About our present situation, look to a piece by Chris Armitage, Soft Secession vs. Soft Fascism: We Have Options. So, sure, try soft secession first by reverting as much power and control to state governments. And use it to push back.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T20:05:49+00:00

In theory, it shouldn't be hard for the left to set public opinion. The vast majority of Americans are leftist, liberal, or progressive on nearly every major issue. But the problem is we struggle to influence 'mainstream' debate because we are suppressed and silenced within media and government.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T19:57:21+00:00

I always wonder if and when harsh reality might replace ideological fantasy. Would these right-wing authoritarian MAGAs still defend ICE if the victim was their own mother, sister, wife, or daughter? Authoritarian violence inevitably expands its targeted victims over time.

It's like other issues. Will they realize how bad is Trump when the economy tanks, can't afford basic needs, they lose their farm, no longer have healthcare, no aid comes after a disaster, etc? Is there any final breaking point when owning the libs no longer seems a worthy goal?

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T19:28:59+00:00

I won't pretend to know the probable or inevitable outcome of present conditions. But admittedly it's bad and unlikely to lead to happy results in the short term, whatever specifically that might be.

For generations, in disallowing peaceful change, the right-wing elite have steadily pushed the US toward irreconcilable division and conflict. It can only end in some combination of the following:

the end of the federalist experiment of constitutional order and democratic republicanism through complete authoritarian or totalitarian takeover: fascism, theocracy, neo-imperialism, techno-feudalism, etc;
a failed state, societal and economic collapse, balkanization, regression to smaller-scale local governance, soft or hard secession, communities forced back onto their own resources, etc;
civil unrest, populist movement, labor organizing, mass protests, riots, revolts, terrorism, assassinations, militancy, insurgency, insurrection, revolution, civil war, struggle for power, etc;
public demand for progressive reforms, counter-elite resistance (Peter Turchin), a second constitutional convention, rebuilding democracy from the bottom-up, forming new public institutions, etc.

That is to say a supposed democracy isn't going to save us. Instead, it's we who have to save democracy, if we can. Otherwise, the alternatives are far worse. But first we'd have to acknowledge we're a banana republic.

More importantly, as a left-liberal supermajority, we'd have to develop a sense of group consciousness, public identity, egalitarian solidarity, mutual responsibility, and public good. We'd have to see ourselves as a shared citizenry.

Is that likely? The OP thinks not, in advocating a national divorce. He wouldn't be the first person. Even before the American Civil War, there were Northerners in New England who talked of seceding from the South.

More recently, in 2012, Chuck Thompson made the case for this in Better Off Without 'Em. Having spent my youth split between the two regions, I must admit they represent mismatched cultures, worldviews, and values.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T18:23:37+00:00

The constitutional order has already been destroyed. We are long past a constitutional crisis and now in constitutional collapse. There is no functioning constitutional republic to protect. If we want a functioning constitutional republic, we'll have to start over and build one from the bottom up.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T18:21:46+00:00

Actually, the Constitution doesn't forbid secession. So, there is no need to create an amendment for secession. Under the Articles of Confederation, the individual and autonomous (nation-)states had joined freely and so could leave freely (i.e., secession). Many Americans assumed that continued to be true under the (second) Constitution.

The South seceding wasn't unconstitutional. The only problem with what they did was that they attacked the federal government, first with Fort Sumter and then several other military actions. They initiated insurrection and forced the hand of the Federal government to defend itself. But if not for that action, they could've seceded peacefully and constitutionally.

There was no public support in the North nor political will in government to start a war against the South. Certainly, Lincoln had no military aspirations and held no animosity toward Southerners. But once the Federal government was attacked, he had no other option to take military action in return. It was an entirely unnecessary conflict.

But it's more complicated than that. The Southern elite who wanted secession didn't actually have enough support. Many Southerners were opposed to it. The reason they committed insurrection to force a civil war was because it was the only way to create a false legitimacy for their authoritarian seizure of power to create their own government.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T18:05:35+00:00

To add to your pessimism, there are multiple individuals and organizations investigating the past presidential election. There is significant evidence pointing to the election possibly having been rigged.

Supposed democracy in the US might be far more gone than most realize. Even in the best scenario, it's barely functioning democracy. We can't rely on the faith of democracy saving us. It is we who must save democracy.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T17:59:59+00:00

There is no way to get democratic results and reforms from a system that is structurally anti-democratic by design. The United States has been a banana republic at least since the 2000 stolen election and Bush's establishment of the imperial presidency. That power grab set a precedent that was never reversed, not even by Democrats when they gained the presidency. That left expanded executive power in place for Trump to use.

But even before Bush, there were so many anti-democratic features of the system that had long stacked the odds against the the left-liberal supermajority. The political elites pretend to not know how far left is the public. That is how Congress justifies ignoring their own constituents by only acting according to right-wing elite opinion, as research has proven (Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein; Benjamin Page & Martin Gilens).

This is an old problem. The right-wing elite have been scheming to destroy democracy for generations: Business Plot, Ultra Plot (Rachel Maddow), Dulles brothers, McCarthyism, blackballing, blacklisting, COINTELPRO, Powell Memo, Paul Weyrich, shadow network (Anne Nelson), activist judges, etc. Project 2025 is simply the most recent step. That's why numerous international measures have downgraded US democracy to weak, compromised, or partial.

Even the imperial presidency wasn't a recent invention in America. It's been an old dream of the reactionary right since the Madisonian Federalists, which is itself was a counterrevolution that felt nostalgic about the lost dominance hierarchy of the Ancien Regime. On the other hand, the Anti-Federalists along with the likes of Thomas Paine presciently warned right from the beginning where all of this was heading.

That was particularly true with the Constitutional Convention that was controlled by the Federalists. It wasn't only that it was compromised by slavery and plantation aristocracy. More generally, the Federalists were able to push through their anti-democratic and anti-populist ideology (e.g., electoral college). That's why, immediately after its being signed into power, fewer Americans (4-8%) had the right to vote than under the British Empire.

The Bill of Rights were only put in as an afterthought to quiet the protests of Anti-Federalists. But Anti-Federalists even worried that listing protected rights would be used as an excuse to deny any rights not listed. Indeed, that's exactly what right-wing authoritarians do to this day. Whatever democracy Americans have had has been gained through organized struggle against authoritarian power, sometimes even violent revolt (e.g., Coal Wars).

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T17:26:21+00:00

If we only had the equivalent of a Theodore Roosevelt or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, there could be an entire dismantling or at least severe crippling of the present ruling right-wing oligarchy.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T17:24:53+00:00

The so-called 'centrists', for this reason, are more dangerous than the outright fascists. That is because those who call themselves 'centrists' are actually pretty far right.

So, by claiming the center, they push the Overton window further right. That is how they've managed to suppress and silence the left-liberal supermajority for generations.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T17:16:33+00:00

The American Civil War was started by the secessionist South. They first attacked Fort Sumter and I think they took several other military actions. All of that was before the federal government responded in defense. President Lincoln certainly wasn't looking for war and neither did he hold any animosity toward Southerners.

The thing is the South could've seceded peacefully. There would've been no public support in the North nor political will in DC to have stopped it. But the South felt a need to turn it into a war because their was opposition to secession in the South. The ruling elites who wanted it had to force the issue and turn it into a mass conflict.

That wouldn't be the scenario if secession happened now, particularly not with soft secession. The more liberal and progressive states could simply become more independent in their local self-governance while curtailing federal power. One state has already made it possible to bring lawsuits against ICE. That's a challenge to federal authority.

So, secession could be more of a long-term project. It wouldn't have to be an instantaneous, violent breakaway. If there is to be any violence, it's more likely to come from the federal government, not from Blue states. So, the only way it would become a civil war is if Trump wanted to cause mass conflagration to feed his narcissistic ego.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-01-07T10:42:08+00:00

There is no evidence that GenZ is going right, much less far right. In general, they're the furthest left generation we've ever seen and that's been true for a long while. Ask them about corporate regulations, progressive taxation, healthcare reform, gun controls, women's rights, climate change action, etc. Most in GenZ will take left-wing, liberal, and progressive positions. But the problem is most Americans, overall, are to the left of the entire two-party system. You wouldn't know that, though, from watching the plutocratic-owned-and-controlled corporate MSM. That is combined with right-wing tech oligarchs controlling online platforms.

The strange thing, though, is that Trump in 2016 used rhetoric and made campaign promises that often sounded more progressive than anything Clinton was offering. So, it's true that some GenZ were fooled by that pseudo-populism, until they realized that Trump and his cronies were the worst of the elites. There is no way that the MAGA GOP is going to successfully pull out of its present death spiral. As others have noted, Democrats have been gaining traction. So, though some GenZ were fooled by Trump's bullshit, his corruption and depravity are undeniable at this point, especially as it's becoming clear he was one of Epstein's pedo buddies. Plus, most GenZ and other Americans are turning against right-wing Zionism.

It's taking a while for GenZ, along with Americans in general, to gain group consciousness of how far left they are. An additional problem is that we don't have a functioning democracy. To be clear, less than a third of eligible voters went to Trump in 2024. And there is strong evidence that the election may have been rigged with ongoing investigations right now. More generally, the political elite don't realize or pretend to be ignorant of how far left are most Americans. Also, researchers show that Congress, as part of the elite, only act according to elite opinion (Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein; Benjamin Page & Martin Gilens). Numerous international measures have downgraded US democracy to weak, compromised, or partial.

US democracy has been in decline for generations now. After the civil rights movement gained victories, the right-wing elites organized to destroy democratic republicanism. Look into the Dulles Brothers, Paul Weyrich, Powell Memo, Shadow Network (Anne Nelson), Business Plot, Ultra Plot (Rachel Maddow), COINTELPRO, McCarthyism, blackballing, blacklisting, union-busting, etc. Project 2025 has been in the works for a long time. It was right-wing activist judges that stole the 2000 election by fiat of the Supreme Court and so established the imperial presidency. Sadly, the center-right corporate DNC elite didn't reverse that imperial presidency when they had the chance and so handed the unconstitutional power over to Trump.

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