“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use those words.” - Philip K Dick
It’s been two weeks since I’ve posted to The Turn. I don’t want to give readers the impression that I’m slacking off - that couldn’t be further from the truth - so today’s post aims to fill readers in on everything that has been going on over the last fortnight: the articles I’ve published and the public discussions I’ve had regarding the state of modern-day sense-making.
First off, yesterday The Dorchester Review published a piece I co-wrote with Nina Green and James McCrae. In this piece we set the record straight regarding the term “denialism” and its use by activist-academics regarding Indian Residential Schools. Our article differentiates activists from the truth seekers who rely on methods of fact finding and empiricism consistent with long-established knowledge production traditions associated with enlightenment rationality. Read - Seeking the Truth About Residential Schools – The Dorchester Review
Also, on Sept 21st True North published a piece I wrote as a guest op-ed. This one covers new developments in the story about unmarked graves in the apple orchard of the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC. If you haven’t heard yet, an anonymous architectural consultant who goes by KamRes (short for Kamloops Residential school), uncovered site survey data related to the apple orchard that goes as far back as the 1920s. It appears that the ground penetrating radar most likely picked up the remains of an old septic trench containing drainage tile - a much more plausible explanation than clandestine burials of murdered IRS students (who no living person is searching for). Read - GUEST OP-ED: Historic septic dig casts doubt on Kamloops residential school burial site claims | True North (tnc.news)
On Sept 13th, I appeared on the Richard Syrett Show on Sauga 960 AM to discuss my previous True North op-ed We Need Some Action on a Kamloops Retraction, which mostly dealt with the false claims of indigenous leaders and activists. In this interview I also discuss KamRes and the septic field in the Kamloops apple orchard. Here is the link where you can find the podcast version of my interview. It's the Richard Syrett Show Sept 13th episode. My segment begins around 44:50 - Podcasts - SAUGA 960 AM
On September 18th, I had a great time on the Unsafe Space podcast with co-guest Resnick Elliot. The hosts Carter and Julliet are awesome clear thinking heterodox truth-seekers! We talked autogynephilic teachers, unmarked graves, Jan. 6th, and other areas of leftist woke nonsense! I highly recommend checking out this important podcast to get the viewpoints and analysis the mainstream media desperately lacks. You can watch the Sept. 18th episode I appeared on here - Live! [Narrative Dissonance] With James Pew & Elliot Resnick (rumble.com).
On Wednesday Sept. 28th (just days before the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation), I appeared on the Cory Morgan Show on the Western Standard to talk unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools.
In both the Richard Syrett interview and the Unsafe Space podcast, I attempted to discuss the issue of knowledge production & sense-making, and how they have been hijacked by a movement driven by leftist activist-academics. I fumbled in my explanation on Richard’s show when I framed the issue as a “postmodern turn into epistemology” - which makes no sense and is not what I meant. To correct the record, I meant to say the issue we are faced with today, activist oriented wokeism, originates with the turn into postmodern epistemology (1960s New Left era). But the second part of my point was that the media is not up to the task of deciphering knowledge produced within a postmodern framework. This postmodern framework includes, but is not limited to, the neo-Marxism of Critical Theory.
Under a postmodern condition, critical thinking from the perspective of an activist-academic, actually means the employment of questionable theoretical and analytical tools which endlessly adapt neo-Marxist concepts, often under a social justice “oppression” framework called Intersectionality. This is not what the average member of either the media or the public understands by the word “critical” or the term “critical thinking.” We are faced with a crisis of sense-making and a crisis of understanding that is a direct result of this transition into postmodern epistemics by the knowledge production/dissemination institutions of society.
Neo-Marxism goes by a few different terms, ie. Cultural Marxism and Critical Marxism. But I think it’s safe to say that both Critical Theory and Intersectionality are practically synonymous with Neo-Marxism. The Critical Theorists (capital “T” in theory identifies it as adapted Marxism aka neo-Marxism) dismiss Classical Marxism as Vulgar Marxism. It is thought that Vulgar Marxist’s and their emphasis on class and material concerns like the means of production, is lacking in its analysis by not employing the identity politics of postmodern activist-academics.
A further layer needing to be unpacked is the distinction between Marxism (what the Critical Theorists call Vulgar Marxism) and the actual theories of Karl Marx. My friend, Professor Frances Widdowson comes to mind. Marx’s historical materialism is employed in her analysis of indigenous issues, although Frances is clear in saying she is not a Marxist, but a historical materialist. A Marxist implies someone who considers every word that Marx, and other prominent Marxists spoke, as akin to religious gospel. A historical materialist on the other hand is working within the framework of a specific theory formulated by Karl Marx.
It is interesting to note that Frances does not bring up Marx or neo-Marxism in her critiques of wokeism. I believe this is a common position taken by many academics who are dealing seriously with Marx’s labour theory of value and historical materialism. To them neo-Marxism is far too removed from the class oriented social struggle they are part of.
This is not a defense of Marx or any of his theories. This is meant to show the deceptive layers of academic gargle that have jammed the gears on our machines of societal understanding. The sense makers aren’t dealing with the same sense everyone else is. It’s obvious, there are signs of it everywhere. Very few possess the academic understanding of the ideological identity obsession thoroughly re-making society before our disbelieving eyes. The media is neither interested, or up to the task of making sense of any of it. The activists have them confounded and utterly controlled (where they are not already woke activist-journalists), the politicians use the entire circus to virtue signal support for “social justice," and the public remains largely in the dark - the truth has practically left Canada. The activists control truth now, and basically the country for that matter.
Reach out to me through Twitter or Facebook if you would like to organize with other Canadians and become part of the pushback against the great illiberal subversion.
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