Interview 1073 – Richard Heathen Explodes the Collectivist Agenda
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Richard Heathen of LibertyMachineNews.com joins us today to discuss his documentary film, “Hidden Influence: The Rise of Collectivism.” We discuss the meaning and history of collectivism, how it was inserted into the educational curriculum by the large corporate foundations of the robber barons, and how it is shaping society today through cultural Marxism and identity politics.
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Hidden Influence: The Rise of Collectivism (free YouTube version)
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Sorry but the whole premise here is a nonsense. Collectivism as a word already has a very specific historical meaning and this is simply an absurd back door to to the kind of red neck isolationism more commonly found in the US bible belt. Them there communists using the science of critical theory to brainwash y’all. What a nonsense. There are no collectives today that are not top performers in the global stock exchanges. And a few New York banks own all those. So there is no credible way to call what we have collectivism. Perhaps you really mean collectism? As they already have the next generation in debt at interest all they do is collect futures.
It seems someone does not even understand critical theory and with blissful ignorance pisses on the flame of progress that has transformed what it is to be human these past two hundred years. 7.5000000000 people and climbing. That’s doubled population since I was born. And they are each on average 12 times more likely to survive to adulthood than they were in 1900. Clearly critical theory has evil intent! All these scientists, all these civil servants that are at the mercy of crass politicians from budget to budget are all in on this plan! They love it! Did you know every PhD in social theory worships Marx? Wee alters of him on every university campus too! Get real! Hume and Kant and yes Marx! And all the millions of people that have benefited intellectually and productively on the shoulders of critical philosophy by using evidence and not ideology have contributed nothing to society to make it better. Except the Internet. And computers. And cars. And automatic espresso machines. And jet aeroplanes. And MMRI machines. Critical theory is the foundation of science. Science is the one tool in the mental toolkit of hermeneutics that allows analysis free of ideology. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater….
To even listen to this was near painful to me.
Is the science you adhere to the same science that believes that consciousness is a by-product of the senses?
No. I think it was the flying spaghetti monster bestowed it on us so we could appreciate a good ravioli.
Ask a scientist while he’s in a coma.
Yeah 97%+ are Materialists in the philosophical sense. He won’t be able to respond to stimuli that doesn’t exist to him though.
Psychopath detected.
I wouldn’t say that and he makes some points. But like Collins said on his show recently interviewing someone, the number of people on the planet…greatly exagerated, numbers pulled out of asses to satisfy the likes of the craziest among the crazies (Ted Turner let’s say).
Hi James and thread,
Listened to the interview, watched the film. Some hokey stuff in there, but the premise of both are way more on target than the first commenter seems to realize. For one, the strands of influence between tip-top elite Western establishment circles and the Western intellectual Left is very easily verified as far back as you care to name with just a cursory examination of big name sources (H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Carroll Quigley, John Dewey, Zbigniew Breznezski, etc.) that anyone can find at a third-rate university library. For another, as someone who lived among the crit theory clique at one California university for many years and came to know many of them quite well, it’s not Marx as such they worship; it’s more the whole cult of postmodernity, particularly the various disciples of Jacques Derrida, who has to stand as one of the greatest intellectual frauds of the 20th century.
Second, there is no connection whatever to ‘critical theory’ in the sense of the doctrines of university cultural studies departments to the doctrines of 18th century skeptical empiricism. “Cultural Marxism,” to employ the term for the sake of arguments – I’d just as soon call them that as the “Social Justice Movement” – is an explicit rejection of the validity of even the pursuit of ideology-free analysis. “There are only lived experiences;” those trump every rule of evidence or argumentation. Practically, of course, this leaves us: force, fraud, and pathos.
I for one would appreciate 60ish solid minutes of James’s podcasting take on the fever pitch of identity politics that’s so big a part of the intellectual climate of the ’10s in the West.
As someone basically like him in my path from ‘good North American leftie’ to a radically anti-state, anti-ruling class position, and, because nobody lets you forget it, a straight white male, I personally am sick to death of my left-leaning friends and family and their Olympian sense of moral self-righteousness about ‘whiteness’ and patriarchy, people who cannot name to the correct order of magnitude the number of people (of color!) the US military has killed in SW Asia and N. Africa this century, or even yet see through Obama or the Democratic Party generally.
These peoples’ understanding of or even interest in any structure of power higher up the chain of command than “bourgeois, red-state straight white guy” is almost nonexistent. The Left has forgotten everything it ever knew about class consciousness.
anacardo01 says: “I for one would appreciate 60ish solid minutes of James’s podcasting take on the fever pitch of identity politics that’s so big a part of the intellectual climate of the ’10s in the West.”
I can only agree with this, and second your recommendation wholeheartedly.
Hello,
I think this material is based on a deformed interpretation of basic definitions regarding social-economic systems. “America is not capitalist but a combination of fascism and comunism” !!! this is the the most twisted – fanky definition I have ever heard !!!. I think these guys should go back to school and have a review of basic scholar topics, while avoiding the Hidden Influence and the rise of Collectivism obviously.
Regards
Listening to this interview makes me want to recommend “Parasyte: The Maxim” for a FLNWO episode. Considering the entire thing deals with the concepts of collectivism ideology vs individualism ideology and how/when/where they balance, work, or don’t work effectively.
It doesn’t take much logic to figure out that people who are self interested and value self sufficiency would likely NOT do things such as ship themselves off to other countries to shoot people they’ve never met and probably get shot themselves. Let alone many other things that require an internalized “for king and country” ideology as a baseline to function. As in, any choice between two or more things where one or more of those things have a clear detriment for the individuals personal goals. Self interested people look after themselves and what they WANT first and foremost.
The only way to make a person choose against that logic is for them to not see themselves as valuable individually but simply part of a greater machine so that they want what the machine wants. I.e Simultaneously destroying internalized self-esteem and self-confidence internally while supporting externalized versions. Where material things are used as symbols of your worth as a person.
Enterprising individualists would have an incredibly vested interest in pushing this idea onto others. Knowing that you can just say things and people will do them for you is the dream of pretty much everyone. I’d argue it’s almost evolutionary following the path of “laziness” or rather “energy efficiency”. Conserving energy in case you need it later to run from predators or not need to search for food as often.
Individualism may lead to interdependence out of necessity but in that state people would be forced to be fair with each other if they wanted help. Logically, why work with someone who’s going to only contribute 10% of their resources vs someone who’s going to split 50/50? But hey if someone believes they’re contributing to a society that’s more important that they are (because they have no self-esteem or confidence) you could contribute tiny fractions of a percent of your resources while they contribute 99% of theirs because “that’s their role in society”
The energy efficiency gain for the individual who pushes collectivism on everyone else is astounding and a logically sound strategy. By positioning themselves to have the role of leader or overseer in the group it wouldn’t raise any red flags with with the deltas. If anything they would believe that one person needing to take care of that many more people than themselves as a much harder job requiring more resources. Thinking this way only because their labour has been divided so much , with so little responsibility or room for creativity, that the perceived level of it required at the top would be legitimately frightening to them. They’d probably be thankful they don’t have to do so much work if anything else.
Mass individualism means that everyone has to keep working hard, no one gets a break, no one gets to relax. Whereas top level individualism supported by mass collectivism means pretty much 100% leisure time for those who set it up. Kinda like why people get robot vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, dishwashers, clothes washing and drying machines, power steering, etc. Or at least that’s one perception. Nobody wants to work.
In reality if everyone has laziness as a core goal interdependence would make it a reality faster. Open sourced machines, programming, methods and the like would likely proliferate due to the fairness requirement. Proprietariness would likely be seen as “not sharing” or not contributing and so no one would want to share with them either. As a result I believe it’s more likely that the collectivism paradigm is based more in childish control issues rather than any form of efficiency goals even at the individualistic top.
Well that’s all my opinion anyways.
Richard said something to the effect that the people spreading “critical theory” and/or other nonsense really believe what they’re saying.
I don’t think that’s the case.
We know Academia is teeming with psychopaths, and psychopaths love to manipulate, control and harm people.
The psychopaths in Academia are some of the most high-functioning and intelligent ones. They’re highly rational and see Marxism (and related stuff) for the high level sophistry it is, and they’re delighted to implant it into young, impressionable minds because mind-fucking human beings is their favourite past-time.
So no, they’re not true believers. They know it’s bullshit, and they know exactly what they’re doing.
A culture shock?
After watching the documentary, i’m once again convinced that the definition of anarchy in North America mostly as an-cap is realy sad.
As a European anarchist i have a total different view of Anarchy.
I disagree with most of the docu (not everything), but i’m really bothered with the non critical view of capitalism and the inequality at the root of it.
I could not agree more. I thought the documentary was very well produced and quite informative but the attitude of the whole piece that capitalism, a system that is fundamentally founded on exploitation and greed, is not only not questioned but presented to us as the be all and end all saving grace is very disturbing indeed. We have had unregulated capitalism before, during the 1800s in Europe, it was horrific. And as for whitism etc… Minor Threat wrote a song about that 35 years ago.
I have to slightly disagree with you fine folks on a few points.
The baseline for many contra status quo ideologies seem to be premised on the notion of inequality. But this premise itself is never questioned. In the name of eliminating ‘inequality’ we’ve had some of the worst abominations in the form of collectivist ideologies of socialism (national and international) wreak havoc in the 20th century. We forget that nature itself (and please note I am not promoting social darwinism) is based on unequal terms – inequalities of minds, characters, capacities, physical and creative abilities, etc.
Additionally, the divisions between “collectivism” and “individualism” often pits us in different camps, as if there is this all-or-nothing deal wherein we are either individualists or collectivists. I prefer to avoid the whole “-ist” or “-ism” labels. I think these word plays and labels miss fundamental points. So long as we are human and part of the human experience and condition, we are both individuals and part of a larger collective – of our friends, family and extended kith and kin. However, the fundamental question about human relations is this: is it voluntary or coercive? Humans are social animals that are first and foremost individuals, but who also belong to a larger group or collective of individuals, such as a family. We as individuals grow up become adults and leave our family to form our own families and social bonds. Family is only a necessary conduit to the creation and enhancement of the individual self. The State on the contrary denies the self and subsumes it within the greater mold. We cannot leave the State, for when we do, we are met with the State’s coercive power.
I’MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
SORRY!!!
Couldn’t resist.
Responding to Man Of The World.
If I show this documentary to most people I know, they’ll either dismiss it, fall asleep or call me a conspiracy nut within 25 mins of viewing it.
This is a great documentary, but, It’s preaching to the converted.
We need a documentary that preaches to the diverted.
Probably something less than 1 minute in duration… ;0)
M2
I think it good that James interviewed Richard Heathen because of his new feature-length documentary. I viewed it about a week ago and quite enjoyed it. I shall look forward to the next one of Agenda 21 — possibly the greatest threat to human freedom ever devised.
Collectivism is my mortal enemy. There is such a thing as the “mass man”; he is the type who agrees with the majority only because they are so. Intent to give his critical faculties away and go with the group consensus, he allows himself to be led in directions that do not serve his interests. Lesson first: don’t assimilate.
My question is why is it so difficult to download the digital version if one does not live in Canada. Of course New Zealand is rather distant, but in this computer age, one must ask who is being trampled by Digital Rights Management, if i have a copy in NZ as opposed to viewing it in utube.
After 7 attempts of dealing with the website which just dumps me without reason i think i will just flag it!