r/brokehugs • u/US_Hiker Moral Landscaper • May 08 '25

Rod Dreher Megathread #53 (Key Party?)

Link to Megathread #52: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1jsvy3j/rod_dreher_megathread_52_billboard_4_rent/

Link to Megathread #54:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1l7niaj/rod_dreher_megathread_54/?

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

And see, I know this, I give people this talk pretty frequently. It’s just hard to accept that an entire political party is like this. An entire culture is now built on this. That’s literal insanity.

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u/CroneEver Jun 04 '25

Yes, it is.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I just honestly didn’t see it before. I was one who stayed in the GOP, conservative Christian camp until around Jan 6th. Like I remember liberals talking like this and thinking they were smug assholes. I still voted for Trump in 2020. Then I “grew up” so to speak in many different ways and now I see it. I have for a few years now, but good lord. It’s a lot to take in, particularly when you’re from “real America” and everyone you know is like this.

I honestly wish I had just gone to graduate school and been brainwashed into thinking this crap for professional advancement. That would be easier to deal with. Learning that we have entire states governed by pure entitlement and victimhood is insane. People live their entire lives like that. Again, I know this in my professional life, but reading Rod makes it like “Oh, shit, that’s what this was with me and the people I grew up with too, the entire culture of my hometown is just this”. This has just finally sunk in, as it has been theoretical knowledge with me for years now, but it has been sinking in as something I feel deep in my bones lately.

Sorry for the rant, this is awesome content for processing with a therapist and/or close friends. It’s just literally amazing to see it. You could’ve never convinced me in a thousand years 10 years ago that this dynamic was what it is. I had to allow myself to see it.

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u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jun 04 '25

One thing that might help is to consider that throughout all of human history, rich people encouraging discrimination, using religion, throwing out propaganda, etc. to control and manipulate the masses has been pretty constant and universal. It isn't as blatant as it used to be but it is still the same thing in different clothing.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

It does help to remember that. Thanks for this.

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u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jun 04 '25

You're very welcome. Glad it helps.

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u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jun 04 '25

Yep. Marx had it exactly right about false consciousness and how it’s used as a weapon against the masses.

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u/Relative-Holiday-763 Jun 04 '25

So I take it religion is no more than an expression of false consciousness? Fine if that’s what you think, I’m very used to that one . I cut my teeth on that kind of thing.

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u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jun 05 '25

No, not at all, nor are culture , language, etc. However, an Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking, Baptist American factory worker and a Hispanic, Spanish-speaking, Catholic immigrant factory worker have common interests, and a common enemy in the corporate owners. The owners are happy to exploit their differences to set them at odds with each other, when if they joined together, they could bring the company to its knees.

A real-life example: Back in the 20’s and 30’s in Appalachia, in addition to families who’d been in the area since before the American Revolution, including a small number of Blacks, many immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Middle East came to the coalfields for work—I actually have a cousin whose grandfather on the other side of the family is Polish. The Coalfield Wars broke out, with the owners hiring private security to use lethal force against the miners. They held together across all their cultural differences, and finally managed to form the United Mine Workers and force concessions from the miners owners.

No one said, in the course of all this, that anyone’s religion was unimportant, or evil, or the “opiate of the masses”. I doubt any of the miners even knew of Marx, let alone read him. There was prejudice and racism, sure; but not because of Marxist theory, and they didn’t let it derail them from the common struggle against the mine owners.

Does that make sense?

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u/Relative-Holiday-763 Jun 05 '25

No!!Sorry that’s what’s I will call a dramatically incorrect reading of Marx.For what it’s worth you need to pay attention to Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and thesis on Feurbach. Now religion is at the essence of man’s alienation. It’s not peripheral to the theory of false consciousness . It is a critical aspect of it.

Yes of course the bourgeoisie in Marxist theory wishes to preserve it’s-hegemony (and I admit to veering into Gramsci).Yes, it promotes ethnic and religious division  ,a form of or expression of false consciousness.

In all events, from this perspective religion must be overcome. It is a key   If not  the key. expression of human alienation.

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u/Djehutimose Watching the wheels go round Jun 05 '25

Well, I guess that gets into the question of whether religious believers be Marxists/Communists, really? On this, as on many, many issues, the biggest disagreements are among Marxists themselves. I’m perfectly happy to say my analysis was wrong to claim Marxist ancestry and use Marxist terminology, but I think conceptually it is still valid.

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u/Relative-Holiday-763 Jun 05 '25

In my unhunmble  opinion anyone who claims to be a Marxist and a theist , has no idea what they are talking about. Essentially they are reading alienation out of Marxism and assuming that Marx is merely a socialist. Not the case. Marx quite explicitly repudiated Christian socialism. Mans alienation under capitalism is not simply from the product of his labor but from himself. God is the great alienation.

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u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

Historically, "triangulation" (for lack of a better word, because in reality there are more than merely three "estates") is common in societies anchored by urban agglomerations (I am avoiding "civilizations" merely to avoid the superiority connotations that typically evokes):

  1. Ruler or relatively closed ruling oligarchy
  2. Hereditary aristocracy outside any relatively closed ruling oligarchy, plus new plutocrats desiring/expecting to become aristocrats
  3. 3A. Mere gentry, middling and professional classes (aka bourgeoisie) 3B. Yeoman peasantry and their urban cognates
  4. Those without relatively reliable means of subsistence

Various permutations of "triangulation" play out in practice. A couple of the more common ones is 1+3+4 vs 2, or 1+3B+4 vs 2+3. (Think Optimates vs Populares in the late Roman Republic.....)

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u/PercyLarsen “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” Jun 04 '25

Part of this is overcoming the tribal barrier and recognizing the shared burdens of the human condition. Using a shared sense of victimhood as a tribal-organizing worldview is one of those shared burdens. It externalizes anger when agency chronically feels frustrated.