Semantic Marxism: How a Minority Can Control the Majority

The video below is follow-up to yesterday’s post about Marxist discourse. It was made by the same Polish video commentator, Krzysztof Karon.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

27:40   SEMANTIC MARXISM — the Technique of the Discourse
27:44   Marcuse’s postulate that the minority should
27:48   achieve domination over the majority and dictate the rules of its social life
27:52   in itself has no meaning and isn’t new.
27:56   Because there is no basis for assuming that the program of the minority has to be
28:00   contrary to the interests of the majority. In real life
28:04   every elite created by the majority and administering
28:08   social life becomes such a minority.
28:13   The problem is that every program of the Left, for the reasons I presented
28:17   before, has to lead to economic misery,
28:21   and in the first place to the misery of the majority on top of it.
28:25   Because the minority, while dictating the rules of social life and
28:29   the rules about the distribution of goods, will first make sure
28:33   it has access to the scarce goods for itself and its supporters.
28:37   Therefore in a democracy the Left has no chance of winning the support of the majority,
28:42   provided that the majority is capable of rationally judging the results
28:46   of the program of the Left, and has the means of formulating its own position.
28:50   The Linguistic Turn [semantic changes in the language to appropriate if by the Left] created a new,
28:54   anti-reality paradigm, making assessing the results of different ideologies difficult,
28:58   because it [the paradigm] removes it from reality;
29:02   however, this paradigm above all dominated academia,
29:06   which is at the social margins, and didn’t determine the views of normal people,
29:10   who formulate this view in confrontation with the reality,
29:14   and with the views of other normal, common-sense,
29:19   Normally-thinking people. The Discourse of Habermas
29:23   creates an inter-subjective space of reaching a consensus
Social Influence and Social Change 1976, The Psychology of Active Minorities 1979
29:27   influenced neither by a subjective position of the parties,
29:31   because they have to renounce it [the subjective position] at the beginning [as a prerequisite],
29:35   nor by objective reality, which simply doesn’t exist. Therefore it is a space
29:39   in which the result of the consensus is solely the result of the force of cogency.
29:43   Habermas called it the Validity Claim: Geltungsanspruch.
29:47   It is therefore about the techniques of persuasion.
29:51   Those techniques were studied, ordered and described by
29:55   Romanian communist Serge Moscovici. In 1944
29:59   Moscovici was working with — as previously mentioned —
30:03   [the founder of] Lettrism, Isidore Isou, when he was teaching at the New York New School
30:08   then in — founded by the immigrants form the University
30:12   in Exile — The New School for Social Research.
30:16   And in 1975 in Paris he founded
30:20   the European Laboratory of Social Psychology.
30:24   In 1976 Moscovici published a book,
30:28   Social Influence and Social Change,
30:32   and in 1979 his most important work,
30:36   The Psychology of Active Minorities.
30:40   The techniques described by Moscovici of the achievement — by a minority —
30:45   of influence over a majority are being taught nowadays in all the classes for negotiators,
30:49   but back then they were a revelation.
30:53   The most important of Moscovici’s findings was
30:57   that large, differentiated groups have usually a less-identified
31:01   common interest, and they are more inclined
31:05   to question their position. And because of their having the feeling of strength,
31:09   given their numbers, they are usually more passive and more tolerant.
31:13   However, small but well-organized, and, above all,
31:18   determined and active groups, with a clearly specified goal,
31:22   have the possibility of imposing their position
31:26   on the unorganized majority.
31:30   It’s also important that, firstly: the so-called
31:34   in-reality discourse has the form of a public debate,
31:38   or rather of a public spectacle, in which competing parties fight to gain
31:42   the support of the audience consisting of that majority;
31:46   and because of that formula, factual and rational arguments are not valid,
31:50   and only the emotional arguments count; secondly: in the era
31:55   of modern communication techniques and the media domination
31:59   it’s difficult to even talk about “a majority”, because the statistical majority
32:03   that makes up the audience of the media circuses is, in fact, a mass of totally isolated
32:07   TV and computer screen-staring spectators.
32:15   Therefore only emotional reasons decide the results of an out-of-touch-with-reality
32:19   discourse — an example of the liquidation of such a link to reality is the total elimination
32:22   of the subject of the production of goods — and the basic method of undermining one’s opponent’s
32:30   negotiating position is the stigmatization of the values
32:36   that determine his [opponent’s] identity.
 

2 thoughts on “Semantic Marxism: How a Minority Can Control the Majority

  1. well-planned emotional chaos that tries to pass itself off as the new social order. Go ahead, isolate the majority behind their individual tv sets and make certain that they never get together to discuss the news or politics unless it is a carefully supervised venue.

  2. Appreciate this “high brow” explanations on some of this terminology.

    Knowing your enemy’s strategy and tactics guides in how to counter them, and bring forth the truth.

    A few years ago, as a member of a council, it took a while to realize that the leader was practicing a “delphi” technique, to supposedly build a consensus, but it was also used to isolate non-conforming individuals and to suppress dissent under the name of necessary consent.
    That way he ruled every meeting to the way he wished to go, contrary to what was what turned out to be the majority.
    A number of us were not happy and initially could not understand how things were turning out.

    Once it was understood what he was doing, a little bit more forthright expression and others having your back, like 2nding proposals, etc.. plus ‘points of order’ made the facilitator stand back, as the ‘silent majority’ found the ability to make their views known.

    It is not easy to do, but much more easy to combat when understood.

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