The Ideological Idolatries To Be Smashed in 'The Joy of Political Sects'
Here is my A-Z working table of contents for the book I'm going to write on this Substack in 2023. Your input is very much appreciated.
This is the first post in a series for premium subscribers at God of the Desert Books. Here, I'm sharing with premium subscribers a listing of the various essays I intend to write, as well as the order in which I’m planing on composing them. See the previous post here for an introduction to what I’m intending to do with my upcoming book, The Joy of Political Sects, and with the process of writing the first draft as premium Substack essays.
In a nutshell: this is an A-to-Z guide on the subject of political, cultural, and religious ideologies. It will be a series of aggressive polemics and hard-hitting exposes of ideological systems informed by the spirit of two historical sources: the biblical prophets tucked away in the middle of the Bible, and Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, a groundbreaking book of Jewish philosophy which sought to harmonize Biblical moral values with rationalism and science through explaining the often difficult to grasp metaphoric language of scripture.
Right now, the subtitle I’m leaning toward for the book is The Joy of Political Sects: An A-Z Guide to the Perplexed on Ideological Idolatry. Here are the subjects which I intend to cover. However, this may evolve some as I go along and draft the first versions of these essays.
The most recent version of my Joy of Political Sects outline is dated January 31, 2021, and it’s version 11 of the project. Obviously, as I’ve laid out in often uncomfortable detail, my perspectives have changed a great deal since then. While I still regard myself as a “libertarian-conservative hawk” in the “Reagan tradition,” I’ve accepted that “the Right” and institutions of “the conservative movement” have now largely rejected these principles. Right-wing media today is no longer what it was when I joined it in 2009. It’s now a hellhole of populist-nationalist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-science, Christian fundamentalist horse shit. So many publications and people I once proudly associated with, I’m now embarrassed to have once considered allies and friends. So the book I’ve been researching and planning to write must now evolve accordingly.
In that most recent outline of this book, I intended to title the project The Joy of Political Sects: A Counterculture Conservative Credo. I also intended to dedicate it to the influential conservative philosopher Frank S. Meyer, who lived from 1909 to 1972 and deeply influenced William F. Buckley, Jr., National Review, Ronald Reagan, and the “conservative movement” as a whole. It was Meyer who developed the theory of “fusionism” (not a term which he himself actually liked, but that was created by one of his more right-wing opponents) which joined together “traditionalists” with “individualists,” ideological groups which today are known as “social conservatives” and “libertarians.” He even subtitled his own manifesto “A Conservative Credo.” What we know as “mainstream conservatism” is largely his political invention, which Buckley popularized, Reagan embraced, and that dominated the Republican Party for 30 years or so.
Meyer was an ex-communist activist and his primary goal was the obliteration of the Soviet Union. Not just opposing Soviet expansion like many “Cold Warriors,” but actively defeating the enemy. He believed that, by joining together these two groups into one political ideology, which would then influence the Republican Party, this goal could be accomplished. And he was ultimately proven right, decades after his death from lung cancer, caused by his unfortunate habit of chain-smoking. Read this wonderful biography of Meyer - Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement by Kevin J. Smant - to understand him and his philosophy more deeply. Also check out Meyer’s manifesto, In Defense of Freedom and Other Essays, to get an understanding of his ideas and his wonderful writing style.
During my years as a conservative activist, I regarded Meyer, Buckley, and Reagan as models. I thought that, if conflicting ideological factions could be joined together through opposition to the same enemy, they could then influence a political party to elect principled politicians. These new elected officials, I saw, could actually do meaningful things, like implement policies which brought an end to the moral abomination of the Soviet state. I had hoped that an opposition to Islamism could now replace anti-Communism as the glue which held together a diverse ideological coalition. Alas, I no longer believe that. And so the book must change.
I have stopped advocating for “counterculture conservatism” as I once did for over a decade. In my view “the conservative movement” has abandoned its Reaganite principles and instead chosen to worship the “mango messiah” Donald J. Trump, who believes in nothing but himself, his wealth, and the source of his next orgasm. I see now clearly that the primary objective of Reagan, Buckley, Meyer and “the conservative movement” was the defeat of the Communist enemy. Since that was accomplished more than 30 years ago, the movement has lost its way. It doesn’t know anymore what it believes at all, beyond the professional advancement and financial enrichment of those employed by its institutions and propaganda organs. The publications and non-profit organizations created to defeat communism have now almost all collapsed in their moral and ideological convictions.
And the cause of counter-Islamism simply isn’t going to work as a glue to join together disparate ideological factions. Non-violent political Islamists and violent Jihadists just are not a threat comparable to the Soviet Union. And, honestly, the last decade has been pretty lousy for them. Political Islamism and militant Jihadism are not the terrifying threats today that they were in 2009, when I joined the movement and chose to align myself with some of the most radical, strident opponents of those ideologies. Meyer’s strategy may have worked in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but it will not work in the 2020s.
For those reasons, I’m now choosing different guides for my project. While I still adore Meyer and plan to write about him a bit, the overarching influences will be spiritual: the biblical prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, as well as the “minor prophets” - and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides. As I write about ideology I plan to quote from them liberally, infusing the text with their writings. Part of the reason this Substack and corresponding publishing company are called God of the Desert Books is because I embrace the tradition of being a prophet of the God of Israel: screaming against idolatry in both the literal desert and in this desert region of life, as I struggle to survive the unpredictable cruelties of PTSD.
Now, what subjects will I be writing about? Here’s a revised table of contents you can look forward to me tackling. And if you have any suggestions about tweaks, revisions, or important ideologies which I’m forgetting, then please sound off in the comments.
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