Intention and its privilege

First steps in saving western liberalism

This post is the fourth in a series of essays that will deal with language, what we think we’re doing when we interpret, and why what we think we’re doing when we engage language is absolutely crucial in arming ourselves against the predation of the left — and too many on the right.

In an interesting and wide-ranging interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, James Lindsay of New Discourses made the following observation about how to combat the leftist mindset:

They are very operational. And if people don’t take anything else away from our dialogue today, they’ve got to understand that the left is operational: they are thinking in terms of strategic operations, and unless we think in terms of answering those strategic operations — understanding them — then we can’t.

Typically, this can be done merely — merely — by pointing out that A, an operation is occurring and has an objective, and this is what it is. If you say ‘they are manipulating you and here is their objective,’ that’s enough to break the spell for large number of people who will not fall for, not go along with it.

So I’ve decided to take up the challenge and shape this short essay in the way Lindsay claims will “break the spell” for a number of people such that, once that spell is broken, they’ll be able to see the prestidigitation that has so long mesmerized them. The magic trick will have been revealed for the trick it has always been.

A. The left is manipulating you. In their role as linguists, literary critics, semioticians, and critical theorists, leftist academics pushed — and we as a society eventually legitimized and internalized — linguistically incoherent rules for how interpretation works. This maneuver allows for a structural transfer of power from the original owner of textual meaning to the consumers of his text — its receivers — which I’ve called “the interpretive community.”

This is their strategic operation.