I was stunned when I saw this graphic from Bloomberg on the demographic distribution of Democrat and Republican voters in the 2020 US presidential election.1 It explains so many things that were a mystery to me before:
It shows the top 100 donating professions to the Biden and Trump campaigns: the bubble size is proportional to the number of donors in each category. The more blue the bubble, the greater the proportion of donors to Biden. The redder the bubble, the greater the proportion of donors to Trump.
This story usually spun around this distribution is simple: it’s a case of liberals (shown in blue) against conservatives (shown in red): liberals to the left, conservatives to the right.
I think this story is nonsense. For a start, the words “liberal” and “conservative” are so abused that they now convey little meaning: they are dog whistles. Ask ten liberals what they are liberal with (or should that be liberal about?) and you will get ten different answers. Ask ten conservatives what they want to conserve, and again you will get ten different answers.
Many of the “liberals” (I’m guessing the majority) would probably be in favor of conserving their fiscal privilege. On the other side, many of the “conservatives” have attitudes on social issues that would usually be described as “liberal”. So, what is really going on here?
Look carefully. What do business owners, builders, farmers and construction workers have in common? They create wealth and oppose the parasitic state, that’s what. What do lawyers, bankers and university professors have in common? They consume wealth and depend upon the parasitic state, that’s what.
What I see is statists, wealth consumers, capitalist ideologues and corporate apologists in blue; anti-statists and wealth producers in red. Somehow, statism and wealth consumption are deemed to be “liberal”, “progressive” and “left wing”, while anti-statism and wealth production are deemed to be “conservative”, “right wing” and even “libertarian”.
In short, what I see is simple class division - but not along Marxist lines. Karl Marx envisaged two classes in industrial society - capitalists and workers. When business owners, presidents, construction workers, builders, carpenters, mechanics and farmers are all on the same side, “workers” is clearly a misleading label. Likewise, scientists, writers and teachers may be many things, but “capitalist” is not one of them.
Two more fascinating data points are homemakers2 and the disabled, two groups who are generally dependent on others in society. I would suggest that unlike the statists, these groups understand their dependence on the wealth producers: they do not share the statist sense of entitlement. An irrational sense of entitlement to a share of the wealth produced by others is at the core of the statist mindset.
IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE
An ideological / practical spectrum is clearly visible. By “ideological” I mean “related to the intellectual apparatus of a class for the purpose of gaining or consolidating its power”3. Look at doctors and physicians, who at least in part serve an ideological function, compared to surgeons, who generally play a more practical role. Consider architects and builders: the former are at the intellectual end, the latter are at the practical end of the spectrum. Scientists and engineers: the former may speculate about the world, but it’s the latter that change it.
The ideological / practical spectrum corresponds to Plato’s divide between intellectual and practical knowledge.4 The distinction between theory (theoria) and practice (praxis) is at the core of the modern scientific method. The distinction is just about everywhere: it is even reflected in most modern languages (although not in English):
French: connaître (practical), savoir (intellectual)
Spanish: conocer (practical), saber (intellectual)
Italian: conoscere (practical), sapere (intellectual)
German: kennen (practical), wissen (intellectual)
Modern Greek Να γνωρίζει (practical), Να ξερω (intellectual)
This distinction is universally understood: it is at the core of western culture. There are things we know in theory, and other things we know in practice.
Language matters. It can be used to reveal the truth, or it can be used to conceal the truth. I contend that “liberal”, “progressive”, “left”, “conservative”, “libertarian” and “right” are all labels that conceal the truth - at least when used without further qualification. Therefore I try not to use them without qualification: when I use them, it will usually be to dismiss them.
Having ditched all those labels, what are we left with? Not “statist” and “anti-statist”: those labels on their own tell you nothing about the ideology of the state you either support or oppose. “Statist” and “anti-statist” never rallied any troops: they are not labels that inspire.
We need new labels that reflect both the current social reality and the ideological-practical spectrum.
Before we get to the new labels, we need to remember another core constituency that must be considered: the ‘Christian right’, an important faction that strongly supports traditional and socially-conservative policies. Note that pastors were for Trump.
BOUGIES
This term is based, of course, on “bourgeois”, which often carries the negative connotations of elitism and snobbery. A bougie is not necessarily a member of the bourgeoisie - that is, with middle-class or higher status - but somebody who behaves like one. Thus, for example, calling the typical social worker a member of the bourgeoisie is a stretch - but “bougie” works just fine. A bougie can support the prevailing ideology without benefiting from it to the extent that the terms “bourgeois” and “middle class” imply.
Note that bougies have a very clearly articulated and strongly promoted ideology: bougie ideology is the ideology of the corporate oligarchy. Everywhere in the industrialized west, bougie ideology is in the ascendant.
THE IDEOLOGICAL DEFICIT
Opponents of the bougie state have been robbed of their natural ideology. By posing as “liberals”, “leftists" and “progressives” within bougie ranks, corporatist ideologues have succeeded in demoralizing and confusing their anti-bougie opponents, rendering them powerless.
Organizations like Antifa and Black Livers Matter (BLM) like to portray their opponents as fascists. This is a deliberate and calculated diversion: if fascists are to be found anywhere, it’s among the ranks of Antifa and BLM. The function of movements such Antifa and BLM is to forestall and prevent popular movements springing up on the anti-bougie side - they do this by discrediting (and thus disarming) the kind of tactics that such movements, if they existed, would employ.
Typically, all the anti-bougies do in the political sphere is vote and complain: the bougies, on the other hand, have the legacy media, the educational system and the legal system lined up on their side to reinforce their cultural narrative. It is not an equal battle. Any gains made by the anti-bougies are temporary: an entire cultural and intellectual apparatus is dedicated to bougie victory.
In short, there is an ideological deficit. The bougies have their ideology; the anti-bougies don’t have theirs. And that’s a problem. An ideology can’t be defined by what it is against: it must be defined by what it is for. To prevail against the bougies, the anti-statists need a positive ideology of their own. A word is not an ideology, of course, but you have to start somewhere.
DEMIURGICS
The word demiurge comes from the ancient Greek dēmiourgos (craftsman), a compound of dēmios (public, from dēmos ‘people’) and ergos (working). For Plato, the demiurge was the agent who made the material world out of chaos - the one who changed disorder into order.5 However, Plato did not, as far as I am aware, explicitly identify the demiurge with the practical (praktikos). He appears to have regarded the praktikos and the theoretical/intellectual (gnostikos) as having equal value and significance.
The identification of the demiurge with the praktikos was an innovation of the Gnostics, an early Christian sect of the late 1st century. For the Gnostics, the demiurge was a heavenly being that was considered to be responsible for shaping the material world and was antagonistic to anything purely spiritual. However, they identified their own knowledge (gnosis) with a spiritual insight into humanity’s divine nature. Gnostic Christians identified the demiurge with the Hebrew God of the old testament; an evil, false God and the creator of the material world. In opposition to the demiurge, they identified the God of the new testament gospels as a good, true God and the creator of the spiritual world. In summary, according to the Gnostics, everything practical and physical was bad; only the theoretical and spiritual could be good.
Although the teachings of the Gnostics were already regarded as heresy by most of the Christian world6 in the late 1st century, their attitudes endured and have persisted into the present day. In modern bougie ideology, intellectuals fall squarely into the bougie camp: consider, for example, the disdain with which the typical bougie treats manual workers. The bougies didn’t inherit this attitude from Plato; they inherited it from the heretical Gnostics.
What I am looking for, then, is a word that:
is comprehensible, because it conforms with Plato’s partition of knowledge;
is identified with the practical side of the Platonic divide;
respects, but does not require, Christian tradition; and
overcomes the corrupting influence of the Gnostics.
Keeping all of that in mind, in opposition to the bougie I propose to use the word demiurgic. Yes, it’s a neologism, but it carries a lot of history - Plato would ‘get it’ immediately. A person who opposes bougies is a demiurgic, with a demiurgic outlook. Demiurgics want to re-assign the value of the real physical world to its proper Platonic place; they are not necessarily agnostic, but they are certainly anti-gnostic.
If you have a better word than demiurgic, please let me know.
In future posts I intend to try to flesh out a demiurgic ideology. Specifically, I hope to explore strategies to
break the alliance between bougies and technoprogressives, and
create an alliance between demiurgics and bioconservatives.
In short, my theme will be how to stay civilized through the downward trajectory of industrial civilization.
Watch this space!
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-election-trump-biden-donors/
In less woke times, homemakers were called ‘stay at home wives’.
In western industrial societies, the ruling class is of course the corporate oligarchy: in China, it’s the communist party.
Plato, The Statesman 258e
Plato, Timaeus 30a
The Church Fathers condemned them: how right they were!