Why artists, academics and "creative souls" so often end up as useful idiots for ideological ideas.
- and why Marxist thinking always finds its first home in cultural circles.
I can see several people writing with amazement about this letter.
With good reason, naturally.
For how can one - as a modern Western-oriented person and Dane - who wants freedom, justice and rights for minority groups, openly support a murderous terrorist organisation that no one in the region wants either affiliation with or support from?
Many seem to struggle to understand this - but let me explain, as it lies in direct line from the previous posts about the undermining of language.
At the same time, I KNOW this, because I myself earlier in life saw cases like this in exactly the same way. I no longer do, once I understood what ideological web I had been woven into.
And granted - it IS one of the great paradoxes in modern culture.
People who claim to love beauty, freedom, depth and complexity end up TIME AND AGAIN supporting ideologies that are ugly, conformist, primitive and destructive.
It doesn't just happen once. It happens every time.
Whether it's identity politics, radical feminism, climate eschatology, queer theory or the latest postcolonial revenge fantasy -
it's the sensitive, the creative and the artistic who first run to the front to get it implemented.
Why?
The answer is psychological. And it's well documented.
1. According to the Big Five model (the most solid personality model we have), creative and artistic types score high on traits like "Openness to Experience" - meaning "openness to ideas, aesthetics and feelings".
But this is rarely followed by a corresponding level of logical thinking, structure and conscientiousness.
Therefore they easily fall in love with ideas that sound beautiful - but which collapse at the first encounter with reality.
They thrive best in possibilities - not limitations.
And here comes the problem:
When you love ideas but have a loose relationship with realities, you become vulnerable to ideologies that sound noble - but don't hold water logically or practically.
2. Lack of systematic thinking.
People with high Openness and low Conscientiousness (dutifulness, order, logical sense) struggle to maintain inner structure and critical thinking.
They become easily caught in the idea's glow - without asking the question - "Does it work?". They judge the idea on how it FEELS, not on whether it creates order in the world.
Therefore they fall in love with ideologies like -
- Socialism
- Postmodernism
- Queer theory
- Identity politics
- Deconstructive "justice"
All theories that build on intention, but which have enormous costs in practice.
3. Emotional dominance > rational analysis
There's often an emotional override at play. If something FEELS empathetic, then it MUST be right.
If someone is suffering, then the structure MUST be wrong.
If someone feels offended, then truth MUST be the problem.
But that's not reason. That's just feeling disguised as philosophy.
When feeling gets the upper hand and reason is suppressed,
you become susceptible to manipulation and distortion. And you easily risk confusing compassion with morality - and end up justifying oppression (if not outright atrocities or murderous terrorist organisations) in the name of goodness. Even though these organisations would kill them without blinking if they saw their chance (Think "Queers for Palestine").
They are EMOTION-DRIVEN - but BELIEVE they're conscious.
They're afraid of authority, but fall in love with systems that want to control everything. They think they're fighting power - but never understand that the language they use is WRITTEN by precisely the power they think they reject.
And that's why the left - especially the cultural-Marxist variant - ALWAYS begins in art, in education, in the media world.
That's where the doors stand open.
Not for arguments, but for moods.
Not for reality, but for visions.
And once the language has been rewritten in these circles, when "justice" means revenge, "love" means affirmation, and "freedom" means protection from uncomfortable truths - then it infects THE ENTIRE SOCIETY, because they sit on the megaphone that blows into everyone's living rooms.
What should be society's mirror and conscience - thus becomes its destabilisation.
What should honour the true, the beautiful and the good - becomes tools for ideological deconstruction.
So no, it's not coincidental. The left always starts with the artists and academics - because that's where reason fails first, and feelings can most easily be shaped into weapons.
I hope you understand the pattern just a little now...
And to end on a high note - and with a bit of hope.
Art CAN take the power back.
It just requires that some creative souls dare to resist.
Dare to ask the question.
Is this beautiful?
Is it true?
Is it human?
Or have I just become part of the demolition team - with an ideologically installed brushstroke and a hashtag, controlled by forces using me and my voice?
True art requires courage.
Courage to think.
Courage to stand firm.
And courage to say no - even when the entire culture screams yes.
May our creative artistic friends learn again to say no and stand firm - instead of letting themselves be swept along by their many beautiful and expressive feelings.
