Calling out the Greenwald tankies at Substack for their horseshoe-theory Gnosticism

The Dissident, often spot-on, had a semi-fail recently in his attack on Eoin Higgins’ new book about Glenn Greewald and Matt Taibbi. Per the header, and per my comments there, I’m focused on Glennwa.d

First, I'd already read Ken Silverstein's take on the book. (Sidebar: Ken and I very much agree in our takes on Glennwald.)

My biggest critique on Higgins' take on Glennwald in particular is that he thinks Glenn was once a leftist. Oh, uh, wrong! Very wrong. Otherwise, Glenn has a history of sexism that goes back to before he was famous and other things. And, that’s what stirred up the tankies. And yes, tankies you are.

So far, we have one horseshoe-theory type New Age lite who reads a Canadian alt-right alt-white MAGAt parallel, one alt-right who reads Chris. Rufo and Bari Weiss as well as Glennwald and is a bit horseshoey but not as much, a non-skeptical leftist or “leftist” who follows Tara Reade (barf), two COVID antivaxxers or just general antivaxxers, and a general “fiscal conservative.” Multiple readers also follow Aaron Maté, whom Ken has taken down before. Aaron's about 50 cents on the dollar. Another, with a comment that has nothing to do with Dissident's comment, reads a Shakespeare authorship Substack (conspiracy theory) and another devoted to American Values 2024 fellating Brainworm Bobby. Another? Reads include Robert Malone (yes, him) and Tulsi Gabbard as well as Tracey. Another follows "Angry Christian Patriot," clearly a Christian nationalist type site, as well as Erick Erickson, and a wingnut State of Jefferson type Oregon blog. Another follows Paul Thacker, conspiracy theorist, antivaxxer, and general pseudoscience peddler, as I have noted.

Another day, more notes. A Michael Shellenberger follower who also follows Leighton Woodhouse, Abigail Shrier and Stacks about Brainworm Bobby, Thomas Massie, a Rand Paul fellator site, an anti-"woke" one and others. (Shrier is half wrong, but not fully, on transsexual and transgender issues. She's also a full-on Zionist.)  A second Shellenberger reader who's also another Rufo and Weiss reader.

Another day? A possible actual leftist — one nutty enough to read the nutbar Rainer Shea. A Taibbi toady who reads all four (hope there's not more!) of Matt's Stacks. A Tracy & Shellenberger reader, who also reads a gun nut Substack and one that rocks a Confederate flag for their logo. Another Shellenberger reader plus reading the Rand Paul fellator site.

It's also, I'm guessing, per responses I've seen to Ken as well, fairly indicative of Glennwald tankies.  In the worse, you have a Michael Tracey follower and someone who looks like a cheap Putin shill at times and is also a bit on the COVID wingnut spectrum. Another of Ken's commenters reads a 9/11 truther triangulationist (yes, the Bill Clinton type triangulation, with said person presenting their own Gnosis about 9/11 "truth"), Joe Mercola and others.  And Ken also mentions "hate mail."

Again, this is why I identify as a SKEPTICAL leftist.

Contra the Glennwald Tankies.

That said, the receipts?

The biggie, to the facts of the matter of the reality of Glennwald and his relationship with the likes of Pierre Omidyar? That’s the total ass-kicking Mark Ames and Yasha Levine gave him back in 2013.

An extraction from that:

Greenwald’s leftist and anarchist fans have always had an almost cult-like faith in his judgment, seeing him as little less than a digital-age Noam Chomsky. But now they’re reeling from cognitive dissonance …

And another:

After we published Mark's piece, I was concerned, based on past experience, that some of Greenwald's supporters might try to divert from the key points raised in our coverage by trying to smear Pando, Mark or others who work here.

Which mirror something in Ken Silverstein’s piece. His words, interviewing Higgins:

Taibbi and Greenwald both insist, preposterously at this point, that they didn’t change, their critics have.

Beyond that?

First, I said Greenwald lied about his support for the Iraq War. Contra the tankie who brushed that off? Per this piece, he then attacked those who called out his lying and then doubled down on his lies. #fact

While I’m here scattershooting, let’s call out Glennwald’s other hypocrisies. Like his hypocrisy about the ACLU when it was censoring its own board of directors.

Or how he can strawman when it serves his libertarian interests. Don’t forget — he’s a libertarian and always has been. He’s not a librul let alone a leftist, and Green types who have made that claim make me barf.

More on him not being a librul let alone a leftist? He and his late husband, David Miranda, in Brazilian terms were not just 1 percenters but 0.1 percenters. Now, yes, rich people can be leftist, but it’s pretty damned uncommon.

Greenwald has also told lies related to the Edward Snowden book. And since I mentioned Matthew Hale at the Dissident for the tankies, he committed grossly unethical behavior related to that. (While I’m here, Snowden’s book is not all that.)

Regarding the various pull quotes? Yeah, the commenters at The Dissident and at Ken’s piece, as far as the Glennwald tankies, are pretty much like that. My experience at the former, in response to me, was a mix of whataboutism, handwaving, and burden-shifting.

Finally? This is why, at least in a modified form, horseshoe theory is true. The left-liberal at best Noah Berlatsky is wrong in claiming it’s not. Of course, since he’s also written for Reason, he has reason to say that.

Not only many of the commenters, but many of the Stacks they follow, illustrate horseshoe theory.

And, yes, I think many of these people, with many of the Stacks they follow, illustrate well my contention that conspiracy theory is a new form of Gnosticism. (Conspiracy theory is also where the tips of the horseshoe theory shoe often meet.)

Conspiracy theories are the new Gnosticism: What might that mean for modern politics and society?

The psychology of conspiracy thinkers appears complex.

On the surface, it might seem simple. More and more social psychology research ties acceptance of conspiracy thinking to perceived loss of control over life.

But that itself can’t be the sum of it. Many people who lose a greater amount of control over life than they previously had do not buy into conspiracy thinking. For example, 95 percent of people who have strokes (very conservative estimate, surely more like 99.5 percent) don’t claim their stroke (if they even use that word) was caused by chemtrails.

Per the medieval Western Church pondering the mystery of salvation, “Cur alii, non alii”?

So, the psychology is more complex than “loss of control.”

But, acceptance of conspiracy theories is also about more than psychology. Trying to reduce the likelihood of acceptance of conspiracy theories to loss of control is like Orwell’s tale from India about the blind men describing an elephant. Even outside of that, limiting the discussion to psychology would be like men with severe astigmatism trying to describe it or something.

Movement skeptics or Skeptics™ folks might say that conspiracy thinking is anti-scientific. Well, partially true with anti-science conspiracy theories such as the chemtrails above or faked moon landings, but not even fully true there. And science, other than social sciences, isn’t involved at all with politics or history conspiracy theories.

But philosophy is.

Logic, basically classic informal logic and the classical logical fallacies, are obviously in play, even if Massimo Pigliucci says we should stop calling people on fallacies, even when they’re committing what would be considered classical fallacies by any disinterested observer.

(Based on that, I look at the difference between specific actual conspiracies and conspiracy theories in this blog post.)

But, other areas of philosophy are involved, too. One is epistemology. Another is philosophy of language, specifically on agreeing on language used to describe and to “frame” an event. And, in some cases, it and epistemology may overlap here.

Then there’s the role of the Internet.

The ramp-up of misinformation in general, and conspiracy thinking in particular, has been fueled by the Net in general and social media in particular. That's even more the case, I think, with disinformation, which is deliberate, per the distinctions the author has at the link. The question is, is this something desired by conspiracy theory promoters? Are a higher percentage of them, than of the general public, anarchists in some way? If so, which came first, believing conspiracy theories or anarchist tendencies?

And, is conspiracy thinking, or at least promotion of it, an addictive behavior inside the addictive behavior of being online in general and being online with devices and/or social media in particular? (There's ironies here. I'm including this in a blog post that could be just for "the machine," and the author wrote this piece which could also just be for "the machine.")

Beyond THAT, though, those theories still get no closer to the cur alii, non alii than we have been so far.

One author at Psychology Today postulates a second reason. (I’m taking understanding and certainly as ultimately a subset of control and thus not a second reason.)

And that is the positive self-image angle.

David Ludden doesn’t use the word, but … I just thought of it.

Conspiracy theorists are Gnostics. They believe they have secret, esoteric knowledge. And that does help their self image.

Beyond that, the rise of the social media has made it much easier for people to self-sort. For instance, there’s several sub-conspiracy theories within the JFK assassination conspiracy theory world, as in, LBJ did it, or the Mob did it, or Castro did it, or the “deep state” did it, etc. (I've been at Dealey Plaza on a Nov. 22.) Facebook groups, and probably even more, sub-Reddits, are among leading avenues for allowing these to grow.

Not to underestimate the power of the spoken word, and the ease of making videos now, YouTube is probably No. 3. Especially now that it’s becoming easy to fake videos.

Now, the parallelism with Gnosticism may not seem complete. For example, where is the difference between “adepts” and “learners” or “auditors”?

Well, with things like “closed” or “secret” Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, it’s right there. You may have to have demonstrated a certain amount of knowledge on “open” Facebook, Twitter, Reddit larger groups, etc., before you gain admission to one of these groups. And, since it’s a group run by a leader, you’re always at danger of expulsion.

The psycho-history angle also has parallels.

This, then, actually ties back to real live Gnosticism. Gnosticism arose in the late Hellenistic era, but took off when? Under the Roman Empire, certainly the most powerful nation state west of China both in external power and in internal control of its citizenry before modern times. And, east of its borderlands, the Parthians semi-organized, and then the Sassanids more organized, an empire of sorts of their own An America where, ostensibly democratic fronts, people worry about the big brother of big government, big business or both, is very real. (Or, to extend Rome-vs-Persia, it was like an early Cold War.)

The loss of control ties with an attempt to regain control, even if the area of control has to be massively circumscribed.

That said, to the degree we do take knowledge and certainty itself as a third issue, that links back to philosophy, namely, epistemology.

That’s more insight, but still not total insight on the cur alii, non alii.

And Undark seems to have another piece of the puzzle, from neuroscience. 

People who understand much about our hominid ancestors know that they are believed to have had a penchant for two things: agency imputation and pattern detection. It’s also believed that the most evolutionarily successful hominids were those that overdid it to some degree, because the price of a false positive was far less than that of a false negative.

According to two researchers, one Dutch, one American, Elizabeth Preston says that conspiracy theorists are likely to have a high level of false positives on pattern detection. The Dutch researcher, with a Dutch colleague, adds that many conspiracy theorists may also imbibe in another early hominid issue: xenophobia toward outgroups. Given that issues like that are how more conservative people allegedly differ from more liberal people, per the Big Five personality scale (I think the claims are overblown), this could be seen as a partial additional explainer of some politically conservative conspiracy thinking.

Also, per David Hume reminding us that the reason need always follow the passions, conspiracy theories are always emotionally driven. That's even more the case than with traditional motivated reasoning.

This ties, in this case, to the regaining of control, and with it, the gaining of a sense of power. Asking people to surrender psychological power is as difficult as asking them to surrender physical power. Tie this, then, into the world of modern democratic and semi-democratic politics. Conspiracy thinking can control, and can be used by leaders to control, political behaviors.

But, that's not the biggie. The biggie, here in the US is getting people to accept that our nation's population has doubled since Eisenhower era America and that the world population is headed toward 8 billion.

So, let's let James Tiberias Kirk weigh in:

 That's right, there are about a million things in this universe we can have and about a million (really, more like a billion) we can't.

It IS no fun facing that.

But, being in the reality-based world involves accepting just that fact.

So, how do we get conspiracy theorists to stop this? Probably not easy.

A better question is, how do we stop potential conspiracy theorists from becoming actual ones?

My thought is that that, on the level of our daily friends, rather than trying to refute the conspiracy theory that's tempting them, to instead point out many other things in their daily lives that they don't control, and then, ask them if this really upsets them.

After that, maybe a transition to the idea that "some" people (while making clear that you're not marking them up) believe in conspiracy theories due to a perceived loss of control. And then, if they're willing to talk more about the particular conspiracy theory, only at that point, tackle that issue.

Ditto for the purely Gnostic issues of insider, esoteric knowledge. Point out the many things that they do actually know, some of which may not be known to very many people. Encourage them to maybe brag on that a bit more in their daily lives — while not sounding like a Cliff Clavin.

#Judas kisses a shape-shifting #Jesus

No, really!

A newly-deciphered Coptic gospel-type text tells us exactly like that, and should reignite discussions about whose interpretation of the recently translated and interpreted Gospel of Judas is correct.

Here's the nut graf:

(T)he ancient text tells of Pontius Pilate, the judge who authorized Jesus' crucifixion, having dinner with Jesus before his crucifixion and offering to sacrifice his own son in the place of Jesus. It also explains why Judas used a kiss, specifically, to betray Jesus — because Jesus had the ability to change shape, according to the text.

Note TWO bizarro things there.

One is a shape-shifting Jesus, which is actually the less bizarre of the two.

The more notable one is Pilate offering his own son in place of Jesus.

First, why is the shape-shifting less bizarre?

In canonical gospels, in post-resurrection appearances, Jesus appears to have powers at least vaguely similar. In Luke, the Emmaus disciples don't recognize Jesus until he seemingly allows it. And in John 20, in the "upper room appearance," he pops in out of nowhere. And in the apocryphal, but early, Gospel of Peter, Jesus becomes mega-giant sized.

Here's the specifics of the shape changing here:

"Then the Jews said to Judas: How shall we arrest him [Jesus], for he does not have a single shape but his appearance changes. Sometimes he is ruddy, sometimes he is white, sometimes he is red, sometimes he is wheat coloured, sometimes he is pallid like ascetics, sometimes he is a youth, sometimes an old man ..."  

That said, the story notes that this idea goes back at least to the Egyptian Christian Origen, who died in 254. So, even if the text is "newer," the tradition is not THAT new. That said, as the story notes, the text is written pseudepigraphally in the name of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Cyril  lived during the fourth century, so this text is surely at least 100 years later than Origin's death. That said, it may have a "history," beyond the Judas kiss, that goes back earlier.

More on this, and the Pilate offer, after I mention it.

As for Pilate?

"Without further ado, Pilate prepared a table and he ate with Jesus on the fifth day of the week. And Jesus blessed Pilate and his whole house," reads part of the text in translation. Pilate later tells Jesus, "well then, behold, the night has come, rise and withdraw, and when the morning comes and they accuse me because of you, I shall give them the only son I have so that they can kill him in your place."

That said, in the story about this text, a scholar notes Pilate had higher, even much higher, standing in early Coptic Egyptian and Ethiopian Christianity than elsewhere, even being regarded as a saint.

Still, there's been nothing like this in any Coptic text that I know of. The level of ridiculousness of this part of the story indicates that while part of it could have older roots, the current version of this text has undergone plenty of history.

As for the tie-ins with the Gospel of Judas and its interpretation? It may bear some light as to whether that Gospel should be interpreted as Judas being Jesus' enemy rather than a being, a person, specially enlightened by Jesus. The fact that at least one quasi-semi-Gnosticizing text, the one at hand, points to Judas as an enemy means that this interpretation of the Gospel of Judas, contra a Bart Ehrman, is more likely.

As for the reality of the existence of Judas (operating on the assumption of the existence of Jesus) and Jesus' betrayal by Judas?

That's below the fold.

Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul gives us the first extant written account of the Lord’s Supper.

He starts with the well-known phrase, “On the night our Lord Jesus was betrayed…”

But, “betrayed” may well not be the right translation.

Many Greek verbs have three voices — the active and passive ones we know in English, and a “middle” voice, a sort of reflexive voice.

Now, the Greek verb παραδίδωμι looks the same in middle and passive voice. But, it has different meanings. looks the same in middle and passive voice. But, it has different meanings.

In the passive, it does mean “betray.” But, in the middle, it normally means “hand over,” as in hand over someone to authorities. A similar meaning is “hand up.”

Critical New Testament scholarship believe this is what Paul means. He never, in the epistles he clearly wrote, talks about a Passion Plot, a Roman arrest, or the melodramatic literary angle of a turncoat named Judas.

That gets us to the first “pseudo-Paul.” In addition to it being quite certain that Paul never wrote the “Pastoral Epistles” of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, which weren’t written until the end of the first century CE, or even early in the second, an earlier pseudo-Paul (or two) is believed to have written Colossians and Ephesians. Relations between these two books are unclear, but both likely were written no later than 30 years after Paul’s genuine books, by someone closer to the Pauline mileau than the Pastoralist of another 20-40 years later.

Well, both Colossians and Ephesians discuss what can certainly be called “esoterica,” whether they are talking about issues that can clearly be labeled Gnostic or not.

In Colossians 2:20, “Paul” tells his readers, “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world….” The word in Greek, στοιχειον, is a word with plenty of use in Gnosticism, although it has plenty of pre-Gnostic use as well. As an “elemental principle,” it can be understood as a stage to be overcome by the Gnostic initiate’s battle to return to the All.

So, tying together Colossians and 1 Corinthans, did Paul mean that Jesus was actually “handed up” to the “elemental powers”? In other words rather than the soteriology of the Pastoral Epistles, themselves connected with similar soteriology stances of dying-and-rising eastern Mediterranean savior gods, was Paul instead talking about Jesus as a sacrifice to Gnostic powers?

How, then, did we get to Mark,. the first Gospeller, creating the "betrayal" story?

A combination of misreading Paul plus creative reading of the Old Testament, namely something like Psalm 69:22-28, and Psalm 109:6-12.

Peter allegedly took these verses that way in Acts 1.

In Gnostic and semi-Gnostic Christianity, the idea of Judas as Jesus' twin, as in Judas Thomas (Aramaic for "twin") certainly added to Gnosticizing takes on the idea of Jesus' betrayal.

It seems likely. Mystery religions, after all, we know had their own mystery-fellowship dinners, from which it is believed Paul borrowed ideas that he fused into Passover concepts to produce his “Last Supper.”

If that’s the case, the genuine Paul was more a proto-Gnostic than later followers, let alone conservative Christians today, might want to accept.

Also, if that’s the case, pseudo-Paul of Colossians either didn’t understand the genuine article that well, or else thought that others’ interpretation of him had gone too far, or else did understand him well and deliberately reinterpreted him.

As for "who was Judas"? Well, his second name, "Iscariot," has caused critical scholars puzzlement as well. It has sometimes been considered to be "Ish Kerioth," or "man of Kerioth." Problem — that is a village in what is today the Kingdom of Jordan, or biblical Transjordan, and all of Jesus' other disciples are described as coming from Galilee. Others claim it derives from the Latin "sicarius," which in the plural came to be used for dirk-wielding Jews knocking off Romans and collaborators and hoping to start the revolution. After all, all three Synoptics have Simon the Zealot as a follower, one of the Twelve. ("Cananaean" in Mark is simply the Aramaic word for the Greek "Zealot," and either an indication that Mark was trying to hide something, or, along with some of his geographical befuddlement, an indication of how clueless he was.) Problem — Josephus says the Sicarii didn't arise until the late 50s CE. However, Mark could have used it anachronistically.

In any case, it should also be noted that Paul created the Eucharist. And, he had no Judas in it. And, Jesus likely wasn't betrayed.