The Self-Help to Right-Wing Pipeline? | BreadBusting #7

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. Please note that, while I do have my personal political beliefs, all this is done in the name of intellectual discussion and seeing things from different perspectives. Today, I want to respond to a point that Caleb Cain, i.e. Faraday Speaks, sort of touched on during a recent interview with David Pakman. As I understood it, Caleb said that part of the reason why he went over to the hard right was because he got into the self-help philosophy of Stefan Molyneux, who also linked his life philosophy to cultural traditionalism, and from there to right-wing politics. This point was made in the context of discussing Caleb's journey into the political right. Moving on from this, David and Caleb also extended their discussion to Jordan Peterson, who David seems to think has a similar issue.

I guess if people are selling their politics via self-help, then it's a real issue, and we need to call it out. But as to whether Jordan Peterson or even Stefan Molyneux are doing that, I think it's very debatable. While it is true that they do link their self-help philosophy to encouragement of traditional lifestyles, I don't think this is necessarily unrelated or deceptive. Let's start from this example. Say I wrote a self-help book, and it advised readers to stay away from drugs and alcohol. You could say that is encouraging a traditional lifestyle. But if I told my readers to stay away from drugs and alcohol, it would be because I want them to lead healthy lives, for their own good, rather than because I have any political agenda. But then, there are many other lifestyle decisions that could lead to healthier and happier lives, and many of those also happen to involve living a relatively traditional lifestyle. At least I can personally understand and agree with this point. For example, I would think that advising readers against casual sex is also a good thing to write in a self-help book.

Now, all this would be politically neutral, at least in the pre-1960s era. Even before the 1960s, we had lots of very left-wing people, but they generally wouldn't take issue with traditional lifestyle advice. All this changed after the 1960s and 70s, a time where many problematic developments occured. Firstly, there was the proliferation of critical theory on the left, something that I think was a mixed bag with some problematic results to be honest. Furthermore, the kind of critical theory that took hold at this time had a strong critique of family values in general and the nuclear family in particular, linking it to capitalism. Now, this line of reasoning goes all the way back to Engels in the 19th century, but personally I have never found it convincing. If anything, capitalism has never been pro-family: we used to have strong extended families in feudal times, but early capitalism broke them up into nuclear families for the sake of labor flexibility, and later capitalism further eroded the family unit. I also happen to believe that we need to culturally limit this tendency of capitalism, because otherwise liberalism will effectively self-destruct, and fascism will grow. But that's another story. The point is, leftist critical theory began to look negatively on values associated with strong families since the 1960s and 70s, and because of that the left has been against many traditional lifestyle values for no good moral or economic reason since then. For example, the aforementioned advice against casual sex would be frowned upon, as a pro-patriarchy message, or even a carrier of cultural hegemony.

As someone who sees things primarily through classical liberal values, when I look at something, I want to see there being liberty and equal opportunity. I guess you could say that this was the majority viewpoint of progressives before 1960, and back then both capitalist liberals and socialist lefists would agree on many things culturally despite disagreeing economically. Where both liberty and equal opportunity have been satisfied, then I'm satisfied. From a classical liberal viewpoint, that is, the default of the pre-1960s progressives, life advice that tends to traditional choices, for example abstinence outside of marriage, would be value-neutral, and it should be treated fairly like all other ideas in the free market of ideas, as long as there isn't an implication of endorsing state coercion. So where, in the past, the left stayed true to these values, people who lived and promoted traditional lifestyles could live happily on either side of the political spectrum. But since the 1970s, this was no longer true. I think this is why many people who start out from believing in traditional lifestyles for their own good also end up finding the right side of the political spectrum a more hospitable place for them. And I think this is where the left has given itself a massive own goal.

Therefore, my advice is this: if the left is so worried about people like Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux using their self-help to move people into right-wing politics, then they should make a real effort to cease alienating people who believe in traditional lifestyle choices. My point is, the ball is in the Left's court, and they alone will decide if this so-called pipeline continues to exist. As soon as they drop that anti-traditional side of critical theory, and go back to their pre-1960s cultural views, this so-called pipeline will cease to exist.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.