Thread by @ConceptualJames

Marxism utilizes a broad Continental school of thought I'd call "dialectical sociology," if I was giving it a technical name. It might be useful to people's understanding to outline what I mean by this school of thought. It's a central piece of what I've called Social Gnosticism.

Obviously, there's a lot to unpack on this to make it clear, so an essay or podcast may have to follow (or both). I'm going to start with Rousseau for this description as well. Generally, Continental Enlightenment philosophy (not Scottish!) regards men as imprisoned by society.

The question at the heart of their thought is ultimately, what does it mean to be human? especially given all the apparently artificial aspects of civilization and civilized life. They were therefore, like others, obsessed with understanding the "State of Nature" of man.

Man's "State of Nature" was thought of as what it's really like to be man, absent all the strictures of (increasingly Modern) civilization. They came up with various accounts by studying the "savages" of pre-civilized tribes and rampantly romanticized them.

Civilization, thus other people and institutional and cultural power, came to be viewed as incarcerating, but with certain undeniable benefits. "Savages" we're free but limited. We imprison ourselves and each other sociopolitically was a primary view.

Rousseau articulated this idea famously as "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." He sought to remedy that apparent problem of human freedom dialectically, by arranging a social contract that trades freedom for more freedom and makes "savages made to live in cities."

Rousseau wanted to escape the prison of civilized being, in other words, while retaining the benefits of civilization. Obviously, this is impossible because the discipline of civilization is what civilization is. There is no civilization without it at all.

Dialectical (Hermetic) thinking was forwarded as a way to square this circle. The State of Nature could be recovered "on a higher (sublated) form" by introducing the contradictions and"resolving" them and transforming (alchemy) quantity (enough) into quality (good enough).

This marks the introduction of a new way of thinking about human existence in the world: dialectical sociology. Social phenomena will be understood as a Gnostic circumstance to be transformed Hermetically through dialectical social theories. It couldn't work, but it caught fire.

Skipping Hegel and Kant, who imported and modified this Rouseeauian fever dream and modified it according to German Idealism and Mysticism, Marx was the most consequential inheritor on this new goofball way of thinking about life, man, and society, and he weaponized it.

Ultimately, Marx saw man's State of Nature in his romanticized views about tribal Communism and sought to free man from his "fall" into civilization and individuality while retaining the production and productive benefits of an advanced civilizational mode. That's his Communism.

Marxism must be understood this way: an attempt to reenter Eden on man's own terms in open defiance of God. The method is dialectical sociology applied to economics and social status as its essential materials. Being dialectical, it operates through division and conflict.

The conflict aspect is therefore also critical to understanding Marxism. It seeks to provoke a transformation of society by putting groups into conflict until all conflicts are ended by playing out through dialectics. This doesn't work, by the way. It kills en masse.

Marx believed the State of Nature of man is socialist. Awakening to this hidden and saving truth is becoming Woke to the reality of man's self-imprisonment so we can overturn the alienating social order and return to Eden (State of Nature) but with all the fruits of civilization.

Marxism cannot be understood properly without recognizing its Sociognostic nature as such and its vision to RETVRN man to a romanticized, idealized State of Nature before civilization but with the fruits of civilization, which is impossible.

Fwiw, Gnosticism asks man to remember who he really is to RETVRN to his true human nature, which is deified. Hermeticism asks the same thing differently and provides a method for attempting it. Absolutely crucial to understand these ideas to know what's going on in the world.