GREAT MOMENTS IN GNOSTICISM:
There’s some understudied phenomenon where midwits observe a genius discover some (rare!) thing that is counter intuitive,& so come to believe they can impress people by claiming counter intuitiveness on ordinary intuitive things, like a cargo cult “defunding police lowers crime”
— Balthazar Grimm (@BalthazarGrimm) December 30, 2025
Lewis knew pic.twitter.com/CIjUoySSzZ
— Anders of Normandy 🌲🐢 (@AndersNormandy) December 30, 2025
What part of the left isn’t a form of modern-day gnosticism? But, “If the right wing becomes politically and culturally ascendant and is seen as having that sort of transformative capability it’s going to attract a lot of these sorts of people. It’s generally reasonable to expect that absent strict ideological regimentation (a capability the right doesn’t have) these people will act like lunatics — they don’t really care about concrete policy objectives and are more interested in finding a RW substitute for the left wing identity gnosis that failed them:”
Eric Hoffer wrote a famous mid century book called ‘The True Believer’ where he described the sorts of people who are attracted to mass political movements and what motivates them.
Very often these are broken people who are drawn in by the *possibility* of personal…
— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) December 29, 2025