Idealism and Structural Analysis: The Sickness of Modern Western Intellectuals

I have been trying to understand why so-called “intellectuals” in the West fail to understand the real world. This post is for them. In my opinion, the author’s position perfectly exemplifies what is wrong with these individuals and why they are blind to reality. I would argue that the first part of the video — where the author describes realism — is not a bad description; while I do not agree with it fully, it is relatively accurate.

However, the second part, where he argues against realism, exemplifies the corruption of Western intellectual thought. I especially disagree with the attempt to implicate Michel Foucault in the realist school. In my view, Foucault and the entirety of intersectionality are “psyops” of the American empire designed to discredit the true Left — a point I have detailed in previous posts. This brand of intersectionality, which turns the Left into an “oppression Olympics,” serves to divide the working class. By shifting the focus away from the class struggle and toward divisions in religion, sex, and ethnicity, it prevents the working class from acting in its own class interests.

Ultimately, I disagree with almost everything in the second part, except for the fact that Henry Kissinger belonged to the realist school; in my opinion, Zbigniew Brzezinski was a realist as well. Realism is the only way to truly look at the world. The idealism used by authors to criticize realism is the very “sickness” that has corrupted modern Western intellectuals. This also includes structural analysis, which I will address later.

First, I would like to point out a recent event: Mark Carney’s speech at Davos, where he “spilled the beans” on the current state of global affairs.

I would love to see the author of the main video attached to this post react to the truth that Mark Carney “spilled” at Davos. Carney admitted that the entire “rules-based order” — the very foundation the author used to argue against realism — was a lie. It was a facade that everyone perpetuated because they benefited from it. In reality, it was a system of coercion and imperialism hidden behind a veneer of idealism. This deception regarding the rules-based order is precisely what has corrupted so-called “intellectuals” in the West.

In a recent commentary, I became quite emotional and frustrated when a person I argued with brought up the “autonomy of Russia.” To me, this represents the same “absurd idealism” based on lies. I live in Poland, and the only parties I can vote for are either working for globalists and Germans or American neocons and Zionists. There is no party that represents true autonomy for my country. While naive idealists might believe the parties they vote for represent national autonomy, I am a realist: I know that smaller countries work for others because they are too weak to be truly autonomous.

Furthermore, talking about the “autonomy of Russia” completely ignores the realist school of thought, where actors respond to the moves of other players. What Russia did was not a vacuum-sealed decision; they were forced into that position by American actions. It upsets me that “intellectuals” — who are likely smarter than me and certainly have better academic “toolkits” — cannot see the real world because of the “Kabuki theater” created by this naive narrative. I often wonder why an “uneducated nobody” like me can see the world for what it is while they remain trapped in an imaginary world.

To all those whose minds are corrupted by this narrative-driven idealism, I present the debate I’ve mentioned before between Stephen F. Cohen and Michael McFaul. Cohen represents my worldview, while McFaul embodies the idealistic “bullshit” that constitutes the world of the naive.

While I don’t agree with Stephen F. Cohen on everything, his views are very close to my own. I consider him one of the greatest authorities on Russia, and his passing was a great loss. I hope the debate I’ve shared helps people understand why the narrative of “Russian autonomy” and the claim that Russia is solely responsible for the Ukraine conflict is, in my view, complete nonsense.

Since the war in Ukraine has not yet ended, the “dust of war” has not settled. As the saying goes, truth is always the first casualty of war. Because of this, I want to provide an example from a similar debate where the dust has settled: the exchange between Michael Parenti and Christopher Hitchens regarding the Middle East. Because that conflict is further in the past, certain truths have finally come to light, making it a clearer example of these dynamics.

However, I must clarify: while I admire Michael Parenti and consider him a hero of mine, I do not agree with him on everything. For instance, I disagree with his view that the Soviet Union did not want a Second World War; on that point, I align more with Viktor Suvorov. I also don’t support Parenti’s “whitewashing” of certain Soviet issues, particularly during the era of Lenin and Stalin. Furthermore, I lack the specific expertise to defend his work on Julius Caesar.

That said, I strongly agree with Parenti regarding the glorification of the Roman and British Empires. In my opinion, the distortion of history in the West is caused by a lack of historical materialism. This glorification of Pax Romana and Pax Britannica fuels the very idealism seen in the video I attached — an idealism that builds a “world of the naive.”

This highlights another issue with Western “intellectuals”: if they find one point of disagreement, they try to discredit everything a person has ever said. No one is perfect, and that is not how healthy debate should work. This is a symptom of how academia corrupts the mind — a corruption I am thankful to have avoided. I don’t think I’m a genius; in fact, many of these people are likely much smarter than I am. But their education has distorted their ability to analyze reality. As the comedian Kurt Metzger often says, it is incredibly frustrating when “some jackass comedian” or a “nobody warehouse worker” can see truths that highly educated experts remain blind to.

Anyway, I’ve gone on a bit of a rant, so let’s get to the debate I mentioned.

I want to highlight that I was once a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens. When I was younger, I was deeply interested in religion and watched countless debates featuring Hitchens and Richard Dawkins taking on religious advocates. Because I spent so much time listening to him, Hitchens is someone I really respect.

This makes the debate between Hitchens and Michael Parenti particularly interesting to me, as I respect both men. However, in this specific context, I believe Hitchens represents that “intellectual idealism” — the mind-warping narrative of a “rules-based order” that constitutes this “world of the naive.” Michael Parenti, on the other hand, represents my current views.

The “intellectuals” who talk about the “autonomy of Russia” today are taking the same flawed stance that Hitchens took back then. Years later, now that the dust has settled on those Middle Eastern conflicts and the truth can finally be told, we can see that Parenti was right while Hitchens was wrong. I believe the same thing will happen years after the conflict in Ukraine ends. When the dust finally falls and the truth is allowed to surface, we will see that those arguing for “Russian autonomy” were equally mistaken.

It is a powerful example of how someone as brilliant as Christopher Hitchens — a man I still respect — could be so completely wrong. His mind was captured by a narrative lie, leading him to believe that the “world of the naive” was actually reality.

Structural Analysis

I would now like to touch on structural analysis, specifically how it is used as a tool for this “idealism” and the corruption of Western intellectuals. I want to point out one of Michael Parenti’s best lectures — one so essential that I have shared it multiple times.

In this video, Parenti masterfully exposes how so-called “intellectuals” use the concept of structural analysis to dismiss “conspiracy theories.” They claim that because they look at the “big picture” or the “system,” they don’t need to look at the actual, deliberate actions of powerful groups. This is a point that Peter Dale Scott also emphasizes when discussing “deep politics.”

In my opinion, this video is a must-watch. While it should be seen in full, I want to highlight the specific fragment regarding how intellectuals use “structural analysis” as an excuse to ignore the real-world evidence of deep-state coordination. They use it as a way to avoid the truth, which further traps them in their “world of the naive.”

27:56

Theory is applied in two dimensions. The first dimension focuses on specific actions and events: an assassination, an act of terrorism, the mysterious disappearance of giant skyscrapers, or an illegal “dirty deal” in business.

The second dimension is used to dismiss an entire class interest or an entire social and ideological agenda. In this view, rulers do not rule from secret intent. Do you see the difference? One is about specific actions, and the other is about the whole system and structure.

The Structuralist-Functionalist Debate

This explains why someone like Noam Chomsky — who does very valuable work in other areas — has had differences with me over the JFK assassination. Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, and Chip Berlet denounce “conspiracy theory.” They argue that if you’re a radical, you don’t go looking at these little “hokey-pokey” secret plots; they believe most of them are imagined, and even if a few are real, they don’t matter because you have to look at the larger picture.

They are often surprised to find out that they themselves are thought of as conspiracy theorists. Some people view Noam Chomsky as a conspiracy theorist because of that second use of the term — meaning a whole class power or systemic intent directed toward certain forces.

The rejection of the concept of conspiracy theory in academic circles stems from the structuralist-functionalist debate. If you haven’t heard about this debate over the years, you have every reason to be grateful; it shows you haven’t been wasting your time.

Explaining Historical Phenomena

The debate goes something like this: if you try to explain things through incidental or idiosyncratic analysis, it is considered very poor analysis. For example, saying the Spanish-American War happened because McKinley was scared and weak while Teddy Roosevelt was bombastic — focusing on the personalities of the actors — is a limited and dubious way to explain historical phenomena.

The more radical and systemic the analysis, the less volitional it is assumed to be. A systemic analysis is assumed to have broader scope and deeper depth. However, academics often assume a conflict between structural factors and functional (volitional) factors where people act with conscious intent. In fact, the structure plays itself out through volitional forces.

The CIA is a perfect example. Is it structuralist or functionalist? Conspiracy theory is often discarded as a form of functionalism. Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky wrote an article in Z Magazine calling themselves structuralists. I once had a dispute with a publisher who refused to proceed with my book Against Empire because he called me a “functionalist” while he was a “structuralist.”

Structured Conspiracy

Academics are never happier than when they can dichotomize an issue: “You’re a behavioralist, I’m an intentionalist.” Most of the time, these things are not mutually exclusive. As I started to say, the CIA is a structured conspiracy operation. Why can’t it be both a systemic agency serving class interests and a bunch of conspirators?

“History plays out functionally within the confines of structural developments.”

Conspiracy Fact vs. Theory

For some, a conspiracy theory cannot be proven true by definition. When it is proven true, it is declared to no longer be a “theory,” but a fact.

I don’t have a conspiracy theory; I have a conspiracy analysis. When someone uses the term “conspiracy theory” against your work, it is often an effective weapon used to dismiss your argument or close an investigation. Yet, actual conspiracies exist in law. In 2006, a federal court adjudged major tobacco companies guilty of a 50-year conspiracy to deceive the public about the health risks of cigarettes. Millions died as a result of this conspiracy, but you don’t find tobacco executives in jail.

Modern Examples

If we conclude that 9/11 was an “inside job,” we have to ask why it was necessary. It served as a “Pearl Harbor” to legitimate actions that followed. I remember on the day the buildings came down, Tom Brokaw kept saying, “This is war.”

Other examples include:

W.R. Grace in Montana: The government charged them with knowingly releasing asbestos for three decades while keeping meticulous records of the fibers’ potency and the decline of the miners’ health.

The Iraq War: An analysis found that U.S. leaders made 935 false statements in the two years following 9/11 to galvanize public opinion for war. They stated 532 times that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, despite a lack of evidence.

Wall Street: Firms like Goldman Sachs knowingly sold worthless mortgage-backed securities at top prices. No one has used the word “conspiracy” there, and the cases are handled as civil rather than criminal.

The Double Standard

The establishment constantly assumes conspiracies exist when it concerns their enemies. For 40 years, they talked about “Communist conspiracies” infiltrating Hollywood, trade unions, and the peace movement.

When a smoking SUV was found in Times Square, the FBI, the White House, and the CIA leaped into a “conspiracy theory” within hours to find the conspirators. They didn’t call themselves conspiracy theorists; they just said, “Let’s find the other conspirators.”

The Words of the Conspirators

We can find evidence by monitoring what the policy makers say themselves. In 2001, Dick Cheney said:

“We’ll have to work the dark side… we’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion.”

John Foster Dulles, the former Secretary of State, also wrote about the need to manipulate people to serve the few:

“In order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments, it is necessary to create an emotional state akin to war psychology. There must be the portrayal of external menace.”

Once that ideology has been perpetrated, the nation is a long way on the path to war.

I have previously argued that Noam Chomsky is part of this “compatible Left” — a component of the same “psyop” that includes Michel Foucault and the rise of intersectionality. This criticism of Chomsky is not unique to Michael Parenti; Peter Dale Scott has expressed similar views.

To illustrate this, I want to share an episode from the YouTube channel “American Exception” featuring Aaron Good. In this episode, they provide a detailed critique of Chomsky and discuss the exact same issue: how high-level intellectuals often act as a barrier to understanding “deep politics” by labeling specific, coordinated state crimes as unimportant compared to “systemic” forces.

55:32

The Limits of Structuralism: Chomsky as the Loyal Opposition

Like I mentioned, it’s a limit of his structuralist view. If you don’t believe that specific individuals are important or that removing them from your institutions is a worthwhile goal, you end up with a lot of strange downstream perspectives. It’s the same reason he was against BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions). In many ways, he is an opportunist; he has formulated a set of positions that appear radical—certainly more radical than anything you’ll hear from the Democrats—but ultimately, he pulls his punches. He holds positions that keep him acceptable as a member of the “loyal opposition.”

He refuses to point out the most spectacular, categorically anti-democratic crimes of the U.S. regime, such as the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. He never offered a detailed critique of the role of drug trafficking in U.S. covert operations. Even back in the 60s or early 70s, he reportedly told Peter Dale Scott not to write his essay about the Pentagon Papers and Kennedy’s withdrawal plans. He told him, “Don’t write this because you’re suggesting it matters who is president.”

On the one hand, he says it doesn’t matter who is president, which is essentially ignoring evidence to confirm a prior belief. If it doesn’t confirm his priors, it must be “wrongheaded.” Yet, every four years, he tells people they absolutely must vote for the Democrats.

Anti-Communism and the Establishment

He is also consistently critical of countries targeted by the U.S. for regime change. He was highly critical of the Communist block, the Chinese Communists, and Cuba. He seems critical of basically any socialist government that actually exists. By denouncing U.S. enemies while failing to call out the regime for its most fundamental crimes, he stays within the fold. If he actually spoke like Michael Parenti, he wouldn’t be welcomed by The Nation.

I take a slightly more charitable view of Chomsky’s work; I think his primary value is exposing American hypocrisy by highlighting the gap between its ideals and its actions. However, his anti-communism is precisely why he remains integrated into the establishment. When the Soviet Union fell, he called it a “great victory for socialism,” which is an objectively bizarre comment to make — unless you believe empowering the U.S. would somehow discredit capitalism forever.

The Afghanistan-Vietnam Fallacy

Throughout the 80s and 90s, Chomsky used the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a foil for U.S. actions. However, his depiction of that conflict wasn’t accurate. He ignored the significant U.S. hand in destabilizing the region. He used the Soviets as a way to bolster his anti-communist credentials, saying, “If you criticize the Soviets, you should criticize the Americans.”

In reality, the situations were dramatically different. Vietnam was on the other side of the world for the U.S.; Afghanistan was on the Soviet border. The Soviets didn’t put jihadis in Mexico to destabilize the U.S. border. Like the situation in Ukraine today, the U.S. helped create a crisis on Russia’s doorstep — using jihadis in Afghanistan and ultra-nationalists in Ukraine — to lure them into a military conflict. It worked in Afghanistan, but in Ukraine, it has been a disaster that may ultimately sever the Atlantic alliance.

The Overton Window and “Compatible Leftism”

Chomsky’s prominence shows how hegemony works in the U.S. It doesn’t silence every perspective; it defines the Overton Window.

Chomsky is presented as a radical who is “too far out there,” but he actually occupies an extra layer of the window. He is a dissident, but he is the accepted dissident discussed by mainstream intellectuals. If he didn’t have these default positions regarding the JFK assassination, 9/11, or the Soviet Union, he wouldn’t have his platform. He defended the Pentagon funding of his linguistics department at MIT. Ultimately, he represents a “compatible left” figure. This is why “boomer radicals” think he’s the greatest.

The Utility of Anarchism

A big giveaway is his anarchism. We know how intelligence agencies have promoted anarchism as a counterbalance to organized communist movements. Anarchists often have a theory of revolution that seems unworkable in practice — being radically anti-hierarchical to a fault. There is a reason you can’t point to successful, large-scale anarchist political projects; it’s almost a contradiction in terms.

The CIA and FBI (as seen in COINTELPRO documents) wrote explicitly about the utility of anarchists because they can be used to disrupt more serious movements. While the goal of localized, non-despotic democracy is worthy, in the U.S. context, these groups are often more useful as agents of the regime than as part of a counter-hegemonic project.

The “Fascism for Defeat”

Chomsky referred to the Communist block as a “dungeon,” which took the wind out of the sails of what is possible for the working class. He holds up the Spanish Civil War and the anarchists in Barcelona as the ideal example. While it’s important to look at that history, it’s hard to apply it elsewhere.

Western intellectuals often have a “fascism for defeat”—they love looking at movements that failed because they can project their ideals onto them. If you look at movements that succeeded, you have to grapple with the messiness of real revolution, which invariably has leaders. It is easy for the West to call those leaders “dictators,” but usually, those leaders are simply opposed to U.S. property rights. Chomsky’s anarchism claims to be the successor to liberal values, which contradicts Marxism’s rejection of liberalism.

Remaining on the Reservation

For all the light he brought to certain issues, he also worked to keep people “on the reservation.” As a political formulation, he stayed within institutional bounds.

Michael Parenti, by contrast, went “off the reservation.” Parenti wasn’t at a major university; he wrote independently and struggled for years because he wouldn’t follow the left-liberal “lemming” movements. That makes Parenti far more interesting compared to much of what passes for the American left today.

In a recent post, I highlighted the case of Michael Parenti, whose contract was not renewed despite the support of his students, fellow teachers, and the university president. He had fulfilled every requirement for renewal, yet the University Trustees — essentially a private corporation and oligarchs — decided he was too anti-corporate to be allowed to teach. This illustrates how academia is distorted and controlled by the ruling class. It is the primary reason I feel such disdain for the education system.

This institutional control is why we are left with nothing but “woke,” pro-corporate nonsense in the West which has nothing to do with the real left. The real Left was systematically weeded out by oligarchs, just as the Trustees did with Parenti. The COVID-19 era should have been the final straw, proving once and for all how captured and distorted academia has become. This didn’t magically happen during the pandemic; it has always been this way, but many people simply refused to see it.

We see the results of this corruption in the military sphere as well. In 2023, NATO generals and academic “military specialists” insisted that the Ukrainian counter-offensive would succeed in taking Mariupol and cutting off Crimea. Meanwhile, an “uneducated warehouse worker” like me knew it would fail. What does it say about these “intellectuals” when someone like me sees the truth more clearly than they do? People often accuse the military of being “stupid,” but I argue they knew the truth all along. The leaked Pentagon papers later confirmed that they expected the offensive to fail, exactly as I predicted.

The reality is that there are people in the Pentagon who live in the real world, just as I do. Conversely, the role of academia and the “intellectuals” is to perpetuate a “world of the naive” — a narrative designed to hide reality.

This idealism and the misuse of structural analysis are the tools used to construct this false world. My disdain for academia doesn’t stem from a belief that I am smarter than these people. On the contrary, their academic “toolkit” and writing abilities are far superior to mine, and many are likely more intelligent. However, intelligence does not matter if your mind has been corrupted. It is incredibly frustrating to see people with such immense skill and education remain trapped in an imaginary world. I don’t think I’m a genius; I just haven’t had my view of the real world filtered through a corrupted education system.

The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted. — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

Conspiracy theory is often labeled a mental illness. It is increasingly analyzed not just as a political, social, or ideological phenomenon, but as a form of social or individual pathology — a “sickness” of the mind or society.

In reality, however, those living in a “world of the naive” — built on narrative lies and the dismissal of all conspiracy theories — are the ones who are truly ill. These are the “millions of abnormally normal people” Huxley describes, living without fuss in a society to which a fully realized human being should not be adjusted.

Those who believe in so-called conspiracy theories are labeled “sick” only because we live in a profoundly abnormal society where the majority exists within a manufactured, fake reality. Most people are “normal” only by convention, not in an absolute sense. Just because the masses inhabit a world shaped by lies and narratives does not mean that world is real.

I could write more but I will end it here thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end of my post. And, as always…

“Knowledge will make you be free.”

― Socrates

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“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”

― Richard P. Feynman

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“Freedom is not free, you need to pay attention.”

― Grzegorz Ochman

“It’s one thing to question your mind. It’s another to question your eyes and ears. But then again: Isn’t it all the same, our senses just mediocre inputs for our brain? Sure, we rely on them, trust they accurately portray the real world around us, but what if the haunting truth is, they can’t? That what we perceive isn’t the real world at all but just our mind’s best guess?”

― Elliot (Mr. Robot)

“Sometimes I dream of saving the world. Saving everyone from the invisible hand, the one that brands us with an employee badge, the one the forces us to work for them, the one that controls us every day without us knowing it. But I can’t stop it. I’m not that special. I’m just anonymous. I’m just alone.”

― Elliot (Mr. Robot)