Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
Welcome to the fourth post in our Epicureanism 101 series! Thus far in the series, I’ve focused on Epicurean ethics. And since we’re talking about issues of how we should live our lives, this focus makes sense.
But the Epicurean sees ethics as deeply connected to our metaphysics. Epicurus adopts a materialist, empirical metaphysics that serves to guide his ethics.
In this post, then, we’ll talk about the relationship between Epicurean empiricist philosophy and the ethical views we should adopt.
I’ve got to admit, this time of year isn’t always my favorite transition. I love summers in Iowa City. We get to see what the place looks like as a lower key college town. And now we’re once again moving out of that.
As we hang on to the last parts of the summer, I’m reading a nice mix of things. What are you reading?
DSA held its 2025 National Convention earlier this month, and the ‘DSA Left’ landed another series of wins. From anti-Zionism to a new NPC with a larger ‘left’ majority, the DSA Left built and expanded on its work at the 2023 Convention. In response, a variety of people claimed that ‘entryists’ have taken over DSA and held its members hostage to their ‘revolutionary socialist’ demands.
But they ground these claims in a misunderstanding of DSA. They miss how and why DSA grew around the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries and general election.
Let’s take a closer look at the details.
Iowa Democrats have spent nearly a decade and a half in the wilderness. The trip started around the time Chet Culver lost his bid for re-election in 2010. It never stopped.
From that point, Democrats lost statewide races from the top of the ballot to the bottom, with Obama’s 2012 win one of the few successes. State Auditor Rob Sand, who we’ll talk about shortly, is another.
Why?
It’s a long story. That story runs through the decline of unions, political shifts in the 2010s, and partisan realignment by educational attainment. Every left of center Iowan has their own (usually self-serving) story to tell. But each one ends the same way – Iowa Democrats are left playing for a firm minority of the electorate.
They’ve done little to solve the problem.
Several years ago, I called for Iowa Democrats to build a 2030 coalition. Why? With Iowa’s hard turn to the right, it’s unlikely their current coalition will win. So, they should build a future coalition that can win. That coalition rests on the strength of young people, political independents, non-whites (especially Latinos), and immigrants. These are all growing populations who often don’t vote for Democrats.
But Iowa Democrats weren’t interested in a 2030 coalition. They wanted to win now.
The political far right has made a great deal of hay in the last decade out of the phenomenon of ‘woke capitalism.’ Of course, they rarely bother explaining what the term ‘woke capitalism’ even means, beyond vague gesturing toward corporate DEI programs. To get a sense of things, we have to turn to the left.
On the left, we hear more interesting questions about the relationship between racial justice progressive activism and woke capitalism. The original Black Lives Matter movement sparked some of these issues. But we hear it far more in the wake of the pandemic era 2020 resurgence.
In short, does woke capitalism co-opt racial justice movements? Or do racial justice activists simply promote ideas that woke capitalism likes?
Let’s take a moment to examine the contenders.
One side says that the world of corporate diversity co-opts the genuinely radical demands of true racial justice activists. We find this view expressed well, for instance, in the book Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. I also profiled an especially egregious case in an earlier post that fits this model quite well.
The other side thinks that racial justice progressivism actually aligns with woke capitalism by pushing class to the margins and placing race in the driver’s seat. They think woke capitalism has no problem with racial equality, so long as the class system remains in place. We often find this view in the pages of Jacobin magazine or the books of Adolph Reed Jr. And, of course, I’m on record arguing that an ‘anti-racist capitalism’ is at least theoretically possible.
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