Charles Eisenstein Whitewashes Trump, Caricatures & Demonizes Democrats in Post Decrying Caricatures & Demonization (Part 1)
Charles Eisenstein Whitewashes Trump's Authoritarianism, Trump's Calls for Violence, Trump's Nonstop Lying, Trump's Racism, and Trump's Attacks on Voting Rights and Abortion Rights.
NOTE: This is PART 1 of a multi-part series.
Here is PART 2: “Charles Eisenstein Endorses Trump, but Thinks You’re Not Clever Enough to Notice (Part 2)”
This brings me no joy. But having been one of the first—before the pandemic even—to point out some consistent, Right-Wing leaning, problematic aspects of Charles Eisenstein’s work—and having spoken up repeatedly since then, I feel some duty to chronicle the bizarre climax of this unfortunate trajectory.
First a bit of context. I’ve been on panels and shared stages and podiums with Charles over the years, as well as private conversations, meals, etc. I like him fine, and have had enjoyable times with him. I’d even say I have a bit of affection for him, in addition to the baseline love, compassion, reverence, respect, radical egalitarianism, and interconnectedness I feel with all people.
None of this is personal. Charles is a somewhat influential public intellectual, making public statements in a fraught and consequential political and social landscape. I am responding publicly because I think the issues are important; but none of this is personal.
The fact is, I have had—for several years now—some major disagreements with, and concerns about, his work, and its influence on a significant number of people who, in my opinion, are often not picking up on some pretty glaring hypocrisies and illogic.
Now, there are a lot of people’s takes I disagree with, and I’m happy to just ignore most of them, but in this case, there would be times I would see folks gleefully sharing Eisenstein’s takes and posts—posts that I felt were not only misguided, but counterproductive, insensitive, and undermining progressive values and movements for justice, (and now democracy itself).
I felt like someone needed to say something.
The first post I wrote, more than five years ago, was a response to an essay by Charles titled, “The Polarization Trap.”
“Moving past polarization and asking different questions are important,” I stated, “but shouldn't come at the expense of conflating facts and lies, or at the expense of an analysis of power and systemic injustice.”
“That would be a failure to recognize our interconnectedness with—and our responsibility to—communities that continue to face oppression, discrimination, and violence. In times of injustice and social / ethical crisis, not taking a stand is also a stand, and it sends a message to those who don't have the option of not taking a stand. It's important to do the hard work of getting past ‘both-sides-ism’ and rooting our universal compassion in a full and accurate understanding of historical and current dynamics. All of us long for a less polarized discourse, but side-stepping it has costs of its own, particularly for those most at risk.”
—excerpt from Drew Dellinger’s response to “The Polarization Trap,” by Charles Eisenstein (May 12, 2019)
And, as I would with nearly all of my critiques of his work, I told Charles sincerely, “I'd be happy to discuss further,” in private.
In this first post from 2019, I identified some significant problematic themes in Charles Eisenstein’s work that in recent years have grown increasingly troubling, namely, STRAW-MANNING, which is to say, creating an exaggerated, absurd fantasy with which to argue; extreme FALSE EQUIVALENCE between things that are not, in fact, equivalent; and a reflexive BOTH-SIDES-ISM that seems impervious to the actual facts and weight and realities of history and politics.
In recent years, as Charles's writings continued to churn through the above-mentioned tendencies, and as the unprecedented (in our lifetimes) global pandemic raised the stakes and the emotions all around, many, many others, including previous admirers, began to pick up on the hypocrisy, false-equivalence, straw-manning, and overall recklessness and laziness of a lot of Charles’s thinking and writing… To the point where the publisher of his books issued a public statement disavowing one of his essays, and for a time, donated the profits from his books to three nonprofits.1 And the very tendencies I had flagged became regular fodder for the Conspirituality podcast. Eisenstein features prominently in the recent book, Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat (Public Affairs/Random House Canada, 2023).
So, now that there is an entire book that highlights the dangers of Charles’s nonsense, do I feel affirmed in saying what I was seeing years earlier?
I do.
There’s a lot more I could say about Charles’s work, which I find glib, obvious, oblivious, privileged, often lacking in empathy, and intellectually arrogant—by which I mean Charles feels supremely entitled to pontificate on any issue, no matter how sensitive, and no matter how little he knows about it. I could mention his nods toward Q-type conspiracy nonsense, and it’s violent implications; or his lack of understanding of Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations against Confederate monuments. I could mention his assertion that Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Aaron Maté are some of the “best journalists.”
But I want to move on to Charles’s most recent post…
First though, to read more of my critiques of Charles’s work and approach over the years, see these links below.
July 2020 (see my response in the comments)
One problem I have with Charles’s work is that his ‘most celebrated’ ideas are strikingly unoriginal. “Interbeing” comes from Thich Nhat Hanh. “The Old Story,” “the New Story,” and being “between stories” comes from Thomas Berry. Moving from stories of separation, disconnection, and exploitation, to stories of interconnectedness, oneness, and communion is something that I and others had been talking about for years, even decades, before Charles re-warmed these ideas.
In appropriating Berry’s concepts of the Old Story and the New Story, without ever acknowledging that Berry had introduced these ideas to readers around the world in a highly influential work, The Dream of the Earth (Sierra Club, 1988), just a decade or two earlier, Eisenstein didn’t just use a few of the same words as Berry. He tried to take the signature ideas of Thomas Berry, the keystone concepts Berry had wrought from his forty years of scholarship. Sister Miriam MacGillis, a tireless student of Thomas Berry’s thought, spent decades giving over 800 public presentations on Berry’s concept of the New Story. I am not willing to let anyone erase the decades of path-making work by women like MacGillis, Joanna Macy, Charlene Spretnak, and others.
Thus, one of my overall critiques of Eisenstein’s work can be summarized by a story about the writer, essayist, and literary critic Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). A friend asked Johnson to review his manuscript and offer feedback on the writing. When Johnson returned the man’s pages, he attached a note that read, “What you have sent is both good and original. Unfortunately, the parts that are good aren’t original, and the parts that are original aren’t good.”
ELECTION 2024 is NOT a GAME…
That is why all this matters.
Claiming that RFK Jr. will definitely win the presidency, because one has seen it, with one’s mystical, spiritual seeing, as Eisenstein and Aubrey Marcus did, is not a game. (Remember that, fellas? What happened there?)
Abortion rights, reproductive freedom, the Supreme Court, the vicious, dehumanizing lies that Trump and Vance are telling—again today—about immigrant families; none of this is a game.
This made-up lie, that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets in Ohio, was spread today by the Trump campaign, J. D. Vance, Elon Musk, and hundreds of other influential racist Right-Wing liars.
Democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, the Rule of Law, and a Department of Justice uncorrupted by a deranged president’s personal revenge fantasies; these are serious considerations, folks.
Voting rights, especially in a country with a history of violent racial oppression like ours… need I say more?
The Republican Party’s embrace of threats, violence, and intimidation; and their plans to simply refuse to certify elections if they lose, all of this is serious as an insurrection.
END OF PART 1…
This post is getting long, so I’m going to split it into two (or more) parts.
IN PART 2…
I will go through some of the specific nonsense and hypocrisies in Charles Eisenstein’s newest Substack post, “Shades of Many Colors” …
STAY TUNED…
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This is PART 1 of a multi-part series.
Here is PART 2: “Charles Eisenstein Endorses Trump, but Thinks You’re Not Clever Enough to Notice (Part 2)”
In a previous version, I incorrectly stated that Eisenstein’s publisher had “dropped him from their roster.” This is not the case.