I was glad to see Max Read’s essay today in New York Magazine, which suggests that the “manosphere” sees the world in essentially gnostic terms. I’ve entertained the same idea myself, and like Read I came to it because of the clearly gnostic symbolism of the “red pill” concept, which the manosphere lifted from The Matrix. I suggest that everyone read it.
As I think Read realizes, however, the relationship between gnosticism, the internet, and our current political dilemma is a huge topic, which he could not hope to cover fully in the space he was allotted. Since he has already explained the framework for why online anti-feminism could be seen as a kind of gnosticism I’d simply like to add some of my thoughts in list form. (Please note that I am NOT writing an essay with numbered paragraphs. I hate those.)
- Gnosticism is a way of seeing the world which has emerged occasionally in history. As Hans Blumenberg has discussed, gnosticism arose as a challenge to orthodoxy in the first centuries of the Christian era, and then again during the middle ages, this time in the form of scholarly nominalism in addition to heresies like Catharism. Gnosticism, unlike orthodox Christianity (or, as is the case now, mainstream liberalism), is a worldview based on intense feelings of alienation. Thus, it thrives in historical circumstances which are alienating. And who is a more quintessentially alienated subject than an economically and sexually frustrated young man who spends all his time on the internet? I think it’s important to consider both the phenomenology of internet use as well as the conditions of late capitalism when we look at this most recent eruption of gnosticism.
- One complicating factor is that for gnostics, the material world was created by an evil god, while a higher spiritual or intellectual realm was created first by a good god. The purpose of gnosticism was to escape this lower realm we have been cast into and return to our original home in the spiritual realm through the acquisition of sacred knowledge (“gnosis”). For the gnostics, the immaterial realm of ideas was more real than the material world, which was an illusion. The Matrix’s red pill symbolism inverts this, as does the manosphere’s notion that feminism, an ideology, perverted a well-functioning world governed by natural hierarchies and evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, we still do see this kind of thinking in those circles, especially in the case of Jordan Peterson, whose Maps of Meaning made the gnostic argument that archetypal ideas decisively shape our material reality.
- Speaking of Peterson, gnostic cults often formed around sages who offered access to salvific knowledge. This is quite obviously the case in the manosphere as well, and Peterson himself can be seen as a kind of modern heresiarch. Another trend in gnostic cults was spiritual hierarchy, with more advanced practitioners served by a larger lower class of followers, who could not hope for ultimate salvation. We can see this type of thought, for example, in the false “alpha-beta” dichotomy Red Pillers rely on so heavily in their understanding of masculinity.
- There’s a huge body of literature on gnosticism, which portrays them positively, almost as proto-hippies. There’s another critical corpus of work on gnostics by Christians, who catalog their various outrages. I’m not familiar enough with either tradition to say which is correct, but I do want to highlight something that the orthodox Christians have pointed out: that gnostic cults tended to extremes of either asceticism or hedonism. This was because of their denigration of the material realm, which suggested to some that all worldly things should be rejected, and to others that laws and norms restricting our behavior were pointless. We see this dichotomy reflected in the manosphere, with pickup artists indulging in as much casual sex as possible, and “Men Going Their Own Way” opting for “monk mode” in the service of achieving a stoic indifference to women.
- Read points out the connection to nihilism, which is symbolized by the “Black Pill.” The black pill is usually some kind of information that tells you there’s no escaping, for example, being involuntarily celibate. You have the jawline of a beta male, so no Red Pill is going to teach you how to get laid. The connection between gnosticism and nihilism is something that Hans Jonas noticed, and wrote about in an essay attached to his foundational 1958 text The Gnostic Religion. In the essay, he points out similarities between the gnostic outlook and German philosophers like Nietzsche and Heidegger. What I find important here is that gnostic expectations, when dashed, can lead to nihilistic despair, which should be a cause for concern.
- Many critics of the left, most notably Eric Voegelin, have described Marxism as a form of gnosticism. Today, we often see online leftists indulging in gnostic-seeming ideas, most significantly that this world is hell. The notion that Marxist or leftist thought offers an interpretive key which makes sense of our alienation, unlocking the secrets of existence, and moreover suggests a route to a solution, is all recognizably gnostic. It is also very seductive. This suggests that gnosticism may be a heresy, but it’s not completely useless. It’s just a matter of avoiding some of the downfalls listed above (particularly nihilism, and elitism).
Any of these thoughts could be developed further, and I’m curious to hear what others think. All in all, I’m hoping that Read’s essay sparks a trend in comparing modern experience to late-antique religious phenomena, because that’s one of my favorite things to do.
HUGE REALITY 