The Growing Phenomenon of the Bitter Aging Woke Male and the Wraith of Yezhov, A Thought (Dillahunty v. Gnostic Informant)

29 May 2025.

Comrades, I have struggled about whether I ought to opine on this matter, for the fear of my legacy and prestige. But we comrades disdain to conceal our views and aims, as the famous rally goes. I am out of my depth, but the fact is, I have witnessed this phenomenon tear apart multiple organisations I have been a part of, and has ended multiple decades-long friendships in shunning. Now I see it erupt on public spaces of the Internetwork, which suggests to me that we are indeed dealing with something grosser than a 'personal group circle' happenstance. Something on the societal level is occurring, and as a Marxist, it is my duty to agitate, educate, and organise if I may.

According to the title, and from things I have said on this forum, this phenomenon of woke Male aging has not been unknown to my experience. Now is the time to centre its analyis. Matt Dillahunty, a well-known atheist Youtuber, whom I have never really cared for, has come into conflict with Neal Sendlak of Gnostic Informant, and by proxy to him, Derek Lambert of Mythvision. I do not travel much in these on-line circles. To paraphrase the words of Professor Deneen, '[Bukharinists], are anti-technology'. However, I was instantly struck by the tone and mannerism of Master Dillahunty. I will get to why in a moment (and that will be the main discussion of this post). As far as I can piece together, there is a Biblical scholar named Robert Price who has Right-Wing political views (and allegedly specifically racist and transphobic views). Masters Sendlak and Lambert wished to have Doctor Price on again for his scholarship, after a woke purge within the community had made him persona non grata for a few years. According to Masters Sendlak's and Lambert's defence of their action to rehabilitate Doctor Price, they were pressured by powerful members within the community to tow the party-line (or else be purged with Fiend of the Folk Robert Price)

So, through a line of subsequent contests which I am not rightly familiar with to speak of, Master Dillahunty challenged Master Sendlak to call into his show, 'The Line', apparently only so he could shew what a fool the latter is. This is not good for fostering a friendly, open society; it is a way to foment the break-down of inter-societal (or inter-Party, in my interests' case) communication, leaving purges as a strong possibility, even a necessity. Where is the true, open discourse and discussion?

Back to the main discussion of this article. Master Dillahunty's tone and mannerism were like shell-shocks back to the unpleasant days of the Reading Club, when my liberal friend (not my vanguardist Marxist-Leninist friend, do mark) was really berating me harshly. This same friend of ten years, it may be recalled from recent articles, has now shunned me outright, without explanation. At the end of Club, he would become just as cantankerous and uncomradely as Master Dillahunty seemingly is to his guests/callers, and further, my friend would go on long, dishevelled rants like Sam Seder has taken to doing. Clearly, there is something happening here, that is not just tied to one person, one instance.

If I had to guess what is happening, I should say it is a natural outcome of a very specific ideology. My friend was a Social-Liberal, despite the Club membership leaning more or less Marxist. More than that however, and really at point here, is that he was a woke, progressive-historicist Social-Liberal. Judging by Dillahunty's self-description as a 'humanist', I surmise it likely that he also holds to these three ideological tenets. Note that it does not matter how 'woke' is defined: all that matters is that Dillahunty's, Seder's, and my friend's ideal definition of woke is not being progressively fulfilled by the 'forward march of history'.

One more thing that my friend, Dillahunty, and Seder have in common, is a matter that polite society is still a wee reluctant to use as a primary factor of examination, that they are all older. My friend ought to be about forty-five, should my memory keep me well; Dillahunty is fifty-six; and Sam Seder is fifty-eight. To account for the decade in age gap, my friend was becoming more depressed and bitter (already at the end of the first Sanders Campaign, but most specially after the second Sanders Campaign failed), and unlike, presumably, Dillahunty and Seder, my friend has not met with much success in his personal endeavours. Thus, I am suggesting that Masters Dillahunty and Seder have been fortunate/fulfilled in their lives, whereas my friend has not, causing him to mentally age faster. It may also be pertinent to mention that my friend looks up to Master Seder.

Now, I made a claim about a particular ideology suffering from this, and, of course, much of this anecdotal without possessing a sufficient pool for observation. Be it so, I can not but notice that David Pakman, who is albeit a decade younger at forty-one, and therefore serves my point about my friend aging faster, and Thom Hartmann at seventy-four, do not act in the bitter, oft times severe way that Masters Dillahunty and Seder do. What do Masters Pakman and Hartmann have in their ideological understanding that Masters Dillahunty and Seder lack? Simply: communication with outsiders. I do not mean the kind of unhinged ranting ,,communication'' that one can find equally in the Moscow Trials, The Line, and the Majority Report, but actual dialogue with those that disagree with you. Full disclosure, I used to like Thom Hartmann, but verily have never liked David Pakman, so it is not mere nostalgia at play. It is a qualitative difference with how these hosts engage with their callers. I will go out on a limb and also suggest that, unlike my friend, Dillahunty, and Seder, neither Pakman nor Hartmann are so deeply invested in a narrative of progressive-historicism. It seems to me that at least Hartmann has a more natural/cyclical view of history.

But what about other ideologies, some of which may be 'progressive-historicist'? Well, what of Comrade Richard Wolff, Comrade Noam Chomsky, or Comrade Michael Hudson? Comrade Wolff is eighty-three, Comrade Chomsky ninety-six, and Comrade Hudson eighty-six. None of these comrades, despite having a much better reason to be sincerely bitter, in fact are! But in honesty, there is a discrepancy which must be addressed with our competing data sets: these comrades are somewhat older than the former group. The former group's ages fall more into the stereotypical category of 'mid-life'. It is rather mean to imply that anyone has gone off the deep end into madness from 'mid-life crisis', yet that is what we may be facing in our analysis. Who is to say, as well, that Master Pakman will not become bitter in a decade or so, when he reaches the ages of Dillahunty and Seder? Master Hartmann has passed them by in age, thus our data sets themselves cause much uncertainty to the analysis.

That is just to say that I am proposing a set of three things, which may, when in some array combined, awaken the spirits of Yezhov and Vyshinsky for to possess the Dillahuntys, Seders, and my friends of the world. The first component is wokery. Nay other ideology, except fascism and extreme forms of racism (that is, wokery and its fellow forms of bigotry) are so incapable of internally facilitating dialogue with those who disagree, opting instead for shunning and purges, terror and adherence to the party-line. The second component is a progressive-historicist world-view. One of the things which seemed to enrage my friend was the 'defeat of the gospel in history'. My friend was also a stringent Hegelian, so the End of History was an ideal he was heavily invested in, to a fault. When wokery is made to retreat, an explanation must be proffered to affirm the ,,inevitability of communism''. As I have said before, the end of history inevitability view is a bad one, and harms whichever ideology adopts it. Dillahunty and Seder seem to blame Donald Trump for derailing History™, too. The third component is age, which we have already discussed .

It is impossible, I might add, for the inevitability of communism, wokery, the rapture-gospel, freedom, et cetera to all be true at the same time, which naturally creates an irreconcilable tension. Should I not be willing to murder every wokerite, Christian Rapturist, and anarchist, if I wish to make communism inevitable? This means I should have to murder my friend. Whilst he may be fine with calling for my death, I am not a traitor to my friends. Killing anarchists is not something I am willing to do, either, as those who have read about Gladsnost and Politstroika know by now.

Something is happening. I am not quite sure what yet, but I hope it leads to the end of purges and terror, to the hopeful future of Gladsnost and Politstroika (Cordialness and Political Upstanding). Forwards hold the Banner of Reform!

Post Scriptum. It completely flew over my mind when typing this, but another component that likely plays a role is the 'debate-bro' sociality. My friend, during the middle of the Club's operational span, became obsessed with debate-bro tactics, such as good-faith, charitability, non-sequitur, evading the question: all of these unnatural 'gotchas', which are not conducive to serious discussion betwixt honest and respectful colleagues (and in the case of Club, supposed-to-be comrades). I imagine Dillahunty, given my little knowledge of him, likely had a hand in the creation of this debate-bro sociality. This whole social development seems to have been rather inter-twined with the New Atheism movement, as I understand it. The debate-bro movement has truly been utterly destructive to healthy discourse and higher thought.