(This is a reply to Der_Einzige.)

Way too sweeping for my taste. There’s obviously some truth to that. On the other hand, it’s way too easy and convenient to dismiss things as PSYOPs. To my grandfather, every LGBTQ Pride event is a PSYOP or a consequence of one. I was sitting in the audience at a political event last year. When the topic turned to union work, a young woman started rolling her eyes and rambling on about old white men. With this shift away from class solidarity toward identity-based division, I also find it hard not to see PSYOPs at work in the background. Postcolonial studies according to Said, Spivak, Chakrabarty, etc., are a case in point for me: critiques of universalism, critiques of power in “white” knowledge production, and decolonization debates. All of this comes from the Foucault school of thought and contains the same contradictions. But there are no better tools for undermining widespread, international solidarity and political organization.

It’s not enough to simply dismiss these things as PSYOPs. First, because the intended division still works. People influenced by these schools of thought won’t be easily convinced by an “Ackchyually” meme. Real, substantive persuasion is required here. Second, the fact that a thinker has been favored in some way does not invalidate their thinking. It’s worth taking a closer look to determine where criticism is warranted and where their ideas are useful and worth building upon.