本文深入探讨了“TESCREAL”争议，并指出其背后隐藏着一种鲜为人知的20世纪早期宗教和哲学思想，即“R9PRESENTATIONALism”。作者追溯了这一思想体系从早期现代的反加尔文主义论战，到19世纪浪漫主义反动，再到20世纪的各种反现代文学运动，最终演变为当代左翼环保和反全球化运动的源头。文章认为，许多人将左翼对理性、科学和进步的批评归因于“后现代主义”或“批判理论”，实则忽略了“R9PRESENTATIONALism”这一更深层、更广泛的影响。作者计划通过一系列文章详细剖析这一思想的演变、动机及其在当代文化中的渗透，旨在为相关讨论提供更清晰的视角，并揭示其在抵制EA、AI安全、YIMBYism及技术进步等议题上的核心作用。

✨ **R9PRESENTATIONALism的起源与演变**：作者提出“R9PRESENTATIONALism”这一新术语，用以概括一系列思想和实践，其根源可追溯至早期现代时期天主教和圣公会作家的反加尔文主义论战。该思想体系在19世纪被浪漫主义反动者采纳，成为反启蒙运动的基础，并随着20世纪的文学运动发展，在资本主义与社会主义之外寻求“第三条道路”，以维护人文科学的价值。这一思想谱系随后因二战和1968年的思想余波，逐渐从政治右翼转向左翼，并在90年代的环境主义和反全球化运动中形成了现代形态。

💡 **对左翼思想的深层影响**：文章指出，许多被认为是源自“后现代主义”、“批判理论”或“新左翼”的思想，实际上是“R9PRESENTATIONALism”的体现。这种思想流派对进步、理性和科学的批判，是其核心特征。作者认为，左翼在后60年代的意识形态转变，很大程度上是受这一思想体系的影响，并构成了对EA、AI安全、YIMBYism以及技术进步等议题进行意识形态挑战的潜在基础。

🔍 **“TESCREAL”争议的学术误区**：作者批评了当前对“TESCREAL”争议的讨论，认为焦点多集中于其组成元素的关联性或是否能将其归于特定群体的“技术千年主义”思想。而真正被忽视的是，“TESCREAL”所宣扬的千年主义论调，本身根植于一种特定的、狭隘的宗教和哲学视角，即作者所定义的“R9PRESENTATIONALism”。这种视角强调了决定论和基督教后千年主义的某些方面，并已成为影响左翼思潮的重要但未被充分认识的因素。

🚀 **抵制进步的内在逻辑**：文章认为，“R9PRESENTATIONALism”的本质是“艺术界在四百年的反革命”，旨在捍卫“魅力权威”的有效性。它对进步、科学和客观性的质疑，并非如许多人所认为的那样是后现代思想的产物，而是源于一个更古老、更持久的思想传统。这种思想的广泛渗透，使得它在当代文化中比许多批评者意识到的更为普遍，并且常常是其声称的智识谱系（如马克思主义、后结构主义等）的间接反映。

🌐 **重新审视“反进步”的论述**：作者希望通过命名和梳理“R9PRESENTATIONALism”这一思想现象，能够净化当前关于“反进步”等议题的混乱讨论。他认为，这一思想流派的影响范围比人们普遍认为的要广泛，但其核心论点却与其声称的智识来源（如马克思主义、女性主义等）关系不大，反而是一种对传统人文价值的防御。理解这一思想的真实历史和价值，对于理解当代社会和政治议题至关重要。

Published on August 14, 2025 2:30 AM GMT

By this point, I imagine that most people here have already encountered Torres and Gebru's infamous "TESCREAL bundle". However, the discourse about this accusation so far has mostly revolved whether it is fair to connect the different elements of the bundle, including EA, together, or to attribute the sort of techno-millenarian eschatological aspirations that they speak of to everyone involved in these movements. What has gone mostly unnoticed is that their rhetoric about millenarianism is actually itself rooted in a specific religious and philosophical perspective which is much narrower than most labels that the pair attach to themselves; almost everything that they say about "TESCREAL" is actually an echo of early-to-mid-20th-century theological and ideological discourse about determinism and Christian postmillenialism which has become an important-but-largely-unnoticed influence on the thinking of a lot of those who claim to be on the political "left". I think that this genealogy is worth a lot more attention than it has received so far--critiques of the "idea of progress" are a dime a dozen in academia, but almost never will you find someone attempting the same of its reverse.

This linked post is what I hope will be the start of a series exploring the history and component values of this ideological bundle, which I have named R9PRESENTATIONALism--it stands for the following:

Relational9P
PostcriticalPersonalistPraxeologicalPsychoanalyticParticipatoryPerformativeParticularistPoeticistPositive/Affirmationist
ReparativeExistentialistStandpoint-theoristEmbodiedNarrativisticTherapeuticIntersectionalOrateNeosubstantivistActivistLocalist

This is a bundle which originated out of anti-Calvinist polemics written by Catholic and royalist Anglican writers during the early modern period, was picked up by 19th century romantic reactionaries to build the foundation of the emerging Counter-Enlightenment, got carried into the 20th century by various counter-modern literary movements seeking a third way against both capitalism and socialism which could justify the continuing relevance of the traditional humanistic disciplines against the new challenge of the social and psychological sciences, transitioned from being primarily of the political right to the political left because of the ideological aftermaths of WW2 and 1968, and took on its modern form in environmental and anti-globalization activism in the 90s. It is the actual source of the post-60s ideological transformation against the ideas of rationality, science, objectivity, and progress on the left which most people erroneously attribute to "postmodernism" or "critical theory" or the "New Left" or so forth, and it is the often-unspoken foundation behind essentially all ideological challenges against EA, AI safety, YIMBYism, and technological progress from the left and the academic establishment.

I plan on working through this intellectual history over the next few months to unpack exactly what this bundle entails, the motivations behind it, and the reasons why it has become so pervasive in the last half-century. My hope is that having a clear name for this phenomenon will clean up a lot of the confused current discourse about what things are and are not "anti-progress" or so forth; in reality, I think what we will find is that this stream of thought is both much wider and much narrower than most people believe, in that it actually has surprisingly little to do with any of the intellectual lineages that its proponents claim to subscribe to (Marxism, poststructuralism, feminism, conflict studies, etc.) but is a shockingly pervasive influence across modern culture to a greater degree than even most people who complain about it realize. Left-wing humanities academia, often thought of as the source of a lot of this influence, is actually really only a secondary reflection of it, when it's even involved at all. What is really going on here is a four-centuries-long counterrevolution within the arts to defend the validity of charismatic authority--one that I hope you will explore with me.

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