What passes for "thinking" among Progressives

Moldbug has a typically thought provoking post that (again, typically) challenges the all-too-comfortable thought terminating clichés of Progressive "intellectuals".  It opens with this delicious skewering of one of the giants of Progressive Intellectualism:

Felix Salmon has a very good job.  He gets paid - and paid well - to pretend to think.  He's very good at it.  You have to respect anyone who's good at his job.

But if by some misfortune you are actually capable of thinking for yourself and, worse, enjoy it, you cannot have Felix's job or any job like it.  Not only is Felix not paid to think, he is not allowed to think.  Thinking is above his pay grade, as they say in the military.  A private who thinks he's Napoleon is not only not Napoleon, but not a very good private.

Rather, Felix's job (as with all legitimate journalists or columnists - though the former are not even allowed to pretend to think, which must really sting) is to communicate the thoughts of his sources, rewording them as if they were his own thoughts.  His sources are legitimate thinkers - professors, policymakers, and priests.  Just kidding.  Obviously there are no priests.

Nonetheless, his sources (no sources, no journalist) have obtained distinguished titles at important institutions, which is (a) very difficult and (b) something Felix probably once tried to do, but couldn't.  If he disagreed with these distinguished sources, humbly and respectfully offering his own contrary opinion, they would look very puzzled, as though their golden retriever had attempted to engage them in a debate about Thomas Aquinas instead of fetching the goddamn ball.  Then, they would find a new dog.  An excellent fido is our Felix - but the planet has no shortage of dogs.

The idea of the Cathedral is one that I find important to understand the structure of modern politics.  This sums it up pretty well:

During the US-Russian Alliance, Communists took control of the governing institutions of the US. I use the term “Cathedral” (courtesy of Mencius Moldbug) to describe these institutions. Generally, the term refers to the institutions that run the country. Specifically it refers to the media, bureaucracy and elite universities.

A nice way to illustrate the fact that the Communists controlled these organizations is to look at the career of any known Communist agent. Let’s take one of the best known, Alger Hiss. Hiss’s career (including after he was accused of being a spy and after being in jail) included stints at: the State Department, the United Nations, clerking for Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, the Justice Department, some Senate Committees, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and – naturally – Harvard Law.

If you don’t know what I mean by the term Cathedral, it’s basically that list. Really, the only way it could be better is if he’d worked at the New York Times.

Given the reaction of these groups to Hiss’s trial, there’s no doubt that if Hiss had managed to avoid jail, many of these places would have re-hired him.

There's probably a post or three on how the Cathedral now occupies what used to be called führerprinzip.  Looking at that list of institutions, is it any wonder that certain thoughts are considered so double plus ungood that not only cannot they be voiced, but they cannot even be thought?  But remember, these Progressive "intellectuals" are so much smarter than you and me.