As I understand what you're saying re: Voegelin and Peterson: Their general position is that the increase of knowledge, whether by spirit (Gnosticism) or science (Enlightenment), is ultimately useless because it's just going to take power away from the established hierarchies, which are "natural" and don't need to be studied or improved, merely surrendered to fatalistically and obeyed.
Your reference to Manichaean dualism drew my attention, as last year I wrote a short article on this topic. My point was different than yours but may be compatible with yours. I'm pondering how they may connect. My idea was that there's a dualism inherent in the "gender-critical" ideology. GC discourse draws from liberal tropes whereas Peterson draws from conservative tropes, but their anti-transgender impact is the same. (Liberals/conservatives just take different roads to get to transphobia.) Anyhow, the "GC" dualism I noted is the primacy of body over mind, which seems to me reverse-Manichaeism. The GCs do imagine themselves as embracing the pursuit of knowledge via Enlightenment-style science, liberalism, etc. with a focus on "physical reality." They think they're doing scientific investigation when they express single-minded aggressive "skepticism" (hostility and denialism) toward trans people. They say trans people are seeking the wrong gnosis: "identity" as in sense of self, thoughts, feelings, opinions, interpretations, etc.
Here's the unpaywalled "friend link" to my article:
Many GCs believe they're challenging existing sexist hierarchies, but they really uphold them. GCs pay lip service to the idea that knowledge and modern progress are possible and desirable, but they end up saying that nature (not God) made us male and female and, though we might like to mess with this natural arrangement, pragmatically we can't change it and it's harmful to try. So they end up in the same hierarchically sexist and transphobic place as Peterson, though they take a different road to get there, as I said.
I'm not able to fully connect the dots right now re: how your article and mine might relate, but maybe this means something to you, so I leave it with you.
