Globalizing capitalism and wokeness share an interest in removing all the barriers that restrain their fantasies, the hubristic triumph of mind over matter: physical borders; definitions of words; local culture, mores, laws; family as the fundamental social unit; political structures that distribute rather than concentrate power; distinctions between adults/children/men/women; and on and on in a relentless attack on nature and on the wisdom hard won by man's awareness of his place in nature over thousands of years.
This essay is an excellent, patient description of the social terrain that these monsters inhabit. Similar perspective on the spiritual and religious vacuum they seem to fill would be a welcome complement.
These monsters are our neighbours and very likely our children. I trust that you are aware of this - but it’s my great enjoyment to say the quiet bits out loud, the uncomfortable part. I think it makes me a contrarian, my wife says it makes me an asshole. To wit: if your kids are in their 20s or 30s and are successful they are most likely fully and irretrievably indoctrinated and possibly religious zealots.
Optimist/pessimist? I'm a "neutralist." That's just me. Just keep in mind: These things are CHOICES a person makes. Why NOT lean (ever so slightly) to the right? Again, that's just me. :)
"A third argument advanced by the materialist left is a diversionary theory of woke capital. From this perspective, wokeness is a fraud perpetuated on the progressive masses seeking to legitimate corporate power and rampant material inequality. Thus Disney supposedly produces gay-friendly content to hide the fact that the company filmed Mulan in Xinjiang province, and Amazon promotes its commitment to racial equality today so that consumers will forget to demand an increase in the corporate tax rate tomorrow. "
I think Apple is the poster-boy for this theory. Apple has discovered that it can get away with anything by waving a rainbow flag. Apple is a genuinely bad company and Tim Cook is the worst of it. Apple’s offenses against humanity span the globe.
1. Apple is the number one corporate tax evader on the planet. Apple makes 10s of billions in profits worldwide (including the USA) and then shifts all of the profits to Ireland. Of course, it doesn't pay any significant taxes in Ireland either. Calling Apple a corporate tax cheat is an understatement.
2. Apple 'proudly' waves the Rainbow flag... Except in countries where that might cause real problems (India, Muslim countries, etc.). In those countries, the rainbow flag is notable by its absence. So why does Apple wave the rainbow flag in the USA (and possibly Europe)? See point 1. Apple has discovered the terrible truth that it can get away with anything with the right flag.
3. Apple fires people who are perceived to be a 'problem'. An example would be Antonio García Martínez. Of course, Apple was quite willing to do business with Dr. Dre ('Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks ').
4. Apple treats it's assembly workers so badly that it was forced to put up suicide nets to stop workers from killing themselves. That's the level of morality of Apple.
5. Of course, it gets worse. Apple uses slave labor (Uighurs) to build its products in China. Supposedly, 'Privacy' is a fundamental human right, but actual slavery is OK with Apple.
Apple is the incarnation of evil in one corporation.
We've come to a fork in the road. Build a functioning parallel economy, quickly, or watch China takeover. Either way the woke zombies will lose. What they propose (equity over merit) simply cannot work. Their model is a continent-sized Lebanon.
Their model comes from the fact that the meritocracy largely succeeded. You have a generation (millennials) who grew up in a world with only regional, not global, political conflicts; extraordinary technological bounty; and unparalleled freedoms. But that which you take for granted, of course you will hold in contempt. Which leads to where we are now. Or as I like to put it, nothing fails like success.
Like vaccines! People's children aren't dying of diphtheria, measles and polio anymore. When no one has died of these illnesses in living memory, people forget what a threat those diseases were. That allows anti vax sentiment to rise.
Is it practical to think we can build a "functioning parallel economy" at all, much less "quickly"? I ask genuinely: do we stoop and build up new institutions, or pour our efforts into taking back the old ones?
Take Disney. Is it conceivable that a non-woke competitor could be built from the ground up that could come close to providing the same kind of products and services and experiences as Disney? (This may sound frivolous to some, but to parents of young children, it's not: Disney and its IP represent a cross-generational bridge and one of the last vestiges of shared American culture, and the thought of abandoning that bridge and culture evokes real sorrow.)
What about higher ed? Is it conceivable that a non-woke Harvard rival could emerge from nothing? I'm not talking about a cute little college like Hillsdale. I'm talking about an institution that could stand toe-to-toe with the Ivies, in *all* respects, not the least of which is networking. Is that realistically a thing that could be done?
As hopeless as it seems that sane people could retake the old institutions, the alternative seems more daunting. And, after all, somehow the insane were able to do it -- that is, take over the institutions -- so isn't there something we can learn from their tactics?
Those are good points. To break their authoritarian power, we do need to duplicate the bits that are used to destroy people: banking/payment, data/social media, and yes, education. U of Austin is starting up. If cancelled academics get to shelter there, and blossom, that school will quickly replace Ivy in terms of reputation, and course correction elsewhere will follow (the rebuilding old institutions part). But the pushback needs to be guided by values, not tactics, so we don't turn into intellectual zombies, just like them. At the bottom, wokeness is used to further personal power, and once that is no longer effective, it all comes down.
I can't guess which will prove the best route. So suspect both needed.
Physics teacher taught us what to do if Godzilla-sized insect appeared on earth. As size increased, volume is cubed. Diameter to hold up such mass is squared. Therefore: just kick it in the knee and it will crumble.
Me? The place to kick is transgenderism. It's a good hill to die on. MEBBE pull the center towards the right. Dunno.
This analysis seems incomplete without addressing the theory that all of this is just the result of women playing a larger role. There are some male characters in this account, but can anybody imagine an all-male institution going woke? It would be interesting to know if there is such a thing. All-male institutions may not exist anymore to study.
This may simply be what it means to live in a woman’s world. This is the world that makes the most sense to them. The old ways may be gone forever.
It used to be if you were a professional at a corporation like IBM you could be Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative, moderate – quite possibly people wouldn’t know. What changed? I think this is one thing the essay deeply underplays: the accelerant effect of social media, causing the private, the political, and the professional to be indistinguishable. And making the cost of dissent excessive for most. This has produced extraordinary ideological conformity in the professions in a mere 10 years.
I remember in early-ish 2013, Lloyd Blankfein, then CEO of Goldman Sachs, publicly stated his support for gay marriage. No doubt his sense of justice came into play, but I realized that there was another critical reason for his public pronouncement.
In 2013 supporting gay marriage was the most expedient way to ingratiate oneself with the American cultural/economic left. A left that at that point most conspicuously instantiated itself via Occupy Wall Street, a direct result of the 2008 devastating, and still virulent, financial crisis. (BTW, today, it would trans rights.)
And Occupy Wall Street favored the kinds of policies, like Sanders and Warren, that would trully have crippled the reckless money making business models of big banks. And gay marriage was one of the many conduits for beautifying banks' tattered image.
In other words, identity politics is a powerful PR mechanism to protect rapacious corporate business models. But even more: it's a great tool that class can use to disguise itself.
(As a note, Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, declared the banks at the center of the financial crisis to be "systemically important" in the summer of 2013. To my knowledge no bank executive went to jail or was charged in any way. And as we know, those banks are now more powerful than ever, due in no small part to the extravagant bailouts lavished on the industry by the American government and Fed.)
The empire has entered a late stage, now in steep decline it is being looted with reckless abandon. I was so very hopeful for the Obama Presidency but it was just more of the same. After the inarticulate dullard W I thought ok, this guy, brilliant and debonair, he can stem the tide but he let the robber barons go. He is smart enough to know, I wonder if he lives with regret: what an opportunity he had and squandered? His presidency was largely inconsequential, yes, scandal free and well run but he didn’t do anything beyond winning as a black guy.
Hello again JT, that’s a good formulation I’ve never heard that before: not hopeless. I think I’ll try to integrate that into the tone of my posts in the future. I really am a troll, I find it funny.
Is that because Trump will win for sure in 24? I think that’s the case. Gives me hope, Trump is a disruptor and we need that. The fact that he is crass and incompetent is for me enjoyable because he insults so many people who I think need to be insulted.
Oh! To answer the original question: I hafta believe that by '28 will be PAST all the Biden/Trump nonsense. And then I can vote again. (Never missed a Prez election since '72. This'll mebbe be the first, depending who runs.)
Ah. Weeeel, we've disagreed on this point before, haven't we Sir?
Trump did some good things and, like You "said," he insulted people who needed it.
But, for no other reason than the PRACTICAL, I hope Trump goes down in flames. Have no crystal ball.
But, AFAIK, the only way he'll win in '24 is if he succeeds where he failed on Jan. 6. Because the center? The independents? They're not likely gonna forget that or say it was a mainly peaceful protest, or it was justified. They're just not gonna see it the way hard-right Republicans will. One-third of Your won PARTY doesn't think the election was stolen, and Trump will lose a lotta REPUB votes because-a that.
No, it's a given that a number of Dems are gonna wanna got the other way. Get off a sinking ship. I'm not a bettin' man, but if I was I'd say the numbers are gonna go DECIDEDLY against Trump.
And the reason is simple, and the reason I couldn't ever vote for him. His main talent is dividing country down the middle. He creates an abyss down the center that he won't LET anyone cross.
So what he ends up doin', is what he did in '20. He ENERGIZES the Woke and them. It's self-defeating, not to mention bad for the country. And that's the thing. Trump was, is, and will always be out for Number 1: Trump. America means nothing to Trump, in comparison.
As always, that's just me and ICBW (I Could Be Wrong for You youngsters).
"This claim relies on several questionable assumptions, not least that the audience for performative wokeness is unusually dim-witted and morally bankrupt"
A very coherent class analysis, clarifying the internal meaning of many facts/events of which most readers here are largely aware, and also of many of the thoughts that many of us have had (e.g. moral laundering), if passingly. Very well-written/organized and helpful - this analysis will certainly yield further, fruitful considerations.
I am not persuaded by the point concerning neoliberalism, but the question is worth considering. If its time has passed, then that suggests that "Woke Capital" exists apart from it, and is a separate (if possibly related) phenomenon. This bears consideration.
I really enjoyed this piece; it really fleshed out something I've been thinking about a lot. I wonder if the electoral college has something to do with all this ( I'm just thinking out loud here).
The way that it is set up, millions of voters are disenfranchised every year. Their votes just don't count, depending on where they live. That causes an enormous amount of frustration and suppressed rage.
When Trump became president, he won despite losing the popular vote by many millions. To those who immediately want to jump in with excuses/reasons for why the electoral college is good, I just want them to imagine their choices losing despite more people wanting them in power. Even if you completely agree with the electoral college, surely you can see the frustration, anger and helplessness it engenders in those who lose even when they "win".
So- if you are still with me- if you are shut out of political power because of structural elements that handicap you, then you turn towards other methods of expressing your will. You pressure corporations to be responsive to you, because you cannot win elections. I remember that being a big part of the "resistance".
Like everything we humans we get up to, it goes WAY too far and becomes destructive.
Its positively dystopian what wokeism is doing to us right now.
I speak specifically of the trans ideology which has institutional capture of corporate culture and the entertainment industry, but the DEI industry is also corrupt and divisive. I am a lifelong Dem, but I cannot stand the far left. I'm left here, in the middle, with no political party anymore.
The problem is that the elites have found a way to manage democracy. Does the composition of Congress really matter if they no longer read (never mind write) the bills they vote on? Tens of millions had stopped voting altogether. The Trump breakout made them very nervous. Wokism is the perfect tool to keep holding down the rubes and themselves in power. It allows them to destroy political opponents (just like the authoritarians they sometimes admit to envy) in the name of justice.
1) It seems too ambitious a project to topple woke capital as a whole. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Start with the transgender movement: the L, G and B are necessarily and logically at odds with the T, the contradictions are obvious - exploit them. What’s more, actual POC are more anti-trans than anyone. Drive the wedge, hard and deep.
2) And Disney is the company to target. As the author notes, it peddles its wares to a globally broad market of parents with young children. It can’t realistically pull up stakes and move out of red Florida. And is there another company in the world that kids literally dream of working for one day? There should be 100 willing and qualified applicants for every woke employee willing to fall on his sword.
Bad ideas eventually kill themselves. Disney is now openly harming children and that means they cannot last long.
From a strictly evolutionary perspective, LGBTQIA+ is a bad strategy, as not a single combination of any of those letters will produce offspring reliably. Everyone knows this.
I think the best thing that we can do is to remain true to what we believe to be right, no matter the cost, and to instill the same in our children. If we are right in the natural sense, our ideas will survive. If not, we were likely not right.
As much as I wish your first sentence were true, I see precious little evidence in the world that bad ideas die of their deficiencies. Sitting back and letting things play out, trusting that the marketplace of ideas would separate wheat from chaff, seems to have been a poor strategy to date.
I didn’t say they’d die in our lifetime, and that is kind of the point. Thinking on a timescale longer than human life is a good idea and will be rewarded. Thinking about our children and having them to be honest, is thinking on a longer timescale in its most concentrated form.
Millennial and zennial parents do not see this as harming children. They embrace more gay content and they cheer for executives who proudly tout their “queer” and “pansexual” children to show their bona fides. This is their version of bringing up their kids in the church.
Subcultures are the only way to avoid this bullshit.
Correct, in the real world tactics are more important than strategy because in the real world winning is what counts, and Jack”s plan can win. Divide and conquer.
Extortion : can you imagine a Disney executive popping her head up above the parapet to say: “that law has some common sense merit”. The professor says managerial class culture IS successor ideology, but I ask, how much is coercion and how much conviction. Religious vigilantes (worksters) are terrifying. In my world most people roll their eyes and get pissed off, they simply don’t want talk about it, they are disgusted. So therein lies the solution, if we all stand up to their abuse and name calling, with courage and the certainty that we are not bigots, we can turn the tide. Hallelujah, (you go first, I need my job.)
Largely true about conformity and lack of real belief by conformists. They will be as loyal as they must be - which also means that they will be of less assistance until the issue looks to be settled. The secret ballot may be the best way to obtain their assistance/cooperation.
For those of us wondering how the for-profits became so woke seemingly overnight, this article helps a lot. I'm impressed with how dismissive the elite, educated and highly paid are of the hoi polloi - in this case as represented by their elected officials. I suppose that they would be outraged should the common folk decide that they can get by without Disney World of woke entertainment products. Anita Bryant thought she was doing God's work in addition to peddling Florida orange juice. It didn't work out well for her or her sponsors. Should the efforts of the woke end up hurting the bottom line, I suspect that the Disney employees will feel that they shouldn't be punished for being righteous. Anita certainly felt that she shouldn't have suffered any consequences. We don't yet know if today's woke elite are prepared to suffer any for being so right about everything. It may be in their little safe world virtue never costs anything.
I would say the professional class isn't as accurate a term as women in management since they are the biggest demographic change in these places and it's obvious the kind of social dynamics that follow, then both from men and women.
Globalizing capitalism and wokeness share an interest in removing all the barriers that restrain their fantasies, the hubristic triumph of mind over matter: physical borders; definitions of words; local culture, mores, laws; family as the fundamental social unit; political structures that distribute rather than concentrate power; distinctions between adults/children/men/women; and on and on in a relentless attack on nature and on the wisdom hard won by man's awareness of his place in nature over thousands of years.
This essay is an excellent, patient description of the social terrain that these monsters inhabit. Similar perspective on the spiritual and religious vacuum they seem to fill would be a welcome complement.
These monsters are our neighbours and very likely our children. I trust that you are aware of this - but it’s my great enjoyment to say the quiet bits out loud, the uncomfortable part. I think it makes me a contrarian, my wife says it makes me an asshole. To wit: if your kids are in their 20s or 30s and are successful they are most likely fully and irretrievably indoctrinated and possibly religious zealots.
You and Your wife are both right. :)
That’s funny 😆
Hello jt, yup I like being a jerk
You gotta practice Your technique then, Champ. You less hard-nosed than usual with this one.
Actually I’m gonna try to soften myself, your notion of “not hopeless”, makes sense, I kinda present things as hopeless - bummer.
Optimist/pessimist? I'm a "neutralist." That's just me. Just keep in mind: These things are CHOICES a person makes. Why NOT lean (ever so slightly) to the right? Again, that's just me. :)
Well stated.
"A third argument advanced by the materialist left is a diversionary theory of woke capital. From this perspective, wokeness is a fraud perpetuated on the progressive masses seeking to legitimate corporate power and rampant material inequality. Thus Disney supposedly produces gay-friendly content to hide the fact that the company filmed Mulan in Xinjiang province, and Amazon promotes its commitment to racial equality today so that consumers will forget to demand an increase in the corporate tax rate tomorrow. "
I think Apple is the poster-boy for this theory. Apple has discovered that it can get away with anything by waving a rainbow flag. Apple is a genuinely bad company and Tim Cook is the worst of it. Apple’s offenses against humanity span the globe.
1. Apple is the number one corporate tax evader on the planet. Apple makes 10s of billions in profits worldwide (including the USA) and then shifts all of the profits to Ireland. Of course, it doesn't pay any significant taxes in Ireland either. Calling Apple a corporate tax cheat is an understatement.
2. Apple 'proudly' waves the Rainbow flag... Except in countries where that might cause real problems (India, Muslim countries, etc.). In those countries, the rainbow flag is notable by its absence. So why does Apple wave the rainbow flag in the USA (and possibly Europe)? See point 1. Apple has discovered the terrible truth that it can get away with anything with the right flag.
3. Apple fires people who are perceived to be a 'problem'. An example would be Antonio García Martínez. Of course, Apple was quite willing to do business with Dr. Dre ('Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks ').
4. Apple treats it's assembly workers so badly that it was forced to put up suicide nets to stop workers from killing themselves. That's the level of morality of Apple.
5. Of course, it gets worse. Apple uses slave labor (Uighurs) to build its products in China. Supposedly, 'Privacy' is a fundamental human right, but actual slavery is OK with Apple.
Apple is the incarnation of evil in one corporation.
As above:Give Batya Ungar-Sargon 30 minutes on YouTube.
We've come to a fork in the road. Build a functioning parallel economy, quickly, or watch China takeover. Either way the woke zombies will lose. What they propose (equity over merit) simply cannot work. Their model is a continent-sized Lebanon.
Their model comes from the fact that the meritocracy largely succeeded. You have a generation (millennials) who grew up in a world with only regional, not global, political conflicts; extraordinary technological bounty; and unparalleled freedoms. But that which you take for granted, of course you will hold in contempt. Which leads to where we are now. Or as I like to put it, nothing fails like success.
Like vaccines! People's children aren't dying of diphtheria, measles and polio anymore. When no one has died of these illnesses in living memory, people forget what a threat those diseases were. That allows anti vax sentiment to rise.
Good point!
Is it practical to think we can build a "functioning parallel economy" at all, much less "quickly"? I ask genuinely: do we stoop and build up new institutions, or pour our efforts into taking back the old ones?
Take Disney. Is it conceivable that a non-woke competitor could be built from the ground up that could come close to providing the same kind of products and services and experiences as Disney? (This may sound frivolous to some, but to parents of young children, it's not: Disney and its IP represent a cross-generational bridge and one of the last vestiges of shared American culture, and the thought of abandoning that bridge and culture evokes real sorrow.)
What about higher ed? Is it conceivable that a non-woke Harvard rival could emerge from nothing? I'm not talking about a cute little college like Hillsdale. I'm talking about an institution that could stand toe-to-toe with the Ivies, in *all* respects, not the least of which is networking. Is that realistically a thing that could be done?
As hopeless as it seems that sane people could retake the old institutions, the alternative seems more daunting. And, after all, somehow the insane were able to do it -- that is, take over the institutions -- so isn't there something we can learn from their tactics?
Am I wrong?
Those are good points. To break their authoritarian power, we do need to duplicate the bits that are used to destroy people: banking/payment, data/social media, and yes, education. U of Austin is starting up. If cancelled academics get to shelter there, and blossom, that school will quickly replace Ivy in terms of reputation, and course correction elsewhere will follow (the rebuilding old institutions part). But the pushback needs to be guided by values, not tactics, so we don't turn into intellectual zombies, just like them. At the bottom, wokeness is used to further personal power, and once that is no longer effective, it all comes down.
Tell me more about U of Austin, I’m intrigued
Bari had this piece https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/we-cant-wait-for-universities-to?s=r
If you prefer podcast format (on legacy media, lol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glz9lKobyZY
You can search it for more, just don't confused with UofTexas at Austin, which is legacy.
As my eldest child approaches her 13th birthday, it fills me with hope to read about the University of Austin.
Saw recently The Daily Wire said they were gonna supply Kid content. Dunno how well that will play out. Couldn't find their blurb, but found this: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/daily-wire-invest-100-million-children-disney-dont-say-gay-rcna22426
I can't guess which will prove the best route. So suspect both needed.
Physics teacher taught us what to do if Godzilla-sized insect appeared on earth. As size increased, volume is cubed. Diameter to hold up such mass is squared. Therefore: just kick it in the knee and it will crumble.
Me? The place to kick is transgenderism. It's a good hill to die on. MEBBE pull the center towards the right. Dunno.
Its pretty obvious that the one leadership quality in extremely short supply appears to be balls.
Balls are toxic masculinity
If you listen to HR.
This analysis seems incomplete without addressing the theory that all of this is just the result of women playing a larger role. There are some male characters in this account, but can anybody imagine an all-male institution going woke? It would be interesting to know if there is such a thing. All-male institutions may not exist anymore to study.
This may simply be what it means to live in a woman’s world. This is the world that makes the most sense to them. The old ways may be gone forever.
Women have always enforced morality. This is still the old ways. It’s just a different religion. They’re still the Church Ladies.
The NBA and NFL might be a good place to look. Has an exclusively male base of stars resulted in a less-woke organization?
It would seem not. The wokening of the sports leagues has been among the biggest surprises in all of this.
It used to be if you were a professional at a corporation like IBM you could be Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative, moderate – quite possibly people wouldn’t know. What changed? I think this is one thing the essay deeply underplays: the accelerant effect of social media, causing the private, the political, and the professional to be indistinguishable. And making the cost of dissent excessive for most. This has produced extraordinary ideological conformity in the professions in a mere 10 years.
I remember in early-ish 2013, Lloyd Blankfein, then CEO of Goldman Sachs, publicly stated his support for gay marriage. No doubt his sense of justice came into play, but I realized that there was another critical reason for his public pronouncement.
In 2013 supporting gay marriage was the most expedient way to ingratiate oneself with the American cultural/economic left. A left that at that point most conspicuously instantiated itself via Occupy Wall Street, a direct result of the 2008 devastating, and still virulent, financial crisis. (BTW, today, it would trans rights.)
And Occupy Wall Street favored the kinds of policies, like Sanders and Warren, that would trully have crippled the reckless money making business models of big banks. And gay marriage was one of the many conduits for beautifying banks' tattered image.
In other words, identity politics is a powerful PR mechanism to protect rapacious corporate business models. But even more: it's a great tool that class can use to disguise itself.
(As a note, Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, declared the banks at the center of the financial crisis to be "systemically important" in the summer of 2013. To my knowledge no bank executive went to jail or was charged in any way. And as we know, those banks are now more powerful than ever, due in no small part to the extravagant bailouts lavished on the industry by the American government and Fed.)
The empire has entered a late stage, now in steep decline it is being looted with reckless abandon. I was so very hopeful for the Obama Presidency but it was just more of the same. After the inarticulate dullard W I thought ok, this guy, brilliant and debonair, he can stem the tide but he let the robber barons go. He is smart enough to know, I wonder if he lives with regret: what an opportunity he had and squandered? His presidency was largely inconsequential, yes, scandal free and well run but he didn’t do anything beyond winning as a black guy.
You've got the right of it there, Sir RJF. But I remain, not so much hopeful, as more not-hopeless. That's just me.
Hello again JT, that’s a good formulation I’ve never heard that before: not hopeless. I think I’ll try to integrate that into the tone of my posts in the future. I really am a troll, I find it funny.
C'MON MAN! You forget, I've actually seen a Nasty Troll who I won't name (M.M.). You're a flyweight in that department.
When I think of not-hopeless, I'm looking more at '28 than '24. That's just me.
Flyweights are often very skilled boxers. The renown of heavyweights is for the loud noise they make when they hit the canvas!
Memory. Woke up and it was Sugar Ray Leonard. A welter weight, and then some. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Ray_Leonard
You're absolutely RIGHT. I dunno Sugar-Ray Robinson? was a flyweight. But he was sure no heavyweight and HE could box.
Is that because Trump will win for sure in 24? I think that’s the case. Gives me hope, Trump is a disruptor and we need that. The fact that he is crass and incompetent is for me enjoyable because he insults so many people who I think need to be insulted.
On the brighter side, chalk one up for good judges in the home state: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ohio-court-upholds-bakerys-victory-against-oberlin-college-over-false-racism-accusations/
Oh! To answer the original question: I hafta believe that by '28 will be PAST all the Biden/Trump nonsense. And then I can vote again. (Never missed a Prez election since '72. This'll mebbe be the first, depending who runs.)
Ah. Weeeel, we've disagreed on this point before, haven't we Sir?
Trump did some good things and, like You "said," he insulted people who needed it.
But, for no other reason than the PRACTICAL, I hope Trump goes down in flames. Have no crystal ball.
But, AFAIK, the only way he'll win in '24 is if he succeeds where he failed on Jan. 6. Because the center? The independents? They're not likely gonna forget that or say it was a mainly peaceful protest, or it was justified. They're just not gonna see it the way hard-right Republicans will. One-third of Your won PARTY doesn't think the election was stolen, and Trump will lose a lotta REPUB votes because-a that.
No, it's a given that a number of Dems are gonna wanna got the other way. Get off a sinking ship. I'm not a bettin' man, but if I was I'd say the numbers are gonna go DECIDEDLY against Trump.
And the reason is simple, and the reason I couldn't ever vote for him. His main talent is dividing country down the middle. He creates an abyss down the center that he won't LET anyone cross.
So what he ends up doin', is what he did in '20. He ENERGIZES the Woke and them. It's self-defeating, not to mention bad for the country. And that's the thing. Trump was, is, and will always be out for Number 1: Trump. America means nothing to Trump, in comparison.
As always, that's just me and ICBW (I Could Be Wrong for You youngsters).
This was clarifying and terrifying simultaneously
"This claim relies on several questionable assumptions, not least that the audience for performative wokeness is unusually dim-witted and morally bankrupt"
I think that is true. Note that Titania McGrath (a fictional person) has tweeted about the very low intellectual level of the 'woke'. See https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1400150393313808390.
A very coherent class analysis, clarifying the internal meaning of many facts/events of which most readers here are largely aware, and also of many of the thoughts that many of us have had (e.g. moral laundering), if passingly. Very well-written/organized and helpful - this analysis will certainly yield further, fruitful considerations.
I am not persuaded by the point concerning neoliberalism, but the question is worth considering. If its time has passed, then that suggests that "Woke Capital" exists apart from it, and is a separate (if possibly related) phenomenon. This bears consideration.
I really enjoyed this piece; it really fleshed out something I've been thinking about a lot. I wonder if the electoral college has something to do with all this ( I'm just thinking out loud here).
The way that it is set up, millions of voters are disenfranchised every year. Their votes just don't count, depending on where they live. That causes an enormous amount of frustration and suppressed rage.
When Trump became president, he won despite losing the popular vote by many millions. To those who immediately want to jump in with excuses/reasons for why the electoral college is good, I just want them to imagine their choices losing despite more people wanting them in power. Even if you completely agree with the electoral college, surely you can see the frustration, anger and helplessness it engenders in those who lose even when they "win".
So- if you are still with me- if you are shut out of political power because of structural elements that handicap you, then you turn towards other methods of expressing your will. You pressure corporations to be responsive to you, because you cannot win elections. I remember that being a big part of the "resistance".
Like everything we humans we get up to, it goes WAY too far and becomes destructive.
Its positively dystopian what wokeism is doing to us right now.
I speak specifically of the trans ideology which has institutional capture of corporate culture and the entertainment industry, but the DEI industry is also corrupt and divisive. I am a lifelong Dem, but I cannot stand the far left. I'm left here, in the middle, with no political party anymore.
The problem is that the elites have found a way to manage democracy. Does the composition of Congress really matter if they no longer read (never mind write) the bills they vote on? Tens of millions had stopped voting altogether. The Trump breakout made them very nervous. Wokism is the perfect tool to keep holding down the rubes and themselves in power. It allows them to destroy political opponents (just like the authoritarians they sometimes admit to envy) in the name of justice.
You make an excellent point!
I get caught up in process stuff, but yeah, we are so dysfunctional and fucked up.
Two thoughts:
1) It seems too ambitious a project to topple woke capital as a whole. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Start with the transgender movement: the L, G and B are necessarily and logically at odds with the T, the contradictions are obvious - exploit them. What’s more, actual POC are more anti-trans than anyone. Drive the wedge, hard and deep.
2) And Disney is the company to target. As the author notes, it peddles its wares to a globally broad market of parents with young children. It can’t realistically pull up stakes and move out of red Florida. And is there another company in the world that kids literally dream of working for one day? There should be 100 willing and qualified applicants for every woke employee willing to fall on his sword.
Gotta get a win. Win this one.
Bad ideas eventually kill themselves. Disney is now openly harming children and that means they cannot last long.
From a strictly evolutionary perspective, LGBTQIA+ is a bad strategy, as not a single combination of any of those letters will produce offspring reliably. Everyone knows this.
I think the best thing that we can do is to remain true to what we believe to be right, no matter the cost, and to instill the same in our children. If we are right in the natural sense, our ideas will survive. If not, we were likely not right.
As much as I wish your first sentence were true, I see precious little evidence in the world that bad ideas die of their deficiencies. Sitting back and letting things play out, trusting that the marketplace of ideas would separate wheat from chaff, seems to have been a poor strategy to date.
I didn’t say they’d die in our lifetime, and that is kind of the point. Thinking on a timescale longer than human life is a good idea and will be rewarded. Thinking about our children and having them to be honest, is thinking on a longer timescale in its most concentrated form.
In the long run, we're all dead
To wit: https://sarahhaider.substack.com/p/they-will-never-be-convinced-that?s=r
Millennial and zennial parents do not see this as harming children. They embrace more gay content and they cheer for executives who proudly tout their “queer” and “pansexual” children to show their bona fides. This is their version of bringing up their kids in the church.
Subcultures are the only way to avoid this bullshit.
Ah. "Great minds sleep in the same gutter." ~ Dunno Who Said, Jr.
Hubert Selby Jr?
Could be. Never knew.
Correct, in the real world tactics are more important than strategy because in the real world winning is what counts, and Jack”s plan can win. Divide and conquer.
Extortion : can you imagine a Disney executive popping her head up above the parapet to say: “that law has some common sense merit”. The professor says managerial class culture IS successor ideology, but I ask, how much is coercion and how much conviction. Religious vigilantes (worksters) are terrifying. In my world most people roll their eyes and get pissed off, they simply don’t want talk about it, they are disgusted. So therein lies the solution, if we all stand up to their abuse and name calling, with courage and the certainty that we are not bigots, we can turn the tide. Hallelujah, (you go first, I need my job.)
Largely true about conformity and lack of real belief by conformists. They will be as loyal as they must be - which also means that they will be of less assistance until the issue looks to be settled. The secret ballot may be the best way to obtain their assistance/cooperation.
Check out NSLyons Substack the upheaval she is almost at Wesley’s level: grande!
Thank you, RJF. I am always interested in what might be valuable. Cordially,
Conviviality
For those of us wondering how the for-profits became so woke seemingly overnight, this article helps a lot. I'm impressed with how dismissive the elite, educated and highly paid are of the hoi polloi - in this case as represented by their elected officials. I suppose that they would be outraged should the common folk decide that they can get by without Disney World of woke entertainment products. Anita Bryant thought she was doing God's work in addition to peddling Florida orange juice. It didn't work out well for her or her sponsors. Should the efforts of the woke end up hurting the bottom line, I suspect that the Disney employees will feel that they shouldn't be punished for being righteous. Anita certainly felt that she shouldn't have suffered any consequences. We don't yet know if today's woke elite are prepared to suffer any for being so right about everything. It may be in their little safe world virtue never costs anything.
Whether woke capital can compete in the long run with the more "red in tooth and claw" variety shall be interesting to observe.
I would say the professional class isn't as accurate a term as women in management since they are the biggest demographic change in these places and it's obvious the kind of social dynamics that follow, then both from men and women.