There has been some discussion lately by Eric Kaufmann, Tyler Cowen, Balaji Srinivasan, Paul Graham and Musa Al Gharbi as to whether The Great Awokening is winding down.
The whole "Woke is winding down" narrative is such a massive cope, along the lines of "Well, that guy who's been punching my face seems to be getting tired, hopefully he'll only punch my face another 2 or 3 times."
The Social Justice takeover of not just every American institution but of just about every public-facing institution in the entire Anglosphere is winding down in the same way as a war starts winding down when the outcome has been decided: the victors have conquered and colonized every inch of territory, have installed one of their officers to govern every area, and only stir now to engage in the occasional mopping-up operation.
The "Woke is winding down" narrative is the other side of the coin to how people denied the Social Justice takeover in the first place: Oh, they're just some crazy college kids, they'll get over it; that's just Fox News trying to scare you; Critical race theory is just teaching about slavery, and besides no one is teaching it in high schools etc etc...
It seems very difficult for people raised in free societies to accept and acknowledge that a new state religion has been installed, especially when that religion comes draped in slogans of compassion, morality and proper etiquette, and also when bending the knee to that religion is the only way to maintain any type of successful career.
Yes, it does although... not because the people who buy into it are doing so intentionally. People have a natural tendency to downplay the strengths of things they find ridiculous.
The "woke community" is structured like a religious cult, in 3 concentric circles. The inmost circle write the philosophy and study it in academies (Robin DeAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, DEI offices). The middle circle practices the philosophy, proselytizes it, and requires others to display varying degrees of commitment (DEI training and pledges, Gender Ideology in Kindergartens...). The outmost circle makes fashionable gestures in support of the philosophy and follows along when the other circles prescribe behaviors.
A common strategy employed by large cults, especially if they are decentralized, is to downplay their impacts to avoid the public perception of being a threat. Knowledge of the philosophy is tied to commitment, so those with low commitment (outmost circle) are inclined to think criticisms of it are facetious - like such ostensibly outrageous facts as: neo-Marxian ideology still aims abolish the nuclear family. Why would anyone believe a movement to end oppression was opposed to family? (See https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Marx-Engels-and-the-Abolition-of-the-Family.pdf)
The "'woke is winding down' narrative" definitely downplays the perniciousness of the American Marxism which provides its philosophical schemas. The idea that it is going to end soon appeals most to the woke outer circle who are losing friends and family over the cult behavior they've engaged in. They are still inclined to employ cognitive schemas originating in that ideology, so they employ "many of the same biases" - as you so rightly point out.
So, I think you are correct. However, I also see that there is some wishful thinking among the non-woke who hope it will go away soon. But ultimately, the only way to really wind it down is to educate people about the harmful outcomes of the underlying philosophy.
Great post. However, it seems to me that, on average, the woke movement went full fledge starting in 2015, which coincidentally is the time Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the US presidency. The fall also seems to happen around 2020, when Trump lost the presidential election.
I think that if Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the internet will "Woke up" again. I am not sure if the trend will be seen on Twitter, since Elon is not a fan of the woke mob and viceversa.
That suggests perhaps merely a different strategy rather than that wokeness has peaked. It meshes with what I'd suggested in a comment on the prior post you made (though this may argue there won't be a resurgence of old words as I speculated vs. new ones as this suggests to switch tactics).
I posted: I tend to wonder: if they feel they've "won" on some issues with their audience, perhaps they feel less of a need to focus on those words and will switch to a different set of words to beat people over the head about new issues. Why beat a dead horse if they think they've won on an old issue? If the non-woke make headway somewhere on old issues, especially if they somehow make headway with the more leftist NYT audience, there may be a resurgence of the words that are in decline now.
When one has looked into the meanings of these words, there is a HUGE problem with the way some of them are classified. Why are some "positive" and others "negative"?
For example, "equity" is a patently negative term to a very large segment of the population because the social justice movement is based on neoracist ideology. The "equity" concept leads to institutionalized discrimination on the basis of a race- and gender- based hierarchical rubric (which is strikingly similar to the rubric of Eugenics - a near-perfect inversion of that advocated by Nellie McClung or the Nazi party).
It is wildly ignorant but patently woke to claim, as neoracists do, that white people can never be the victims of racism. So, the categorization used in this research is deeply problematic as it ignores the fundamental philosophical roots of many of these terms - as well as why so many people categorize them differently, and would find classifying some as "positive" to be sadly dishonest.
With that in mind, one of the most egregious fallacies of woke ideology is the use of "-phobic" to misrepresent the positions of people who reject neoracist/neo-Marxian ideology. Rejecting an ideology does not make a person phobic, and the use of such language is bigotry.
One of the main problems with woke ideology is that it stunts Theory of Mind. Rejecting biology denialism does not equate to support for any specific political leader, for example. Yet, that is the way woke ideologues apply stereotypes - they lose the ability to see the nuance in the positions of people who disagree with them, projecting their categorical rubric inappropriately.
For example, if a person upholds belief in scientific determinism, that person would agree that climate change is real and reject transgenderism. That does not mean that person would vote for Trump.
The whole "Woke is winding down" narrative is such a massive cope, along the lines of "Well, that guy who's been punching my face seems to be getting tired, hopefully he'll only punch my face another 2 or 3 times."
The Social Justice takeover of not just every American institution but of just about every public-facing institution in the entire Anglosphere is winding down in the same way as a war starts winding down when the outcome has been decided: the victors have conquered and colonized every inch of territory, have installed one of their officers to govern every area, and only stir now to engage in the occasional mopping-up operation.
The "Woke is winding down" narrative is the other side of the coin to how people denied the Social Justice takeover in the first place: Oh, they're just some crazy college kids, they'll get over it; that's just Fox News trying to scare you; Critical race theory is just teaching about slavery, and besides no one is teaching it in high schools etc etc...
It seems very difficult for people raised in free societies to accept and acknowledge that a new state religion has been installed, especially when that religion comes draped in slogans of compassion, morality and proper etiquette, and also when bending the knee to that religion is the only way to maintain any type of successful career.
It seems the "'woke is winding down' narrative" narrative employs many of the same biases (negative social justice discourse) it criticizes.
yup
Yes, it does although... not because the people who buy into it are doing so intentionally. People have a natural tendency to downplay the strengths of things they find ridiculous.
The "woke community" is structured like a religious cult, in 3 concentric circles. The inmost circle write the philosophy and study it in academies (Robin DeAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, DEI offices). The middle circle practices the philosophy, proselytizes it, and requires others to display varying degrees of commitment (DEI training and pledges, Gender Ideology in Kindergartens...). The outmost circle makes fashionable gestures in support of the philosophy and follows along when the other circles prescribe behaviors.
A common strategy employed by large cults, especially if they are decentralized, is to downplay their impacts to avoid the public perception of being a threat. Knowledge of the philosophy is tied to commitment, so those with low commitment (outmost circle) are inclined to think criticisms of it are facetious - like such ostensibly outrageous facts as: neo-Marxian ideology still aims abolish the nuclear family. Why would anyone believe a movement to end oppression was opposed to family? (See https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Marx-Engels-and-the-Abolition-of-the-Family.pdf)
The "'woke is winding down' narrative" definitely downplays the perniciousness of the American Marxism which provides its philosophical schemas. The idea that it is going to end soon appeals most to the woke outer circle who are losing friends and family over the cult behavior they've engaged in. They are still inclined to employ cognitive schemas originating in that ideology, so they employ "many of the same biases" - as you so rightly point out.
So, I think you are correct. However, I also see that there is some wishful thinking among the non-woke who hope it will go away soon. But ultimately, the only way to really wind it down is to educate people about the harmful outcomes of the underlying philosophy.
Great post. However, it seems to me that, on average, the woke movement went full fledge starting in 2015, which coincidentally is the time Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the US presidency. The fall also seems to happen around 2020, when Trump lost the presidential election.
I think that if Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the internet will "Woke up" again. I am not sure if the trend will be seen on Twitter, since Elon is not a fan of the woke mob and viceversa.
That suggests perhaps merely a different strategy rather than that wokeness has peaked. It meshes with what I'd suggested in a comment on the prior post you made (though this may argue there won't be a resurgence of old words as I speculated vs. new ones as this suggests to switch tactics).
I posted: I tend to wonder: if they feel they've "won" on some issues with their audience, perhaps they feel less of a need to focus on those words and will switch to a different set of words to beat people over the head about new issues. Why beat a dead horse if they think they've won on an old issue? If the non-woke make headway somewhere on old issues, especially if they somehow make headway with the more leftist NYT audience, there may be a resurgence of the words that are in decline now.
For those who aren't familiar, this post is relevant: https://jasonmanning.substack.com/p/moral-cultures-2-victimhood
Thank you. Fantastic work.
could just be the new normal...
When one has looked into the meanings of these words, there is a HUGE problem with the way some of them are classified. Why are some "positive" and others "negative"?
For example, "equity" is a patently negative term to a very large segment of the population because the social justice movement is based on neoracist ideology. The "equity" concept leads to institutionalized discrimination on the basis of a race- and gender- based hierarchical rubric (which is strikingly similar to the rubric of Eugenics - a near-perfect inversion of that advocated by Nellie McClung or the Nazi party).
It is wildly ignorant but patently woke to claim, as neoracists do, that white people can never be the victims of racism. So, the categorization used in this research is deeply problematic as it ignores the fundamental philosophical roots of many of these terms - as well as why so many people categorize them differently, and would find classifying some as "positive" to be sadly dishonest.
With that in mind, one of the most egregious fallacies of woke ideology is the use of "-phobic" to misrepresent the positions of people who reject neoracist/neo-Marxian ideology. Rejecting an ideology does not make a person phobic, and the use of such language is bigotry.
Keep in mind that left-wing authoritarians (totalitarian ideologues such as communists) make this mistake intentionally. See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/psychological-dimensions-left-wing-authoritarianism/620185/
One of the main problems with woke ideology is that it stunts Theory of Mind. Rejecting biology denialism does not equate to support for any specific political leader, for example. Yet, that is the way woke ideologues apply stereotypes - they lose the ability to see the nuance in the positions of people who disagree with them, projecting their categorical rubric inappropriately.
For example, if a person upholds belief in scientific determinism, that person would agree that climate change is real and reject transgenderism. That does not mean that person would vote for Trump.