The fundamental error of wokeism: the belief that all demographic groups have roughly equal socially valued traits and, therefore, that all outcome disparities are caused by cultural forces...
A trouble with making sense of the ideology that swept academia—"equalitarianism," as you call it—is that we tend to define an ideology according to a set of BELIEFS. But, this ideology is defined according to what it OPPOSES.
Try asking such peers: "Do you think all races have equal distributions of any given mental ability?" Chances are you will get something meely-mouthed, with either no strong defense or no such position. That is because they don't actually believe it. Instead, they oppose any position to the contrary.
In other words, it is not about dogmas, but it is about blasphemies.
You can see it in what they prefer to call themselves. They don't call themselves, "equalitarians" or "egalitarians" or any such thing. Instead, they call themselves, "anti-racists."
What a great summation of the "useful idiot" mindset.
You're correct. Most people who adhere to the latest leftist ideology treat it just as a religion. Everything is 100% one way or the other. You're either for us or against us. But we can't effectively tell you what we're for, only what we are against.
This mentality falls in line with all "revolutionary idiot class" mentalities. "We must tear down the system because it's evil... And we must replace it with something better. What that is, we don't know. But we know [believe] that it will be better. We know this, you know, because..."
The people following these nonsense ideologies have an innate inability to see past step one. I honestly think that they could never assemble Ikea furniture -- ever. Also, the instruction manuals are racist!
Calling them, "useful idiots," seems to be wrong on both parts. They are not useful to anyone, and they are not idiots, but they are the same people scoring highly on the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, etc., and they really do have high general intelligence. You think they can't assemble Ikea furniture? It turns out that having correct beliefs has little to do with general intelligence. Yes, they want a revolution, and, if they wanted to, they could think about what to build in place of the institutions they want to tear down. But, they won't. They are not useful idiots. They are useless smarties.
The term useful idiots does apply. I’m using “idiot” in the context of foolishness, not to imply that these people have the functioning mental capacity at or below that of a 2-year-old.
These are people shoveling dirt into a pile (doing the ground work) digging a giant hole. They haven’t asked why they’re digging it, or what will be done with the dirt they excavate. They must know that chaos will result from their actions, after all they’re “tearing it all down.” And yet, they have no forethought of the “order” that will follow, or what might happen to them once the chaos dies down. They are the true believers in the “revolution.”
One would assume that most of these people are well read, or “cultured” enough, to understand what part they’re playing in all of this. But they are foolish.
The reference to assembling Ikea furniture was a shot at their inability to read into the process much past step one.
Their usefulness is illustrated by their following of fake movements, which are not grassroots. They blindly follow the commands of those who wish to come to power. They are the laborers for the group that wants to take control after the chaos, brought about by the very same useful idiots, has destroyed the current socioeconomic system.
People can be intelligent and foolish -- at the same time. They can also be manipulated into positions that make them useful to others, without their knowledge of said manipulation. That’s what we are seeing here.
Great study of equalitarianism But......"In the past five years, an ideology often called wokeism has spread rapidly, from college campuses to corporate bureaucracies to the editorial pages of elite newspapers." NO! If Western civilisation is ever to pull itself back from the brink of the hyper-'liberal' form of resentful, narcissist and (paradoxically) intolerant self-pity - now commonly called Wokeism - it must start by facing up to the fact that its essence has been brewing for 50 YEARS at the very least. It is not some new malaise suddenly visited on a previously healthy liberalism. Its roots spread wider than just equalitarianism (although that is a part of the root system). Its beginnings were amongst a permanently malcontent, up-itself intelligentsia and for a long time that's where it stayed. Then by about 50 years ago it had spread its way right through academia....and thereby to the rising generations of the professional and administrative classes.
I think you might be focusing too much on the ideological nature of a position which at this point would be maintained purely by the natural human desire of self-preservation. Imagine if an anti-technology movement had succeeded in freezing, or even marginally slowing scientific progress in 1800? Given infant mortality rates of 40%, such a movement would be the 2nd or third most murderous movement in history. Imagine discovering that this had in fact occurred, that your child was dead because of it. Would you not want vengeance? Should you not seek it? Should you not desire whatever measures are necessary to guarantee forever that the kind of people involved in it, never exercise power ever again?
When you consider the likely consequences of what you call equalitarianism; the exclusion from public life and decision-making of anyone honest or intelligent enough to state the obvious (and it's been obvious since Jensen's article 50 years ago), you can only conclude that a similar atrocity has unfolded. So we are at a moment where your academic friends either have to go "oopsie, sorry about the millions of corpses (if you include decolonization/simping for communists...), I guess bad/stupid people really are just born that way. My bad!" and face possible consequences, or crush anyone that might end the charade. We already know which one they chose. That's what wokeness is and compared to prior atrocities, it's actually quite mild.
I am unhappy that you didn’t emphasize that the _averages_ are different.
If you don’t, then you give ammunition to the bigots on both ends; those who want to condemn you as a Nazi, and the pathetic neo-Nazis in their trailer parks.
Not everyone has great talents, but great talent can crop up anywhere.
The great tragedy is that racial preferences throw intelligent, ambitious, hard working people in over their heads. It’s no surprise that some conclude that the game is rigged against them. It was rigged to get them in, after all.
Yes, this speaks to the unintended consequences of artificially favouring certain groups in certain situations - which simply ends up hurting those who are supposed to be helped. There seems to be clear evidence of this in degree drop-out rates. All utopian ideals benefit the same class - and it's not the class they're supposed to help.
I doubt that many 'equalitarians' really do believe in the dogma. Instead, they are reacting to ordinary incentives to get along in a culture which now sees the dogma as a high status position to hold. There's a reason your papers don't get published and that's your incentive to toe the line. It takes balls not to respond to that incentive, which is real and pervasive.
I'm watching friends adopt some of these beliefs and it's glaringly obvious why.
This is progress, but the next step is realising that you cannot kill the seed without killing the present socio-political order (let's call it Democracy for convenience), and you're in no position to do that, or even really to think about how to do that. And this is when you stare into the abyss and in that dark night of the soul and you either (a) learn to cope with the realisation that it's all pointless really or (b) you do a Richard Hananiah.
Democrats and Marxists train and condition people to see themselves and/or others as victims of oppression. The necessary victim/oppressor aspect is to a significant extent a learned behavior that is taught/preached.
This can be done without equalitarianism. Simply claim some oppressive persecution and find some emotional examples that seem to back the claim and it is now true in the minds of many,
You can set yourself up As the rescuer, and the opposition as the persecutor, so the the strategy pays off, for you.
Belief in Absolute Human Sameness is basically ineradicable as long as the reality of biological race is denied. You can chip away at the absurd outgrowths like "pregnant men," but in the end it's a losing battle as long as the core untruth remains unaddressed.
The improvements are marginal and in net regression. But in my opinion, the more insidious issue in wokeness is identity politics, which provides a slippery slope to fascism. Still, a caring society is a healthy one, but a society of entitlement, I.e., catering to the billionaire oligarch class, is not.
“As predicted, liberals evinced doubt standards such that they found the argument more credible if Blacks were said to have higher IQs than if Whites were.”
It would be, except that we improved access to opportunity, and inequality of outcomes persists. This bothers many people. For others it’s a political stick with which to beat the rest of us.
Drive-by copy-editing comment: the antepenultimate figure is a duplicate of the one preceding it. As a result, the presumably intended figure for "Censorship Desires - Black/White IQ" is missing for the study of 559 US adults.
A trouble with making sense of the ideology that swept academia—"equalitarianism," as you call it—is that we tend to define an ideology according to a set of BELIEFS. But, this ideology is defined according to what it OPPOSES.
Try asking such peers: "Do you think all races have equal distributions of any given mental ability?" Chances are you will get something meely-mouthed, with either no strong defense or no such position. That is because they don't actually believe it. Instead, they oppose any position to the contrary.
In other words, it is not about dogmas, but it is about blasphemies.
You can see it in what they prefer to call themselves. They don't call themselves, "equalitarians" or "egalitarians" or any such thing. Instead, they call themselves, "anti-racists."
What a great summation of the "useful idiot" mindset.
You're correct. Most people who adhere to the latest leftist ideology treat it just as a religion. Everything is 100% one way or the other. You're either for us or against us. But we can't effectively tell you what we're for, only what we are against.
This mentality falls in line with all "revolutionary idiot class" mentalities. "We must tear down the system because it's evil... And we must replace it with something better. What that is, we don't know. But we know [believe] that it will be better. We know this, you know, because..."
The people following these nonsense ideologies have an innate inability to see past step one. I honestly think that they could never assemble Ikea furniture -- ever. Also, the instruction manuals are racist!
Calling them, "useful idiots," seems to be wrong on both parts. They are not useful to anyone, and they are not idiots, but they are the same people scoring highly on the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, etc., and they really do have high general intelligence. You think they can't assemble Ikea furniture? It turns out that having correct beliefs has little to do with general intelligence. Yes, they want a revolution, and, if they wanted to, they could think about what to build in place of the institutions they want to tear down. But, they won't. They are not useful idiots. They are useless smarties.
The term useful idiots does apply. I’m using “idiot” in the context of foolishness, not to imply that these people have the functioning mental capacity at or below that of a 2-year-old.
These are people shoveling dirt into a pile (doing the ground work) digging a giant hole. They haven’t asked why they’re digging it, or what will be done with the dirt they excavate. They must know that chaos will result from their actions, after all they’re “tearing it all down.” And yet, they have no forethought of the “order” that will follow, or what might happen to them once the chaos dies down. They are the true believers in the “revolution.”
One would assume that most of these people are well read, or “cultured” enough, to understand what part they’re playing in all of this. But they are foolish.
The reference to assembling Ikea furniture was a shot at their inability to read into the process much past step one.
Their usefulness is illustrated by their following of fake movements, which are not grassroots. They blindly follow the commands of those who wish to come to power. They are the laborers for the group that wants to take control after the chaos, brought about by the very same useful idiots, has destroyed the current socioeconomic system.
People can be intelligent and foolish -- at the same time. They can also be manipulated into positions that make them useful to others, without their knowledge of said manipulation. That’s what we are seeing here.
Great study of equalitarianism But......"In the past five years, an ideology often called wokeism has spread rapidly, from college campuses to corporate bureaucracies to the editorial pages of elite newspapers." NO! If Western civilisation is ever to pull itself back from the brink of the hyper-'liberal' form of resentful, narcissist and (paradoxically) intolerant self-pity - now commonly called Wokeism - it must start by facing up to the fact that its essence has been brewing for 50 YEARS at the very least. It is not some new malaise suddenly visited on a previously healthy liberalism. Its roots spread wider than just equalitarianism (although that is a part of the root system). Its beginnings were amongst a permanently malcontent, up-itself intelligentsia and for a long time that's where it stayed. Then by about 50 years ago it had spread its way right through academia....and thereby to the rising generations of the professional and administrative classes.
Yes it has reached a kind of critical mass in the last 10 (not 5) years or so but that is just in the the nature of an exponential curve. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
I think you might be focusing too much on the ideological nature of a position which at this point would be maintained purely by the natural human desire of self-preservation. Imagine if an anti-technology movement had succeeded in freezing, or even marginally slowing scientific progress in 1800? Given infant mortality rates of 40%, such a movement would be the 2nd or third most murderous movement in history. Imagine discovering that this had in fact occurred, that your child was dead because of it. Would you not want vengeance? Should you not seek it? Should you not desire whatever measures are necessary to guarantee forever that the kind of people involved in it, never exercise power ever again?
When you consider the likely consequences of what you call equalitarianism; the exclusion from public life and decision-making of anyone honest or intelligent enough to state the obvious (and it's been obvious since Jensen's article 50 years ago), you can only conclude that a similar atrocity has unfolded. So we are at a moment where your academic friends either have to go "oopsie, sorry about the millions of corpses (if you include decolonization/simping for communists...), I guess bad/stupid people really are just born that way. My bad!" and face possible consequences, or crush anyone that might end the charade. We already know which one they chose. That's what wokeness is and compared to prior atrocities, it's actually quite mild.
I am unhappy that you didn’t emphasize that the _averages_ are different.
If you don’t, then you give ammunition to the bigots on both ends; those who want to condemn you as a Nazi, and the pathetic neo-Nazis in their trailer parks.
Not everyone has great talents, but great talent can crop up anywhere.
The great tragedy is that racial preferences throw intelligent, ambitious, hard working people in over their heads. It’s no surprise that some conclude that the game is rigged against them. It was rigged to get them in, after all.
Yes, this speaks to the unintended consequences of artificially favouring certain groups in certain situations - which simply ends up hurting those who are supposed to be helped. There seems to be clear evidence of this in degree drop-out rates. All utopian ideals benefit the same class - and it's not the class they're supposed to help.
Full or consistent wokeism is far more destructive than even most of its critics realise.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/wokeness-is-inverted-fascism-plus
Great, as usual.
Why is the political RIGHT (reactionaries) the LEFT most bar, and vice versa?
I doubt that many 'equalitarians' really do believe in the dogma. Instead, they are reacting to ordinary incentives to get along in a culture which now sees the dogma as a high status position to hold. There's a reason your papers don't get published and that's your incentive to toe the line. It takes balls not to respond to that incentive, which is real and pervasive.
I'm watching friends adopt some of these beliefs and it's glaringly obvious why.
This is progress, but the next step is realising that you cannot kill the seed without killing the present socio-political order (let's call it Democracy for convenience), and you're in no position to do that, or even really to think about how to do that. And this is when you stare into the abyss and in that dark night of the soul and you either (a) learn to cope with the realisation that it's all pointless really or (b) you do a Richard Hananiah.
Democrats and Marxists train and condition people to see themselves and/or others as victims of oppression. The necessary victim/oppressor aspect is to a significant extent a learned behavior that is taught/preached.
This can be done without equalitarianism. Simply claim some oppressive persecution and find some emotional examples that seem to back the claim and it is now true in the minds of many,
You can set yourself up As the rescuer, and the opposition as the persecutor, so the the strategy pays off, for you.
Belief in Absolute Human Sameness is basically ineradicable as long as the reality of biological race is denied. You can chip away at the absurd outgrowths like "pregnant men," but in the end it's a losing battle as long as the core untruth remains unaddressed.
The improvements are marginal and in net regression. But in my opinion, the more insidious issue in wokeness is identity politics, which provides a slippery slope to fascism. Still, a caring society is a healthy one, but a society of entitlement, I.e., catering to the billionaire oligarch class, is not.
Edit needed?
“As predicted, liberals evinced doubt standards such that they found the argument more credible if Blacks were said to have higher IQs than if Whites were.”
Thanks, fixed.
I think the case against leftism if equalitarianism isn't true is so strong that leftist know if they concede that point they concede it all.
There are those that disagree that inequality is the death of leftism, but I think they are deceiving themselves.
Sorry but isn't the issue equality of opportunity or it's absence?
It would be, except that we improved access to opportunity, and inequality of outcomes persists. This bothers many people. For others it’s a political stick with which to beat the rest of us.
Drive-by copy-editing comment: the antepenultimate figure is a duplicate of the one preceding it. As a result, the presumably intended figure for "Censorship Desires - Black/White IQ" is missing for the study of 559 US adults.