“As Kaufmann points out, this suggests that school and not university is the primary site of woke indoctrination.”
Does he also consider pop culture influences? I can think of tons of examples where the woke message is subtly (and not so subtly) delivered in various movies/TV shows. This started in a big way in the late 1960s.
I find all of this so obvious. What has taken everyone so long to see it? Leftwing Neo-Marxism/totalitarianism began gaining a foothold in the mid-60s. Through popular culture, the browbeating of religion, availability of illegal drugs, the pushing of sexual promiscuity, and all of the -isms. Feminism first and foremost. These attitudes spilled over into the schools. And the media offerings. Whoever was in control of WOKE was in control of the culture at large.
None of this is new or enlightening. Of course it was in the schools, Mr. Kaufmann. Stating the obvious.
No...that's not it. Eric Kaufmann has obviously put a great deal of effort into his new book, but I do not agree that he has the correct explanation for WOKE.
WOKE is totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is far more than a political style. It goes way beyond the political.
It is actually it. You just haven't understood it. Every collective is oriented on the basis of a collection of taboo and sacred properties. Our society is the first in history in which bigotry (racism) against sacralized minorities (blacks) define the moral-psychological-religious story we tell about ourselves and is the background to our everyday lives. To put it another way, you don't understand the race taboo which defines the progressive western civilization, if you don't understand that what it has come to be truly evil, is to be racist against minorities (black people).
Woke is not necessarily totalitarian. We are already totalitarian in regards of the normalisation of forms of thought, speech and behaviour. The problem with the sacralization of minorities, is that it imagines racist norms and thus seeks to adjust imagined norms.
I think that you just haven't understood it, my friend.
Is Aporia actually Eric Kaufmann's substack? I have nothing against the man. I simply do not agree that he understands what WOKE stems from. Despite the book.
I am extremely anti "woke". Do you understand that whether or not you think you are "telling yourself a story" that to be in a society at all, means to always already feel a number of things to be taboo and sacred? That it is perhaps innate to have complexes over our taboos, to overcompensate and to make sacred? To fixate obsessively on how oneself and our people are not evil?That we are innocent!? This complex was there in our Christian society and now it manifests in secular, egalitarian, progressive multiracial societies, where the psychological line between good and evil, in effect has come to be black people (virtuous, pure, victims) and white people (tainted, evil in need of salvation).
Oh dear. Somehow you actually seem to think that I ideologically adhere and prescribe to what I am merely describing.
The characterising, underpinning moral psychology of the progressive west is indeed centered around the taboo of racism against sacralized blacks. This has been with us for decades with increasing intensity, including it's intellectualization in the leftwing hegemony that is academia. The severity is the widespread radicalization that has come with social media. It happened with the advent of the printing press, resulting in religious war in Europe and we are seeing it now on a profoundly more extreme, interconnected way with the internet, and in the context of liberal-progressive society in which the race taboo is the beating heart of our psycho-religiousity.
It satisfies emotional needs. Just like totalitarianism. A need to dominate is driven primarily by insecurity.
I'm all for more books on the subject, more investigation. Greater understanding is always a plus. But until we accept the woke are the cultural equivalent of the Terminator, in that they will never ever stop, they will never give up because they are driven by irrational belief systems, we cannot win.
In a sense books like Kaufman's are illustrations of the the problem. Conservatives write books pointing out the flaws in their arguments while they burn down museums and erase cultures. That's why they are winning.
You are right that it is not something that can be reasoned with. It is a death cult. It will either burn itself out, or it must be burned out. I become increasingly pessimistic that the first possibility will occur.
"Our only way out is to use elected, constitutional, government power to break the grip of wokeness in our institutions and schools, steering them toward neutrality and classical liberalism. "
Kaufmann makes a circular argument. If government is corrupted by WOKE....why would this same government suddenly step forward to fix it? Who guards the guards? I have heard this supposed fix before. But those who make this suggestion forget that it was leftwing government who pushed us into this mess all along, perhaps encouraged by some shady unelected types. So why would the perpetrator of the crimes suddenly want to save us from them? There is a very big hole in this argument. Another and far better government might be elected eventually, but when you look at the efforts of the Democrats to make certain this does not happen.....you are back at square one in terms of answers.
"WOKE is totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is far more than a political style. It goes way beyond the political."
Yes, I consider the WOKE narrative to be acts of societal disruption aimed at destroying our civility. Those who control our country use it to retain and increase their power.
The question I would ask is, "*why* did so many white people suddenly become so obsessed with the plight of blacks in the 1960s?" It's not like this was a new thing in America, we had a civil war over it 100 years earlier. Why then, at that particular time, did those particular white people suddenly become very interested in it? I haven't seen any compelling answers to that question.
It started out as a rebellion against the early 20th century technocracy. Similar rebellions were taking place in other western countries at around the same time and they all ended up focusing on specific local issues.
"It follows that that in order to defang wokeness, you have to put forward a compelling alternative explanation for group differences."
I would argue that in order to defang wokeness we need to design a society that fits the human material that actually exists, namely, in such a way that anyone, regardless of race or cognitive ability, who works hard and plays by the rules could realistically look forward to a rich and fulfilling life.
You may think that impossible but I beg to disagree, having devoted the past 57 years to imagining just what such a society would look like in practice and how it might actually be achieved within a capitalist framework. It's all spelled out in a short little book and anyone who really cares about these issues should take the trouble to read it. If you have a head for economics, I promise you won't be disappointed. https://shorturl.at/vH4PF
“As Kaufmann points out, this suggests that school and not university is the primary site of woke indoctrination.”
Does he also consider pop culture influences? I can think of tons of examples where the woke message is subtly (and not so subtly) delivered in various movies/TV shows. This started in a big way in the late 1960s.
I find all of this so obvious. What has taken everyone so long to see it? Leftwing Neo-Marxism/totalitarianism began gaining a foothold in the mid-60s. Through popular culture, the browbeating of religion, availability of illegal drugs, the pushing of sexual promiscuity, and all of the -isms. Feminism first and foremost. These attitudes spilled over into the schools. And the media offerings. Whoever was in control of WOKE was in control of the culture at large.
None of this is new or enlightening. Of course it was in the schools, Mr. Kaufmann. Stating the obvious.
No...that's not it. Eric Kaufmann has obviously put a great deal of effort into his new book, but I do not agree that he has the correct explanation for WOKE.
WOKE is totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is far more than a political style. It goes way beyond the political.
It is actually it. You just haven't understood it. Every collective is oriented on the basis of a collection of taboo and sacred properties. Our society is the first in history in which bigotry (racism) against sacralized minorities (blacks) define the moral-psychological-religious story we tell about ourselves and is the background to our everyday lives. To put it another way, you don't understand the race taboo which defines the progressive western civilization, if you don't understand that what it has come to be truly evil, is to be racist against minorities (black people).
Woke is not necessarily totalitarian. We are already totalitarian in regards of the normalisation of forms of thought, speech and behaviour. The problem with the sacralization of minorities, is that it imagines racist norms and thus seeks to adjust imagined norms.
I think that you just haven't understood it, my friend.
Is Aporia actually Eric Kaufmann's substack? I have nothing against the man. I simply do not agree that he understands what WOKE stems from. Despite the book.
I am extremely anti "woke". Do you understand that whether or not you think you are "telling yourself a story" that to be in a society at all, means to always already feel a number of things to be taboo and sacred? That it is perhaps innate to have complexes over our taboos, to overcompensate and to make sacred? To fixate obsessively on how oneself and our people are not evil?That we are innocent!? This complex was there in our Christian society and now it manifests in secular, egalitarian, progressive multiracial societies, where the psychological line between good and evil, in effect has come to be black people (virtuous, pure, victims) and white people (tainted, evil in need of salvation).
Oh dear. Somehow you actually seem to think that I ideologically adhere and prescribe to what I am merely describing.
The characterising, underpinning moral psychology of the progressive west is indeed centered around the taboo of racism against sacralized blacks. This has been with us for decades with increasing intensity, including it's intellectualization in the leftwing hegemony that is academia. The severity is the widespread radicalization that has come with social media. It happened with the advent of the printing press, resulting in religious war in Europe and we are seeing it now on a profoundly more extreme, interconnected way with the internet, and in the context of liberal-progressive society in which the race taboo is the beating heart of our psycho-religiousity.
It satisfies emotional needs. Just like totalitarianism. A need to dominate is driven primarily by insecurity.
I'm all for more books on the subject, more investigation. Greater understanding is always a plus. But until we accept the woke are the cultural equivalent of the Terminator, in that they will never ever stop, they will never give up because they are driven by irrational belief systems, we cannot win.
In a sense books like Kaufman's are illustrations of the the problem. Conservatives write books pointing out the flaws in their arguments while they burn down museums and erase cultures. That's why they are winning.
You are right that it is not something that can be reasoned with. It is a death cult. It will either burn itself out, or it must be burned out. I become increasingly pessimistic that the first possibility will occur.
They'll do damage, but ultimately they build nothing. It is an impotent rage. Their immigration policies alone will see them destroyed.
Totalitarians rarely build or create. Their onus is on destruction. Frankly, they don't have the skills or intelligence to do anything else.
I cannot say I disagree with you. There is more, but this is not wrong.
"Our only way out is to use elected, constitutional, government power to break the grip of wokeness in our institutions and schools, steering them toward neutrality and classical liberalism. "
Kaufmann makes a circular argument. If government is corrupted by WOKE....why would this same government suddenly step forward to fix it? Who guards the guards? I have heard this supposed fix before. But those who make this suggestion forget that it was leftwing government who pushed us into this mess all along, perhaps encouraged by some shady unelected types. So why would the perpetrator of the crimes suddenly want to save us from them? There is a very big hole in this argument. Another and far better government might be elected eventually, but when you look at the efforts of the Democrats to make certain this does not happen.....you are back at square one in terms of answers.
"Kaufmann makes a circular argument. If government is corrupted by WOKE....why would this same government suddenly step forward to fix it?"
Exactly this country will not solve its problems through the electoral process.
"WOKE is totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is far more than a political style. It goes way beyond the political."
Yes, I consider the WOKE narrative to be acts of societal disruption aimed at destroying our civility. Those who control our country use it to retain and increase their power.
Wokeness appears to be even worse than most of its harshest critics suppose; possibly because they are usually at least slightly woke themselves.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/woke-a-libertarian-viewpoint?utm_source=publication-search
Edit needed: “It follows that that in order to defang wokeness, you have to put forward a compelling alternative explanation for group differences.”
The question I would ask is, "*why* did so many white people suddenly become so obsessed with the plight of blacks in the 1960s?" It's not like this was a new thing in America, we had a civil war over it 100 years earlier. Why then, at that particular time, did those particular white people suddenly become very interested in it? I haven't seen any compelling answers to that question.
It started out as a rebellion against the early 20th century technocracy. Similar rebellions were taking place in other western countries at around the same time and they all ended up focusing on specific local issues.
"Why then, at that particular time, did those particular white people suddenly become very interested in it?"
My take is that it was a disruptive move against our society to allow the Deep State to gain more control over the populace.
"It follows that that in order to defang wokeness, you have to put forward a compelling alternative explanation for group differences."
I would argue that in order to defang wokeness we need to design a society that fits the human material that actually exists, namely, in such a way that anyone, regardless of race or cognitive ability, who works hard and plays by the rules could realistically look forward to a rich and fulfilling life.
You may think that impossible but I beg to disagree, having devoted the past 57 years to imagining just what such a society would look like in practice and how it might actually be achieved within a capitalist framework. It's all spelled out in a short little book and anyone who really cares about these issues should take the trouble to read it. If you have a head for economics, I promise you won't be disappointed. https://shorturl.at/vH4PF
Kaufmann's "Rise and Decline of Anglo-America" now sells for $3000 on Amazon. Time for a reprint.
Bought the book.