I have read a fair amount on this topic, and this is the most cogent synopsis of the philosophical, political and cultural forces behind this current "moment" as I have come across.
I would like to emphasize what I consider to be the "New Left"'s most fundamental flaw, which results from its critical theory origins. It is very good at deconstructing and dismantling - but not replacing and building. Instead, it proposes perpetual struggle and conflict between the oppressed and the oppressors and a ceaseless imperative to raise our "consciousness." What a bleak, awful perspective - no wonder its adherents rely so heavily on social coercion to enforce it.
What you describe as a flaw is precisely the goal of critical theory. The folks at the helm of this transformation are following a well-tested template. They know that any society can be destabilized by attacking its most fundamental structures, the things people take for granted, everything from the nuclear family to biological sex to freedom of speech. One need only look at the tactics and outcome of the Chinese cultural revolution to see their end game.
Chaos through deconstructing and dismantling is the point. Replacing and building are not required. These things will apparently take care of themselves once we divest ourselves of the bourgeois belief in individuality and identify as members of our identity category and know our place in the Whole. Sure, we'll have to break a lot of eggs, but it will be worth it once we achieve our tasty Woke Omelet.
Henley has written a great article, very important and clear. I'd like to add the name of James Lindsay, the single most important person on the planet (IMO) currently deconstructing the deconstructors. He keeps busy reading and explaining every critical theory text ever written and making it intelligible for the rest of us. He travels around the country speaking to parents and church groups about the dangers of critical theory. Right now on his podcast he's doing a series on the sexual grooming of young children in our schools, one of the most horrific aspects of the critical turn in education. See his book (co-authored with Helen Pluckrose), "Cynical Theories," and his website/podcast, "New Discourses."
I would like to take this idea further. Combine this with the culture of being the center of attention and being safe, it is more about being in control. Control leads to safety, money, and power. People often do not do control consciously; but they are still responsible for it. Repairing and building requires delegating some of that control to others; and to them, that is scary, not lucrative, and a loss of power.
What is sadder is that the questions and challenges being brought up are valid items to discuss. However, by eliminating even the possibility of debate people cannot learn and make their own decisions. Once again, leaving the decision to others leads to loss of control.
Great article with clarity. Explains and offers a way to address it. Thank you!
I like your thoughts around control. It got me thinking about trust. Who or what do they trust because control doesn't operate in a vacuum. There are attendant processes at work as well that need to be drawn into the discussion. I was also reminded of the fable of Ming Midas. He longed for gold and lost what he loved. I would draw a similar analogy with this woke mindset. If those that adhere to it long for control what do we lose as individuals and as a society?
A great critique--as someone who works in higher ed in the U.S. I have seen these transformations up close. I will suggest, however, that equality is only the goal insofar as it aligns with freedom. Dr. King did not say "equality at last," but free at last. The impulse to dominate is strong in humans and we should guard against that impulse in trying to address economic and social injustice. The line from Flaubert comes to mind: "inside every revolutionary is a cop."
Such a great article. Bang on. Imagine if every policy had to pass an MLK test.
Freedom,& equality, judged on character not race or skin colour, Tolerance of each other’s opinion rather than dividing us into tribes only to be cast out (canceled) if we don’t conform.
I'm impressed; I wasn't sure it was possible to cover every variable driving modern wokeness this concisely. Great work Tara!
As far as "The modern left, then, is on shaky footing. And it risks losing working-class voters of all races to conservative parties, which champion cultural conservatism and increasingly position themselves as advocates for working-class interests by dabbling in a handful of leftist economic policies. We saw this with Donald Trump and his rhetoric around trade."
I would add that the reason that people like Trump and Boris Johnson can run as "men of the people" despite coming from highly wealthy and privileged backgrounds, is because they so loudly reject the underlying classism/elitism of identity politics.
The wealthy and privileged throughout history have often used manners & etiquette to justify why they are "better" than the masses, and thus rationalize their own largesse in societies dominated by scarcity.
Just as "I know which fork to use for each course in a fancy meal" was commonly used to indicate "I'm more enlightened than you", nowadays "I've memorized more non-binary pronouns than you have" has become a shorthand for "I'm a better person than you".
Working class voters will never be able to keep up with the euphemism treadmill of political correctness (they're more preoccupied with keeping a roof over their head), and they don't like being viewed as morally deficient for having better things to do than craft the perfect land acknowledgement. Left-wing elitist virtue signaling therefore alienates working class citizens so much that rich right-wing populists can market themselves as "down-to-earth" just by being openly and proudly politically incorrect.
That's right, it's the mores of the upper class. Cynically, it's a way of maintaining and reproducing cultural capital within the class to keep the plebs out. It's costs nothing and even provides economic rewards, as well as psychological ones. And on the "good faith" side, with the classes increasingly stratified and information-siloed, even more sensible members of this class have trouble seeing how out of touch its content is and cannot step outside the soup they swim in to see it as essentially a distinction of taste signaling a certain socioeconomic pedigree.
It's disappointing that Trump's 2016 election didn't function as the wakeup call it should have.
Voters like Donald Trump because, to run with the dining etiquette analogy, he doesn't use 14 different forks and spoons to eat a meal. He just barehands a cheeseburger like a regular fella.
Instead of thinking "maybe we should dial back the elitism", progressives doubled down and basically went with "eating with your hands is racist".
I do think this is an ideology that's going to have to die hard, because it is an ideology that captures people in their formative years and forms a cornerstone of their personal morality and even their careers. So on an individual level adherents are going to have go through almost a conversion process and there's a lot of psychic turbulence that will just prevent many people from doing that. Not to mention the fact that they can just stay instead a self-reinforcing community. All of that is common to any ideology or religion but this one is clearly discontinuous with the "old left" and has enough numbers in key power centres to make it particularly intractable.
And from a political perspective, even if you were to deal with the true believer problem, I think the Democrats are stuck with this type of ideology because it's how they meaningfully distinguish themselves from the Republicans. They can't move left on economic issues because they're beholden to their donors and lobbyists, and the giant spiderweb of connections that binds them all to cosmopolitan business interests.
We've moved into a new phase now where the Democrats can bait and switch their voters with someone like Sanders, but ultimately not pursue the goals that movement represents, and where the Republicans can make class-related noises but either not follow up on them, or rebrand their same old economic scheme as being desirable from the perspective of the working class by giving it populist overtones.
It seems like this phase can only last so long, but it will take a figure we haven't seen yet to either flip the Republicans to some watered down form of economic nationalism, or to drag the Democrats back to the left. The other option is of course some third party upstart but as years go back that gets harder and harder to imagine with the apparatuses of both parties continuing to grow larger and more intertwined with power bases that could easily starve or drown out any genuine outsider.
"They can't move left on economic issues because they're beholden to their donors and lobbyists, and the giant spiderweb of connections that binds them all to cosmopolitan business interests."
I mean, they COULD, they just really, really don't want to. Better to use wokebaiting as a smokescreen for their coziness with the donor/shareholder class.
Also, they will move left on gov't spending, but only if it's funded through debt instead of across-the-board tax raises. There is more $$ to be gained from specifically doing a better job of taxing the ultra-wealthy, but closing that gap wouldn't bring in nearly as much as progressives like to pretend it would. Especially when Dems love to cut taxes on the rich at the same time as they raise them (i.e. SALT deductions).
Edit: I'd also say that by running Biden, the Dems at least flirted with the possibility of breaking with the woke left, even if Biden flipped back to their camp the minute he got elected. If the Dems keep losing on wokeness, sooner or later they'll either bail on it, or be supplanted like the Whigs were.
What throws me off is poor woke people. They're usually broke-as-hell, way-too-online millennials/Gen Z (think Starbucks baristas with Gender Studies degrees and $100k of student loans).
My best guess as to what makes them tick is they're like poor people who set the table with 9 different kinds of haute-cuisine forks to eat their bowl of Kraft Dinner. They're imitating what they see going on at a party they're not invited to.
One thing to consider is that for most of my lifetime, perhaps since the 1960s, there was not the alliance of the "left" with the most powerful institutions in this country. The left had been the subversive side. We were the side that challenged everything. We respected and rewarded investigative journalism, holding truth to power. Our art was daring. Our speech was deliberately offensive. We pushed back hard and supported others who did. We fought against McCarthyism and Blacklisting. NOW the left is the side that defends and supports the oligarchs and the elites because they pander to the left and they ARE on the left. The tech bros have so much control of our gateways to sell our books, host our videos, post subversive journalism and art. That is what has changed. The power elite and the cultural left are one in the same so the people we usually count on for some relief - comedians, writers, journalists have to exist in this exiled world where people ARE allowed to speak and think freely.
I do think the Democrats are losing supporters by the minute. This is especially true of parents who care about their kids more than they do approval from their peers. They will flip and vote red without breaking a sweat.
Once institutions stop bowing to the people who demand they fire writers, actors, editors and executives for thought crimes there will be a better distribution of power. And sanity. Here's hoping.
I remember the ye olden times when progressives loved to complain about Big Pharma being amoral money grubbers who will throw public health under the bus for their quarterly bonuses.
Now we're in the days of covid new normals and puberty blockers, and those same progressives insist that Big Pharma is our best friend and can do no wrong.
This is probably the most thorough and cogent explanation of 'Woke' that I've read -- especially with regard to the fragility of the generation that is now coming of age.
This is a very helpful summary, especially the insights into the journalistic world. Keep up the good work!
Carl Trueman's book 'The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self' adds another piece to the puzzle, namely how the transformation of the idea of the self over the last two hundred years or so has led us to a state of affairs where therapeutic categories -- self-expression, lived experience, harm (of feelings), sexuality-as-identity, and the need for public affirmation of whatever I feel inside -- are all intuitively authoritative in public discourse. But this is really a very modern development built on very specific assumptions that also grow out of the New Left, Frankfurt school, etc.
This has become pervasive in the West. The self with its "rights" has become more important than the common good. I include antivaxxers in that bag, too. I came of age in the Sixties, and I'm beginning to think that since 1968 we have gone seriously off the rails. Not a comforting thought...
Tara, I found this useful...but limiting. "Useful" from a comprehension perspective. "Limiting" because it lacks any sort of "push back" discussion.
Philanthropy could be one such "field of battle" with the woke. Yes, by nature, philanthropy is elitist. But it can be a serious messenger. I recently cancelled donation discussions with a public library due to the "book burning" ideologies now rampant in multiple Ontario school boards. Fearing spillover into Ontario libraries, I have re-directed my interests elsewhere--while ensuring that the rationale for change was clearly understood..."Expose me to censorship and I will go elsewhere."
Tom, you raise a really important point. How to push back effectively is the holy grail of this entire conversation. Withholding philanthropic donations is a good idea, but it’s going to take so much more than that. Many of us feel helpless after the capitulation of our universities, media, and other key institutions. We need leadership and organization. And it’s going to take strong voices on the left. Voices on the right are simply dismissed as racist.
John, nationally and provincially, we are desperately short of leaders. The strong voices must be strong "left/right" voices--voices with balanced credibility. I doubt anyone described as "left" has the cajones to lead such a balanced mission.
Just so you know, you're "going into battle" with a knife and it's a gunfight. Über-philanthro-capitalists are driving this bus (tank-APC.) There are people of ill intent about, and they are over the top agenda-driven.
Tom S, that's quite a provocative thing to say, particularly when the most notable of the philanthro-capitalists are currently embroiled and frequently progenitors of multiple medical crises all across the world. Referring to Bill Gates of course.
If you believe TB&M Gates Foundation is solely involved in what they do for altruistic reasons then I cannot expect this conversation to have any chance of advancement of understanding among at least we two individuals. So I'll not go further. Other than to say your diagnostic skills assessing a stranger are both trite and over-the-top presumptuous (Who made you Lord of All Knowledge?) in using such haughty generalizing as to my health if not character.
Ah, the young social justice warrior idealists. They do not have enough real life experience to know any better. The real world is a tough, violent and unforgiving place and snowflakes don't do well. As someone pushing 80, I've learned that victory belongs to the strong. I confess I do not understand why math is racist, nor why there are 20 different sexes with matching pronouns, and how CRT with its equality of outcome outlook does nothing but encourage mediocrity. Guess what? I am not politically correct and don't care if my views offend you. The sophists such as Marcus Aurelias, emperor of Rome, held that if you are offended by something, it's because you chose to be offended. I unfortunately see a bright future for China and a rather dim one for the US.
While I agree with your overall sentiment I must point out that Marcus Aurelius was by no means a Sophist, but a Stoic. Sophists were a group of elites who used rhetoric to convince people of questionable ideas whereas Stoics embraced philosophy as an exercise of what is beneficial through a detachment from emotion.
Here is what is see as a very serious obstacle in fighting the destructive ideology of the New Left. I’ve spoken to many of my liberal (and Liberal) friends about this (and lost some of them as a result). In general, they are woefully uninformed about the emergence (and ascension) of the New Left and its woke ideology. They often perceive any criticism of the New Left as a criticism of liberalism without realizing that the New Left is highly repressive and illiberal. That’s why I think it’s SO important for strong liberals like you to stand up and fight this fight.
Not just liberals but Old Lefties, too :-) Much of the criticism of Wokeism comes from people of the social democratic left. Of course, fora such as this attract a lot of Righties and assorted gadflies, but that's OK, we need all the friends we can get...free speech is sacrosanct, and in the discussion some sense can emerge.
Critical theory sees all knowledge as social construction. It believes in “discourses” rather than truth. It sees language as capable of inflicting violence if the words support discourses that have been deemed harmful. It rejects the tenets of liberalism as growing out of, and supporting, bias and bigotry. Debating harmful ideas, according to critical theory, would only increase the damage. The goal is therefore to shut down all harmful discourse.
Yes and no. Sadly, what poorly educated people call "Critical Theory" nowadays does conform to this description, by and large. But no, these ideas are not - and never were - what the Frankfurt School stood for. These are the fruits of postmodernism. The last surviving member of the Frankfurt School's first generation, Leo Lowenthal, devoted a chapter in his memoir - An Unmastered Life - to an interview titled "Against Postmodernism". Jürgen Habermas, who inherited the position of Director of the Frankfurt School after Max Horkheimer died, was even more emphatic in his critique of postmodern relativism and incipient formlessness (anomie).
If you really want to get at the truth, sometimes you have to dig deep. I have the greatest r respect for you, but I believe you should look into this matter more deeply.
There's an interesting piece by Joseph Heath here: http://induecourse.ca/the-problem-with-critical-studies/, "The Problem with Critical Studies". The "problem" is that people claiming to apply "Critical Theory" leave out an important step: making normative claims explicit. Instead, under the influence of Foucault, they are "cryptonormative" - a term due to Habermas.
"The problem, in other words, is that Foucault was smuggling in his values, while pretending he didn’t have any. A genuinely critical theory, Habermas argued, has no need for this subterfuge, it should introduce its normative principles explicitly, and provide a rational defence of them"
If values aren't made explicit, then they will have the appearance of fact, or as Tara says above:
"It is presented not as political thought, which it clearly is, but rather as incontrovertible fact. And as basic decency."
There's the problem, and it's one due to post-modernism, not the Frankfurt School.
Great article, I didn't know Joseph Heath, I will be reading more from him. I'm quite pleased with Tara's substack, I am learning as much from the commentets as from the articles !
Congrats on the courage to step out and state what the majority is thinking. My instinct was to send to Bill Maher and suggest you be a guest on his show! I have forwarded to my daughter, who is in first year university. The challenge I find is how to articulate this position, as the quiet voice in my head tells me to shut up and just play it safe. I look forward to reading more content like this.
Thank you for wading into the morass and gathering together so many details, while effectively painting the broad themes. I suspect we are somewhat of an age, and I have to say, I don't recognize a lot of the positive social movements that excited and inspired some of us at the end of the last century--and yes, were considered politically 'left'--in what is running in 2022. The message I was given in the 90s is that my words, voice and actions could influence my fellow citizens to change the systems and situations that seemed unjust or unequal. Now, my impression is that we are being told that we are entitled to control any individuals who represent something we find unjust or even simply uncomfortable. . . even if there's a chance we are misinformed, or missing context, or ignoring a more effective strategy. The push to control people, rather than invite & influence them (and be influenced, in return), feels like an implicit dismissal of agency, and yes, hope.
I have read a fair amount on this topic, and this is the most cogent synopsis of the philosophical, political and cultural forces behind this current "moment" as I have come across.
I would like to emphasize what I consider to be the "New Left"'s most fundamental flaw, which results from its critical theory origins. It is very good at deconstructing and dismantling - but not replacing and building. Instead, it proposes perpetual struggle and conflict between the oppressed and the oppressors and a ceaseless imperative to raise our "consciousness." What a bleak, awful perspective - no wonder its adherents rely so heavily on social coercion to enforce it.
What you describe as a flaw is precisely the goal of critical theory. The folks at the helm of this transformation are following a well-tested template. They know that any society can be destabilized by attacking its most fundamental structures, the things people take for granted, everything from the nuclear family to biological sex to freedom of speech. One need only look at the tactics and outcome of the Chinese cultural revolution to see their end game.
Chaos through deconstructing and dismantling is the point. Replacing and building are not required. These things will apparently take care of themselves once we divest ourselves of the bourgeois belief in individuality and identify as members of our identity category and know our place in the Whole. Sure, we'll have to break a lot of eggs, but it will be worth it once we achieve our tasty Woke Omelet.
Henley has written a great article, very important and clear. I'd like to add the name of James Lindsay, the single most important person on the planet (IMO) currently deconstructing the deconstructors. He keeps busy reading and explaining every critical theory text ever written and making it intelligible for the rest of us. He travels around the country speaking to parents and church groups about the dangers of critical theory. Right now on his podcast he's doing a series on the sexual grooming of young children in our schools, one of the most horrific aspects of the critical turn in education. See his book (co-authored with Helen Pluckrose), "Cynical Theories," and his website/podcast, "New Discourses."
Thanks for the tip on the James Lindsay podcast. Looks fascinating. Can’t wait to listen.
I would like to take this idea further. Combine this with the culture of being the center of attention and being safe, it is more about being in control. Control leads to safety, money, and power. People often do not do control consciously; but they are still responsible for it. Repairing and building requires delegating some of that control to others; and to them, that is scary, not lucrative, and a loss of power.
What is sadder is that the questions and challenges being brought up are valid items to discuss. However, by eliminating even the possibility of debate people cannot learn and make their own decisions. Once again, leaving the decision to others leads to loss of control.
Great article with clarity. Explains and offers a way to address it. Thank you!
I like your thoughts around control. It got me thinking about trust. Who or what do they trust because control doesn't operate in a vacuum. There are attendant processes at work as well that need to be drawn into the discussion. I was also reminded of the fable of Ming Midas. He longed for gold and lost what he loved. I would draw a similar analogy with this woke mindset. If those that adhere to it long for control what do we lose as individuals and as a society?
In a nutshell, social coercion rather than cohesion.
A great critique--as someone who works in higher ed in the U.S. I have seen these transformations up close. I will suggest, however, that equality is only the goal insofar as it aligns with freedom. Dr. King did not say "equality at last," but free at last. The impulse to dominate is strong in humans and we should guard against that impulse in trying to address economic and social injustice. The line from Flaubert comes to mind: "inside every revolutionary is a cop."
Or Paulo Freire - “The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors.”
edit: almost forgot Eric Hoffer:
"It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - the power to oppress others."
Then I guess we're lucky that it is not the oppressed but the oppressors who are actually behind the CRT/woke movement. ;-)
Agreed. Equality is nice, but not at the expense of freedom.
Excellent point.
Such a great article. Bang on. Imagine if every policy had to pass an MLK test.
Freedom,& equality, judged on character not race or skin colour, Tolerance of each other’s opinion rather than dividing us into tribes only to be cast out (canceled) if we don’t conform.
Thanks for writing!!!
Democrats claim to honor Dr. King while instituting racial and medical segregation. Truly shameless.
I'm impressed; I wasn't sure it was possible to cover every variable driving modern wokeness this concisely. Great work Tara!
As far as "The modern left, then, is on shaky footing. And it risks losing working-class voters of all races to conservative parties, which champion cultural conservatism and increasingly position themselves as advocates for working-class interests by dabbling in a handful of leftist economic policies. We saw this with Donald Trump and his rhetoric around trade."
I would add that the reason that people like Trump and Boris Johnson can run as "men of the people" despite coming from highly wealthy and privileged backgrounds, is because they so loudly reject the underlying classism/elitism of identity politics.
The wealthy and privileged throughout history have often used manners & etiquette to justify why they are "better" than the masses, and thus rationalize their own largesse in societies dominated by scarcity.
Just as "I know which fork to use for each course in a fancy meal" was commonly used to indicate "I'm more enlightened than you", nowadays "I've memorized more non-binary pronouns than you have" has become a shorthand for "I'm a better person than you".
Working class voters will never be able to keep up with the euphemism treadmill of political correctness (they're more preoccupied with keeping a roof over their head), and they don't like being viewed as morally deficient for having better things to do than craft the perfect land acknowledgement. Left-wing elitist virtue signaling therefore alienates working class citizens so much that rich right-wing populists can market themselves as "down-to-earth" just by being openly and proudly politically incorrect.
That's right, it's the mores of the upper class. Cynically, it's a way of maintaining and reproducing cultural capital within the class to keep the plebs out. It's costs nothing and even provides economic rewards, as well as psychological ones. And on the "good faith" side, with the classes increasingly stratified and information-siloed, even more sensible members of this class have trouble seeing how out of touch its content is and cannot step outside the soup they swim in to see it as essentially a distinction of taste signaling a certain socioeconomic pedigree.
It's disappointing that Trump's 2016 election didn't function as the wakeup call it should have.
Voters like Donald Trump because, to run with the dining etiquette analogy, he doesn't use 14 different forks and spoons to eat a meal. He just barehands a cheeseburger like a regular fella.
Instead of thinking "maybe we should dial back the elitism", progressives doubled down and basically went with "eating with your hands is racist".
I do think this is an ideology that's going to have to die hard, because it is an ideology that captures people in their formative years and forms a cornerstone of their personal morality and even their careers. So on an individual level adherents are going to have go through almost a conversion process and there's a lot of psychic turbulence that will just prevent many people from doing that. Not to mention the fact that they can just stay instead a self-reinforcing community. All of that is common to any ideology or religion but this one is clearly discontinuous with the "old left" and has enough numbers in key power centres to make it particularly intractable.
And from a political perspective, even if you were to deal with the true believer problem, I think the Democrats are stuck with this type of ideology because it's how they meaningfully distinguish themselves from the Republicans. They can't move left on economic issues because they're beholden to their donors and lobbyists, and the giant spiderweb of connections that binds them all to cosmopolitan business interests.
We've moved into a new phase now where the Democrats can bait and switch their voters with someone like Sanders, but ultimately not pursue the goals that movement represents, and where the Republicans can make class-related noises but either not follow up on them, or rebrand their same old economic scheme as being desirable from the perspective of the working class by giving it populist overtones.
It seems like this phase can only last so long, but it will take a figure we haven't seen yet to either flip the Republicans to some watered down form of economic nationalism, or to drag the Democrats back to the left. The other option is of course some third party upstart but as years go back that gets harder and harder to imagine with the apparatuses of both parties continuing to grow larger and more intertwined with power bases that could easily starve or drown out any genuine outsider.
"They can't move left on economic issues because they're beholden to their donors and lobbyists, and the giant spiderweb of connections that binds them all to cosmopolitan business interests."
I mean, they COULD, they just really, really don't want to. Better to use wokebaiting as a smokescreen for their coziness with the donor/shareholder class.
Also, they will move left on gov't spending, but only if it's funded through debt instead of across-the-board tax raises. There is more $$ to be gained from specifically doing a better job of taxing the ultra-wealthy, but closing that gap wouldn't bring in nearly as much as progressives like to pretend it would. Especially when Dems love to cut taxes on the rich at the same time as they raise them (i.e. SALT deductions).
Edit: I'd also say that by running Biden, the Dems at least flirted with the possibility of breaking with the woke left, even if Biden flipped back to their camp the minute he got elected. If the Dems keep losing on wokeness, sooner or later they'll either bail on it, or be supplanted like the Whigs were.
miles, some would say that Trump was the ham sandwich that beat Hillary.
What throws me off is poor woke people. They're usually broke-as-hell, way-too-online millennials/Gen Z (think Starbucks baristas with Gender Studies degrees and $100k of student loans).
My best guess as to what makes them tick is they're like poor people who set the table with 9 different kinds of haute-cuisine forks to eat their bowl of Kraft Dinner. They're imitating what they see going on at a party they're not invited to.
Amazing! This is the most coherent, concise, thoughtful thing I've read in a long time.
I wholeheartedly agree. And as far as the subject matter goes, finally something grossly implicit has been made explicit.
One thing to consider is that for most of my lifetime, perhaps since the 1960s, there was not the alliance of the "left" with the most powerful institutions in this country. The left had been the subversive side. We were the side that challenged everything. We respected and rewarded investigative journalism, holding truth to power. Our art was daring. Our speech was deliberately offensive. We pushed back hard and supported others who did. We fought against McCarthyism and Blacklisting. NOW the left is the side that defends and supports the oligarchs and the elites because they pander to the left and they ARE on the left. The tech bros have so much control of our gateways to sell our books, host our videos, post subversive journalism and art. That is what has changed. The power elite and the cultural left are one in the same so the people we usually count on for some relief - comedians, writers, journalists have to exist in this exiled world where people ARE allowed to speak and think freely.
I do think the Democrats are losing supporters by the minute. This is especially true of parents who care about their kids more than they do approval from their peers. They will flip and vote red without breaking a sweat.
Once institutions stop bowing to the people who demand they fire writers, actors, editors and executives for thought crimes there will be a better distribution of power. And sanity. Here's hoping.
I remember the ye olden times when progressives loved to complain about Big Pharma being amoral money grubbers who will throw public health under the bus for their quarterly bonuses.
Now we're in the days of covid new normals and puberty blockers, and those same progressives insist that Big Pharma is our best friend and can do no wrong.
Well said, and thanks for the glimmer of hope.
Tara how did you stay at cbc so long while reading the likes of Douglas Murray? You give me hope!
This is probably the most thorough and cogent explanation of 'Woke' that I've read -- especially with regard to the fragility of the generation that is now coming of age.
They already came of age and are running the woke industrial complex: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-karent-progressive-ivy-league
This is a very helpful summary, especially the insights into the journalistic world. Keep up the good work!
Carl Trueman's book 'The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self' adds another piece to the puzzle, namely how the transformation of the idea of the self over the last two hundred years or so has led us to a state of affairs where therapeutic categories -- self-expression, lived experience, harm (of feelings), sexuality-as-identity, and the need for public affirmation of whatever I feel inside -- are all intuitively authoritative in public discourse. But this is really a very modern development built on very specific assumptions that also grow out of the New Left, Frankfurt school, etc.
This has become pervasive in the West. The self with its "rights" has become more important than the common good. I include antivaxxers in that bag, too. I came of age in the Sixties, and I'm beginning to think that since 1968 we have gone seriously off the rails. Not a comforting thought...
Tara, I found this useful...but limiting. "Useful" from a comprehension perspective. "Limiting" because it lacks any sort of "push back" discussion.
Philanthropy could be one such "field of battle" with the woke. Yes, by nature, philanthropy is elitist. But it can be a serious messenger. I recently cancelled donation discussions with a public library due to the "book burning" ideologies now rampant in multiple Ontario school boards. Fearing spillover into Ontario libraries, I have re-directed my interests elsewhere--while ensuring that the rationale for change was clearly understood..."Expose me to censorship and I will go elsewhere."
Tom, you raise a really important point. How to push back effectively is the holy grail of this entire conversation. Withholding philanthropic donations is a good idea, but it’s going to take so much more than that. Many of us feel helpless after the capitulation of our universities, media, and other key institutions. We need leadership and organization. And it’s going to take strong voices on the left. Voices on the right are simply dismissed as racist.
John, nationally and provincially, we are desperately short of leaders. The strong voices must be strong "left/right" voices--voices with balanced credibility. I doubt anyone described as "left" has the cajones to lead such a balanced mission.
2 kinds of votes. Actual electoral votes, and voting with one's wallet.
Spread the word…
Just so you know, you're "going into battle" with a knife and it's a gunfight. Über-philanthro-capitalists are driving this bus (tank-APC.) There are people of ill intent about, and they are over the top agenda-driven.
David, if you're suggesting that philanthropy and philanthropists are ill motivated, you've got serious personal challenges.
Tom S, that's quite a provocative thing to say, particularly when the most notable of the philanthro-capitalists are currently embroiled and frequently progenitors of multiple medical crises all across the world. Referring to Bill Gates of course.
If you believe TB&M Gates Foundation is solely involved in what they do for altruistic reasons then I cannot expect this conversation to have any chance of advancement of understanding among at least we two individuals. So I'll not go further. Other than to say your diagnostic skills assessing a stranger are both trite and over-the-top presumptuous (Who made you Lord of All Knowledge?) in using such haughty generalizing as to my health if not character.
Chew on this. Or don't:
https://thefdrlst.wpengine.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/
Easy peesy. I'll pass. Pass the vallium.
Ah, This I anticipated. And for you, take off your blinders---or at least get a new prescription. It'll do you good.
Ah, the young social justice warrior idealists. They do not have enough real life experience to know any better. The real world is a tough, violent and unforgiving place and snowflakes don't do well. As someone pushing 80, I've learned that victory belongs to the strong. I confess I do not understand why math is racist, nor why there are 20 different sexes with matching pronouns, and how CRT with its equality of outcome outlook does nothing but encourage mediocrity. Guess what? I am not politically correct and don't care if my views offend you. The sophists such as Marcus Aurelias, emperor of Rome, held that if you are offended by something, it's because you chose to be offended. I unfortunately see a bright future for China and a rather dim one for the US.
While I agree with your overall sentiment I must point out that Marcus Aurelius was by no means a Sophist, but a Stoic. Sophists were a group of elites who used rhetoric to convince people of questionable ideas whereas Stoics embraced philosophy as an exercise of what is beneficial through a detachment from emotion.
You are right! I meant stoic but somehow wrote sophist. I must have been thinking about lawyers as I was writing my comment.
Wow, you nailed it, Tara.
Here is what is see as a very serious obstacle in fighting the destructive ideology of the New Left. I’ve spoken to many of my liberal (and Liberal) friends about this (and lost some of them as a result). In general, they are woefully uninformed about the emergence (and ascension) of the New Left and its woke ideology. They often perceive any criticism of the New Left as a criticism of liberalism without realizing that the New Left is highly repressive and illiberal. That’s why I think it’s SO important for strong liberals like you to stand up and fight this fight.
Not just liberals but Old Lefties, too :-) Much of the criticism of Wokeism comes from people of the social democratic left. Of course, fora such as this attract a lot of Righties and assorted gadflies, but that's OK, we need all the friends we can get...free speech is sacrosanct, and in the discussion some sense can emerge.
Tara, you wrote the following:
Critical theory sees all knowledge as social construction. It believes in “discourses” rather than truth. It sees language as capable of inflicting violence if the words support discourses that have been deemed harmful. It rejects the tenets of liberalism as growing out of, and supporting, bias and bigotry. Debating harmful ideas, according to critical theory, would only increase the damage. The goal is therefore to shut down all harmful discourse.
Yes and no. Sadly, what poorly educated people call "Critical Theory" nowadays does conform to this description, by and large. But no, these ideas are not - and never were - what the Frankfurt School stood for. These are the fruits of postmodernism. The last surviving member of the Frankfurt School's first generation, Leo Lowenthal, devoted a chapter in his memoir - An Unmastered Life - to an interview titled "Against Postmodernism". Jürgen Habermas, who inherited the position of Director of the Frankfurt School after Max Horkheimer died, was even more emphatic in his critique of postmodern relativism and incipient formlessness (anomie).
If you really want to get at the truth, sometimes you have to dig deep. I have the greatest r respect for you, but I believe you should look into this matter more deeply.
There's an interesting piece by Joseph Heath here: http://induecourse.ca/the-problem-with-critical-studies/, "The Problem with Critical Studies". The "problem" is that people claiming to apply "Critical Theory" leave out an important step: making normative claims explicit. Instead, under the influence of Foucault, they are "cryptonormative" - a term due to Habermas.
"The problem, in other words, is that Foucault was smuggling in his values, while pretending he didn’t have any. A genuinely critical theory, Habermas argued, has no need for this subterfuge, it should introduce its normative principles explicitly, and provide a rational defence of them"
If values aren't made explicit, then they will have the appearance of fact, or as Tara says above:
"It is presented not as political thought, which it clearly is, but rather as incontrovertible fact. And as basic decency."
There's the problem, and it's one due to post-modernism, not the Frankfurt School.
This right here is why Substack > CBC
Precisely!
Great article, I didn't know Joseph Heath, I will be reading more from him. I'm quite pleased with Tara's substack, I am learning as much from the commentets as from the articles !
Congrats on the courage to step out and state what the majority is thinking. My instinct was to send to Bill Maher and suggest you be a guest on his show! I have forwarded to my daughter, who is in first year university. The challenge I find is how to articulate this position, as the quiet voice in my head tells me to shut up and just play it safe. I look forward to reading more content like this.
don't shut up don't play it "safe" - their BS needs to be outed.
Extremely well written and broad in scope. Cogently summarizes many of the deep concerns I have with the current state of affairs in this country.
Thank you for wading into the morass and gathering together so many details, while effectively painting the broad themes. I suspect we are somewhat of an age, and I have to say, I don't recognize a lot of the positive social movements that excited and inspired some of us at the end of the last century--and yes, were considered politically 'left'--in what is running in 2022. The message I was given in the 90s is that my words, voice and actions could influence my fellow citizens to change the systems and situations that seemed unjust or unequal. Now, my impression is that we are being told that we are entitled to control any individuals who represent something we find unjust or even simply uncomfortable. . . even if there's a chance we are misinformed, or missing context, or ignoring a more effective strategy. The push to control people, rather than invite & influence them (and be influenced, in return), feels like an implicit dismissal of agency, and yes, hope.