I had never heard of parasocial relationships before although I was, of course, aware of fans, stalkers, etc. I didn't need anything but simple logic and experience to know the concept of a anti-racism is both stupid and evil. It's the equivalent of the old high school horndog telling a young lady that, if she won't sleep with him, she's frigid. Yeah, and I'm sure he'll respect you in the morning.
As Glenn Reynolds has written in a related topic, it's all just a way for people to feel good about being mean.
Since I'm long past formal schooling, I haven't paid much attention to this bull other than to recognize it for what it is. But I recently took a trip to Washington DC, stayed in Chinatown and walked down to the National Mall every day to visit the museums and monuments. On my last day, a few folks set up a microphone and soapbox at the entrance to the metro station. Since I'd already been confronted by folks hawking for Greanpeace, Doctors Without Borders, and something called Planusa.org, I didn't think much of it, as they went on about all the things wrong with society. I did look up however when one of the speakers, loudly proclaimed, "White people are the devil!"
I was tempted to ask him why he thought I was the devil, but remembered the first commandment of the internet, "Don't feed the trolls." Somehow I doubt that he was open to socratic dialogue.
This is my second time reading this, and I was struck by the fact that I am more hopeful this time! Cheered me a bit! Anyone else rereading and have a reaction?
Sep 4, 2023·edited Sep 4, 2023Liked by Holly MathNerd
(edited for mild typos)
I'm not OP but as a subscriber myself, I can offer my opinion: While I have no empirical data to support this, my feeling (or what the kids call "vibes") these days is this:
No, the wokes have not been made extinct like smallpox. As someone who currently lives in a college town near a major metropolitan city, I can confirm that one can still see much woke-related ideology and peer-pressure without trying hard. (And this is a college that is generally agreed to be one of the more free-expression friendly campuses in the U.S.) But what I believe has changed, is that (although it isn't as obvious as it seems at first glance), there is an undercurrent of willful resistance that wasn't there before. Don't get me wrong: like I said above, peer pressure to conform is still very much a thing, and it's not like people will roll out the red carpet for you if you talk about the need for viewpoint diversity or the need to not label people with immutable characteristics based on their skin color. But given enough time, I think the pendulum has started to swing back:
Previously, there used to be a belief that woke-ism was "just some dumb kids on college campuses" or "some people on Tumblr who take therapeutic language to almost self-parodic ends", and that those things, while disturbing and pitiable in equal measure, would never catch on with mainstream culture and normies, and the college/Tumblr kids spreading this stuff would soon grow up and meet the real world.
The past few years have shown us the hard truth of Margaret Mead's famous quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.". Okay, I am sure we would all disagree on the substance of the word "thoughtful" in this context, but whatever you think about their particular ideologies, it cannot be denied that Wokists are not known for rolling over and giving up peacefully. If Group A is a bunch of very determined, crazy people, and Group B is a bunch of people who do nothing because they think Group A is dumb, then no matter what you think of their respective philosophies, Group A has an undeniable short-term advantage. Even if Group B is orders of magnitude bigger in population than Group A. Undoubtedly, things like Occupy Wall Street, social media, fandom culture, civil rights law, the 2016 election, Covid, George Floyd, and a bunch of other things I'm probably missing contributed to the tsunami of Woke cultural soft power, but simply put- Wokists were the tweakers of the culture wars. They were high on their own supply, didn't give a fuck who they pissed off, weren't shy about bullying or intimidating people to get what they wanted, and through a mixture of brute force, cultural competency, and manipulation of therapeutic language to play the victim, were much more able to take advantage of every cultural epoch that slammed the world from the early aughts until the 2020's.
But I'm optimistic (despite the previous paragraph) because more and more people now realize that Woke is not something you can just go "haha, look at these dumb college students/Tumblr fandom nerds". The fact that Woke has become such an important part of power means that it has become "the power" it claims to want to subvert. It's no longer fighting "against The Man"; it is The Man. (Or Woman, if you prefer). Now I'm not saying it is a foregone conclusion that some silent majority will inevitably rise up once the Woke becomes decadent under the weight of its own success; as Mead said, it takes committed, thoughtful action to effect change. But I certainly see examples of that action becoming more and more frequent now. Whatever goodwill there might have been in the wake of every global cultural event that might have been a call for genuine economic, racial, social, gender, etc. justice etc. has gradually been eroded by the simple fact that the Woke are much better at criticizing existing things rather than building new ones, and that the amount of economic, racial, and gender justice in the world hasn't actually been increased in the wake of social media pile-ons and death threats. By contrast, I see more and more anti-wokes (or "classical liberals", or whatever other term you want to use) propose actual plans for change- attending school board meetings, writing articles/books, etc. You could almost make the claim that the Woke, now being in cultural power, have become the party of the "our opponents are just a bunch of losers in college/on Tumblr who are just dumb." Except replace college and Tumblr with, idk, right-wing MAGA 4chan incels or something. The difference is that whereas one had to be quite left even by left standards to support wokism, one doesn't need to be particularly right even by right standards to be against wokism. A lot of the biggest voices in 2023 speaking out against Woke are hardly anonposters from KiwiFarms. It's not necessarily that one won't face consequences any more for speaking out against Woke in 2023; Wokists, as we all know, are hardly the kind to live and let live. But I do feel that there is less and less second-order stigma with being associated with anti-woke/classical liberalism now; there is less silence, less shame, less ability to tiptoe around things You Just Can't Say because in 2023, people have had years to realize that silence- especially when it comes to the Woke- is violence, and people are also starting to realize that if you just let the Woke do whatever they want, they'll...do whatever they want.
Of course, all this momentum is only a small step against the past few years' of head start Woke has gotten, and just because I dislike the Woke doesn't mean I think their downfall is guaranteed. But articles like this are a step in the right direction.
Good morning Holly. I read this and wrote my honest reaction just before falling asleep last night. I have had some time to think about it now, and my reaction hasn’t changed. I am not sure what the answer to your question is, but I’ll try. First, it is certainly not about current conditions on the ground having changed for the better. They have not, and in fact continue to grow worse. This is part of the reason for my optimism. Movements of this philosophical, linguistic, and political sort always come to grief, 100% of the time. The only question is how long it takes their antihuman, power hungry ideas to crash and burn and how much damage is done in the meantime. They are dutifully overplaying their hand at every turn and hastening the end game. Second, and I know you’ll like this one, zero is indeed a special number, and they can’t get there. We are in fact moving in the opposite direction. Third, I have been excited about the Ontario/Peterson situation(overplaying indeed!). I would gladly pay exorbitant pay-per-view fees to watch sessions in which wokies try to re-educate JBP. I literally can’t think of anything more entertaining and informative than that would be. Fourth, I see the admittedly nascent development of alternative educational/journalistic/medical organizations beginning to form. Lastly, I would say that my personal situation is heartening. I love, and am loved by young people much more susceptible to this nonsense than I. Despite their best efforts, our relationships have and will survive and thrive. Our reactions to bloodthirsty, power mad movements will be informed by those relationships. This is what has me feeling optimistic and hopeful. As always, thanks for the post. It’s been great thinking this through.
I had never heard of parasocial relationships before although I was, of course, aware of fans, stalkers, etc. I didn't need anything but simple logic and experience to know the concept of a anti-racism is both stupid and evil. It's the equivalent of the old high school horndog telling a young lady that, if she won't sleep with him, she's frigid. Yeah, and I'm sure he'll respect you in the morning.
As Glenn Reynolds has written in a related topic, it's all just a way for people to feel good about being mean.
Since I'm long past formal schooling, I haven't paid much attention to this bull other than to recognize it for what it is. But I recently took a trip to Washington DC, stayed in Chinatown and walked down to the National Mall every day to visit the museums and monuments. On my last day, a few folks set up a microphone and soapbox at the entrance to the metro station. Since I'd already been confronted by folks hawking for Greanpeace, Doctors Without Borders, and something called Planusa.org, I didn't think much of it, as they went on about all the things wrong with society. I did look up however when one of the speakers, loudly proclaimed, "White people are the devil!"
I was tempted to ask him why he thought I was the devil, but remembered the first commandment of the internet, "Don't feed the trolls." Somehow I doubt that he was open to socratic dialogue.
This is my second time reading this, and I was struck by the fact that I am more hopeful this time! Cheered me a bit! Anyone else rereading and have a reaction?
Interesting. What do you think has gotten better?
(edited for mild typos)
I'm not OP but as a subscriber myself, I can offer my opinion: While I have no empirical data to support this, my feeling (or what the kids call "vibes") these days is this:
No, the wokes have not been made extinct like smallpox. As someone who currently lives in a college town near a major metropolitan city, I can confirm that one can still see much woke-related ideology and peer-pressure without trying hard. (And this is a college that is generally agreed to be one of the more free-expression friendly campuses in the U.S.) But what I believe has changed, is that (although it isn't as obvious as it seems at first glance), there is an undercurrent of willful resistance that wasn't there before. Don't get me wrong: like I said above, peer pressure to conform is still very much a thing, and it's not like people will roll out the red carpet for you if you talk about the need for viewpoint diversity or the need to not label people with immutable characteristics based on their skin color. But given enough time, I think the pendulum has started to swing back:
Previously, there used to be a belief that woke-ism was "just some dumb kids on college campuses" or "some people on Tumblr who take therapeutic language to almost self-parodic ends", and that those things, while disturbing and pitiable in equal measure, would never catch on with mainstream culture and normies, and the college/Tumblr kids spreading this stuff would soon grow up and meet the real world.
The past few years have shown us the hard truth of Margaret Mead's famous quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.". Okay, I am sure we would all disagree on the substance of the word "thoughtful" in this context, but whatever you think about their particular ideologies, it cannot be denied that Wokists are not known for rolling over and giving up peacefully. If Group A is a bunch of very determined, crazy people, and Group B is a bunch of people who do nothing because they think Group A is dumb, then no matter what you think of their respective philosophies, Group A has an undeniable short-term advantage. Even if Group B is orders of magnitude bigger in population than Group A. Undoubtedly, things like Occupy Wall Street, social media, fandom culture, civil rights law, the 2016 election, Covid, George Floyd, and a bunch of other things I'm probably missing contributed to the tsunami of Woke cultural soft power, but simply put- Wokists were the tweakers of the culture wars. They were high on their own supply, didn't give a fuck who they pissed off, weren't shy about bullying or intimidating people to get what they wanted, and through a mixture of brute force, cultural competency, and manipulation of therapeutic language to play the victim, were much more able to take advantage of every cultural epoch that slammed the world from the early aughts until the 2020's.
But I'm optimistic (despite the previous paragraph) because more and more people now realize that Woke is not something you can just go "haha, look at these dumb college students/Tumblr fandom nerds". The fact that Woke has become such an important part of power means that it has become "the power" it claims to want to subvert. It's no longer fighting "against The Man"; it is The Man. (Or Woman, if you prefer). Now I'm not saying it is a foregone conclusion that some silent majority will inevitably rise up once the Woke becomes decadent under the weight of its own success; as Mead said, it takes committed, thoughtful action to effect change. But I certainly see examples of that action becoming more and more frequent now. Whatever goodwill there might have been in the wake of every global cultural event that might have been a call for genuine economic, racial, social, gender, etc. justice etc. has gradually been eroded by the simple fact that the Woke are much better at criticizing existing things rather than building new ones, and that the amount of economic, racial, and gender justice in the world hasn't actually been increased in the wake of social media pile-ons and death threats. By contrast, I see more and more anti-wokes (or "classical liberals", or whatever other term you want to use) propose actual plans for change- attending school board meetings, writing articles/books, etc. You could almost make the claim that the Woke, now being in cultural power, have become the party of the "our opponents are just a bunch of losers in college/on Tumblr who are just dumb." Except replace college and Tumblr with, idk, right-wing MAGA 4chan incels or something. The difference is that whereas one had to be quite left even by left standards to support wokism, one doesn't need to be particularly right even by right standards to be against wokism. A lot of the biggest voices in 2023 speaking out against Woke are hardly anonposters from KiwiFarms. It's not necessarily that one won't face consequences any more for speaking out against Woke in 2023; Wokists, as we all know, are hardly the kind to live and let live. But I do feel that there is less and less second-order stigma with being associated with anti-woke/classical liberalism now; there is less silence, less shame, less ability to tiptoe around things You Just Can't Say because in 2023, people have had years to realize that silence- especially when it comes to the Woke- is violence, and people are also starting to realize that if you just let the Woke do whatever they want, they'll...do whatever they want.
Of course, all this momentum is only a small step against the past few years' of head start Woke has gotten, and just because I dislike the Woke doesn't mean I think their downfall is guaranteed. But articles like this are a step in the right direction.
Good morning Holly. I read this and wrote my honest reaction just before falling asleep last night. I have had some time to think about it now, and my reaction hasn’t changed. I am not sure what the answer to your question is, but I’ll try. First, it is certainly not about current conditions on the ground having changed for the better. They have not, and in fact continue to grow worse. This is part of the reason for my optimism. Movements of this philosophical, linguistic, and political sort always come to grief, 100% of the time. The only question is how long it takes their antihuman, power hungry ideas to crash and burn and how much damage is done in the meantime. They are dutifully overplaying their hand at every turn and hastening the end game. Second, and I know you’ll like this one, zero is indeed a special number, and they can’t get there. We are in fact moving in the opposite direction. Third, I have been excited about the Ontario/Peterson situation(overplaying indeed!). I would gladly pay exorbitant pay-per-view fees to watch sessions in which wokies try to re-educate JBP. I literally can’t think of anything more entertaining and informative than that would be. Fourth, I see the admittedly nascent development of alternative educational/journalistic/medical organizations beginning to form. Lastly, I would say that my personal situation is heartening. I love, and am loved by young people much more susceptible to this nonsense than I. Despite their best efforts, our relationships have and will survive and thrive. Our reactions to bloodthirsty, power mad movements will be informed by those relationships. This is what has me feeling optimistic and hopeful. As always, thanks for the post. It’s been great thinking this through.