Thank you. I often find myself, wondering how smart, college educated people have developed such a Manichaean view of the world, where everybody is either all good are all bad, and all bad things are caused by bad people. It’s the kind of morality you’d expect if the only thing someone has paid attention to is childhood cartoons.
By the time I was in high school, I had internalized a lot of basic things that many college educated people today have not:
- The world is complex, and people in it have complex natures.
- We are not inherently more moral or good than people in the past. We are made of the same stuff.
- Nobody has a monopoly on the Truth. Any one of us may be wrong and we won’t know it until it is pointed out.
- The world will never be perfect. However, through our own effort, now is the best time to live in all history. Life in the past was a lot worse compared to now.
- Most existing problems have elusive solutions because if they didn’t they would have been solved long ago.
- It is important not to romanticize but to try to adopt a neutral, cooler perspective if you really want to understand things.
I don’t fully know what the reason is for this failure. The only thing I feel sometimes is that kids should read more, but read what?
I certainly think the conservatives who are attacking universities are no better and in fact are trying to replace one set of platitudes with another set of Manichaean ones like “America is all good all the time; capitalism never results in anything bad; anyone who criticizes the wrong thing is one of ‘them’ and hates everything we stand for, etc.”
These are reasonable interpretations of Woke Ideology as a reasonable ish set of good faith beliefs given some common threads of thought that contest with classic liberalism (collectivism and post modernism). However, I don't think these really account for the power of the movement.
Talking to my 20ish children, I can see that they strongly feel that the 'system' is corrupt. The powerful do what they wish and there is no justice. And that no real progress has been made on (social) justice issues in the last 75 years. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I suppose this derives from some of the information biases and indoctrination the author discusses. However, the next step is actually a conscious rejection of justice and fairness and a spirit of "do it to them, because they've done it to us."
RGBs famous proposal that the right gender balance on the court would be all women to make up for all the years of all male domination is an example. The process is then one of vengeance and weaponization of Woke to achieve personally desirable outcomes without scruple.
I strongly disagree with the premise of conflating wokeism with liberalism. Authors such as Susan Neiman have written that Woke = not Left. Ultimately, woke is an anti-liberal form of leftism, it should not be conflated with liberalism at all or Left as a whole.
The second concern that I have with this framing of woke = liberal is that the arguments against are conservative (Sowell, Maddison), however traditional left wing arguments (universalism, class, etc.) are probably better. Sowell and Madison quotes both get at the power of government over the governed, however, woke is often more focused in power dynamics in general (albeit in grossly simplistic manners based on identity) and traditional left thoughts have focused on power imbalances that are economic and political. Here the critique of woke develops into rightwing pandering, as the essay creates a false dilemma between power of government vs governed without considering other areas of power imbalances impacting individuals.
In short, I'm obviously not in favour of woke, but I wish that the essay would not conflate woke with liberal (a weird americanism I find) and that the counter framing of conservative individualism is by no means the only alternative.
Unfortunately, I don't believe your headline is remotely true. Woke has not "failed." Its extreme relativist fundamentals have seized the minds of the next generation coming into power. It may have been driven underground by the current Republican administration, but that administration will continue to overreach and eventually yield a backlash. The other party, which has been infiltrated by post-liberal relativism, and whose old guard is fading, is just biding its time. It will eventually take charge again.
No good can come of Woke Justice. Poor White people have no standing at all by virtue of being White, unless accompanied by another label-LGBT, disabled, etc. Meanwhile, the labels for other races are confusing by mixing White vs Brown in various groups and Asians and sometimes Indians being judged "White Adjacent" depending on their educational or economic status. While the original concept of all men created equal established by our Founding Fathers has certainly taken a long time to come to fruition, that concept is much more just and fair than the Wokeness infecting our current society. To say that murderers and rapists of a certain color or ethnicity deserve less punishment than another is a recipe for the incitement of vigilante-ism. There is only so long a majority will stand idly by while those perpetrators are allowed unequal justice.
There is much truth in Shermer's piece. Much systematic thinking, a rare commodity, as well. This is why I spend time on Substack. It is worth my while.
I think the essay by Mr. Shermer suffers from two flaws. The first is that it makes the causes of wokeness and how it came to dominate aspects of society far too complicated and the same time too simplistic. He proposes processes that invoke large scale social forces such as anti-reason trends, identitarian collectivism and one’s view of human nature. The second flaw is that his view does not give any operational method for changing a person’s view of wokeness, one’s opposition or adherence to it.
I propose a far simpler way of looking at wokeness and one that leads to clear actions we can take to demonstrate its destructive power and shift to more helpful processes. Furthermore the process proposed can be used on a wide variety of issues.
One way of describing “woke” thinking is to first define two forms of thinking: observation-based thinking and conclusion-based thinking. Observation-based thinking subordinates conclusions to observations. If a conclusion does not agree with observations, then the conclusion must be discarded or amended in some manner in order to accommodate the observations. Conclusion-based thinking subordinates observations to conclusions. If an observation does not agree with the conclusion, then the observation is discarded, and the conclusion remains unchanged. Observation-based thinking often does not feel right, can be emotionally uncomfortable, and does not generally go viral Conclusion based thinking, feels right, tends to be emotionally satisfying, tends to bond people who share the same conclusions and is much more likely to go viral.
Conclusion-based thinking is based on four processes. These processes are labeling, ignoring, assuming, and fortunetelling. These processes are defined as follows.
Labeling is the use of words that are emotionally charged to convey a feeling tone, but that vague, inaccurate, and incomplete.
Ignoring is the process of ignoring observations, whether objective or subjective that contradict the conclusions.
Assuming is the process of "knowing" what is going side on inside other people's minds, usually based on a small set of observations and ignoring other observations.
Fortunetelling is the process of making plans or predicting outcomes based on the above three processes.
Conclusion based thinking happens quickly, feels right, and it does not take very long to communicate. Most of what is seen in social media comments, and in news sources is conclusion based thinking. Conclusion based thinking is also indulged in in by scientists who ignore observations that contradict their conclusions. Humans have a regrettable tenancy to believe in conclusions that feel right or make them feel good about themselves even in the face of contradictory observations.
Observation-based thinking, occurs when observations have a higher priority than conclusions and conclusions that are contradicted by observations must be revised. Observation-based thinking is based on four processes which are describing, exploring, asking, and planning. These are defined as follows.
Describing is the process of using words that are precise, accurate, and complete. Describing takes many more words than labeling, takes more time and often requires the use of exploring and asking.
Exploring is the act of seeking out of observations to make descriptions complete, precise, and accurate. In particular, observations that contradict or question or challenge the conclusions are actively sought out.
Asking is simply asking people to describe their inner state, thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc . Instead of assuming what is going on in people's minds, we ask them.
Planning is the process of predicting outcomes based on the above three processes.
Wellness is simply an example of conclusion-based thinking that became pervasive in large segments of society. It involves the use of highly emotionally charged labels, pervasive use of ignoring and assuming, and led to fortunetelling in which predicted outcomes were fanciful and did not bear expected fruits.
To get away from “wokeness” instead of having to change our worldview, or shift our view of human nature, or appeal to “identitarian collectivism”, we simply need to shift from conclusion-based thinking to observation-based thinking, i.e hanging labels to descriptions, exploring and accepting observations that contradict the “woke” conclusions, asking others to explain their objections and accepting their observations will lead to conclusions that are far more useful for planning.
Note that “wokeness” is not the only example of conclusion-based thinking. One can find numerous examples of this in politics, social sciences, policy debates and even in “hard sciences” like medicine, for example issues like climate change, the current budget debate, the rationale for the second Irag war, and on and on.
It is also important to realize that conclusion-based thinking is not "bad" which is just another label. It is useful for communicating feelings and bonding with others. For example, if I tell my wife "you're beautiful" that is clearly a label, but it conveys my feeling tone and brings us closer together, which is useful. Describing her physical characteristics, such as her height, weight, etc., would not be helpful.
With practice, we can identify when we are engaging in conclusion-based thinking and shift to observation-based thinking especially when we need to predict outcomes accurately, precisely and thoroughly.
The structure of the Internet and the algorithms that reinforce what gets recommended are all geared to make conclusion-based thinking much more self-reinforcing than observation-based thinking. Conclusion-based thinking is quick, takes a few words to communicate, and generates lots of likes, page views, clicks, and eventually financial reimbursement. Observation-based thinking takes much more effort, does not generally go viral, and also takes longer so that it is difficult to respond quickly enough to get many views in a comment thread.
Woke derives from the fake scholarship parasitic mind virus of Critical Theory that has infected Western education. The only reason that woke is not dead is that millions of students have been infected and have launched into careers and infiltrated many institutions.
However, the reason woke is dying is the simple reason that it thwarts the meritocracy that backs successful enterprise. The lie of woke is the idea that equity is achievable... that people of certain groups labeled as victims or oppressed owning lower experience, skill and capability can be hired, promoted and class-elevated, and other people of groups with greater experience, skills and capabilities can be forcibly diminished to create a more equitable society.
The core problem is that this results in less capable institutions, and in a hyper competitive economy, results in lower performing organizations that fail.
Corporations adopted woke because they saw consumers adopting it... however, as it infected their operations it became imperative that they extract it from within.
That is why woke is dying and will die. It isn't rational and it isn't compatible with the global economy.
The motive for this woke BS is easy to see: it is to distract from real, material change that would be expensive and disruptive. It still stinks to be a woman! Discrimination in employment is ongoing and, apart from a few elite women who clear the bar and manage to get into the unisex labor market for jobs management and the professions, women are still restricted to agonizingly boring pink-collar drudge work. The percentage of women in most traditional 'men's jobs' is still in low single digits. And not because women wouldn't want those jobs--the natural experiment of WWII when women happily did Rosie Riveter jobs proves otherwise. The overwhelming majority of women surveyed at the end of the war said they'd prefer to keep those jobs if they could. But they couldn't--they were kicked out to make way for returning GIs.
There isn't a day that I don't go through my life looking at the way things would be for me if I hadn't lucked out. I never go through a supermarket checkout without seeing that if I hadn't been lucky I would have been on the other side of that counter or do business with a woman at a call center without being painfully aware that I would be doing that job if I hadn't lucked out. And when guys work on my house--cleaning my grout, exterminating my varmints, painting my house, doing my plumbing and electrical work I am painfully aware that those are jobs I couldn't have gotten.
Meanwhile, the woke are making a fuss about pronouns. I am furious. Life still stinks for women because we're working without a net. If we don't luck out as I did, were are restricted to a narrow range of agonizingly boring pink-collar jobs.
I think woke failed for the same reason the Moral Majority failed: the high generated by *forcing* people to do something they don't want to / not do something they do want to, is much greater than the high generated by persuading them.
And don’t get me started on Scientific American where, for 214 consecutive months, I debunked all manner of flapdoodle and flimflam in my “Skeptic” column, only to see this once-august publication announce “Modern Mathematics Confronts its White Patriarchal Past,” and “The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather is Wrong,” concluding from this (mis)reading of the scientific literature that “[i]nequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.” Peak wokeness was reached when Scientific American explained “Why the Term ‘JEDI’ is Problematic for Describing Programs that Promote Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” explaining that Star Wars characters are too white, toxically masculine, religious, ableist, eugenicist, and worst of all resolved their conflicts through “duels with phallic lightsabers.” Phallic lightsabers? What would Freud say?
Freud would be down with this totally.... it's astonishingly sad that SA is trafficking in this psuedo science. When 92% of the population is rejecting your laughable Puritanism and virue signaling then Progressive, drop these unprogressives. 😎 We just have to keep this in mind and cancel the cancelers.....😆
It would seem that we all have to believe in something that cannot be disproved. I wonder if most of those who embrace woke ideology also do not identify with an established religion or actively believe in a supreme being.
Not necessarily. Wokeness didn’t take off in Scandinavia, which is much less religious than the U.S. Shermer himself has written critically of claims that we need religions as a counter to wokeness.
I'm curious to know which parasitic ideas Michael thinks Canada and the UK are infected by. Something to do with immigration?
Also, is Gal Saad where Musk and his socially inept cronies got their 'woke mind virus' babble?
Also, this essay needs more explication of the difference between government 'engineering' lives versus ' family, custom, law, and traditional institutions' doing the same. I don't think Lyndon Johnson thought people were infinitely malleable when he proposed the Great Society. And in the end it's still coercion of the individual. If the point is that coercion isn't necessarily bad, given a 'realist' view of human nature, why is it so much worse when government does it (and law is, after all, a tool of government)?
I don’t know. While there is always room to criticise our laws/policies, sometimes a great deal, I think that Americans often don’t appreciate the common law grounding in Peace, Order, and Good Governance in contrast to the more straight forward American system. Sure, I have serious concerns, but I see “free sprach absolutists” be terrified of our country that has a bit more of an old fashioned conservative communitarianism, which is not a woke dystopia.
The woke horse is dead. Stop beating it. Go after the jackals, hyenas and snakes that are running amok.
Thank you. I often find myself, wondering how smart, college educated people have developed such a Manichaean view of the world, where everybody is either all good are all bad, and all bad things are caused by bad people. It’s the kind of morality you’d expect if the only thing someone has paid attention to is childhood cartoons.
By the time I was in high school, I had internalized a lot of basic things that many college educated people today have not:
- The world is complex, and people in it have complex natures.
- We are not inherently more moral or good than people in the past. We are made of the same stuff.
- Nobody has a monopoly on the Truth. Any one of us may be wrong and we won’t know it until it is pointed out.
- The world will never be perfect. However, through our own effort, now is the best time to live in all history. Life in the past was a lot worse compared to now.
- Most existing problems have elusive solutions because if they didn’t they would have been solved long ago.
- It is important not to romanticize but to try to adopt a neutral, cooler perspective if you really want to understand things.
I don’t fully know what the reason is for this failure. The only thing I feel sometimes is that kids should read more, but read what?
I certainly think the conservatives who are attacking universities are no better and in fact are trying to replace one set of platitudes with another set of Manichaean ones like “America is all good all the time; capitalism never results in anything bad; anyone who criticizes the wrong thing is one of ‘them’ and hates everything we stand for, etc.”
That is worse but both perversions and rejections of real science are equally bad!
These are reasonable interpretations of Woke Ideology as a reasonable ish set of good faith beliefs given some common threads of thought that contest with classic liberalism (collectivism and post modernism). However, I don't think these really account for the power of the movement.
Talking to my 20ish children, I can see that they strongly feel that the 'system' is corrupt. The powerful do what they wish and there is no justice. And that no real progress has been made on (social) justice issues in the last 75 years. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I suppose this derives from some of the information biases and indoctrination the author discusses. However, the next step is actually a conscious rejection of justice and fairness and a spirit of "do it to them, because they've done it to us."
RGBs famous proposal that the right gender balance on the court would be all women to make up for all the years of all male domination is an example. The process is then one of vengeance and weaponization of Woke to achieve personally desirable outcomes without scruple.
I strongly disagree with the premise of conflating wokeism with liberalism. Authors such as Susan Neiman have written that Woke = not Left. Ultimately, woke is an anti-liberal form of leftism, it should not be conflated with liberalism at all or Left as a whole.
The second concern that I have with this framing of woke = liberal is that the arguments against are conservative (Sowell, Maddison), however traditional left wing arguments (universalism, class, etc.) are probably better. Sowell and Madison quotes both get at the power of government over the governed, however, woke is often more focused in power dynamics in general (albeit in grossly simplistic manners based on identity) and traditional left thoughts have focused on power imbalances that are economic and political. Here the critique of woke develops into rightwing pandering, as the essay creates a false dilemma between power of government vs governed without considering other areas of power imbalances impacting individuals.
In short, I'm obviously not in favour of woke, but I wish that the essay would not conflate woke with liberal (a weird americanism I find) and that the counter framing of conservative individualism is by no means the only alternative.
Good piece, strongly argued. Has Michael Shermer been writing on this subject for the past 5 or even 7 years? I hope so, in which case he is a hero.
Unfortunately, I don't believe your headline is remotely true. Woke has not "failed." Its extreme relativist fundamentals have seized the minds of the next generation coming into power. It may have been driven underground by the current Republican administration, but that administration will continue to overreach and eventually yield a backlash. The other party, which has been infiltrated by post-liberal relativism, and whose old guard is fading, is just biding its time. It will eventually take charge again.
It has failed to meet its stated objectives. It just has not failed to gain power.
No good can come of Woke Justice. Poor White people have no standing at all by virtue of being White, unless accompanied by another label-LGBT, disabled, etc. Meanwhile, the labels for other races are confusing by mixing White vs Brown in various groups and Asians and sometimes Indians being judged "White Adjacent" depending on their educational or economic status. While the original concept of all men created equal established by our Founding Fathers has certainly taken a long time to come to fruition, that concept is much more just and fair than the Wokeness infecting our current society. To say that murderers and rapists of a certain color or ethnicity deserve less punishment than another is a recipe for the incitement of vigilante-ism. There is only so long a majority will stand idly by while those perpetrators are allowed unequal justice.
There is much truth in Shermer's piece. Much systematic thinking, a rare commodity, as well. This is why I spend time on Substack. It is worth my while.
I think the essay by Mr. Shermer suffers from two flaws. The first is that it makes the causes of wokeness and how it came to dominate aspects of society far too complicated and the same time too simplistic. He proposes processes that invoke large scale social forces such as anti-reason trends, identitarian collectivism and one’s view of human nature. The second flaw is that his view does not give any operational method for changing a person’s view of wokeness, one’s opposition or adherence to it.
I propose a far simpler way of looking at wokeness and one that leads to clear actions we can take to demonstrate its destructive power and shift to more helpful processes. Furthermore the process proposed can be used on a wide variety of issues.
One way of describing “woke” thinking is to first define two forms of thinking: observation-based thinking and conclusion-based thinking. Observation-based thinking subordinates conclusions to observations. If a conclusion does not agree with observations, then the conclusion must be discarded or amended in some manner in order to accommodate the observations. Conclusion-based thinking subordinates observations to conclusions. If an observation does not agree with the conclusion, then the observation is discarded, and the conclusion remains unchanged. Observation-based thinking often does not feel right, can be emotionally uncomfortable, and does not generally go viral Conclusion based thinking, feels right, tends to be emotionally satisfying, tends to bond people who share the same conclusions and is much more likely to go viral.
Conclusion-based thinking is based on four processes. These processes are labeling, ignoring, assuming, and fortunetelling. These processes are defined as follows.
Labeling is the use of words that are emotionally charged to convey a feeling tone, but that vague, inaccurate, and incomplete.
Ignoring is the process of ignoring observations, whether objective or subjective that contradict the conclusions.
Assuming is the process of "knowing" what is going side on inside other people's minds, usually based on a small set of observations and ignoring other observations.
Fortunetelling is the process of making plans or predicting outcomes based on the above three processes.
Conclusion based thinking happens quickly, feels right, and it does not take very long to communicate. Most of what is seen in social media comments, and in news sources is conclusion based thinking. Conclusion based thinking is also indulged in in by scientists who ignore observations that contradict their conclusions. Humans have a regrettable tenancy to believe in conclusions that feel right or make them feel good about themselves even in the face of contradictory observations.
Observation-based thinking, occurs when observations have a higher priority than conclusions and conclusions that are contradicted by observations must be revised. Observation-based thinking is based on four processes which are describing, exploring, asking, and planning. These are defined as follows.
Describing is the process of using words that are precise, accurate, and complete. Describing takes many more words than labeling, takes more time and often requires the use of exploring and asking.
Exploring is the act of seeking out of observations to make descriptions complete, precise, and accurate. In particular, observations that contradict or question or challenge the conclusions are actively sought out.
Asking is simply asking people to describe their inner state, thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc . Instead of assuming what is going on in people's minds, we ask them.
Planning is the process of predicting outcomes based on the above three processes.
Wellness is simply an example of conclusion-based thinking that became pervasive in large segments of society. It involves the use of highly emotionally charged labels, pervasive use of ignoring and assuming, and led to fortunetelling in which predicted outcomes were fanciful and did not bear expected fruits.
To get away from “wokeness” instead of having to change our worldview, or shift our view of human nature, or appeal to “identitarian collectivism”, we simply need to shift from conclusion-based thinking to observation-based thinking, i.e hanging labels to descriptions, exploring and accepting observations that contradict the “woke” conclusions, asking others to explain their objections and accepting their observations will lead to conclusions that are far more useful for planning.
Note that “wokeness” is not the only example of conclusion-based thinking. One can find numerous examples of this in politics, social sciences, policy debates and even in “hard sciences” like medicine, for example issues like climate change, the current budget debate, the rationale for the second Irag war, and on and on.
It is also important to realize that conclusion-based thinking is not "bad" which is just another label. It is useful for communicating feelings and bonding with others. For example, if I tell my wife "you're beautiful" that is clearly a label, but it conveys my feeling tone and brings us closer together, which is useful. Describing her physical characteristics, such as her height, weight, etc., would not be helpful.
With practice, we can identify when we are engaging in conclusion-based thinking and shift to observation-based thinking especially when we need to predict outcomes accurately, precisely and thoroughly.
The structure of the Internet and the algorithms that reinforce what gets recommended are all geared to make conclusion-based thinking much more self-reinforcing than observation-based thinking. Conclusion-based thinking is quick, takes a few words to communicate, and generates lots of likes, page views, clicks, and eventually financial reimbursement. Observation-based thinking takes much more effort, does not generally go viral, and also takes longer so that it is difficult to respond quickly enough to get many views in a comment thread.
The distinction between conclusion-based thinking and observation-based thinking is based on several sources. These include the work of the late Chris Argyris on organizational dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Argyris; an integration of cognitive behavioral therapy with autonomic physiology that I developed in my work with patients https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00379/full, and material from Autonomic Modulation Training, a course to help reduce post-traumatic stress injury in first responders https://www.cipsrt-icrtsp.ca/en/project/autonomic-modulation-training-a-biological-approach-to-building-resilience-and-wellness-capacity-among-police-exposed-to-posttraumatic-stress-injuries-ptsi.
Woke derives from the fake scholarship parasitic mind virus of Critical Theory that has infected Western education. The only reason that woke is not dead is that millions of students have been infected and have launched into careers and infiltrated many institutions.
However, the reason woke is dying is the simple reason that it thwarts the meritocracy that backs successful enterprise. The lie of woke is the idea that equity is achievable... that people of certain groups labeled as victims or oppressed owning lower experience, skill and capability can be hired, promoted and class-elevated, and other people of groups with greater experience, skills and capabilities can be forcibly diminished to create a more equitable society.
The core problem is that this results in less capable institutions, and in a hyper competitive economy, results in lower performing organizations that fail.
Corporations adopted woke because they saw consumers adopting it... however, as it infected their operations it became imperative that they extract it from within.
That is why woke is dying and will die. It isn't rational and it isn't compatible with the global economy.
The motive for this woke BS is easy to see: it is to distract from real, material change that would be expensive and disruptive. It still stinks to be a woman! Discrimination in employment is ongoing and, apart from a few elite women who clear the bar and manage to get into the unisex labor market for jobs management and the professions, women are still restricted to agonizingly boring pink-collar drudge work. The percentage of women in most traditional 'men's jobs' is still in low single digits. And not because women wouldn't want those jobs--the natural experiment of WWII when women happily did Rosie Riveter jobs proves otherwise. The overwhelming majority of women surveyed at the end of the war said they'd prefer to keep those jobs if they could. But they couldn't--they were kicked out to make way for returning GIs.
There isn't a day that I don't go through my life looking at the way things would be for me if I hadn't lucked out. I never go through a supermarket checkout without seeing that if I hadn't been lucky I would have been on the other side of that counter or do business with a woman at a call center without being painfully aware that I would be doing that job if I hadn't lucked out. And when guys work on my house--cleaning my grout, exterminating my varmints, painting my house, doing my plumbing and electrical work I am painfully aware that those are jobs I couldn't have gotten.
Meanwhile, the woke are making a fuss about pronouns. I am furious. Life still stinks for women because we're working without a net. If we don't luck out as I did, were are restricted to a narrow range of agonizingly boring pink-collar jobs.
I think woke failed for the same reason the Moral Majority failed: the high generated by *forcing* people to do something they don't want to / not do something they do want to, is much greater than the high generated by persuading them.
And don’t get me started on Scientific American where, for 214 consecutive months, I debunked all manner of flapdoodle and flimflam in my “Skeptic” column, only to see this once-august publication announce “Modern Mathematics Confronts its White Patriarchal Past,” and “The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather is Wrong,” concluding from this (mis)reading of the scientific literature that “[i]nequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.” Peak wokeness was reached when Scientific American explained “Why the Term ‘JEDI’ is Problematic for Describing Programs that Promote Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” explaining that Star Wars characters are too white, toxically masculine, religious, ableist, eugenicist, and worst of all resolved their conflicts through “duels with phallic lightsabers.” Phallic lightsabers? What would Freud say?
Freud would be down with this totally.... it's astonishingly sad that SA is trafficking in this psuedo science. When 92% of the population is rejecting your laughable Puritanism and virue signaling then Progressive, drop these unprogressives. 😎 We just have to keep this in mind and cancel the cancelers.....😆
It would seem that we all have to believe in something that cannot be disproved. I wonder if most of those who embrace woke ideology also do not identify with an established religion or actively believe in a supreme being.
Not necessarily. Wokeness didn’t take off in Scandinavia, which is much less religious than the U.S. Shermer himself has written critically of claims that we need religions as a counter to wokeness.
What do Scandinavians believe about themselves? What is their national mythology? The answers to those questions will tell us a lot.
I'm not really sure what you mean by this.
National mythology is what a nation believes about itself; some of it true and some of it taken as a question of faith.
So what you're saying is that Scandinavians might not have religious faith but they have "faith" in various ideals about their country?
Yes, beliefs that are not disproven.
That would suggest that Scandinavians are just less inclined towards authoritarianism in general, regardless of the flavor.
Pinker + Sowell = inoculation against woke.
I'm curious to know which parasitic ideas Michael thinks Canada and the UK are infected by. Something to do with immigration?
Also, is Gal Saad where Musk and his socially inept cronies got their 'woke mind virus' babble?
Also, this essay needs more explication of the difference between government 'engineering' lives versus ' family, custom, law, and traditional institutions' doing the same. I don't think Lyndon Johnson thought people were infinitely malleable when he proposed the Great Society. And in the end it's still coercion of the individual. If the point is that coercion isn't necessarily bad, given a 'realist' view of human nature, why is it so much worse when government does it (and law is, after all, a tool of government)?
I don’t know. While there is always room to criticise our laws/policies, sometimes a great deal, I think that Americans often don’t appreciate the common law grounding in Peace, Order, and Good Governance in contrast to the more straight forward American system. Sure, I have serious concerns, but I see “free sprach absolutists” be terrified of our country that has a bit more of an old fashioned conservative communitarianism, which is not a woke dystopia.