[this column was written for the Unz Review]
The Biden Administration has gone out of its way to show itself as absolutely “woke-compatible” and even as a champion of “wokeness” (Foggy Bottom has just allowed US embassies and consulates to fly the “gay pride” flag next to the Stars and Stripes. I bet you they won’t do that in Riyadh!). According to the hyper-politically correct Wikipedia, “woke” refers to the “awareness of issues that concern social justice and racial justice”. This definition is, however, misleading because, for example, it clearly is not intended to cover, say, social injustice meted out to poor whites. In other words, wokeness is a one way street. What wokeness does mandate is for my son (who is studying biology) to be told in his class that he is the carrier of “white guilt” even though his ancestors never interacted with blacks, let alone blacks in the USA.
[Sidebar: as I have mentioned in the past, I do not consider categories such as “black” or “white” as analytically helpful since they are not properly defined. That, however, does not mean that I am not willing to use them in a specific context where the parties to an ideological dispute refer to themselves, or to others, as black or white. By the way, “Asian” is another useless category as, depending on whom you ask, it would include Pakistanis (who sure ain’t yellow) and lump them together with (brown) Indonesians and (yellow) Japanese people. The fact that these categories are used in the western political discourse means that I cannot ignore them solely because I find them ambiguous and misleading. Furthermore, the category “African” whether used with “American” or not, is not helpful either since it would include people otherwise considered white; say Elon Musk, even though nobody thinks of Musk as African-American. Finally, the category black might include Tamils or Australian aborigines, but it is rarely, if ever, used in that sense. Thus, when I will use the words black or white below, it will be in the largely accepted US meaning of “descendants of African slaves” and “descendants of white colonists” even though I am acutely aware of the reality of interbreeding (by rape or by mutual consent) between these two groups and even though the woke ideology blames *all* so-called “whites” for their putative racism and their supposedly “privileged” position in the US society due to its alleged “systemic racism”, even when they are new immigrants to the USA.]
I don’t think that I have tackled the issues of race or racism before, mostly because I am horrified by all the nonsense one can hear as soon as these topics are mentioned. It is, however, indisputable that the woke ideology is the main ideology of the Biden Administration and this is why it cannot simply be ignored. Of course, other ideological trends of the US ruling class (messianism, imperialism, self-worship, capitalism, etc.) have not been abandoned; instead, they have been “wokified” in the sense that the woke ideology is now used to give these traditional US ideologies some kind of politically-correct imprimatur, a kind of “when we do that in the name of wokeness we are doing something morally right” label placed on an otherwise deeply discredited set of “western values”.
Of course, there is an apparent paradox here: how can the woke ideology be used to try to give a semblance of respectability to a set of western ideologies when the woke ideology is also rabidly anti-western?! The woke ideology is most definitely anti-western, and not in the sense of condemning the West’s thousand years of bloody wars and imperialism, that would at least make some sense, but it is anti-western in the sense that it places an equal sign between, say, J.S. Bach and the rapper “Ice Cube” with a “logic” along the following line: “hey, who are you to say that Bach was more talented than the rapper Ice Cube?! That is racist!!!” Even mathematics are now considered “racist”! And anybody disputing that is, of course, a racist.
What is missing here is the element of proof. Some kind of rules of evidence which could be appealed to; let’s use the modern term to ‘fact check’ most of the assumptions made by the supporters of the woke ideology.
For example, in my Swiss high school we had a huge mural declaring that “all races are equal”. No evidence for that statement was ever given. In fact, during my entire academic life (1 undergrad and 2 graduate degrees) I have never seen any real evidence for this thesis. (I have seen plenty of evidence disputing this, beginning with US Army IQ tests). By the way, that does not at all mean that I affirm the opposite (that races are somehow unequal), only that in a dogmatic statement like “all races are equal” even the term “equal” is extremely ambiguous and, frankly, meaningless. Let’s compare this statement to another famous one by Saint Paul (Galatian 3:26-28 KJV):
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”.
Unlike the vapid “all races are equal”, Saint Paul clearly states that all humans are “children of God” and he further explains how this happens when he says “by faith in Christ Jesus”. He then clarifies that “all are one in Christ Jesus” (being “one” in Christ is unambiguous, unlike being “equal”). And Saint Paul concludes by explaining that through Christ there is a new generation of mankind “ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise”. Unlike the woke ideology, Christianity does truly unite all human beings, and Christianity does so without ever denying or obfuscating the very real differences which makes all humans very much unequal to each other, including a total equality in rights and privileges inside the Christian religion. First, Saint Paul mentions our common filiation as children of God through Adam, to which he immediately adds a further common filiation of those who have “put on Christ” by means of baptism. The evidence here, the proof of the statement, is clear: baptism. One can, of course, disagree with Saint Paul, but not accuse him of ambiguity (especially in the light of all the other Apostolic and Patristic statements providing contextual support for this!).
Compare that with the woke ideology which categorically splits mankind into two groups: the oppressed “minorities” and the (always) “white” oppressors, which even contradicts the actual history of Africa which was invaded and colonized by (non-White) Arabs before the Europeans got involved (something which the US blacks who take on Islamic names either don’t know or try hard to ignore).
The woke ideology also completely ignores racism internal to the so-called “Blacks”. A good friend of mine is a (very dark skinned) lady from Mali who traveled all over our planet and told me one day that the worst anti-African racism she was ever subjected to was in Ethiopia (whose population is just as dark skinned as my lady friend). I also knew a medical doctor from Soweto who told me that there was plenty of hatred between South African blacks which he called “racist hate”. Of course, most US blacks know close to nothing about the history of Africa, past or current (Arabs and black Africans still fight each other in many regions of Africa!) and yet they think of themselves as “Africans” which makes absolutely no sense (especially from the point of view of actual Africans, Arab, black or white).
I just used one example (racial equality), but the woke ideology has failed to prove pretty much every one of its key dogmas. “Systemic racism” is another good one which appears to be proven by none, accepted by (almost?) all.
Of course, none of the above proves any single aspect of the woke ideology wrong, but I hasten to add that the burden of proof is upon the party proclaiming a thesis, and not upon those this thesis is being forced upon. Likewise, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of racism in the United States (including numerous cases of black on white and black on Asian racial violence!), but irrespective of the actual figure of such incidents, the sum of these incidents, however large, does not somehow automatically become evidence of things like “systemic racism” or “white supremacy” (correlation does not imply causation).
Yet, somehow, the proponents of wokeness immediately get offended when their beliefs are challenged and simply accuse any naysayers of “racism”. One example: in the new woke-reality, “twerking” is a delightful form of “culture” which cannot be criticized, especially so by whites. To call it a vulgar display of objectified women accompanied by noise which does not rise to any imaginable definition of “music” is, of course, totally crimethink!
Apparently, for the woke-freaks, “diversity” does not include diversity of ideas, of opinions. As Orwell astutely noticed, “some are more equal than others”. Wokeness does not even deny that! Hence its “Cancel culture” aspect, along with the violence of the BLM/Antifa mobs.
For some, this is just a big money-making scheme for corporate “America” which is now flooding all its advertisements with the “correct” races in total disregard to that race’s real percentage of the population and small money-making scheme for those who hope to get their hands on some free money. As for the US homo-lobby, this is a surefire way to achieve power and influence which they could not otherwise even dream about. In other words, Wokism is about money and power, not justice.
Some might think that this is no big deal, that anti-racism is by definition good, as is the notion that homosexuals should not be deprived of their civil rights on account of their sexual dysfunction. But wokeness has already gone way further than these initial demands and it has now turned into an obligatory form of virtue signaling!
By now most of us have seen new woke-compatible CIA recruitment ads. Frankly, when I saw it I sincerely rejoiced, as a woke-CIA will be far less effective than the one which considered homosexuality a major security risk (blackmail and comorbid psychopathology). But wokeness submission is not just a CIA thing, check out this comparison of recruiting videos (thanks to American Kulak for sending me all the videos below!!!):
And, just for comparison sake, here are a Chinese and a Russian recruitment videos:
Truth be told, I am not exactly heartbroken about the condition of the US armed forces as such, but when I think of the many decent and honorable US officers I had the chance to meet in my life, I do feel sorry for them as I can, I think, imagine their sadness and disgust.
Finally, I have to admit, to my great sadness, that this does not affect only the USA. Pretty much the same form of collective insanity has clearly taken over the EU (with a few countries still trying to resist). Wokism has become a global phenomenon.
Yes, the West went from the genius of Baroque to the insipid vulgarity of YouTube.
And so here is my question: why is there so little pushback?!
Yes, there is the accusation of racism. I get it. But the more people this accusation is applied to, the more meaningless it becomes (the same goes for that old “anti-Semitism” canard!). And, besides, nobody can live an honorable life without ever becoming the target of a false and ugly accusation. All we can do is 1) ignore it 2) flush our mental toilet and 3) resume the struggle.
I also understand that woke-compatibility is a “must” for new hires (you gotta love that “corporate America”!). But what about all those of us who already have a career and who won’t be fired just because we push back against an ideology which not only is based on absolutely nothing (it has zero empirical evidence to back its key tenets) but which destroys competence (the famous US meritocracy) and replaces it with what I can only call an extremely intolerant pseudo-diversity which is every bit as intolerant as the major totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century! Why are we silent?
Most of us know about the hidden scandal of the (apparently, neverending) lowering of competency criteria in many professions (ask a firefighter!). But this is now even affecting airlines! I dread the day when a “diverse” crew will smash an airliner into the ground because “mathematics is racist!”. I am sure the skies will still be friendly, but will they be safe?!
I wonder what it would take to finally get some serious reaction to this collective insanity.
So what can we do? I submit that Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s advice to the Russian people living under the Soviet system could also be taken as a model by those in the West who don’t want their countries to be turned into some wannabe Wakanda:
When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!
And this is the way to break out of the imaginary encirclement of our inertness, the easiest way for us and the most devastating for the lies. For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.
We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think! (…) Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.
This method of not allowing lies to survive through oneself is absolutely legal, non-violent and does not require any organization or money. Most importantly, this method does not require any unifying ideology. In other words, this method is a moral/ethical defense against any totalitarian ideology. Best of all, it requires no money or power, and it is immediately liberating to anybody using it. It is even compatible with the modern idea of “be the change you want to see in the world”.
The alternative is much scarier. As with any totalitarian ideology Wokism can also trigger a strong blowback reaction and there is a very real risk of such a pushback reaction that it could result in the birth of a new form of Fascism which could be even worse than Wokism. And this is why I think that doing nothing and hoping that this will all somehow magically go away is dangerously delusional.
Totalitarian ideologies must be confronted openly and frontally. Nothing else will do and everything else is nothing but surrender.
The Saker
Why no push back? Maybe it’s because we are more mature than they are.
I think there are three dynamics working here. ‘Bad Money Drives Out Good,’ ‘Liberal at 20/Conservative at 40,’ and ‘Old Liberals Become Fascists.’
Bad money drives out good refers to how a currency devaluation causes all of the old ‘good’ money to be sucked out of circulation. Third century Rome and Johnson’s America being the easiest examples. However, instead of applying it to silver content in coinage, I am here applying it to public discourse.
Take as an example the National Rifle Association. It was once an organization dedicated to representing legitimate gun owners, primarily hunters and enthusiasts. They stressed safety, sane regulations, and good will and cooperation with the community as responsible gun owners. When Wayne LaPierre became the president, he introduced the radical gun owner agenda with a hostile approach to any outside criticism and a Hashashins’ devotion to the Second Amendment. As a result, many levelheaded and sensible members left the organization in disgust. Bad people drive out good.
Likewise, as the discourse in the west became more polarized, reasonable people who were willing to entertain every side of an issue and work together towards a solution, involving compromise and respect, and foremost, understanding and maybe even the recognition that there are no satisfactory answers, were shouted down by increasingly shrill and pre-programmed talking point trebuchet wielders.
“What, there’s no answer? You mean we just have to live with some things we don’t like? That’s defeatist! And you’re a (Group I Hate!)”
I have stopped engaging these people because it just doesn’t go any good. There is an old saying; Never argue with a fool. Onlookers can’t tell the difference. Hence, the bad dialecticians continue to drive out the good. Trolls are why people don’t go under bridges.
Winston Churchill said, “A man at 20 who is not a liberal has no heart. A man at 40 who is not a conservative has no brain.” When we are young, we see life and society, all of the promise and all of the travail, and immediately assume we have all of the answers. Never mind that we don’t even know what all of the questions are and certainly don’t understand all of the history behind all of the questions, we’ve got all of the answers, anyway. Of course, we are much smarter than the last generation who just made a mess of things. How couldn’t we be? That’s the primary conceit of youth! Remember the old Russian folk song, Those Were the Days? We were ready to fight and never lose.
As we get older and start to realize that things are more complicated than we thought and sometimes compromises are necessary, even if those compromises turn into dilemmas for some and those dilemmas turn into hardships for others for no real reason and nobody’s fault, but maybe it’s the best we can hope for, we stop expecting to fix life and begin the painful process of negotiating with life and hoping for the best. We grow up a little. As Viktor Chernomyrdin said; “We tried our best, but things turned out as usual.”
And lastly; Old liberals become fascists. We’ve seen that with the Jacobins, Communists everywhere, the Nazis, and now it’s happening with the heirs to the 1960’s American hippies: Today’s Wozis.
They were once liberal and they were once able to accomplish good things, such as Johnson’s Great Society, black rights, women’s rights, environment, ending the Viet Nam war, etc. But when all of society’s problems weren’t solved and government money didn’t fix it all, liberalism failed to turn into conservatism. We were the ones who “just made a mess of things.” 1960’s liberalism became 1980’s Politically Correct, 1990’s Social Justice Workers, and now Woke.
Liberals discovered that they couldn’t make all of the changes they expected, but they still felt that they were the only ones with all of the answers. They refused to grow up and start compromising. When one side of an argument decides that he is right and the other side is wrong, he is automatically justified in whatever he decides to do to promote that rightness. Discussion is pointless. He is stuck in an infantile ideology loop.
Cancelling people. Mandatory Reeducation Seminars. Pigeonhole arguments. Academic Feudalism. Virtue signaling. Woker Than Thou, followed by the inevitable Eating Ones Own. Name calling. Multiple double standards. These are today’s Rules for Radicals.
Barring that, they just made shit up to feel superior about and force it on everyone else as a loyalty test. A test most people fail. After all, they are already intellectually dishonest. Why stop now? It always requires less energy and sacrifice to pretend you are fixing something than to actually fix it and you can feel smug and superior on your holy high hill above and beyond those reprobates in the moral swamp beneath you. Of course, what most people and all wozis do not realize is that you can’t change the world. At best, all you can change is yourself and reach out a hand in friendship to your neighbor. And nobody wants to do that.
These all represent a failure to grow up. The whole woke fantasy land is just immature, selfish, and desperate to blame all of their troubles on the smoking demon named, Somebody Else.
I am just afraid of what might come next.
If this is not off-topic, irrelevant or flippant:
Over a year ago Rod Dreher did an article about one of Taylor Swift’s newest music videos that portrayed anti-LGBT conservatives as backward/ignorant hillbillies. One commentator suggested that this has something to do with Reagan-era taxation laws that have redirected wealth – and by extension power – away from the people and towards the rich celebrities and corporations. I have suspected that this has something to do with the defeat of Proposition 37 (which would have mandated GMO labeling) thanks to the lobbying power of big food corporations.
I stumbled upon Ben Garrison’s ‘Woke Disney’ comic yesterday while surfing Twitter. What caught my eye in particular was the ‘Socialism Go-Round’, complete with a hammer and sickle on top and the text saying “free rides”.
Was it not libertarianism that enabled this wokeness in the first place? Would this degree of woke insanity still occur without these tax-cuts-for-the-rich policies?
P.S. One of the seven dwarfs is seen saying “We would never say the M word” – what M word?
So many comments so i will add one.
Woke is capitalism. Capitalism is the compound accumulation of money and wealth by an individual when nationalism was profitable then nationalists ruled there is no money left in isolated nationalist states.
The money is now global, national identity must go so individual identity is used. In the end every individual is quite unique so the whole point is to turn you all into weak individuals clambering for a crumbs hoping that you can make a billion and live the easy life.
I present Colin Kaepernick sponsored by nike who makes shoes from non degradable materials in sweatshops and exports to the world the shoes are eventually dumped in the environment. Largest investors are vanguard and blackrock. Wear those shoes and maybe you can be like that rebel Colin and if you can’t you know you will make the world a better place.
Follow the compounding money and you will find your cause and as for push back capitalism has done such a good job in the west that THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE so to speak (got that from some woman).
Saker
yours is an incredible enlighted contribution. 100% flying in juxtaposition with the wings of C.G.Jung:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2sldae,
Nowhere else than in the soul of the individual the scale moves between God and the demon,
or truth and lie.
… and all of lie is based on ‘looking the other way’ happening demonically within every ideology
red, black, green or white.
E.g. the German ‘greens’ in their visceral hate of conservative Russia, on the trails of Mrs. Albright and alia’s Joschka Fischer, sponsored by the ‘open society professionals of Mr. Soros, adored by the female ‘Young Leaders’ of the ‘Atlantic Bridge’ attempting chancellorship on Instagram-level.
And SAKER’s and JUNG’s (and mundo’s)’single soul’ is the place, where God awaits man, to complete the Almighty what he is lacking: singularity, the ladder of the living stone.
For us Orthodox there is nothing new under the sun. Wokism is just another idol and heresy. And another result of our sins and failure to repent. Repentance and prayer are the medicines of all eras.
Christianity cannot be destroyed, one would have to destroy God, and if one could then He is not God.
The economy will fail and with it their power. Wokeness will die shortly after.
I watched the videos. You should all know how tough Canadians are. Our tree cutters in particular. Here’s a video that proves it.
“The Lumberjack Song”
https://youtu.be/pfRdur8GLBM
As I see it wokeism is a trick by our elites.
Sure there is still racism. But the main reason why Blacks and Latins can’t advance is the same reason why class differences are nowadays so hard to overcome: the upper classes have thrown up lots of barriers that make it hard for the poor to advance.
But our elites don’t want us to be aware of those obstacles. They want the poor to be divided among themselves and their method to achieve that is divide-and-conquer. So the poor whites and the poor blacks should each believe that the main obstacle for their progress is the other – and not the greedy elites.
There is no pushback because those of us who do get our ip addresses banned. There is also the implicit threat constantly being communicated through media that those of us who do push back are subject to economic and social censure with no recourse. e.g. some random business woman made an aids joke on twitter about Africa “Heading to SA hope I don’t get aids! jk! I’m white!” and she was fired from her job and publicly castigated for the sin of racism (in this case I guess would be that she made light of the aids epidemic and made the implication that she would only sleep with white men, so she is obviously a genocidal maniac) and her picture shown to every American along with information detailing her punishment. Probably lives in hiding now in some small town in the heartland idk. These types of stories appear daily in American media (or at least they did a few years ago, I personally can’t stomach that crap anymore). They serve as warnings to us. “Toe the ideological line or be fired, attacked by SJW mobs and made a public enemy.”
I can’t count the number of platforms I have been banned from. Most of us have given up on a seemingly unwinnable battle where the rules of the game preclude any chance of victory and have simply stopped trying. the only places I am not banned from are echochambers where arguments fall upon the ears of those already convinced.
So that’s why there is no pushback. Blame us if you want but I don’t think it’s fair to do so.
Why is there so little pushback, you ask?
Because the boomer generation was a complete moral failure, that’s why.
Why push back when every other “ism” our forefathers taught us has been a failure and our ‘elected’ ‘leaders’ have no “isms” we can believe in.
“wokeism” is a symptom, not a cause.
“wokeism” is the “chickens coming home to roost”…
More woke insanity…..
‘UK Charity Teaches Staff ‘White Women Reporting Rape By Black Men Support White Supremacy’
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-charity-teaches-staff-white-women-reporting-rape-black-men-support-white-supremacy
The mere misuse of language “woke” … awake, awoken, signifies the toilet that this delusion belongs in.
Seeing that there is a reference to the South Africa with regard to race and living together … here is a heartfelt story looking at an immigrant with a magic touch for dogs but marginalised by his fellow human.
https://www.goodthingsguy.com/opinion/immigrant-dog-walker-legacy/?fbclid=IwAR0eE7SF9UmsOVbfccs9YUwFx4a48eucxlZ8DGfOB4rgTUBXOAjF9Rg8Wn0
A brilliant article 👏
Unfortunately we in the West have already started out down the route you describe in your 2nd to last paragraph.
The wheel of totalitarianism is now turning with the momentum of ecoFacism, corporatism, wokeism, nihilism and the dishonest race grifters after a free lunch.
We are lied to all day every day by (mostly) cowardly, cynical and complicit politicians and media, with their greed and love of money and power.
In the West the ideological die is now cast, the destination hardly in doubt. Our destiny is to collapse in on ourselves in war, civil strife and poverty.
Unless we can still find and elect people with an attachment to Truth.
As Orwell said, the more a society drifts from the Truth, the more it will despise those who speak it.